“Bad Romance” was born 10 years ago, boldly demonstrating Lady Gaga’s quirky, eccentric style.
On the afternoon of October 24, Lady Gaga posted a photo of herself sitting in a bathtub with a snarling expression and fingers raised like claws on Instagram with the message: “Congratulations to Bad Romance for turning 10 years old. The bathtub is different but still that woman”.
Lady Gaga posted a photo to celebrate “Bad Romance’s” 10th birthday on Instagram.
10 years ago, the strange melody “Ra-ra-ah-ah-ah/ Roma-roma-ma/ Gaga, ooh la-la/ Want your bad romance” was first sung, shocking the pop music market. . To date, Bad Romance is still considered one of Gaga’s most successful singles.
Bad Romance embodies Gagaism (Gaga’s school of music) to its fullest: quirky, dramatic and artistic. Rolling Stone rated this as her craziest and most brilliant song, while Owen Pallett (Canadian composer and singer) commented on Pitchford that this song is nothing more than “genius”.
The melody of this 10-year-old song is influenced by elements of the 1980s and 1990s and German tech-house music, creating a vibrant and catchy Dance-Pop song. Pallett called the track “a masterpiece, a synthesis of Gaga’s musical language.” The song’s lyrics are inspired by the female singer’s love and fear in a bad, abusive relationship:
“You know that I want you
And you know that I need you
You and me could write a bad romance”
(I know you want me
And I know you need me
… I want your love, and I want your revenge
You and I could write a terrible love story)
The female singer once confided on Elle: “If you listen to the lyrics, it’s like a confession about falling in love with a bad boy and falling in love more and more. I love a monster. But all What I need is protection and safety as a woman. That’s what this song is about.”
However, the lyrics only convey half of the story’s meaning, according to Pluggin. The video tells the rest, also contributing to perfecting the crazy nature of the song. Director Francis Lawrence and the exclusive creative team Haus of Gaga built the image of Gaga dancing in a white bathroom, a group of supermodels kidnapped and forced her to drink alcohol, then sold her to the Russian mafia organization like a sex slave.
The images are surreal and have symbolic value (suns, bulging spines, coffins, eyes three times the size of normal…), according to The Vigilant Citizen, are metaphors for the entertainment industry. The mind is gradually corrupting and turning people into real slaves. Gaga loves and desires showbiz, but at the same time she is also afraid, obsessed, and resistant to this “bad romance”.
Many fans and experts consider Bad Romance to mark and shape Lady Gaga’s style, a milestone on her journey to becoming a true artist. Out calls the song “the embodiment of pop star Gaga. With Bad Romance, Gaga reinvents herself as a party freak – the eccentric queen and Mother Monster”.
The song created a huge explosion in the pop music industry in particular and the music industry in general. Out judged Bad Romance “crystallises Gaga’s artistic vision and pop star status, likely to maintain her dominance for a long time to come”. At the same time, Gaga’s experiments with new musical forms and structures remind and inspire artists on the path to renewing music. This 4 minute and 54 second long Pop song is contemporary, with a sense of protest and feminism in it that is enough to continue Madonna.
As the first single from the third studio album – The Fame Monster (2009), Bad Romance quickly received love from fans and continuously swept world music charts such as Canada and Denmark , Germany, Austria… and also became the song with the highest views on YouTube at that time. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, this single sold more than 10 million copies by the end of 2018 and became one of the best-selling singles of all time.
The 2010 MTV Awards nominated Bad Romance in 10 categories and the song won seven categories, including the “Video of the Year” award before winning two awards for “Outstanding Pop Vocal Performance” and “Outstanding Short Music Video” at the 2011 Grammys. Rolling Stone voted it the “best MV of the new millennium”. Billboard critics considered the song the most successful of Lady Gaga’s career before placing it in the first place on the list of “100 best MVs of the 21st century” voted by this site in 2018.
The awards and commercial successes are enough to affirm the position of Bad Romance and “Mother Monster” Lady Gaga. At 10 years old, Dirty Love is still Lady Gaga’s “bizarre masterpiece that changed the music industry” (according to Out).
