Song Of The Day: Lady Gaga- "You And I"*

Let me be clear.  This is the best song off Lady Gaga's most recent album Born This Way.  And no, it's not close.  It would have been a disgrace to Gaga and her fans if it hadn't been released as a single for the rest of America to hear.  Thus, I was beyond thrilled to discover it has finally been released as the album's fourth single and given the full Gaga music-video-production treatment.  With that in mind, allow me to review the video.

Why, Gaga, why?  Why do you insist on being so weird, so theatrical, so goddamn out there in all of your music videos and public appearances?  Your music is so great- powerful, danceable, and genuinely moving to some people.  Yet you make it hard for people to take you seriously when you sprint as far from the mainstream as humanly possible, seemingly only to prove that you can.

For instance, in this video here, you have composed a song that I would consider a potential classic, and with a more conventional classic Americana-type video, you could have redeemed your image in my eyes and in the eyes of many, and given yourself a surefire hit.  Yet you instead chose to go the route of dressing up as what appears to be Lady Gag-enstein, as well as a mermaid, and yourself as a man (not gonna do much to dissuade those rumors, although that was probably the point), and attempting to subvert and mock the corn fields surrounding you.  Why do that?  Why not try subverting the subversion and being normal for once?

I get that Gaga's main message is proving that weird can be popular, and I get that by constantly being outrageous she manages to stay in the news.  But here's the problem: eventually, the act gets stale, and people move on.  But you know what doesn't get stale?  Good music, of which to this point she has made a lot.  So if she would just focus on making more songs like "You And I" and not on whatever radical theme or message she decides to push in any given week, she could allow her career much greater longevity.  But alas, it seems she's going the other way, so who knows if I'll ever be this excited about another Lady Gaga song again.


*No, I don't know how to make the umlaut over the u in "You."  And even if I did, I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of putting an entirely unnecessary umlaut.  Also, this should have been posted yesterday but I didn't have time to put it up, so it goes up today.  My apologies.