“Born This Way,” the single, was the fastest-selling single in iTunes history, but Born This Way, the album, despite getting enthusiastically mixed reviews, was considered something of a disappointment. When I ask Gaga if she was pleased with its reception, she says, with a somewhat forced blasé air, “Sure. I really couldn’t ask for anything more. The tour is sold out. We sold eight million records.” And then she says, “Everything is great,” which makes me think that there must have been some days when everything was not great.
Some of the letdown probably had to do with the fact that Born This Way happened to come out the same season as Adele’s juggernaut, 21, which shot to number one, won every award on planet Earth, and refuses to cede its spot at the top of the charts.The freak-of-nature success of that album has led to all manner of comparison: Adele, not Gaga, is the voice of their generation; acoustic music, soul music, real music—not Gaga’s wall of electronic sound—is what people yearn to hear. Despite the fact that electronic music has, at long last, ascended into the mainstream, it’s still not always taken seriously. When I bring this up, Gaga says, “Well, I think we both know that acoustic music isn’t better than electronic music. Electronic music requires a tremendous amount of technical expertise—really knowing the mathematics and beauty of music. At the risk of sounding like a snob, if you don’t really understand how to make electronic music, it might be much easier for you to write it off as low-brow.”
No podría estar más de acuerdo. Estoy harto del ya tan manido argumento de que "menos es más" (somos idiotas? Menos es menos y punto) y de que no hay nada como una canción a piano. PUES NO. No hay nada más maravilloso que escuchar una canción e ir descubriendo escucha tras escucha nuevas capas de sintetizadores, nuevos sonidos, nuevos matices... Eso es ARTE. Lo otro es simplemente magisterio musical. BAE.
