Winning '11: 22 - Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga - Born This Way

Easiest to start this off with what I said about the first two singles at the time:

"Born This Way" - For the past year or so, watching the “Just Dance” video has been a sure way of inducing cognitive dissonance. After the awesome, meticulous realisation of vision that was The Fame Monster and associated campaign, it’s a bizarre and unreal feeling to go back to seeing and hearing a document of Gaga not as unstoppable phenomenon but as mere ordinary pop star. “Born This Way” will not have as ordinary looking a video, and doesn't give up a large section of its lines to some guy called Colby, but it produces a bit of the same feeling. There are more moments of buzzing excitement in its multiple layers than “Just Dance”, and it has an even more hugely constructed chorus, but for the first time in a while you can see the joins.

"Judas" -  This is more like it! The recycled elements are of minor consequence next to the way the beat clangs with awesome industrial force like nothing else she’s done, the best thing about it. Then there’s the sweet and addictive hi-NRG chorus and the way that that and the heavier elements are not so much stitched into a song as crammed violently together into the same four minute space. The effect is actually to make both of them sound all the more strange and exciting and the straight-faced nonsense delivered over the top works perfectly in that context.


The album carried on from there really, covering the whole range of points between those two, as well as a surprisingly enjoyable foray into Shania Twain/80s pop balladry for its closing two tracks and singles. It's overly long, especially the bonus edition (but that does get you the less stupid cover art), and undoubtedly a bit of a mess, but when it works it's amazing. "Government Hooker" and "Scheiße" sound like no one and nothing else in a fantastic way, and even when she doesn't pull things off to the same extent there's such likeable personality alongside the ambition that it's easy to forgive.