Mayhem has descended upon us. Lady Gaga's long-awaited return to pop is finally here, following a rollout that has lasted for nearly seven months and overlapped with last fall's jazzy Harlequin project.
In the lead-up to the album, we heard the chart-topping Bruno Mars duet "Die With A Smile" and a pair of singles that called back to Gaga's classic over-the-top dance-pop sound, "Disease" and "Abracadabra." All those singles are loaded at either the beginning or end of the tracklist. In between, there's lots more to unpack, including a pair of tracks produced by Gesaffelstein to go along with the core team of Andrew Watt, Cirkut, and Gaga's fiancé Michael Polansky.
In her Stereogum interview, Gaga told us Mayhem was inspired by old favorites like "David Bowie, Prince, Earth Wind And Fire" but also "Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, grunge." She wasn't kidding. I hear flashes of all of those influences here and there. Forgoing the aesthetic consistency of 2020's great Chromatica, Mayhem instead hops around stylistically while largely staying club-friendly with some ballads mixed in along the way. There are a lot of potential hits in here, and it's a more interesting record than it had to be. Commence your Mayhem journey below.
Not Gaga talking about reheating her nachos ??? pic.twitter.com/oCOaZGxnMM
— SⱯBRINⱯ ? (@tealambition) March 6, 2025
Mayhem is out now on Interscope.
