Justin Timberlake, on Lady Gaga: “She’s just plain old good. But I don’t know what the future holds for her. Her sound is so big. She’s got the outfits and she shocks you, but you kind of wonder how an act that big stays around forever.†What the ever-wise JT is getting at is that for some of us, overly concerned as to the Lady’s ability to churn out ever-more-innovatively revealing clothing, Gaga appearances and videos are all about second-hand stress. Which is why the new “Edge of Glory†video — despite being, in the traditional sense, boring — is a success. As is appropriate for a third single, Gaga steps back both from prerelease buildup (“Edge†premiered on So You Think You Can Dance, which for Gaga is a relatively inconspicuous thing to do) and unwieldy video treatments. For the first time in this album cycle, instead of tossing buckets of arguably subversive allusions for eager analysts to parse, she plays it very, very straight. Like, really straight: The entire thing consists of her pirouetting around an L.A. set while Clarence Clemons chops on a stoop. It looks like it was shot in 45 minutes. The biggest moment is a particularly intense jacket fling. But, more important: With the gloriously uncomplicated “Edge of Glory†as the soundtrack, we finally get to catch our breath for a moment.
