Lady Gaga & Doechii – Runway

Hit the slay button…

[Video]
[5.89]Claire Davidson: I’ll give whoever at 20th Century Studios engineered the concept of “Runway” credit for being in touch with the zeitgeist: anyone who’s followed the arc of Doechii’s career knows she has long cited Lady Gaga as a formative influence, so to see them finally collaborate, even on a song from a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, feels like something of an industry coronation. Gaga is credited first on “Runway” due to having greater name recognition, but really, this is Doechii’s song through and through, with Gaga providing little more than an opening verse and background vocals for the hook. Like most things surrounding The Devil Wears Prada 2, it’s difficult to ignore the air of corporate synergy presiding over the entire affair: the song’s self-empowerment lyrics read like RuPaul’s Drag Race catchphrases rendered by ChatGPT, a laziness that’s equally pervasive in the track’s structure, which culminates with Doechii merely repeating one line over the hook’s warping house beat. It’s difficult for Doechii to give a bad performance, though, and she’s an easy fit for this song’s blend of aloof confidence and giddy excitement, oscillating from domineering diva to raging party girl within a single turn of phrase. I wouldn’t be mad at the idea of Doechii making more house tracks; few genres can better supplement her buoyant versatility.
[6]

Will Adams: A growing contingent of Drag Race viewers have soured on the show’s relentless overexposure and watering down of a once-subversive art form into “fierce slay mama the house down boots diva” brainrot that — while still a net positive! — is more tiresome than anything. With its overt RuPaul references, “Runway” slots into that frustration, wasting a solid Doechii performance and throwing Gaga’s powerful belting into a wind tunnel. “H&M music” is too harsh a designation; “forgettable” is far more damning.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Each person understood her assignment: runway anthem, down to the RuPaul nod. Good job, all!
[6]

Charli Jae Brister: The rapping is good! It doesn’t make me wince, and the song has a sick fucking hook. But Gaga as house diva? With her voice is pushed just far enough back in the mix? That is erotic, to me,
[8]

Ian Mathers: Under three minutes, movie tie-in, Gaga sometimes sounds like she’s auditioning for C&C Music Factory (complimentary), both her and Doechii bringing enough firepower that there really isn’t a “ft.” here; yes, the “Supermodel” and “Vogue” pastiching is pretty low hanging fruit, but when it works this well, why quibble?
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: Bruno & D’Mile , have you ever done house? Because Watt and Cirkut haven’t either, so who here knows how to do house? Doechii? How come the one newbie gets it and y’all don’t? Goddamn.
[5]

Harlan Talib Ockey: It’s mildly meta-musically interesting for Gaga to play the generic house vocalist on a song where she’s credited first, but unfortunately “Runway” overall is simply generic. Doechii’s verse feels like it was written in about five minutes, though at least her charisma is firing on all cylinders. The outro is by far the most interesting and dynamic part.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: It’s for a film, so fair enough: cast can be listed in order of appearance. Doechii thoroughly takes over though, saving this from being entirely down-the-line pastiche. By the time it excites itself into its own Justice remix, there’s real promise, but also only ten seconds left.
[6]

Al Varela: It’s a bit on the nose, isn’t it? Lady Gaga and Doechii team up with Bruno Mars and his crew on production for a runway song for the The Devil Wears Prada 2, and it’s only goal is to “serve” and be as “slay” as possible. This coming out at the same time as Madonna’s own “for the gays” single is a real two nickels situation. This one is much better than that one though, mainly because Doechii does get to flex her charisma a little more, and the production is catchier. Still, this ended up shrinking on me quite a bit because I couldn’t get the feeling that I was being pandered to. It checks all the boxes, but doesn’t really excel with them. Gaga is barely even audible on the song. Can’t say I’m surprised this wasn’t the instant smash it seemed like it was prepped to be. Once you got all the marketing out of the way, there’s not much else to it.
[6]