Business Insider:Lady Gaga bait-and-switched fans with her new album 'Mayhem'

[pop ate my heart 2,865]

3 hours ago, jimmytimestep said:

Honestly part of what makes this album so exciting is how joyful and fun it actually is, vs its seemingly dark marketing.

she's making a point here.

Dichotomy is exciting.

I distinctly remember being young and looking at the album cover for Madonna's "Music" and thinking it would be a country album, but it's full of pop dance techno bangers

Why can't Gaga do the same? And I'm not trying to say she's emulating those that came before her - she is just expressing (and marketing) herself visually in a way that people respond to, while truly experimenting with her music and sound in a way that makes the overall presentation of the project *incredibly* exciting.

YOU GET IT

Knowing the subversive artist that she is, I think ppl that are confused by the marketing are actually proving her point. As she said in a couple recent interviews, she's confronting the critics' expectations of what she should be doing by making them expect a certain sound/style and then slapping them in the face with something different. And by critics, I'm pretty sure she mostly means the toxic fans that never seem to be satisfied with what she does.

That being said, the dark aesthetic is not only for trolling. When she says that the album is a collection of gothic dreams, I can def see it. If you keep that in mind, you'll notice that almost if not all the songs are dark/gothic/twisted in different ways. Disease is visceral, Abracadabra is witchy, Garden of Eden is twisted and the lyrics are evil, PC is angry af, Vanish Into You, LoveDrug Don't Call Tonight are sad, tortured and hopeless, Killah and Zombieboy are dark in a campy and tongue-in-cheek way, HBDYWM is ironic in its sound as the lyrics are psychotic, Shadow of a Man and The Beast are her actually gaining power over the mayhem surrounding her, and Blade of Grass/DWAS is her actually finding love after defeating the Mayhem.

Srry for the rambling, I hope I made sense, but I f-ing love this album and it's annoying that not everyone gets the vision, but it is what it is

[march35th 128]

I've seen so many YouTube comments already where people are complaining that the rest of the album "didn't sound like" how the album was advertised or how the singles sounded, and I really do not get it.

There are points in the album that sound more pop but overall that campy creepy vibe carries through the entire thing. Idk how she baited anyone with it. If every single song sounded like Abra and Disease I'm sure people would complain about it not being varied enough

[Kermit the frog 1,921]

It doesn't matter what she said. The singles promote the album. And the singles are nothing like the rest of the album, even their placement is odd and reminds me of how she lumped BR+JD+PF at the beginning of Chromatca Ball to get them out of the way...

 

The album is good, but the vision and marketing are messy af.

[TheOriginalOne 10,254]

5 hours ago, AsleepOnTheCeiling said:

Which one of you is Mrs. Callie Ahlgrim 

Angela Cheng

[SEANGT 5,156]

The full article is so calming to read for me. Finally somebody gets it and isn't saying I'm crazy for this interpretation. I don't really agree with the way they describe the album or their expectations in some ways. My expectations were a little different than theirs. But the general experience and high level analysis is spot on here. 

I especially like how they end the article basically praising the album and connecting everything to her brand and the way she does things. I agree! I think all of you are way over reacting to people that just say they don't like the album right away or that they didn't expect what we got and they wish they got what they imagined. These are normal feelings. You can't tell people they are stupid for experiencing things the way they did and being honest about it. 

[SEANGT 5,156]

1 hour ago, march35th said:

I've seen so many YouTube comments already where people are complaining that the rest of the album "didn't sound like" how the album was advertised or how the singles sounded, and I really do not get it.

There are points in the album that sound more pop but overall that campy creepy vibe carries through the entire thing. Idk how she baited anyone with it. If every single song sounded like Abra and Disease I'm sure people would complain about it not being varied enough

I think there are lots of fans that really care a lot about music that were excited for more of the industrial type sounds. It just takes a while to let that go and appreciate the music for what it is. A lot of the songs have elements of that. But the main vibe being funk guitar and bright melodies is just so out of left field in a way that no description or warning about genre "mayhem" could've prepared people for. Like ... When you hear that, you expect a few steps from what you expected... Or.... Like, every song being super different altogether. But we got neither. We got an 80s funk glam album with 3 unrelated singles lol. 

I think that's the main surprise. The album really is cohesive. Just in a completely different direction than anyone expected. 

[Chromanne 1,076]

5 hours ago, Red said:

Mistress Mayhem is a LIAR, a SCAMMER, a MESSY BITCH who LIVES for drama. She loves robbery AND fraud. 

