Pop stars spend their careers impaled on the horns of a perennial dilemma: whether to reinvent themselves and show range, or stick to core value variations. With Mayhem, her sixth solo album, her 10th overall, Lady Gaga has dumped the former strategy, which was stuttering of late, for an emphatic reiteration of the latter.
Mayhem marks a wholesale return to dancefloor freakiness, complete with self-quotes (Abracadabra) and a hard-edged electronic takedown of fame (Perfect Celebrity) that would not have been misplaced on her debut album, 2008’s The Fame.
