Favourite Song: Lady Gaga, Bad Romance
Runner Up: Powderfinger, Sail the Widest Stretch
First up, I know Bad Romance was released late October ’09, but thanks to its radio presence over last summer I have trouble disentangling it from 2010 – so I won’t. It reminds me of Madonna’s Express Yourself, particularly their slick, cinematic music videos* where the individual (female) is pitted against cultural hegemon(ies). In Express Yourself, Madonna is high in a tower above a heavily industrialized world; in Bad Romance we see Gaga being sexually objectified, forced to perform against her will. (Though I should point out that Gaga’s themes more align with Madonna’s in Alejandro, where there is a distinct militaristic element.)
But, looking at the lyrics, Express Yourself isn’t a ‘traditional’ love song, it seeks to celebrate and assert female strength. Whereas Bad Romance is about love on many levels. On the surface it’s about unrequited love or the attraction to the wrong sort of partner. Was this all, however? I wasn’t so sure. I thought there was something else and at the same time I also wondered if I was reading too much into the song. To me it was also about abandon, a too-knowing lament about the arc of bad relationships (“I want your love and I want your revenge”), a comment on the independence of self and soul in a post-religious world, which allows us to take control of labels and make them our own (“I’m a freak bitch, baby”). Now we love and be loved in an uncertain time of obstreperous nihilism – or something close to it. This is why when I saw Bret Easton Ellis say on Twitter, “Why is the siren call in Bad Romance “I don’t wanna be friends…” the sexiest lyric in pop songs this year by about a million miles?” I thought, yes, see, maybe I’m not alone in thinking about this. Because in that “I don’t want to be friends…” line, where her full-throat notes threaten to turn into a wail, we have tangible, frustrated pain. It’s sexy because we recognise it, it invokes a response; it’s tantruming toddler and lusty adult rolled into one. “You and me could write a bad romance” is both warning and invitation.
Throw in a great playing time (almost five minutes – I like long songs**), a catchy opening that even has Riley singing “RA RA RA / OH LA LA” etc. and I was hooked.
Sail the Widest Stretch was, I think, the first single release off their new Golden Rule album (or was that Burn Your Name?) and is simply lovely. Sorry, that will seem awfully brief after the above! But it’s true!
Here’s the Bad Romance clip to keep you humming for the day:
* Directed by David Fincher and Francis Lawrence, respectively.
** Not that five minutes is all that long! You know what I mean!
