What is the concept of Mayhem?

[Alejandra 47]

18 hours ago, imogen2133 said:

I agree with what you said about Michael. He really shouldn't have any influence over the sound of her music or be involved with the production or writing, especially since that's not his area of expertise. I was quite surprised when she said she wanted Mayhem to go in the Perfect celebrity direction and that she was hesitant to put it on the album because it is too angry sounding. It makes it sound like Michael may have made her doubt her intuition and how she wanted the album to be (even if he intended the opposite) Art really shouldn't be like that where it is limited and the artist has lots of self doubt, it should be free. I personally would have liked Mayhem more if she went in that direction personally instead of the funk/disco 80s sounds.

I have not heard that before about PC. I like her “angry” sounding music. 

I guess IMO I just think that if Michael Polansky wants to write and sing music then he should put out his own album. I appreciate the backing to make the Mayhem tour such a beautiful, larger than life, gothic dream so no issue with him funneling in the money. But I wish he would stay out of the creative process. It just seems weird to be involved as a co-creator. This is my only qualm related to Gaga right now. But I won’t harp on it much more. 

[PornoDanceFight 1,721]

1 hour ago, bxr said:

Was the original LG5 concept the Chaos Angel motif?

From what I remember, she made a lot of vague notions of “operating on herself like a cadaver” and “exploring the art of darkness.” Admittedly, these are just buzzwords and can still apply towards Joanne, but I think everything we’ve seen from Mayhem arguably fits those descriptions more.

[PornoDanceFight 1,721]

3 hours ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I think what they’re saying, and I agree to an extent, is that the “high art” narrative has always been a bit contrived. The answer has always been that Gaga deliberately blends elements of highbrow and lowbrow, but I think sometimes she would conceptualize herself into corners. ARTPOP is actually a great example of this: the whole era is, to a large extent, her rebelling against and deconstructing the initial iteration of her persona so she could create more space to branch out into different fields without always being pigeonholed as a shock jockey performance artist. 
 

Part of the brilliance of the way her image and persona have evolved over the years is that she effectively foreshadowed a lot of her future endeavors and transformed many facets of her life and talents into a dynamic and multifaceted persona and that shouldn’t work on paper, but does. For example, her jazzy renditions of Poker Face, her doing jazz covers in 2010 in a sense foreshadowed C2C and her later jazz work, ASIB in a way reflects and mirrors the most vulnerable sides of pre-fame Gaga (the center of the Gaga Russian nesting doll in a way), BR + BTW + Applause MVs foreshadow a lot of what Gaga finally elevates and integrates in the MAYHEM era (being the eye in the storm of her creativity, being both the artist and the creation etc.) in a way that I actually think layers really nicely ontop of each other if you understand the iterations of her persona (as she seems to now) as pieces of a sprawling and interwoven puzzle where all of her creative visions (both avant garde and conventional) are possible, permissible, and believable.  
 

That being said, I think she was right to acknowledge that frontloading with concept can be more of a creative block than it is an asset because, had she not deconstructed the original iteration of her persona during the ARTPOP, she would’ve restricted her ability to evolve in an organic and multifaceted way because she would always be thinking about “how does this track onto the previous narrative arc I’ve assigned to my heavily curated persona and the world in which that persona lives?” By removing that as a block, she can allow herself to create and then integrate her projects into an overarching narrative, which allows for her to create without over editing upfront, but still exercising editorial discretion when finalizing. 

Ooh you ate that my sister…you get it!!!

Edited April 3 by PornoDanceFight

[bxr 1,517]

12 minutes ago, ****oDanceFight said:

From what I remember, she made a lot of vague notions of “operating on herself like a cadaver” and “exploring the art of darkness.” Admittedly, these are just buzzwords and can still apply towards Joanne, but I think everything we’ve seen from Mayhem arguably fits those descriptions more.

