Perfect celebrity : the ghost of a betrayed album

[NemoMyName 292]

I wish gaga stop talking about her creative process...

[Ziggy 11,183]

Idk if you’ve ever engaged in a creative process but it generally changes over time. Gaga is no exception to that. I mean she had deep work done on a darker pop album before scrapping it for Joanne. That’s not dishonest; she just didn’t want to put that out. Same with this grunge direction. She went in thinking let’s do that and let’s make dark pop like the girls want and got way more joy out of going back to her sonic roots so she had a new epiphany of what she wanted to say. I know it’s a sexier narrative to sell that the industry crushed her rebellion out of her but I think it’s way more likely that she’s less rebellious given that she’s 39, in a long term relationship and engaged, a millionaire hundreds and hundreds of times over. Sorry but wtf is she rebelling against? Lmao she has respect, wealth, love. So yeah she changed over time. The industry didn’t crush it out of her she became a VERY comfortable member of elite Hollywood. That’s fine. Instead of forcing some bs about being anti industry she used the space her luxury affords her to make music she wanted which btw is music that has been all around her unreleased material since even before The Fame. PC is also not remotely anti industry. It’s about fans and celeb culture being dehumanizing hence the lyric “you say ‘I love you’ I disintegrate. I become a notorious being.” i.e. she can’t exist as a normal person bc they can only engage with the celebrity Gaga. In the Zane interview she said it’s about being mad at herself and in a way it is bc she’s contending with wanting all this for herself but suffering through it, too. But again, it’s not some industry rebellion.
 

the visuals also don’t predate the album. They line up with like a solid half of the album really easily and 3/4 of it pretty easily. VERY seldom does it work out where you come into a project with an intention and it stays that way. It’s a creative process and processes change and evolve over time. Mayhem is no different. Where you say the darkness exists in the seams Gaga says it was a piece of this era of her life contending with some questions of her identity and decisions while also being in one of the happiest places of her life, too. A piece of this time in her life but not all of it hence the shift in direction. She released the album she wanted to release; case closed.

[Taumaturg0 208]

1 hour ago, guacamole said:

yall need to touch grass 

stream Blade of Grass

[Ziggy 11,183]

2 hours ago, nattuggla said:

Maybe the grunge concept with Perfect Celebrity as its focus existed at one point however Gaga said herself she created other songs with different sounds first. At one point she wanted to ditch those to change direction to do a whole grunge album. But it was Michael who said to her she definitely should keep the other amazing music she made for the album as well - so the Perfect Celebrity concept never was "The Original Concept."

Plus Gaga said the first song she wrote for the album was Vanish Into You.

Despite it is not the first time that Gaga changed the direction of an album but it is a usual and common practice. She started with RedOne for LG5 and then continued to do Joanne with Mark Ronson. For LG6 she started with DJ White Shadow and then was in the a lot in the studio with Boys Noize before deciding that Bloodpop is the main producer...

 

Or even The Fame. Red One came pretty late to that one, too compared to Rob

[ceminay 829]

Why would Mayhem originally mean something else other than chaos when that scrapped album concept you mentioned was originally to be named "Perfect Celebrity". The meaning of Mayhem was never changed or BS'd for a new concept. The logic doesn't make sense.

[Versace 7,941]

She literally admitted that the idea of an album entirely similar to PC sonically crossed her mind but that in doing that would force herself to put on a character or outfit (forget her exact word choice) on the album, something she did for albums in the past but instead wanted Mayhem to feel organic, diverse and representative of her multifaceted persona as an artist and I think it accomplishes that so well. 

She honestly dedicated a good chunk of the album towards fan service songs ex: Disease, Abracadabra, Garden of Eden, Perfect Celebrity, Shadow of a Man. These are the undebatable ones imo. 

[chronic 97]

I agree (you repeated the same point over and over though ). Iirc, she said Michael told her she needed to make a pop album. Is it possible he said that while the album was still in its grunge phase causing her to pivot?…who knows. You’re right though. It’s pretty clear Abracadabra, Killah, Disease, Prefect Celebrity, and maybe a few others were the part of a separate direction. The “Mayhem” concept (at least for me) always felt like a bit of a cop-out to cover up the pivot. However, I do believe that the less favorable tracks, the tracks most reminiscent of “The Fame” are truly her thing. I think that’s the music she enjoys making the most. Disco pop. I take it as Micheal or whoever told her to make something more authentic to her, she did, and kept it all.  That being said, I’m enjoying the album for what it is. I’m not going to sulk. I like the grungier tracks, and I listen to them more than the others. 

Edited 21 hours ago by chronic

[Elderflower 76]

7 minutes ago, Versace said:

She literally admitted that the idea of an album entirely similar to PC sonically crossed her mind but that in doing that would force herself to put on a character or outfit (forget her exact word choice) on the album, something she did for albums in the past but instead wanted Mayhem to feel organic, diverse and representative of her multifaceted persona as an artist and I think it accomplishes that so well. 

She honestly dedicated a good chunk of the album towards fan service songs ex: Disease, Abracadabra, Garden of Eden, Perfect Celebrity, Shadow of a Man. These are the undebatable ones imo. 

In my opinion, add Can't Stop The High to that list. 

[Bronco 8,270]

Why are people ignoring the real betrayed album? 

