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Jul 6, 201160Gaga has always been able to anchor her haughty conceptual undertakings with simple, catchy tunes, but with Born This Way, the persona and the message are starting to bleed into the songs. It's not a good look.
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Jun 24, 201185Yet, for all of GaGa's flamboyance, there was a humanity in her most memorable work that inspired a devotion in her legions of fans that went far beyond vigorous dance floor workouts. On Born This Way the quirky vulnerability is often lost behind the massive productions.
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Jun 21, 201191This isn't up to The Fame or The Fame Monster. But both of those keep growing, and with its mad momentum and nutty thematics, this one could too--despite being laid down on tour trailed by 28 semis.
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Jun 7, 201160Born This Way sufficient for Gaga to retain her crown? Probably, but only just. It lacks the overall quality of Robyn's Body Talk or the stand-out singles of Rihanna's Loud, yet it's still packed with hooks, killer choruses and unexpected twists.
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Jun 2, 201150If Gaga had only spent as much time on pushing musical boundaries as she has social ones, Born This Way would have been a lot more successful.
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May 31, 201170Unlike Madonna who seemed to just ingest cool genres, it seems from the very concept of this album and woven into her manifesto, that Gaga gets far more about the modern world than she's letting on.
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May 27, 201180You have to admire the way Gaga fearlessly throws herself into, say, a disco mariachi arrangement on Americano, but she should be careful: her frequently righteous tone and overindulgence in clunky Catholic metaphors threaten to mire her memorable melodies in schlocky self-help proselytizing.
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May 27, 201150Will the Miss Gaga still be redefining the pop paradigm for other divas to follow several years down the road? Most definitely. Is Born This Way the album that's going to do it? Probably not.
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May 26, 201150Yes, viewed on its own merits, Born This Way is a slightly above-average, if patronizing pop album that knows its own strengths and plays to them.
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May 25, 201160For as overblown as Born is clearly intended to be, it's very difficult to love it for its nature--its gentler moments are more rewarding.
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May 25, 201170All well and good, and all very entertaining, but this is an album that's meant to be more: it's intended to be a soundtrack to a way of life, but it winds up playing as a collection of songs.
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May 24, 201190Lady Gaga has made a quintessential pop album with Born This Way.
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May 24, 201180Gaga goes over the top and keeps on going: exhilarating, exhausting blockbuster entertainment.
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May 24, 201183For all its fire and brimstone, Born This Way doesn't herald pop's second coming. But it's not a bad way to spend the wait.
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May 24, 201175Born This Way is as ostentatious, referential, and self-indulgent as Gaga herself, dancing right up to the line of self-parody, then spitting on it.
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May 24, 201182Thematically, Born This Way dances between fantasy and fiction and plays out like an autobiography; every track and moment weaved from the DNA and life of Gaga.
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May 24, 201150After months of hype, teases, and a handful of singles, Lady Gaga's new album has arrived - and it's a letdown, the most deflated moment in pop music this year.
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May 24, 201180Lady Gaga certainly wasn't born this way, but she's making a convincing case that she's evolving into our most surreally brilliant pop star.
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May 24, 201180Gaga has surrendered her artier leanings in the quest for a pure pop record, the consequences of which are that it occasionally strays too far into cheese territory.
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May 24, 20110Beyond all else, perhaps, think of this zero as the massive bedazzled orifice out of which our heroine has spawned a new era of popular culture.
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May 23, 201170The record is blitzing, happily ludicrous, and plenty of fun for a while, but at the core there's Gaga, singing beautifully but clouded by all the readymade pop around her.
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May 23, 201170She has already made pop interesting just as it was declining into irrelevance; now it's time for her to make it great again.
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May 23, 201160By the end of it, there's little doubting Gaga's sincerity. For all of her schlock and posturing, it's hard to remember the last time a pop star was this sincere.
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May 23, 201170So while Born This Way for the most part is great, I just don't think she's at her peak musically yet.
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May 23, 201160Born This Way isn't the landmark record it could or should be.
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May 20, 201163It is the sound of a major artist sprinting to please everyone all the time – and even a pop star as inclusive as Gaga can't pull that off.
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May 20, 201180What makes Born This Way so disarmingly great is how warm and humane Gaga sounds. There isn't a subtle moment on the album, but even at its nuttiest, the music is full of wide-awake emotional details.
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May 19, 201160The more often she changes, and the broader she spreads her net musically, the less distinctive her art becomes.
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May 19, 201190Please enjoy someone actually putting a bit of effort and imagination back into pop, and keep the sneering and lazy comparisons in check. Not that they can take anything away from what is, simply, a marvellous record.
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May 18, 201140These songs all sound like Gaga, but they're more abrasive, less focused, and that's not a good thing.
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May 18, 201180Because rather than an exercise in hype, what Born This Way really is an exercise in the pushing of everything to its ultimate degree. And for all the black, white and silver, it passes that test with flying colours.
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May 18, 201180There's nothing small about this album, and Gaga sings the shit out of every single track.
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Aug 8, 201160Born This Way feels like the first proper Lady Gaga album. [Aug. 2011, p. 114]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 191 out of 258
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Mixed: 13 out of 258
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Negative: 54 out of 258
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