You’re Just A Pig Inside A Human Body

Lady Gaga “Swine”

The first time I truly understood Lady Gaga was after seeing her perform a Monster Ball gig in New Jersey just before Born This Way came out. (So, at this point in time she had both “Born This Way” and “Yoü and I” in the set along with most of her first two records.) This is where the true essence of Gaga’s musical style was most obvious: She’s basically a woman who is doing everything she can to merge dance pop with ’70s/’80s rock. At her best, she is basically Madonna and Axl Rose at the same time. It’s brilliant, and even though it may seem like a weird connection, it makes so much sense. Born This Way was a lot more overt in its rock moves than her new album ARTPOP, but it’s still very much in the mix. To some extent, it’s just inherent to Gaga’s vocal style – there’s some R&B in her voice, but most of her phrasing is very hard rock. “Swine,” one of the best songs on ARTPOP, reminds me of Nine Inch Nails in particular. The lyrical parallels are pretty obvious, but it’s also in the industrial pop style of the music, and her cadences get very Reznor-ish at points. This works for her! I mean, I think she could eventually make a pretty amazing industrial goth record if she felt like it.

My review of ARTPOP is over here, by the way.

Buy it from Amazon.