Lady Gaga – Mayhem Review

A five-year wait for an album not comprised of show tunes, covers or collaboration, Lady Gaga fans will perceive this as a hard time. Inactive but always on the mind for many, Gaga’s return comes with Mayhem, an album where the expectations are not poised on studio style or ingenious production, but on if it is on a level with the past. Chromatica felt like a necessary shift from pop expectations. It was a sleek projection of Gaga as an inspiringly independent artist despite being at the top of the charts and a label gem. A defiant album where Gaga makes it on her own terms. Such freedom is rarely afforded, though Mayhem has it too. Singles Disease and Abracadabra are still relatively tame compared to the classic Gaga sound, though do feature a stylish instrumental flicker that may, over time, grow on you. 

Gaga remains an impressive vocalist irrespective of her lyrical choices. Catchy and weightless dance motions on Abracadabra are still there for those wanting a thrill-free song where passion is noted but not explored. Mayhem has a forced intimacy which sinks the project. Garden of Eden may chart the desire to be with someone, to have a companion for poisonous moments, but it never elevates the mentions of love beyond the tame and obvious, surface-level comments. Mayhem is an album based more on its instrumental thrills, the soft familiarity of those electronic highs and a welcome blur of industrial sounds on top of that. Garden of Eden has a brilliant instrumental drive through it, but consider the number of writers on one song compared to the lacklustre message, the often lifeless moments charted. Even personal comments on celebrity status feel tame. Perfect Celebrity has the potential to provide a cutting blow to what we perceive is star power, but it retreats into the shadows, another dull love or hate comment on a bed of interesting electrics.  

What Mayhem has going for it is conviction. There is no doubting Gaga believes in what these writers have brought to her songs. But the commentaries are so plain, and a lack of nuance is a heavy blow to songs like Perfect Celebrity and The Beast. Contrast to those outward commentaries, those defiant moments of playing against the image projected onto celebrity, is an acceptance of it on Vanish Into You. The constant frustration for Mayhem is how organised it sounds; how infrequent those pops of defiant artistry appear. Mayhem is primarily comprised of tame pop noise, like Killah and the Bruno Mars-featuring Die With a Smile. Those industrial suggestions are more a footnote than a feature. To get to those brief observations, effective as they may be, it means listening through the barebones back-and-forth of good and evil.

A shame, too, since a song like Killah features a magnificent vocal range from Gaga, who is still an impressive performer. These songs do not do that justice. Be it the David Bowie Fame feeling on Killah or the Gwen Stefani Hollaback Girl lift on Zombieboy, there is a sense Gaga is trying to find meaning in the future from the past. Reflection is not the way to do it. It is the sign of an artist in decline. Sweet bass grooves, solid guitar riffs, they are wasted on lyrically tame and unjustifiably plain moments. But it hits the pop points perfectly. Danceable moments, though the dancing is to be done with your seatbelt on and in a car park in the dark. Gaga has featured lines of defiance in previous releases, those moments of going against the grain, and it is what makes even her lesser works ring with a sense of independence from the norms, a chance to hear the other side, whatever they may say.  

Mayhem proves, particularly with the romanticised slop of How Bad Do U Want Me, that no artist is free to resist the allure of non-specifics and the broad audience they receive. Songs of doubt, where defiance was previously the route for Gaga, is a bold change, and one that does not pay off on Mayhem. Relatable but empty works spring from Mayhem, an album where the latter half is a slow descent into dated pop riffs. Don’t Call Tonight and Shadow of a Man conjures the same embittered and justified rage, but there is a lack of heart, a missing sincerity, which breaks these songs. Latter moments like Blade of Grass are delightfully soppy and work well, but after the dreck preceding it, the plain-sailing pop riffs which sound as dated as they do devoid of real heart, the damage to Mayhem is done.