Lady Gaga was not born THIS way.

Hype is the enemy of the artist. Nothing is ever as good as the hype suggests it will be. And yet although sometimes an artist can't help the hype that develops around them, sometimes they actively exploit it. Lady Gaga is an artist who fits both these catagories, meaning that the levels of hype surrounding the release of "Born This Way" escalated to impossibly dizzy heights, and even then she kept plugging it, eventually saying she was too excited to wait any longer and bringing the release date forward.

I have another theory about the release date decision however. Perhaps HRH Gaga suddenly listened to her latest single outside of the buzzing confines of the Studio for the first time, and thought to herself "Oh Sh*t, I need to cut this hype short before it builds up any further".

Because the fact of the matter is "Born This Way" is not as good as it thinks it is. Pretentiousness has always oozed from every pore of Gaga's gay-loving, fashion-abusing existence, but with jaw dropping classics like "Paparazzi", "Telephone" and above all "Bad Romance", she wasn't pretending, she WAS really this outrageous, and had the incredible choruses and disco beats to back up her mindless self indugence.

Yet woefully, with "Born This Way" we have a meandering chorus, a million different, uncomfortably obvious musical references (all of which I don't even have to specify, every fan knows), and a slightly unaddictive, dare I say dull backing track, that doesn't appear to have had much thought or flair put into it at all. In fairness, the track is as "big" as she made out, but unlike genuinely breaktaking tracks such as "Dance in the Dark", "Bad Romance" and "Poker Face", "Born This Way" is simply big because it's loud. It's only getting your attention because it's shouting "LOOK AT ME" in your face.

I don't want to be entirely negative about "Born This Way", because it is a catchy song, undeniably a good song, and with repeated listens maybe even a great song. But Lady Gaga was NOT born this way. She was born a fighter, a perfectionist, and one who would never release a track unless she believed it would shake the pop music world to its very foundations. Today, Gaga sounds like she barely made any effort with the actual music, instead gratuitously massaging her ego (including "extras") with a dumb, cliched and overly explicit message of self love. And of course, Gaga would know all about that.

You know what the worst part is? She could've got away with those pompous lyrics if only this damn song was as good as anything off "Fame Monster". All we can hope now is, with expectation now PLUMMETING for Gaga circa 2011, "Born This Way" the album creeps up behind us, grabs us by the neck and pounds us repeatedly into the ground, laughing manically as it screams "IT WAS ALL A RUSE!!! HAHAHA!!!"

God I hope so.