And this should have been up with the weekend lot. We’re having some time off because, frankly, we’re ruddy knackered at the moment. Come back on Monday, when we’ll roll out more of our usual shenanigans in preparation for our end-of-year extravaganza…

[Myspace]
[6.73]

Alex Macpherson: The past couple of months have seen my resistance to Lady Gaga finally start crumbling, largely due to the relentless earworminess of “Poker Face” and a little due to managing to avoid any actual interviews with the woman. So I may as well accept from the off that “Bad Romance” has a monster hook of almost equal proportions which will weld itself into my brain in three months if I don’t indulge it now; RedOne’s production actually takes a minor step away from galumphing, overbearing headaches; and while the baby-talk of the chorus grates, there isn’t even any real “bluffing with my muffin” KMT moment here. Progress! Well, that or ceasing to give a shit about Lady Gaga means that I can accept her average electropop for what it is.
[7]

Ian Mathers: Hitchcock references! Subtext! A pretty good chorus! A Madonna-esque spoken part in the middle! Slowed down trance synths! “I want your love and I want your revenge!” A bit in French! You know how sometimes when Pink puts out a single some of us spend most of our blurbs talking about how she somehow manages to make her music more interesting than, strictly speaking, it should be? Yeah, Lady Gaga is like that. And now between this and “Paparazzi” she has at least two singles that are Actually Quite Good even without that.
[7]

Frank Kogan: If you’re missing your kitchen sink, you’ll probably find it in this song, along with pipes and fixtures. In quick succession this reminds me of Ashlee Simpson sadness, Jim Morrison drama, and Madonna pose-striking, eventually finding its way to beautiful electro chords and a chorus that envelopes everything in yet more beauty. You sure can’t accuse GaGa of taking it easy or comfortably modeling herself on her past achievements.
[8]

Anthony Miccio: Without visual accompaniment, this goes from LOL to TL;DL fast. I love fruity bubblegum, but it has to be chewy too.
[5]

Tal Rosenberg: Lady Gaga has this unique ability to turn refrains of utter gibberish into totally inescapable mantras and the trick is continued here, where we can now add “Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah, ra-ma-ramama” to Gaga’s repertoire. But here the corny, nonsensical chant fits into the conceptual boudoir of trashy romance novels, a cannier trick than it seems. Where can you find trashy romance novels? At the airport, in the supermarket, right next to the tabloids which feature — ta-da! — Lady Gaga. And the weird gothic music, coupled with a big rock stomp, gives the whole song an air of porno and gore (I wish I knew what the French meant). I’m not ready to totally fall for it yet — the different parts aren’t all as smart or immediately catchy as they are on “Poker face” — but I think Gaga’s on to something here, where her whole perennial conceptual-art schtick actually moves into the music, rather than just nestling in the image, waiting to emerge.
[7]

Martin Kavka: Lady Gaga comes from a planet ruled by Dale Bozzio and other strong-willed women who found radio play in the early ’80s. But over a quarter-century ago, a woman could experiment with various poses and still believe in love; think of Terri Nunn as geisha/bitch/slave/boy/slut in “Sex (I’m A…)”. Now, a woman experiments with poses because, no matter how much she wants love, she knows that it’s an empty ideal and she just needs to pass the time while engaged in the kitsch of a bad romance. So as much as I acknowledge the coolness of this track, and the coolness of a young gay teen dressing up as Lady Gaga for Halloween, with parental support, I also think that her success marks the victory of a nihilism from which it will take us years to recover, if we even can.
[6]

Matt Cibula: Some obvious referents here and some less-obvious ones (is that Gogol Bordello I kind of hear?), but I’ve turned the corner on La Gaga and this song has massive vocal attack to go with its overheated fantasy lyrics.
[8]

Alfred Soto: “I want your disease” might yet work as a song lyric in 2009, but not when she sings it like a spinster aunt dressed up as a witch for her first Halloween.
[4]

Chuck Eddy: New wave “Kung Fu Fighting” start, Catholic mass music, silly syllables as Ray Of Light ritual chants, stuff about “your disease” a la “Welcome to The Jungle,” “romance” used as a concrete noun, broken-English cigarette-throat tones that could be Marianne Faithfull in 1980, sweet French nothings when she says “I don’t want to be friends” so you can’t help hearing “I don’t want to be French”… do I need to keep going? Metal Mike Saunders: “best long-remix-length dance/track song of the whole year; who in the last 10 years has ever done anything with so many deft (vocals, production, melody line/chord changes) 1986 ‘freestyle’ touches?… Gaga’s a regular musical cannibal w/brains on steroids. Hall of Fame Songwriter, as guaranteed as Goffin-King, Mann-Weil and Barry-Greenwich were a lock by the end of 1964.” Not sure I hear the freestyle myself. But I still hear a lot.
[8]

Anthony Easton: Cynical Romany exploitation, with a solid new wave kink (c.f. Rasputin). As much as I hated her previous work, the sheer unloaded, dragged out nuttiness has pounded me into submission.
[7]

Kat Stevens: Gaga’s music has so far been the weakest weapon in her Pop Star artillery. But it’s been steadily improving since the 4-note dirge of “Just Dance”, and now the same stuttering hook from “Poker Face” has become shorter and punchier, sharpened with an extra roll of the tongue to ensure that “Rrrrra-ra, Ra-ma-ma” is firmly stuck in one’s head ALL BLOODY DAY. And then there’s the thumping echo beats: Cascada’s relentless cheery pounding upscaled to heavy industrial doom-machines. The chorus is still weak and the lyrics are lifted from the back of a Mills & Boon novel, but I expect that in three singles’ time Gaga will have cracked the final enigmatic codes and her victory will be complete.
[7]