Music Album: Born This Way by Lady Gaga

Within the past two years, Lady Gaga has transformed herself into a global superstar. Her music is loved by millions around the world and she has become somewhat of a household name, everyone knows who she is, whether for her music or the controversy she likes to create with her fashion, lyrics or visual projects. After the success of her groundbreaking previous albums, The Fame and The Fame Monster, and also the success of her record-breaking “Monster Ball World Tour”, the world began to patiently await the follow-up to her previous efforts and finally, Mother Monster delivers another fire-starting effort titled Born This Way.

The Born This Way era started off with the release of the same titled first single that caused a bit of controversy for sounding too similar to Madonna 80s hit, Express Yourself, Gaga took it all in stride and promoted the single by performing the song at the 2011 Grammy Awards, the song eventually became her 6th No 1 hit, the empowerment song contains the catchy lyrics “I’m beautiful in my way/cause God makes no mistakes/ I’m on the right track baby/I was born this way/Don’t hide yourself in regret/Just love yourself and you’re set/I’m on the track baby/I was born this way”. The second single, Judas contains a dance-heavy instrumental created by RedOne, the video for the song has received backlash from Christian communities because of its depiction of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. The confirmed third single, The Edge of Glory was performed on the finale show of American Idol and is set to become another massive hit for her.

Usually, I would consider Lady Gaga as a proponent of the pop genre, but majority of this album uses dance-influenced beats and she seems to deliver almost every song with overloaded energy which in a way makes the album pretty exhausting, thereby making me consider her to be a dance genre artist. I give her credit for the mere fact that her creativity is visible in her song writing style and she is able to transform her songs into visual brilliance, but her exploration of the dance genre might make one lose interest in this album. However, a breath of fresh air comes in form of the rock-tinged ballad, You and I, undeniably the best song on the album where she declares “You taste like whiskey when you kiss me, oooh/I’ll give anything again to be your baby doll”. Not as brilliant as I was expecting it to be, but it is still a good album.