Switched on Pop - Lady Gaga's Monster Return

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

In 2022, Lady Gaga embarked on The Chromatica Ball – a stadium tour featuring a stage that Gaga herself referred to as her "museum of brutality." Three years later, this idea of a brutalist enshrining of all things Monster can come to represent her new studio album MAYHEM.  Over the course of fourteen tracks, Gaga is "unafraid to reference or not reference," invoking not just the pop weirdos of a past era like Prince and Bowie, but also her contemporaries, in this gothic and chaotic web of a record. This episode of Switched On Pop, Little Monster-in-residence Reanna takes Charlie and Nate on a tour through the Gaga-seum, showcasing Gaga's ability to pay tribute to her inspirations, her imitators, and her biggest icon: herself.  MORE Subscribe to our newsletter to receive your own bingo card! SONGS DISCUSSED Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande – Rain On Me Lady Gaga – Disease Lady Gaga, Gesaffelstein – Killah David Bowie – Watch That Man David Bowie – Fame Queen – Killer Queen Prince – Kiss Prince – Sign O' The Times Talking Heads – Psycho Killer Nile Rodgers, CHIC, Lady Gaga – I Want Your Love Lady Gaga – Perfect Celebrity Lady Gaga – Paparazzi Lady Gaga – The Fame Lady Gaga – Applause Nine Inch Nails – Closer Depeche Mode – Mercy in You Lady Gaga – Vanish Into You Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe! The Weeknd – In Your Eyes Lady Gaga – How Bad Do U Want Me Taylor Swift – Style Taylor Swift – Gorgeous Yaz – Only You Lady Gaga – Zombieboy Gwen Stefani – Hollaback Girl Lady Gaga – Summerboy Lady Gaga – Beautiful, Dirty Rich Lady Gaga – Shadow Of A Man Lady Gaga – Nothing On But the Radio Lady Gaga – Garden of Eden Lady Gaga – Bad Romance Lady Gaga – Abracadabra Lady Gaga – Government Hooker Lady Gaga – Bloody Mary Lady Gaga – Swine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switchdom Pub. I'm producer Rianna Cruz. Producer Rianna Cruz. Come on, little monster Rianna Cruz. This is songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. The rumors are true.

I am a little monster. And I think you guys know what we're going to be talking about today. Gaga. Exactly. Lady Gaga has a brand new record called Mayhem. and I actually want to start by going back to 2022 before Mayhem was even in the picture. So the both of you know, I saw Lady Gaga on her last tour,

the otherworldly Chromatica ball. Who could forget? I haven't seen her live since I think it was the born-this-way ball. I also love how Gaga names Oliver Tours balls. There's so much ephemera of ballroom culture and drag culture in all of her work that I think flies over most mainstream audiences. and she's like throwing it out right there. This is a ball.

And something that I find interesting, specifically about the chromatica ball, was that she said on record that the tour was her, quote, Museum of Brutality. Dark. Very Antony Nartou of her. The stage was this large,

cement, brutalist design, and Gaga interpreted both her older and newer songs in this dark and chaotic environment, which is funny to me, because the songs on Chromatica sounded like this. Rain on me. It's so good. I love it on me. It's great, but I don't consider it a part of this Museum of Brutality concept.

Not at all. This is like upbeat 90s house. This is not brutal. Ammancipatory. Right, but she leaned into it so heavy on the chromatica ball. In this museum of brutality, songs like Rain on Me were given a Gothic. slant. She actually performed the song Alice on a giant slab that was lifted at a 45 degree angle like she was Frankenstein. It was really rad. Okay, so she got dark, got got got gothic.

Which was an interesting concept for her. It was something we hadn't seen since 2011 and born this way. So it's fitting then that Gaga's latest record would lean heavy into this idea, this museum of brutality concept. Flash forward to 2025 and enter Gaga's new album, the funky, detailed, and fully gagaian mayhem. Gothic, brutal, mayhem. Yes, that's the record's lead single, Disease, and immediately, we're getting a flashback to the quote-unquote Old Gaga that we know and love these massive Gothic pop songs. It is the sound that she created from the very beginning.

