via @ladygaga on Instagram

After a long tease, Lady Gaga finally put out her seventh studio album titled “Mayhem.” Many people have been waiting and begging on bent knees for the “Old Gaga” to make a return, with longtime fans suspecting a resurrection. The pre-released songs included “Disease,” “Abracadabra” and “Die With a Smile” featuring Bruno Mars.

The first new song on the album, “Garden of Eden,” gives me major nostalgia with its loud pop sound and mixing of vocals. Her call out “DJ hit the lights” alone gave me whiplash to early 2010s pop, arguably one of the most influential modern times of music.

“Perfect Celebrity” and “Vanish Into You” feel heavily rock influenced. The step away from techno sound to let her singing shine makes you realize just how much of a vocal powerhouse Gaga is. While some artists rely on tech and autotune to create hits nowadays, Gaga instead chooses to use it for musical uniqueness. 

The second and only other feature on this album is “Killah” with Gesaffelstein. Gesaffelstein, a French-born music producer, has worked with well-known artists such as The Weekend, Daft Punk, and Charli XCX. Mixmag, British electro dance magazine, describes Gesaffelstein’s style as “dark, brooding yet enchanting techno,” and I believe this perfectly describes this song. Its intimidating vocals and technical buildups will make this a new club classic. 

My favorite songs off the whole album, by far, were “Zombieboy,” “LoveDrug” and “Shadow of A Man.” This is a new sound we are hearing from Gaga. These groovy 1980s glam rock songs are daily repeats for me. The strong basslines and disco violin riffs gave me heavy influences of some of my favorite artists such as Talking Heads and Bonnie Tyler. For fans who dislike techno music but enjoy good vocals, I recommend these two songs. 

The rotten fruits of the album were back to back songs, “How Bad Do U Want Me” and “Don’t Call Tonight.” Nothing stuck out to me about these songs. They felt more generic compared to other great hits on this album and both, to me, were lacking musically and even lyrically. Instead of meaningfully and emotionally charged lyrics, they felt disingenuous and bland. I wanted to say I was obsessed with every song on the album but that just wouldn’t be true. Truly loving an artist is to recognize when you don’t love everything they put out sometimes. 

The last two new songs of the album, “The Beast” and “Blade Of Grass,” were extremely strong stand out songs. “The Beast,”  a slow rock ballad, gave me intense Prince vibes. The flowy and floating vocals mixed with wailing guitar solos made this song musically interesting. On the other hand “Blade Of Grass,” a fully acoustic song, was both emotional in its musicality but also its lyrics. This song is definitely up there with my other favorites of the album. Lady Gaga is, arguably, one of the greatest singers of our generation and she proves it over and over again. 

This album gives me flashbacks to ten-year-old me jamming out to “The Fame,” “Born This Way” and “ARTPOP” on my iPod Touch. Gaga has created her own genre of pop music that most other artists fail to emulate. So far, not a song on this album has sounded similar and I love it! Everything from her lyrics, vocals, unique concepts, and stage presence makes her such a one of a kind artist. Gaga has been making music for almost 20 years now and it shows. She is an icon and “Mayhem” just proves so, and raises the bar even higher for artists releasing music nowadays.