What is the concept of Mayhem?

[imogen2133 185]

After a year now of it being out and after watching many interviews about the album I still don't know what the concept of the album is. I know the individual meanings of the songs like Disease being about inner demons and struggle, Abra is about resilience, Zombieboy is about partying and waking up drunk, Garden Of Eden is about a fling and partying etc. but as a whole I don't see the songs fitting into an overall theme or concept. With her previous albums each one had an overall idea that the songs fit into like The Fame being about fame, love, sex and partying, The Fame Monster about the fears Gaga encountered on the road, Born This Way about self acceptance and empowerment, ARTPOP about art culture being presented through pop music (even though only a few songs represent this I admit that wasn't done very well), Joanne about her aunt and Chromatica about dancing through your pain and inner struggles. I have many issues with Mayhem but this one really stood out to me and I've never seen someone articulate it without adding their own personal biases or taking from meanings that they made up and don't necessarily come from the lyrics of the songs.

[Starmie25 21,207]

It's about accepting your inner MAYHEM and reclaiming the Godga title 

[gagzus 18,505]

She basically said that the album was about all the different sides of her at once, she didn’t feel like sticking to a theme or concept or sound. Musically it’s about her career thus far, her relationship with Michael and sonically it’s basically a modernised version of HER sound that she claims from her early albums. So basically it’s meant to be like like TF, TFM, BTW & ARTPOP rolled into one. You can hear all her influences on there from Bowie to Elton to Michael Jackson but there’s also some music that feels very Gaga and not inspired by other people like Abra and Garden which are VERY TF & TFM coded. HBDUWM is also BTW coded because of its 80s synth pop sound ala Yazoo. 
 

Basically I call it her “womanhood” album, Joanne was her coming of age and trying to find her way with who she is. So this is her finally finding and accepting herself. It’s her first album that has been TRULY made in peace, there feels like there’s no longer trauma for her to write about and it’s more a victorious album. 

Edited 19 hours ago by gagzus

[ANVEEROY 63,694]

All of her eras in a blender, and enjoy a Mayhem smoothie! 

[bpmMonkey 7,045]

14 minutes ago, imogen2133 said:

 and I've never seen someone articulate it without adding their own personal biases or taking from meanings that they made up and don't necessarily come from the lyrics of the songs.

This is so weird to me tho. It's art. She gave a frame work many many times in interviews or writing inside the vinyl, laying out her thought process in creating. The rest is interpretation. There has to be an ambiguity in the meaning. I know, in times of tictac and Taylor Swift people feel the need to be told what something means, but thank god Gaga doesn't play in to this dumbing down of her audience. 

[Junko Enoshima 4,056]

[gagzus 18,505]

I would also like to correct something people often misinterpret even as fans.

Joanne as an ALBUM was not about her aunt, it was DEDICATED to her aunt’s memory. Only the title song is about her aunt and she wrote it from her father’s perspective. The album is actually pretty much a coming of age album where she questions who she is and her life up until that point and decides what’s important to her. “I am Joanne, I am my father’s daughter” is the quote she used in FiveFootTwo because she basically said she felt sheltered by her father growing up and never understood why until she basically understood real loss in her adult life.

The whole album is about Gaga, her life and her relationship with Taylor (and subsequent breakup) up until that point.

Edited 19 hours ago by gagzus

[Starmie25 21,207]

44 minutes ago, gagzus said:

Joanne as an ALBUM was not about her aunt, it was DEDICATED to her aunt’s memory.

The way half the fanbase still don't understand the proper meaning behind this one is alarming and it's been almost 10 years too. 

Edited 18 hours ago by Starmie25

[elegidadedios 3,698]

Does it have to have a concept attached to it? Like full stop that's the real question here

[Decodekid 29,562]

I don’t know, but music wise it’s sort of a revisiting of old sounds, revisiting Stefani even. 

[Ladle Ghoulash 38,689]

51 minutes ago, elegidadedios said:

Does it have to have a concept attached to it? Like full stop that's the real question here

Yeah, I’d say the concept, more than anything, is essentially a fulfillment of the original ethos of ARTPOP: I can do and be whatever I want. She leaves the conceptual, world building element to the The Art of Personal Chaos, which I think is for the best tbh.

[Dojo 19,804]

Mayhem is conceptless. 

[nATAH 54,078]

it's kinda obvious from the title and range of genres on the album, no? like others said, it jumps from musical influence to musical influence to herself and back again

it's auditory mayhem; a sonic rollercoaster

[River 123,200]

It's a love story about 2 lovers, regret their time.

1. lover 1 is sick and lover 2 trying to play the doctor because he watched some vids from youtube and now he thinks that he can cure every disease..

2. the fake doctor failed, so he's going to witch crft and religion, the delulu side of medicine, but ends up having a party while his lover is sick at home.

3. he cheats on him during a chem-sex party

4. we discover that lover 2, the doctor, is actually a celebrity, and the entitled privileged bitch is coming with another relatable song about how it's sucks to be celebrity.. and we eat it up as usual.. boo hoo bitch.

5. lovers 1, the sick bitch is dead lol, lover 2 is sad :(

6. the widow is going on an american psycho spree and killing people he f-cks.

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 ft. bruno mars.

 

the end.

[Ultimecia 6,176]

The concept was "let's cobble together a sorry excuse of a concept last minute and see how fans gobble it up as gospel despite the album lacking any substance to back that concept up."