She's owning it after having made huge diversions into jazz pop and country. music. But she's going back true to form. For me, I feel like disease is kind of like Gaga's closer by nine inch nails. It's dark. It's sickening. It's using disease as a metaphor for sexuality. I like that thought and I want you to hold on to it because mayhem has been out for a week and I have realized that like the Museum of P brutality, mayhem is essentially a museum of Gaga. Each track is simultaneously an ode to her inspirations, her imitators, and also Gaga herself. Beautiful image, Rihanna. I have to quickly derail us because I do regret that in our bingo episode at the beginning of the year, we didn't create a bingo space that was just Charlie making

a reference to nine inch nails in every episode because it would be, you would have instant bingo. It's the beat. I'm just saying it is the closer beat. I'm just saying. Rana, do it for the people. Give me closer. You're lucky because it's already on my playlist. I can feel the da-da.

I can feel your disease. Charlie, you're jumping ahead on the Gaga-Zium tour. I thought we'd all buy tickets and traverse the halls of this hallowed place together. We could poke around mayhem together and explore the layered universe of chaos that she creates on this record. And I think it's fitting to start with one of Gaga's most quoted quotables. Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, shit on it, vomit on it, eat it, get birth to it. That's very close to, like, quoting harder, better, faster, stronger, but way more aggressive.

I think we needed a Charlie references daft punk. Bingo. That's all I have. That's all I have. That's all I got. So I want to look specifically at the one specific part where she goes, quote, unafraid to reference or not reference. This is from a Hollywood reporter interview from 2015. And she is referencing the creator of Glee, an American horror story, Ryan Murphy, who she worked with on AHS Hotel. But that quote, Unafraid to Reference, could also apply to Gaga.

She often puts her inspirations in direct conversation with her own artistry. So let me take you down the inspiration wing of the Gaga Museum and our first exhibit, the track, Killa. Kiss. That is all prints. Immediately, we're smacked in the face with references all over this song. It's hard to listen to Killa and not think of who this song is referencing. We got essentially a who's who of 80s talent, one of whom is the artist Prince and his song Kiss. It's that falsetto.

It's that lindrum. It's that funky guitar. Yeah. Give us a little bit of that falsetto, Charlie. Yeah. That was not a successful. I'm praying on his vulnerability right now. He's far from his wife and kids, South by Southwest, Austin.

We can just have our way with him, Brianna. recording lying down in a homemade In a homemade fort in his hotel roof Podcasts port This man is dedicated to his work though So we got we gotta honor that Taking it back to Killa Please

Let's run it back and hear that little guitar jingle But that's not the only prince reference We gotta take it to the beginning of the song And hear the melody of the verses on Kila The verse cadence Is the same as another hit of princes Sign of the Times Hmm.

And Francis skinny man died of a big disease with a little name. Oh. My chances girlfriend came across a needle and soon she did the same. Dang. It's a prince collage. Take it up an octave and then you got killer. Nice. I'd call that a descending mixalidian mode syncopated bob.

How about that? Let's go. That's why we have you here, Nate. For terms like that, I don't think anybody's described this song like that. Yeah, yeah, I think you're the first. Happy to help. I hear Prince on this track, but I think more prominently, I see it as kind of an homage to the iconic David Bowie.

Gaga loves David Bowie, and she has constantly referenced him across her career. She's referenced his Aladdin Sane look on the cover of the fame. She paid tribute to him at the 2016 Grammys. And she's also quoted in NPR saying that the day. David Bowie song, Watch That Man, off of Aladdin'sane, was her, quote, artistic birth. It's easy to see the parallels image-wise,

but going back to Killa, here's the first time Bowie is a direct reference in her work. And it goes back to that riff that also connects to Kiss by Prince. Fame. Exactly. It is the riff from the 1975 track Fame. off of the David Bowie record Young Americans.

Yes. Oh, there it is. I also note that both Killa and Fame start on the second beat of the measure. So there's this pause. It's like two, three, four, one. Killa or one. Fame. So they both have this kind of anticipation that makes the title lyric kind of hit a little harder, I think.

