Lady Gaga’s seventh studio album, Mayhem, was—according to the singer herself—influenced heavily by industrial dance music, suggesting it would mark a return to the sound of her peak-era albums The Fame Monster and Born This Way. The set’s lead single, “Disease,” delivered on that promise, with a mechanical thrum and squelchy bassline with enough heft to support Gaga’s characteristically bombastic performance.
Aside from that track and follow-up “Abracadabra,” however, Mayhem trades almost entirely in ’80s synth-pop, especially in its middle stretch, from “Zombieboy,” a tribute to Rick Genest (who appeared in the video for 2011’s “Born This Way”), to the groovy, Bowie-esque “Killah.” It’s a bait and switch that’s likely to leave many fans disappointed and some critics bewildered.
Songs like “Garden of Eden,” a grating electro track co-produced by French DJ Gesaffelstein, attempt to revive the messy party-girl shtick that launched Gaga’s career with The Fame. “You start to slur and then I’ll start to squeal/I’m fallin’ over in my nine-inch heels,” she sings with the shamelessness of someone half her age.
The catchy “Perfect Celebrity” tackles the dehumanization of pop stars—relevant subject matter that comes off as particularly trite for a woman who, however ironically, launched her career fetishizing the virtues of celebrity: “Choke on the fame and hope it gets you high/Sit in the front row, watch the princess die.” Sonically, it, too, lacks invention.
“How Bad Do U Want Me” fares much better, approaching something close to synth-pop splendor. Many of the songs on Mayhem address the inner conflict between Gaga’s professional and personal personas, and in this case her lover’s ostensible Madonna-whore complex. “The good girl in your dreams is mad you’re lovin’ me/I know you wish that she was me,” Gaga quips.
Another track that deals in matters of duality, “The Beast” finds Gaga channeling Taylor Dayne via a Michael Jackson-style pop-rock hybrid, yet it doesn’t feel very dangerous at all. Similarly, the plodding “Blade of Grass” aims for power-ballad heights but never quite takes off in the way that, say, the Bruno Mars duet “Die with a Smile” does. That Mayhem doesn’t live up to its title isn’t exactly a crime, but it commits an even worse pop sin: It’s kind of boring.
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