Lady Gaga fans have theorised that Taylor Swift makes an incognito appearance on Gaga’s new album, Mayhem.
The album’s ninth track, titled “How Bad Do U Want Me”, is an Eighties synth-pop number with unmistakable vocal parallels to Swift’s work.
Fans have been divided over the song, with some reckoning it’s a discrete collaboration between the two artists, while others have called it a direct “parody” of Swift’s work.
A group of fans have wondered whether Swift provided backing vocals for the song. However, Swift is not credited on the album and is not actually on the record.
One person wrote on X/Twitter: “My theory is that Taylor secretly wrote How Bad Do You Want Me for Gaga.. the production? the vocal style? the lyrics?? it's screaming 2014-2019 Taylor so bad.” Others have pointed out that the song sounds similar to the body of work on Swift’s award-winning 2022 album Midnights and 2014 album 1989.
Other fans have seemed disappointed by the sonic crossover, with one person writing: “I played how bad do you want me and my mom asked if it was a Taylor Swift song she sold to Gaga. I’m crying,” as another added: “Why is there a Taylor Swift song on this Lady Gaga album?”
A listener added: “‘How Bad Do U Want Me’ really sounds like Gaga tried to do a parody of a Taylor Swift song and it ends up sounding exactly like her actual songs.”
Gaga fans have jumped to her defence, pointing out that the musician has released songs with the same synth-pop flair in the past, such as her 2008 song “Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)”.
“It’s just a pop song with a feminine delivery & bright 1980s synths.. haven’t u guys heard Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)? Lady Gaga is not a stranger to these kinds of songs.”
In The Independent’s five-star review of the album, critic Helen Brown points out that “How Bad Do U Want Me” lays its “floating narrative style and vocal delivery on Taylor Swift’s shoulder”.
Brown remarked that Mayhem harks back to “the defiant freakazoid electropop spirit of her 2008 debut, The Fame” and “fills the sagging inflatable doll of the last decade’s safer musical choices and slumping sales”.
“For her sixth studio album, Mayhem, hails the return of your Mama Monster to all her shock-horror-bop glory,” added Brown.
The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis gave the album four stars, but remarked that the biggest downfall was “How Bad Do U Want Me”, which starts ofd well but “devolves into a song over which the melodic influence of Taylor Swift hangs a little too obviously”.
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