I've decided to go through a big retrospective on Gaga. She is, after all, the Madonna of our times. I thought that would be fun, in particular because I think there's plenty of people that don't get into albums and their knowledge extends mostly to the big singles that get a lot of radio play. So the concept of an artist's "eras" don't tend to come up. Also, she has decided 15ish years into her career that she was gonna put out one of her best albums, Mayhem...She is fucking sick. I am not even kidding, it's very very good. Easily in the top 2 or 3 albums she's put out in my opinion. It's sick.

I'm going to go mostly album by album here.

The Fame / The Fame Monster (2008-2009)

It flatly cannot be overstated the extent to which Gaga exploded onto the scene. If you think back and recall Gaga sort of just appearing one day and already being a star, that is not confabulation on your part. That is exactly what happened. Gaga came out of nowhere, dropped Just Dance, and said "I am a world-famous star." And the world replied "Yes, you are." And so it was. From that moment on, Gaga was Known. I mean her debut album is named The Fame...largely being about loving fame, sex, and money. Again, we're talking about her debut album. Her power...she knew exactly who she was and she immediately captured the world's attention. By the time the second single dropped, Poker Face, it was done. Everyone knew of Gaga. The Fame was a big hit.

The Fame Monster came a bit later. It first began as a deluxe edition of the album and then eventually grew into being a whole reissue. Basically a companion album. Gaga would call these projects a yin and yang. If The Fame was loving the life of a star, The Fame Monster is the darkness. Here's where we got Bad Romance. Earthquakes were recorded across the world when Bad Romance dropped. The Fame was an enormous success, but Bad Romance is when Gaga showed us that she was unalike others. She wasn't just a star, she was a Madonna. A singular entity.

To this day, I'll listen to Bad Romance and have the thought "this feels fresh and new". This is also the era where we got Alejandro and Telephone. Nearly every single song from The Fame/The Fame Monster is huge. Any other artist would be lucky to have one or two of the same caliber on one of their albums. The only negative to this entire era is it does sort of set an impossible standard she would be always be compared to for the rest of her career. "Well this new album is real good, but you didn't quite reshape the entire face of music with it so..." So, there is a sense of her peaking with this era. I think whether someone agrees with that largely depends on whether they're interested in her music in the abstract ("Wow, she's everywhere. Her songs are great and I hear her all the time on the radio.") vs being interested in her specifically as an artist. Wanting to see what she'll do next. Because there's going to be a clear trajectory Gaga starts to lay our with her future projects. She's unafraid, but also actively wants, to dabble in different genres and styles. She wants to be multi-talented and not just a one-trick pony. She has shown she can make bop after bop for the masses, but what she wants is to be a fully-realized artist that simply does whatever she wants, damn the critical response.

Born This Way (2011)

What is the thesis statement of Born This Way? Anthems. Only anthems. What if Gaga distilled her big and loud energy and made things as in your face and joyous as ever? We need to camp out on the actual song Born This Way for a moment. Is was the debut single for the same-titled album and I think largely serves as an exemplar for it. Born This Way is not a subtle song. Nor does it attempt to be. Born This Way screams queer rights and women rights as loudly as possible. Ooh there ain't no other way. In Born This Way we've got the self-titled song, Judas. We've got Edge of Glory. Again, for this album Gaga is going for big and loud. She wanted to make huge sweeping songs where the lyrics are super simple and singable.

The Fame, The Fame Monster, and Born This Way kind of exist as a perfect holy trinity of albums. This was her era of no skips.

Artpop (2013)

So here's where we start to get fun. Artpop was not nearly as well-received as prior albums (generally was considered to be like a 7/10...I know...the abject horror). The general complaint was that people felt that Gaga was behind the times. Artpop's sound leaned strongly towards EDM. People felt that by 2013, the trend was played out. (Although there's been a funny turn in recent years with people now going back and reevaluating Artpop as ahead of it's time. You can never please em...) Gaga's intent for Artpop was she wanted to be different than she had been. She wanted to, shockingly put the art in pop. This is where we first get her noticeably changing her sound up. Previously, Gaga was firmly in dance pop land. Here we have EDM and synth happening. She was playing a lot more with the sound. Much more experimentation happening. The big songs people will know from Art Pop is Applause or perhaps Swine. I would compare Artpop to Britney's Blackout in terms of its general soundscape.

Cheek to Cheek (2014) / Love for Sale (2021) / Harlequin (2024)

I think Artpop is the last time people were super aware of Gaga was up to musically. Given that after this point she stars exploring completely new frontiers. Here is where she decides to fully open herself to alternative genres. Cheek to Cheek was a collaboration between her and Tony Bennett (Soon departing the world, his mind was super going by this point. He got diagnosed with the big Alzheimer's a year or two after this came out) to do a jazz/swing album. Her ardent fans would hate it because they wanted the bops but with this and some upcoming projects, Gaga would prove her multitalented status. She wanted to show that she could also exist in the Adele lane and do stuff that the middle-aged women also would love.

