SOUND OFF: Grammys Go Gaga

In honor of Sunday's broadcast of the 53rd annual Grammy Awards on CBS and today's early-morning premiere of Lady Gaga's newest single off of her forthcoming sophomore album (sharing the same title as the song) BORN THIS WAY, in this week's Flash Friday and Saturday we are taking a look at some of the most memorable Grammy moments from the past - and casting a glance towards the future as we take a listen to the new Gaga track. What we can expect from her highly-anticipated first live performance of the electronica anthem - as well as from performances by Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Hudson and more - in the nearly-four-hour broadcast celebrating all genres of music on Sunday? Also, what will win best cast album? We can be sure we are in for one hell of a show - after all, some of us were just born to set the stage ablaze, as today's goo-goo-for-Gaga FLASH FRIDAY/SOUND OFF and tomorrow's super-special-Babs-blow-out SATURDAY SPECIAL surely do attest. Queens all around, yet who will take the crown?

Born This Way, Ain't No Other Way

Some people were just born to sing. In the recording industry - and, furthermore, the history of the Grammy nominating committee - there are a few voices that seem to have come from the music halls of heaven itself - voices possessed by Barbra, Celine, Aretha, Pavarotti, Mel Torme - and others, too, who, while they may lack the technical precision and otherworldly, inhuman skill of the aforementioned artists, still manage to imbue their fine vocal instruments with layers of soul, pathos and feeling that plunge to even more resonant depths than the most technically adept vocalist - Dolly Parton, Freddie Mercury, Jason Mraz are perhaps the best examples of this. Whether or not soul can Make Up For complete lack of singing ability is another issue altogether - I'm looking at you, Mr. Dylan. So what's better - soul or scalpel? Which cuts closest to the core and reveals the most essential essence of the art portrayed?

The rare ability to successfully put across a song often can derive from penning the songs one is planning on eventually performing, and it seems to be that those artists who can take anyone's material and make it shine - the Barbras and Tony Bennetts of the world, as if there have been or will ever be other individuals to replace either of those icons - are more actors; whereas the songwriters performing their own material tend to be performers - more personalities. Whether making that specific - some would say anal - demarcation between the two is wholly essential to this or any argument or discussion of vocal technique comes into play when an artist such as Lady Gaga calls herself one of the best voices in pop music today. Judging from just her first MONSTER albums, it is clear that it is the whole package that has made her a worldwide phenomenon and pop culture staple. A bloody SUSPIRIA-inspired VMA performance followed up by this year's meat dress certainly hasn't hurt her publicity, either. Yet, beyond the blood and semen-scented (her proposed perfume fragrance description) aura and Alexander McQueen-inspired performance art, there was a talented and gifted songwriter underneath plugging away. Anytime anyone claimed it was all flash, pop, sizzle with no meat underneath (pun intended), one could cite a single like "Speechless" which shows a completely different side of her stage and songwriting persona than the "Just Dance" disco queen or bizarre Euro-pop "Paparazzi" diva.

Irony is implicit in all of it - no more so than in the newest entry in the Gaga pantheon, "Born This Way" - but I fear that that playfulness and sense of camp are lost on many, if not most. Is she actually mocking Madonna in a roundabout way in this new song? Surely, the recent "Alejandro" cone bra was not a coincidence. And, now, with the premiere of "Born This Way" she faces impossible expectations to not only top herself but top anything else on the music scene - whether nominated for a Grammy on Sunday night or not. Plus, smash to smithereens the memories of all the disco divas she consistently emulates and evokes. For her audacity and all she has done so far to stretch the definition of what a pop star can be she earns major kudos - but, at what point do the performance points end and the precision points begin? Particularly, how does this song stack up to not only what's on the radio right now, but the great American Songbook and the weighty assignation Gaga has set forth for herself to achieve in American pop culture history. Or, is she just being who she is and we are trying to make heads or tails of it? Isn't that the definition of a critic in the first place? Aren't critics born this way, too?

Whatever the case, first and foremost judge the song for yourself - it is already #1 on iTunes, and many websites (like Perez Hilton, Gaga's real-life good friend) are claiming it could be the fastest selling single in digital musical downloading history. Apparently, it's already sold over a million copies in less than twelve hours. Touted as the 21st century "I Will Survive" by Elton John (who apparently heard it before anyone else), it is an empowerment anthem on the order of Madonna's "Express Yourself" - and that's certainly not where comparisons (musical, thematic or otherwise) end as far as that perfect piece of pop confection is concerned. When she set herself up side-by-side against arguably the most significant pop star since Elvis and the Beatles - Madonna - with a song so melodically reminiscent of one of her most iconic and memorable moments in pop culture (remember the Gaultier cone bra in the David Fincher-directed video?), she dances a treacherous tango. It's a grower, not a shower - that's for sure. Also, Gaga is a stage animal and she could knock everyone's socks off on Sunday night with a performance that will make the pleasingly pliable, if musically mundane ditty more than it actually may appear to even be (she's done it before) - and, hopefully, to cite the song's lyrics, it will be more queen than drag.

Train-wreck? No. Song of the century? Not even close. All in all, a very good omen of what's to come on the genre-bending glossolalia of the entire 20-track BORN THIS WAY opus.

A promising zygote of the birth? Hell, yeah, baby.

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