Lady Gaga’s Abracadabra: Dust off your Thigh High Boots and Hit the Club

After an ill fated decision to market an experimental record, Harlequin, alongside the catastrophic bomb Joker Folie à Duex, Lady Gaga needed a hit. She saw her brand take a major dive as both the album and the movie failed to hit audiences. To put it in perspective, the biggest hit off of Harlequin has under 10% of the total listens of any other lead single from any other Gaga record. This is the difference between hardcore fans…10 million listens…and superstardom….Shallow has over 1 billion listens. Millions of listens on Spotify may sound like a lot to you and me, but it is a major fall for an artist like Lady Gaga. In short, the next record needed to hit or Gaga would find herself on the ‘Now or Never’ list. Luckily for her, you can always go back home.

That’s right, Gaga scrapped being experimental…except for her bleached eyebrows…and headed back to the club. Gaga rose to icon status with a combination of electric charisma, an incredible vocal and a knack for perfect club pop. Abracadabra delivers all of these factors in spades. Let’s start with club pop and then move into the riz and her vocal. The track starts with some deadmau5 style industrial synth and bass, which quickly moved into more of an Ibiza nightclub vibe. Gaga is definitely throwing back to her Bad Romance days with the club vibe, but still keeping it fresh with the more modern and industrial synth hook. The music is not over complex, but it is club pop done to perfection and Gaga fans will feel safe in its warm embrace.

Vocally, Gaga is back to belting it out and leaning all the way into her role as the club diva. The track is all about love and the dance floor. It brings me flashes of Kylie’s best work like Can’t Get You Out of My Head , which is a perfect song, and Madonna’s tour de force Hung Up…amazing…but not as perfect as Kylie…but I digress. In fact, listening to Abracadabra and Can’t Get You Out of My Head is an interesting exercise. Most importantly, Gaga has the word “gaga” in the hook, which is key to a banger Gaga track. This is Gaga back in the comfort of the club giving you all the passion, neon and sexy club vibe you are after.

I am not a huge Gaga fan and gravitate to singles and find her albums a bit samey by the time you reach the end. Having said that, Abracadabra is only a small piece of the pop club onslaught which is the Mayhem record. I enjoyed working through this record and Gaga brings it on every track. There is no filler on this record. I think this record is the hit Gaga needs to wash the Joker 2 stink off of her and get back into the limelight. It is great going to the club with Gaga and I hope she keeps taking us there.

Listen to Abracadabra