She was named Mayhem for a reason 

[SEANGT 5,156]

15 minutes ago, Kermit the frog said:

It doesn't matter what she said. The singles promote the album. And the singles are nothing like the rest of the album, even their placement is odd and reminds me of how she lumped BR+JD+PF at the beginning of Chromatca Ball to get them out of the way...

 

The album is good, but the vision and marketing are messy af.

Thank you. It's also so weird to explain it away with these interview answers about "jumping around genres in an almost corrupt way' and "not knowing what you're getting after all after the first 2 songs" like .. reading those things you would expect 14 songs with big differences between them. But there are 3 singles and then an 80s funk glam rock album. Like...a majority of the album is actually cohesive in a direction that nobody was expecting. I like it now but damn. Everybody gaslighting me is pissing me off. 

[TheARTPOPball 309]

5 hours ago, River said:

I mean, the album, production and vocal wise is more C2C, L4S, ASIB and Harlequin than actually LG1-6, only Abra is old Gaga, but still holds the new Gaga.

Mayhem is really not back to old self kind of album..

Interesting take on the vocals. Thats a huge part of what makes an album. I actually prefer the vocal delivery we got on harlequin more than mayhem, how she acted with her voice and had super dramatic moments and used her voice as an instrument. Would have loved to have heard more of that on mayhem. There is some but not a lot. It is vocally identical to Chromatica with small exceptions in certain parts of songs. I know that over the years her technique has technically gotten better and better but BTW and ARTPOP are my favorite albums vocally and i think maybe Chromatica and Mayhem could rank higher if they were more vocally similar to one of the albums i listed

[TheARTPOPball 309]

12 minutes ago, SEANGT said:

Thank you. It's also so weird to explain it away with these interview answers about "jumping around genres in an almost corrupt way' and "not knowing what you're getting after all after the first 2 songs" like .. reading those things you would expect 14 songs with big differences between them. But there are 3 singles and then an 80s funk glam rock album. Like...a majority of the album is actually cohesive in a direction that nobody was expecting. I like it now but damn. Everybody gaslighting me is pissing me off. 

And then HBDYWM being a completely random track that doesn't fit sonically at all. The lack of variety did truly did confuse me at first. There was nothing “mayhem” about my first listen. I like the sound, i just wasn't expecting it. 

[getbehindmybarrier 631]

For the most part the album is chronological in music history influences.

It starts with modern production/ 90s heavy industrial influences then moves backwards towards 80s pop/rock/rnb and also some 70s disco in between.

 

It's not that complicated.

 

But it is an entire serve.

 

 

Edited March 8 by getbehindmybarrier

[gagafan1234 9]

Well, this has been said by a lot of people, but I didn't want to say anything before I had time to really listen to everything and assimilate. And although I still think her songwriting is excellent here, it is just not the sound I was expecting. I am an old fan who wanted electronic, electropop music like her early work, and got EXTREMELY hyped for this album, based on the singles. Just to be... kinda disappointed... cause the whole rest of the album is nothing like that. It's not that the music is bad, it's just not what I was really hyped for. I think that needs to be said... I guess the Gaga we got at her early years was a Gaga who wanted to make it. Now she's made it, she's having fun and doing what she wants... So maybe the Gaga I fell in love with doesn't really... exist? Does that make sense to anyone else?

Edited March 8 by lucc

[monketsharona 74,625]

All the tracks are dark and that's a fact.

Concerning production she told you since the start MAYHEM will take its source in her old self and getting new influences on every track.

The people who can't take the fact she will give a new version of herself every album are the exact same ones who are clinging to that ARTPOP 2.0 fantasy and asking her for this like everytime they have the opportunity.

Edited March 8 by monketsharona

[nATAH 46,062]

a lot of you really just take everything at face value and lack the ability to critically think and analyse art

gaga deserves smarter fans

[gagafan1234 9]

Just now, monketsharona said:

All the tracks are dark and that's a fact.

Concerning production she told you since the start MAYHEM will take its source in her old self and getting new influences on every track.

The people who can't take the fact she will give a new version of herself every album are the exact same ones who are clinging to that ARTPOP 2.0 fantasy and asking her for this like everytime they have the opportunity.

The name of the tracks "Zombieboy, Killah ft Gesaffekstein, Lovedrug" was giving so much ARTPOP. I know the name of the songs are not a justification for an expectation, but didn't anyone get that vibe?

But you're right, artists change, and some people who have more specific tastes can't follow it and will just have to deal with the nostalgia...

Edited March 8 by lucc