Songwriter Breaks Down MAYHEM, Song by Song

[Ladle Ghoulash 20,742]

Not sure if any of you guys have been following this guy’s videos, but he does great on the fly analyses of pop songs and has been working through MAYHEM track by track!

Disease:

Abracadabra:

Garden of Eden:

Perfect Celebrity:

Vanish Into You:

Killah:

Zombieboy:

LoveDrug:

How Bad Do U Want Me:

Don’t Call Tonight:

Shadow of a Man:

The Beast:

Blade of Grass:

Die With a Smile:

 

Edited May 3 by Ladle Ghoulash

[BeautyisaLie 1,268]

I was just watching his new video for Shadow of a Man, he's so talented and his accent makes it all more entertaining 

[Ladle Ghoulash 20,742]

The Beast is now up!

[Zombiecat 16,144]

On 4/25/2025 at 6:03 PM, Ladle Ghoulash said:

Not sure if any of you guys have been following this guy’s videos, but he does great on the fly analyses of pop songs and has been working through MAYHEM track by track! So far, he’s done everything but BOG.

Disease:

Abracadabra:

Garden of Eden:

Perfect Celebrity:

Vanish Into You:

Killah:

Zombieboy:

LoveDrug:

How Bad Do U Want Me:

Don’t Call Tonight:

Shadow of a Man:

The Beast:

Die With a Smile:

 

I know this is silly but i purposely avoid clicking on people that's thumbnails are an image compsed with them making an annoying 'shocked' face  but imma watch this diva

Edited April 29 by Zombiecat

[Nessun Dorma 5,921]

I love this kind of content and I didn't know this channel. I just watched Disease analysis and it was so interesting! I’ll definitely watch his other videos! Thank you so much for sharing!

Edited April 29 by Nessun Dorma

[Rose 38]

I have been watching and even make sure to subscribe/like his videos because I want to help him get more popular, he's very talented

[Ladle Ghoulash 20,742]

22 hours ago, Zombiecat said:

I know this is silly but i purposely avoid clicking on people that's thumbnails are an image compsed with them making an annoying 'shocked' face  but imma watch this diva

Yeah, the clickbaity thumbnails are def annoying asf, but he’s very talented and offers some interesting insight into how these songs are written!

[Ladle Ghoulash 20,742]

BOG is up! 

[OliviaRodrigoStan 6,042]

He was way too fixated on the idea that Lady GaGa was doing a Taylor Swift "parody" with HBDUWM . His entire analysis is based off such concept, which he presents as factual .

Even if I were to agree that GaGa deliberately wanted to mimick Taylor Swift's sound, which I find hard to believe, the idea that it was conceived as a "parody" is ridiculous. A parody is malicious by nature, and GaGa would not include such a track on any of her albums. 

So even if I were to agree with his general sentiment, which I don't, it would be GaGa taking inspiration from a ~highly successful collegue, whose music resonated with millions of women across the globe~ ... not a "parody". I don't think GaGa would ever think of Taylor Swift as lesser than, simply because she knows how tough this industry is, and she probably respects her commercial success. 

She praised One Direction, the Jonas Brothers, and Kylie Jenner, for being popular . She respects those who are able to place themselves in the spotlight, and resonate with the audience. 

She wouldn't make a Taylor Swift "parody" . He was projecting his own feelings towards Taylor on GaGa. He thinks Taylor is lame, and a basic songwriter, I don't think GaGa shares this feeling . 

He clearly is knowledgable on the subject, but I don't think he's girly enough to analyse certain songs, he's just not that kind of gurl 

[Ladle Ghoulash 20,742]

7 minutes ago, OliviaRodrigoStan said:

He was way too fixated on the idea that Lady GaGa was doing a Taylor Swift "parody" with HBDUWM . His entire analysis is based off such concept, which he presents as factual .

Even if I were to agree that GaGa deliberately wanted to mimick Taylor Swift's sound, which I find hard to believe, the idea that it was conceived as a "parody" is ridiculous. A parody is malicious by nature, and GaGa would not include such a track on any of her albums. 

So even if I were to agree with his general sentiment, which I don't, it would be GaGa taking inspiration from a ~highly successful collegue, whose music resonated with millions of women across the globe~ ... not a "parody". I don't think GaGa would ever think of Taylor Swift as lesser than, simply because she knows how tough this industry is, and she probably respects her commercial success. 

