There are things to be commended about Lady Gaga. Her desire to advocate individualism is to be admired. Some have said that she tries to become way too controversial for her own good, and write her off because of that. In my honest opinion, I feel her Madonna inspirations are outweighing a lot of her other assets. But hey, the most important part is the music, right? While her first album, The Fame, and her EP The Fame Monster(I'm sorry, but I'm still convinced it was an extended play, and not an official second album) were tolerable, I wasn't as into them as a lot of other people were.
Born This Way, however, while not the evolution I was hoping it would be, is still an evolution forward for her both musically and thematically. Gone are songs with lyrics that have to do with disco sticks. While there are some very odd lyrics here and there, there are more songs with actual points to them and less to do with sex like so many other songs. "Judas", contrary to popular belief that this song is against Jesus and she loves Judas, is actually a song about clinging to the things that are bad for you when you should be embracing the good.
Gaga sings all these songs with an amazing vocal range coupled with a predominant heavy electronic theme, with a few eccentric instruments thrown in here and there(the saxophone bits were very cool, I thought). Tracks like "Bad Kids" start off with a heavy rock tune, and transition into an electronic beat. A lot of people who arn't fans of the 80's might find some songs to be not as enjoyable as others. One of the biggest 80's inspirations "The Edge of Glory" sounds like its straight out of the end credits to a summer blockbuster. Actually the sound is best compared to any of Madonna's 80's material. The title track, "Born This Way" has even gone through legal troubles of sounding exactly alike- both musically and thematically- "Express Yourself" by Madonna(fyi, in Weird Al Yancovic's parody "Perform This Way", he even samples a small bit of "Express Yourself" as a minor jab). The 80's sound doesn't bother me though, and I think people complaining should get over themselves.. 80's pop music sounds 10x better than most pop music nowadays, anyway.
There are a couple of underwhelming songs on here though. "Hair", while the message is decent enough and overall not a bad song, is probably the weakest lyrically. "Government Hooker" is another that just kind of feels like a b-side and not at all consistent with the other songs on the track. Luckily, neither of those small nuances are enough to ruin the album in the least bit, and again... "Hair" is still decent enough, and even if the lyrics are more suited to young teenagers, it's still fun to dance to.
One thing I must give big compliments to, was that I was very surprised to see was that there wern't any "guest stars" on here. Most pop albums, the majority of tracks will have a guest star of someone like Kanye West or Akon. The only guest here is Brian May, the guitarist from Queen, lending his talent on a few tracks here and there and mostly on the country reminiscent sounding "You and I". It makes a big difference, and shows you don't have to have big rap stars ruining your perfectly fine already music to get it to sell.
When all is said and done, I don't believe that this is the end all be all of pop music albums, but to me it still sits high among what is out there and that it is a good album. Naysayers, give it a listen... I bet you will be surprised at how into it you get.
RATING: ****- Pretty Damn Sexy
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