Lady Gaga's 'Mayhem': Back-to-Basics in the Best Way

Lady Gaga returns with her best album in years.

Mar 10, 2025

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As far as I’m concerned, Lady Gaga became a star on September 13, 2009. Making her MTV VMAs debut, Gaga performed her latest single “Paparazzi” from her 2008 debut album The Fame. About 3 minutes into the performance, the singer, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, walked over to the piano, propped her leg up on one end, and hammered out a solo that’s not on the record. After she finished playing, she went back to center stage and blood began to gush down the center of her stomach. Her white outfit began to get stained with the fake blood, and she would wiped it on her face. By the end of the performance, she was covered in it, and she suspended herself above the stage.

As a teen, I had cultivated my love for music through shock rock. In middle school, I became enamored by Marilyn Manson, after getting hooked on artists like Kiss, Alice Cooper, and Gwar. When I saw Gaga drenched in blood, I drank it down the same way I did when I saw early performance clips for all of those bands. I knew from that day that I’d pay attention to everything that Gaga did.

My intro to proper pop music was Lady Gaga. After being a decided rockist from age 8 to 14, I recognized that there was a way to appreciate a major popstar through Gaga. While other artists seemed vapid and artificial to my teenage brain, Gaga was clearly in the lineage of artists that I really fell into music with. I recognized a darkness in her sound that felt similar to the shock rock that I loved, and her intense performances and red carpet outfits, I was happy to follow and see the strangeness.

Of course, as time went on, my music taste shifted and grew. I could appreciate more popstars, even ones that my younger self scoffed at. Gaga also changed. Born This Way was a little bit brighter than the previous albums. Artpop failed to connect with me. I enjoyed Joanne when it came out, but I’ve rarely returned to it. Chromatica also wasn’t for me. Gaga won an award for the only song that I’d fully connected with since 2011 “Shallow.”

In 2017, I saw Gaga on her Joanne tour, and even though I enjoyed the whole show, the moment that I connected to the most was when she played “Just Dance.” She noted that she was trying to make music that she would dance to at clubs in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. Some moments when you cry at concerts are unexpected. On that rainy Monday at Citi Field, I broke during “Just Dance,” because it reminded me that I’d been listening to Gaga since I was a teen. I remembered that even though I’d only recently entered the world of adulthood, some songs will stick with you eternally.

While I always listened to each new Gaga project, I had accepted that perhaps Gaga was in her classic rock era. She would make new albums that I would diligently digest, but I wouldn’t connect with in the way that I did as teenager.

Then, Gaga released Mayhem last Friday. So many people have pointed out that it’s a return to form for the theatrical pop music that she first made her name with. While Chromatica and “Shallow” certainly had their audiences, it feels like a wider swath of the population are falling in love with Mayhem. Like myself, the rest of the population were thirsty for the Gaga who made The Fame, Fame Monster, and Born This Way. Now, she delivered.

At its core, Mayhem is a “back-to-basics” album. As someone who grew up on classic rock, I’m very well-acquainted with the back-to-basics album. Usually, when a musical artist has taken their sound in a new direction, they eventually return to the sound that they built their fanbase on in the hopes that people who may have stepped away will return.

This isn’t uncommon for any genre really. Albums like Metallica’s Death Magnetic, Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP 2, or Avril Lavigne’s Love Sux all qualify as back-to-basics albums. Christina Aguilera even went so far as to call one of her albums Back to Basics, though I’m unsure if her album(s) that preceded it really deviated much from her sound.

When I was a younger listener, I loved the back-to-basics albums. Especially if I was listening to an artist who was well past their hey-day, it felt like I was getting to experience an artist returning to their roots. As I’ve gotten older and my taste has expanded, I’ve learned that generally, I prefer artists to continue pushing forward, even if it means that their albums aren’t connecting in the way that I hope they will. No one should be AC/DC, except AC/DC.

Despite my aversion to stagnation, sometimes I do feel like going back in time and revisiting those feelings can yield excellent results, like Mayhem.

After deviating away from the theatrical dance pop that she established herself in, this record feels like it could’ve come after Born This Way. “Abracadabra” has voice inflections in the chorus that sound like they could’ve been brainstormed during the “Bad Romance” writing session. “Disease” has a certain level of swagger that sounds like it was designed with a massive stadium entrance in mind. As a teen, I could easily see the places that Gaga borrowed from rock music, and those elements are more clear here, like the guitar track on “Garden of Eden” or the Bruno Mars duet “Die With a Smile.”

If this album came out in 2012, I probably would’ve drawn parallels between Gaga and Norwegian black metal band Mayhem, but at 30, I realize that’s a stretch. Still, I think that Gaga has recaptured a certain darkness that her music has missed in the past decade. “Perfect Celebrity” may be a bit sophomoric in the way that it discusses the trappings of fame, but Gaga’s delivery sells it. “Disease” thematically echoes Alice Cooper’s “Poison” in a way that I can’t resist.

Ultimately, I think Gaga has highlighted her strength in writing perfect pop songs. Despite changing genres throughout her career, the core of her songwriting hasn’t shifted, and all of her strengths are on full display. Even if she veers towards goofy disco (“Zombieboy”) or over-dramatized ballads (“Blade of Grass”), Gaga packs enough punch to remind you that she’s a musical force to be reckoned with.

This gets the most fully-realized on the mid-album track “How Bad Do U Want Me.” I’ve seen so many people rightfully highlight this song. It’s the best of the bunch, and if it doesn’t get released as a single, someone deserves to get fired. Gaga channels classic 80s pop, with a touch of Carly Rae Jepsen’s Emotion era. The premise is a simple, horny love song, but when Gaga reaches the prechorus, it’s hard to not feel like you’re falling in love with her.