Two weeks may not be a very long time when it comes to understanding how an artist’s new album will fit into their overall catalog. But with Lady Gaga‘s Mayhem now having been out for long enough to become her seventh chart-topper on the Billboard 200, we’ve had a little time to sort out our feelings about her latest opus. (You can read more about our staff’s reactions to the album’s first-week performance here, and hear our extended thoughts on both the album and the entire rollout that’s led up to it here.)
Now, we can compare it to what’s come before: Stefani Germanotta’s four other full-length solo albums, as well as a collaborative LP soundtrack and one particularly high-profile sequel EP. Though Gaga might have risen to superstardom on the backs of her sparkling singles, captivating videos, mind-bending live performances and off-the-wall interviews, she has also come to be one of the great pop albums artists of her generation, as our list should ably demonstrate. (For the purposes of this list, though, we didn’t feel it was particularly fair to rank her traditional pop covers sets against her all-original sets — so neither of her Tony Bennett collaborations, 2015’s Cheek to Cheek or 2021’s Love for Sale, are included here, nor is her Joker: Folie a Deux-accompanying solo set from 2024, Harlequin.)
Here’s a ranking of those eight major releases of originals — with Mayhem now slotted among her classics and not-so-classics — all counting down to Mother Monster’s all-time finest creation.
