MAYHEM is included in Rolling Stone's Best Albums of 2025

[Flareon Voyager 288]

Great now put her on your magazine cover!

tbh I think AOTY will be between her and Kendrick. 

[HotLikeMexico 5,115]

4 hours ago, Batwings said:

The description is really interesting because the first time my partner listened to it, he said, "This could be a Nine Inch Nails album!" After he said that, I really started noticing the Trent Reznor vibes. 

The only NIN sounding song is Disease tho…? I dunno how the rest of Mayhem is NIN. 

[Roughhouse Dandy 10,914]

5 hours ago, Melodean said:

And the grammy goes to 

JoJo Siwa iktfr 

[AVeryGagaHolyDick 24,676]

It’s great that they praise it, but saying “there’s no characters, concepts, or aesthetic impulses overshadowing the songs” is so unappreciative of actual art 

[Windowlicker 3,483]

35 minutes ago, AVeryGagaHolyDick said:

It’s great that they praise it, but saying “there’s no characters, concepts, or aesthetic impulses overshadowing the songs” is so unappreciative of actual art 

It’s a reference to something Gaga herself said about Chromatica, Joanne, and ARTPOP being more like characters

[Ladle Ghoulash 21,744]

1 hour ago, HotLikeMexico said:

The only NIN sounding song is Disease tho…? I dunno how the rest of Mayhem is NIN. 

Disease, PC (imo very With Teeth era NIN feel), and Killah definitely has NIN industrial groove components to it, but I agree that saying the whole record is NIN inspired is a stretch 

[AVeryGagaHolyDick 24,676]

1 hour ago, Windowlicker said:

It’s a reference to something Gaga herself said about Chromatica, Joanne, and ARTPOP being more like characters

She never said it was overshadowing the songs

[OMF 3,417]

Surely this was a no brainer?

[SpadesToStart 3,423]

I think that critique is a crock of sh*t personally, but at least it’s positive 

[andy232000 11,137]

That FYC campaign is startiiiiing. I bet we’ll see a good amount of think pieces like this from other outlets like Billboard and Variety soon and closer to the end of year.

[Windowlicker 3,483]

23 hours ago, AVeryGagaHolyDick said:

She never said it was overshadowing the songs

Gaga quite literally said, "when did you become a fashionable robot?" once when talking about working on ARTPOP. She has repeatedly spoken about her image overtaking her talent and wanting to strip it away. Joanne was an attempt at it, but in the end it was just another costume she was trying on. Same goes for Chromatica. Mayhem is her finally returning to herself. The review makes perfect sense.

Edited Saturday at 04:12 AM by Windowlicker

[Ladle Ghoulash 21,744]

18 minutes ago, Windowlicker said:

Gaga quite literally said, "when did you become a fashionable robot?" once when talking about working on ARTPOP. She has repeatedly spoken about her image overtaking her talent and wanting to strip it away. Joanne was an attempt at it, but in the end it was just another costume she was trying on. Same goes for Chromatica. Mayhem is her finally returning to herself. The review makes perfect sense.

I mean, that is a bit different than saying that “characters” (something she frequently discussed working with when writing MAYHEM) are overtaking the work. I agree with your take about how she felt about the idea of “Lady Gaga” becoming an obstacle, though. 
 

On 6/5/2025 at 10:12 PM, AVeryGagaHolyDick said:

It’s great that they praise it, but saying “there’s no characters, concepts, or aesthetic impulses overshadowing the songs” is so unappreciative of actual art 

I also feel like it’s not even particularly accurate. Gaga explicitly said that she had dreams, narratives, sounds, and characters she played with when writing each song, but the only difference between MAYHEM vs. some of her other work is that she didn’t try to tailor the entire album around one idea or one persona. I get what they mean in the sense that there’s not as much explicit self-mythologizing on this record and it’s not conceptually front-loaded which makes it feel more direct, but I also don’t think it’s accurate to say there are no characters, concepts etc. on it. 

[Ziggy 11,571]

On 6/5/2025 at 8:53 PM, HotLikeMexico said:

The only NIN sounding song is Disease tho…? I dunno how the rest of Mayhem is NIN. 

Killah kinda has flares of I’m afraid of Americans which itself was NIN so…there but also perfect celebrity

[Jill 29,977]

8 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I mean, that is a bit different than saying that “characters” (something she frequently discussed working with when writing MAYHEM) are overtaking the work. I agree with your take about how she felt about the idea of “Lady Gaga” becoming an obstacle, though. 
 

I also feel like it’s not even particularly accurate. Gaga explicitly said that she had dreams, narratives, sounds, and characters she played with when writing each song, but the only difference between MAYHEM vs. some of her other work is that she didn’t try to tailor the entire album around one idea or one persona. I get what they mean in the sense that there’s not as much explicit self-mythologizing on this record and it’s not conceptually front-loaded which makes it feel more direct, but I also don’t think it’s accurate to say there are no characters, concepts etc. on it. 

I think you're all making really solid points about the way Gaga has negotiated her public persona and creative process across albums. But here's the thing no one's mentioning: maybe Gaga's struggle isn't just about image or authenticity. Maybe its the modern manifestation of a much deeper spiritual "tension", the same one the Desert Fathers wrote about in the 3rd century.

The idea of kenosis, or self-emptying, is central in Eastern Orthodox thought. You strip away the ego, the masks, the illusions, not to become less, but to make room for the DIVINE. Gaga's shedding of personas reminds me of this. Shes not becoming more herself in the pop cultural sense but she's unknowingly enacting the Hesychast practice of descending with the mind into the heart. The synthetic beats of Chromatica were the Jesus Prayer set to a club rhythm. It all fits!

And just as St. Symeon the New Theologian claimed to see the uncreated light, maybe Mayhem is her moment of divine illumination. It's not a return to "herself" as in her brand, but to the silent core beyond performance, beyond identity. If her past eras were icons, Mayhem is apophatic theology in musical form.

[Ladle Ghoulash 21,744]

2 minutes ago, Jill said:

I think you're all making really solid points about the way Gaga has negotiated her public persona and creative process across albums. But here's the thing no one's mentioning: maybe Gaga's struggle isn't just about image or authenticity. Maybe its the modern manifestation of a much deeper spiritual "tension", the same one the Desert Fathers wrote about in the 3rd century.

The idea of kenosis, or self-emptying, is central in Eastern Orthodox thought. You strip away the ego, the masks, the illusions, not to become less, but to make room for the DIVINE. Gaga's shedding of personas reminds me of this. Shes not becoming more herself in the pop cultural sense but she's unknowingly enacting the Hesychast practice of descending with the mind into the heart. The synthetic beats of Chromatica were the Jesus Prayer set to a club rhythm. It all fits!

And just as St. Symeon the New Theologian claimed to see the uncreated light, maybe Mayhem is her moment of divine illumination. It's not a return to "herself" as in her brand, but to the silent core beyond performance, beyond identity. If her past eras were icons, Mayhem is apophatic theology in musical form.

Unexpectedly metaphysical communist Jill Biden, I was not familiar with your game