MAYHEM Is Chromatica's Other Half

[Ladle Ghoulash 17,142]

Ngl I see this. In a way, I feel like Chromatica was a hard reset on dance pop Gaga- an album I feel she wrote from the POV of what a debut dance record would sound like from a version of her not centered around the conceptual postmodernity and baked in irony of the OG Gaga of The Fame; in that regard, MAYHEM feels like a natural progression of Gaga writing from that POV and using that reset as an opportunity to address some of what she’d written about earlier a bit more directly while still using the sonic and aesthetic lexicon of the Gaga we know and love (as opposed to previous attempts, like Joanne, which utilized a sonic departure to achieve that effect). 

[djfreemymind 799]

 

Excuse me, but Replay Gaga would like to see a lot of you in her office.

[Anderson123 36,404]

Ever since that “MonoChromatica” fanmade ideas were around I started to think of what that dark version of Chromatica would sound and look like and it was 90’s techno with industrial elements. 

So far with Disease and now especially Abracadabra which sounds like an evolved version of Chromatica, it’s like she’s about to deliver the album of my dreams. 

It does look like Chromatica needed to happen so it would take her to making Mayhem. 

 

[Chromanne 656]

42 minutes ago, LeafBug said:

Chromatica is the least gritty Gaga album and some people are not here for that kind of sound but it’s not bad at all. Safe≠ bad

This 

Chromatica was her first truly pop album after ARTPOP, nearly after 7 years. She wouldn't want to do something experimental at that time. She wanted the album to be as cohesive and GP friendly as possible especially after the reception of ARTPOP. She also didn't take part in the production of the album too unlike Mayhem. It was a good start for her return to pop music.

This time, she has become more confident in making experimental sounds after the resurgence of Bloody Mary, better appreciation of ARTPOP, and trending of ARTPOP Act II. She is also being involved in the production of Mayhem. You can hear the influence of ARTPOP in the production of Abracadabra, and Bloody Mary/Replay in Disease.

[Ladle Ghoulash 17,142]

34 minutes ago, djfreemymind said:

 

Excuse me, but Replay Gaga would like to see a lot of you in her office.

Tbf the CBT felt like the soft launch of/transition to the MAYHEM era 

[Reality 73,668]

I think, in a lot of ways, MAYHEM is kind of a redo of Chromatica, with some other perspectives in mind—notably taking much inspiration from her previous eras. To me, MAYHEM is the culmination of her work, but with a modern and new twist.

I find it interesting that so much of MAYHEM's aesthetic matches what we saw in the Chromatica Ball, particularly the brutalist aesthetic. I think that tour represented a clear transition between Chromatica and MAYHEM in a way that I don't think we've seen in previous tours. Each tour had its own unique style that correlated with the album's aesthetics, but the Chromatica Ball was almost a lead-up to MAYHEM.

Narratively speaking, MAYHEM so far isn't too far different from Chromatica (and I'm not saying that's a bad thing btw). I saw someone on Twitter say this, and I thought it was very poignant: Gaga was in a dark place during Chromatica, and she used Chromatica's [relatively] brighter aesthetics to forcibly find her way to the "light"; meanwhile, she's arguably the happiest she's ever been during MAYHEM, and she's embracing the darkness in a way that's not destructive or harmful.

During Chromatica, she felt like she was cosplaying as "Lady Gaga," if that makes any sense. It felt like she was trying to capture that "Lady Gaga" persona so many of us fell in love with, but with Covid and a fairly safe-sounding album, it didn't capture that same magic. Don't get me wrong! I love Chromatica and it's a wonderful addition to her discography, but something about it always felt "off" in that way. With MAYHEM, she's embraced that "Lady Gaga" persona again, but in a way that feels much more organic. She's thriving in it again, but this time, she feels genuinely happy about it all. 

[Controversiaga 9,747]

Abracadabra alone is greater than chromatica and anything she’s done in the last 10 years tbh imo 

[AnglerfishbraBENUS 5,710]

2 hours ago, PartySick said:

Don't insult Mayhem like that  

The two songs we have so far completely obliterate any track on Chromatica easily and they're demonstrably better written  

...also Chromatica was super dark Joanne is arguably her only "light" album. Maybe The Fame too. The rest are filled with heavy themes of trauma and pain and are wall to wall with heavy sounds (even if it wasn't well executed on Chromatica).

To me, so far Mayhem seems more like a mature introspective look to where she was for ARTPOP.

i was thinking about this. the 3 tracks blow away joanne and chromatica completely 

[LG666 1,905]

2 hours ago, PartySick said:

I've beaten this horse to death tbh. Don't feel like ranting about all the reasons why Chromatica doesn't do it for me but let's just say the whole thing, from the production to the lyricism, feels flat and uninspired. Especially when stood next to her other work.

ARTPOP was messy but it at least felt like it had a soul and some weight to it, both spiritually and sonically  

it's because Bl**dpop forced her to do the album.

It's not a terrible album but it does lack vision and personality as a whole. Alice, 911, and Babylon are where Gaga shined in Chromatic but in others, they were simply generic. Don't even get me started on the demos vs the final songs.. anyways, not to be too negative here, but it's evident that she poured her heart and soul into LG7 so far, as she did with L1,2,3 and 4.

[skedaddleBItCh 2,796]

1 minute ago, LG666 said:

it's because Bl**dpop forced her to do the album.

It's not a terrible album but it does lack vision and personality as a whole. Alice, 911, and Babylon are where Gaga shined in Chromatic but in others, they were simply generic. Don't even get me started on the demos vs the final songs.. anyways, not to be too negative here, but it's evident that she poured her heart and soul into LG7 so far, as she did with L1,2,3 and 4.

Anymore fanfiction?

[KindnessPunk 1,837]

Love this analysis, Chromatica forever 

[Divine 1,607]

I think not, I feel like Mayhem is a body of work that is not affliated with any past albums. I guess she took inspiration but I think Mayhem has a different vision.

If there's any correlation, it would be repeating the original promo they had for Chromatica before the pandemic happened.

[Starmie25 15,227]

Chromatica = escapism 

Mayhem = realism 

[Lord Axel 641]

This is a good analysis, even more so since when you realize she's been doing this type of contrast/complementation literally since the start - TF & TFM are the yin & yang of fame, BTW embraces both sides of TF/TFM with acceptance, ARTPOP complements the diversity of BTW but at a totally different angle that begins to showcase her personal struggles, Joanne both contrasts ARTPOP due to being a complete 180 sonically yet also complementing it due to dealing with negative feelings, then Chromatica takes another 180 back to a nostalgic sound and deals with dancing through the pain experienced since ARTPOP

Recently she gave us Happy Mistake which is like a transitive song between eras (hence why Harlequin is LG6.5) that leads into the broken mirror theme of MAYHEM's cover art, and Gaga even said herself that the album's creative process was compared to "reassembling a shattered mirror: even if you can't put the pieces back together perfectly, you can create something beautiful and whole in its own new way"

[King of the Fall 3,924]

I have said this before but what we got on the Chromatica album does not feel like the true representation of what was going on in her head at the time and it's creation was not what inspired her again. If anything i get the sense that the recording process was very difficult. It's not until TCB that we see her confront darkness and draw power and inspiration from it, that tour was the turning point.

What I'm getting at is that MAYHEM should be considered another side of TCB which means approaching the art of darkness from a position of strength rather than sadness and pain masked as some escapist planet concept that she abandoned during TCB when she found herself again. 

Edited Thursday at 05:24 AM by King of the Fall