Killer Rihanna, may I propose another homage? Mm, please. Well, Lady Gaga gets part of her name from a queen's song, Radio Gaga. Mm-hmm, this is true. And Queen has a huge hit in the song, Killer Queen. Ah. So maybe not an obvious Sonic reference, but she's a killer.

She's Lady Gaga. They were Queen, Killer Queen, Radio Gaga. there seems to be some kind of, you know, conspiracy theory going on here. I like the tinfoil hat approach. Put it on the placard. You know, and I even hear a little bit of killer as opposed to killer in Freddie Mercury's vocal. So maybe. Right.

I need to note that the title of killer by Lady Gaga is spelled K-I-L-A-H, hence the pronunciation. We already got Prince. We already got David Bowie. We already got Queen. I'm going to invoke another inspiration, Talking Heads. When Lady Gaga performed Killa on S&L recently, she was wearing an oversized suit-like outfit, immediately invoking the classic fit of David Byrne

in the documentary Stop Making Sense. And on that note, a lot of songs are about killers. You know, it's one of the tropes in gothic pop music. Psycho killer. I don't think it's a coincidence that this song has the same concept as one of Talking Heads, defining tracks, Psycho Killer. I'm loving this museum tour. And last but not least, I'd be remiss to not mention the Nile Rogers Sheik

influence on this funky disco track. Gaga actually collaborated directly with Sheik and Nile Rogers on the 2018 cover of I Want Your Love. I just needed to defend myself. In my quick Googling, other sources like Variety Rolling Stone, They've all sort of called out the references on this track and included Nine Inch Nails. I'm not the only one. I'm not alone here. Yeah. You're the only one still talking about it, though. We've all moved on. So it kind of sounds like a you thing. But I'm glad I'm happy for you. I hear you, Charlie. I see you. I do think Nine Inch Nails is present on the back half of the song in particular. Killa has a feature from techno DJ Gassafelstein, who also produced the track. And he puts a stamp on the song, turning the BPM dial up to 11 and going pretty heavy industrial with it.

Those synth drowns. That was sick. Whoa. Dang. Gaga's screaming. The tempo goes up. It's fit for Burgine, you know. Gaga got her start in underground clubs in New York.

So this song and the way that this track turns from 80s funk pop into techno could be an ode to her. upbringing. I feel like we have just begun this museum tour. We've hung out in the Killa Gallery for a long time. I mean, I could hang out here all day. I love this song, but I feel like we need to keep moving. It's not the Killa Gallery, Charlie. It's the wing of inspiration. The wing of inspiration. Thank you. I apologize. And we're going to visit our next painting, one with the same grimy underground sensibility, perfect celebrity. Right off the bat, we're getting a ton of thematic similarities to some of God. Gaga's past works, some of her most famous songs. This exploration of fame, being toxic, being in the spotlight,

we see it on songs like paparazzi. The song, The Fame, off of the album, The Fame. And we even see this satiristic slant that she takes celebrity in on the song, applause from art pop. In short, nobody loves being famous and exploring what it means to be famous more than Lady Gaga. She's attacked this theme at, length. But in terms of sonic inspiration on this song,

we're going to go to Charlie's favorite reference, Night Inch Nails. No way. Unbelievable. Findicated. Just listen to that intro of Perfect Celebrity. We got a Trent Resner Nine Inch Nails groove happening there.

It's very industrial. You can't make Gothic dance music without referencing industrial. Like, if you want to make dance music dark, you've got to use those drone synths, some of those ugly sounds. It's the formula. And Gaga loves nine inch nails, so it's no surprise. In a recent interview, she said, quote, I black out every time I'm in Trent Resner's presence. This is a true super fan of nine inch nails we got here. I also just want to say

that she in a recent interview with The New York Times talked about her love of the jazz guitarist Julian Lodge. I don't think that has anything to do with this album other than Lady Gaga has got varied references. She's got big ears, as we say, in the jazz community. It goes beyond nine-inch nails. I think Perfect Celebrity has this Gothic Depeche-Modian quality as well, kind of leading on industrial, but also a synth-pop flare. A song like Mercy in You by Depeche Mode evokes Perfect Celebrity to me, particularly in the verses. Here's Perfect Celebrity again. And moving forward to the chorus, when the chorus hits, Gaga goes full thrashy, grunge, 90s, dirt rock.

