Selling over 1 million copies during it's first week,
Born This Way is breaking all sorts of records, and is being dubbed as album of the decade. It also became the first album to surpass Britney Spears' first day sales record held by a female artist for "Oops, I did it again", by selling 524k copies (as opposed to Britney's 500k). But do this numbers accurately reflect the quality of the album?
I would say Born This Way is a cohesive album, but each track has it's own unique flavor - from the heartfelt
You and I to something as upbeat as
Judas, creating an overall beautifully thought out range. What really appeals to me is that every song has a story behind it, it gets a certain message across, and that for me is what makes someone an artist, not just a musician.
Promotion for this album started months in advance when Gaga first sang the chorus for
Born This Way, which was quickly remixed into a seven and a half minute song. Everyone who has watched any of her performances knows that when she sings something live it sounds totally different than the studio version of the track, so when Born This Way - the song - was finally released as the first single I was a bit shocked, as it was nothing like I expected it to be (and my expectations were very high). Somehow I feel like it never broke the threshold I wanted it to, seeming a bit superficial.
As for the criticism the song got, I personally don't see the resemblance to
Waterfalls or
Express Yourself, just how I don't see any resemblances between other songs from the album and other artists. What I do see, is a resemblance with some of Gaga's earlier works, but that's what I would call consistency.
For example the beginning of Judas makes me think of The Fame. And the similarities between Scheisse and Government Hooker are undeniable. Also, Fashion Of His Love (available only on the Special Edition of the album) has some lyrics from one of Gaga's unreleased songs - Then You'd Love Me.The album's second single,
Judas, clicked with me right away. And
DJ White Shadow's remix of Judas was the perfect bonus.
Just a few days after the release of Judas, marketing for the album's release was in full force, and included the release of several more tracks from the album as promotional songs. And when Edge of Glory came out everyone fell in love with it. It was somewhat different from Gaga's previous singles. The song was inspired by her grandfather's death. A lot of reviewers named it the most radio-friendly song from the album, and they were right. After getting an amazing response from fans, Edge of Glory became a single. To be quite honest, this, along with Judas are probably my favorite songs.Other songs that I really enjoyed include:
Marry The Night,
The Queen and
Fashion Of His Love. The last two are bonus tracks from the Special Edition of the album.
Here is my attempt at rating the songs, although I have to say, it was a rather difficult challenge:
(click on the song's title to listen to it)
