After taking a break from her solo music career to focus on films and soundtracks (to varying success), Lady Gaga has announced the release date for her long-awaited sixth studio album, Mayhem.
As a countdown referencing the Grammy and Oscar winner’s past eras concluded on her website on January 27, it was revealed that her next album will be released on March 7.
Fans of the 38-year-old’s earlier work may be in luck, as the album’s first single, Disease, saw a return to the dark electro-pop that made her a pop phenomenon in the early 2010s.
But it seems as though her signature brand of dance-pop won’t be the only genre making an appearance on Mayhem. Initially billed as a stand-alone single, Gaga told the Los Angeles Times last month that her soft-rock-leaning Bruno Mars collaboration Die With A Smile is “a huge part” of her upcoming album, calling it the “missing piece”.
“The record is full of my love of music – so many different genres, so many different dreams. It leaps around genre in a way that’s almost corrupt.”
While we’ll have to wait and see whether Mayhem combines the debaucherous EDM of Artpop, the smooth jazz of Cheek to Cheek and the stripped-down Americana of Joanne, to celebrate the pop icon’s upcoming album we’ve ranked her solo efforts so far.
6. Chromatica (2020)
Before Chromatica’s release, Gaga fans were worried that she had turned her back on being a pop star for good. A Star Is Born has catapulted her to the leagues of the Oscars, while for years she’d avoided the dance-pop that made her a household name, traversing worlds of jazz and rock instead.
So when she appeared pink-haired and enwrapped in a bionic bodysuit on the cover of her fifth album, many breathed a sigh of relief: finally, the eccentric pop Gaga we all knew and loved was back. But sadly, the eccentricity of Chromatica starts, and mostly ends, with its otherworldly visuals.
For an album that takes influence from the hedonistic house of the 90s, there is hardly any edge to be heard. Tracks have been buffed, polished and smoothed within an inch of their lives production-wise, providing a watered-down backdrop for the confessional lyricism around mental health, fame and healing that make Chromatica one of Gaga’s most personal releases.
Flashes of brilliance come in the form of 911, Babylon and Replay, and the operatic interludes dotted through the tracklist add some good old dramatics. Featuring Ariana Grande, Chromatica’s hit Rain On Me provided a piece of euphoric pop during the gloom of lockdown, but five years later and the album sounds her most dated. Compared to her previous pop efforts, Chromatica is half-baked, with Gaga appearing to be holding something back. If anyone else released it, Chromatica would be deemed a solid album, but by Gaga’s standards it’s lukewarm.
5. Artpop (2013)
Where Chromatica could be considered forgettable, 2013’s Artpop feels anything but: it’s undoubtedly Gaga’s most divisive album. A chaotic exploration of abrasive EDM, techno and trap, her third album is littered, as its name would suggest, with references to the works of her collaborator Jeff Koons, Botticelli and Andy Warhol.
At the time of its release, the societal hate train that at some point seeks to decimate the career of every female pop star had its tracks firmly set in Gaga’s direction. Headlines about her weight and her recently cancelled tour overshadowed the album, which itself drew criticism for its lack of cohesion, ill-judged R Kelly and Terry Richardson collaborations and some shock tactics used to promote it (namely the SXSW performance where a vomit artist spewed green liquid on Gaga’s chest). Artpop was widely dubbed as her “flop era”.
But close you eyes to the headlines, and Artpop is, at its core, a decent experimental pop album. The art references may ocassionally feel try-hard, but its scatterbrain energy is almost enigmatic compared to the more straightforward pop delivery of say, The Fame. She stomped on new ground on Artpop and had fun - evident on songs like Donatella, a silly-yet fabulous ode to the designer and the sexually submissive anthem G.U.Y. (short for Girl Under You).
“Making this album was like heart surgery,” Gaga tweeted in response to a 2021 fan campaign encouraging people to buy the album on iTunes. “I was desperate, in pain [she recovered from hip surgery during its creation], and poured my heart into electronic music that slammed harder than any drug I could find.” It really does sounds like it.
4. Joanne (2016)
Some will consider it blasphemy that Gaga’s Americana effort has ranked higher than two of her pop releases, but Joanne marked a considerable turning point in her career. Maximalist effort Artpop had disappointed by the pop fandom’s standards, which saw Gaga switch lanes: now, her voice and songwriting abilities would be the stars of the show instead of her wheelhouse of theatrics.