I'm thinking about what you said about this being a return to themes that Gaga has explored earlier. And I definitely feel that when I listened to this track. And then hearing these nine-inch nails references, these Depeche Mode references, perfect celebrity feels like it's reaching for the core audience of Gaga stands, of the monsters in a way. It's like hitting so many of the marks. And can we just talk about her commitment to her vocal delivery?

Like, you can see her shaking her hands, screaming feet back from the mic, giving every inch of her identity into this commentary on celebrity. And I feel like, you know, when we were listening to The Fame, her first album, I feel like she developed that over time. That wasn't there in that first album.

She, like, consciously, created that voice and that persona, which I think is really cool. It's the type of confidence. I think my favorite moment, perhaps on this record as a whole, is the way she sings hate me, and her voice kind of flays up. And it's like, you love to hate me before she launches into the chorus. Wow. This song, Perfect Celebrity, I feel like, is the closest that we've gotten to that

original museum of brutality concept that she's given. to Chromatica. This is self-referential. It's fun. She's confident. And it's ultimately punk rock. And I feel like Gaga has always been punk rock. But this is the first time she's fully dipped her toe in the grunge pond. She said that she wanted to do a whole grunge record at some point in the mayhem process, scrapped it. And we were left with perfect celebrity. But as a representation of what Gaga can do, I like it. I think it's different for her. I haven't seen her do this sound since she performed with Metallica at the 59th Grammys and sang Moth to a Flame.

I forgot about that. Oh my God. Wow. She is such a good life of performer. She is blending with James Hetfield of Metallica. Like, I can hardly tell that it's her and then him. She's so good at that style. It's so organic.

She has this rock voice, so I'm happy she's using it. Pervic Celebrity is rock ga, something that she's alluded to on records like, born this way in songs like Electric Chapel, and I think perfect celebrity captures one of Gaga's best qualities. She's always able to be weird and try new things in her work. I feel like she's one of our only legacy pop stars who's constantly able to push new boundaries and access new sounds with a near effortless flare. Part of the way that she's able to find new space for her own creativity is clearly that she is a student of music. She knows her references. She knows her genres. She knows how to fit within them and then to blur them together. And she's able to put that

in her new work. So we're going to take a turn out of this inspiration wing and move into the next section of the museum. So flash forward to the 2010s. And as with any innovator in pop music, Gaga's been working for like a decade and has created a slew of imitators in her wake, all of whom are a match to varying degrees, Gaga's weirdness and her ability to move with a single pop song. We've been talking a lot about mayhem in the context of this dark and brooding and gothic museum of brutality. But contrary to what that implies, songs like Perfect Celebrity are not indicative of the whole record. The album is a very happy record. Gaga's engaged. She's in what seems to be a fulfilling relationship in her life and is artistically inspired.

So in that happiness, it's easy to see how some of her imitators come into the picture on the more optimistic songs. Critic and Powers noted to me recently that the song Vanish Into You sounded similar to recent Chapel Rhone hits. Oh, yeah. I could kind of see it. I don't know. What do you guys think?

Oh, there's definitely a chapel song that I'm hearing in there. I mean, Gaga brought drag into mainstream pop so that Chapel could be in full drag, you know, during all of her performances. But it's not just the fashion. It's like the 80s synth pop thing. It's the vocal styling. I can't scratch the itch.

What is it? I mean, I think something that Chapel is good at that Gaga's doing here is creating these tragic and wistful love songs. And I hear a little bit of my favorite, Good luck, babe, in this Gaga track. Yeah, I was going to say, especially the accompaniment. And here's again the chorus of Vanishing Tew. They're on the same 80s synth pop playlist.

