The anticipated new single from Lady Gaga has finally arrived. “Perfect Illusion,” the 80s Rock inspired track co-produced with Mark Ronson, Tame Impala and BloodPop has made its debut on the airwaves, iTunes and streaming services.
A brief looped snippet of the song’s intro had been posted to Lady Gaga’s official website yesterday, promising an epic guitar-laced track. What we got is instead a song that suffers from questionable enunciation, a poorly executed attempt at powerful vocals and an instrumental that, while good, perhaps should’ve been a bit more organic to enhance the overall experience.
“Perfect Illusion” is not a bad song per se, it’s just not the song we expected after the commercial disappointment that was Artpop and the image overhaul that Gaga has been going through since. It’s just kind of there. And the biggest problem is that it seems like Gaga still hasn’t learned that simplicity is an art and that a cleaner vocal performance would’ve made this song more enjoyable. Where she succeeded is in the lyrics department, abandoning the complicated matephors that characterised many of the Artpop songs and opting for a more relatable theme.
So the verdict is that “Perfect Illusion” will probably be a grower for many of the people who are not particularly impressed with it right now. The repetitive lyrics and the melody could be an incentive for repeated listens and the reason why it’ll get stuck in our heads soon. The music video could also redeem the song with a striking visual component.
In the meantime, the song is already #1 on iTunes in the US and many other countries and we’ll keep waiting for the rest of the album. LG5 is expected to drop later in the fall, with confirmed appearences from Beck and Florence Welch.
Listen to the track below: