Hit play while you read this. You’ll understand why soon enough 
If you haven’t already gotten a hold of your own copy of the new Lady Gaga album “Born This Way,” or if you didn’t jump out of bed at 7 in the morning on May 23rd like I and some of my other (nameless) friends did to download the mp3 copy from Amazon.com for $0.99, then you’re kinda sorta maybe probably most likely seriously missing out.
“Born This Way” isn’t exactly a typical compilation of songs that one would expect from a musical artist who was speculated to be a Madonna wannabe. Hell, “Born This Way” isn’t a typical compilation of songs at all! Being an international pop super star and all, one would expect Gaga to have music progressively similar to her previous albums “The Fame” and “The Fame Monster.” However, it’s like she hit her head after taking too many roofies and waking up with a schizophrenic tendency to be either a techno-dance queen dj-emcee or a strangely-religious biker stripper assassin nun. It’s pretty sweet.
The fact of the matter is: her new album is not boring. It’s not normal. It’s not typical. And that’s what makes it such a good album. It’s surprisingly fun, catchy, semi-inspirational, amusing, artful, and weird all at the same time. When I’m driving to school or work, and I’ve got Gaga on track 7 (“Scheiße”), I can’t help but roll down my windows, crank up the volume, let the bass pump, and let the rhythm consume me. It’s kind of cool in a Night at the Roxbury kind of way when dancing in your seat to some super loud dance music with the windows down, and some random gangsta-type dude rolls up next to me at the stop light and his Lil’ Jon tune is being seriously drowned out by Gaga’s German gibberish, and the dude is looking over and is probably like “…that guy is cool” HAHA! Yes, that’s what he’d be thinking as he looks over to me doing my little sideways headbang.
I’m not saying that the entire album is awesome. I’m pretty picky when it comes to music. Seriously, I am. There are some songs that don’t quite appeal to my inner dance monkey, but I must admit that a lot of the songs on there are catchy and fun. Some of them I didn’t like at first (“Judas”) because it’s a deeply controversial subject to be singing about, but eventually it grew on me and I realized that she’s not singing specifically about demons and crucifying The Lord and all that… at least I don’t think so. I’m not sure where she was heading with that one…
But coming from a marketing and entrepreneurship educational background (yesss I’m graduating in a couple weeks!), I can’t help but marvel at the fact that Gaga is an amazing marketer. She really knows how to take full advantage of PR, advertising, social media, and guerrilla marketing. For the PR aspect, she’s a vehement supporter of gay rights and created an album with the theme of being born a certain way. She even went to great lengths to leverage her fame and influence to garner support for the repealing of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. You can’t say that she didn’t score major PR points from that.
Did anyone notice the frequent product placement bits in some of her 2009/2010 music videos? Beats By Dre headphones, HP Envy, Virgin Mobile, Kraft Miracle Whip, Polaroid… this list goes on. These brands and brand-name products either took off with sales or didn’t die out because they gained a lot of sales from exposure to millions and millions of viewers who watched her music vids at least 8 times a day, 7 days a week. No, I wasn’t one of those fans. I only watched them 4 times a day, 7 days a week. Don’t judge me.
She also keeps her fans happy. It’s all about customer service. Seriously, she knows how to make her fans happy by constantly keeping them entertained and surprised. She’s a weird one, definitely. But that’s what all her fans like, including myself. She really knows how to connect with her little monsters, or at least she knows how to convey that message to people. By showing the world how insanely unique and creative and original and weird she is, she makes it that much more normal for everyone else who feels a little different, who feels like they don’t really belong to the norm, who feels uncomfortable being themselves in a society that expects conformity. It appeals to everyone out there who feels alone, like they don’t have any means to an outlet for their inner self to reveal itself. Everyone is different. And it’s okay to be different. Because we’re all different. We’re all born this way. And that’s the general message that Gaga sends to her fans and everyone else out there, and that’s what’s so universally appealing about it all.
With that said, I salute you Gaga. You are one creative, inspiring human being.
