Mixtapemotions

“Babylon” by Lady Gaga, Thursday, June 9, 2022

In a true Pride month fashion, we return to Chromatica, Lady Gaga‘s 2020 master class in Dance Pop, this time to the epic closer, “Babylon.” Recall, last month, we talked about how Chromatica is actually a concept record that needs to be experienced in one listen, despite how much you might find yourself re-listening to the tracks. If we make it to “Babylon,” we’ve already been propelled through a “Wonderland” of ’80s and ’90s-inspired keyboard dance music that seems to emit the metallic pinks, greens, and blues seen in fashions from, say 1992. In a surreal way, we’ve gotten a better sense of who Lady Gaga is–a tragic pop star craving “Stupid Love” and dealing with her inner demons on “911.”

WE CAN PARTY LIKE IT’S B.C. Then we’ve come to the end of Chromatica, and yet by the time we get to the saxophone on “Babylon” we feel like the party is only getting started and that we’re in it for another spin. The track opens with a loon call. Our friends at Switched On Pop, in their analysis of the track tell us that the loon call appears on many ’90s house tracks because it was a recorded sound on a popular ’90s keyboard. “Babylon” is a heavily coded track with historical, religious, and queer references. One aspect that is often talked about with this track is Madonna‘s “Vogue,” particularly in reference to the Lady Gaga-robot voice heard throughout the album, but most clearly on “Babylon.” The critics on the Switched On Pop podcast point out that “voguing” Madonna appropriating queer culture, particularly gay men imitating the way that drag queens talk. When Lady Gaga imitates Madonna and gay men sing along to Lady Gaga or Madonna, there’s a sort of mirror-within-a-mirror effect, amplifying the significance of the original culture. 

via GIPHY from Madonna’s “Vogue” music video.

“The Tower of Babel” painting by
Alexander Mikhalchyk. From Wikipedia
Commons.

WE ARE CLIMBING UP TO HEAVEN. On Gaga’s sophomore record, Born This Way, the singer had a controversial single, “Judas,” a song that, in retrospect, seems more nuanced than I received it back when it came out. Nope. Lady Gaga’s gone too far, and I wouldn’t revisit her work until A Star Is Born. But in 2020, Lady Gaga releases an infectious dance track “Babylon,” which references building the Tower of Babel, and I have to listen to it again? Sermons about the wicked sexual practices of heathen cities in the Bible and human sacrifices come to mind. The preaching that society is heading to that “B.C.” style and that the world is trying to drag us into it with drugs and dark night clubs also come to mind. And yet, I think about the most upset I’ve ever seen my Bible students, back when I was a missionary, was when we talked about the Tower of Babel, which according to Adventist theology, God sabotaged by creating a language barrier in order to halt construction of a tower to reach heaven. “Why would God do such a thing?” One of my students asked and couldn’t accept the answer that the church gives: “because people would be too powerful if they worked together like they did before the flood.” In the staff room, after that lesson, I asked why we were here teaching English, when God had scrambled the languages so that we couldn’t band together. This greatly offended a coworker who stormed out of the room. My question maybe came off as racist, but I was starting to question the programming of Adventist theology. The problem was the world seemed like such a more friendly place than the elitist church. You just need a can of bug spray to scare away the scarabs.