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Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like her to have- but she has it.

PERFECT CELEBRITY: THE GHOST OF AN ALBUM BETRAYED By a fan who doesn’t miss a single gdamn thing. I’ve been a fan since 2008. I’ve watched every era bloom and collapse, every shift in aesthetic, every intention, every pivot. I know when something’s real — and when it’s been repackaged, resold, and covered in a layer of false narrative. And what I’m telling you is this: “Mayhem” was never meant to be “Mayhem.” It was Perfect Celebrity. It was dark. It was cohesive. It was brutal. It was honest. And somewhere along the way, it was hijacked. THE LIE OF CHAOS They want you to believe “Mayhem” is about embracing chaos, multiplicity, fragmentation. But the truth? That fragmentation was never the plan. It was the damage. And instead of fixing the cracks, they called them art. Let’s talk about that mirror. The cover art — that shattered, gothic, broken collage — wasn’t designed to represent “a million sonic versions of Gaga.” It was a scream. It was: I am a Perfect Celebrity. I’ve been made, broken, reconstructed. I am haunted by fame. It was pain. But then the project changed. Tracks were swapped, tones softened, the concept diluted. And now that broken mirror? It’s sold to us as: “See how diverse I am!” Bullshit. THE REAL ALBUM STILL BLEEDS THROUGH You can still hear it. In Perfect Celebrity, in disease, in the Beast, in Abracadabra, in Can’t Stop the High, in Shadow of a Man, even in the quiet ache of Blade of Grass. They are the remnants of an album that was supposed to be a war on the industry, on image, on artificiality. But they were surrounded, watered down, dressed up in songs that Gaga herself almost didn’t want in the album — like How Bad Do U Want Me, which Michael Polansky reportedly convinced her to keep. And don’t get me started on Die With a Smile — a beautiful song, yes, but a standalone that got retrofitted into the storyline after it blew up. You know it. I know it. Gaga knows it. The rest is PR fiction. Lady Gaga literally said it in her Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe (late 2024): the album was originally called “Perfect Celebrity.” That track was the core of the concept, and she even considered re-producing the entire album to fit its electro-grunge tone. If you’re arguing against that, you’re arguing against what she herself admitted — on camera. The pivot happened. That’s not speculation, it’s documentation. The Visual Language Tells a Different Story The visual direction of the album — from the hyper-gothic photoshoot by Frank Lebon to the glitchy, eerie visualizers on YouTube — clearly reflects the darker tone of the original “Perfect Celebrity” concept. The fragmented mirror aesthetic, the baroque horror fashion, even the visual teaser clips were created long before the final tracklist was settled. If the sound now feels disconnected from the imagery, it’s because the imagery was never meant for this version of the album. Narrative Retconning Is the Real Mayhem When a track like “Die With a Smile,” originally released as a standalone single, suddenly appears in the album’s hypersticker and final tracklist — after it charts globally — that’s not a vision. That’s a retrofit. And retrofitting narratives after fan or commercial response is a feature of today’s post-Zeitgeist pop cycle. Mayhem became a marketing container for multiple ideas, but only one of them — “Perfect Celebrity” — had conceptual integrity from the start. THE SXSW GAGA IS GONE — AND I MISS HER I was watching live when Gaga performed Swine at the South by Southwest Festival in 2014. I saw her scream: “**** YOU POP MUSIC, I WON’T PLAY BY YOUR ****ING RULES. THIS IS ARTPOP. FREE YOURSELF.” She had Millie Brown vomit paint on her body. She was fighting the machine. That was the last time I saw Gaga truly defy the industry. Since then, she’s become a phoenix, yes — thanks to her immense talent, to jazz, to cinema, to Tony Bennett — but not the chaotic rebel I once admired on stage with Lady Starlight, wearing leather and glam and nothing but fire in her throat. Now? I see marketing in every shadow. I hear “entropy” as an excuse. I see a shattered concept (Perfect Celebrity) that was transformed into Mayhem to cover the scars, not reveal them. That mirror wasn’t meant to be beautiful. It was meant to cut. I’M TIRED OF THE POST-EDITED ART I’m tired of albums being reshaped mid-campaign to adapt to audience reactions. I’m tired of interviews rewriting history two months after reality. I’m tired of fans being fed the illusion of chaos instead of the truth of concept betrayal. Lady Gaga has always — always — crafted concept albums. This is the first time the concept cracked. And they tried to sell the cracks as intention. I don’t buy it. This isn’t hate. This is heartbreak. And if you feel it too — if Mayhem left you wondering what could’ve been — you’re not crazy. You’re just not buying the narrative. Perfect Celebrity still haunts this album. And I refuse to let them bury it. Here lies Perfect Celebrity: An album that breathed but was never born. It lived in photoshoots, in the granular edges of YouTube visuals, in hyperstickers printed before the truth changed. It spoke through electro-grunge screams, before the silence of marketing repainted its mouth. It was a concept. Not fragmented. Not chaotic. Whole. Angry. Surgical. Loud. Its ghost still lingers in the seams of Mayhem: A shattered mirror that was meant to reflect the destruction of fame, rebranded into an ode to diversity. A warning turned into wallpaper. It was betrayed — not by failure, but by adaptation. It was rewritten, reframed, restructured, as if its original message were too sharp for the skin of the moment. Lady Gaga conceived it. She even spoke its name. But the world wasn’t ready. Or maybe, it was. The album was lost. But not forgotten. You can hear its pulse in th Beast, in Disease, in Can’t Stop the High. You can see it in the shadow of a man, in the broken glass of a photoshoot, in the tension between image and sound. Let this post be its gravestone. And to those who still believe: We were not wrong. We were early. Perfect Celebrity — you never dropped. But you never died.

