Anna Kuznetsof
Staff Writer
March 7th, 2025. All of America is waiting. One woman’s work of genius is about to be put out for the whole world to listen to. With the click of a button, Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM gets released, causing a phenomenon that the title of the album suggests: mayhem.
MAYHEM came out on March 7th, 2025, consists of 14 songs, and runs about 53 minutes long. Its hit song Abracadabra was also released as a single. Tour tickets for “The Mayhem Ball” were released for a total of 63 shows around 14 different countries for 2025 and 2026.
MAYHEM’s main theme is centered around love, chaos, and fame, with metaphors of transformation and acceptance. This sort of change is caused by Gaga’s reconciling with her past musical identity and her present self, causing “chaos”. Gaga’s song “Zombieboy” exemplifies this idea, with the funk and pop of all of Gaga’s old songs and the deeper and faster pace of her new songs. It starts off with the same beat and lyrical pattern as Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback girl” and transforms into a much more upbeat and catchy song.
Songs like “Zombieboy” and “Abracadabra” are much more upbeat and funky. However, that’s not what the whole album is like. With its mix of genres and Gaga’s entire identity, it jumps around from idea to idea. Going with the idea that Gaga is reflecting on her past self, she goes back to her “Shallow” era by covering “Die With a Smile” by Bruno Mars, which has a much more solemn tone. Another song with the same tone in this album is “Blade of Grass,” in which Gaga reflects on what she has accomplished in her music career and how she wants to make it last. Although she speaks of a man in the song, it’s very clear that she is showing the legacy she wants to leave behind, and how she is asking everyone to not forget. This mixture of feelings and emotions makes this one of the most inconsistent albums to grace the public eye, and yet it works.
Gaga’s music has incredible variety. Her first ever studio album ‘The Fame’ was released on August 19, 2008, and it explored the desire for popularity. It had a central idea of “fake it till you make it”, and captured her obsessive nature with the spotlight. Most of Gaga’s highest played songs also come from this album, such as “Poker Face”, “Paparazzi”, and “LoveGame”. Along with this, “The Fame Monster” came out, which explored the more sinister side of fame. This gave the public classic hits such as “Bad Romance” and “Telephone” with Beyoncé.
Her second album was titled “Born This Way”, and it was released on January 1st, 2011. With a much different theme than her first album, this collection promoted acceptance of who you are. She also worked with saxophonist Clarence Clemons and Queen guitarist Brian May to help shape some of the songs in this album.
Her next release was “Artpop”, and it came out November 11, 2013. In this release, Gaga wanted to infuse pop music with fine art, hence the name “Artpop.” She used this album for artistic expression, and even the album cover was inspired by Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’, a very famous Renaissance painting.
With a few separate projects in between, her final album before Mayhem was “Chromatica”, and it was heavily centered on mental health after experiencing trauma and pain. It was Gaga finding joy in music and expression. Her song “Replay” focuses solely on how everything keeps ‘replaying’ in her head and how she doesn’t know what to do. This is all lined up with an active pop beat, showcasing how music is helping her both mentally and creatively.
Mayhem perfectly exemplifies all of these eras of Gaga’s life. It’s an incredible journey of chaos, identity, and creativity. Gaga is almost having a rebirth of sorts in her music, reaching well beyond the popularity she had in 2013 with Artpop. No matter what kind of music one listens to, it’s certain they would find something they like in Mayhem. This musical story has been regarded as one of the best albums people have ever heard, and it’s truly incredible to see this collage of art come to life.