For me, I think Vanishing Tew is if Chapel Rhone did a Max Martin weekend song. Totally. I think you nailed it, Rihanna. Yeah, it has these like grand synths that fit well in the weekend's lusher productions. I think it could be put in the same conversation as a song, like, In Your Eyes. That's the weekend, not Peter Game Real, just to be clear. Another inspiration of Gagas.

Perhaps also has a song called In Your Eyes. Anyway, sorry. These connections, whether they're there or not, teach their own, but there is one specific song on the record that has been the talk of the town for having distinct similarities to another certain pop star with eras. Wink, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And we're going to get to it after the break. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it.

What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready?

Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. So in this conversation, we've been framing mayhem as Gaga's ode to a lifetime of pop music. And we're currently in the imitator wing of the Museum of Gaga.

We'd be remiss to not mention what is the biggest sound alike on the album, the track, How Bad Do You Want Me? Yeah. So I don't think it's a secret who this song sounds like. Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. Using more positive skewing words, I think, how bad do you want me is a tribute to Taylor Swift. I'd say it's like a full imitation of the Jack Antonoff Taylor Swift sound crafted on records like 1989 and reputation. Yeah, there's so many hallmarks here. I mean, musically, you've got these 80s program drums.

You've got these long, sustained basses, which we talked about in our midnight episode. couple years ago. Then in terms of the lyrics and the melody, you've got a lot of these like kind of one-note staccato repeated melodies. And then lyrically, it's like all about this kind of self-reflective journey, which is very, I think, very different than Gog as usual thing, which is more about like the people and reaching out towards everyone. And this is more about like exploring the minutia of your own experience in a very swiftian way. So, so yeah, that all jumped out at me when I heard this as well. I would just like to quote a couple of Taylor Swift songs referencing blue jeans. Someone who started out as a country star, her song, Tim McGrath. Think of my head on your chest and my old faded blue jeans. A place in this world. Got the radio on my old blue jeans. You belong with me. Walk in the streets with you in your worn out jeans. I think that's the closest reference. It's on delicate, dark jeans and your Nikes. Look at you. It's on lover's London boy. Blue jeans are everywhere in Taylor Swift. And here they are. You didn't even mention style.

Oh, this song just sounds exactly like style. I mean, I feel like this song sounds a little bit like style just generally, right, in the way that it's produced, the way that Gaga's singing. But she's also dealing in lyrical archetypes that Taylor deals with on style. Gaga says, you like the bad girl I got in me. Even good boys leave on style. Taylor sings similar lines in I got that good girl faith in a type of. little skirt. You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye. These ideas of like

the bad boy and the good girl Gaga flips it and she's the bad girl and her fiance ostensibly who she's singing to is the good boy. I mean I hear style but there's another reference. There's like many Taylor Swift songs in here.

There's a little bit of anti-hero I want to say. Maybe a little bit of all too well even. Nate, Charlie. I think the most overt comparison can be found in the first few seconds of how bad do you want me? It's pretty much the same sound as gorgeous from reputation.

Whoa. Yeah. Yeah, this is definitely a tribute. This is not like an unconscious, oops I made a Taylor Swift song. I put together a Taylor Swift playlist. We're making a Taylor Swift song so that everybody talks about

how Gaga has a Taylor Swift song. we are living in the Taylor Swift Generation. Charlie, that's a very cynical take on this. What if it's just there because Gaga's a genuine fan? Oh, I don't mean to be cynical about it whatsoever. No, no, no, no. I'm saying like, there are artists who write songs that sound like someone else's song and they do it sort of subconsciously and people are like,

you're leaning too close to your references where I actually really feel like this truly is a tribute. Like, I think that she is very much intentionally making these references. I have no beef with that. And, okay, I guess there was some cynicism and the idea of like, hey, I know this is going to get some attention. Right. But she's a good mimic. She can do Metallica.