"Die With A Smile" has officially become the longest-charting top 10 hit on the Hot 100 for both Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. It's now Bruno's longest running top 10 song surpassing Uptown Funk. https://x.com/billboardcharts/status/1909306595554587080?t=tLjDKyjSGOGevqyrmxGHcQ&s=19

After MAYHEM (which I absolutely love), I came back to Harlequin and gosh... I cannot believe we're witnessing such a great star. Her jazzy voice is really her best. 🎶why do birds suddenly appear everytime you are near 🎶

SHE’S COMING

I know damn well Elton turned around after taking the picture and thought "**** this bitch"

And so am i

I mean... She already said she went with a certain direction with Perfect Celebrity even being the first album title (grunge, industrial) - I remember she stated in the Zane Lowe interview she came to the studio saying they had to make the album sound like Perfect Celebrity but then changed her mind, not the other way around - but then followed other paths (funky) and decided to name the album MAYHEM because of that - and many other reasons -. I don't think it's that deep, it's just that as a fanbase we have kind of a trauma with other projects she intented to do in the past and didn't make the cut... That's it lmao And, to be honest, I'm glad she did. I was also in full mode ready to listen from start to finish industrial before the album dropped, but that would've been too over the top. She crafted an excellent body of work in the end. And also, as much as I love PC and it is one of my favorite ones on the album, I wouldn't have moved a bit if the whole narrative was focused on "the pain of being a celebrity" because let's be real, she has touched that topic many times before. Chromatica is the perfect example for that. Artistically speaking, I agree this is her first album not falling into the "concept album" idea (at least what we are used to from her). But is that bad?

oh amazing! everything except the cap is exclusive to the festival itself! so happy the webstore shows everything i can't have

Hellew I got bored, had an idea, and spent many, many hours creating this AI cover of Perfect Celebrity with Fame era Gaga vocals. It's not perfect by any means but I tried! Armed with nothing but Audacity, absolutely zero music knowledge, and a dream

OMFG GUYS it's giving IKEA parking lot I've been waiting for her to revisit that era, resourceful queen

Die With a Smile is now the 15th best-selling song of all time! https://x.com/ladygaganownet/status/1909200159155593601

girl.... GIRL.... she literally said that after recording Perfect Celebrity she wanted to CHANGE the original concept and make a heavier grunge album. Perfect Celebrity is not the original concept, it's a change of concept from the original idea. is it so hard to open the interview and watch it again, instead of basing it on your own memories that interpet everything the way it suits you? and if you feel so bad about the songs that you think don't fit in the album, what's the problem with making a separate playlist and putting disease, abracadabra, garden of eden, perfect celebrity, cant stop the high, killah, zombieboy, shadow of a man, the beast, blade of grass (10!!! songs, ) and listening to it like that, imagining that it's not MAYHEM but Perfect Celebrity? double check the information before you write something

I don't have the energy to get into this type of discussion but happens with every album. Now that the release hype has cooled down, fans will try to analyze everything and the "what could have been" stuff will come up, theories about changed plans because once again they did not get the album they had in mind.