All good, I vaguely remembered the reference from circa V99 (which I think was somewhat LG5 adjacent … but wasn’t sure if it was in the conceptual realm wheelhouse you explore

Spoiler

 

[chronic 312]

6 hours ago, imogen2133 said:

Yeah and I don't get it either and especially because of the vague nature of the lyrics. As for what you said about expectations I agree, Gaga made it a point of her music and artistry many times (especially early in her career) to have an artistic intention or idea behind everything she did and I notice this more and more as I explore her interviews and explanations of her work. It's not entirely fair for Gaga to set that expectation and then fans aren't supposed to at least somewhat expect that from her artistic output. So fans trying to gaslight people as if that isn't a huge part of her work is just wrong.

Well, I didn’t say that it isn’t fair for Gaga herself to set that standard. It isn’t fair for the other users in this thread to laugh at other users for coming to expect it. I want to make that clear. That’s why I said I don’t want to harp on it. The last thing I want is to come off as ungrateful or mean about the album. It’s a massive hit for the GP, and the fan base. I just wish I was having as much fun with it. There’s no shade to Gaga or the fans that love Mayhem. 

[Bronco 20,813]

4 hours ago, Alejandra said:

I have not heard that before about PC. I like her “angry” sounding music. 

I guess IMO I just think that if Michael Polansky wants to write and sing music then he should put out his own album. I appreciate the backing to make the Mayhem tour such a beautiful, larger than life, gothic dream so no issue with him funneling in the money. But I wish he would stay out of the creative process. It just seems weird to be involved as a co-creator. This is my only qualm related to Gaga right now. But I won’t harp on it much more. 

I mean I doubt he has any personal interest. 

Its very clear that it's Gaga bringing him in. 

Its like when you have a special interest and talk to your friends/partners about it. 

 

[imogen2133 306]

@Ladle Ghoulash I'm curious do you think (from what we heard about it) that the OG LG5 concept would have been more like what Gaga had been doing up to that point or more in line with what she is now post rebrand?(As in Joanne onwards kind of sound or Chromatica) And how do you think her putting out that instead of Joanne would have affected her career?

[nATAH 54,876]

On 4/2/2026 at 8:45 PM, imogen2133 said:

I agree with what you said about Michael. He really shouldn't have any influence over the sound of her music or be involved with the production or writing, especially since that's not his area of expertise. I was quite surprised when she said she wanted Mayhem to go in the Perfect celebrity direction and that she was hesitant to put it on the album because it is too angry sounding. It makes it sound like Michael may have made her doubt her intuition and how she wanted the album to be (even if he intended the opposite) Art really shouldn't be like that where it is limited and the artist has lots of self doubt, it should be free. I personally would have liked Mayhem more if she went in that direction personally instead of the funk/disco 80s sounds.

 

16 hours ago, Alejandra said:

I have not heard that before about PC. I like her “angry” sounding music. 

I guess IMO I just think that if Michael Polansky wants to write and sing music then he should put out his own album. I appreciate the backing to make the Mayhem tour such a beautiful, larger than life, gothic dream so no issue with him funneling in the money. But I wish he would stay out of the creative process. It just seems weird to be involved as a co-creator. This is my only qualm related to Gaga right now. But I won’t harp on it much more. 

because that's not the correct story; PC was made late in the creation and she wanted to scrap the album and start fresh with PC but he encouraged her to keep Mayhem as instead of needing to start again

what he did was a good thing otherwise she would fall into another cycle of self doubt and insecurity... he encouraged her to follow her vision

that's his only influence on her creative process; encouragement and support or we would be sat here still waiting for LG7 

[gagacabana 4,169]

On 3/30/2026 at 10:34 AM, River said:

7. the dead bitch is rising from hell for one night, he's a disco zombie for some reason.. the f-ck and all, then dead bitch goes back to hell

8. remember the chem-sex party? sis is addicted to drugs and hardcore bdsm sex now.. and RIVER IS IN HIS EYES.

