Top 40 Track Reviews, Written As If The Songs In Question Were By Lady Gaga

"Break Your Heart"

Peerless even among The Fame Monster's third-wave fembot anthems, "Break Your Heart" showcases the shapeshifting Gaga in black widow mode. The lyrics reveal a heart of darkness, doomed to a lifetime of self-sabotage, though the Ludacris guest verse brings a bit of levity. The track also features production from frequent collaborator RedOne, whose style on "Heart" is more inventive than Quincy Jones and the Bomb Squad combined. All in all, another epoch-defining jam from Gaga.

"Baby"

Lady Gaga's kid-pop pastiche, and a profound comment on our times. "Baby" exposes the infantilizing effects of internet-era celebrity, but with a delicious twist: the song features no less than 40 costume changes. How Gaga keeps this up is anyone's guess; there's no precedent for hitmaking of this caliber.

"Imma Be"

Less a song than a treatise on performativity, and a damn smart one at that. This is the sound of 2010, and kudos to Gaga for repurposing a mixtape cliche for mass consumption. The tune has some boilerplate synthesizer work, but this in fact functions as a comment on the dullness of these very sounds. And what can you say about the video that Entertainment Weekly hasn't already? It's a half-hour confection with all the flavors pop has to offer: we watch Gaga and Jason Mraz storm a leper colony, and there's a scene set in a Pizza Hut that gives new meaning to the term salad bar.

"BedRock"

Gaga boldly confronts rumors about her gender and sexuality in this buzzed-about Euroclub number. "BedRock" pushes the envelope to new levels--again--with a verse in which Gaga and Nikki Minaj exhume Warhol's corpse and sodomize it with a tube of Crest toothpaste.