Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’

BORN THIS WAY
By Lady Gaga
Interscope Records
Available now
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Available on Itunes and Amazon.com

By Scott Harrah

StageZine.com does not always review music, but we will make an exception here because everything is theatrical about the phenomenon known as Lady Gaga, from her over-the-top music videos and outlandish outfits to her recent “Monster’s Ball” concert, televised on HBO from Madison Square Garden.  Gaga now ranks up there in pantheon of female pop superstars that are both mainstream household names and icons for nonconformists everywhere.  It is not surprising that so many have compared her to Madonna, the undisputed Queen of Pop, for Gaga (real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta) is an Italian-American iconoclast that loves to shock and surprise the masses by making everyone wonder what she will do next.  Like the Material Girl did 30 years ago, Mama Monster pushes the proverbial envelope of sexuality and outrageous behavior, but the comparisons end there.

Since she is only 25, she is not quite seasoned enough yet for pop royalty status, but Mama Monster is already a legend. Besides, Gaga is not entirely a pop music artist.  Her heavily orchestrated songs have shades of classic rock, heavy metal, and just about every other musical genre popular over the past 40 years. She writes and composes much of her own material, and her soaring vocals are as forceful as that of Christina Aguilera and rockers of yesteryear such as Pat Benatar and Chrissie Hynde, as well Queen, David Bowie, and Elton John.

Gaga has evolved incredibly since her 2008 debut The Fame, with the techno-pop disco songs “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” and the 2009 followup EP, The Fame Monster.  On Born This Way, she opens with the rock-tinged “Marry the Night,” but the album’s first single and title track “Born This Way” is the true standout here.  Many have compared the song’s sound to Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” but this is an unfair analysis.  Although the song’s beat and message are distantly similar, “Born This Way” is distinctly Gaga. It has become the unofficial dance anthem of misfits everywhere, for both women seeking love and gay men, with the same universal message of acceptance and tolerance as Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful.”

Like Madonna, Gaga is a frustrated Italian-American Catholic schoolgirl at heart, and this is most evident on the hit “Judas,” which outraged officials at the Catholic Church (and, of course got her plenty of headlines in the press). “Jesus is my virtue, and Judas is the demon I cling to,” Gaga sings, like a sinner torn between righteousness and temptation.  If you were brought up a Catholic or Protestant, isn’t that the crux of Christianity? All mortals are sinners, if one believes in true Christianity. There is absolutely nothing sacrilegious about the song at all. As Gaga said in her recent Madison Square Garden concert, the Bible teaches that Christ loves everyone; not just the pious.  No one wants a pop star to preach about Jesus, but Gaga obviously had the fire-and-brimstone damnation of dogmatic Christianity drummed into her head as a child, so her message of all-inclusiveness is sincere, which is why she is an outspoken advocate for gay and lesbian rights. This is also evident on the song “Bloody Mary,” complete with myriad references to the Virgin Mary and Christianity. There are also enough religious allusions in the song “Electric Chapel” to make any fundamentalist Jesus freak blush, and perhaps that is the point.

Gaga is a global artist, which might explain the Spanish-tinged track “Americano,” and the techno-disco “Sheiße” in which she sings a few lyrics in German. She also is not afraid to take on American myths of power and womanizing, such as slain President F. Kennedy in the song “Government Hooker,” in which she sings, “Put your hands on me/John F. Kennedy.”

The power-pop ballad “You and I” could be by any classic rocker from back in the day, in which Gaga professes drunken love to a “Nebraska guy” with, of course, more lyrical nods to the ever-elusive Jesus.

However, Gaga proves that she is not just a provocateur out for shock value in the seamless dance track “The Edge of Glory,” complete with the layers of synthesizers (and creepy ambient sounds like something from any 1980s British New Wave group) and the computerized drum machine beats that are her trademark.  This is yet another anthem destined to be an instant classic, in which Gaga sings, with soaring, semi-operatic vocals, about the gleeful feeling one gets from a new love. “The Edge of Glory” is, by far, the most original song of Gaga’s career yet, with none of the gimmickry she has been criticized for in the past, complete with a Clarence Clemons (of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band fame) saxophone solo.

It is time to stop comparing Lady Gaga to musical artists of the past and accept her for the superstar she truly is: An icon for the early 21st Century, the voice of a new generation, with an arsenal of talent underneath all those wacky outfits she sports.  Mama Monster proves with Born This Way that she is going to reign over the music world for some time, as long as her “Monster” minions are willing to worship and adore her.

Published May 27, 2011