Born This Way | Lady Gaga

A REWIND REVIEW (2011)

I actually wrote this review of Born This Way for my high school's newspaper in 2011 after the album had been released for a while. I figured it would be nice to throw this review up here just because I could.

Rating: ★★★★★

Although it seems like her life is entirely composed of trying to cook up bizarre outfits and new ways to scare the general public, Lady Gaga shows her true talent of music writing in Born This Way.  In Born This Way, she writes strongly for equality, freedom, and religion.

Born This Way, in addition to her extended play, The Fame Monster were both amazing strides forward in her development as an artist from her debut album, The Fame.

The Fame spawned amazing singles, ranging from “Just Dance” to “Paparazzi,” but was sadly plagued with auto-tune and uncreative lyrics.  I’m not implying that the songs aren't catchy and fun, but I am saying that they really aren't full of meaning.  The Fame Monster was a jump in a better direction, and Born This Way was the icing on the cake. 

Most of the songs on Born This Way have a strong message of freedom and equality for the self-proclaimed outcasts and minority groups. The album’s first single, “Born This Way” was released in February 2011, and was straightforward in meaning: be yourself, and don’t be ashamed of it.  The theme reoccurs multiple times in the album, with songs like “Hair” and “Bad Kids,” which both proclaim the message of loving and being proud of oneself regardless of what others say.

In addition to cutting the silence for certain individuals, Lady Gaga uses creative metaphors to overshadow things that are much bigger than its metaphor.  “Judas,” is an extremely edgy song with strong metaphors, references to the Christian religion and an upbeat tempo that is reminiscent of “Poker Face” and “Bad Romance.”

The fifth and latest single pulled from the album, “Marry the Night,” tells of Lady Gaga’s love for her hometown, New York City, and opens up with a beautiful a cappella verse before storming into the chorus. She brings up the Big Apple a lot in the album, and stresses that she would much rather live on east coast rather than the west coast, to say the least. 

Steering away from her pop roots, Lady Gaga spirals into a southern-rock inspired and “We Will Rock You” infused song, “Yoü and I,” a great song about repairing a relationship with that one person that you thought was your perfect soulmate. Ironically, by the time that the song was released and gained mainstream success, Lady Gaga had long since broken up with her “cool Nebraska guy,” a.k.a. Lüc Carl.  Nevertheless, the song is a great highlight of the album, and I loved it from the start.

Born This Way concludes with a strong song about death and passing into the afterlife.  “The Edge of Glory” may sound extremely carefree and happy, but its true meaning is actually revolves around the death of Lady Gaga’s grandfather.  The song also features the late Clarence Clemmons with a fist-pounding saxophone solo.

With one of the biggest fan bases in the world, Lady Gaga and her Little Monsters have the world of music sitting in the palms of their hands, and with an amazing release Born This Way, everybody can tell that neither Gaga nor her fans are going down the pipes anytime soon.