Entry 14: Album Review: Lady Gaga / Born This Way

There are two things you take for granted with pop sensation Stephani Germanotta; firstly that wherever you go, whoever you meet, Lady Gaga will be a big deal, and secondly, that a sizeable chunk of the people you meet will hate her music with an infernal, burning passion. Gaga seems to have a notable polarising affect, which isn’t surprising really; the girl is hardly subtle.  So with latest and greatest effort, Born This Way now more than a year old, it is time to strip away the pomp and the fervour and get down to the nitty-gritty.

As a preliminary point, what for the love of god is that album cover?  Why, for the physical manifestation of the sound of this new album, this towering glittering blockbuster pop album, choose that? Just as Gaga yearns to be treated as a serious artist, she splats this on her new album and thinks ‘that will impress those shits over at Rolling Stone’. It is just Lady Gaga, pretending to be a motorbike. I mean she has a whole freaking design team, the Haus of Gaga, to design cool stage performances and artwork and press releases and such shit. So what happened here? Is she trying to subliminally persuade Harley-Davidson enthusiasts to buy her new album? I reckon it’s sizeable enough as it is, to be honest.  What will her next album cover be? Maybe she will want to try and get entomologists on side; could just be her in an elaborate woodlouse outfit. Or maybe she wants Urologists to like her; now that would be an album cover. 

This album is a mixed bag really. Though it has since become an anthem for the disenfranchised, Born This Way, the chart topping title track, is, well, a bit off. Musically it is sort of fun, and while the lyrics are sheer horseshit (‘Don’t be a drag, just be a queen’ says Gaga; how about ‘Don’t be shit, just write something decent’ instead?), the beat is irresistible and the industrial synth twinkling is a nice touch. But this song is so unbelievably derivative, it borders on self-parody.  Gaga’s little list she delves into near the end of the song (‘Whether you're broke or evergreen/ You're black, white, beige, chola descent/ You're Lebanese, you're orient) apes Madonna’s style in Vogue so shamelessly its jaw-dropping (‘Greta Garbo, and Monroe/ Deitrich and DiMaggio/ Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean/ On the cover of a magazine’). Although, giving Gaga her due, sounding like Vogue might not be such a bad thing; Vogue is surely one of the greatest pop songs ever written. But then there is the message of Born This Way, one aimed squarely at the gay community, gays even get an explicit mention. Oh Gaga you shouldn’t have! (No really, you shouldn’t have bothered). She advocates loving your own body and being comfortable in your own skin with your own beliefs. But, can she really say the same? I feel if she was chuffed with how she looked she wouldn’t need tacky OTT outfits or a new gimmick every seven seconds to distract us. If she looked in the mirror and thought ‘yeah, that will do’, she wouldn’t need a dress made up of choice cuts of beef would she? Besides, no amount of mutton can hide that massive conk. Its fine, I am sure she needs it to break hard skinned fruit or something. Totally legit.

Album opener Marry The Night is quite nice, fairly stock dance stuff, but things get really interesting as we get into the last minute; there is a brief reprieve from all the pumping bass, and then an exhilarating, inspired crackle of synth and a persistent drum beat, that is sheer glam-stomp splendour.  However, Highway Unicorn and Government Hooker (despite its fairly risqué premise) are sheer filler; droning, uninspired and sounding like misguided B-sides. Then Americano is almost painful, Gaga’s voice is so terrible here, stripped of all its emotion, it is done partly in Spanish (and is none the better for it),  and she winds up sounding like Pavarotti choking on a custard cream.  The crackling guitar of Electric Chapel is appreciated, but little else in that song can inspires much thought or feeling. Schiβse is the ultimate depth of depravity of the set; total and utter crap, she sounds like Rammstein on a bad day; though they have a lot of them. The opening bass crackles of Judas are awesome, punchy and weighty, they open the song expertly but what follows is more unsightly vocals, and her crowing before each chorus (‘n’awwww ooohh aaaahhh n’aaaawww ohhh aaahh’) is totally obnoxious and off-putting. The song is just wasted after such a good start. Plus my friend brought to my attention that her pronunciation of ‘Judas’ sounds terribly close to ‘tuna—tuna-ah-ah’, which makes it nigh on impossible to not just imagine Lady Gaga singing the piece with cans of John West cascading everywhere. Still, say what you want of Gaga, but Edge of Glory, the album’s last hurrah, is just perfect pop; catchy, cleverly written, and musically inventive. That sax solo (provided by E-Street Band saxophonist, Clarence Clemons no less) is inspired, and the song  is definitely an album highlight.  It’s just such a shame the rest of the album can’t match this sort of calibre.

Born This Way is far more explicit than The Fame, but then it is less musically inventive. Personally there is no matching the spiky, contrived gem that is Paparazzi, or the cool hip-hop attitude of Beautiful Dirty Rich, and no song on this album, bar Edge of Glory, can match them. The message is much clearer; freedom of thought and autonomy and sexual exploration and such. But musically it is streets behind The Fame. Even in terms of straight up disco hits, there is nothing that can compare to Just Dance or Alejandro.  And on a more far-reaching note, Lady Gaga is sort of, well, getting old. The whole ‘look at me-look at me’ gimmicks she pulls at every public event she attends is churlish and is rapidly losing any sort of interest or originality. I mean if your music is 80s dance pop, a size 10 meat dress wont change that. Lady Gaga is here to stay, Born This Way proves this, despite the hit-and-miss affair that it is. But she needs to get personal. All this smoke and mirros is all good and all, and it is something an act like Thirty Seconds to Mars can do very well, but you need some heart behind the music, or else it is just bright flashing lights and silly outfits. Germanotta has definite talent, if you don’t believe me, then go listen to The Fame, or watch her play piano; she’s mind-blowing . But she needs to start putting herself out there a bit. All this gimmicky crap is starting to run thin.And can that woman stop falling off pianos? How many times? Start wearing flats Gaga or you're going to wind up with a busted lip.