Blog Post | March 22nd, 2025
On Mayhem, Lady Gaga Pulls From the Past and Makes Pop Music for the Future
By Nicholas O'Connor
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PHOTO: SS Spotify HQ
In 2008, a 22-year-old Lady Gaga seemingly manifested her future on The Fame’s title track: “I can see myself in the movies, with my picture in city lights…” Back then, she was a hungry, avant-garde newcomer, both celebrated and ridiculed for her fearless approach to pop stardom. Seventeen years later, with Mayhem, she’s no longer imagining the life of the rich and famous—she’s lived it, dissected it, and now, she’s serving up a reflection that’s both razor-sharp and deeply personal.
PHOTO: SS VEVO
The Return of Pop’s Most Fearless Innovator
After years of genre-hopping—folk-pop Joanne, dancefloor-ready Chromatica, and an Oscar-winning turn in A Star Is Born—Mayhem is Lady Gaga fully reclaiming her pop throne. But this isn’t a mere retread of past successes; instead, it’s a kaleidoscopic fusion of her vast influences, spanning ’90s alternative, electro-grunge, funk, French house, and industrial rock. In an interview with Elle, she cited Prince, Bowie, and Nine Inch Nails as guiding lights for this album, and you can hear those echoes throughout its 16 tracks.
On “Perfect Celebrity,” she delivers what might be her most unvarnished critique of fame yet:
"So rip off my face in this photograph / You make me money, I’ll make you laugh / Show me your pretty, I'll show you mine / You love to hate me / I'm the perfect celebrity.”
It’s biting, self-aware, and a far cry from the wide-eyed pop ingénue who once sang about chasing stardom.
PHOTO: SS ELLE Mag
The Sound of Mayhem
The production on Mayhem is some of Gaga’s most adventurous yet. The infectious bassline of “Zombieboy” recalls peak electroclash, while “Disease” carries the industrial crunch of Nine Inch Nails—something Azealia Banks was quick to highlight online. Then there’s “Killah (feat. Gesaffelstein),” a filthy, pulsating masterpiece that sounds both futuristic and primal, with Prince-esque vocals, a Bowie guitar sample, and a final minute of escalating percussion that culminates in what may or may not be a human scream.
If the first half of the album is designed for the dancefloor, the latter half slows things down with Gaga’s signature sincerity. “Die With A Smile,” her Grammy-winning duet with Bruno Mars, proves she can still deliver a powerhouse ballad, while “Blade of Grass”—a haunting, apocalyptic love song—features one of the most evocative images she’s ever written: needing nothing but a blade of grass wrapped around her finger as a wedding ring in the ruins of a burned-down church.
PHOTO: SS VEVO
The Evolution of Gaga
Throughout Mayhem, Lady Gaga reminds us that while she may have matured, the artist who disrupted pop music in 2008 never truly left. Yes, she’s joked that she’s “boring” now, but the album proves that the party girl still lives within her—only now, she knows that transcendence can be found anywhere, whether under club lights, in the backyard, or at the end of the world.
Lady Gaga has always been a shape-shifter, but with Mayhem, she isn’t reinventing herself—she’s embracing all the versions of who she’s been. And in doing so, she’s made her best album in years.
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