I straight hated Lady Gaga when she first came out, but then I saw her for her artistic and vocal ability on Saturday Night Live (the first time she was on it) and fell in love with her. I currently have a love/hate relationship with her. Lady Gaga is just shy of a musical role model for artists in my eyes. She does deliver on the vocal ability that we have come to expect from her. She even delivers on weird named guys on her new album Born This Way with “Judas.” Delivering on every aspect of our expectations is an art that we may see from many artists, but in her peculiar lifestyle it’s something that we need as a society to stay sane.
Maybe I’m a little monster, and I swear I was born that way before she came along. Her crazy, loud outfits and music was not something that I appreciated, because my original thought was that she was a rip-off of the French group Yelle whom I am a huge fan of.
I do own The Fame Monster and I admit that Born This Way delivers more of a musical theater vibe than what she has given us in the past. Her vocal ability is so strong here that there is not a beat on Born This Way that can supersede her abilities. We come to her for this and her heartfelt strength for those who are ostracized, and we love her because of it.
Or we hate her for it. Maybe you could just fit in. I mean, Lady Gaga does have some gorgeous hair, and I would love to have some of it, due to my old aging bald head, but when she starts with “Marry The Night” I was not happy with the delivery. Knowing that this was only the first track of the album, I have come to realize that she wants to hit all the vibes that her audience appreciates.
The album’s title track is what I needed to hear next. I swear that if it was later in the album, I may have given up on her. This album is honestly like a light switch for me in an amazing delivery of a perfect love/hate relationship. First track? Off. Second Track? On. Thanks Lady, I’m not happy to be born this way. Obviously I’m not the only one as this track has flooded the radio from the sell-out station to the Spanish station (no joke) that sometimes mixes in English music.
In track three, “Government Hooker,” the switch is off. The intro of just hearing her name repetitively isn’t attractive to me. The unique electronic offbeat sounds mixed and the vocals carry a very “auto-tuned” vibe, but I just can’t seem to reason how this song made it to the album. With fourteen tracks, I was fast to move to the next one when I heard this track. This is the same person who gave us “Telephone” and “Poker Face” right?
When I listened to the track “Judas,” I couldn’t help but think of how this song is so reminiscent of Japanese-pop-style music. Not that this is a bad note, it just shows her ability to deliver music on all levels, but it’s not on the continuum that I really wanted to hear from her. I doubt that this album will be her downfall, but with all of the enormous marketing that has been put behind it, I don’t know how well it will speak for her future albums.
Like hitting the emergency brake on the freeway, “Scheiße” starts with Lady Gaga speaking in German and then switches to English all while maintaining this fast-paced vibe. The pace is so quick, I only really see this song being played in a club where no one can dance and everyone bounces around. If this is what she was going for, she totally nailed it. I can totally see the Techno Viking dancing to this track. Honestly listen to the track and tell me you can’t see that happening.
If I were to have one track taken away from this album, it would be “Heavy Metal Lover.” There is no overdone lyrics in the beginning, it maintains a dark and gritty vibe throughout the whole track and the vocals (which pan from right to left) are executed perfectly. I could see Kanye West picking up this track for a remix in the future.
As I listen to the last track of the album, I can’t help but think of how good Lady Gaga’s vocal abilities are. She can honestly sing better than any artist on the market right now. She is on the very top, or “The Very Edge of Glory” when it comes to being an American superstar. This album is something that I won’t listen to on a regular basis, but I damn well know that her star power carries her higher than the production and beats of this album. If you took her name off the album and listened to it without knowing who it came from, I am unsure if you would actually want to fight for your life to protect it. Most people won’t have the ability to disconnect from what they love to truly see it in that light. To put it simply, if you don’t own any Lady Gaga albums, get The Fame Monster first. If you think it’s god’s gift to man, get Born This Way because it was made for you.
Further Reading:
www.clickitticket.com/concerts/lady-gaga/bornthisway/
Artist:
www.ladygaga.com/
www.myspace.com/ladygaga
www.facebook.com/ladygaga
www.twitter.com/#!/ladygaga
Album:
Born This Way is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
