Lady Gaga – Alejandro

She really didn’t want to be France, then…

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[5.80]Doug Robertson: Everyone needs a low key song, one that the act can use to have a bit of a breather and one that the audience can use for a quick drink/fag/toilet break. It’s an accepted part of the deal between the artist and their fans. But with this, even though it’s a Lady Gaga song and so low key just means “slightly less happening”, it really does sound like it was knocked up in five minutes, without bothering to include any magic, or sparkle, or tune that doesn’t sound like one you’ve heard a million times before.
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Alfred Soto: What do you get when you cross ABBA’s “Fernando,” Ace of Base’s “The Sign,” and the line “Her boyfriend’s just like her dad”? Something that’s hot as Mexico, if just as exploited, sullen, and dusty.
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Chuck Eddy: Maybe the most blatant ’70s/’80s/’90s pop pastiche ever; a medley, almost: “Fernando” + “La Isla Bonita” + “All That She Wants”, obviously. But why does Alejandro’s name keep changing to Roberto? And how is her boyfriend like a dad?
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Tal Rosenberg: Swizz Beatz(“La Isla Bonita” x (“Down Under” + “Who Could It Be Now?”)) =
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Martin Skidmore: If you have been wanting “La Isla Bonita” crossed with ABBA’s “Fernando” and some Ace of Base beats, with Gaga singing in a fake accent, this is the one for you.
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Edward Okulicz: Okay, enough already. “Paparazzi” and “Telephone” are without doubt high-quality pop trash, especially the latter, which is still a [10]. This is just trash. Ace of Base were always a lot more than just a giddy cousin-of-dub bounce with airheaded melodies and lyrics, they had… I don’t know, sharpness if not depth, whereas this is just cheerily lobotomised fluff. Much more like a ‘10s “Coco Jambo”. Points for inventively trying to mitigate for this song’s complete lack of melodic hook by putting in a lyrical and rhytmic one (the stuttery “Ale-alejandro” bit) but apart from that, the “zomg pop overload amazingness” cupboard is well and truly bare.
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Katherine St Asaph: When I keep thinking “I really want to listen to ‘All That She Wants'” during the chorus, that’s not a good sign. The spoken-word Latino-pastiche bits are best left in the bad romance they came from. And I can’t help but notice that this guy Alejandro is OK in the Gagahaus but not in, say, Arizona.
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Ian Mathers: I don’t really get people complaining about this and “Dance in the Dark” and “Bad Romance” as songs qua songs; to my ears, Gaga’s been getting better as she goes along (I am willing to entertain the argument that she’s merely drawing on references and antecedents that I prefer to the old ones; certainly 80s synth-pop and ABBA are firmly in my wheelhouse). “Alejandro” lacks the weird emotional charge of my favourite Gaga tracks (including the weirdly underrated-for-such-a-huge-hit “Paparazzi”), but I’ve still been humming the damn thing for weeks, and that’s without any of the extra-musical elements that make Gaga such a lightning rod.
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Mark Sinker: Hunting for clues — I’ve been in pop purdah! shut up! — I got myself befuddled for a while in a shall we say BROAD Gaga parody (La Coacha’s if yr googling), and didn’t think THIS OBVIOUSLY ISN’T GAGA YOU IDIOT until a whole third of the way in. Bcz I was beguiled by how the little kids and the fans were dressed Gaga-style, and loving it: bcz they can; bcz she lets them. They obviously aren’t Gaga either, except yeah, in a way they are — she’s at that point right now where everything that comes back, lame or silly or hostile (or adoring), is part of the geometry of the original. Eurovision-style gypsy-fiddle kicks off a pumping glide so calm and confident and generous it can call on the ghosts of ABBA *and* Madonna, and they seem like they’re little kids trying on Gaga costumes also. Which is nice. Also she does the doubletime “Ally ally” bit like she’s a kid herself, and plus celebrates two whole other boyfs during the song.
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John Seroff: I suppose I shouldn’t even try to comment on a Gaga song before I see the video; it’s like judging a wedding cake just by the flavor. That said, ‘Alejandro’ strikes me as Gaga’s most blatant steal from Madonna yet; in the two listens before I thought to check the artist info, I thought this might actually be Madge. “Alejandro” also stands as a bald land grab at a Latin audience; I’d be surprised if a Spanish version with a Shakira verse doesn’t drop in about a month. None of that addresses the actual song, which is a sort of “La Isla Bonita”/”The Sign” mashup that cha-cha-chas and burbles along at a sleepwalker’s pace. If this wasn’t Gaga, I’d take it for a half-reasonable piece of Eurofluff I’d never hear again; as it is, I guess I can cope with this through July if I absolutely have to.
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