Can you please stop acting like a therapist pretending you know what's in my mind by those comments? It's hard to read something so condescending and paternalistic like... It's getting ridiculous in a way but go off

Also, I now feel 100% confident that DWAS was always meant to be on MAYHEM. I think she didn't call it the lead single bc she knew that fans would have absolute meltdowns bc they wanted a dance album and DWAS is not that. The fact that its on her youtube channel, she is credited as the lead artist, and the song is released through interscope instead of through bruno's label is evidence. And on top of all of that, Gaga and Watt are listed as writers and producers. Why would she bring Andrew into the studio if it was a quick/ side quest. We know that Gaga also changed the concept/lyrics to make it an apocalyptic love song. Even if she doesnt sing until a minute into the song, her creative fingertips are all over every single part of it and it wouldnt have been nearly as good without her.

Didn’t she just cancel a tour that was not selling?

Die With a Smile MV has reached 10 million likes on YouTube!

it has 849M streams

It wasn't long ago that DWAS became Gaga's most liked video ever, beating out Bad Romance with 9.6 million likes. As predicted, she's now hit that elusive 10 million right on schedule. So many artists have hit that milestone 8 figure mark but Gaga was sadly underrated in that regard, although Bad Romance was clearly going to hit that soon enough, but it would still be months before that happened (and hopefully, Shallow one day as well!) So, celebrate this overdue achievement in Gaga's career and leave a like if you haven't already. 11 million, here we come!

Upside down because down under

BB200 top 10 weeks The Fame 51 A Star Is Born 26 Born This Way 6 The Fame Monster(EP) 5 MAYHEM 4* Joanne 4 Chromatica 4 ARTPOP 3 Cheek To Cheek 3 Love For Sales 1 The Remix 1

no hate to OP, but so much of what is in the original post is wrong and it's honestly crazy because most of us active in the online facets of this fandom were here as the album was being crafted in real time I can literally go in my post history for pre-LG7 when everyone was pointing out that Gaga was working with Andrew Watt (thanks @monketsharona who did a lot of that digging and more) because of the studio pictures that heavily teased Prince and how I was personally freaking out (in a good way) that she was making funk inspired music a la Batman 89. And that was late 2023 going into early 2024. We actually saw in real-time over the next 6 months or so how the album evolved and, if anything, Perfect Celebrity (which is my favorite song on the album) didn't come until MUCH later in the process when she posted that typewriter picture with the crossed-out words. There is zero truth in saying that PC was the original concept and that changed because of interference. In terms of album aesthetics, that's completely subjective. Personally, I think they fit. Disease, Abra, GoE, PC, VIY, Killah, ZB, DCT, SOM, The Beast, BOG, and lowkey DWAS all fit that 80s goth feel and that's 12 out of 14 standard tracks. Sure we didn't get a grimdark, industrial, EBM-influenced pop album, but we did get a career-best record of electronic pop music that will actually stand the test of time. For that alone, it's worth celebrating.

Little monsters always insist and obsess over an album instead of the one we actually got. It's been happening since ARTPOP

"The visuals wouldn't scream what the tracklist no longer does"... Well... That is your opinion, and a valid one though, but still an opinion. Chromatica has deep, dark and sad lyrics but the visuals are in full color. Did she falsely advertise it too? MAYHEM's visuals are dark because the artist wanted them to be so. "You're just choosing not to look closely" I'm choosing to enjoy her artistry! And where did I say I want her to be successful over staying true to her original vision Oh and the whole Polanski thing... She has a job in arts, not in engineering. Of course she is gonna get influenced by her future husband and father of her children... Idk. You're making it look like many users here like she's being manipulated by him and that's a little too much to say

Dance or Mayhem Die

Crazy that C2C has the number of weeks in top 10 of BB200 as ARTPOP (both 3) We don’t give C2C enough credit, a grammy winning #1 album almost Platinum with no original songs did that

She literally said that VIY was the first song made for the album and that PC was made late in the process, so how the FÚCK would it make sense that she wanted an electro-grunge album but then Michael “made” her change it to more funky/pop? lol just say you didn’t like the album and move on instead of making stuff up to justify your disappointment

The recent performance of big name artists’ latest singles (Ed, Miley, Drake, Ariana, etc) puts Gaga’s success in perspective. We should be immensely proud - this really has been our year Gaga has a big and loyal fanbase that won’t ever stop supporting

