The biggest problem with Lady Gaga is that she always seemed to be putting her back into her image and media stunts far more than her music. Certainly, she had her moments, and it helps that those early hits made their way into the hearts of hardy skeptics eventually; I was one. But even if I grew to admire "Paparazzi" and adored "Alejandro" immediately, with most of the rest at least registering favorably, it nagged at me that someone with that many ideas wasn't putting more of them into the recordings.

That no longer applies even a little. Born This Way isn't simply a bid to be a big pop album, but a great one. And she pulls it off. Like Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Gaga enlisted big-name help for her Over-The-Top bid for eternity: The archetypal power ballad "You & I" is produced by Mutt Lange and features Brian May on guitar; the sax solo on "The Edge of Glory" comes courtesy of the E Street Band's Clarence Clemons. And there are plenty of other audible touchstones. The screeching synths of "Government Hooker" recall no one so much as noisy Parisian house duo Justice, while "Heavy Metal… read more »