Quote:
Originally Posted by RVCA
Here's a brilliant review of "Born This Way" I found on RYM
Alright. So I actually like Lady Gaga. Looking at my profile, you'll see her right in my list of favorites alongside Autechre, The Jesus Lizard, and Cecil Taylor. I adore her singles, and her penchant for fashion and visual thrills puts her right up there with the Human League and ABC. And the tunes aren't bad either. With The Fame Monster she looked like she'd locked down the camp/not-too-serious/completely ridiculous electro-pop a lot of us enjoy.
Only then I saw the title to her latest single: "Born This Way."
****.
Yet more heavy-handed pandering to gays awaited me. That's not to say I'm on board with the James Dobsons of this world. Far from it, actually. The "It Gets Better" Campaign, focused on making the bullying of gay teens a thing of the past, is a good thing. It's disgusting that homophobia is still largely accepted by a huge portion of the population.
At first I found Gaga's riding of this particular wave pretty endearing. Her music was indebted to Moroder's vision of futuristic dance music and her natural flair and androgyny meant she was always going to be accepted pretty readily in the gay community. I mean, sure, she wasn't Frankie. But "Pokerface" and "Bad Romance" were still camp, trashy fun.
But then here comes "It Gets Better" and the ****pile of wretched, saccharine singles that followed it. Katy Perry and Ke$ha both released absolutely horrible songs that, on the surface, looked like blatant money-grabs. And deep down, that's what they were; blatant money-grabs. "Firework" and "We R Who We R" are the worst type of exploitation; exploitation behind the glittery mask of sincerity. More bewildering was the thought that Katy Perry, whose first two singles were "Ur So Gay" and "I Kissed A Girl," would suddenly be comforting the very teens whose feelings and stirrings she had trivialized. It was like a bad joke.
I thought Lady Gaga was going to be above all this, I really did. Musically, "Born This Way" isn't so much a bad song as it is totally unremarkable. The ABBA/electro-disco hybrid is gone, with possibly the most bland and lifeless europop sound imaginable taking its place. Whether or not it's a rip-off/homage to Madonna's "Express Yourself" is irrelevant; the song from 1989 sounds infinitely fresher and has more depth than Gaga's poor facsimile, and that says it all really. And the lyrics, accompanied by a hookless melody that doubtless sounds better shouted than sung, could easily be transposed into one of ICP's pro-Juggalo, anti-sane human being anthems; she's even got a rap bridge with some pretty iffy racial terminology. Perfect.
If you told me that this was a kid's song -- and I suppose that argument could be made -- then I'd probably understand. But this isn't like John Lithgow playing an ultra-creepy serial killer on Dexter and then writing a children's book. This is a proper Lady Gaga single, released in the same way as her other songs and with similar fanfare.
"Born This Way" is a song with the profile of "Bad Romance" and "Telephone" but the depth of Henry Kissinger's conscience. It's an awful piece of music designed to tug at the heart strings of her fans, who will surely throw plenty of money her way. Little Monster indeed.
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This is the sort of musical write-up that drives me nuts. Whoever wrote this must have balls the size of ****ing Jupiter because he chides the supposed "pandering to the gays" but with lines like "as deep as Henry Kissenger's conscious" its obvious he's wildly pandering to the Klosterman crowd; that elite set of pseudo-intellectual ****-bags that ever teen in the music community aspires to be, does become, and self-perpetuates with the substance of a marshmallow.
He's accurate when he says "Born this way sucks" and I'll agree that Madonnas version sounds much better, and somehow more current, but his stance on the subject, or more specifically how he posits it, is just the short of catty-bitch journalism that gave birth to the hipster movement.
If he could tell anyone why Firework, We R who we R, and Born this Way were bad, in reference to the respective artists catalogs, I'd give him more credit. But I'd put $50 on him looking at the weather vane, seeing which way the wind was blowing and writing accordingly.
What self-indulgent horse****.