TL;DR:
- Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” exemplifies where she feels a chorus should fit into a pop song.
- “Bad Romance” became a massive hit even though it did not hit No. 1 in the United States.
- Actors Meryl Streep and Jared Leto each performed covers of the track.
Lady Gaga‘s “Bad Romance” embodied her idea of a perfect chorus. Despite this, she said she got bored with her musical formula. She tried to stray from her formula on one of her albums.
The chorus of Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ starts before the song itself starts
During a 2011 interview with Popjustice, was asked how long a pop song should be. “Urggh!” she replied. “I hate that!”
“Well, many would say that the perfect pop song should be three minutes and thirty seconds,” she continued. “And that the chorus should come in before the first minute. I, however, don’t believe that.”
The “Born This Way” singer then explained her own attitude toward choruses. “I believe the chorus definitely needs to come in before the first minute, if not the first thirty seconds, or before the song even begins as in ‘Bad Romance,’” she said, “But other than that the chorus should come in quite swiftly without any fuss.”
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Lady Gaga became a bit bored because she kept using the same structures in her music
However, she didn’t want to be formulaic. “I have also been playing as much as I can on this album [Born This Way] without constraining myself too much by always having the same structures,” she said. “I don’t want the album to be plastic or boring.”
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Gaga also discussed experimenting with her music during The Monster Ball Tour. “I found myself getting a bit bored with my own structuring on the Monster Ball,” she said. “There was and is a formula that I have been using that I’ve used on some songs on this album and not others.”
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How ‘Bad Romance’ performed on the charts in the United States and impacted pop culture
“Bad Romance” became a huge hit. It peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, staying on the chart for 35 weeks. The tune appeared on Gaga’s EP The Fame Monster, which hit No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for a total of 74 weeks.
“Bad Romance” had an impact on pop culture beyond its time on the American charts. The tune appeared in George Lucas’ jukebox musical Strange Magic. Meryl Streep covered it for her movie Ricki and the Flash. In that film, she played a rock musician. Jared Leto’s band Thirty Seconds to Mars also performed a live rendition of it.
“Bad Romance” became a hit and it illustrated Gaga’s idea of a good chorus.
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