Expressionism Yourself
How Madonna, a German arts movement, and Twitter led to the birthing of a new cultural icon.
If you have been alive, in use of at least three of the five human senses, and living in Western society, then it is simply impossible that you will have failed to notice the meteoric rise of Lady Gaga since 2008. Her slightly distinctive songwriting and production style, coupled with avant-garde outfits, and a knack for bullshitting, proved to be a recipe for success.
By 2011 she’d successfully became the most followed artist on every major social network website (proclaiming herself the ‘queen of Twitter’), jumped through the multi-millions sales hoops, that any artist wishing to establish themselves must, and had struck the bell of controversy on more than one occasion.
On February 11th the title song of the album, Born This Way, was unleashed to the public, with excessive praise and vitriol in equal measures. The critics’ main obsession was with the songs melody apparently being highly derivative of Madonna’s 1980’s hit record, Express Yourself. There is an undeniable use of the same chord structure, but in general, this listener struggles to see that the similarities go much further, sound-wise. To add salt to the plagiarism-wound, the themes of the songs are also somewhat of the same creed. Both songs are self-empowerment anthems, although while Madonna’s song channels a more feminist stance (“Come on, girls”), Born This Way attempts to open itself up to encompass a much broader spectrum. “Gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered… black, white or beige” are all name-checked as she reminds everyone that they were “born this way”, or rather, born with the potential to be who they want to be. Although the lyrics might come across as a tad ham-fisted and heavy-handed, the mission statement of “love everyone, love yourself” can’t really be faulted, even by the most cynical. The positive melodic structure and nature of the song led many to dismiss it entirely as “too corny”, seeing how Gaga had previously molded herself into High Priestess of the macabre and grotesque – a female Marilyn Manson, if you will – during her Fame Monster phase. Perhaps, at face value, the song is a bit too in-your-face and slightly patronising, but the lady herself claimed it was intentionally done so to create more of a splash, rather than sugar-coating the message in metaphor.
Beyond face value though, this listener finds a lot more buried treasure beneath the songs lyrical content, and expects it to be looked back on as a modern pop classic, in years to come. Take the production, for example. It follows the usual Gaga shtick of all-guns-blazing and is indeed quite overwhelming, but within the layers we have a beautifully atmospheric string section, filtered electric guitars, bombastic drum-breaks, and a pounding bass-line reminiscent of the best 90’s dance records. Amped-up, evolved, church bells sing throughout the chorus, as Gaga’s gospel-inspired vocals add a real punch and emotion to the proceedings. The listener gets to experience the full breadth of the Lady’s vocals; from the growling lower alto groans in the verses, to the spoken-word drag queen-esque call-to-arms in the songs middle-eight, and she belts like the best in the songs chorus. Born This Way isn’t so much of a rehash of Express Yourself, but rather picks up where Madonna left off, and carries the message to the n’th degree.
Furthermore, with the music video that accompanies the song, we are treated with one of Lady Gaga’s most striking visuals to date. Shot by famous photographer Nick Knight, the popstar plays the character of Mother Monster, who literally gives birth to a new race of “non-prejudice” humans. Although the visuals are somewhat inspired by Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, and the sci-fi B-movie genre, what really strikes me more than any of these, is the Expressionist atmosphere that the short film conveys. All the ingredients are there for an Expressionist eruption within the song in the first place. The intense emotions, the unrestrained outbursts of synthesizers and drum-breaks, the distortion of the word “born” to encompass the idea of rebirthing, the socio-politico challenging lyrical content; these are all benchmarks of the Expressionist arts movement. The video only serves to promote these themes further, with unrelenting choreography, taboo imagery (such as the man with full-body tattoo’s) and the image of Gaga herself. She paints herself as a distorted human, a new breed, with facial prosthetics sticking out of her shoulders and cheekbones. She is an exaggeration of the human form.
The question remains though, what is the purpose of all this? Lady Gaga has previously stated, when interviewed, that she believes she “has a moral obligation to make the world a better place”. As in the past, expressionism will rise to the surface when social change is occurring. It is when all other attempts have failed, questions have been asked, and answers are being pushed for. Having previously been the poster-girl for a renaissance of surrealism (pianos, head-ware and outfits all based on Dali paintings), perhaps the time has come for the Lady to shift focus and hijack another been-and-gone art form to use for her own intentions.
Gone are the metaphors, gone are the illusions. This time she means business.
