Member Since: 11/6/2009
Posts: 7,375
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I’m already regretting not ranking her Born This Way—the political rock album of the year, even more so because it was disco and all about sex—in an honored spot on my year-end list. I momentarily tired of its bombast. This exchange is confirming my belief in the importance of Gaga’s statement-making: not only its practical effect—she championed a cause, respect for gays in the military, that actually reached its goal—but the exemplary power of her mix of mainstream sound and radical intent.
Born This Way is a throwback, not only to Madonna’s prime (why deny this? It’s a fantastic legacy and deserves to be extended!) but to the “statement rock” of blockbuster artists like Springsteen and U2. The conviction that animates it—that music can change an artist’s audience, if not the world—is one well worth reviving. The title track connects the communal ecstasy of the dance floor to the crowd-surfing uplift of arena rock, allowing outsiders (queers, bullied teens) to imagine themselves in a cockiness-rocking power position. Other tracks dealt with the burden of religious shame (“Bloody Mary”), encouraged pride in single womanhood (“Marry the Night”) and cursed the contradictions of so-called post-feminism (“Scheisse”). Then there was “Yoü and I,” a piano-banging power ballad that flipped one of rock’s most enduring gender scripts, that of the male adventurer and his little lady back home. This time, Gaga’s in control, and the hapless on-and-offer Luc Carl is the tiny dancer in her hand.
Though Born This Way did sell, by the end of 2011 it seemed that Gaga's leather-glove grip on our consciousness had slipped a bit. The other day, my husband Eric wondered on Facebook whether Gaga’s overt support of gay rights had cost her radio play in certain conservative markets. We couldn’t quantify that, but it seems possible. I also think her choice to inhabit a rock stance might have hurt her. I’d love to hear you all weigh in on how rock—plain, old, earnest, horny, idealistic rock—became so uncool. (Resisting the sudden urge to delve into the mythos of “Moves Like Jagger.”)
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LA Times contributor regrets not giving more praise to Born This Way.
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