Lady Gaga<\/a>\u2018s Grammy-nominated LP Mayhem has been lauded by critics as a return to form for the pop superstar. But according to Mother Monster, the album wouldn\u2019t have seen the light of day if it weren\u2019t for the very different critical response her third studio album received.<\/p>\n In a new Rolling Stone<\/a> cover story, Gaga revealed that the criticism she received for Artpop \u2014 and her subsequent turn away from pop music that resulted in the albums Cheek to Cheek and Joanne \u2014 provided a direct source of inspiration for Mayhem. \u201cMayhem\u00a0as a piece of music, I never would\u2019ve made it without the 10 years of experience that I had,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat would\u00a0Mayhem\u00a0sound like if I hadn\u2019t become a jazz singer? What would it have sounded like if I hadn\u2019t made\u00a0Artpop?\u201d<\/p>\n More from Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Reflecting on her experimental 2013 album, which became a fan-favorite in the years since its release, Gaga called the resounding critical panning of the project \u201cvery impactful\u201d on the rest of her career. \u201cLike, much more impactful than any other criticism for any artwork. That was the first time that I ever had major criticism about a piece of work that I\u2019d made,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Gaga described Artpop as her \u201cEDM opus,\u201d and said that the album\u2019s confrontational tone was created because she was being treated as a \u201cbusiness\u201d rather than an artist at the time. \u201cPeople don\u2019t like it if I say, \u2018I won\u2019t dress the way you want me to dress. I won\u2019t have the hair you want me to have, and I\u2019m going to not make pop music the way that you want me to make it. \u2018Cause you want everything to sound like \u2018Bad Romance,\u2019 and I\u2019m never doing that again.’\u201d<\/p>\n As for the sexist undertones of that criticism, Gaga pointed out that when male artists make new choices in their music, they are heralded as \u201cradical thinkers discovering new territory,\u201d while female artists are mocked. \u201cI was sort of heralded as, like, over,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n After a decade of detours, including multiple film roles in A Star Is Born, House of Gucci and Joker: Folie a Deux, Gaga said she and her co-producers on Mayhem \u2014 Andrew Watt and her fianc\u00e9 Michael Polansky \u2014 knew that diving back into pop music meant she had to address that part of her career head on.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things I\u2019m most grateful for is gaining all my artistic faculties back to make this record,\u201d she said. \u201cI had to dig very, very deep, and I had to change a lot of my life and recenter around what I needed as a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Billboard VIP Pass<\/p>\n Best of Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lady Gaga\u2018s Grammy-nominated LP Mayhem has been lauded by critics as a return to form for the pop superstar. But according to Mother Monster, the album wouldn\u2019t have seen the light of day if it weren\u2019t for the very different critical response her third studio album received. In a new Rolling Stone cover story, Gaga […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2021507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[412490,405371,25405,361568,23083],"class_list":["post-2154532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-artpop","tag-critical-response","tag-lady-gaga","tag-mayhem","tag-pop-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Charli-XCX-and-George-Daniel-marry-for-second-time-in.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2154532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2154533,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154532\/revisions\/2154533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2154532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2154532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2154532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n