Lady Gaga released her new album Joanne last weekend. After briefly going into the jazz business with Tony Bennett, Gaga has returned to her pop roots with a different angle. Instead of the electro-pop vibes we heard on songs like “Poker Face” and “Bad Romance,” she takes a more old school approach to her songs. Many of the songs on Gaga’s album are a mix of soft rock and a twist of “Gaga’s” pop.
“Perfect Illusion” and “A-Yo” are currently the big singles on the album. “Perfect Illusion” is very close to the style Gaga used in “Born This Way” and “The Edge of Glory.” “A-Yo” sounds a little more like an Avril Lavigne song than a Lady Gaga song. While both songs have their differences and similarities to other Gaga-type songs, they are not the best songs on the album.
That distinction goes to “Hey Girl,” Gaga’s duet with Florence Welch. It’s a chilling and slow tune that fits Welch’s style, but also lets Gaga go out of her comfort zone. The topic of it is something listeners haven’t heard in a while from a pop tune. It’s not about pining for another guy, getting jealous about another girl, or some sort of explicit topic. The song isn’t even about men at all, really.
It’s about the friendship between two girls. However, the friendship isn’t seen as “mushy gushy”; it’s not about “We’re best friends forever and nothing’s going to set us apart.” It’s truly about two girls supporting each other instead of fighting. The chorus lyric, “We don’t need to keep on one-in’ up another,” sums up the song perfectly.
We’ve seen a lot of girls competing against each other for everything lately, from who’s more beautiful to who’s going to get the boy. “Hey Girl” isn’t about fighting two girls fighting over something. It’s about the misadventures two girls go through, as sang in the lyrics “Help me hold my hair back. Walk me home ‘cause I can’t find a cab and we dance down the bowery, held hands like we were seventeen again.”
We need to see more songs like “Hey Girl.” It’s not super fast paced and happy. It’s sentimental, somber and still has heart. If you’re a big fan of Florence + The Machine or need something out of Lady Gaga’s norm, I would definitely give “Hey Girl” a listen.