Dance In The Dark is one of the BEST pop songs…

[gagzus 23,139]

11 minutes ago, pachinko said:

Alejandro performance at The Mayhem Ball is the weakest performance of the setlist though. 

nah her vocals are Killah.mp3

[Cavadour 2,704]

One of my faves. I always put it when djing. Usually following with Electric Chapel. Those two slap very well. And I love the goth 'n' roll undertones, although slightly more pop than rock for DITD.

These songs are not part of the usual LG hits but I think they deserve more attention than being second rank contenders. I'm planning to smash the PA more often with them, just to slam them forward.

 

Edited April 6 by Cavadour

[Duella Dvil 11,574]

1 hour ago, pachinko said:

Alejandro performance at The Mayhem Ball is the weakest performance of the setlist though. 

And dance in the dark on the actual setlist would have destroyed us. She would have a resurrection like Judas has 

[Jill 31,812]

2 hours ago, gagzus said:

Just double checked, I got it mixed up the we did it kids was about Born This Way releasing (the song) but still yeah she was the one who wanted Alejandro. DITD was released however as an official single in France and Australia before Alejandro became a single because Interscope were pushing for it. It’s also her only album track to ever get a GRAMMY nomination.

DITD was officially a single though. It just didn't have a music video. So it's not only an album track.

[Anderson123 42,693]

It truly is one of her best pop songs ever and it's a great sound of what was coming next (Born This Way). What a great way to start your career with such amazing discography.

Dance In The Dark, Scheiße and Vanish Into You not being singles is truly a sin. 

[Apec 284]

DITD is amazing, and hearing her sing it live at the Mayhem Ball more than a decade and a half later with somehow even more power AND vulnerability has been magical, even though I followed it through fans' recordings (bedridden due to nerve pain, have been for a long time).

Sorry, long thoughts incoming: 

The OP talks about it being the first to have a deeper meaning, about not being about a club or being generic in other ways, and seems to feel like DITD is like the genesis of Gaga writing about more serious topics. However I don't really feel this song is the first of Gaga's with a deeper meaning. Paparazzi is a prototype in this regard, it has much more to say than its surface-level although the video/VMA's spelled it out more because there she is the star being abused by the system there like almost all those other iconic women before her, while in the song she's one of many, many perpetrators. But how original and so completely her to make it into a search-for-self-love song for The Art of Personal Chaos (I'm your biggest fan I'll follow you until you love me... such an emotional rollercoaster)!

I also feel almost all of the underrated TFM songs have serious layers like the hypnotizing SHICD that chooses the trap of oblivion and doesn't care, on purpose, about ultimate oblivion due to alcohol addiction (all brought about by what's expected of young stars) and Teeth switching from possibly feigned confidence to defenselesness in relationships. Those two have much to say, but before long Gaga would become a master at layering subjects, meaning, irony, raw and open as well as deeply hidden emotion in all nooks and crannies of her music and also start confronting almost every subject/state of mind imaginable from BTW and BTW onwards.

I don't agree that dance floors are the same in Gaga's hands (we just got more than normal on Mayhem and to me they represent places she goes to in her mind/states of mind themselves much more than an actual club tbh). For example I feel GoE has Gaga sort of putting up her middle finger at religious and other misogynistic men where she plays a modern Eve, who is still searching for actual knowledge and self-empowerment because she's been barred entry to both so to speak. She needs both her modern Adam to bite the apple - euphemism alert! -  that will make her and him visit the Garden just long enough to discover herself (sounds in the outro) and she also wants to be bathed in the DJ's light (God's light standing in for all knowledge in Judeo-Christian canon). This is her own enlightenment, her choosing for herself what she wants. The club is more the precursor to the Garden, even Lilith's there (Adam's first wife who immediately clocked the BS and refused to serve her so-called husband - this is more from the Torah) but the inclusion checks out since reincarnation!Eve isn't there yet with uncoupling from male supremacy right up until the end of the song while she's there with a seemingly empowered friend ("This chick's a machine but her friend's way more fun/But you can't hear her with the music on/So you say yes and then the party's o-on".) With the bridge giving Gaga's Eve all the light/knowledge and then her night with modern!Adam making her learn about herself and her own body - Her reincarnation has claimed what she needed and become what modern men still fear: she's become a self-actualized human being with her own opinions, wants, needs and is not afraid to do whatever she wants (which is the reason she's made the reincarnated/modern version of Adam bite the apple so quickly because he's definitely not what she wants outside this one night stand). He might still be a caveman in his views on women. There's just too much in GoE not to see the story and the complete eff you to people with tiny brains judging women, instead of it being a club song.

Even in Just Dance the song where a dance floor should just be a dance floor in a club I've always found a dark layer of compulsion present, that "Just dance, gonna be okay, d-d-d-dance" in the chorus or even the opening lines "I've had a little bit too much, much/All of the people start to rush, start to rush by/How does he twist the dance? Can't find a drink, oh man/Where are my keys? I lost my phone, phone" and how she keeps repeating she doesn't know the name of the club (thus she has no idea where she is) together with the bridge "Half psychotic, sick, hypnotic/Got my blueprint, it's symphonic/Half psychotic, sick, hypnotic
Got my blueprint electronic" has always sounded ominous to me. So clubs are not really "Dancin' in da club" sorts of places in most of her songs imho.

