Here we go with another Lady Gaga song geared toward her young teenage fans. Written, apparently, from the perspective of her teenage self, upset about her parents’ refusal to allow her to style her hair in the way that she wants or something, “Hair” serves as the one and only promotional single from the seemingly leak-proof “Born This Way” album (“Edge of Glory” is now the third single after “Judas”).
RedOne’s production is sparkling, and the melody to the chorus is truly good and could have served as the keystone to a fantastic song with a liberating feel.
When I first heard the song, Gaga’s mediocre diction made it difficult to understand the theme of the song. What initially stuck out were the typical lowest-common-denominator injunctions to “be yourself,” cherish your identity — whatever that means — and so forth. But by the third listen, I was struck by how much of the song was actually about wanting to impress others. In both the first and second verse, Gaga sings that she specifically wanted to style her hair so that she could look cool in front of her friends; in the bridge, she yearns to be invited to the hottest parties.
I can’t imagine anyone over the age of 16 feeling like they relate to this song. The chorus nearly rescues it, but the lyrics, as with “Born This Way,” render it sterile and frustrating. I suppose that Gaga is telling the truth when she says that she writes (the bulk of) her own lyrics: almost every song from this era has contained its share of mind-numbingly bad lyrics.
I didn’t expect to enjoy this song, however; I was pleasantly surprised at how melodic it ended up being and can at least enjoy it on that level. RedOne seldom disappoints on that count (and if anyone thinks that Gaga is the one responsible for the sweeping melodies, just check out RedOne’s work with other artists to put that deluded notion to rest). It’s a shame that there’s only one RedOne track left to hear from the album. The rest come to us almost entirely from Fernando Garibay and DJ White Shadow, who aren’t quite as good.
We’ll have the whole album in two days, when it’s streamed for the UK’s Metro. It’s been an astounding, mind-boggling coup for Interscope to keep this album under lock and key. The team responsible for that should be commended. It’s less than two days until the authorized release of the audio and there isn’t a trace of a leak. Unbelievable.
Overall grade for Hair: B-
Grade for the chorus to Hair: A-
Grade for Interscope’s professionalism: A
Twitter is abuzz with the fact that the album has apparently been shipped to retailers.
You know what that means…
Leak party time!
The fact that it’s been successfully kept under wraps for so long is quite the coup. Femme Fatale leaked eighteen days before its U.S. release date. If Born This Way can make it to eleven, that’s unusually good. At any rate, leaks don’t affect sales: if someone wants to illegally download the album, they can do that on the date of release, too.
What three tracks do you guys most want to hear? I want to hear “Electric Chapel,” “Heavy Metal Lover,” and “Fashion of His Love.” And, for the sheer ludicrousness, “Black Jesus/Amen Fashion.” I have a feeling that I’m going to hate “Bad Kids,” “Americano,” and “Hair.” (And I have a feeling that I’m going to dislike all the tracks that the Monsters love — and vice-versa!)
I’ll have a track-by-track review up once the album leaks, of course.
Stay tuned…
Well, here it is! [Download link.] It’s got a chorus that Kelly Clarkson would kill for, mixed in with some vocalizing that is reminiscent of — of all people — Celine Dion — and topped off with some truly good lyrics that are very fitting for the final track of an album.
The big question mark, ever since the Rolling Stone article summarizing a few of the songs, was the sax break. For me, it didn’t quite work. The combination of jazz and throbbing techno beats has not really been attempted before, to my knowledge, and, while I’m usually in favor of quirky mixtures of genres, I have to say that the dearth of jazz/techno mixes are for good reason. It just sounded sloppy. I’m not a jazz fan to begin with, though, so: take that for what you will. There’s something profoundly not epic about a saxophone.
Anyway, the song didn’t immediately catch me, and I doubt that this will rack up the number of plays on my iPod that Judas did. I played Judas 75 times; Born This Way, about 10. (Hold It Against Me, for comparison, has about 425, and Till the World Ends has about 225). I’m still looking forward to the rest of the album, but this song didn’t quite live up to what I was hoping for.
