That G-sharp wants to go upward. It wants to rise to the A, resolving the cadence as a music school freshman would have done. But Gaga goes down, leaving that “bad” leading note hanging. Why? Because she herself is bad. Further accentuating the badness of that “bad”: That interval, the tritone, is historically linked to sexual desire and the devil. Whether or not Lady Gaga is familiar with the specifics of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony is irrelevant; she has scored a textbook-worthy usage of Western music theory’s favorite signifier for EVILDOING.
Aside from these important deviations, all the key features of Gagaism are here, those rules listed above. And this is why “Bad Romance” will endure forever, because all six of these other singles will only be heard as inferior sketches and imitations of the masterwork—in “Judas’ ” case, a poor photocopy, melismatic “ohhh” included. “Bad Romance” stands on the shoulders of these other, identically dressed, homelier singles, the star cheerleader, No. 1.
Bad Romance the CLASSIC pop song to endure FOREVER.
