Episode 4: Bluffin’ With my Muffin, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gaga

To be totally honest, I’m not exactly sure what it means. I think it’s a joke about baked goods. Or something. What I do know, however, is that in the last day I’ve had two different conversations about what my favourite song is on the new Lady Gaga album, Born This Way, a distinction which changes every time I listen to the album.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way. A year and a half ago, I hadn’t even heard anything about Gaga other than that she once wore a dress made of muppets she murdered and a few bars of ”Poker Face” that I heard during a TV ad for the latest annual compilation of MuchDance while I watched the episode of (Canadian) Cribs with the member of the BC Lions almost nobody knows showing the viewers his X-Box like it is a thing that is supposed to be impressive, followed by a member of the Los Angeles Kings showing off his office, which is basically just an expensive place he stacks his numerous speeding tickets.

But this isn’t an article about Cribs, though I could probably write one about how much I love its low budget Canadian iteration. This is about something that’s almost as close to the opposite of low budget as you can get without being Queen Elizabeth II: Gaga! And my growing, impossible-t0-hide love for her.

This was back in the heady days of 2008 or 2009, when it was pretty easy to not know that Lady Gaga didn’t exist if you didn’t listen to Top 40 radio or watch MuchMusic for something other than Cribs. All I knew about her were those few bars and that my girlfriend at the time was really adorable when she imitated the “P-p-p-p-poker face” line in a funny voice. At the time, I declared Gaga to be a “one hit wonder,” even though I didn’t think making a “p-p-p-p” sound like an ineffective motorboat actually counted as a hit.

Basically, I don’t ever know what I’m talking about.

It was probably another full year before I actually heard a full Lady Gaga song. I mean, by then I knew who she was, and I knew that I was about as wrong as I could have been when I’d pronounced her to be an artist that would disappear within a matter of months, but it wasn’t until everybody told me I had to watch the video for “Telephone” that I actually listened to one of her songs. And it was pretty good!

I still didn’t actively seek out more of her songs, though. At that point, it was pretty easy to let the juggernaut that was the Haus of Somethingorother find me. I had a sense of who she was. I even bought the Bluewater Lady Gaga comic and had a blast. I watched - and loved - the Glee episode dedicated to her songs.

And yet…

I don’t know why I didn’t buy her albums right then. It certainly wasn’t because I felt guilty about loving her music. I mean, look at the title of this column. Read the last episode. I think I reiterated my belief that “MMMBop” is one of the greatest pop songs ever just last week; guilt and shame about the music I like just isn’t on the table.

So what was it? I think I felt that there was such a saturation of Gaga at the time that I felt like I’d already bought the albums. The news was talking about her. My friends were talking about her. There were enough tweets with links to her videos that I didn’t feel like I was missing out.

But then I thought, Hey jackhole, you talk big on your personal blog about how people should support artists they like by buying music, how about you do it, dick? And, overly harsh on myself or not, thank-you-very-much-Scottish-ancestry, my internal asshole-alogue had a point. Plus, there’s nothing like weirding out passersby on the street (or at Brandon’s store) with the awkward glory that is a nerd dancing unironically.

So, cue Monday. I’ve come to terms with my love of sick beats and disco sticks, I load iTunes and there’s a big ol’ featured link to the new album. And I have the day off work due to Victoria Day, basically the best part of being a constitutional monarchy.

Click.

Now what?

Pajamas dance party, that’s what!

And guys, Born This Way is so good! Now, I really don’t care much about fashion (le gasp!), so about half of Lady Gaga’s act is more or less lost on me. I never gave a shit about whether or not she had a dong or whether she was androgynous or beautiful or whatever. She seems pretty nice, that’s the extent of my knowledge. She can be whoever she wants to be.

But that music? The sleazy, pouding BOOM BOOM BOOM as Stefani Germanitassimolattewithsugar moans and monotones and sing-sing-sings? Goddamn if that isn’t something that makes me happy. The inimitable Rob Sheffield has a great rundown of the album, and I’m not even going to try to upstage the greatest music writer of a generation by getting into all that, but here’s what it is: it’s fun. It’s loud. It’s unapologetic in how Gaga borrows from anything and everything she loves, even as the result is something that I haven’t heard before. It’s def funky jams and killer riffz and a a bunch of other silly words that make me giggle. Fuck the Madonna comparison whining. This is a great album. Madge’s great cuts are still there. Nobody’s gonna forget “Express Yourself” because of “Born This Way.” Hell, I bet it saw a sales increase. Whatever the case is, this is new, this is something else. I have room in my heart for both.

Plus, Ray of Light was Madonna‘s best album anyway.

And come on! E-Street Band member Clarence Clemons plays saxophone on a song! Which is so rad, and it turns a song that might have been thought of as purely Cher-esque into my new number one boxers dance jam. When in doubt, add Bruce and wiggle.

I don’t know what your favourite song on the album is; everybody I’ve talked to has a different one. But there’s a certain glee in finding somebody to exult in about anything, and with her being probably the biggest recording artist on the planet right now, it’s not hard to find someone to talk to about her music. Media saturation, comedy spoofing, gossip and everything else is secondary to this: I like her music. It makes me happy. I generally ignore everything else because nothing else matters to me. Maybe it does to you, though! That’s cool! Just make sure you love what you love. Me? I love dancing to Gaga.

I think I’m a Little Monster or whatever. Keen.