Grade: B
Put the melody to the beat at the end and it sounds quite good. The lyrics are a typical mish-mash of self-esteem crap (“I won’t give up on my life/I’m a warrior queen”) and some nice imagery (“marry the night” itself). Here it is:
And we’re awaiting “Edge of Glory” in thirty minutes…
By the way, where the hell is the album? Femme Fatale leaked eighteen days before its U.S. release date and songs started drip-dropping out nineteen days before; we’re now just two weeks from the release of Born This Way and there isn’t a hint of any leaks at all. I don’t think that leaks affect sales (you can download illegally on the day of release, too, after all; if you’re gonna download, you’re gonna download), but I’m looking forward to hearing it. Like her or not, it’s a pop music event, and the most-hyped pop album in years. And it’s almost here…
A lot of you have asked why I haven’t had anything to say about the Judas video. The honest truth is that I gave it a watch and found it profoundly uninteresting. She keeps overhyping these videos only to release an utterly ordinary piece of work. There’s nothing wrong with it, really — although the pseudo-arty cut-away scene made my eyebrow peak — but the attempt to whip up controversy by provoking Christians is so overdone. It’s no longer shocking. If Gaga wants to be truly shocking — and gain back my respect — then I want to hear her speak up on behalf of oppressed Muslim women. I want her to parody the burqa, or use a hijab as a fashion statement. Angry Christians are still docile. Angry Muslims will fuck your shit up.
As for the ‘Monster Ball’ special on HBO: I didn’t watch it because I don’t get HBO. I’ve seen a shockingly high number of people on my Facebook feed who aren’t Gaga haters say that it kind of bored them, though. Mostly they’ve said that they’re surprised at how uninteresting it was, given all of the hype and glamour surrounding Lady Gaga. Alas, I have no thoughts to present to you, since I didn’t watch it. I will say, though, that the name ‘Monster Ball’ has always made me gag, simply because of how I know that she envisions it: it’s a little festival for the Little Monsters to come out to play and celebrate Who They Are with their Mother Monster, Lady Gaga. Gag me.
“Judas” currently rests at #27 on iTunes and gained a rather weak 650 spins last week at radio (“Born This Way,” at this point in its Pop 40 history, was gaining over 2,000 spins a week; Selena Gomez’s “Who Says” is rising a rate similar to “Judas”). It’s set to fall on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, although the final chart will not be released until tomorrow morning.
The Ellen performance did nothing for the song, and the American Idol video premiere has been scrapped.
This song’s in big trouble, which is actually a shame, since it’s much better than “Born This Way,” which is the song that should have flopped. I’d go so far as to call “Judas” one of my favorite Lady Gaga songs (up there with “Just Dance,” “Boys Boys Boys,” and an altered-pitch version of “Alejandro” — don’t ask); I actually find it better than its precursor, “Bad Romance.”
Oh, well. I’m happier to see one of her songs struggle.
Thoughts?
CONFIRMED: DJ White Shadow has read this blog post. I tweeted it to him and he replied saying that he read it and that “it’s great to have an opinion.” Diplomatic PR statement, or cowardly refusal to engage? You decide, reader… (Since I know that he reads his tweets, though, I told him that it speaks poorly of him and everyone on Gaga’s team that none of them had the guts to tell her that the song sounds like “Express Yourself.” Will he reply? Time will tell…)
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Remember when the NME interview dropped and I speculated that, since Gaga revealed that no one around her had the courage to tell her that her “anthem of her generation” was blatantly plagiarized from Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” it is quite probable that Gaga surrounds herself entirely with sycophants?