Bad Romance could be seen as having a double meaning: falling in love with someone (in the back of the bus) who's not good for you/can't fully reciprocate is the surface but metaphorically she may be torn, clinging to her unique self and fighting with everything she's got to show people and her fans especially HER truth, even though that's the part of her that the industry she wanted to enter desperately wants to erase, to put her in a box, package her up and devour/sell. A bit of contract with the devil themes and fighting the complete loss of control the higher-ups want her to have in this confrontation, a fight she will never truly lose.

Alejandro has a crazy amount of psychological themes and layers. Examples: attachment-type problems leaving traces of Avoidant, Anxious/Disorganized and Pursuer all in one; psycho-sexual themes; hints of father-specific issues from quite a young age and aside from all of that we know the context of her trauma a couple years before she became famous, which truly makes us understand why and how this is her "Fear of men" song, while Monster has always felt to me like a hint at what had truly happened but somewhat compressed and I've read that some found it vague or mysterious but it has always had that blatant meaning about it for me that some here only cast over it after she was interviewed for "The Me You Don't See" a couple of years ago.  How, in her lack of time to process and heal even a little bit, she used that song as a basis not to be afraid of her fans and used that song's lingo and flipped it to create Little Monsters, Paws up and Mother Monster, I don't know how you can get that strength.

Anyway, to go back to Alejandro - Although Dance in the Dark is fantastic, I'm glad she fought for Alejandro to get the single and video treatment. It was something completely different sonically,  less cluttered in the background than DITD and we could only have gotten the piece of Art that is the Alejandro video through her determination - she wanted Alejandro for a reason.

DITD is amazing - it was her coming out swinging against patriarchy in all its forms. I love how she kept the majority of the song focused on the psychological impact of one aspect and gave us a bridge that stretched the song so much further, so much deeper. Beginning so creepily yet matter-factly with "Silicone, saline, poison/Inject me, baby, I'm a free bitch" telling us she's anything but. Then the buildup, the male gaze and jealousy that she must endure to be with whom she thinks loves her nonetheless, creating the everlasting wh0re/madonna pain that is obviously stifling and isolating her, with her only pleasure when she can't be gazed upon in the dark. The sudden switch and flicker of hope with "Run, run, her kiss is a vampire grin/The moon lights her way while she's howling at him" is insanely original and a great respite from the heaviness.

And then the bridge (Sylvia Plath being mentioned, implying what patriarchy did to her and all the other women mentioned). What a stunner! The random quirkiness of women haunting like Liberace?? The sheer passion put in that bridge, making it something much bigger, more important (and it was already darn important). Everything is haunting yet slowly turns into more empowering and unforgettable. A tiny nitpick: they weren't on the road when this was recorded so why does it feel like the music and her voice clash sometimes? A little too much clutter for these amazing lyrics. Still: What a song, what a statement, what a rallying cry. It's a gem.

Edited April 6 by Apec

[monstertoronto 11,744]

This has always been one of my favourite songs. The way they opened Monster Ball with this was so iconic.  

[Creyk 18,660]

I really wish more songs existed that sound like this. It is great but also very unique.

[VOLANTIS 16,503]

This is one instance where I actually appreciate the slightly messy production. It adds to the lyrical message of the song. 

[VOLANTIS 16,503]

3 hours ago, Creyk said:

I really wish more songs existed that sound like this. It is great but also very unique.

The other day I was trying to see if I can find songs that sound like this. And genuinely couldnt. The only synth heavy songs I could find were either too rock influenced or very that very specific 80's sound 

[Economy 52,854]

12 hours ago, gagzus said:

Just double checked, I got it mixed up the we did it kids was about Born This Way releasing (the song) but still yeah she was the one who wanted Alejandro. DITD was released however as an official single in France and Australia before Alejandro became a single because Interscope were pushing for it. It’s also her only album track to ever get a GRAMMY nomination.

Thats cool to know. All these years I thought it was the other way around

 

Im glad Gaga won this battle. Again, at the time i thought DITD was better but in the long run i think Alejandro aged better

 

Also I feel Alejandro was a safer choice. DITD would more likely have been hit or miss i think

[Guille 1,825]

YES

[gagzus 23,139]

1 hour ago, Economy said:

Thats cool to know. All these years I thought it was the other way around

 

Im glad Gaga won this battle. Again, at the time i thought DITD was better but in the long run i think Alejandro aged better

 

Also I feel Alejandro was a safer choice. DITD would more likely have been hit or miss i think

If I remember rightly, the decision on the third single debate started as far back as Jan 2010, Kirill even had to confirm DITD wasn’t gonna be the single because Gaga wanted Alejandro, nobody believed him until April when it was official.

I think the right song won in the end, DITD’s streams kinda prove it otherwise it would’ve been getting the best streams after BM and Judas 

[Lord Axel 934]

As the resident DitD prophet, I feel the need to share this amazing fan-made music video from 15 years ago that is still so good  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk5RORfkeok