Lovingly dedicated to John, the biggest little Monster I know. Thanks for believing in me.Strange as it may be to believe, there was, indeed, a short time when Lady Gaga's mainstream exposure was turning into a cult following (which she still has, to some extent, in the Little Monsters). The hipsters, the nerds, what have you, were starting to see Gaga in a different light than other pop stars. Contrary to usual folks who wrap a thin beat around a set of tits or a pair of thousand dollar shades, Lady Gaga seemed like both a send-up and a tribute to pop stardom, like some sort of stealth parody in giant wigs. Her music, at the start, not only reflected this with a certain self-awareness and blissful exaggeration of themes, but with a well-produced collection of what was a veritable cornucopia of pop music, from piano-laden power ballads to cold, mechanical modern disco to 80s funk (notice the beat from Cameo's "Word Up" being liberally distorted on "Paparazzi"?) to flirtations with rock. It was that keen awareness that allowed her to easily take over the world, and despite all the followers and cynics, that's exactly what she did.
However, when you're caught between being part of the show and being aware of being part of a show, sometimes you have to choose between the two, and somewhere along the line, Lady Gaga became a very serious project with a very serious agenda. Now, don't get me wrong. I think it's great that Lady Gaga uses her celebrity to promote LGBT and other forms of activism, and I love how incredibly earnest she is about it, too. But admit it - in the process, hasn't it killed her mystique just a little bit? I'm not saying she's digressed to Margaret Cho in sparkling metal dresses, but it feels like there was an unmasking of a superhero at some point. Hell, the album titles alone could give it away; she went from semi-sarcastic titles like The Fame and The Fame Monster to the much more somber Born This Way.
And before I get into Born This Way, I just want to make very clear to any up and coming pop stars who are obviously bored enough to be reading my shit - please don't hype a Greatest Of All Time record like Gaga and her crew did in the months leading up to the release. It can only end badly for the end result, especially in this day and age where the internet (hell, pop culture in general) has turned into a bad episode of Best Week Ever. It's just one sign - out of many, many more - that Gaga's getting a bit too big for her britches, slowly submitting into her own self-styled universe.
Despite that, and even putting aside the fruitless Madonna controversy, there really was a reason to look forward to this, musically. Fame Monster was a nice little leap forward for Lady Gaga. All her influences, bold stylistic workouts (god, I love that phrase) and sheer excesses were on full display, and integrated even better than on the debut. Maybe the shorter running time was a factor, since it became more concentrated, but it was everything that's fantastic about the Lady Gaga experience in eight great pop songs. It's a tough act to follow, but lest we forget, Gaga is an ambitious songwriter who is fueled, not hampered, by excess.
Maybe Gaga still is self-aware - the album begins with "Marry The Night," which brings to mind Gwen Stefani's solo debut in that it misleads you with a ballad intro, and you think "oh, shit, not one of these serious, pretentious albums with a bunch of-" WHAMMY, as Champ would say, and here comes the electro-disco. Most, if not all the beats on this record hit hard and fast in an effort to make this flow together, and that's a good strategy when the production is turned up to eleven throughout. The title track, "Born This Way" itself, is ridiculous on every level. In terms of production, it's like a hundred things going on at once, with all its own quirks and sounds folding back on each other, as if to overcompensate for how simple the song really is at its core. And it is a simple disco song, and a monster track at that (no pun intended).
The Madonna comparisons aren't entirely without merit, as there are moments on Born This Way when she cops some of her vocal mannerisms to a tee, although since she wears her influences on her sleeve, this is par for the course. She's still Gaga, though, so she still spews out robotic commands to her Monsters like the commander of all things glittery. (And she still does that thing where she relentlessly invokes her own name, like some spaced-out club version of Rammstein.) More than that, you still get that feeling that she could sing better than she chooses to on record, but she doesn't, because she constructs her records to be a concise round of pop songs and doesn't let anything exceed the hooks on the hierarchy. Then again, she's probably saving it for the excellent closer, "The Edge Of Glory," which features a great, impassioned vocal, as well as a saxophone solo for some reason?? Sure, why not.
That, of course, is the most fantastic thing about Gaga, which is on display here in full. Whereas the "don't bore us, get to the chorus" mentality has saturated us for the past few years, Gaga is, refreshingly, a classic songwriter who is more interested in writing fleshed-out, well-composed songs that build to choruses and take some twists and turns. The aforementioned title track is a good example, as well as "U&I," the sole power ballad on the record (featuring Gaga doing her stuff on the piano, plus some guitar from Queen's Brian May, as well!) and one of its finest songs to boot.
Stylistically, it keeps up Gaga's reputation of diversifying within pop music, even if it's not as wide in range as the last two records, which felt like they drew on the last three decades of pop for inspiration. "Government Hooker" showcases her as a New Order disciple (with an oddball sampling of "The Bubble Bunch"), "Americano" is such an over-the-top take on Latino sounds it could only come from a gringo, and the excellent "Judas" comes off like a lost, mid-1990s euro-pop club hit. And yet, despite all that, it never quite feels like the album is diverging from a path, as outside of "U&I," every track is insistent on that pounding, frenetic dance beat. It makes the album consistent in spite of its wacky, overindulgent production, but one gets the feeling that this gameplan prevents her from stretching out even more and reaching her full potential. It doesn't help that, lyrically, Gaga's attempting to grow up, choosing to adopt a more "us vs them" mentality which fits well with her persona, but it loses the satirical undertones that fueled her debut, which is perhaps Born This Way's biggest drawback.
Lady Gaga is a lot of things. Pretentious? Yep. Egocentric? That's one way of putting it. Media-whore? Wrote the book on it. Omnipresent? Christ, yes. And the funny thing is that Gaga at least somewhat justifies it all on Born This Way, showing that not only is she one of the finest pop songwriters of this generation, but that, for all her excesses and absurd showiness, she gives pop music something no one else is willing, or able, to. It's certainly arguable that, much like Bieber Fever, the Gaga phenomenon is rapidly waning, but the songs here are catchy (and, in some cases, addictive) enough that it suggests that when the glory days have faded, she'll have more than enough to fall back on. For all the hype, pomp, circumstance and attempts to be more serious, Born This Way winds up as a pretty solid dance-pop album with much to offer for Little Monsters everywhere, even if it never quite becomes the classic she wanted it to be.
****
