Roma, roma-ma, what’s the deal with Bruno Mars?
Let’s cut to it: If you’re already into Lady Gaga, you’ll have a good time with this one. If you don’t mess with Lady Gaga, probably less so. Though, I’d implore you that the 2000s were a long-time ago. I won’t think less of you as the 50/50 chance of a straight bloke you may be if you let yourself tap your foot to a little Gaga in the roaring 20s. Put away The Smiths and Top Gear for another day! You’re allowed to wear pink t-shirts now, paint your nails, and feel free to let yourself be a mayhemic bitch on your own little airpod commute from your diseased bathroom, to your unironed shirt 9-5. While you’re feeling risqué, also consider sending a photo of the front and back of your debit card to our business email.
In this one, Lady Gaga has challenged my own Gwen Stefani-tinged biases that finding a happy marriage is mutually incompatible with pop divas still having the juice. Each track here comes through with the purest pop intentions of banger-craft, and the EDM-ish opener Disease dives us straight into it. And, it functions! It’s perfectly solid, lets us know that freak is back on the menu, and it’s about the least interesting track on the interesting section of the album (this might be foreshadowing).
Yeah Disease’s bass is pretty fun, but it’s got nothing on the beautiful bassy squelching over on Abracadabra. Aside from that creeping promisingly in the background, the track plays like a classic enough, early Gaga club track. The twist is in the SOPHIE-esque post-chorus, staccato vocals and bass grit yanking the track forwards on a jerky ride.
Inspiration points across the tracks are split across decades and genres, worn with their heart on their sleeves, and striking that sweet, sweet balance between clear evocation and original spins. Killah brings Prince-y guitar rhythms and vocals, which stretch like putty in service of the beat, before veering off to a breakdown where guest producer Gesaffelstein gets to exact his plinky-ploppy synth machinations. One minor beef: Gaga gives us a fun little scream here, and the mixing shies away from making it jarring by pushing it far back, drenching it in reverb. Getting cold-feet on deafening the audience is a crime in a Prince-style track, and if you are going to try to shock the system, bring it to the front of house, and make me want to rip my earphones out just a little, OK?
Poptimism purity keeps coming through with Zombieboy, a touch more wobbly on LoveDrug, until the clear reimagining of Only You by Yazoo, How Bad Do U Want Me. Taking on Yazoo’s spacey snares and synth-lines, this welcome slowdown of pace at the ninth track marks whereabouts this album could have stayed its welcome perfectly. While Don’t Call Tonight and Shadow of a Man are far cuts above just serviceable, and hold some great vocal flexes, they lack the truly fresh energy already heard to bring the momentum back up.
Three ballads to close off! The Beast is the one which picks up best by the end of itself, though the sedation of the first half is a level too low to climb from. Blade of Grass certainly exists, and then BAM! Bruno Mars jumpscare. Die With a Smile has already had a long-life, and to close on a track better described as by Bruno Mars, featuring Lady Gaga, makes for a baffling conclusion to an album which simply doesn’t have the tonal, or actual space for it. Baffling, until you remember that every record label is desperate to try to keep their tracks up on the Billboard 200 for as many weeks in a row, like it’s Snapchat streaks.
Gaga’s back! But she’s back on a bit of a bloated album. Probably a better time to be had by shattering its best components to be mixed into your most cleverly-titled pop-bangers playlist, but the sum of its parts gets a 7/10.