She can do Taylor Swift. Good for her. There's also a saccharine quality to the way that Gaga sings that doesn't really feel like her. Sure. Like it sounds kind of like she's making a demo for Taylor Swift. You know how you listen to like Rihanna songs that Sia wrote and you're like, Rihanna is singing like Sia and Sia's kind of putting Rihanna inflections in it? This is kind of how it feels for Lady Gaga.

It's like she's writing a Taylor Swift song that she's then. going to sell to Taylor. Is there like a spoken bridge moment? Yeah. Every Taylor took as a spoken bridge. Are you serious? Is there really? I'm so serious.

Wait, what? It ain't real. How bad? Do you want me for real? Yeah, but she does it in the Gaga voice. She does it in that like Gaga drag queen, like leading of the ball voice that she does on all of her other tracks. But it is a spoken moment a la Taylor.

It's the same voice as don't be a drag. Just be a queen. I'm born this way. Exactly. Don't be a drag. Just be a queen. Whether you broke or evergreen Your black white base show

Legisacet Your Lebanese, your Oriole The lyrics Did an age of the best I'll say that But the voice is the same The voice stuck around Yeah but what Taylor Swift's song could possibly

Have a spoken bridge All of them It's her signature Shake on me Shake on me I can't I can't wait for the Taylor Gaga collab with even more Gaga. I think how bad do you want me is the adult version of a lot of Taylor Swift songs.

I think Taylor Swift deals in these immature melodies, perhaps these immature concepts. And I think how bad do you want me is like a Taylor Swift song for adults, if that makes sense. Yeah, you mean immature. Her audience is largely like is more adolescent. Yes. So the music has like an adolescent like quality to it. Yes. I just want to say, I don't think anyone can question your journalistic standards.

Thank you. Because against whatever feelings you might have, you went and listened to Taylor Swift's entire catalogs so you can find that reference to gorgeous. So you're doing the work, Rihanna. I love reputation. Got to go on record and say, Reputations by favorite Taylor album. It's a good album. The last note on how bad do you want me before we leave the wing. This song is not only about her imitators. it also, like the rest of these tracks, reaches back to her inspirations and music's past. How Bad Do You Want Me is essentially the same song

as Yaz's 1982, Only You. Oh, similar sequels. Oh, I need it for another day and all I ever knew. How bad do you want me? It's the same song. Here's the verse from How Bad Do You Want Me? Because if I get too close, how bad do you want me?

Basically the same chords, very similar sequenced bass, melody, quite similar. So we've seen her inspirations, we've seen her imitators, but I don't think anybody inspires Gaga more than Gaga herself. And we've alluded to it this whole episode, Mayhem is an ode to Gaga and her own career. It's a retrospective repurpose look at her impact. And it takes many forms. But we're going to go into the last wing of this museum of Gaga

and take a look at songs that reference herself. Let's start with the fun and upbeat zombie boy. Okay, no, pause, pause, pause. Yes, she said pause. We get it. That's a big part of her thing. You put your paws up. I get it.

But that is Hollerback Girl. Yes, Charlie, you're right on the money. That is pretty much Gwen Stefani's hollowback girl. This museum is an aurivorous. Totally. But taking it back to Gaga's own career, I think it's a spiritual sequel to her closer from her first album, The Fame, Summer Boy. Wait, so Summer Boy sounds like an early Gwen Stefani song.

Like, it's got very much like ska, no doubt vibes. Yes. So by doing Summer Boy where she's referencing early Gwen Stefani and no doubt, then to do Zombie Boy and reference later stage Gwen Stefani, that is clever. Unafraid to reference or not reference. That quote just keeps proving true. Yeah. It's giving best in show when Jennifer Coolidge says about her older lover that we could talk or not talk for hours.

We can reference or not reference. I find Zombie Boy to be the more grown, less saccharin version of Summer Boy. Oh, it's very chic too. Oh, fun. So we talked about the chanting, the post-chorus that also serves as the intro. Along with being a layered Gwen Stefani parallel, the chanting could also be referencing a repurpose demo of Lady Gaga's from the fame era. Follow with me on this little monster pathway for a second. Here's Gaga's song, Beautiful Dirty Rich.

Another mantra moment to lead off the song, this is the demo for Beautiful Dirty Ritch. this is the demo for beautiful Dirty Rich that has some sonic similarity to Zombie Boy. Deep in the Gaga. I love it. Deep cuts. It's obviously, you know, pretty known cadence going all the way back to Tony Basil's Mickey and earlier. But it's too similar to not be notable.

Who was she quoting? She's quoting everyone else. She's quoting herself. Remind me what wing we're in now. We're in the Gaga Ian Wing. Okay, that's right. That's right. So that checks out because it's like

the self-referential part of the museum. Yes, and the beautiful, dirty, rich demo being present on Zombie Boy is especially salient of a comparison when her demos are all over this record. For those that know, no. I'm going to take you through a few of them right now. So we have Shadow of a Man, which could be seen as a Michael Jackson tribute on Mayhem. Oh, yeah. That song evokes a little monster fan favorite, nothing on but the radio.

specifically the version that she demoed for art pop. And if you can't really hear it, fear not, because the account House of Aphrodite on Twitter mash them together for you. Perhaps a little too out there, a little too out there. You know, I'm kind of looking deep into these, but maybe I can convince you with a clip from the song, Garden of Eden, which references another Lady Gaga demo.

Very treposed there. Garden of Eden is essentially a rework of, of another fame-era demo, the track Private Audition, which Lady Gaga worked on with the producer Darkchild, aka Rodney Jerkins, who also produced Telephone. Yeah, it's the same cadence. But, Rihanna, why aren't we listening to the chorus of Garden of Eden, which I think is the most obviously self-referential thing on the entire album.

Okay. Caught in a bad romance, right? I'm picking up what you're putting down. Yeah, you can be my bad girl for the night. It's a good metaphor, too, because the Garden of Eden is both a place where men and women were in perfect, nude, sensual utopia. But it's also the place of original sin. Some would say a bad romance. Yeah.

Yeah. There's these references all over the record, though. I could explore all of them for hours, even on perfect celebrity. there's references to her song Plastic Doll and the Fame and Princess Die, which is one of Gaga's most notorious scrap demos. But taking it back to Zombie Boy, this is just another example

of Lady Gaga encapsulating her entire career decades of work in a single song. So we've explored this entire museum. I've take you through the various wings. There's the centerpiece of the self-referential Gaga wing that I want to show you before we head out. We're like going to the center atrium right now with like a giant statue of Gaga. Yes.

And that statue is one of the record singles, the track, Abra Kadabra. I could just play the whole song as a clip because every single part of the song is a hook. And if we see mayhem as a victory lap, I'm going to go on the record and say that abracadabra is the best Gaga song in years. I just did a 30-minute lecture about abercadabra so I could go off. I just want to point out a few amazing things. Yes. One is this song knows its references. It's got all of the essential house sounds.

It's got the corg M1 piano. It's got the TR-909 drum machine, both of which you would have heard on a song like Vogue. It also pulls from other dance music cultures. It's got acid house and the acid bass line, right? Squelchy. She uses all of the different Gaga voices. You have her great sung voice. You have her high operatic voice.

and you have her sort of spoken drag voice, all of which are utilized to different effect in the song. I can go on and on and on, including, I kind of think that it sounds like Mad World by Tears for Fears a little bit, which is yet another reference. I did mash them up, can I? Absolutely.

Take it away, Charlie. The only thing is I mashed it up, not with the Tears for Fears version, but the Gary Jules version of Mad World. I think they kind of work. Keep it going. Chilling. It's a little dissonant.

Remember when we were talking about American Horror Story? I feel like you just created the perfect soundtrack for the next season. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. There's just so much good stuff in abracadabra. I also just want to point out in the music video. the very beginning, the opening of it, how she introduces it is a reference to all of her live performance. The category is dance or die. Every one of her live shows is a ball, and she opens the music video as a ballroom competition.