Describing Joanne, which is named after her late aunt and boasts production by Mark Ronson, the singer called the album a “soul-searching experience”, which feels apt. Not completely abandoning her dance roots, the album employs disco rock, soft Americana and elements of country music to tell stories of family, heartbreak, sorrow, and the complex relationships with the men in her life.
Revealing her knack for brilliant ballads (Million Reasons) before she went all in for the A Star Is Born soundtrack, the stripped-back essence of Joanne still has Gaga’s glorious eccentricity at heart: whether in the form of a reggae-tinged masturbation number (Dancin’ In Circles), electro-charged cowboy track John Wayne, or the goosebump-inducing key change of Perfect Illusion.
Some little monsters resent the album for taking Gaga out of the pop stratosphere for a hot minute, but clearly, she needed a break from it. Joanne didn’t just open up listeners to take Gaga more seriously as an artist, it gave us a glimpse into the somewhat relatable life of Stefani Germanotta, the woman behind the crystal-encrusted sunglasses and meat dress.
3. The Fame (2008)
Looking back, life feels very different before Lady Gaga crash-landed onto the music scene with a disco stick, a fringe so sharp you slice a finger on it and a dream of future-facing, 80s-referencing electro-pop. Before its release, when pop music wasn’t taking a backseat to R&B, it was defined by sickly piano-driven love songs. Thankfully, The Fame arrived and said “F that”.
The album was thanks to a years-long commitment to achieving pop stardom. Writing music for Britney Spears and The Pussycat Dolls wasn’t enough for Stefani Germanotta, and neither was lighting up basement clubs in downtown New York as a go-go dancer, something she later described as “liberating”.
Packed with what would become Gaga’s signature hits – Paparazzi, Poker Face, Just Dance – The Fame relishes in all of the ‘bad’ things we’re told we shouldn’t enjoy too much of in life: sex, money, drugs and attention, to produce the perfect slice of uninhibited disco, synth and glam rock-infused pop.
An unforgettable introduction to a star and the visual spectacle that accompanies her (pop stars notably stopped performing in jeans after its release), The Fame is home to unbridled energy, clear-cut vision and originality that others could only dream of. It’s no surprise that Rolling Stone named it one of the best debut albums of all time.
2. Born This Way (2011)
After the tremendous success and culture shift birthed by her debut, the stakes were high for Gaga’s sophomore effort. Would she live up to the musical genius of The Fame? How would she top the headline-making visuals that go hand-in-hand with her music?
The answer arrived in the form of 2011’s Born This Way, which saw her take a dark, industrial view of pop music propped up by a jumble of electro-rock, techno, heavy metal and the occassional saxophone. Marking her starkest creative reinvention (she had prosthetics on her face on daytime TV, for god’s sake), songs like Judas (the music video of which portrays the singer as Mary Magdalene) and Black Jesus + Amen angered Catholics, while the empowering LGBTIQA+ spirit of its title track left conservatives fuming. But which decent female pop artist hasn’t angered conservatives, right?
Sonically, Born This Way is Gaga’s most cohesive work, and is a rollercoaster ride of powerful arena rock tunes like You And I (which features Brian May on electric guitar), playfully empowering tracks about sex (Government Hooker) and even some faux-German lyrics (ScheBe). Although it suffered from a curse of overexposure before its release, you can’t argue with the fact that nothing we’ve heard since quite sounds the same as Born This Way.
1. The Fame Monster (2009A
Technically, The Fame Monster isn’t a Lady Gaga album – it’s a reissue of her debut with eight additional songs. But these just aren’t just any old songs, they’re bonafide pop classics. The glamour and beauty found on The Fame is devoured by The Fame Monster – a metaphor Gaga coined for the ugly side of celebrity. But has the ugly side of something has never sounded quite this good.
You’d be hard pressed to find a pop singles chronology that stacks up to The Fame Monster’s. There’s the drama-filled brilliance of Bad Romance, undoubtedly Gaga’s trademark song which was later named as the catchiest song in the world by the American Psychological Association. Next, the Beyoncé-assisted Telephone, which became the biggest female collaboration of the 2000s and has one of the most lauded music videos of all time. And of course, Alejandro – which adds a slightly melancholic flavour of ABBA-like Europop to the mix.
But the EP’s non singles also shine: Dance In The Dark is a new wave-imbued dance thumper with a spoken interlude honouring Princess Diana, while So Happy I Could Die captures the messy, unparalled joy of a great night out. The Fame Monster, in all its eccentricity, tells us that Lady Gaga is at her best when she’s on a completely different planet to the rest of us – and is the work of a pop phenomenon at her very best.
