Lady Gaga: Born This Way – review
Lady Gaga's relentless, shameless, sledgehammer pop nearly always hits the spot – if you ignore the cheesy saxophones4 out of 5
Tim Jonze
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 May 2011
There's an unnerving moment that occurs when hearing Lady Gaga's second album, Born This Way, for the first time. It comes as soon as the plodding keyboard chords ring out on opening track Marry the Night and you wonder if the stage is set for this to be the first of several self-indulgent ballads. It will be a fear familiar to anyone who tuned into Radio 1's Big Weekend expecting a rapid-fire run through her storming pop hits and was met inexplicably with several minutes of jazz trumpet. Among the madness, the Madonna-comparisons and the meat dresses has Lady Gaga lost track of what made her little monsters fall in love with her in the first place?
If so, it would certainly fit the most recent narrative – Lady Gaga's rise to the top of the pop tree has landed on a particularly wobbly branch during this album's promotional campaign. First fans grumbled that the title track bore remarkable similarity to Madonna's Express Yourself. Then disapproving voices in the gay community complained that Gaga had hijacked their sexuality as a marketing tool. So intense was the chatter around Born This Way, in fact, there was even a backlash over the artwork.
Such fears on the musical front, however, do not last long – Marry the Night's softer stylings are soon sent packing by what Gaga had always promised would be "sledgehammering dance beats". It's a pattern that holds throughout Born This Way. No matter how a song begins – pizzicato strings, operatic vocals, 80s rawk guitar – it's soon engulfed in buzzsaw synths and robo-precise rhythms. This is shameless, club-orientated pop that aims for instant impact.
Gaga has made much of the various themes on offer – religion (Judas, Bloody Mary), freedom (Road to Love), identity (Hair, Born This Way) – and these messages are hammered home rather than hinted at. Nobody expected Born This Way, hyped by Elton John as a "new gay anthem", to reference post-queer theory texts, but it's safe to say that subtlety isn't one of its strong points. Elsewhere, Hair uses follicles as a metaphor for freedom – not exactly a brave new concept for anyone who's seen the 60s musical Hair (or caught the sermon from Danny in Withnail & I for that matter). .............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/18/lady-gaga-born-this-way-review
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
