Perfect celebrity : the ghost of a betrayed album

[Gagarka 456]

girl.... GIRL.... 
she literally said that after recording Perfect Celebrity she wanted to CHANGE the original concept and make a heavier grunge album. Perfect Celebrity is not the original concept, it's a change of concept from the original idea. 
is it so hard to open the interview and watch it again, instead of basing it on your own memories that interpet everything the way it suits you?
and if you feel so bad about the songs that you think don't fit in the album, what's the problem with making a separate playlist and putting disease, abracadabra, garden of eden, perfect celebrity, cant stop the high, killah, zombieboy, shadow of a man, the beast, blade of grass (10!!! songs, ) and listening to it like that, imagining that it's not MAYHEM but Perfect Celebrity? 
double check the information before you write something

[Gagarka 456]

And these claims about visuals... 
So 5 years ago, when Chromatica came out, for you there was no dissonance between the sound of Fun Tonight and Free Woman and cosmic visuals, and here in an album where most of it is dark songs you have problems with dark visuals to it. Thrash. 

[Elderflower 76]

1 hour ago, Bronco said:

I'll put it behind a spoiler so it's not a bulky comment and people can skip past. 
Spoiler - Blade of Grass doesn't fit anywhere you put it lol 
 

  Hide contents

My layout basically turns it into two 8 track EPs as a double album (think Marina's Love + Fear). 
1. Disease
2. Abracadabra
3. Can't Stop The High
4. Perfect Celebrity
5. Killah 
6. Garden of Eden
7. Zombieboy
8. The Beast
9. Kill for Love
10. How Bad Do U Want Me
11. Blade Of Grass
12. Vanish Into You
13. Die With A Smile
14. Love Drug
15. Don't Call Tonight
16. Shadow Of A Man

 

MARINA MENTIONED! I love her music, especially her first three albums. Anyways. When I read your tracklist, I saw a storyline. I'd love to hear your thoughts! 

First EP: A night out to cope with your inner mayhem. You want escapism, but your demons haunt you that night. Anxiety, sadness, stress, etcetera. Perhaps from Gaga's perspective, the fame monster also haunts her. Somewhere down the line, you see someone who intrigues you. You decide to try and get with them for the evening. Maybe they can cure your disease for the evening. Or perhaps it could be a more serious relationship. This is not the first time you've gotten your hopes up. Either way, you meet them on the dance floor, and the rest is history. 

The second EP could cover the rest of that history, depending on how it's structured. Either it's a failed relationship or a successful one.

A long message from me, but your tracklist evoked a lot of thoughts. Thank you for sharing!

[Gorehound 4,449]

20 hours ago, CookieHWilson said:

And what I’m telling you is this: “Mayhem” was never meant to be “Mayhem.”

It was Perfect Celebrity.

It was dark. It was cohesive. It was brutal. It was honest.

And somewhere along the way, it was hijacked.

 

A tad melodramatic lol but ye man I agree with all of this, and it was all pretty obvious from the start imo. 

I'm ecstatic to moderately happy with the music we got, but as an album it's definitely a disjointed mishmash with no real concept or direction (I mean, even scatterbrain ARTPOP was more conceptually focused than this album), and to just pass it off as purposely messy and call it intensional chaos or mayhem is a blatant copout and a bit on an insult to our intelligence ngl. It's a shame but it is what it is I guess.

True, a dark and raw album called Perfect Celebrity with a bold, focused concept throughout depicting her new outlook on fame would've been a far better option imo and certainly something OG Gaga would've done, and very poetic to bring the concept of fame full circle after TF and TFM. 

I don't know why she didn't have enough confidence in her instincts to really follow through with that and the 90's electro grunge idea. I feel like these days she's too easily influenced by the voices around her rather than fully trusting her own artistic intuition.

[Ziggy 11,183]

16 hours ago, llemesm said:

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 🦇

 

 

 

Honestly that’s WILDLY dismissive to say the music doesn’t represent her musical identity just bc you associate her identity with one very specific sound she made for basically an album and a half 15 years ago. Shes revisited Bowie like sounds in songs from basically every single eras unreleased work. It’s in applause. It’s in fashion!. it’s in Babylon. That’s great you wanted something darker. She didn’t wind up wanting to make that. That doesn’t make it a conspiracy that makes it her vision not yours.

[OMF 3,371]

God it took me a month to read the OP. Just enjoy the music or not. It’s not rocket science. I couldn’t care less if it’s Perfect Celebrity or Mayhem or if DWAS is on the album and it wasn’t supposed to blah blah blah.

[MOT 2,847]

Love the album. Really enjoy listening to it.

[Mars 2,176]

7 hours ago, Bronco said:

I love Don't Call Tonight. 
And tbf I'm not saying Mayhem is perfect sonically. I definitely agree there needs to be a better gradient between Perfect Celebrity & Vanish Into You. 
I think the album would flow better if Vanish Into You was pushed later into the tracklist, Perfect Celebrity into Killah would have made the transition to funk & disco more palatable I think to people's initial expectations for the album. 
I also dislike the trend of just shoving the big ballads at the end and calling it a day. 

Honestly I think if CSTH and KFL were in the original tracklist (as they should have been) some fans would have been a bit more pacified in their want for cohesion.

[Bronco 8,270]

4 minutes ago, Mars said:

Honestly I think if CSTH and KFL were in the original tracklist (as they should have been) some fans would have been a bit more pacified in their want for cohesion.

Maybe. 
I think the biggest issue is the tracklisting creating that arbitrary jump off a cliff from Perfect Celebrity into Vanish Into You. It's a very sudden shift of sound and aesthetic. It's less jarring with CSTH into VIY but still not a smooth transition imo

[ChvVolk 2,085]

That's why HBDUWM and DCT are skips for me. They don't fit very well no matter how much people love them or say they do. Yes they are a part of the album but in my opinion they're the least interesting part. 

[ChvVolk 2,085]

1 hour ago, OMF said:

God it took me a month to read the OP. Just enjoy the music or not. It’s not rocket science. I couldn’t care less if it’s Perfect Celebrity or Mayhem or if DWAS is on the album and it wasn’t supposed to blah blah blah.

This is their opinion and experience with the album. You didn't have to read any of this or even respond. Glad you enjoy it and move on. Blah blah blah. 

[TraeumereiLPB 343]

Clearly, you couldn't stop the "high" either 

[Edonis 28,926]

11 minutes ago, ChvVolk said:

That's why HBDUWM and DCT are skips for me. They don't fit very well no matter how much people love them or say they do. Yes they are a part of the album but in my opinion they're the least interesting part. 

maybe you can make an argument for HBDYWM, but Don't Call Tonight literally has production elements (the vocoder in particular) on two other tracks (SOAM and Kill for Love). It absolutely fits in with the album, lyrically and sonically. 

[GagaGame 3,452]

On 4/6/2025 at 7:13 PM, CookieHWilson said:

Visuals can contradict lyrics — but not when they predate half the tracklist. You’re mistaking post-release justification for pre-release intention. Gaga herself said the sound was meant to match “Perfect Celebrity.” The dark aesthetic wasn’t a spontaneous choice — it was part of a larger vision that got reframed. You’re not “choosing to enjoy her artistry” — you’re choosing to accept a narrative edit because it feels safer than confronting what was lost.

That’s fine. But don’t gaslight those of us who actually paid attention.

Excuse me are you dumb

[Ziggy 11,183]

Am I the only one that likes the jarring leap from PC to VIY? Idk it’s super abrupt but I like the audacity of it. It kinda delivers in the mayhem premise in that way, ya know?