After Lady Gaga went on sabbatical to Chromatica nearly five years ago, she returned to Earth and shared her offerings in the form of a brutalist world tour. Designed as a cyberpunk bacchanal at the end of time, the Chromatica Ball’s aesthetic was harsh and uncompromising, an honest reflection of how Gaga was feeling at the time. She returned to the stage pandemic cooled, but it wasn’t exactly the kind of fun on which she’d staked her name. And, while Chromatica did inch Gaga closer to her dance-pop origins, it felt stilted and sterilized, not nearly as eccentric and liberated as her past work. Yet something finally compelled Gaga to go full-tilt, that something being her fiancé Michael Polansky, who had the same request the Little Monsters for which had been yearning: make weird-ass pop music again.

Written and produced alongside Polansky, plus collaborators Gesaffelstein, Cirkut, and Andrew Watt, Gaga’s seventh proper studio album, MAYHEM, sees entropy as an advantage, and she lets her freak flag fly with a maximalist sound. The two very Gaga singles, “Disease” and “Abracadabra,” signaled a turn toward industrial dance, yet many of MAYHEM’s tracks pull more from ’80s funk and grunge. Despite its perceived darkness, it’s really a jubilant record, bringing together every part of Gaga—the arena-rock balladeer, the kitschy thespian, the captivating ballroom emcee—and marks a welcome return to form. Here are six takeaways from the album.

Welcome Back to the Stage, Every Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga referred to MAYHEM as “reassembling a shattered mirror,” and her seventh album is a collage of Gagas past and present. Those industrial piercings and throaty vocals buried underneath “Disease” recall the faint whispers of “Heavy Metal Lover,” while the stadium-sized “Garden of Eden” is like “MANiCURE” by way of a demo track from The Fame. Even “How Bad Do U Want Me” feels reminiscent of an Ally B-side from A Star is Born. Not many pop stars could succeed in this persona recycling, but MAYHEM recaptures the defiant energy of her early records while not veering into desperation.

Curated Chaos

MAYHEM genre-hops to its benefit. Here, there’s a squelchy Nine Inch Nails strut to “Perfect Celebrity,” and, only a couple of tracks later, Gaga switches into a double dutch chant on the glitzy disco bop “Zombieboy,” a tribute to the late model and “Born This Way” video star Rick Genest. There’s even one point on the David Bowie–sampling “Killah” where Gaga’s voice falls away and the instrumental takes over; as the guitar loops into infinity and fuzzy drums start to pick up, she suddenly unleashes a tongue-out, hair-raising shriek. Lady Gaga psych-rock album? I would like to see it.

“Without a Good Chorus, Who Really Gives a Fuck?”

During the press run for her new album, Gaga was reminded of the time she claimed it took her 10 minutes to write “Born This Way” and also of her stance on the above quote. She played it off as an intentionally flagrant aside, but MAYHEM proves that she’s still full of catchy earworms (including the gibberish babyspeak of “Abracadabra”). On Michael Jackson-tinged “Shadow of a Man,” Gaga recalls how she learned how to stand out in male-dominated spaces in her early career. Nearly 20 years since signing with Interscope, the song takes on another meaning. Even if she’s pushed into obscurity, as many female artists past a certain age often are, she’ll always find a way to be seen and heard. “Watch me, I swear,” she growls. “I’ll dance in the shadow of a man.” MAYHEM promises you’ll stick around.

Screamin’ for Me Baby

A really great Gaga scream is as effective as an electrical shot to the heart, and to hear her roar, growl, shriek, and howl across MAYHEM is absolutely rejuvenating. Standouts include the aforementioned scream on “Killah” and the pining yelps on “Vanish Into You.” Screeches aside, though, her powerhouse vocals shine on the album, as on the traditional, soulful Bruno Mars duet “Die With a Smile,” and grotesquely on “Disease.” “Perfect Celebrity” sounds like she’s expelling a demon from her soul as she slides from sickly sweet to a raspy snarl. “You love to hate me-e–e—e–e-eeeeeeee!” In a sea of wispy, head-voice forward pop stars, it’s thrilling to hear Gaga sing every lyric with her full chest.

Trip-Hop is Back… Maybe?

Likely due to Gesaffelstein’s production involvement, MAYHEM features some murky, acid-y synths on “Perfect Celebrity,” and later on the funk-forward “Killah,” which got me wondering: Are we in for a trip-hop revival in 2025? Nu-disco has been one foot out the door for what feels like, well, forever, and, with the rise of pop’s grittier stars, we’re overdue for a new subgenre to define the next handful of years of popular music. I first noticed some trip-hop influence on Dua Lipa’s last record and more overtly on FKA twigs’ “Girl Feels Good,” and the latter provides a much needed breath of fresh air to the state of pop diva experimentation. Perhaps Gaga’s full-throated version of trip-hop might point to a wider homage to the ’90s genre, which yielded some of the most exciting pop albums of that decade.

Gaga-isms Galore:

• “You start to slur and, and I start to squeal/I’m fallin’ over in my nine-inch heels” (“Garden of Eden”)
• “I look so hungry, but I look so good/Tap on my vein, suck on my diamond blood” (“Perfect Celebrity”)
• “Put your paws all over me, you zombie boy” (“Zombieboy”)
• “River in my eyes, I’ve got a poem in my throat” (“LoveDrug”)
• “Lovers kiss in a garden made of thorns/Traces of lonely words, illusions torn” (“Blade of Grass”)