So, I was talking to PostBourgie's Shani about Lady Gaga yesterday, and as inevitably happens, the conversation turned to the Madonna comparison. Shani pointed out that Gaga's voice is better than Madonna's. But, I replied Gaga "doesn't have a song that's as good as 'Like a Virgin,' or 'Cherish,' or any of the other truly great Madonna stuff." I've been listening to "Monster," a lot recently though, and I think it's the best candidate for an immortal Gaga song so far:
Amanda Hess did a really nice job of explaining the song's power as an anti-date rape anthem, especially in the context of some of the creepier trends in club anthems by women making the rounds recently. But politics aside, I think it's just an excellent pop song, with a lyrical coherence that Gaga normally doesn't really bother with. I've been loving the Little Red Riding Hood images that cropped up first in "Teeth" and that get their fullest explication here. And the song's narrative is disturbing, sad, and beautifully delivered: “I wanna Just Dance / But he took me home instead / Uh oh, there was a monster in my bed / We french kissed on a subway train / He tore my clothes right off / He ate my heart then he ate my brain" is a concise, precise, specific yet generalizable piece of songwriting. It's a gorgeous verse about something horrible.
But I do think it gets at one of the huge, key ways Lady Gaga isn't following in Madonna's footsteps. I've always thought of Madonna as kind of the Belle Watling of pop, the woman who despite the fact that she's gotten around a bit, and in fact because of it, understands the euphoria of true love and sexual chemistry. I hope to dance to "Cherish" at my wedding. But while I find a lot of resonance in certain shards of Lady Gaga's lyrics, she's working in an emotional photo-negative of a lot of Madonna's best songs, exploring loneliness, aloneness, heartbreak. I don't know if the songs will mean the same things to me when I'm not 25, or if they'll be able to be relevant but in a totally new and expected way. Madonna's songs were a revelation when I heard them for the first time, and they retain all their freshness and their power. It's an unusual accomplishment, and I'll be very curious to see if Lady Gaga can match it.