Tag Archives: Lady Gaga

Born This Way – Lady Gaga (Parody): Perform This Way

This Born This Way parody by Weird Al Yankovic is absolutely hilarious!

Lady Gaga Unbanned in Lebanon

It looks like our lovely General Security peeps have put their paws up because they were born this way – and that is bipolar.

Mere days after they banned the release of Lady Gaga’s new album, Born This Way, they have revoked their decision and released the album at various Virgin Megastore outlets, the country’s leading music retailer.

While I am all for the decision since I’m against banning the album in the first place, regardless of content, I have to wonder what changed their minds. Could it be the overwhelming pressure from bloggers and social media users? I hardly think so. It might have simply been a case of them looking at the tracklist, seeing the words: Bloody Mary, Black Jesus, Judas and deciding that this is offensive – which is exactly how Lebanese censorship works, by the looks of it: scan the outside, it if doesn’t pass, cut it.

Well, I, for one, am not buying the album simply because I’m not willing to cough up a ridiculous amount of money for it – money that I’d rather spend elsewhere. But for Gaga’s Lebanese “little monsters” as they call themselves, they are already flocking down to Virgin Megastore to buy the singer’s album, as reported by twitter user BilalWH.

And as Lady Gaga would tell her little monsters: just put your paws up, because round one goes to you.

Lady Gaga Banned In Lebanon

It looks like the Lebanese General Security has decided to ban Lady Gaga’s new album, Born This Way, from being sold and distributed in Lebanon, as reported by The Sun.

The cause of the ban? They deemed the album “offensive to Christianity”. Even her previous single Judas was taken off Lebanese radio soon after it came out in April.

So Lebanon will be one of the few countries in the world where Born This Way will never chart. Bans of the sort (based on religious causes) are never revoked.

But is the ban this relevant? I don’t think so.

Why?

Simply because most Lebanese have either heard the album already or have very simple ways to purchase it, or listen to it: YouTube, illegal downloading, etc….

It’s the same thing with The DaVinci Code. Has anyone not read that book yet? We’ve all gotten a copy from abroad and read it.

As they say, what is forbidden is usually wanted, so this will only increase interest in Lady Gaga’s album in Lebanon. The proper step would have been to simply release the album and let people judge for themselves if they liked it or not. Sure, the album has Christian elements in it but that’s Lady Gaga’s way to deal with her being raised up in a strict Catholic fashion.

After all, it’s not like Lebanese are going to run in masses to purchase the album that will surely be way overpriced at Virgin Megastore outlets.

The Allure Of Free

There’s a response that is, I believe, inherent to human nature, transcending boundaries – almost unanimous. And it is the response to something that is free.

If I tell you I’m willing to give you something for free, what would be the first thing that comes to your head? Yes, there it is… “What’s the catch?” And what do you do? You don’t take the thing.

My cousin was telling me earlier today about her dilemma in Australia. She works at a leading TV station and is often given tickets to movie premieres. We’re talking about the star-studded events, involving red carpets and bling, not the excitement we feel when we watch the first screening of a movie on its release day. And more often than not, she can’t go to those premieres so she usually asks around if someone wants those tickets, only discovering that giving this tickets away for nothing is harder than her actual job.

And it happened to me when I was at AUB outdoors. There was some guy offering free hugs and the moment I saw him, the second idea the crossed my mind (the first one being how weird it was) was that there was definitely a catch somehow in those hugs.

But why do we have such a response to free stuff? Why is it that most people would take the premiere tickets from my cousin if she had asked for an insignificant amount of money but refrain from doing so if she was handing them for nothing in return?

Our mentality is apparently wired to go away from things that are too good to be true. Even for things that are not totally free. If you find a bargain online, you are as skeptical.
But in the world of today, do not underestimate the power of “free.” I am most definitely not an economy expert but with most things getting cheaper and cheaper because of competition, offering things for free has become a way for some companies to topple others. Offering things for free is also a way for those companies to introduce services.

When I started buying stuff off amazon, I was offered a free trial of “amazon prime” in their attempt to hook me on speedier deliveries. And if I had been living in the US, I would have totally gone for it. Amazon redid a similar thing with Lady Gaga’s latest album: they sold the mp3 version for $0.99 along with a free trial of their newly introduced “cloud” service, as a way to get ahead of Apple before they introduce their own version of cloud services, probably later this year.