A few years later she again collaborated with Tony on Love for Sale. A similar jazz/swing album. They're both very good albums, actually. That's usually not a genre that I get super into. I'm definitely not knowledgeable enough to speak on it too much. But it is a very good pairing Gaga and Bennett. Their voices go together really well, in my opinion. Bennett of course being the old guard, with Gaga as the new generation. Love for Sale would be the last project Bennett worked on.

I would also include 2024's Harlequin in this discussion. It was a companion album to the Joker movie soundtrack with alternate takes and stuff. But it's in the same general genre as her collaboration albums with Bennett. Very jazz. I don't really care about the Joker movies personally, but it seemed like a perfectly fine album taken on its own.

Joanne (2016)

Continuing the theme of Gaga wanting to explore different genres and moving back to 2016, Joanna would be her take on country or soft rock. This was really her next mainline album after 2013's Artpop. It would again frustrate some of her longtime fans since she was again not just doing the fun dance pop that people wanted.

Joanne in general is a lot more stripped back, a lot more personal. There's still some pop present, but we're going for more laid-back here. I would point out that Joanne is very much a bellwether in terms of where the genre would end up going. Gaga and Taylor doing this softer pop would very much lead to the likes of your Chappels Roan and your Sabrinas Carpenter. Your post-$ Keshas. So it's important in that way if nothing else. Joanne does have shooters. It tends to be loved more by the T Swizzle girlies, so if that's your jam.

A Star Is Born (2018)

I would be remiss not to include A Star Is Born. I myself don't really care for the whole acoustic guitar and soft singing thing, but let's not pretend her whole acting venture here with Bradley Cooper was anything if not immensely successful. Here we get Gaga proving she can not only music, but also do an act. I think in many ways, she's inspired by the classic Hollywood generation of actors. Where you're expected to be able to sing, dance, be funny, be charming, etc. The song Shallow did end up being one of her biggest hits. Never underestimate the power that is a song primed to be a Target hit.

Chromatica (2020)

Chromatica had an unwinnable situation. It had now been 7 years since Gaga had really done a proper pop album. She had found great success off in Hollywoodland and had earned respect with her Bennett collaborations. She could do it all. But 7 years is a long time...people were literally dying for Gaga's pop. Chromatica was touted as a return to form. We were getting a Gaga pop album, no more of the jazz and soft rock. The expectations were off the charts.

The album itself is pretty good. For Chromatica, we're in house land. With a bit of dance thrown in. I myself like it, but again, it didn't really set the world on fire. Here we get a little Artpop. When Gaga's doing some totally different genre like jazz, it tends to get taken on its own terms. But when she returns to pop, it gets measured against her world-shattering hits of old. Fair or not, it is what it is. Rain on Me with Ariana Grande did definite numbers, and I would say is the clearest success off the album. But the album tends to get forgotten as it's "just good, not great".

It also had some very unfortunate timing. Gaga is known for her big performances and the Chromatica tour was planned to be a big return to form in that way. Well, there was a little thing that happened in 2020 that forced that tour to be cancelled. We will speak no more of it, because we all know what I'm talking about.

Mayhem (2025)

I'm hearing MJ, I'm hearing Prince. Bowie is present at this party. Mayhem is great. The clearest comparison to her body of work would be The Fame. Mayhem is very The Fame. Both in terms of general soundscape and also level of quality. The singles for Mayhem were Disease and Abracadabra. The expectation from them was that we were getting a way more dark pop industrial album than we got. Mayhem is, appropriately however, all over in terms of genre. Which was a definite theme with Gaga's earlier albums. But I would say Mayhem is quite a lot funkier than the singles would lead you to believe. Like I said, I'm feeling some serious MJ and Prince vibes and I'm not unhappy about that at all.

If you have felt any desire to know what Gaga's been up to. Any nostalgia at all for her early album era, now is the time to get back into her. This album is it. I am not fucking around here. I myself knew we were BACK when I listened to Abracadabra and we got the signature Gaga gobbledegook lyrics as well as literally just saying "Gaga" in the song.

Abracadabra, amor-oo-na-na
Abracadabra, morta-oo-ga-ga
Abracadabra, abra-oo-na-na
In her tongue she said, "Death or love tonight"

That is when you know she is confident in the song and just having fun. When we can say near complete nonsense and it sounds great. Put your fucking paws up, y'all. My personal highs from the album are Abracadabra, Perfect Celebrity, Killah, Zombieboy, and Shadow of a Man. But there are no misses here.