Remember Dylan running at 100 million miles per hour in 1968, then having a motorbike accident and coming to a complete full stop? Sure you do. Well, that’s what happens when you travel at the speed of time for years on end in the world of pop and that’s what happened to Lady Gaga. The art pop gal popped and ended up in a gilded wheel chair.
Lady Gaga had been chasing the charts with an ambition and talent not seen since Madonna since 2008 before crashing and burning in 2012 just before Art Pop was ready to be her third album in succession. She must have been tired. She must have been exhausted, you had the feeling of watching somebody working themselves to death, as if if she stopped for one moment her entire world would fall apart on her: there was no place for her to go and no place for her to get there.
The two albums proper, The Fame and Born This Way, stands as a strange down grading one from the other; Gaga reached the height of her talentsin 2011 with the extended The Fame Monster and the undeniable “Telephone” featuring Beyonce. Born This Way was a disappointment. Pushed too hard at its release, it jumped up and fell apart and in the great scream of thing, all it did was give her more songs to tour behind. A little while later, Gaga starred in that unforgivable Thanksgiving Special and finally had a cat fight with Madonna.
So the bottom was falling out and of course fell out entirely when she cancelled the MSG gig and left me dangling.
Since then there has been a couple of pix of Steph in a gold wheelchair in 2013 and besides that Gaga did a Dylan and disappeared until this teaser off her new album appeared on Youtube. Self-evidently, Gaga and I’ve never heard it before, and it is a pretty awesome taster called “Feel It”.
Maybe I miss her and that’s why I am feeling it so strong, but this is a strong, strong taste of disco with smart techno beats all over the show. I can’t wait for the album now.
Grade: A