Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Released on March 7, “MAYHEM” is Lady Gaga’s newest addition to her long repertoire. Where her other albums have had specific sounds/genres, “MAYHEM” is like a perfect mishmash of everything Gaga has ever done while also being completely different. For instance, “Die with a Smile” has a very folk-rock-pop feel to it, which can tie back to her eighth album, Joanne. While there are only 14 songs on the album, each one packs a strong punch.

In an interview with Apple Music, Gaga expressed that this “is who Lady Gaga is to [her].” She also said that this is how she wants to be remembered, as someone who cares about music. Many of the tracks on the album are exactly that, such as “Shadow of a Man.” 

On its release, “MAYHEM” hit 45.3 million streams on Spotify. Since her duet with Bruno Mars, “Die with a Smile,” was on the Hot 100 chart for five weeks, it is no surprise how well she is doing. The album itself also got No.1 on the Billboard 200 chart as of March 13. 

Going back to what Gaga talked about in her interview, it is probably gratifying for her to know that what she views as an album that truly expresses herself is being well received by fans. For a while there were even trends on TikTok for “Abracadabra” with everyone trying to replicate her dance moves from the music video. Since the dance is not up to some people’s speed, there is also a modified version. 

There has been some debate on the song, as many have paralleled it to a sort of spell. This is due to the fact that a bunch of the words sung in the chorus are spells and used by magicians like “abracadabra.” Whether this theory is true or not has yet to be proven.

Gaga also went on to say that the songs are “like images of the past that haunt [her].” Without going too deep into an analysis, this is easily apparent in the fourth track, “Perfect Celebrity.” It describes how there were times where she felt like a shell of herself and only was what people wanted her to be. However, Gaga is not about that so she walks her own path and does not give or owe anyone anything. 

To close out, “MAYHEM” is a sum of everything that Gaga has given to over the years. However, it almost poses the question of “Will this be Lady Gaga’s last album?” Since she is always coming out with something new, this is highly unlikely. Though if this were to be a conclusion to her career, it ended with a bang and it absolutely did not go unnoticed. 

With that being said, “MAYHEM” is doing fantastically on the charts as previously stated, so it will be very exciting to see if Gaga has any more up-and-coming projects under her belt. “MAYHEM” is available on Spotify, Apple Music and anywhere else that has music streaming capabilities.

Image from ladygaga.com