The OG LG1 with Wonderful, Blueberry Kisses, Second Time Around, Fooled Me Again & Let Love Down. We know LG1 wasn't about fame but was about adult contemporary pop 

[Elderflower 76]

I'm glad she didn't model the entire album off of Perfect Celebrity. Demos with original ideas or already finished songs would've gotten dressed up in a "dark pop" or grunge costume to fit a genre. The album would've been homogenous and repetitive, I fear. 

Disease, Abracadabra, Garden Of Eden, Perfect Celebrity & Can't Stop The High are five tracks in a row that could be described as very Gaga-coded and dark. With that said, there's darkness all over this album. It doesn't need to be in the style of Bad Romance, Disease or Bloody Mary to be dark.

Edited 21 hours ago by Elderflower
Added last two sentences and spelling

[Emvee 8,044]

Realistically, Gaga is a commercial pop artist and, don’t get me wrong, I ****ing love Disease, Perfect Celebrity and CSTH, but it seems like that genre is getting paid the most dust by even the fans. 
 

As much as I hate to say it, but the redirection (if that is in fact what happened) was a good commercial decision. For years, little monsters insisted that they wanted dark pop or industrial influences, but ended up simping for HBDUWM 

Edited 21 hours ago by Emvee

[Doroteyo 428]

4 hours ago, CookieHWilson said:

If it “wasn’t that deep,” the visuals wouldn’t scream what the tracklist no longer does. Gaga said it herself: Perfect Celebrity was the core. Mayhem reframed the mirror, but the cracks are still there — you’re just choosing not to look too closely. Wanting her to be “successful” over staying true to her original vision is your choice, but don’t confuse compromise with intention. And let’s be honest: emotional proximity like Michael Polansky’s should never shape the architecture of an album. That’s not inspiration — that’s interference.

 i think you're conflating vision and reality. Nothing ever comes out the way it was originally conceived and intended. Why? because the process of grounding an idea into reality makes it imperfect; it causes it to fall from the paradise in your head and you have to compromise somewhere. You are judging what's in front of you while idolizing something that doesn't exist.

 

This is the nature of anything you create, and not to understand that is to live in a bubble of fantasy that will ultimately bring you suffering. A lot of artists never get to put out their art b/c they don't understand the journey from perfect idea to imperfect realizaiton.

Mayhem may be imperfect but it's real -- unlike the album 'perfect celebrity'.

[llemesm 1,348]

I am 100% agree with the OG. 

Sometimes I hear Gaga explaining "MAYHEM" as she is trying to convince a concept that is not fully there. Even the word "MAYHEM" instead of "Perfect Celebrity" doesn't fully match with the whole work of art. 

 

This is besides the album being good or bad, that's out of discussion. This is about how much of Gaga's main concept for LG7 is consolidated in MAYHEM and how much she had to get rid of with what she understand as "PERFECT CELEBRITY: THE ABUM". 

 

I get upset when fans just don't want to admit something that we all know, including Gaga: the hints, the IG posts, the fonts, the whole visual production just don't match with how MAYHEM sounds.

We all got the same feeling when we heard the whole album for the first time: we were expecting something dark, agressive, strong; and we got instead a random compilation of pop-disco songs which reminds us to other artists (MJ, TS, Bowie, Prince) but doesn't reflects the core of GAGA, nor her musical innovation, nor the theatrical drama we thought she was bringing back (except for Abracadabra, which is her best pop in YEARS). 

We wanted something something darker, she wanted something darker, and visceral, and aggresive and theatrical, let's just admit it. And I don't think like a song like "Don't call tonight" or "LoveDrug" fits into that idea, because they are nothing but just catchy-as-hell pop songs. 

 

Perfect Celebrity or LG7 will be staying in the imagenary of fans as the real GAGA'S GOTHIC DREAM with her rats, black hearts, magic potions and bats 🦇

 

 

 

[elegidadedios 1,418]

...anyways

Can mods please shut down this thread

[howsAnnie 369]

I wholeheartedly agree with everything OP said, but at the same time I absolutely love Mayhem - exactly because it brought unapologetic rebel Gaga back, even if not in every single song. But the ones you mentioned - Disease, Abracadabra, Shadow of a Man, PERFECT CELEBRITY: They are so incredibly good that she could have just released Mayhem as a small side project with these 5-6 grungy dark songs that made it into the final tracklist, and it still would have been one of my favorite things she's ever put out.

What I also love about Gaga and the community is that Little Monsters are by far the most creative fanbase, and there are so many fanmade extended versions, remixes etc. out there!

So what I did is, I made my own Mayhem-playlist, left out the songs that became regular skips for me (sorry lol) and added or replaced some parts of the album with extended, revamped or remixed versions. And as long as amazing people like Haus of Afrodita, FrankenWayne etc. are out there doing god's work, Mayhem - for me - will pretty much be an ongoing project. I'm not exactly listening to the album as Gaga released it, but her vision is the foundation for everything that fans keep building on, and art is never complete without whatever the recipient is bringing to it anyway. So I'd like to think she'd approve, considering she always wanted us to get creative with what she's putting out there (like with her original plans for the ARTPOP App).

And btw: I'm pretty sure she's not finished with Mayhem, here's hoping we get some more songs in the future - and if there's going to be even one new song that's giving the same vibe as Perfect Celebrity or Disease, I'm gonna be so happy I could die. 

Edited 20 hours ago by howsAnnie