9. sis is so high, she's doing a drag show and pretending to be Taylor Swift

10. sis is angry because the cellular provider is harassing her every night because her contract is about to end.. 

11. the shadow of his man in covering him, her memory is lost, but he's dancing through the red flame, he's liberated.

12. he f-cks a serial killer werewolf

13. the werewolf proposed

14. the die during the apocalypse

This reads as if it's poetry, almost like... a poem said by a lady, who wears red... beautiful 

[gagacabana 4,169]

On 3/30/2026 at 2:34 PM, Ivy said:

She's accepting and leaving behind the chaos of her past 

Rather than leaving behind, I believe she's embracing the chaos, really. It's as part of us as it is everything else, after all, so there's no use trying to "purge" off because it won't ever vanish completely (something I think she idealized previously on ARTPOP, joanne and chromatica). That's why I find mayhem to be her most cathartic album 

[gagacabana 4,169]

On 3/31/2026 at 11:05 AM, imogen2133 said:

Well from the beginning of her career Gaga has aimed for pop music and the music she makes to be taken seriously as high art and to be taken seriously in general. And having themes and ideas behind your music certainly helps with that and I think she is playing with some interesting ideas lyrics wise on some of the songs(Disease, Lovedrug, Garden Of Eden) but I just personally don't see how it all comes together and since the tour has a narrative and there are ideas presented of inner chaos and struggle (which many people who like and defend Mayhem have also said) but it doesn't necessarily connect with the album or it's lyrics. idk I guess I just saw that long instagram story she put out when Disease came out and about inner struggle and inner demons and how the video represented that especially through the Mistress Of Mayhem and I thought it would be more conceptual. I mean art is supposed to have a meaning behind it and I guess that's what I'm looking for. Unless this is an era like ARTPOP where the meanings are conveyed more through the eras visuals then the songs themselves?

You should read Susan Sontag's Notes on Camp, it'd open your eyes to approach not everything about Stefigaga, but also the world. And yes, much like ARTPOP, her mayhem could mean anything. Also, (if I got your words right) I think if she applied "the concept of" Mistress of Mayhem exactly like Disease onto everything, we'd lose so many insights of her artistry and points of view, when getting all those different glimpses of her imagination is a huge part of the fun of it all 

[imogen2133 306]

2 hours ago, gagacabana said:

You should read Susan Sontag's Notes on Camp, it'd open your eyes to approach not everything about Stefigaga, but also the world. And yes, much like ARTPOP, her mayhem could mean anything. Also, (if I got your words right) I think if she applied "the concept of" Mistress of Mayhem exactly like Disease onto everything, we'd lose so many insights of her artistry and points of view, when getting all those different glimpses of her imagination is a huge part of the fun of it all 

But I'm not interested in or talking about outside theories to do with Gaga or her artistry but her own words and goal as an artist with her artistry. I could read that and get an outside perspective yes but I'm talking about the meaning behind her work and since it is her art I approach it and compare it primarily using her work and past statements. 

[gagacabana 4,169]

On 4/2/2026 at 4:28 PM, bxr said:

Not sure if it’s just the proximity between creative projects, but I just watched Joker Folie for the first time earlier today and it felt like there were narrative parallels between Mayhem and the movie, from a sonic episodic POV I guess. Nothing definitive or fleshed out, just top line on the blink first impressions, fwiw. 

The My Shadow and Me opening scene, naturally called to mind Shadow of a Man, but from a foreshadowing / hindsight space, and that early in the movie I wasn’t considering the Mayhem album association, but by the end, when and how she effectually emerges from his shadow, brought Mayhem back to mind … so I guess the rough draft (not ovearching concept, but just song episodic parallels) kind of progressed like …

Disease … that they meet at the music class, music as the cure or way to mend their fractured identities ( … maybe? none of this is binding really)

Abracadabra … she, for lack of a better phrase, put him in a spell

Garden of Eden … their music fantasyworld as the paradise phantasm 

Perfect Celebrity … when Lee begins to come into her own subcultural iconography (again, broad strokes here, nothing specifically set in stone)

