Lady Gaga, Born This Way
Official Release Date: May 23, 2011
The Verdict: Lady Gaga’s Born This Way promo campaign has been chockablock with ready-to-scoff-at ridiculousness: She’s releasing songs on Farmville! She’s selling the album at Rite Aid! She doesn’t think she ripped off Madonna! Yesterday the album itself made its way onto the Internet, and, as is only right, it maintains established, remarkable absurdity levels. More notable, though: Gaga seems to be aware of the situation. With songs like these, she has to be, right?
A good chunk of the album — namely, “Born This Way, “Judas,” “Hair,” “Edge of Glory,” and “You & I” — has already dropped, but there are still many bonkers bits to choose from. Here are some standouts: On “Government Hooker,” Gaga not only repeatedly proclaims herself “your hooker,” she also sings the words “Put your hands on me / John F. Kennedy / I’ll make you squeal baby / as long as you pay me.” Two tracks later, on “Americano,” Gaga’s kind of doing her “La Isla Bonita” thing from “Alejandro” again, threading together a pidgin Spanish, a well-intentioned accent, and all manner of castanet claps. And two tracks after that, she’s on to yet another accent and another formerly authoritarian European country, leading off “Schiße” with the declaration, “I don’t speak German, but I can if you like” and, then, of course, a string of German-sounding words (can anyone translate, please?) follows. Also of note: “Bloody Mary” and another batch of possibly erroneous biblical references (“I’ll dance with my hands above my head / like Jesus said”?); “Heavy Mental Lover” and the lyrics “I want your whiskey mouth all over my blond south.” (Originally that last bit sounded like “blood sauce,” which, oh well). Anyway, wow.