In My Opinion: Lady Gaga’s “Perfect Illusion” Is A Missed Opportunity

Lady Gaga is back with her first new track in two years, and the collaboration list is so huge it could be a conspiracy. Flaunting a collaboration list featuring Mark Ronson, Josh Homme, Bloodpop, and your fave Aussie heart-throb Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, Perfect Illusion is a synth-heavy pop let-down.

Unfortunately, with the addition of so many huge names the track doesn’t live up to the gold-standard expected of each artist. The addition of Josh Homme on guitar isn’t anything to get excited over, nor is his presence necessary. Homme plays four chords throughout Perfect Illusion with nothing to show that it is in fact Homme playing.

Lyrically Perfect Illusion easily sits at the ‘Currents’ table, which makes sense considering Parker approached Gaga with the skeleton of the song. Gaga says she morphed the lyrics into being more about social media, but with lyrics like “Mistaken for love, dilated, falling free, in a modern ecstasy” who are we kidding here?

Perfect Illusion has a very predictable progression that’s clearly going for the dance-banger crowd but the track doesn’t find its footing to stand out. Not to mention, the only dynamics of Perfect Illusion come with a slight pitch change at the end. Which is essentially the musical equivalent of putting Haloumi on a cheeseburger and calling it artisan. Gaga flaunts having written Perfect Illusion on a typewriter, truly earth shattering news that unfortunately makes zero difference on the lackluster tune.

The biggest issue with Perfect Illusion is the mix. The vocals are so in your face that it’s overbearing, a sin made even worse by the instrumentals of the track being so good yet forgotten in the mess of vocals. The synths and drums are straight out of ‘Currents’ and with a deluxe edition of ‘Currents’ on the way we can only hope Gaga using this track doesn’t put Parker off including the original on the upcoming release.

The idea of Ronson and Parker together again along with legendary producer Bloodpop thrown into the mix is one of the most exciting musical opportunities in recent memory, unfortunately it was squandered by Lady Gaga…