She imitates Madonna`s deadpan rap from "Vogue," but where Madge`s song celebrated the way Harlem drag artists (and stars like herself) made posing into a defensive warrior stance, Gaga offers a clever update on the Benneton ad concept of marketable variety - "You`re black, white, beige, chola descent, you`re Lebanese, you`re orient," she intones, her clever if odd list ending on a pun that invokes both "Orientalism" and "orientation.
When Madonna recorded "Vogue" and "Show Yourself," which "Born This Way" also recalls, intense arguments about what shape liberation should take dominated liberal circles. Gaga`s moment is different: "Born This Way" never hints that outsiders should remake the man in their image, instead invoking God and mommy to suggest that society`s frameworks need not change, only give their doors a little wider.
This is the same glass ceiling smasher`s dream of liberation promoted on "Glee" and through projects such as the It Gets Better Project; it`s pragmatic and focused on personal epiphanies rather than sweeping social change. Gaga`s clear embrace of this stance reinforces her status as the ideal rock star for a man struggling to center itself - for all her flash and grotesquery, she means to be a steadying force, not a revolutionary.
Yet "Born This Way" does unsettle things through one reliable route: its production. Whether its sound comes too close to one or another Madonna song seems beside the point; what current pop hit doesn`t go green by recycling something familiar? More intriguing is the unstable sonic base created by Gaga and her co-producers, Fernando Garibay and DJ White Shadow.
Though nowhere near as compelling as the work Gaga has done with RedOne, "Born This Way" throws a lot into its four minutes: a clacking hint of dubstep, the thump of Hi-NRG disco, a breakdown that borrows from the Latin dance floor that Garibay has previously visited with Enrique Iglesias. Mainstreaming diversity may be Gaga`s favorite political cause, but it`s something that music effortlessly accomplishes - at least in the dear old utopian space of the sweaty club.
- Ann Powers
Photo: Lady Gaga at the 2010 Grammys. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times
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