Lady Gaga – Bad Romance
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]
I agree with Alex and Kat’s assessments in particular – it’s interesting, and an improvement for sure, but I can’t buy into her when it still seems more hype than music. I suppose she deserves credit for actually making me WANT to like her…
my unsubmitted one liner compared Gaga to the Delphic Oracle: they both dress funny, dance in circles, spout nonsense and everybody swears they’re the future.
Yeah, I like this too. It seems every Lady GaGa song I dislike when I first hear it, then am indifferent to it, then love it.
[i]the lyrics are lifted from the back of a Mills & Boon novel[/i]
Not only is the song about living life as a trashy romance novel (and “I want your leather-studded kiss in the sand” is downright carnal), but GaGa seems to be alluding to some sort of trash/life interchangeability that works a lot better because this is such a considerable element in her public persona. I’m pretty impressed with the idea of the song, to be honest.
I might have given this an 8 if I had gone back a day or two ago. I recently started driving again–and subsequently am regularly listening to the radio for the first time in at least four years–and this song is on at least one of the stations whenever I turn the dial. But it almost never gets old or tiring. In fact, it only gets better each time I hear it.
Also, how the hell does stylistic HTML work in the comments?
Use HTML, not BBCode.
Now that I hear my students humming the stupid chorus, I think I might have underrated this.
The chorus is great (and I really like the GA GA OOH LA LA bits) but the verse is so nothing it makes me sad- once again Gaga comes up short with the whole package. Which I suppose is better than the Gaga that just made me mad. But still. I think 7 sounds about right.
My favourite thing about this. After the french bit (direct translation of the English bridge) she switches back to the english for the last line.
I want your love
And I want your revenge
I want your love
I don’t wanna be friends
Je veux ton amour
Et je veux ta revanche
Je veux ton amour
I don’t wanna be friends
However, as she starts stretching out that last line and caterwauling, my brain ALWAYS turns it into
Je veux ton amour
I don’t wanna be French
I don’t wanna be Freeeeeeeench
etc.
I hear that as well! I’m sure it’s on purpose. FREEEEEEENCH!
recently started driving again–and ..it almost never gets old or tiring. In fact, it only gets better each time
I’ve only heard it in the car once so far, and I was surprised how hard it rocked over the radio — as hard as any dance song in recent memory. If it keeps that up, I’ll probably wish I gave it a 9.
(and “I want your leather-studded kiss in the sand” is downright carnal)
IDK, it just makes me wonder how something can be “leather-studded” — like, does she mean studded leather? Or does this person just have little bits of leather stuck to him? How does it stay on? With tape? — and also who wears leather to a beach, anyway?
Maybe a leather stud does. (If Rob Halford was around, we could ask him.)
Man, Lady Gaga started out great with Just Dance but it’s all been slowly downhill, bottoming out in her first outright bad song, “Bad Romance.” Outside the insane gypsy chant, there is really just nothing to this one — an utterly generic waste of time.
“I don’t wanna be French” – Gaga as all-American!
Kind of love this song now :/
This is kind of awesome-bad in the same way “My Humps” is, annoying but sort of genius. The verses suck a bit though, and they remind me too much of “Call My Name” by Charlotte Church.
Metal Mike Saunders via email two days ago; if you’re not interested, don’t read it:
in the Bad Romance video (surfaced just five days ago, per legit/embedding-enabled) when the dance routine that gaga and the “monsters” break out at 2:50 – 3:00 in the second chorus is like whoa whoa GREAT FUCKING DISCO MOVES! JOHN TRAVOLTA would be PROUD! (and i say this as someone who never saw 70’s “generic disco dancing” back then that i didn’t think should have been immediately be exiled to a lamess Playboy Roller Disco party)
what’s brilliant — as songwriting — is the little 10 second “rap” that sets up/kicks into that 2nd chorus.
the confluence of the song (FIVE minutes w/o one slack moment! holy shit! and unlike dumb Bob Dylan / Like A Rolling Stone, the DANCE BEAT never stops for 1 sec),
the video (which is creepy/brilliant/brilliant/creepy — russian sex-slave trading with a bad ending, always such a popular pop-hit-video topic!) and the TV slot –gaga doing Bad Romance on GOSSIP GIRL (lame show, don’t watch it since i’m not 18 or younger, nor female ditto) –
really feels like a “beatles moment,” ,a hole kicked right through the wall.
Lady Gaga – Bad Romance
Youtube 10,042,005 views Text Comments (50,220)
well that’s a mild tipoff of a pop-culture earthquake — 10 million Youtube plays in 5 days…holy shit.
6 to 12 months ago, talking randomly about lord knows what (probably american idol last season? spring 2009?)
i posted that all it would take was –
one BIG NAME ARTiST (not a one-hit singer)
cutting a HUGE DISCO HIT , in the style properly (and not billy joel not-quite-there doo-wop redux, as example)
would….huh. i know i didn’t get to the endpoint of
actually MAKE DISCO COOL FOR STRAIGHT WHITE PEOPLE!(35 years later at that, re 1974-75 early disco hitting Top 40 out of the gay clubs)but that brief 10-seconds of simple white-folks “dance moves/routine” on the 2nd chorus at 2:50 – 3:00 is genuinely like “yes! i could do that! i WANT TO LEARN THAT!”(grind hips 4 times, then wave your right arm 8 times in addition)
also, me having gone on record (multiple times, most notably) lamenting the disappearance of gibberish nonsense-lyrics from the mainstream Top 40 landscape since, eh, the fucking Beatles basically (re novelty songs)
gaga is of course my TOTAL HERO of lyric writing.
