Lady Gaga’s released the very anticipated “Perfect Illusion.” Said anticipation stems largely from the fact that it’s very much her return to contemporary pop following her few-year stint as a jazz-standard crooner/Sound of Music reviver and her time on the ever-accelerating Ryan Murphy camp-mobile. (Gladly this latter aspect of her career trajectory isn’t over). It’s now available across the usual streaming platforms and on YouTube — and speaking of Ryan Murphy, it’s also available in-part as the accompaniment to another just-released teaser trailer for the Gaga-starring upcoming season of AHS: Whatever the Hell This Season Will Be Called or About (this teaser is a collection of all of the others, most of which are deliberate decoys from whatever the season’s theme actually is):
The song itself — which features production from Gaga, Mark Ronson, Bloodpop and Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, as well as guitar from Eagles of Death Metal’s Josh Homme — isn’t so much the reinvention some people might have been expecting following the seeming cocoon phase of Cheek to Cheek (her Tony Bennett duet album), but rather more of a return to a lot of the 70s/80s rock homage we heard on Born This Way (it bears noting that it’s at least reminiscent of a pre-Artpop Gaga). The lyrics — and Gaga’s voice — come at the anthemic chant from a much darker place than a lot of what we saw on Born This Way, and that’s refreshing.
It’s completely catchy, and will — following two or three listens — get stuck in your head, but the delivery, and particularly the overemphasized vowel pronunciation of the word “lo-o-ove” and “paaahfect illoosion” are so bold and robust that they by comparison make the ultimate effect of the song not quite live up to the drama of these repeated utterances.
Listen: