For the first time, Madonna is lying on the canvass without much hope of getting up. She can clamber up the ropes all she wants, but essentially, she’s the Apollo Creed of pop and Lady GaGa is the Italian Stallion, bouncing around with a fist cocked.
Madge has been the undisputed queen of anthemic pop since time began, releasing a whole bunch of singles that were outrageous and outrageously good. However, GaGa has come and stared Madonna square in the eye and taken the crown.
With the release of ‘Born This Way’, GaGa has gone and out Madonna’d Madonna. A gargantuan gay anthem that’s going to erupt from the speakers of the gay nightclubs and infect every single radio station and home in the land. If you’re not on-board with GaGa, it might just be the time to give in because she’s this close to being omnipotent.
Other singers have tried to take Madonna down, but they were either not-talented and hungry enough, or more crucially, not prepared to fight dirty. Madonna is a wily fox who can out-manoeuvre the rest-of-them, continually coming back with new material and reinventions. It seemed that the competition simply didn’t have the attention span to keep up with her.
This basically meant that, while Madonna grew up and broadened her horizons, the rest of female pop grew up by aping bland RnB records. As such, Madonna has had it pretty easy, able to create her own landscape and play by her own rules. No-one dared tackle her on her own turf.
But street-punk GaGa, lapsed Catholic from NYC decided to take Madonna down on the blindside. You wanna pop star that can flirt between outrageous and melodic? Conical bras are all well and good, but GaGa took Madonna’s fondness for the visual to the nth degree, making hats of her own hair, strutting around in a dress made of meat and, crucially, delivering up devastatingly good choruses and hooks.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether GaGa’s career will last as long as Madonna’s, but currently, this dogfight is definitely in favour of the young pretender. And now, GaGa has the sheer bloody cheek to make the gay anthem Madonna always threatened to.
‘Born This Way’ hit the ears of the world today (listen to it here) with ginormo-club hit written all over it. It’s ‘Express Yourself’ to the power 10, with a shot of ‘Vogue’ thrown-in for good measure. Madge flirted with camp iconography, but GaGa has gone out of her way to explicitly speak to those most fervent of pop-fans of the gay clubs.
In an interview with Vogue, GaGa says:
“I wrote ‘Born This Way’ in 10 f**king minutes. .. And it is a completely magical message song. And after I wrote it, the gates just opened, and the songs kept coming. It was like an immaculate conception.”
All the hype that has surround the release of this track has, irritatingly, been completely justified. It was hard to see GaGa matching the pop-majesty of ‘Bad Romance’ (one of the most perfect pop records ever released) and the bittersweet groove of ‘Paparazzi’, but she’s gone and done it again, wearing her Madonna fandom more boldly than she did in the ‘Alejandro’ work-out.
And so, after cooling a little on GaGa in the interim, looking toward Rihanna for slabs of outlandish pop, she’s come back just in time to make everyone starting besotting her again (not to mention those who will appear to continually state how much they hate her… or indeed, make lame jokes about having ‘balls’).
GaGa: Back and ready to take some fuckin’ names and numbers.
Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!
Matt Bregazzi says
“It
Aaron says
It’s explicitly Express Yourself (in the chorus), but it’s mixed with that awful David Guetta song with Kelly Rowland (the verse). And it’s awful. I don’t know what this reviewer is on. Leave Madonna to be Madonna, and let’s never rehash David Guetta.
Thirteen says
Damn, that’s a good song. I never thought any of her songs could outdo “Bad Romance” but this one might have just did.
ernie says
oh no you didn’t… god I can’t stand this song!! silliest ever….. this is so band… so childish, like from a disney movie with low budget, and the lyrics… bad bad bad and not romance this time..
im about to unsubscribe to your feeds
thanks
Madonna Wanna-Be says
It’s a Madonna track but cheeseball factor x100! It’s absolutely so campy my ears were in disbelief! I think the author of this article is insane. Madonna is so beyond this. She’s not even the Queen, she’s Royality of it’s own class. Ugh. Born this Way is just horribly campy it hurts. Gaga is showing more and more she is a one trick pony.
sasha says
No. And it’s because Madonna created an anthem that was new, Lady GaGa just copied Madonna’s straight off and added terrible lyrics to it
Craig says
She doers not come close to Madonna other than stealing from her as she has done since the start, the new song is pretty much Madonna’s Express Yourseld
Gena says
Hey, MOF GIMMERS!
If you’re an idiot, you better sh*t up, coz we all are laughing a lot!
If you don’t have a taste of music, it’s your own problem!
Madonna is unique. And what has gaga cteated? NOTHING!
Chris Hammond says
errrr…I have to disagree. It’s no” Bad Romance” or “Poker Face” that’s for sure… first thing I thought of when I heard it was Madonna’s “Express Yourself”….shocked?..No! Wish it was more original and less 70’s disco drag. Just goes to show you that GaGa is not original and comes no where near the Queen M. Sorry, GaGa.
Charles says
Why must we constantly compare Lady GaGa to Madonna? Why can’t we just like them both for what they bring to the table. They’re not in a competition. Furthermore, how can we compare GaGa to Madonna when she is relatively new to the scene? Madonna has been doing this for over two DECADES! When GaGa has been around for almost 30 years with the success of Madonna then we can talk! Also, the last time I checked, Madonna is still alive and making music. How do we know she won’t reinvent herself for the billionth time and blow us (and GaGa) out of the water. Only time will tell.
Carola Von H. says
Reminds me of Cher at her worst. Love after love after love after love after love after love after–
Cookie Monster says
Alas, you forgot to mention that Gaga has a wee winky, whilst Madonna has a massive muscular member.
Moab Bomb says
Hey ‘Spray. In Rocky, wasn’t it Rocky who was swollen and pulpified on the ropes, and Apollo boppin’ and clenching?