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Lady Gaga’s promotion of ARTPOP has, in recent months, descended into chaos. The video for ‘Do What U Want’ failed to manifest, rumours have circulated that her tour is bombing, and then there’s that infamous debate over whether she was glamorising bulimia, or simply performing art.
The video for ‘G.U.Y.’ was released over the weekend and it’s fair to say that Gaga is back to what she does best. The video is amazing for a number of reasons:
ARTPOP, Venus, G.U.Y., MANiCURE
Firstly, it showcases several songs that perhaps some won’t have had the chance to hear before. The opening shot features parts of ‘ARTPOP’ (which unfortunately looks as though it isn’t going to be a single itself) before ‘Venus’ warps into play as Gaga is dragged through the castle grounds and ‘MANiCURE’ plays over the closing titles. Whilst ‘Venus’ and ‘MANiCURE’ aren’t the best songs on the album, it’s still a good way to promote some lesser known tracks from the album and perhaps pique some interest in them.
Subtlety is not her strong suit
Whilst not Gaga’s subtlest analogy, the narrative of the video highlights some of the struggles that Gaga has experienced in recent months. She’s been stifled by her record company and exploited, shown in the opening shots of “the man” fighting for money as Gaga lays hurt and abandoned. It’s poignant but striking.
Overcoming her struggles
Further to this the video shows Gaga overcoming these struggles alone. She wades through the desert by herself, and reaches the castle all alone. But her Monsters are there to guide her forward. Its stuff we’ve heard before, yes, but it makes for some impressive visuals – Gaga dressed as an angel/bird hybrid, cameos by Ghandi, Jesus and Michael Jackson (!) and thousands of clones of the perfect guy. You can always trust Gaga to create something new and epic.
Gaga/Donatella
Gaga has donned her trademark platinum-blonde wing once more and in the process she has become the exact copy of Donatella. But, she looks gorgeous for it. She hasn’t looked this good in a music video since ‘The Edge of Glory’ way back in 2011. From the look of her it’s clear that she has overcome some personal demons recently.
Plagiarising Herself…?
We all know by now that Gaga has been accused of copying everyone from Madonna to Freddie Mercury, but the new video features several shots that come directly from her own back catalogue. The shots of Gaga dressed in a bikini on a curricular platform, along with her crawling across the floor, are reminiscent of visuals incorporated in her ‘Bad Romance’ epic, whereas the orgy scene harkens back to the male dominated ‘Alejandro’ video. Interestingly I can already imagine haters claiming Gaga is copying off Katy Perry’s ‘Dark Horse’ in the shots of her and a semi-naked man on the chaise, but these shots come straight from the ‘Poker Face’ video. Whilst the ‘Applause’ video showed Gaga seemingly rejecting her previous body of work, the video for ‘G.U.Y.’ show her celebrating it.
And to top it all off – ‘G.U.Y.’ is the perfect Gaga song. It’s empowering with a deep beat courtesy of Zedd and so much better than its predecessor. Everyone is going to be talking about Gaga again – and for the right reasons this time.
