I wrote 2000+ words about Catherine yesterday. I’ll post it tomorrow. You’re probably getting sick of hearing about it by now, so let’s talk about something else today, shall we?
I’ve been listening to Lady Gaga’s (is the second G capitalized?) Born This Way for a couple days now, and I’ve gotta say that I’m not sure how I feel about it. No, actually that’s a lie. In most cases, I’m sure I’d enjoy it much more if the vocal track were muted. It’s not that I have a problem with her voice or anything, but a lot of the vocals are filler that I find extremely annoying.
A lot of it has to do with that fact that it’s so damned repetitive. Seriously, and I say this to all songwriters out there, a chorus is not repeating the title of the song over and over. That doesn’t pass for the second half of the song either. I’m pretty sure the last two minutes of “The Edge of Glory” is just her saying “the edge the edge the edge” over and over until the song cuts out. This is bad writing any way you split it. You don’t see Stephen King describing the same tree over and over for five chapters. Maybe writing a short story/novel and a song are a little different, but the principle is the same: if it’s such obvious filler, you should probably cut it out. There’s nothing wrong with having an instrumental section in your song. I feel it actually adds to a song.
Another thing I need to vent about is the stuttering and nonsense words. I like “Judas” well enough, but the jibber-jabber that permeates the beginning and half the chorus annoys the crap out of me. You did this with “Bad Romance” already, and it hasn’t gotten any less annoying since then. Again, why all this filler? If you can’t write words to put there, just let your music carry itself. It’s good! Like I said, without lyrics I’d think this is a fantastic techno-pop album. All I see here is that either Gaga has no faith in the quality of the actual music, or she just can’t get enough of her own voice. Lazily slapping in all these nonsense vocals and needless repetition makes it seem like children’s music. If it weren’t so full of hookers and “blonde souths,” this would be a great album for the “under 3” demographic.
Speaking of which, Ms. Gaga seems to be writing explicit lyrics simply for shock value. “Government Hooker” is the best example for this. The song is barely about a hooker to begin with, with absolutely nothing in the song to justify the “government” part. Okay, she says “John F. Kennedy” once, but that would make the song “zombie hooker” or at worst, “corpse hooker.” And let’s be honest here, at that point it could just be rebranded to necrophiliac. Because dead people don’t pay for sex. And again, I think the word “hooker” counts for at least 80% of the total lyrics. Yeesh.
All little quibbles aside, I do still enjoy listening to Born This Way if I don’t stop to think about it. “Hair” and “Highway Unicorn” are my favourite tracks so far. Though “You and I” gets the runner-up prize. I can’t stand straight-up country music, but oddly enough I really like when other genres are influenced by country. Also: Brian May plays guitar on it. That makes it instantly awesome.
Oh yeah, and the cover is totally bad-ass. Even a little scary.