According to many, relics of the Fame Monster have been unearthed in Lady Gaga’s newest album Mayhem. This Electronic Pop romp debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Top 200 charts on its March 7, 2025 release via Interscope Records. This is not a surprise for the artist who has been exercising her relevance on the American zeitgeist for the past two decades.
Looking back, it was in 2010 when Gaga graced the runway with her avant-garde style and even had schoolchildren and preschoolers asking about what meat and bubble dresses were. Those kids are now in their early twenties enjoying the Mayhem. Across a slew of eras and musical changes, Gaga has continued to steal mass appeal.
Over the years, Gaga has flexed her multifaceted skills, finding musical success and acting roles, starring in 2018’s A Star is Born and 2024’s Joker 2: Folie A Deux. Whenever the world seems to feel comfortable with her, she constructs a new persona. Now, a return to form is what has shocked the public conscience. Mayhem takes notes from 2008’s The Fame, 2009’s The Fame Monster, and 2011’s Born Like This but still has some unique intrigue in its subdued tracks and more heartfelt emotion. Regardless of themes, the numbers prove that the virtuoso has cemented herself as a leader of the Pop culture world in a move that seemingly no one can seem to match.
With a total of fourteen songs, Mayhem is a strong release that shows Gaga can always return to her roots, even if the main picture has changed. Gone are the choppy electric vocals and samples; they have been replaced with the voice that Gaga refined during the middle of her career. This is not the music club that was present in 2020’s Chromatica or 2013’s Artpop. Those two releases show an avenue of the Fame Monster that Gaga has already explored. Instead of leaning into the fragmented sound of EDM, Mayhem has stripped away that sound in order to emphasize her natural voice. The result is authentic and catchy music with fun lyrics that mix the singer’s vocal range with the punchy spirit that originally made her famous.
Something new happens after the midway point. Once “LoveDrug” subdues its swanky synthetic aura, the music loses its punch. This is while “How Bad Do U Want Me” sounds like a Taylor Swift track, and “The Beast” slowly builds to a climax more sensual than energizing. Then “Don’t Call Tonight” sounds like a love song in the same vein as Kylie Minogue. Gaga delivers a lover’s ballad to end the album, coupled with Bruno Mars on “Die With a Smile.” These songs are catchy and have refined sound production that elicits emotional semi-distorted sound, but they are not the Fame Monster revival that the world believes in. What they show is that Gaga’s purpose is to redefine her past sound in terms of the modern world, not to revert backward to the flashy and raunchy speed of her original releases.
This is an exciting chapter for Lady Gaga, especially for fans who expected more from Harlequin. The Joker: Folie à Deux companion album was nothing too amazing but deserved more love than it got. Received minimal press thanks to the strange flop that was the film Joker 2: Folie a Deux. The movie really was not that bad, but it still received scathing reviews, won a few Razzies, and ended Todd Phillips’ chances of continuing the dark, more realistic view of the DC comics universe. The album had weak press and cover art that only expanded upon the trashy mess of an image that the film had produced. It seems Gaga was just having a little fun in this last release while still working on perfecting her impressive new work.
In comparison, the press for Mayhem was leaps and bound above its predecessor. “Abracadabra,” which premiered during the 2025 Grammys live broadcast, created a press explosion for the artist. “Abracadabra” stood out for two reasons on Grammy night. Firstly, it was an unexpected sound from the artist who found a niche with Tony Bennet and 2016’s Joanne, and secondly, it was not performed live. With every other relevant name in the music industry under the roof, Gaga turned her view to the audience at home instead. It was not until a commercial break that the artist decided to debut the music video and song Abracadabra. By effectively undermining its biggest night of accolades, Gaga used the mandatory advertisement time as a chance for mass appeal.
Coming off a weaker release in 2024, Mayhem is a strong step forward in Lady Gaga’s career. This should be expected of the artist, who has been a household name for years now. Pop is currently in a period of expansion that depends on creating unique and genre-specific sounds. Chappell Roan’s Country Pop is entirely different than Charli XCX’s club mixes and Kendrick Lamar’s Rap-centric sound. Lady Gaga falls in the middle of it all accidentally, defining the genre of Pop music. It feels like it would have been more surprising for Lady Gaga to find a way to fall off the musical spectrum than to release this record-topping album. For this reason, CrypticRock gives Mayhem a 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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