rank was of course deadon correct to point out that gaga can’t be a “real Freestyle lead singer,” because struggling vocally (however slightly like Expose, or totally as part of severe vocal limitations — aka Stacey Q and others) is part of the genre. nope, she’s (on this cut) a genuine howler, a DISCO DIVA! and fuck can she/gaga sing. i mean she’s awesome when she uses the power/range of her voice.
the other mindblowing facet of the video/TV clip is that she obviously UN-ironically loves the idea of being a “disco diva” circa (grace jones, gloria gaynor, whothefuck ever) who can belt. basically here is the simple theory = if something was never cool in the first place (disco as appropriated by white people) (the lameness of polyester, plus the flood of bad disco-novelty hits of 1978 and 1979) yet was always cool (musically) then it still has a chance of being brought back to life, zombie style (ha, and in the video gaga is a “monster” turned into a human, turned into a sex-slave ruskie) (there’s some “evolution” theme i totally don’t get) AND BE COOL IN THAT CONTEXT FOR THE FIRST TIME. if you’re the ultimate in cool in all respects the first time around, then you’re totally fucked ever after — rockabilly 1955-1958, punk rock 1977-1982, metal (pick your whatever period)…
J!mmy Dr@per email response:
Saw a gay bar in boystown chicago this weekend come to a complete standstill when the Bad Romance video showed on the big screens hanging around the place, everyone just watched and stared. hadn’t seen that since my undergrad days when Madonna’s What it feels like for a girl video got banned (edited?) and a club in Ann Arbor played the original edit and everyone spontaneously stopped dancing to watch since it was unavailable elsewhere.
Mike yr right–the dancing is genius. the 3:19 move in the link below is seriously probably my fave dance move since way back in 1995 when nomi malone did her famous hand/face move in Showgirls . The thing i always notice is, in this video and also when i saw her in concert, she dances HARD. she dances way harder (tho not better) than almost every other pop person i can think of at the moment–reminds me of 2nd-album-era britney at moments but more so mid-era madonna (gaga;s hardness is very Blonde Amvition). maybe janet at times too (“IF”). if only kylie ever danced like this.
the other thing i notice is she’s moving fast with her music/”MY ART” as she says–check out youtubes even from like May (her doing Lovegame on dancing with the stars e.g.) and that seems worlds away , it’s pretty awesome to watch someone just run with it. speaking of: The Fame monster EP is blowing me away (Alejandro = Ace of Base’s Don’t Turn Around; Dance in the dark’s creepy Vogue breakdown/”rap”/lady homage bit; the pop battering ram that is Telephone where Beyonce BRINGS IT (“stop calling! stop calling!”);etc etc etc PLUS the unreleased No Way and 2nd Time Around are better than some of those on the EP. )
also: find online the SNL rehearsals for her skit with madonna. the live bit that aired didn’t work but the rehearsal is amazing and gaga has great comedic timing. Madonna: I’ve had a million hits, you’ve only had two hits. Gaga: I’ve had 5!!
WIll watch Gossip girl for the 1st time tonite to see her.
K3v!n S@unders email response:
I watched the video several times to better pick up on the “subliminal” bits, which add layers of creepiness on top of the fundamental creepitude… I’m shifting all my investments to rat futures, anticipating the upswing in a revived millinery trade devoted to rat hair accessorizers (see 4:26). The upscale may tend towards bats, but by the end of next month every Wal-Mart in the country is gonna have a gondola groaning under the weight of this newly-trendy merchandise, and I’m getting in on the ground floor!
I sense GaGa has paid keen attention whilst sitting through a couple of Luis_Buñuel retrospectives and applied the “more is better” rule. A couple of hundred entries down in the YouTube comments I came across “surrealist”, so I don’t need to repeat it!
More Metal Mike (though, as I’ve mentioned here elsewhere, somebody on the stupid ILX thread he’s referring to did actually mention “Belgian new-beat” as the source of Gaga’s synth sound, rightly or wrongly):
[i]the one curious thing about the old/original gaga-discussion in the singles jukebox (or maybe it was ILX) was that no one could pinpoint the “synth sounds” antecedent etc. but on those “Italian Pop” cheesy recent hits you can DEFINITELY hear a clear move away from the oppressive “trance” synth sound, to a jollier happier poppier kinda tone.
the gaga/RedOne synth riff that is also (would be) a killer “guitar riff” is LoveGame, i mean it’s straight out of Beginner Guitar 101 banging on one string (the lower E string) with a cool riff that uses maybe 1/2 of the notes in “In A Gadda Da Vida”’s guitar/organ riff. [/i]
Btw (this is Chuck again), can I mention again how much this song STOMPS ALL OVER THE PLACE?? Well, it does. Also very cool how Gaga turns out to be the only artist in the history of the American pop charts* to blatantly reference Boney M twice in one year (“Ma Baker” in “Pokerface,” “Rasputin” here.) Or maybe even once.
* — unless Milli Vanilli did, but I don’t think so.
(Actually, come to think of it, Naughty By Nature referenced Boney M via sampling their version of “No Woman No Cry” in 1992’s “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” aka “Ghetto Bastard.” But my main point was “twice.”)
It’s just come to my attention that Starsmith (aka Ellie Goulding’s partner in crime thus far) did one of the official remixes for Bad Romance.