Lady Gaga: Bad Romance

Lady Gaga’s latest video has all the hallmarks of a Britney Spears promo. Heavy choreography, bedside seduction, plaintive close-ups, it’s all there. As anyone who saw her blood-soaked performance at this year’s VMAs knows, though, Gaga’s a Tim Burton Britney, freaking us out one Kermit costume at a time.

In her new video for “Bad Romance” this visually-inclined artist goes through more bizarre costumes than a Cirque de Soleil show. First she emerges in an all-white lycra suit that covers everything but her mouth. Later she sensually drags along a polar bear carcass behind her fur coat. Of course, this follows her “Orbit” outfit where concentric metal rings revolving around her.

The song itself comes from Gaga’s The Fame Monster, an expanded edition of her breakthrough debut that features eight new songs. She first discussed the video a few weeks ago for Rolling Stone.

“We worked with Francis Lawrence,” she said. “He's a movie director, and he almost never does music videos anymore…I'm really impressed, even with myself – it's so amazing.”

Her facts are a little off – in the past ten years Lawrence has directed nineteen music videos and only two movies – but the man behind I Am Legend clearly is a catch. With art direction by her collective Haus of Gaga though, one wonders how much of the absurdity is his doing and how much came out of her own twisted mind.

For the fashion (if you can call it that) at least, we know Haus had help from Alexander McQueen, promoting his “Plato’s Atlantis” Spring 2010 line. While it’s unclear that there’s a market for the melting-Barbie look, the buzz is huge. Gaga’s website was supposed to premiere the view on Monday in fact, but so many fans took down the homepage with their frantic refreshing.

Few dispute that this was worth the wait though. Whether she’s surrounded by suspended diamonds or writhing in what looks like a prison shower, you can’t take your eyes off Gaga. This woman may be legally insane, but that may be the main difference between her and Britney. Gaga makes crazy fun.

Verdict: 5/5 stars