14 DAY TRIAL // Today was supposed to be the day: on Thursday, August 18, on her 1,000th tweet, Lady Gaga aimed to release the video for her latest single off the “Born This Way” album, “You and I.” It leaked online one day before, but critics are just now reacting to it.
The video, which you can also see below, embedded at the end of the article, is standard fare for the eccentric diva who, in the space of only a few minutes, throws a fistful of ideas and imagery at the viewer.
At the same time, she uses the opportunity to introduce two of her alter egos, Yuyi the mermaid who is being kept captive or perhaps only protected from the outside world by a man played by Taylor Kinney, and Jo Calderone, the Italian mechanic, who also happens to be Gaga’s love interest.
On August 16, Gaga tweeted a link to the official video, which had already leaked online a few hours before, saying “You must love all + every part of me, as must I, for this complex + incomprehensible force to be true.”
She then tweeted again a link to the official global version of the clip, thus proving that, leak or no leak, she was still in control of the situation.
As noted above, critics are reacting to the video and, while not many see the point of so much heavy imagery, most of them agree that it’s Gaga’s best from her “Born This Way” era, as Idolator notes.
After the somewhat disappointing “Judas” and “Edge of Glory,” “You and I” is fresh and very Gaga-like in its accumulation of symbols and outrageous images, critics point out.
The two new characters, they say, Calderone and Yuyi, actually manage to steal the thunder of Gaga’s fashion choices which, as expected, are as cutting edge as ever.
Check out the video below to see what they mean by this but *please be advised that some discretion is recommended when viewing it.