Pop stars spend their careers impaled on the horns of a perennial dilemma: whether to reinvent themselves and show range, or stick to core value variations. With Mayhem, her sixth solo album, her 10th overall, Lady Gaga has dumped the former strategy, which was stuttering of late, for an emphatic reiteration of the latter.
Mayhem marks a wholesale return to dancefloor freakiness, complete with self-quotes (Abracadabra) and a hard-edged electronic takedown of fame (Perfect Celebrity) that would not have been misplaced on her debut album, 2008’s The Fame.
Almost everything here has Little Monster claws. Goth Gaga brings with her zombies, beasts and disease, plus a handful of convincing funk diversions (Killah). But other spectres hover over this banquet: Madonna, most obviously, but also Charli xcx – who has been channelling authentic outsider club-pop for the decade Gaga has been pursuing jazz and acting – plus Chappell Roan, self-made convenor of the queer party people. Most unexpectedly of all, it’s hard to tell whether the Taylor Swift-alike How Bad Do U Want Me is intended as homage or satire, but it sits a touch oddly on a record that purports to know who the real Gaga is.