What is the concept of Mayhem?

[Alejandra 42]

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 1,263]

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 1,263]

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 7 hours ago by PornoDanceFight

[bxr 1,174]

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 266]

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 18,751]

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.