Oh jeez, these comments. Any disagreement or opinion about her work/artistic direction is met with so much defensiveness and chagrin. OP clearly laid out his POV and backed it up with quotes directly from Gaga... he is not saying that she is controlled by her fiance, but it is a fact that Michael encouraged Gaga to stay on track and not lose sight of the amazing music that didn't fit the landscape of PC. Please read more carefully... debate is ruined by poor comprehension skills.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DIJ5fWExX68/?igsh=MXZqejl6azc2eG9kZQ== So basically, Madonna showed up uninvited at SNL this week-end to confront him about what he's said about her in the past and they made peace and he told her he had a song written for her and would love to collaborate. What a day!

Advertisements for Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM shows in Australia have began to mistakenly role out early, pre-announcement https://x.com/gagacord/status/1909190228310442085?t=iN9s33EVmpmxlMhdcfpHIQ&s=19

I felt so proud when that’s entertainment played the first time I literally was teary eyed like this album is judy garland vibes her voice is so beautiful

As long as Just Dance doesn't become a Colby O'Donis song I'm fine

This is such a tired and disrespectful take, honestly. It's the reason we have the nickname "Little Managers". Let it go and enjoy this incredible era for what is is. I'm so tired of people like this who can't live with what we have. No wonder Gaga was once so distance from the fans: these takes are incredibly toxic.

Orlando Bloom desperately begging Wikipedia editors to keep this off of his filmography

Yeah, the OG argument conveniently neglects that Lady Gaga is 38 year old with agency. Not to mention that, in the Zane Lowe interview Gaga explicitly states that PC came along later in the cycle and what Michael discouraged her from doing was reworking pre-existing material that didn’t fit the industrial/grunge theme into that theme. She wanted to retcon the grunge angle and that was what Michael, rightfully, discouraged her from doing.

Okay so to sum up she threw to the trash a whole album and dropped another direction because somehow she was forced to by her fiance and label because all of a sudden her power and status disappeared Yup yup I get it now

Gaga randomly having the biggest hit of her career 17 years into it lol. Someday she'll pull a cher and have a huge #1 hit at age 50

It is an amazing record. Tbh, as a fanbase we're a bit weird. I don't expect us to go batsh*t insane on her new releases like Taylor Swift fans but I vividly remember a significant portion of users here were super dismissive about it and were like "yeah tried listening, gave up by the 3rd track". And then others were surprised by its charting position... And in spite of its performance it remains a great collection of beautiful renditions. Very few artists can handle covering so masterfully other people's songs. Hell, the average pop star struggles to match their own studio versions and here we have Gaga bringing true jewels from past times and performing them extraordinarily. Also, Happy Mistake is her best ballad, fight me.

I saw someone yesterday say that "its a shame that abracadabra is only doing twice the amount of daily streams as poker face" That is completely the wrong angle to be looking at this from. Its truly baller that poker face, a nearly 17 year old song is getting as many streams as it does a day and is among the 200 most streamed songs on spotify every single day. Debra is doing great. Will enter the billions club somewhere down the road.

Honestly that’s WILDLY dismissive to say the music doesn’t represent her musical identity just bc you associate her identity with one very specific sound she made for basically an album and a half 15 years ago. Shes revisited Bowie like sounds in songs from basically every single eras unreleased work. It’s in applause. It’s in fashion!. it’s in Babylon. That’s great you wanted something darker. She didn’t wind up wanting to make that. That doesn’t make it a conspiracy that makes it her vision not yours.

Top Singles France: #17(+2) Die With a Smile #33(+4) Abracadabra [9 weeks] #183(RE) Bad Romance