Vanish Into You … I’m not sure the actual timing on this scene, but VIY just brings to mind the scene where he’s in the holding cell and she inhales the cigarette smoke on his exhale … that felt like a changing of the guard

Killah, ZombieBoy, LoveDrug … not to oversimplify into one another but they all kind of echo the general prison psychosis atmosphere / setting / scenario

HBDUWM … really surfaced when Arthur abdicated Joker, and Lee navigated accordingly 

Don’t Call Tonight … when he literally called from jail after she left the courthouse

Shadow of a Man … the foreshadowing come to fruition, building from when she sort of moves through this glow up over the course of the movie, then at the bridge when she calls the finale what it is, and then on the Pogo’s soundstage when she’s full stop limelight dancing in (from) the origin shadow

The Beast … felt like a more literal allusion to a scene earlier in the movie; but by the end when the psychopath meets with Arthur, it was like the vengeance of Joker’s son, where the pregnancy was like Arthur’s; but this is more a nebulous association … 

Blade of Grass … 

DWAS … this just seems the most clearly associated from the top line POV

 

So, this is really neither here nor there, just rough draft song associations that came to mind on a first look … not that they were intentional, but felt somewhat related

You're cooking something because Happy Mistake was born in Harlequin and that song really feels like the genesis of Mayhem

[Ladle Ghoulash 42,819]

1 hour ago, imogen2133 said:

But I'm not interested in or talking about outside theories to do with Gaga or her artistry but her own words and goal as an artist with her artistry. I could read that and get an outside perspective yes but I'm talking about the meaning behind her work and since it is her art I approach it and compare it primarily using her work and past statements. 

Authorial intent, while often relevant and interesting, isn’t the be-all and end-all, imo. Gaga is unique in that she often functions as both the artist and a critical interpreter of her own work, but I think focusing too strictly on her explicitly stated intent (or what I might characterize as “her own interpretation of her work”) can narrow the range of meanings available.

 

To me, the meaning of art tends to emerge through a kind of collaboration between artist and audience, rather than being solely “prescribed” by the artist.

 

What I find exciting about her work (and the work of many artists) is how it can be understood through a mix of the artist’s framing, shared cultural symbols, and the viewer’s own interpretive lens, rather than being fully resolved by what the artist has explicitly said about it. Of course interpretation needs to be grounded in what is found in the work and informed by the context in which it exists (sometimes including supplemental statements and analysis by the artist), but it also largely exists beyond that.

The artist’s scope alone, imo, will always be incomplete because no artist’s work exists in a vacuum and symbols, sounds, metaphors etc. used in any art necessarily have enough of a fixed or objective meaning for anyone to *definitely* dictate what the *sole* meaning of any work of art is, not even the artist. 
 

 

Edited April 4 by Ladle Ghoulash

[gagacabana 4,169]

1 hour ago, imogen2133 said:

But I'm not interested in or talking about outside theories to do with Gaga or her artistry but her own words and goal as an artist with her artistry. I could read that and get an outside perspective yes but I'm talking about the meaning behind her work and since it is her art I approach it and compare it primarily using her work and past statements. 

Like Ladle said above, no artist's work exist in a vacuum, so in order to understand what Gaga means (what/where/how/whenever) it is necessary to do some research, even if just about her own personal life. That's also one of the reasons I'm so obsessed with her, and am on a sidequest to watch all the movies she's mentioned through interviews/etc, and listen to her favorite songs, etc etc. It's an endless fountain of art. Of course, that's on another level of my own hyperfocus (craziness) but you seem to be interested in her artistry as well, which is why I'm recommending Notes on Camp, a work Gaga herself has took as reference 

 

Fonte: Monoskop https://share.google/yZzURppqY4JODv695

It's just a refreshing reading regarding art history, culture and gender politics overall. If you love ARTPOP and Lady Gaga you're probably gonna love Sontag too