Today, we have proof. Check out this quote from one of Gaga’s new producers, DJ White Shadow:
How many people have been copying Gaga since she came out? Oh, I have that answer: everyone. Have you seen all the lightning bolts painted on faces, or the one hand eye cover ups during photos, or the exact same promo posters being put up as Gaga’s, or the new popularity of unicorns, or the copycat fake “Oh I’m so cool with the gay community” rhetoric? Or how about the fact that there was barely any dance music on the radio until “Just Dance” came out? Come on motherfuckers, let’s keep it real here. If we are going to talk about who is chasing who, I think we all know the answer to that. So yeah, she did something new, and people had to reach back 20+ years to find a song that could have possibly sounded like it, and that made news? Come on. And I get to watch people try and fuck Gaga all the time and steal her shit, but guess what? While you were out trying to make the music she made off The Fame, thinking she was making The Fame v2.0, she went and made some next shit for you to chase for the next 3 years. So, suck on that.
Wow. Let’s take this cocky cunt’s bullshit line-by-line:
How many people have been copying Gaga since she came out? Oh, I have that answer: everyone.
A few have. Natalia Kills is a particularly glaring example, for instance. Besides her, I can’t really think of anyone “copying” Gaga.
Have you seen all the lightning bolts painted on faces,
No?
or the one hand eye cover ups during photos,
Two answers to this: (1) Apparently nobody covered one eye with one of their hands before Gaga did it in a split-second frame in the “Just Dance” video, (2) No?
or the exact same promo posters being put up as Gaga’s,
No?
or the new popularity of unicorns,
The fuck?
or the copycat fake “Oh I’m so cool with the gay community” rhetoric?
There’s a pro-gay zeitgeist, but Gaga is almost entirely a symptom, not a cause, of that.
Or how about the fact that there was barely any dance music on the radio until “Just Dance” came out?
Absolutely everything on The Fame has a precursor in three trailblazing albums: Loose, FutureSex/LoveSounds, and Blackout, whose sounds were crafted largely by the likes of Timbaland, Danja, and Bloodshy & Avant.
Come on motherfuckers, let’s keep it real here.
Indeed.
If we are going to talk about who is chasing who, I think we all know the answer to that.
Correct: Gaga is chasing Madonna.
So yeah, she did something new,
She didn’t.
and people had to reach back 20+ years to find a song that could have possibly sounded like it, and that made news?
It’s a rather famous song. The chorus to “Born This Way” was written in the same key and was, note-for-note, the same melody as the bridge to “Express Yourself.” The title of the Madonna song was trending on Twitter higher than the name of the Gaga song on the day of the song’s release. Let’s get real, here.
Come on.
Seriously.
And I get to watch people try and fuck Gaga all the time and steal her shit, but guess what? While you were out trying to make the music she made off The Fame, thinking she was making The Fame v2.0, she went and made some next shit for you to chase for the next 3 years. So, suck on that.
If he’s referring to “Born This Way,” then we’re about to hear an explosion of songs that sound like 90’s club remixes. If he’s referring to “Judas,” then he’s full of shit, since that song is most definitely The Fame v2.0. Perhaps there are fully innovative songs on the upcoming album, but from the previews we’ve been given, I seriously doubt it.
But there’s big news lurking underneath this: This man is representative of the type of people that Gaga surrounds herself with. That’s a rather unsettling thought!
The track listing to THE ALBUM OF THE DECADE has dropped…
1. Marry the Night
2. Born This Way
3. Government Hooker
4. Judas
5. Americano
6. Hair
7. Scheiße
8. Bloody Mary
9. Black Jesus † Amen Fashion
10. Bad Kids
11. Fashion of His Love
12. Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)
13. Heavy Metal Lover
14. Electric Chapel
15. The Queen
16. Yoü and I
17. The Edge of Glory
…Can someone explain “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)” to me? And the “Black Jesus/Amen Fashion” shit? As if “Government Hooker” wasn’t pseudo-arty and pretentious enough.
“Electric Chapel” sounds pretty cool, though.
I don’t really have anything to say. Lots of pretentious titles (ten bucks says “Americano” has something to do with immigration). Lots of Gaga-isms (unicorns, fashion, foreign language shit). This should leak in about ten days, so watch out…
lady gaga is a fraud. 