Lady Gaga: Born This Way: The Remix - Album Review

Lady Gaga
Born This Way: The Remix
Rating: Meh

Contrary to popular belief, I don't dislike Lady Gaga. She does have some catchy songs, but, for me, she gets lost in all the surface of her image and the subsequent need to always go a little more over the top with each new video or album. And now that the hype and hysteria over the release of Born This Way has died down, she has released a companion remix album with an interesting variety of remixers at the helm. I have to give her credit for not going the usual route of remixes with Tiesto, Kaskade, or Seamus Haji, and instead choosing diverse producers such as Twin Shadow, The Weeknd, Wild Beasts, and Foster the People. With remixes though, I have a love/hate relationship with. I understand the need for remixes sometimes; a slower tempo song that craves a dance floor remix, or a song the needs a new envisioning. But too often, we get the original track laid over a thumping beat, with little to no creativity or interest, or the elements that made the track special in the first place or omitted or overshadowed. With Born This Way: The Remix, we get a rather mixed bag of tracks. Where the album works best is when the producer takes the track and transforms what was mediocre on record and elevates it to something transcendent, but too often we get tracks that are tiredly updated with only a different drum track.

Probably the best remix is from UK art-rockers Wild Beasts, who take the tepid country exercise "You and I," and merely take a handful of verses and loop Gaga's voice into a mantra over ambient washes of synths and pianos. Omitting the other lyrics and vocals and using laser like precision to focus on what speaks to them from the track, makes this simply stunning.



Likewise, Metronomy take the same track and again remove any hint of it being a country song, opting to cloak the song in a haunting, ambient-synth pop sheath, ramping up the pathos with vocal manipulations. For me, the problem with the original track was the country angle to it. You couldn't get past how corny it all was. Ditching the backing music altogether brings out the fact the song is really not that bad.



Title track "Born This Way" is released from its reliance on the melody from Madonna's "Express Yourself" and given an 80s overhaul by Twin Shadow, bringing it closer to Duran Duran and other new-wave acts.



Hurts surprisingly even go against their usual Spandau Ballet-isms and gives a hard electro-industrial edge to one of the albums best original tracks "Judas."



And moody, UK goth rockers The Horrors brandish "Bloody Mary" with a throbbing dub beat, and vaguely middle eastern tweaks.



And alternative R&B collective The Weeknd unsurprisingly turn "Marry The Night" into a Weeknd track, focusing on the sleazier aspects of the original.



Unfortunately, the rest of the cd gets bogged down in a lot of half-hearted efforts; from the dubstep-lite trappings of Zedd's remix of "Born This Way," Goldfrapp's monumentally annoying pitch shifting of Gaga's vocals in their take on "Judas," Sultan & Ned Shepard building their take on "The Edge of Glory" out of every house music cliche imaginable, or taking the already electro-banging "Scheisse" and removing any of the edge it possessed. Likewise, tracks like "Americano," which are brutally bad to listen to in the first place, are given remixes that highlight those misgivings even more. Other tracks merely pale in comparison to the better remixes, and as a result, fade from view; notably Foster The People's remix of "The Edge of Glory," and Two Door Cinema Club's remix of "Electric Chapel."

Aside from a couple of outstanding re-imaginings that transport the source material to a new level, there is really not much to recommend this remix album. It won't make you love Lady Gaga any more or any less. Like most remix albums, it is pretty pointless, and not worth owning as a whole. I would merely recommend listening to the album online then cherry-picking the tracks you liked the best.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.