Member Since: 9/4/2008
Posts: 11,720
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"Born This Way is Gaga's grand opus"
"Celebrating Born This Way:Gaga’s most ambitious artistic and political statement; a pop-political rock opera that is her grand opus"
Quote:
"Where were you when you first heard Born This Way? It was that kind of event album for most fans — certainly myself — but in a larger cultural sense, it was the litmus test that would prove whether Gaga was a 1.5-album wonder or an icon in the making. It turned out to be the latter, of course."
"Commercially, Born This Way’s legacy is set; it’s hard to argue otherwise. (Not that this stops a certain brand of person from trying…) But given that the album remains Gaga’s most ambitious artistic and political statement, commercial success is almost besides the point."
"Born This Way was an album conceived and written for the fans who helped Lady Gaga become the world-conquering megastar we now know, (in)arguably the greatest of the late-2000s generation."
"Despite the implied meaning of the title, Born This Way is not about coming to terms with yourself exactly as you came into the world. It is an album about politics, both cultural and personal. More convincingly, however, it is an album about identity: the labels we choose or create for ourselves and the selves we aspire to become."
"Ultimately, then, it is an album about choice and the freedom to choose. You decide who you want to be, who and how you want to love, how you want to look. You decide what’s beautiful. You decide what’s important. You can choose to stay the same, or you can choose to become a new, different, better, messier, crazier version of yourself."
"We are living through a time in celebrity culture where normality and relatability are encouraged and rewarded. Gaga rejected that brand of celebrity. This is not to say she didn’t want listeners to relate to her or her music; of course she wanted those things. She simply didn’t go in search of common ground by becoming a mirror image of what she assumed most other people were like. She created a new space for people to congregate by acting larger than life, by pushing everything — her look, her sound, her message— to strange, alien extremes."
"Gaga is neither the first nor the last person to write a self-empowerment anthem, but Born This Way is perhaps the only major pop album in recent memory that is so thoroughly, explicitly dedicated to the exploration of self-discovery and -acceptance. It is an inward journey without apology."
"Born This Way is not as polished or immediate or accessible as The Fame Monster, which a large swath of fans will argue, ’til the day they die, was Gaga’s creative peak. But hands down, Born This Way is her most meticulously-curated and potent statement, her grand opus."
"For whatever its worth, at the top of her game, Gaga chose not to take the easy road and instead went straight for the jugular with an abrasive pop-political rock opera. She’d already conquered this world, and instead of resting on her laurels, she decided to create another."
"You can find remnants of the album’s messages and sonic landscape on today’s Hot 100: the robotic breeziness of “Heavy Metal Lover,” the unapologetic embracing euphoric ’80s kitsch, the narrative of coming to terms with one’s inner darkness"
"It’s the album of a pop star who actually has something to say. It’s an album that isn’t afraid to be alienating, a quality I have always admired in Gaga. It means you can be whoever you want to be, and you can be as many people as you want to be. It means the ability to transform is within you. It means you should love every part of yourself, even the weird, broken, ugly parts."
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the praise keeps pouring in for the album of our generation 
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