Lady Gaga, why are you still here? 05-05-2011 - by Dante Alexander, Staff Mumbler Lady Gaga's new song "Judas" caused a stir among Christians; accusations of "Born this Way" having ripped off Madonna caused her to grow furious in an interview, but underneath all the publicity have we failed to notice that most of her music is pretty terrible now?
"Judas" was leaked onto the Internet prematurely, though possibly not on accident as much as for publicity. And, of course with the lyrical content and music video, some religious people are going to be offended. Maybe she's counting on this, who knows; bands like Slayer and Marilyn Manson made their career out of this kind of thing. So, predictably, a song that exclaims, "I'm in love with Judas" ended up offending some people.
"This is a stunt... Lady Gaga tries to continue to shock Catholics and Christians in general: she dresses as a nun... she swallows the rosary. She has now morphed into a caricature of herself. She is trying to rip off Christian idolatry to shore up her talentless, mundane and boring performances. Another ex-Catholic whose head is turned around... Is this the only way to jet up her performance? This isn't random, we are getting closer to Holy Week and Easter." Thus claims Bill Donahue.
And Bill may very well have a good point. Have we forgotten that Lady Gaga has built her entire career out of being outrageous? And by outrageous, I only mean that her strategy is, "look at me, I'm being unusual, buy my record." Past her image, all but a few of her songs are terribly written, repetitive synth-pop that, if you really listen to it, isn't so much different from the widely hated song "Friday" by Rebbecca Black. Judas follows the same formula. The only thing remotely interesting about it is the stir that it's caused.
Then, on the other hand, there's "Born this Way," which sounds to me like a desperate attempt to boost Gaga to the status of a gay icon, but we'll get back to that later. The big controversy is that the song sounds so much like Madonna's "Express Yourself" that Gaga has been repeatedly accused of plagiarism. She responded to these accusations, "That's retarded. If you put the songs next to each other, side by side, the only similarities are the chord progression. It's the same one that's been in disco music for the last 50 years. Just because I'm the first f**king artist in 25 years to think of putting it on Top 40 radio, it doesn't mean I'm a plagiarist, it means I'm f**king smart. Sorry." If the song is in fact a Madonna ripoff, it's definitely not a very good one.
And other than that, "Born this Way" seems like a desperate attempt to sell her music than a song with actual sincerity behind it. Gaga seems to be trying very hard to get gays to support her, but does it in a fashion with little more credit than a marketing scheme. She never fails to remind people that she is bisexual, even when they haven't really asked, and "Born this Way" sends out a very straightforward, in your face statement that doesn't say "I support gays" so much as, "gays, please get behind my career - it will make me more popular and get me some media time."
"Born this Way," as for the song itself, is impossibly boring. The melody is uninteresting to the point of being frustrating, and one can not help but wonder why she would set an important, positive message to such a forgettable song. It's almost as bad as Judas, actually. She hasn't released anything halfway decent since "Paparazzi," but pop culture is still singing her praises for some reason. Even "Paparazzi" wasn't that great; I think the only reason any of us were impressed by it was the fact that it deviated a little from her original sound. "Just Dance?" "Pokerface?" This pop star would be a two hit wonder if the music industry wasn't so obsessed with her "outrageous" image.
For those of you who think it isn't the image that's gotten her fame but the music, well consider Stephanie Germanotta. Who? Exactly. That was Gaga before she went out of her way to look as weird as possible; she still made music, but it wasn't all that great, considering that so long as she looked and acted normal, nobody gave a good God damn.
But as this article has gone over multiple subject, I feel obligated to conclude with a rating of the two songs I mentioned to sum it up. On a one to ten scale, "Born this Way," receives a 4.5 for being a rather boring bit of alleged plagiarism, while I give "Judas" a generous 1.5 for being over four minutes of pure suck.
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