I feel incredibly lucky to have been a closeted teenage boy in 2009 and my formative years being surrounded by music like Katy Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’, Beyoncé’s ‘I Am…Sasha Fierce’, and Lady Gaga’s ‘The Fame Monster’. There are scientific studies that show the music we listen to in our teenage years due to the rapid neurological development in our brains so it’s a no-brainer that Gaga’s 7th studio album, Mayhem, is scratching an itch in my brain.
Like so many members of the LGBTQIA+ community, I’ve always found safety in Lady Gaga and her music, even when she went off the beaten path from the sound we were first introduced to her with.
Gaga described this album as a “series of gothic dreams” that encapsulates everything she’s been through and worked for. These 14 tracks not only take us through a very dark-sided conversation she’s having with herself but also pay homage to her past projects as well as so many artists that have inspired her in the past (Bowie, Michael Jackson, Prince, to name a few).
Enjoy my track-by-track review and analysis of one of my most anticipated albums of the year.