The Lady Gaga Rate (Haus Labs now available)

Why are the great "ARTPOP" tracks leaving first?
"MANiCURE" shouldn't be out yet, since it's a sonic standout from the album and a quite a banger. It's actually surprising to me that it seems to be so divisive. The middle-8 is an ace and I don't mind her expressive vocals. My score for it is 8,25 (I though it was a bit higher, to be honest) and that puts it in the better half of songs from "ARTPOP".
I made a mistake in the commentary and said that that I love the intro instead of outro - that trippy guitar solo is awesome.
 
Donatella I think is better viewed beyond “oh she’s taking the piss of models! Ha!” energy. I take it as a desperate cry for help. A Gaga trying to relate where she was to fashion icons and the legions of mostly gay monsters. I got it wrong. I spoke of the perverse inspiration of the line “listen to her radiate her magic even though she knows she’s misunderstood”. she’s not relating to donatella at all. She’s talking about herself. Screaming in pain. Trying to communicate a visceral pain but not knowing how. And about how difficult the era had been.

I don’t remember Artpop.
 
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"Sinner's Prayer" is a reasonable elimination and I'm fine with it.
It was my least favorite song from "Joanne" upon first listen, but grew on me over time, although it remained among the weakest (and is my joint lowest score on it). Somehow I was expecting something much more interesting based on the song title. It received a 7,25 from me because the production is excellent (like on the enture album), some instrument flourishes are great and I adore that guitar riff. It starts really nicely with a chilled, country vibe and starts building until that chorus.
The chorus is really underwhelming, because it sounds so bland melodically and doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as the rest of the song.

We all agreed that "Sinner's Prayer" is nice, but nothing astonishing, and that reflected on its placement here.
The only "Joanne" elimination I will tolerate is "Sinner's Prayer", because the rest is too good to go anytime soon.
This still stands. I think my lowest remaining score from the album is a 8,75.

And now the first five songs eliminated from "Joanne" match my own bottom five of that album (but in almost the opposite order), so that can be called a good thing.
 

Subwaykid

Staff member
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Why Did You Do That?

average: 6.9775
Highest: 10 x 6 (@elektroxx, @UncleDeSeanAli, @Sleepycat, @Aidan, @Remorque, @Laurence)
Lowest: .5 x 1 (@ABoy’sGot2Suffer4Fashion)​

This one got middling scores throughout most of the rate and despite a few of the late voters giving it high marks, it wasn't enough to push it to the Top 60 and, to my surprise, is out (spoiler alert) well ahead of the other 2 generi-pop tracks from the soundtrack. Despite the vocal performance selling this a smidge, she is capable of entirely much better, even at her most faceless. The whole of The Fame proves that, teebs. I personally won't be missing this as I think the pop songs taking the piss outta pop from this soundtrack should've been out well before the more worthy cuts from her discography, but what do you hussies think?

Maki starts off the commentary with "Probably an unpopular opinion, but this is my favorite out of the upbeat 'pop' tracks on this soundtrack. It has an obvioua level of basicness, of course, but it's a great song. The chorus is so addictive. The one-dimensional production lets in down, which isn't the only time it happens here." @Remorque is a Little Warhead "issa bop is what it is. Her relentless performance compliments the production faultlessly. Dianne stays winning." "Shoutout to the nearly nude scenes of our beloved Bradley Cooper. This song is FameGa 2.0 obviously but wew the lyrics and everything? We bopping!" bops @Laurence. And @Ashling92 concedes "Such a catchy bop, even if the lyrics are a bit crappy in places." Always one for marketing, @Laura Vanderbooben muses "I get why Shallow won the Oscar but couldn't they have at least nominated this so that we got a hammy Enigma-style performance in front of 1 billion worldwide viewers from Mrs. Maine haself?" and @Alenko agrees "Diana did that. Should have won the Oscar instead."

@Music Is Life says "This is low-key extremely relatable and a total bop. And extremely catchy." @Verandi gives into their inner basic "Objectively terrible, but I surrendered. Ha power." @sfmartin says it's "So so silly but a lot of fun. The chorus is a tad annoying." @Petit nain des Îles agrees but got stockholmed a biT "A basic bop but also a repetitive mess. The hook is going to stay in my head for sure. I wish she wasn’t overusing her higher register." @Seventeen Days gives it a 9 and says "Yes indeed Gaga. Why did you do this to all of us? Why did you make us bop so damn hard?" @Stradiwhovius thinks there's even more going on beyond the superficial surface "Has more potential than a hugely basic meme." @R27 recalls one of the less explored themes of the film "Regardless of its intention, this bops a lot. Nothing wrong with some dumb fun; whether that goes against the point of the song or not." And y'know, I do wish they had delved a bit more into the poptimism vs. real music debate but also understand that's probably interesting to no one but myself and the couple hundred or so of us that are trapped here forever. Moving on, @daninternational says "Just a bit too dead-on with the lyrics in verse 1 pisses me off and ruins a good song" but gives it a 8.25 anyway. @GimmeWork is PROUD "This is campy, cheesey, and corny. I’m here for it and refuse to feel shame." but @Sprockrooster says "Muffy sis, the cringiness of it all." @jtm is all about the BOPS "At least it's not another ballad".

And, as always, @RJF sums up my feelings well. We may not agree on everything but when you're right, you're right! "Gagger going out of her way to write an insipid pop song... kind of shows how hard it is to do well? Like I'm sure this is going to snatch a few ironic full marks, but it's just... limp. "Hair Body Face" is written from a similar angle, but it feels like it's from a far less obnoxious place, along with being more solid and catchy. Writing dumb pop music is actually pretty hard. The foundations of Gagger's career were built on her being a genius at it. This isn't fit to lick even the dumbest song off The Fame's boots. "Money Honey" stays banked and blessed."




 

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