Lady Gaga is known for her variety of avant-garde, controversial and quite simply—weird pop music from her early career (“Bad Romance,” “Judas” and “Applause” all come to mind), but it hadn’t been since 2013’s “ARTPOP” where she put out the music to match that image. After the aforementioned “ARTPOP” failed to meet expectations, Gaga pivoted and reintroduced herself with the stripped-back “Joanne” in 2016.
She simultaneously expanded that sound and furthered her acting career with “Shallow,” the biggest hit from the film “A Star is Born” in 2018. She made a return to pop with the house-inspired “Chromatica” in 2020, but it still wasn’t the electro dance pop style that Gaga was known for. Truly, it seemed that the “old Gaga” had been retired and left as a relic of the past.
I still remember exactly where I was when Gaga teased her seventh album for the first time. It was May 25, 2024 at a table in the dimly-lit Hotel Madison ballroom during my senior prom when those cryptic words flashed on my phone screen: “LG7. Gaga Returns.” No release date, no tracklist, not even a title. Only a confirmation of its existence and a seconds-long snippet of a then-unnamed track, but that was all it took to send me spiraling.
The snippet used had sounded closer to her synth-pop sound from the past, but it was too short to confirm. Many questions immediately started swirling around in my head as I was processing everything: “When is it coming?” “What was that song she used?” “What is it going to be called?” However, the biggest question that I and many others had was about its sound: “Is the old Gaga coming back?” Would she bring forth a new style, or would she repeat the sound that hooked her fans all the way back in 2008? Could “the old Gaga” truly be returning?
Earlier this month on Mar. 7, 2025, Lady Gaga finally unleashed her seventh solo studio album, “Mayhem,” onto the world. True to its name, “Mayhem” is a record bursting at the seams with diverse genres and styles, never sticking to one sound longer than it needs to. The first five tracks lure listeners in with their industrial and grungy electropop sounds, harkening back to Gaga’s days of gyroscope dresses and male alter-egos, now with a new edge.
Just as listeners begin to settle into their expected dance pop album, the Gesaffelstein-produced “Killah” delivers a right hook to the face with its Nine Inch Nails-esque electro-funk industrial sound, complete with an instrumental breakdown as Gaga lets loose an expertly controlled scream. The following track, “Zombieboy” brings in a fresh disco groove with a funky bass while paying tribute to her friend, the late Rick Genest.
From there, the album breaks into full-on 80’s synth that evokes that of David Bowie, Prince and Michael Jackson. Just as listeners think this is how the rest of the album will go, “The Beast” slows the beats down to make way for “Blade of Grass” to introduce organic instruments into the mix through a synth-infused piano ballad. Finally, the dark edges melt away, leaving the soulful soft-rock instrumentation of “Die with a Smile” to close the album on a sentimental note.
As an album, “Mayhem” represents a full-circle moment for Gaga. Influences by all her previous works can be found throughout the record. The dungeon-deep industrial production of “Disease” paired with the earworm-inducing vocalizations bears strong resemblance to those from “The Fame Monster,” the house-inspired keyboards of “Chromatica” can be heard throughout “Abracadabra” and the subtle EDM touches of “ARTPOP” have been injected into the very DNA of the album itself. Despite these influences, “Mayhem” seems to have drawn the most inspiration from Gaga’s debut album, “The Fame.”
From the dance pop and 80’s glam rock tributes to the diverse-yet-cohesive genre-bending throughout the album, “Mayhem” displays Gaga returning to the beginning of her career with the experience and knowledge gained throughout her time in the music industry, paying tribute to the artists that inspired her to create music and reinventing herself in the process. Despite the comparisons to previous works, “Mayhem” is not a retread of old ground; it is the culmination of her artistry thus far that further pushes craft into new grounds. “Mayhem” is messy, crazy and chaotic. One might even say it’s gone gaga. It is Lady Gaga through-and-through.
That all being said, one question remains unanswered. Earlier, I had asked myself if the “old Gaga” would return. After the release of “Mayhem” and listening to it over and over for several days straight (in a healthy way, I promise), I found my answer. Put simply, the “old Gaga” did not return, because she never left. She has always been there, constantly deconstructing and reinventing herself, pushing her art to the limits to see what she can create. Gaga’s refusal to stick to one specific style is one what makes her music so interesting; she can be a messy partygirl one day, a grungy rockstar the next and then an intimate jazz singer in a dive bar the day after. No matter where her artistry goes, she’ll always be distinctly Lady Gaga.
