Gaga returning to her roots

[REALITY 79,831]

1 hour ago, imogen2133 said:

Also for everyone here who has said Mayhem you have said so because it contains sounds from Gaga's previous albums which makes sense and also because it contains music from her influences (Prince, Michael Jackson, David Bowie etc) but I assume another reason people would say Mayhem is because people see lots of "Gagaisms" present that were also in her earlier work. So my question to people who have said Mayhem is what "Gagaisms" on Mayhem make it feel more like her previous work like TF, TFM and BTW and more like a Gaga album overall compared to ARTPOP, Joanne and Chromatica?

Sonically, it feels more in line with TF, TFM, and BTW than ARTPOP, Joanne, and Chromatica. The disco/funk element is strong, which is something she hasn't really done since TF. Also, the vocal layer and constant repetitions are classic Gaga staples, and they're more prominent here than in her last three solo albums.

[MountainMonster 2,324]

2 hours ago, imogen2133 said:

Why do you think that? I'm not saying I disagree persay just curious what is it about ARTPOP, Joanne and Chromatica that feel like detours from who Gaga is/was or less like Gaga overall?

well, hopefully you’re ready for a brief essay.

So many things make them a detour and not a return to form; but predominantly a lack of authenticity and stylistic choices.
 

ARTPOP feels like an attempt to create performance art in an album, but falls flat because what is it saying? It is performance without purpose. Tongue in cheek takes on fame are traded in for heavy handed, sloppy tropes (see Donatella, MJH, Applause). Emotions are drowned out by corny attempts to seem like a cool pothead or musical choices that are attempting to be abrasive for art’s sake, but end up drowning the power of the premise (see Dope, MJH, Swine). Joanne feels like another attempt to create performance art authenticity and ends up feeling like an album written for a character. (And maybe it is, to an extent, after all, she was writing for Aly Maine at this time). And Chromatica truly feels like someone dragging her to the dance floor when she’d rather be crying in bed - and admittedly she’s said as much herself, and in that sense it was successful. But it’s also the first album where we see so much work written by and for other people making their way onto one of her albums. 
 

Stylistically, ARTPOP, Joanne and to some extent Chromatica also abandon some of the vernacular of Gaga songwriting. There’s a reason that the ma-ma pa-pa perfect illusion AI track was liked by many fans - it uses perhaps the most Gaga songwriting trope in her book; stuttering elongation of words is part of the vocabulary and all three of those albums, with only a few exceptions abandon that altogether. Layered harmonies are flattened, pre-choruses shrunk or gone altogether, and belting sections hardly seen whatsoever. All that without even addressing the genre departures that ARTPOP and Joanne took. The rare moments that the songwriting takes a true turn for the Gaga are the few breaths of air in each of those albums (Gypsy, Million Reasons, SL and ROM). 

[Economy 52,388]

6 hours ago, onTheBrink said:

Chromatica felt like a return to roots after seven years of being away from electronic music

Agree with this. It felt lime the first pop dance album in ages and thats what stood out to me about chromatica

 

That being said, Mayhem as an album is way better my 100 miles!

[Lextyr97 20,702]

Mayhem is Gaga going back to Gaga. Chromatica could’ve been a Dua album. Joanne is wildly inauthentic upon revisiting it and the era. I was expressing elsewhere how frustrating it was watching her in the dive bar talking about the album while we know what we know now. “My dad was so moved when he heard this record. Like he recovered something he was missing” (not at all a direct quote, just the gist), girl you’re a liar. Your dad didn’t give af. Gaga was in a dark place for so longggggg I’m so glad she’s out of it

[Ladle Ghoulash 46,079]

34 minutes ago, Lextyr97 said:

girl you’re a liar. Your dad didn’t give af.

???

[RainOnGaga 771]

I feel Chromatica could've been a "return to her roots" but we never saw Chromatica in her full glory cause of the pandemic.

[ALGAYDO 34,593]

1 minute ago, RainOnGaga said:

I feel Chromatica could've been a "return to her roots" but we never saw Chromatica in her full glory cause of the pandemic.