SPOTIFY ACHIEVEMENTS YESTERDAY (for 05.04.25) : Shallow crosses 2.722b streams (2,722,287,240) +915,421 Die With A Smile crosses 2.236b streams (2,236,525,601) +6,349,369 Poker Face crosses 1.622b streams (1,622,776,354) +1,316,763 ARUTW crosses 1.542b streams (1,542,477,089) +889,084 Bad Romance crosses 1.477b streams (1,477,198,686) +998,638 Just Dance crosses 1.318b streams (1,318,789,012) +1,084,722 Telephone crosses 855m streams (855,435,438) +627,533 Judas crosses 757m streams (757,608,680) +775,375 Applause crosses 654m streams (654,218,326) +361,036 LoveGame crosses 504m streams (504,022,875) +367,547 INLA (Film) crosses 393m streams (393,012,948) +104,204 Abracadabra crosses 257m streams (257,799,631) +2,662,891 Government Hooker crosses 162m streams (162,029,295) +167,857 Heavy Metal Lover crosses 102m streams (102,119,803) +122,074 ARTPOP crosses 57m streams (57,000,310) +27,939 Donatella crosses 56m streams (56,012,062) +20,083 HBDUWM crosses 35m streams (35,097,475) +584,886 Shadow of a Man crosses 28m streams (28,441,386) +449,366 Zombieboy crosses 25m streams (25,120,325) +353,402 Perfect Celebrity crosses 24m streams (24,083,864) +312,295 Garden of Eden is now Gaga’s 79th (+1) most-streamed track, surpassing Sexxx Dreams. Vanish Into You is now Gaga’s 97th (+1) most-streamed song, surpassing Fashion!

And these claims about visuals... So 5 years ago, when Chromatica came out, for you there was no dissonance between the sound of Fun Tonight and Free Woman and cosmic visuals, and here in an album where most of it is dark songs you have problems with dark visuals to it. Thrash.

don't call tonight by FAR.

OP went on a tirade and for what? Let's clear up some things... 1. Perfect Celebrity was not the first song she wrote for the album. It was Vanish Into You. That right there already proves your point wrong. Perfect Celebrity did not birth LG7, and it wasn't the first thing she thought of when she created the album. So if you really want to know MAYHEM's "original vision" (whatever that label entails) then you're looking at the wrong song. 2. She said that she pivoted from making all these eclectic songs to developing something more industrial/electro-grunge before Michael suggested that she continue working on the songs she started with. This one kind of baffles me because you literally pointed this out in the OP, but then your entire argument contradicts this fact. If she said that she pivoted from making something else to electro-grunge, then that "something else" is the "original LG7." Again, it was probably more in line with Vanish Into You. 3. Despite what you think, the visuals for the album make sense. I'm tired of this elementary thinking that industrial/rock/grunge music = dark. "Dark" is a broad characterization that can encompass many things. Disease, Abra, GOE, Perfect Celebrity, Can't Stop The High, Vanish Into You, Killah, Zombieboy, Kill For Love, Shadow Of A Man, The Beast, Blade of Grass, and DWAS all have elements of darkness baked into them—lyrically, sonically, or thematically. Just because she's not screaming or the instrumentals aren't a fusion of electronic/techno/punk/grunge doesn't mean that the songs aren't "dark." Zombieboy is a perfect example of a track with dark imagery, but it leans more into a campy, vintage horror-type vibe. Idk why some people have such a problem with MAYHEM's aesthetics. It fits the vibe of the album. But also, expect it to change. Not only is it part of the mayhem of the album, but it's not like she hasn't changed up her aesthetics mid-era before. The Joanne World Tour and Coachella had different aesthetics from the Joanne album. Likewise, the Chromatica Ball looked very different from the album's original artistic direction. 4. The artistic process is a process. Y'all need to understand that making art doesn't have a straightforward path. Things change and evolve. One minute you might think one type of sound is interesting, and the next minute you think that another type of sound fits better. As an artist, you're constantly inspired by many things, and those inspirations can take you in different directions. It's not wrong, and it's not bad. We need to stop this narrative that's been happening since ARTPOP that she "changed the original concept of the album." Concepts change all the time! That's why they're concepts and not the finished product. There's a reason why she's the artist and we're the public Let's keep it 100...some of y'all are upset that you didn't get your exclusively industrial/rock/grunge album that you desperately wanted, and you're complaining about it because this era isn't fulfilling your fantasy. Listen, I love Perfect Celebrity and Can't Stop The High—the latter is one of my favorites from the album—but let's stop these false narratives and complaints that have no basis in reality. The things being complained about are narratives y'all either made up and are contorting to fit your narrative or are completely untrue. Next time just say you don't like the album and move on

If she considered "re-producing" the album to fit a concept, then that, by definition, wasn't the original concept. If anything VIY is the original concept, since it was the first song written for the album. little complainers are tiring.

Didnt expect Miley and Ed to fall so hard, even though Eds music is not my taste. Kinda makes the performance of Abra and DWAS much more impressive