Lady Gaga knows the game. She may come across as all hard edges and provocative poses, but for her divisiveness is a dead end. As she insists on “Born this Way” (Interscope), one of the year’s most anticipated albums: “I can be anything, I’ll be your everything.”
Inclusiveness is the unstated goal of most mass-scale pop music, whether it’s the adolescent sincerity of Taylor Swift, the girls-gone-wild pandering of Katy Perry or the adult nursery-rhyme simplicity of Black Eyed Peas.
But no one does “everyone in” more inventively than Gaga. Her music is aimed at outsiders: she has been a vocal advocate for gay and transgender rights, but she’s also spoken out on everything from racial discrimination to high school bullying.
It’s a neat trick, because in Gaga world, almost everybody qualifies as a misfit. In the last two years, playing a series of sold-out arenas around the world, the singer would inevitably pause midshow to remind fans that her concerts were a shame-free safe zone for self-expression. The message got heavy-handed at times, but it underlines her every move as an artist. Little wonder she refers to her fans as “little monsters”; we’re all a little bit weird, disconnected or misunderstood, she suggests.
That refrain is packaged in outrageousness (“meat” outfits instead of the latest Versace creation, entrances in egg-shaped vessels instead of Cleopatra thrones) and elaborate videos that reference Hitchcock, Scorsese and grind-house movies. After scuffling in the New York clubs for a few years, she broke through with her 2008 debut album, “The Fame,” and follow-up 2009 EP, “The Fame Monster,” which totaled sales of 22 million albums and 69 million singles.
Now comes “Born This Way,” which cheerleads relentlessly for self-expression in as many genres and languages as Gaga can pack into 14 songs. There are songs sung partially in Spanish and German. There is all manner of operatic melodrama, from diva-like mini-arias (the intro to “Government Hooker”) to Springsteen-on-steroids bombast (“The Edge of Glory,” with Clarence Clemons doing almost a parody of a Clarence Clemons sax solo). And there are explicit declarations of solidarity with the “Bad Kids”: “I’m a nerd … I’m absurd.”
The album was largely created after concerts on her tour-bus studio, and it sounds like it – buzzing with adrenaline, crushing four-on-the-floor disco beats, over-the-top guitar solos, surreal visions of galloping unicorns and trysts with John F. Kennedy. Though there are flashes of everything from flamenco to blues, the over-riding influences are ‘70s disco and glam-rock. And the whole shebang is soaked with religious references: church organs, church bells, songs built around controversial biblical figures (“Judas,” “Bloody Mary”).
If on her first album she imagined herself a pop sensation and then made it happen, “Born This Way” waves everyone else aboard, an update of Sly Stone’s declaration that “Everybody is a star.” Her take on this tradition is beyond blunt. Gaga herself used the word “sledgehammer” to describe the beats on this album, but she might as well have been describing the lyrics too. At times, the appeal lies in the sheer ridiculousness of her conceits. “I am my hair/I’m as free as my hair,” she blares on “Hair” while compressing Auto-Tuned vocals, “Be My Baby” drums and yet another Clemons sax break.
The barrage becomes wearying over an entire album. At her concerts, Gaga usually dials back for a couple of stripped-down songs at the piano, and “Born This Way” could’ve used a couple such back-off moments. If not necessarily a subtle artist, Gaga is quite capable of holding her listeners’ attention with just her voice and piano-playing – both of which are first-rate.
As it is, “Born This Way” feels rushed – from the cheesy, photo-shopped cover art to the hyperventilating music. It is the sound of a major artist sprinting to please everyone all the time – and even a pop star as inclusive as Gaga can’t pull that off.
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