The category is dance or die. And the video, might I say, evoked museum of brutality to me, which is why I'm like this constant, fits mayhem so much better than it did Chromatica because there's these latex suits, this like weird demonic like choreography. It's it's referential back to the days where people said Gaga was worshipping Satan, whatever. But Abercadabra is this giant Gaga statue in the middle of the museum because as we've been saying, the song has everything we've come to love Gaga for.

Like you said, Charlie, there's this vocal dexterity, right? She's using all of her different voices. She's using some voices that she hasn't used in years. We have these operatic vocals in the bridge. Okay, first of all, I want to point something out that I haven't seen many people point out. She sings here, Phantom of the Dance Floor, come to me, obviously referencing the musical Phantom of the Opera. She's an NYU, like musical theater kid, through and through. Gaga's the theater kid.

Jamest plug. We've been new. This is a reference that fits so perfectly with her delivery. But those type of vocals, these operatic high notes, I haven't heard them since Born This Way on a song like Government Hooker. Yeah. They're also on the Born This Way cut Bloody Mary, a song that blew up a couple years ago due to its virality on TikTok and the show Wednesday. But perhaps Gaga saw Bloody Mary's success and took some of those sounds and put them in her. her new work.

Nice. She loves quoting her own name. It's in Abra Kadabra too. It is, along with the nonsense chorus and a quick sweeping through Gaga's hits and the songs that have stuck around the longest in her career indicate that chorus nonsense is equal to success in Gaga's world. Here's the chorus of Abraadabra. What else does this?

Bad romance? Exactly. Bad romance has the nonsense. chorus. It's in Pokerface, too, one of her first hits. So this song is the skeleton key that unlocks the entirety of this album and perhaps of Gaga's whole career. Truly, and it even has the sounds that Gaga herself has hated throughout her career. She tweeted once, I don't remember art pop referring to her 2013 record that marked a very traumatic period in her life. Abricadabra and And most of mayhem has these textures, these synth sounds that we see all over art pop.

It's kind of the spiritual successor of this EDME synth sound. There's the abrasive tones of an art pop cut like swine on abracadabra. Oh, yeah. That's the intro of abercadabra. So again, coming back to the central Gaga concept of her being unafraid to reference or not reference, mayhem is a museum an ode to Gaga herself showing her distinct importance in pop culture. It's the most postmodern Gaga record I've ever heard. I can't believe it's more postmodern than anything she's ever made before. Which is wild for a record that ends with die with a smile.

Rihanna, this has been the most wonderful tour through the museum of Gaga's mayhem. Thank you. You are a fantastic docent. Thank you for taking us through here. And I really hope that she sets up a museum of Gaga. I would love to go altogether in real life. It would be such a joy. I think it would be very fun. She has a little exhibit in Vegas, but I don't think that's cut in it.

Gaga, MoMA, MoMA, it's made to be. MoMA, MoMA, ma. Switched on Pop is produced by Rana Cruz, edited by Art Chung, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, illustrations by Arras Gottlieb, Our theme music is by Jossi Adams and Zach Tenario of Ark Iris. Remember of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod.

Find us on social media at Switchdown Pop and tell us what you're hearing on mayhem. And go to our website, switchdownpop.com. Sign up for our newsletter to get a weekly blast of additional musicological insight delivered to your inbox. If you go to our website, you can sign up for a newsletter or in our show notes, where you will get access to your very own Switched On Pop. 25 bingo card and I think we can cross off one of the squares because we have my most cynical prediction oligarch pop no la trump the former rnc co-chair and newly minted fox host has a co-lab song with french montana say it ain't so it's called no days off don't play it don't play it

riana we're not playing it we're not no we're absolutely not giving it air time but given her relationship to the president. I'm going to call it for oligarch pop. I'm sorry that we had to cross that one off, but that's what we got. Still waiting for Drake to drop his country album. Stay tuned. And I'm still waiting for this bad baby beef to produce an actual hit, but

you know, I don't think Ms. Whitman at 50 on the Hot 100 is enough to count. Sorry, people. Close, though. What if it gets into the top 40? If it gets into the top 40, I think we can knock it off. And all that's left for us to say is Thanks for listening. Attention Spotify.

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