Lady Gaga says new album Mayhem 'breaks a lot of rules'
Lady Gaga says her new album "breaks a lot of rules".
The 'Poker Face' hitmaker will drop her new record 'Mayhem' on March 7, and she has opened up on how all bets are off when it comes to the sound and genres, describing the collection as "utter chaos".
She told the March 2025 issue of ELLE UK: "The record just feels good to me. It sounds good. It breaks a lot of rules and has a lot of fun."
The 38-year-old pop megastar admitted she had to be "cutthroat" when it came to cutting down all the songs she'd written and settle on the 14 songs that make up the tracklist.
She explained: "'Mayhem' is about following your own chaos into whatever cranny of your life that it takes you to.
"And in that way, it was about following the songs. Writing as many songs as I did for this album was a labour of total love.
"And then you just have to be very cutthroat by the end."
Although other artists like Taylor Swift will happily release 31-track albums into the world, Gaga confessed she is a self-editor.
She added: "You just snip anything that's not good enough. It’s kind of like that wall of colour I was describing where I go, 'Okay, I could see how we could take that out and then this energy could move like this.' "
Gaga sees music as a wall of colour, which is known as synaesthesia, with each song having "a different shade".
She said: "As I'm writing, it assembles in my brain, then through the recording it becomes a full piece of colour.
"Every song is a different shade. A lot of the songs on this album have a maroon, brown colour to them. 'Bad Romance' was like that - it was reddish."
The March issue of ELLE UK is on sale from February 6. Head to https://www.elle.com/uk/lady-gaga-interview to read the interview.
The 'Poker Face' hitmaker will drop her new record 'Mayhem' on March 7, and she has opened up on how all bets are off when it comes to the sound and genres, describing the collection as "utter chaos".
She told the March 2025 issue of ELLE UK: "The record just feels good to me. It sounds good. It breaks a lot of rules and has a lot of fun."
The 38-year-old pop megastar admitted she had to be "cutthroat" when it came to cutting down all the songs she'd written and settle on the 14 songs that make up the tracklist.
She explained: "'Mayhem' is about following your own chaos into whatever cranny of your life that it takes you to.
"And in that way, it was about following the songs. Writing as many songs as I did for this album was a labour of total love.
"And then you just have to be very cutthroat by the end."
Although other artists like Taylor Swift will happily release 31-track albums into the world, Gaga confessed she is a self-editor.
She added: "You just snip anything that's not good enough. It’s kind of like that wall of colour I was describing where I go, 'Okay, I could see how we could take that out and then this energy could move like this.' "
Gaga sees music as a wall of colour, which is known as synaesthesia, with each song having "a different shade".
She said: "As I'm writing, it assembles in my brain, then through the recording it becomes a full piece of colour.
"Every song is a different shade. A lot of the songs on this album have a maroon, brown colour to them. 'Bad Romance' was like that - it was reddish."
The March issue of ELLE UK is on sale from February 6. Head to https://www.elle.com/uk/lady-gaga-interview to read the interview.
