Lady Gaga – The Dead Dance

Spooky scary bonus tracks send shivers down our spine…

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Will Adams: On Mayhem, Gaga revisited past themes — the trappings of fame; antidotes for the chaos of the mind; love propelling you toward the great beyond — and gave them a sturdy, industrial edge. “The Dead Dance” is a retread in the bad way: the opening metallic pulse falls into a flat disco backing with first draft concepts (you’re also gonna dance until you’re dead, but also the music is bringing you back from death…?). “Abracadabra” managed to inspire pearl-clutching satanic panic; this is about as spooky as the phrase “spooky szn.”
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Kayla Beardslee: I just like some lovingly-crafted pop music, man. Mayhem is my current AOTY, though the deluxe makes it clear that all the best songs from the album sessions were already used for the standard edition, and that there was no era-defining ace held back. “The Dead Dance” is my favorite of the new tracks: the production is a little lighter and less surprisingly textured than pounding album highlights like “Garden of Eden” or “LoveDrug,” but it has a familiar Gaga campiness and grit that makes it slot into the Mayhem tracklist with ease. Muscly dance-pop synths and a spoken-word bridge created solely to stage a mass takeover of our Halloween playlists? I’m clawing my way out of the grave as we speak. 
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Al Varela: What should be a new Halloween staple is instead a hollow imitation with predictable nu-disco instrumentation that doesn’t even try to be spooky or give any sort of zombie dance party atmosphere. Gaga and her team are throwing their all into the song, but there’s barely any hook to grab onto, and the groove is so slippery and lacking in punch. I guess it’s better than some of her other recent attempts to remake “Bad Romance,” but it’s still seriously lacking. 
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Andrew Karpan: The insistingly zombie imagery is fitting, obviously. Since the pandemic, the new Gaga has been a workable, malleable appropriator of the old Gaga, sorting through her glorious ’08-’11 run for spare parts and coming up with something pleasant enough, if vaguely dead on arrival.
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Claire Davidson: I was not expecting Tim Burton’s latest mall-goth project to produce one of Lady Gaga’s better songs, especially not when its existence is dependent on a cynical attempt to replicate the organic vitality that led to “Bloody Mary” becoming a minor hit when Wednesday debuted in 2022. “The Dead Dance” is Gaga assembled by committee, the mere thought of which is anathema to her most compelling artistry. The best thing I can say about this song is that its first verse is actually pretty intriguing, its burbling synths left to simmer in a mix that gives Lady Gaga ample space to brood, creating an ominous atmosphere that could potentially give this song some real edge. Unfortunately, the chorus defaults to a de-energized, plastic disco groove that sees Gaga intone the phrase “dancin’ until I’m dead” until it loses all meaning—ironic, given how lifeless her delivery is across the entire hook.
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Ian Mathers: No! I did my time paying attention to Tim Burton! You can’t make me go back! Especially with a song where the most distinctive thing about it is the intro where Gaga appears to have stumbled over a beatup cardboard box marked “DISCARDED RAVE SYNTHS” (and then the rest of the thing goes back to the de rigeur modern slightly disco-flavoured pop anyway)!
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Nortey Dowuona: Me to Watt again.
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Leah Isobel: What originally made Gaga interesting was her naked desperation to be seen, known, liked, and understood — it wasn’t the art-school pretension but rather the life-or-death commitment with which she delivered it. Obviously, that’s unsustainable. But as Mayhem as a whole and “The Dead Dance” in particular prove, trying to hit the early-Gaga beats (disco! death! strength in weirdness! vocal-fry interjections!) without that level of commitment leaves nothing but empty schtick.
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Alfred Soto: Mayhem sounds as sharp as any good album I’ve heard this year even when it’s not Chromatica. I don’t know what she wants or to whom she’s aiming “The Dead Dance.” She might as well have covered “Thriller” for the spooks. If she’s not dancing in the dark, she’s dancing with the — what now?
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Katherine St. Asaph: ‘Cause this is filler, filler night.
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