“The category is… Dance or Die.”
These are the ominous first six words of Lady Gaga’s new music video “Abracadabra.”
Cameras pan across an army of motionless dancers clasping their own hands. Silence builds anticipation until they chuck their heads forward and yell, “HA!” As the song ramps into its intro, the army dances for their lives and Mother Monster begins a bouncy stride through the chaos.
This is not the first time Gaga has done something like this. In fact, nearly every one of her music videos is a cinematic and creative masterpiece, pleading the viewer to dive into her world. Thanks to Gaga and her creative crew she calls “The Haus of Gaga,” intelligently paraphrasing the Bauhaus art movement of 19th century Germany, many realms have been created and broadcasted to her monsters and to the world.
Released in 2011, her music video “Born This Way” is a nearly seven-and-a-half-minute look into an allegorical world representing the political atmosphere of the time. Using scientific symbolism, she answers the age-old question about the birth of society and creates a hypothetical yet wildly parallel universe. While the song itself importantly upholds its place as an equality anthem, the video comments on the nature of the government, the “good” entity, questioning, “How can I protect something so perfect without evil?”
This is what Gaga does best. She gathers the curiosity of viewers with unusual film, hooks them in with a catchy pop melody and leaves them with an important lesson—which is sometimes as simple as “Just Dance.”
Beneath all of her incredible strangeness, Gaga is down to earth and supportive of her fans, or monsters, and the people who work with her. Through and through, she has been this way, even during concerts—one time she invited a fan onstage after seeing him doing the tour choreography in the audience saying, “You see? You can do anything if you put your mind to it.”
After a long break of releasing music similar to her original albums like “ARTPOP” and “The Fame,” it seems she will be circling back to that style this year with her new album “Mayhem,” released Mar. 7. Recession Pop artists like Charli XCX and Kesha have been doing the same. Sometimes when the world seems like it’s going awry, all you can do is sing along to a good party anthem and forget about life for a few minutes.
Like many of Gaga’s songs, “Abracadabra” leaves you with an ultimatum, placed in this very moment: “death or love tonight.”
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