"Born This Way" –
Yeah, yeah: it's an "Express Yourself" bite. And yes: you've heard the song 700 hundred times in the last month. But Gaga's big hit sounds different in the context of the album that shares its name: like an experiment in the audacious plus-sizing of Eighties dance-pop.
"Hair" –
Gaga is not the first songwriter to link self-esteem and liberation to free-flowing coiffure. (Remember that rock musical called, um, Hair? Remember "Whip My Hair"?) But she's definitely the most committed. "I am my hair!" she cries. Red One supplies the gale force hair-tousling synths.
"Government Hooker" –
The requisite "kinky" song – though what exactly Gaga is saying here isn't clear: "I'll be your hooker/Government hooker," "I could be Mom/Unless you want to be Dad." But the techno-pop production, by DJ White Shadow, is gripping: a shape-shifting assemblage of buzzes, beeps and clattering beats. Choice couplet: "Put your hands on me/John F. Kennedy."
"Judas" –
"Wear an ear condom" next time, Gaga sings in a track with one of the catchiest choruses on an album devoted to catchy choruses above all. Gagaologists will spend years pouring over the runes of that rapped bridge. ("But in the cultural sense/I just speak in future tense," etc.) The rest of us will be busy dancing to Red One's walloping production.
Further Reading:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lady-gagas-born-this-way-a-track-by-track-breakdown-20110518
By Jody Rosen
COPYRIGHT ©2011 ROLLING STONE
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