Lady Gaga praised by critics for returning to her freaky dance roots with Mayhem
The 14 tracks on Mayhem include Disease, Abracadabra and Bruno Mars collaboration Die With A Smile.
The latest album from Lady Gaga has been praised by critics for returning the US hitmaker to her “freaky” dance roots.
Her seventh studio album, Mayhem, recorded at Shangri-La Studios near her home in Malibu, has 14 tracks including Disease, Abracadabra and Bruno Mars collaboration Die With A Smile.
The record also includes the pop and electro-grunge track Garden Of Eden, rock-infused Perfect Celebrity, funk-electronic songs Zombieboy and Killah, ballad Blade Of Grass, and disco track LoveDrug.
Mayhem has attracted a slew of four stars from music reviewers from The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and the i newspaper, along with the website NME.
The Guardian said that following Gaga’s “musical and cinematic misfires”, she “gets back to her core themes of sex, sleaze and celebrity on an album that sounds not retro, but relevant”, calling Mayhem a “return to her freaky first principles”.
They also said it is “consistently well written, teeming with hooks and liberally sprinkled with intriguing musical left-turns,” while sounding “like someone returning to claim a place in a pop world that has come round to her way of thinking”.
Last year, Gaga starred in Joker: Folie A Deux as the villain’s (Joaquin Phoenix) love interest Harley Quinn, which was critically panned and not a box office hit unlike the first movie Joker.
At the Golden Raspberry Awards, the sequel won Phoenix and Gaga worst screen combo and worst remake, rip-off or sequel, and released the album Harlequin as an accompaniment to the movie.
The first movie earned Phoenix an Oscar along with an original score Academy Award.
The Daily Telegraph said Mayhem “should serve as a warning that this is not for the faint-hearted”, and allows Gaga to make a comeback with “horror-themed monster bangers inspired by 80s pop titans, from David Bowie to Blondie”.
Meanwhile, The Times said it was “the diva at her best”, praising the “melodramatic dancefloor bangers” of Abracadabra and Disease.
The newspaper also said: “Overall, though, it feels a bit guileless compared to the arch Amazonian stompers that have come before. They, we now know more than ever, are where Gaga is in her element.”
NME highlighted Gaga’s “nonchalant confidence”, which allowed her to stick “to her maximalist vision without pandering to contemporary pop trends”, and ended the review saying she “remains pop’s foremost agent of impeccably crafted chaos”.
In the i newspaper, their music reviewer said Gaga’s range is “commendable, her vocal ageing like fine wine, her piano skills impressive – but it’s refreshing to have the freak back, in all her gender-bending, pleather-wearing, fake-blood spewing glory”.
“Most consistently there is death, gore and violence – the perverse, high-stakes drama that makes Gaga so exciting, and her style so operatic,” they also said.
“In a way, this is an album of few surprises. But that’s its brilliance – not only a return to form but a reminder that the world Lady Gaga has created will always exist.”
Mayhem is promoted as being about “embracing the fractured pieces of oneself and discovering how they come together to form something unexpected and beautiful”.
Gaga says making the album was like assembling a shattered mirror to make up the different elements of her artistic life.
She said: “Even if you can’t put the pieces back together perfectly, you can create something memorable and whole in its own way.”
The record is produced by the New York-born singer alongside Andrew Watt, who produced the Rolling Stones’ 2023 return Hackney Diamonds, and the singer’s fiance Michael Polansky.
Gaga has won 14 Grammys during her career, and has had four number one albums and six number one singles in the UK, with hits including Telephone and Poker Face.
Born Stefani Joanne Germanotta, the Bad Romance singer was given an Oscar nod for best actress for A Star Is Born, and won an original song Academy Award for the film’s track Shallow.
Gaga has also acted in American Horror Story and House Of Gucci.
In 2021, she released two records including a remix version of 2020’s Chromatica called Dawn Of Chromatica, featuring collaborations with artists such as Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama, and Love For Sale, on which she collaborated with the late Tony Bennett.
