I love the smell of cheap wigs and bedazzled pig masks in the morning. It smells like a new Lady Gaga album.?
Half an album to be exact. ?Dubbed the ‘Swinefest’, the seven songs that were performed for the very first time at the iTunes festival yesterday, and it didn’t skimp on the follicle or the metaphorical front. The musical side however, got some mixed reviews at best. If you were considering going and looking for these mixed reviews, don’t bother. There’s one right here for your viewing pleasure.
“Aura”
The show kicked off with the very Tarantino-ish ‘Aura’, combining slow, deep guitar with lyrics about how Gaga has “killed [her] former and left her in the trunk on highway ten” to make a tense and climactic intro. The fact that she’s kneeling on the floor wearing a ninja costume and wielding a knife doesn’t hurt either.
It then kicks in to the ?familiar throbbing dance tracks we’ve come to love Gaga for, even if she does perform it suspended from the ceiling in an iron maiden – ?please resist doing the Bill and Ted air guitar – whilst scantily clad male dancers do their thing below her.
Overall, the lyrics are about stripping back all the wigs and the makeup and letting people see the real woman underneath – a nice sentiment, and a theme that she sticks with throughout the rest of the show but is a little trampled on by her numerous costume changes. Bizarre outfits have become this woman’s bread and butter though, so it was bound to happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv6W64dxTGs
“MANiCURE”?
After a brief on-stage break so Gaga could put some shoes on and wax lyrical about being away from her fans, she launched into ‘MANiCURE’, which is relatively generic sounding at first. The clapping in place of a drum beat and occasional rocky guitar riff could easily be mistaken for the intro to 30H!3’s ‘My First Kiss’. With anyone else, this wouldn’t be a bad thing – it’s catchy and gives the whole song a ‘stadium’ vibe, but Gaga doesn’t seem like the kind to take comparisons to anyone else well. Mention Madonna in the comments of one of her videos and sit back and watch the fireworks.
The lyrics are a light hearted and a little nonsensical:
Heal me / Cause I’m addicted to love / Man-Cure!
…plus some stuff about putting on lipstick and making her scream. A pretty great rock-pop track that’s a lot like the ‘Born This Way’ sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbFG0ZP7GjY
“ArtPop”
Another break to change her weave and throw on the mermaid bikini, and it’s on to the titular track. The pressure was on for this song, and it faceplanted the stage spectacularly. ‘ArtPop’ is a strange mix of Bjork and ABBA that doesn’t quite bring out the best in either, and doesn’t really seem to build up to anything. It’s too artsy and experimental to be a single, so here’s hoping it’s left to gather dust on the album. The most dedicated fans will like it, but she could release twenty minutes of her burping the alphabet and they’d hail her as the new Beethoven.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ohYyS2gNyE
“Jewels And Drugs feat. Too $hort, T.I, and Twista”
Straight off the bat, having multiple rappers feature on a song is for people who can’t put on a show by themselves. Say what you want about Lady Gaga, she’s willing to bust both her hips to entertain people. Let’s hope T.I is actually allowed into the next country they perform this one.
‘Jewels and Drugs’ is a grimy departure from pretty much anything Gaga’s done before, and is the kind of song that your hoodrat neighbours will keep you awake with at 3am, so you’ll probably end up hating it by default. If your neighbours are nice, respectable people then this song will take on a ‘Blurred Lines’ quality – you like it, but you genuinely hate yourself for liking it and will deny any positive feelings towards it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPRmiEh1CSs
“Sex Dreams”
Who doesn’t love a bit of gratuitous filth? ‘Sex Dreams’ is Janet Jackson-esque in the best way possible, and it’s a shame that it probably won’t be released. ?Let’s face it, there’d have to be some heavy editing to make this even a little bit radio friendly. Particularly the line:
“Let’s white (by the one before) glove the bed /?He was kinda nasty (help me here)”
‘What’s a white glove got to do with things?’, I hear you ask. That’s a very good question.
The more you know, eh? ‘Sex Dreams’ is one of the best songs of the set, and is the kind of sexy-meets-trashy that translates well on stage and through song. I’m looking at you, Cyrus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6kgC7skfPo
“Swine”
Gaga’s whole message is generally supposed to be one of self acceptance and preaching love to anyone and everyone, even if they are a total dickwad. That doesn’t gel well with ‘Swine’, but can be easily overlooked because it’s one of the best club tracks of her career.
It’s a shame the audience had to sit through a long-winded and cryptic speech about how she had to explore one of the hardest times in her life to write a song who’s main lyric is “You’re just a pig inside a human body”. Meaning aside, it shows off Gaga’s vocal talents perfectly and this will go down a storm in nightclubs. Just imagine all the drunk teenagers wanting to dedicate this to their ex-boyfriends.
She also looks so much better performing in a giant t-shirt and messy hair than elaborate bacon bikinis, with a significantly lower chancce of salmonella in her lady bits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1vdDrOmr9s
“I Wanna Be With You”
A slow piano ballad to finish the new material off, a la ‘Speechless’ or ‘Wonderful’, just to remind you that Gaga can do actual instruments as well as computer generated wub-wub. It’s got a sweet little melody to it, and simple, honest lyrics that form an ode to her fans but can also be used as a regular love song for recently dumped pre-teens. Which is pretty nice, not many performers these days actually give a shit about the people who buy their albums. Does anyone buy albums anymore?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyHWqSzjkAk
Whether you love her or are so over her shit, Gaga releasing any type of music is a pretty big deal, which is why this album will no doubt soar straight to the top of the charts, no matter the state of the other songs. There’s also some pretty impressive dance routines for a woman who had major surgery on her hips only a few months ago, so hopefully she’s putting her feet up afterwards. Otherwise her next album will be full of songs about the pain of having to wear flat shoes.