Fascinating monster blog from February 2011

[Tokyo Rose 1,475]

I stumbled on this by accident, but it's a really interesting read!

It's a blog post of monsters discussing the release of Born This Way and their initial thoughts when it came out.

http://gagajournal.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-wanna-take-ride-on-your-disco-egg.html

 

Meghan Vicks: Let’s begin with our thoughts about the song “Born This Way.” How does the song’s form work with, or against, the song’s message? In what ways does the song follow in the tradition of “celebrate yourself” anthems past, and in what ways does it break from that tradition? How does the song compare to Lady Gaga’s music from The Fame and The Fame Monster, and what does it indicate about the direction of Gaga’s project? I’m sure we’ll come up with more points and questions to a--lyze regarding the song, but for now let’s start here.

 

Eddie McCaffray: What I noticed immediately about the song were the lyrics - they make a point of sayingexactly what it is people are accepting about themselves and others. There’s a long tradition of anthemic love-yourself songs that, for better or for worse, don’t make any explicit reference to anything of which someone might be intolerant. That’s fine, but for me it comes off as an attempt to cash in on all the good press and good vibes of such a song without risking the alienation of any potential part of a fan base. But this song isn’t like that - it makes references to God’s acceptance, to a “different lover,” and turns the LGBT(A) roll-call into a real litany. In a similar manner, when Gaga says “black, white, or beige” she’s departing from the cliche (which is to sing something like “black, white, or blue”) and taking the issue of race seriously. There’s room for joy and power and celebration, but there isn’t room for levity. It’s stunning that she could fit “. . . gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgendered . . .” into an up-tempo club-banger, and it’s wonderful that she wrote a song about tolerance that intolerant people can’t sing.

 

Besides that, I think the pretty-simple nature of the song sort of goes along with the simplicity of the message. It has a pounding beat and some very fun synth stylings flowered around it, but musically as well as lyrically the song is about just one thing. I also like the implications of “there ain’t no other way”; there’s a somewhat-understated note of militancy in the song. The song isn’t afraid of making very clear just what it expects people to accept, and it isn’t afraid of saying that intolerance is not an option.

 

And, finally, the intro seems like she is extending a hand to the religious community. “It doesn’t matter if you love him or capital H-i-m,” as some have suggested, is a nod to Christians. The song isn’t about attacking anything besides intolerance, and if your religion can pass that very basic litmus test, then this is an anthem for you to celebrate your identity with as well - there are people out there who have their sights set on organized religion, people who aren’t treating it fairly just like some members of some organized religions aren’t treating others fairly. That’s not ok with this song either.

 

Meghan Vicks: Immediately upon the song’s release, Twitter exploded with people drawing comparisons between Madonna’s “Express Yourself”/“Vogue” and “Born This Way,” and many criticized Gaga for copying Madonna. While I don’t think that the song is an exact copy or blend of “Express Yourself” and “Vogue,” I do think that Gaga is purposely taking cues from Madonna (as she is always taking cues from those that came before her), and placing vocal and lyrical nods to her throughout “Born This Way.” That Gaga adopts and adapts what her predecessors have done is no secret; in a recent interview with Vogue she said,

It’s not a secret that I have been inspired by tons of people. David Bowie and Prince being the most paramount in terms of live performance. I could go on and on about all of the people I have been compared to - from Madonna to Grace Jones to Debbie Harry to Elton John to Marilyn Manson to Yoko Ono - but at a certain point you have to realize that what they are saying is that I am cut from the cloth of performer, that I am like all of those people in spirit. I was born this way.

She was born this way - from a genealogy of musicians, artists, and performers; significantly, she was cut - organically fashioned - from the cloth of the performer. “Born This Way” is no different; it’s also a product, or the offspring, of a long genealogy of anthemic, empowering songs that call on people to express themselves, love themselves, be themselves. So with “Born This Way,” Gaga’s rewriting Madonna’s message for a more radical agenda. As Gaga sings in the song’s opening lines, “My momma told me when I was young that we’re all superstars,” so Madonna sang nearly two decades earlier, “You’re a superstar, yes that’s what you are!” Madonna, of course, is a type of mother figure for all pop-starlets; when Gaga sings “we’re all superstars,” she’s singing as one of a generation who grew up listening to Madonna’s message from “Vogue” and “Express Yourself.” In a way, given the song’s message, it absolutely needed to sound a bit like Madonna’s; but, given the 21st century context, it needed to be more straightforward (as Eddie talks about above) and also way more radical.

