Lady Gaga is set to release her highly anticipated eighth studio album, Mayhem, this Friday (March 7th). The pop superstar says the new LP is inspired by ’90s music like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead, among other acts.
While introducing the NIN song “Closer” on her new pop-up SiriusXM channel “Gaga Radio,” the singer talked about discovering “heavier and intense” music: “When I heard Johnny Cash do [Nine Inch Nails’] ‘Hurt,’ I realized that so many different kinds of music could find their way into these sorts of sounds.”
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She went on to say, “‘Closer’ is a huge inspiration for Mayhem.” That influence is easy to hear in Mayhem‘s lead single “Disease,” which features a similarly paced industrial beat in its verses as the NIN classic (listen to both songs below).
In a recent interview with Elle, Gaga also discussed her appreciation for industrial music, while naming a few other artists who inspired the album, including Radiohead.
“There was industrial inspiration with a lot of the sounds,” remarked Gaga. “There’s a transitional moment on the album that’s rooted in ’90s music. A sort of electro grunge defiance. That era in music which was a response to the music that came before it. And then David Bowie theatrical rock, Prince, Radiohead. I was inspired by so much music that has grown roots in my veins.”
As far as making the album, Gaga further told Elle, “The joy … resides in the very fact that I get to make music for a living. And then in the end, all of the things that I’ve been through and thinking, ‘I don’t know how am I going to get this industrial sort of pseudo 2000s beat to go with this electro grunge sound, and how am I going to get this kind of Bowie funky record to mesh with this 80s synth pop….’ I’m doing all this gymnastics. But the joy of it in the end is that I was able to make sense of it for me.”
Lady Gaga will be one of the headliners at the upcoming Coachella festival taking place over two weekends in April (pick up tickets here). Meanwhile, Nine Inch Nails will embark on their “Peel It Back World Tour,” which includes a North American leg in the late summer (tickets available here).
Content shared from consequence.net.