We Humans Can Be Real Suckers

The battle versus style and substance is no real battle at all.  However, we can be easily fooled and often we are.  Two things have my mind on this very thought.  The release of the wholly unnecessary 4th installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean series and the greatly anticipated 3rd album from her holiness Lady Gaga ‘Born This Way’.

First and foremost, we have been utterly duped by Disney who got extremely lucky that Johnny Depp had a moment of artistic genius when he conjured up Captain Jack Sparrow in his, I’m sure partially insane (have you seen Fear and Loathing?), mind.  His character has lured us right into what is a far less substantive experience.   Jack Sparrow has mesmerized movie goers and pop culture so significantly that we have made preposterously plotted movies into one of the highest grossing movie franchises of all-time.  Other comparable franchises by numbers: Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings.  I don’t think there is much debate that Pirates is nowhere near on par with these other 3 franchises….not including the prequels to Star Wars, but the box office numbers wouldn’t suggest this.  We can be mad at the industry all we want, but what does it say about us as humans who are continually shown to be complete suckers.

I believe there is a similar effect with Lady Gaga.  I’ll go more into her music later, but if it weren’t for her iconic fashion and pop culture status, I do not believe the music would stand on its own.  This is also the case with the latest album, which I heard from front to back this afternoon.  But this does not change the fact that if I saw her outside of a concert hall I wouldn’t know whether I should drop to one knee and kiss her hand, ask for an autograph, or start laughing at the device that protruded 3 feet in all directions off of her head.  I would likely do all 3.  Now I’m not saying Lady Gaga is the equivalent to POC for the music industry, so let me set Gaga lovers minds at ease.  She’s more like the super hero movie of the music industry.  Occasional head scratchers, wearing meat and Madonna rip-offs (Fantastic Four, Elektra, Daredevil) but than a healthy # of home runs, Bad Romance and her human rights influence (Robert Downey as Iron Man, Toby as Spidey).

Now as far as my actual review of ‘Born This Way’, here is my 2 cents.  The album is dense, as in, loud and a lot going on.  The 80′s influences are beaten to death here, and perhaps this was her intent.  A tribute of some kind.  What I did enjoy was how the album closes out.  Some darker tracks with sick guitar riffs and solo’s mixed into the synth pop layerings.  But essentially what we have here is one dance floor and self esteem anthem after another.  Mantra’s like “I was born this way” and “I will be strong”.  There isn’t anything wrong with this in essence, but it does grow tired over 14-17 tracks, depending on which version of the album you get.  There are a lot of religious allusions and foreign flavors (German, Spanish, etc.) that give a facade of sophistication, but I really thought these were forced.  If I’m not mistaken there were at least 3 or 4 references to Jesus somewhere on this album which is fine, but I can just here the controversy coming already, as there has been with her single ‘Judas’.  Overall, I can say I’d give the album a solid 7/10 with the highlight being ‘Highway Unicorn’ for its rock/metal touches.

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