Musically, the song combines disco with a solid rock beat, which I read as a merging of the gay culture with the mainstream. If we think about “Born This Way” as a gay anthem, then the musical composition of the song is pretty brilliant: Gaga has taken heavily from the arsenal of gay club music and created a rock song. Or, she’s turned a rock song into a disco ball fixture. It’s a very glittery rock song! Or tough-as-nails disco. In either case, musically “Born This Way” is a type of oxymoron that makes hetero-rock just as queer as disco, and homo-disco just as mainstream as rock. It’s an incredibly interesting musical vehicle in which to house the message of her song: that we’re all equally beautiful - black, white, beige, gay, straight, transgender … 

Roland Betancourt: Well, I think that in this song we are seeing a definite shift in the trajectory of Gaga’s work. I do not want to sound like there is some strict evolutionary model or a chronology that I wish to impose on Gaga, but there have been definite patterns in her work. I believe many of us can recall the early Gaga period, where she relied heavily on her collaborations with Space Cowboy. This was the period that was inaugurated by “Just Dance” and witnessed songs/videos such as “Poker Face” and “Love Game.” We then had a change with “Paparazzi” that has lasted much into the present, however, I would say that after the “Alejandro” music video things began to shift - mainly aesthetically and visually. “Born This Way” places this shift into the musical realm and ties in directly to the thematic issues that have been developing in her work about homos-xuality and gay rights.

What is of first note is what Meghan is referring to as the Twitter-comparisons to Madonna, which I would also refer to as a more widespread outcry to the song. Looking at Gaga’s history though, we find “Just Dance” to have many similar parallels to “Born This Way.” In many ways, “Just Dance” serves as the jumping dance song that everyone wants to sing along and dance to, but not the song that you particularly see as revolutionary. Nevertheless, in “Born This Way” we encounter lyrics that are antithetical to the inconsiderate hedonism of “Just Dance.” I think the brilliant part of “Born This Way” is that she’s produced a song that we are already tired of hearing. The comparisons being made to Madonna, for example, may seem valid at first, but every time I have compared the songs they don’t really seem to be there. Sure there are some similarities that seem to be riffs on one another, as Meghan suggests above, but the song actually has less similarities than it would seem. Gaga has produced an uncanny song in the Freudian notion of the term, where it seems all too familiar yet also wholly foreign.


Eddie McCaffray: And what’s so great about the foreign-lodged-within-the-familiar is that it provokes rediscovery of the world - if not in Freud, in Heidegger and Shklovsky. To keep this concept in line with the aesthetic of “Born This Way,” only a continual process of self-(re)creation will keep one meaningful to oneself. Accepting the categories and patterns offered by the world in a simple rote mimesis - the primary risk of conformism - renders one a simple colony of that world. But Gaga’s play with and reappropriation of all manner of cultural symbols, combined with this message of radical (self-)acceptance, calls Little Monsters to keep themselves uncanny, to maintain the tight-rope walk of foreign and familiar within their own plastic souls.

 

you can read the rest here! It's a long blog

[iStan4Talent 1]

This Is Fassinatinq!

[GypsyRomance 862]

the Madonna part is absolutely true

[DanMonster 185]

That was a great read! 

[Dorothy Gale 7,575]

It's so true though! Most empowerment ballads speak of unnamed obstacles, and universal acceptance, but born this way called out names, and was more effective than most of these kinds of songs.

[Runway 27,876]

 into an up-tempo club-banger, and it’s wonderful that she wrote a song about tolerance that intolerant people can’t sing

 

So true. Didnt sing unspecific meaningless love yourself lyrics like "you shine like a star" or whatever, but tackled real issues without fear of alienating homophobes/racist/intolerant listeners that could have otherwise bought her music. Only a queen