Lady Gaga’s recent single, “Born This Way,” is a single meant to inspire not only the LGBTQ community, but also all those who have some insecurity about themselves or their uniqueness. However (and I hate to be that one person, but it must be done), something’s up with this track. The music video follows Lady Gaga’s latest trend of being so creepy that you watch it once and never want to watch it again, and at the same time, somehow bores me. It overdoes the strangeness (to the point of constantly bringing up her birth-giving scene several times in the video), but at the same time, her actual part in the video seems to be dry and basic. Even her outfits go back and forth between the most bizarre and the simplest thing possible (not saying that simple is bad, but its Lady Gaga we’re talking about here).
I actually like the song itself. It brings back that 90s popish-ness that can’t help but make you happy when you hear it, and the message within the song is very positive. Plus the song is super catchy. Many Lady Gaga fans, including myself, have had an issue with this song. When only the audio of the song was released, many people found it to be very similar to Madonna, in particular her song “Express Yourself;” there may be other comparisons, but this was the most popular connection. Lady Gaga has announced that Madonna supports this song, so any possible connections between the two artists were legally cut. Alas, this continuation of the “She’s only copying Madonna!” stereotype never seems to escape Lady Gaga, but this song seems to cut the corners too close this time.
Another interesting connection some made was to a popular South Korean girl band named Girls Generation (known as SNSD in South Korea). SNSD released their album Oh! two weeks before “Born This Way” with a track in the album named “Be Happy”. If you raise the pitch of this song a few levels, parts of this song sound exactly like “Born This Way,” and when I say exactly, I mean note by note. SNSD’s label, E-Tribe, plans on questioning Lady Gaga’s label and try to figure out exactly how this happened.
Although no legal accusations have been made with Lady Gaga’s new single yet, it is depressing to see such a star, once known for her originality, begin to become so, for lack of a better word, common. She tries too hard to best herself, and trying to recreate what once came naturally is only asking for failure. I’m still a fan of hers, but by the looks of things, Lady Gaga’s lost that spark that made her shine above all others, and now, as I sit and watch that once bright star slowly dim, I can’t help but wonder her she’ll ever find herself again and bring back all the things that made us once go gaga over her.
Article on “Born This Way” comparison here.