According to Chris Anderson, “free” is the future of prices. He wrote his book Free: The Future of a Radical Price on a $250 netbook, running a free version of Linux, free Google Docs, which offer him free backup and on-the-go access and then he offered the work for free on iTunes. He argues that billion dollar industries are being formed today around the price of “zero dollars and zero cents.” And if you think about it, isn’t Google one of the leading companies in the world today and it gives almost everything for free? So don’t freak out when you’re offered something for free. Odds are, someone, somewhere, is making money off of it somehow – with no catch to you.

Born This Way (Album Review) – Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga’s much anticipated sophomore release (or third album if you count The Fame Monster as her second) will be released on Monday, May 23rd.

The album opens up with “Marry The Night”, a song about Lady Gaga’s love for her native New York. Fusing electronic beats with interesting lyrics about belonging, her vocals are not drowned out and the production is quite good on this, especially after the bridge.

“Marry The Night” is a decent album opener, followed by her mega-hit “Born This Way”. And while I believe the song itself was driven more by hype than quality (It has become Lady Gaga’s biggest hit but I don’t think it’s her best song), it sets the tone for the message Lady Gaga wants to get across with this album: embrace who you are, regardless of who that might be.

“Born This Way” is followed by “Government Hooker”, arguably one of the most hyped about tracks of the album. Starting off with a very interesting beat, Government Hooker has a brilliant line on the bridge: “put your hands on me John F. Kennedy.” But is this the monster song of the album? No. It is not something I can find myself repeating on end although I can definitely see it being played at some night clubs courtesy of its stunning beat.

And then comes “Judas”, probably the most controversial song on the album. Discussing the struggle between love and sin with a religious twist, “Judas” was the album’s second single but failed to become a mega-hit on pop radio, even though it follows the “Bad Romance” style closely. What “Judas” and “Government Hooker” have in common is their similarity is their euro-pop roots.

“Americano” is a song that fuses latin beats. It is the “Alejandro” of the album, but unlike “Alejandro”, “Americano” doesn’t pack an extra-punch that would make it a viable radio single. “Americano” is a song about a lesbian romance in L.A. This is followed by “Hair”, a song that I feel belongs on the album of a much younger artist than Lady Gaga. The lyrics on it are corny and sometimes ridiculous. Some are saying this is her song for the tween audience, but I think it could have been so much better. For my full review of Hair, go here.

“Schiße” is a track incorporating German lyrics that I don’t understand. The beat is interesting, however. “Bloody Mary” is another song with religious inferences but it is a very interesting song. Do not be fooled by the song starting off with music reminiscent of Broadway musicals, the beat that comes later on is as grinding as the other songs on the album.

“Bad Kids” is the anthem to anyone who hasn’t grown out of misbehaving. It is her homage to the NYC Club Kids era. “Highway Unicorn” is a song about driving down on the highway in a convertible, another song about freedom and being born to be wild.

“Heavy Metal Lover” is Lady Gaga’s take on fetishes and it is more hardcore than Rihanna’s S&M. While I’m definitely not in this song’s target audience (the genre referenced in the title isn’t something I normally listen to as well), some people will like it. Different strokes, I guess. The song has, however, very cool vocalizations in the background.

“Electric Chapel” is an over the top song, driven by electronic beats where she tells the guy not to be a “holy fool”, a lyric also used in “Judas”, and meet her at the electric chapel. The song, like the many songs before it, also incorporates elements from 1980s music, albeit fusing them with sci-fi elements that lack in other songs.

“You and I” is the first track off the album that people heard when it was performed live last year. This is a piano-driven ballad with electronic beats as well, making for a rather unique sound. The album concludes with Lady Gaga’s current single, “The Edge of Glory”, about being on the edge of something great, be it love, life… the lyrics to this are good, as well as a brilliant saxophone breakdown. However, as I said before, I would have liked it to be slower.

“Born This Way” is an album that can’t be separated from hype because hype existed before the album was even conceived. Prior to its release, Lady Gaga had declared that this album would be the “greatest album of the decade”. I’m sorry, Lady Gaga. While this is a good album, it is not a classic that will go down in the books as the best album of the 2010s. Sure, it is different from most of the mainstream music currently being played, but it doesn’t stray far from that. After all, there isn’t a song on this that doesn’t have an electric beat, even the one that was labeled as a ballad.

So overall, horrible cover and Madonna-comparisons aside, this is an album that holds its own in a music climate where doing so isn’t enough. Yes, it will sell millions of copies and bring in millions for Lady Gaga and her label, but will it be enough to take award-gold? Some award shows will honor it. Others won’t. This is will be far from a clean sweep. But kudos for Lady Gaga on making a record expressing what she believes in, regardless of how radio-friendly it may sound (and on most songs, it actually is radio friendly). However, will this the coveted Album Of The Year at the Grammys? I’m going with no.