The music in of itself, while good, was NOT GAGA at all 

[RainOnGaga 771]

Just now, ALGAYDO said:

The music in of itself, while good, was NOT GAGA at all 

yes cause Eh Eh Nothing Else I Can Say defines GAGA

[ALGAYDO 34,593]

Just now, RainOnGaga said:

yes cause Eh Eh Nothing Else I Can Say defines GAGA

That’s one song. I’m talking about the album as a whole. It didn’t feel GAGA. Like someone else already said here, it felt like someone cosplaying as Gaga. Which made sense once she said that she didn’t actually wanna make the album, it was truly a BloodPop album featuring Lady Gaga. Which, btw, I don’t mind, because I actually LOVE Chromatica. It’s a great, solid dance pop album. But Gaga’s soul wasn’t present in many of the songs. She peeks through in a lot of sections but was never fully present. 

[KindnessPunk 2,371]

I think Chromatica is her true return to her roots, all the praise she’s been getting for Mayhem about it being her return to form, should have been said more during Chromatica. It is LITERALLY her return to the dance floor, the dance floor that she fought for. Even down to the Chromatica Ball, she really started to feel like she was reclaiming herself, by herself, for HERSELF. Mayhem to me is a departure in a way from all the albums before it, a graduation, if you will. To me Mayhem marks the beginning of a new chapter, in her music, her musicianship, how she presents herself to the public, so it doesn’t necessarily feel like a return as Chromatica does for me. I like the view her albums as trilogies that tell a story. TF, TFM, BTW being the first trilogy and ARTPOP, Joanne, and Chromatica being the second trilogy. And Mayhem respectively kicking off the next trilogy or just representing a new frontier for her.

TLDR: Chromatica is the return, Mayhem is the evolution 

[Stylor 24]

Mayhem. It even follows the same progression as The Fame. It starts very electro and it progressively gets more disco-funky and rock influenced.

[RochesterJoannster 3,992]

ARTPOP was initially supposed to be a return to form after Born This Way too.

Either way Mayhem is the only era where she actually returned to anything

ARTPOP, Joanne, and Chromatica all veer away in different ways.

Chromatica may have been a return to dance music, but there are other qualities about it that make it feel like a further departure than even Joanne. 

Edited 9 hours ago by RochesterJoannster

[GerMonsterNotta 2,113]

Hair Body Face 

[gagzus 20,618]

Mayhem definitely feels the most Gaga primarily because it is influenced by her root artists like Bowie, Queen and Michael Jackson (I’m extremely glad she purposely stayed away from any Madonna references out of spite). Mayhem feels like an evolution of Born This Way, which in turn felt like an evolution of her pre-fame music like Red & Blue and Team LoveChild.

Mayhem perfectly encapsulates Gaga’s years of experimentation coming together with her original vision. It feels like she revisited what she was trying to do with fresh eyes and made it how it should've sounded. There’s Electropop, Synthpop, Glam Rock, Pop-Rock, Disco and Funk with a splash of industrial in there too. It’s literally the entirety of her first 3 albums combined into one in terms of genres and influences.

I feel like she may lean towards making dance records again next album era, purely because I feel like she never got to live in her EDM opus with ARTPOP. Still to this date she’s never experimented in the way she experimented on ARTPOP and her song writing peaked there too.

Edited 9 hours ago by gagzus

[RochesterJoannster 3,992]

11 hours ago, imogen2133 said:

"Gagaisms" on Mayhem make it feel more like her previous work like TF, TFM and BTW and more like a Gaga album overall compared to ARTPOP, Joanne and Chromatica?

What separate the Pink Albums from the OG’s and Mayhem, To Me:

ARTPOP has always been full of disruptive noises. It has more sounds that seem to be there for the sake of being a sound than having to do with the music (to me) than the rest of the albums combined. 

Interestingly enough, I think Joanne still has many “Gagaisms”, and the genre shift alone is what separates it.

Chromatica is very polished and streamlined, she simply doesn’t do that in other albums. I think this makes for the most drastic change of all.

Edited 9 hours ago by RochesterJoannster