She praised One Direction, the Jonas Brothers, and Kylie Jenner, for being popular . She respects those who are able to place themselves in the spotlight, and resonate with the audience. 

She wouldn't make a Taylor Swift "parody" . He was projecting his own feelings towards Taylor on GaGa. He thinks Taylor is lame, and a basic songwriter, I don't think GaGa shares this feeling . 

He clearly is knowledgable on the subject, but I don't think he's girly enough to analyse certain songs, he's just not that kind of gurl 

I don’t think parody is malicious by nature, tbh. I’m pretty sure all he meant is that it’s a tongue and cheek exaggeration of that style (which she all but admitted in her Las Culturistas interview when she said that the song is purposefully absurd and immature). 

[misha4ever 2,069]

26 minutes ago, OliviaRodrigoStan said:

a basic songwriter

Ohhh, I already liked his videos before watching. Thanks.

[Eggs 2,690]

10 hours ago, OliviaRodrigoStan said:

He was way too fixated on the idea that Lady GaGa was doing a Taylor Swift "parody" with HBDUWM . His entire analysis is based off such concept, which he presents as factual .

Even if I were to agree that GaGa deliberately wanted to mimick Taylor Swift's sound, which I find hard to believe, the idea that it was conceived as a "parody" is ridiculous. A parody is malicious by nature, and GaGa would not include such a track on any of her albums. 

So even if I were to agree with his general sentiment, which I don't, it would be GaGa taking inspiration from a ~highly successful collegue, whose music resonated with millions of women across the globe~ ... not a "parody". I don't think GaGa would ever think of Taylor Swift as lesser than, simply because she knows how tough this industry is, and she probably respects her commercial success. 

She praised One Direction, the Jonas Brothers, and Kylie Jenner, for being popular . She respects those who are able to place themselves in the spotlight, and resonate with the audience. 

She wouldn't make a Taylor Swift "parody" . He was projecting his own feelings towards Taylor on GaGa. He thinks Taylor is lame, and a basic songwriter, I don't think GaGa shares this feeling . 

He clearly is knowledgable on the subject, but I don't think he's girly enough to analyse certain songs, he's just not that kind of gurl 

I think when says 'parody' he means pastiche. He's not saying the song is any kind of swipe at Taylor's songwriting, but an imitation. Possibly cheeky, but not mean.

Gaga obviously hasn't come out and said this, so we can only speculate about whether or not she intended for this song to be a Taylor pastiche... but clearly for a lot of listeners that's what the song sounds like, and simply by being perceived that way, that's what the song is. I truly believe Art is both the object and the perception of said object. If a book isn't read, it's not Art - it's just ink and paper. Therefore his reading of the song is perfectly 'factual' in the sense that it's true for him.

[OliviaRodrigoStan 6,042]

16 minutes ago, Eggs said:

If a book isn't read, it's not Art - it's just ink and paper. Therefore his reading of the song is perfectly 'factual' in the sense that it's true for him.

I disagree with this. The artistic creation is, primarily, for the actual artist. 

The audience can, or cannot, be there at some point, but it doesn't determine "art" status (unless we are specifically referring to those conceptual works that require an audience, as a part of the work itself). 

21 minutes ago, Eggs said:

Gaga obviously hasn't come out and said this, so we can only speculate about whether or not she intended for this song to be a Taylor pastiche... but clearly for a lot of listeners that's what the song sounds like, and simply by being perceived that way, that's what the song is

I do agree that the song does sound like a Taylor Swift track, and I don't think it's impossible that it was intentionally written that way. My issue is him being hyperfocused on this perceived similarity, rather than actually engaging with the song in a meaningful way. 

He ignored the actual theme of the song, and had this mathematical approach of counting numbers and rhymes instead; which... is fine, but does not really hold much value to me, as an artistic dissection of a musical composition. At least not this one. 

I could find such an angle more valuable in a different context. If we were talking about a Dream Theatre song, then maybe analysing the mathematical structure of the track would make more sense. 

But this is a romantic pop song . For a song like this, tone, interpretation, and lyrical content are much more relevant than rhyme pattern, IMO, and he didn't really said much about that. 

Like I said, he is knowledgable, and I think his analysis was... valid, but too masculine for this song. He should've channeled his inner Pink Ranger for this track, I think it was simply not on his comfort zone