Chat, do we think Lady Gaga is a recession indicator?
The one in which I own up to my Lady Gaga obsession
Folks, I am shaking. I’m so exhilarated I probably won’t sleep tonight1. Why, you ask? Lady Gaga just dropped a music video directed by Tim Burton. It’s an 80s pop jam drenched in gothic aesthetics and creepy dolls. Someone alert the press!
I apologize for being hyperbolic, but for those of you who don’t know, this means everything to me. I would mainline Lady Gaga’s music and Tim Burton’s films if I could. So, as Danielle said in our group chat, they made this just for me.
The timing couldn’t be better: I’m currently writing a piece for a publication about horror and opera. While I can’t share much about that just yet, it has had me thinking a lot about how horror is staged in relation to music. Kismet!
The song, “The Dead Dance,” is a thriller-esque single released in conjunction with Wednesday Season Two. Remember how we were all listening to “Bloody Mary” two years ago because of TikTok? Well guess what? I’ve been on that shit since 2011.
The video was filmed on Mexico’s Isla de las Muñecas—alos known as the Island of the Dead Dolls (field trip, anyone?). It’s shot in black and white and features Gaga as a Victorian doll, coming to life among the others. It’s the perfect blend of creepy and campy. The video opens with Gaga twitching to life, and by the chorus, she’s bouncing around like you do when you’re home alone listening to a boiler room set. After the second verse, the set bursts into color and the video goes full-on camp: dolls shimmy, wink, and rave while Gaga dances with her backup crew.
Even though the setting is objectively horrific—I, for one, would not want to be stranded on that island—I wouldn’t actually classify the video as horror. Instead, it’s a camp version of horror. It’s Gothic.
Susan Sontag writes in Notes on Camp that the origins of camp can be traced to Gothic novels and other 18th-century art forms. Camp is all about theatricality, artifice, and satire. In that sense, applying it to the gothic feels like a natural fit. Think about how we see Dracula today: the queer-coded version with the over-the-top accent and the sweeping cloak.
With that in mind, we can see how this music video—and honestly, much of Gaga’s work—is an overtly campy version of the gothic. The costumes and setting may be chilling, but through Burton and Gaga’s lens of satire and stylized excess, the result is pure camp. I mean, you can’t take it too seriously when there’s a creepy, chubby baby doll doing a little shimmy.
Lady Gaga has always danced on this line. This video—and her latest album, Mayhem—feels like a return to the gothic. Her first two albums, The Fame Monster and Born This Way, both embraced darker aesthetics. The Fame Monster only partially. After all, it gave us straight-up pop tracks like “Just Dance,” the TikTok-resurrected “Summerboy,” and “Telephone.” But songs like “Monster,” “Alejandro,” and “The Fame” may not be sonically dark, yet their subject matter and music videos definitely were.
Born This Way took it further, fully leaning into the gothic style with tracks like “Americano,” “Scheiße,” “Bloody Mary,” and “Heavy Metal Lover.”
Then came Artpop; a misunderstood gem, in my opinion. While it didn’t land well with critics or audiences, I think it’s a great record. After that, she took a step back from music, focusing more on acting. She kept releasing albums, but they didn’t quite match the energy or aesthetic of her earlier work.
Mayhem, released earlier this year, finally feels like a true return to form. Interestingly, most of the tracks are overwhelmingly positive, but she’s preserved that dark, gothic atmosphere and the thematic depth we’ve always associated with her. Do we think this is a recession indicator?!? She is, in fact, heavily featured on my Recession Indicator Summer playlist.
Do I think this video is a revolutionary piece of art with profound meaning? Well, no. But as the kids say: we’re so back.
I still remember being in elementary school, completely obsessed with both Lady Gaga and Tim Burton while my classmates looked at me like I was insane. Honestly I don’t blame them, that’s a fair assessment2.
Maybe part of this thrill is nostalgia. I grew up with both of these artists and loved them for similar reasons. I feel so lucky to have been a fan throughout Gaga’s entire career, and I’m excited to see her revisiting her gothic roots. Can’t wait to see what comes next.
To commemorate the music video release, please enjoy some professional archival footage of Lady Gaga from 2014 shot on my flip phone/iPod/my dad’s iPhone?!?!
Can confirm. I did not sleep last night, but that was for non-Lady Gaga related reasons.
I was in a writing class and we were workshopping a piece of mine and someone commented that I was a “strange young woman.” I tried to take this as a compliment.
Yes exactly we ARE so back