Lady Gaga made a “return to those Gothic dreams” of her early songs with her new album.
The 38-year-old singer has just released her seventh LP ‘Mayhem’ and she told how she felt a “really powerful” pull back towards the dark energy of her first two records, ‘The Fame Monster’ and ‘Born This Way’, but believes she has also broken “new ground” with her latest tracks.
She told Rolling Stone magazine: “It was really powerful. Maybe the last four or so albums I’ve made, I moved away from that and tried some different things, but this was a return to those Gothic dreams.
“I wanted to traverse old ground while breaking new ground, which I think is hard to do. There are a few moments on the album where some people might say, ‘Oh, that reminds me of this,’ because I do have a style, but I made an effort musically to push myself to a new place.”
The ‘Telephone’ hitmaker believes the album represents both resilience and chaos.
She explained: “‘Mayhem’, to me, is ultimately about resilience and also chaos. We need to be resilient through chaos. So it’s both. I do think I explored more sonically with bitterness on this album in a way that maybe I didn’t with some of my earlier records.”
When it came to the individual tracks on the record, Gaga singled out ‘Killah’ as one of her favourites because it is so unlike anything she has done before but it is still a “confident” song.
She said: “I love the production on it so much. The only live instrument on the whole record is a guitar, and it is just so much fun. It is so confident. But it was unlike any feel or groove that I’d ever worked on before.
“And also the truth is, I’m not that confident all the time. I’m someone who definitely can feel deeply insecure, but on that record, it’s like peak confidence.
“And that’s part of the journey of ‘Mayhem’ as one night out. If you think of the album as one whole night, it’s like that moment in the night when you’re just feeling your best.”