Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Lady Gaga: Born this Way To Express Yourself


After months of anticipation and time in the delivery room, Lady Gaga has finally given birth to her premiere single, “Born This Way,” from her upcoming album of the same name. In mere hours, the song reached the top of the iTunes singles charts and has already received thousands of mix reviews from her “monsters” and casual fans. But now that her new baby is born, in what way will this change music, as the singer-songwriter claimed.

The lyrics follow a recent trend of self-love. Recently, artists from Pink, with her track “Fuckin' Perfect” to Ke$ha’s “We R Who We R” have made major hits of a similar theme. With Lady Gaga on board, it seems that in pop culture, it is cool to be you. That truly is a positive image to portray, and it is something that has been missing in music since Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” topped the charts.

The song is infectious, though, showing that Gaga still has a good ear for a strong rhythm. With its up-in-the-air-club sound, this track will undoubtedly be the gay anthem for the upcoming summer, but does it compare to staple gay anthems such as “I Will Survive” like Sir Elton John claimed? No. It wasn’t born that way.

Mainly the reason the track probaly won't be on any top ten best gay anthems ever any time soon is that it kind of sounds like another classic gay anthem, Madonna's 1989 hit single, "Express Yourself." Similar is the key word here. Gaga does throw in some of her own flavor into the song, but one can't help to imagine her listening to "Express Yourself" on a loop as she wrote the song.

What’s the problem, one asks? Well, for a woman who prides herself on originality and her uniqueness, to release a song so similar to such a famous song, written and performed by Madonna, who Gaga has been more than influence by in the past, leads to the question how original and unique is Ms. Gaga? She certainly has had her creative moments in the past, on album tracks such as “Paper Gangsta” and “So Happy I Could Die,” but her sound and look have been heavily influenced by the likes of Madonna, Cher , Grace Jones. Not to mention the remixers of the past 15 years.

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Interestingly enough, blogger Perez Hilton has called “Born This Way” Lady Gaga’s “Like a Prayer,” perhaps because the melody is so similar from the single Madonna released right after the classic? In comparison to Gaga’s other tracks, musically “Born This Way” doesn’t have the same fierceness of “Telephone” or the iconic punch of “Bad Romance.”

Now that Lady Gaga has let the world see her new baby, finally the months of hype and hysterical can be put to rest. Will this change music and be the song for the generation? Probably not. Will it be a #1 worldwide smash? Probably so.

The end result: “Born This Way” has come out to be the love child of Madonna, circa 1989, and a Madonna remix from 2000.

Listen to the song here

“Born This Way” was released on iTunes and on Atlanta radio on February 11, 2011.

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