Lady Gaga, "Born This Way" (Interscope, 2011)

 

Lady Gaga has no fears. Headstrong in creating her first album boasting about her nonexistent fame and popularity, her predictions eventually proved true by creating a massive fanbase by which she addresses as her “little monsters.”

Her equality-seeking music has become a frontier in gay rights, though she speaks out against everything from racial discrimination to high school bullying. Gaga even delivered an incredibly moving and unforgettable “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” rally speech as she screamed her analogy that, “Equality is the prime rib of America,” referencing a dress she wore to the MTV Video Music Awards that was made out of cuts of steak.

Someone so deeply philosophical, revolutionary and innovative paired with a remarkable musical talent has the tools to create extraordinary music to shake our shallow and auto-tuned society, but on her sophomore album “Born This Way,” Lady Gaga creates a disappointingly hokey album that feels rushed and borderline parodied.

Undeveloped lyrics, such as in “Bad Kids” “I’m a twit…and I’m proud of it,” make the album feel tossed together with an awkward mess of a thousand ways to say ‘it’s cool to be weird,’—not to mention the multitude of languages forcibly sprinkled throughout. The words, “Don’t be a drag, just be a queen” on the title track compellingly paired with a Madonna-like melody creates an phony stereotypical match to a 1980’s pop record because all gays are into drag queens and, like, love Madonna. And sparkles.

There is no excuse for this, Gaga! You are capable of much better (see EP “The Fame Monster.”) It doesn’t matter that you tweeted the deeper inspirations behind each of your songs as clarification—were we supposed to assume this record is about striving to succeed though tough times in New York, or the inspiration taken from your Grandpa? Because the drinking-lots-of-beer and “I want your whiskey mouth all over my blonde south” lyrics were as convincingly deep as your hair is naturally blonde.

Sonically the album sounds just as reckless; with crushing disco beats, over-the-top guitar solos and an attempt to include Dubstep undertones everywhere creates a mess of grade-school basement DJ trials combined with a preachy Whitney Houston record. A classic flaw in this album, as seen in many of such talented female piano-playing vocalists, was that it was well over-produced; the true-core talent Gaga has underneath the synthesizers is best showcased when paired with just a piano.

But the closest we’ll get to this unpretentious Gaga is on the album’s best song, “Yoü and I.” With a somewhat-dorky country flare, this song is the only break from the thick basslines and is perfect for a car-stereo indulgent sing-along.

Also, if extracted from the context of its fuzzed counterparts, “Government Hooker” stands as the other one of the album’s guilty pleasures. This track, about Gaga’s pretend affairs with JFK, displays catchy hooks and funky post-disco and Casio-tone samples that make the track feel actually paid-attention-to.

Collectively, the dorky lyrics and awkward backings topped with the worst possible album cover, that alone looks like a joke, is apt to leave devoted fans feeling jipped and newcomers uninterested. If Gaga had spent as much creative energy and time pushing musical boundaries as she has social ones, “Born This Way” would have been much more successful.