MAYHEM Is Chromatica's Other Half

[SpadesToStart 3,460]

I don’t think you get to Mayhem without Chromatica.

Chromatica’s lyrics represent a painful healing process, and a lot of internal questioning. The false catharsis of Joanne and the glitz of Hollywood both failed to “fix” her, leaving her more broken than ever before. It was the album she didn’t even want to make in many ways; she recounts crying on the porch and having to be dragged back into the studio. But she would have never reached the acceptance that permeates Mayhem without doing the work that Chromatica represents.

[Ladle Ghoulash 24,612]

2 hours ago, AnglerfishbraBENUS said:

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

DWAS sneak, lbr 

[Blackout19 11,909]

5 hours ago, PartySick said:

Don't insult Mayhem like that  

actually it is a compliment 

[LG2008 5,218]

Chromatica is a great album but it would've been much better if Gaga had been more involved. It seems like she let Bloodpop do whatever he wanted with the album when it should have been the other way around. Gaga should've done what she wanted with the production and Bloodpop and the other producers should have helped her. She's a great producer and it's nice seeing her back in that regard for Mayhem. Anyway, the result was not bad, I still listen to Chromatica every day.

Edited February 6 by LG2008

[PartySick 160,205]

4 hours ago, AnglerfishbraBENUS said:

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

You said this just to trigger me  

#JusticeForJoanne

#DeathToDWAS 

[Melodean 8,328]

Excuse me, but Mayhem wouldn’t exist without Chromatica. That album was the gateway to where she is now, and it shows with TCB tour. She ends the show with hold my hand and then a snippet of the new album. 

7 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  

Sometimes it’s okay to have some music that does feel a bit ‘flat’ and sometimes it’s nice to not have crazy production and lyrics. I thought Chromatica was a fresh album and still is today, it offered a lot of things that her previous albums didn’t have and it was at a turning point in Gaga’s career where she was a grown mature woman. It’s a solid feel good dance album through and through and helped a lot of people in 2020. Babylon is such a classic along with Replay 

[highongaga 912]

6 hours ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

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). 

this is EXACTLY how i see it

[highongaga 912]

6 hours ago, Reality said:

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. 

i love gaga lore  this is my favorite part of being a lm