On Sunday morning Lady Gaga broke the Internet.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement. But it certainly felt that way when I opened my Facebook and Twitter feeds up after breakfast and saw the floods of comments from Gaga fans.
A new song had mysteriously materialised on iTunes and Spotify, but it wasn’t a new single from her upcoming, as-yes-untitled, fifth album. Dated 2012, Cake (Like Lady Gaga) is a song that was teased during the performer’s Born This Way Ball Tour. A rough demo version was put out online – which fans pitch-shifted to reveal the rapper’s identity as Gaga herself - and a clip from a video shot by Terry Richardson, of Gaga rolling around in a giant cake, unfortunately never got a full release. It was an odd, yet surprisingly catching, rap venture for the normally eccentric pop queen. And it faded into musical history, forgotten about, as she moved on to her ARTPOP era.
Forgotten, that is, until yesterday.
A crystal-clear, studio-mastered, version was properly released. The tempo has been increased and it’s a frenzy of her and DJ White Shadow singing rhymes over a synth beat, reminding everyone of how much money she’s making in a ridiculously outlandish and overly exaggerated way.
It’s not a brilliant song, far from it. Musically it doesn’t hold any particular value and she will never get a hit from it (unless it storms up the iTunes chart). It’s a great result for Gaga fans, who have been dying for a release of some kind from the Applause hit-maker. It’s just a load of fun and is extremely catchy… good luck getting it out of your head.