After my initial listen I think it's her best album. I don't think the whole package is the better than The Fame Monster, but as an album, from beginning to end, musically, this is her best.
The biggest problem I have with it is how loud an album the first half is. On a lot of tracks, I'm really enjoying the groove for the first 30 seconds or minute or so, and suddenly with very heavy sounding trance plays on top, killing the mood. The result is an album that has its heart in the right place, but is more than a tad overproduced in some places.
Still, when it hits, it really hits. While not as consistent as The Fame Monster it's far better than The Fame and it's still a pretty fucking stellar album in its own right.
Stand outs, anything bold is fantastic:
Electric Chapel - !!! this song is AMAZING. I can imagine driving with this song on already. Holy fuck, this is my favorite Gaga song.
Government Hooker
Electric Chapel
You and I
Bloody Mary
Highway Unicorn
Heavy Mental Lover
Edge of Glory
Marry The Night
Basically, anything that's not a single, really. Though Marry The Night and Edge of Glory (surprisingly) are exceptions. The second half in particular is great and is far more fun to listen to than the first half as it feels like the album finds some solid ground by the time ShiBe rolls around and most of the tracks begin to have heavy bass with Dark Trance and Hard Trance fusion.
Tracks such as the title track Born This Way and Hair take away from the album's quality tremendously and are pretty average in comparison to the rest of this LP. I wouldn't say they're filler, but their quality stands out among the rest. Still, I'm fond of the opening of Hair enough to give it some credit. I didn't like Edge of Glory by itself, but as the album's closing ending track, it works tremendously. Great song, bad single.
The biggest knock against this album is the lack of cohesion. The Fame Monster, and to a lesser degree, The Fame, were cohesive albums with particular themes throughout the albums throughout. The Fame Monster had a particular mood that carried over in some of (but not all of the tracks) the tracks. Alejandro, Monster, Speechless, Dance in the Dark, So Happy I could Die, Teeth...these songs pulled The Fame Monster above being a standard pop EP. Born This Way manages to pull itself into a more cohesive manner in the second half, thankfully, making it almost as memorable as The Fame Monster.
Born This Way in comparison feels schizophrenic in terms of feel, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Born This Way, while not perfect, is easily her best album yet.
Not really the album she hyped, or that I wanted or was hoping for, and the distinct lack of ballads is a huge disappointment, and it's definitely no "pop album of our generation" (at least not yet it isn't) but more Gaga is a good thing and she hit it out of the park. But most of all, this is a fan-fucking-tastic electronic album in combination to being an already great Gaga album. I couldn't say that about her previous work. Forget pop music for a second. If you remotely like electronic, particularly vocal trance AT ALL, you will love the fuck out of this.
Will give more listens and can't wait to buy the Special Edition off of itunes!
