Lady Gaga
Born This Way
Streamline/Kon Live/Interscope
By David Chiu
Born This Way is another collection of the type of music that Lady Gaga makes: audacious but inevitably infectious and addictive. That can be found on several of the new album’s tracks, such as Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer”-type beats on “Bloody Mary,” the heavy rock guitar on “Electric Chapel,” or the liberating electrorocker “Hair.” Gaga even turns up the raunch factor a bit with the bizarre “Government Hooker” and the Teutonic-sounding “Scheibe”. There’s no shortage of tuneful songs from the already-hit title track, which certainly does evoke Madonna’s “Express Yourself”; the pounding “Judas”; and the sweeping “Highway Unicorn.” She closes out this dizzying-sounding record with two really solid songs, the anthemic Elton John/gospel-inspired “You and I” and the rousing “The Edge of Glory.” Ambitious barely scratches the surface when it comes to describing this record or the artist behind it, but Born This Way was born to be a hit, without or without the hype. It the end, it is a likeable pop record, but then again, we’re talking about Lady Gaga here—nothing is ever quite modest or extravagant as long as it catchy and captivates the masses.
NewBeats 