Lady Gaga
Born This Way

As long as I'm your hooker / Get back and turn around / As long as I'm your hooker! / Hands on the ground! Lady GaGa, Government Hooker

Until a few years ago Miss GaGa seemed like the last plastic little pop diva treading the fleeting stages of the music biz; her image, eccentric, irreverent, extravagant, at times funny and witty, made of platinum wigs à la Marilyn Monroe, clothing with incorporated polygons and little, very little sobriety, started to arouse interest and curiosity, especially among the glitters and sparkles of the dance floors. At her debut, Stefani Angelina Germanotta wanted to Just Dance in the company of her Poker Face surrounded by annoying Paparazzi, a rapidly descended livid malicious and pseudo-dramatic darkness, strategically devised to distinguish her from the various Britneys on the market: the inappropriate Bad Romance amidst the oppression and torment of the Russian mafia, the frantic Tarantinoesque adventure in search of the Telephone with her buddy Beyoncé, and finally the sacred rejection of Alejandro’s advances, Roberto's, and Fernando's in the hot Mexico of purifying fires and swallowed crosses.

Born This Way, already monumental to the Little Monsters’, picks up where its predecessor (The Fame Monster) left off: the horrific curtains of anti-fame, the obsessive celebration of the anti-hero (and anti-heroine), sovereign/of intrigues and destructive impulses, social emancipation, the endless, tiresome, arduous journey - like Don Quixote - towards freedom, pleasure, material and spiritual fulfillment. Among cunningly concealed vulgarity and postmodern blasphemies, GaGa takes on the role of the ascetic madame, hyperuranic, the sacrilegious alternative to so-called ecclesiastical – conservative perfection and canonical purity, replaced by the institutionalized filth of bunga bunga. The Holy Grail thus becomes, the unanimous awareness of everyone being important, fundamental, reasonable, free, small/large microcosms irradiated by the divine light.

At first impact with the album, one is struck by the dynamism and vigor imbued in it: no longer Ibiza-like, gaudy, adolescent and exclusively club electronic; on the contrary, a worthy handful of avant-garde, particular, experimental, and rich synths. However, what saves the work from being a mere, superficial reprisal of danceable club beats is the electro-hard rock convergence that recalls, in particular, the dark style of the '80s, the heavy metal bands igniting stages and the Harleys ridden by wild, studded individuals. The nostalgia of the glorious decade further shapes the general mood: dark and rarefied moments à la Depeche Mode pass the baton to episodes of brilliant frivolity and sweet melancholy. The electro-rock, chaotic, raw, dirty, distorted almost completely replaces the tacky superficiality of the current Dance scene, creating a work with multiple facets and inspirations, all echoing the unparalleled eighties spirit that Miss Germanotta seems to embody and recover even in the new poses as the total black queen.

The hard rock atmosphere of the Eighties is predominant in a substantial number of tracks: Hair is a frenetic techno-rock piece with saxophone improvisations, Electric Chapel plummets into a dark-alternative sound similar to the Cranberries mixed with robust electric guitar riffs, while a robotic and unusual orchestral ballet shapes the dark Bloody Mary. Heavy Metal Lover, an explicit techno-hardcore hymn to metalhead pride, stands out for its extraordinary power. The eighties spirit finds another stable abode in Bad Kids, where Miss Germanotta plays the convinced rocker between vintage-electronic beats and metal riffs in a Guns'n'Roses style.

Counterpoint to such an efflux of the '80s is "old school" GaGa with classic hyper-danceable uptempos: the first single Born This Way (harshly criticized for its resemblance to Madonna's Express Yourself) presents itself as the electro party anthem par excellence, Government Hooker, a sort of personal reflection on current sexgates, is a brilliant techno dance piece fit for the runway, the pseudo-blasphemous Judas descends into a deafening Hardcore-Electronic mix fit for rave parties. Singular are the large cauldron of tarantella/mambo italiano/folk/flamenco - drenched in classic dance beats - of Americano (a tribute to the Latin culture immigrated to the States) and the (badly) German-speaking Scheiße, an ecstatic electro/trance mix for connoisseurs. Concluding are the electro-rock ballads You And I (premiered already in a piano-voice version during the Monster Ball Tour) and The Edge Of Glory, also, like Hair, embellished by sax intervals.

I'll end my review here. I am now going to check if there's still some change in my porcelain piggy bank to purchase the Harley Limited Edition you see in the above mention.

Lady GaGa, Born This Way

Marry The Night - Born This Way - Government Hooker - Judas - Americano - Hair - Scheiße - Bloody Mary - Bad Kids - Highway Unicorn (Road To Love) - Heavy Metal Lover - Electric Chapel - You And I - The Edge Of Glory