Gaga drops "Born This Way," everybody immediately starts hearing "Express Yourself," and Madonna basically responds by calling the song "reductive" and then performing the two songs back-to-back on tour like a public plagiarism demonstration..

At the time people screamed jealousy, ageism, bitterness, threatened old woman etc… but now that the stan war smoke has cleared...

was Madonna actually right?

Did Gaga borrow a little TOO heavily or was Madonna just mad a younger pop girl was eating up her lane? Because "inspired by" is one thing, but when the original artist herself is basically going "girl be serious"…

She didn't called the song Reductive she said that she feels reductive

(that what Gaga got from madonna inspiration was literally copy everything by the numbers instead of doing her own thing)

she was right. fast forward to present day, and no one really cares about the song now. that said, back in 2011, it meant A LOT to even have a song like that. gaga's heart was in the right place, even if the song isn't that great.

The Edge of Glory showcases Gaga's brilliance and pulls off what Born This Way was trying to do in a more successful, understated way

its been 55 years.

People in here keep mentioning it so how can we not remember

No, I don't remember. Maybe we need to bring it up more frequently

it's interesting that that comment was made like a month before MDNA came out lol, no one mentions that! I don't think it was a nice thing for a veteran like her to say about a new girl in the game tbh. a true queen shows humility and supports other girls (see Dolly) but it's alright she had a slip up. Gaga's power at the beginning was so immense, there are plenty of women in the industry that felt the need to bad mouth her horribly, from Grace Jones to MIA etc etc

Edited September 1Sep 1 by Orsay

Gaga lying about Madonna's team sending an email and claiming Whitney inspired it will always be weird.

honestly...madonna feeling that pressed about gaga who just started her 2nd full length studio album with that song is telling me how huge of meteoric rise Gaga's debut was and that everybody was intimidated by her and shaking in their boots....

Even Beyoncé immediately wanted a piece of the Gaga pie early on and even went double dipping...mind u Bey was the established act of the two of them and still was humble enough to work with her....

BUT....madonna did co-sign Gaga in 2009 so idk exactly what went wrong except for that Madonna didnt expect her to grow bigger than she did since it was pre-TFM and BTW...

who cares it's 2026.

She was just a pressed vieja releasing some of her worst music at the time.

18 minutes ago, BjorkIsMyMom said:

Gaga lying about Madonna's team sending an email and claiming Whitney inspired it will always be weird.

Well that would be more "Fashion of his love" which is very reminiscent of "I wanna dance with somebody" when it comes to instrumental and also vocal at the start of the chorus

21 minutes ago, Bicassie said:

honestly...madonna feeling that pressed about gaga who just started her 2nd full length studio album with that song is telling me how huge of meteoric rise Gaga's debut was and that everybody was intimidated by her and shaking in their boots....

Even Beyoncé immediately wanted a piece of the Gaga pie early on and even went double dipping...mind u Bey was the established act of the two of them and still was humble enough to work with her....

BUT....madonna did co-sign Gaga in 2009 so idk exactly what went wrong except for that Madonna didnt expect her to grow bigger than she did since it was pre-TFM and BTW...

14 minutes ago, Outlaws said:

She was just a pressed vieja releasing some of her worst music at the time.

21 minutes ago, Bicassie said:

honestly...madonna feeling that pressed about gaga who just started her 2nd full length studio album with that song is telling me how huge of meteoric rise Gaga's debut was and that everybody was intimidated by her and shaking in their boots....

I think Madonna, as a great entrepreneur she is, knew all this comparisons and media created rivalry will only benefit her with free publicity plus potentionally shine light on her 80s hits which again is just plus

She knows how to play a game

10 minutes ago, mike_int said:

I think Madonna, as a great entrepreneur she is, knew all this comparisons and media created rivalry will only benefit her with free publicity plus potentionally shine light on her 80s hits which again is just plus

She knows how to play a game

So she milked it for clout and clicks during MDNA?

Also remember when she included the song in a medley with express yourself and she's not me lol she was funny and sneaky for this

40 minutes ago, Bicassie said:

is telling me how huge of meteoric rise Gaga's debut was

She was basically unstoppable in 2009 to 2011. The others couldn't compete.

9 minutes ago, Bicassie said:

So she milked it for clout and clicks during MDNA?

yes.

She was right, I remember hearing it on the radio and my sister thought it was Madonna.

Gaga lying saying she had Madonna's blessing and then saying it was inspired by Whitney is even weirder, but anyway, we love both so don't really care

1 hour ago, Bicassie said:

honestly...madonna feeling that pressed about gaga who just started her 2nd full length studio album with that song is telling me how huge of meteoric rise Gaga's debut was and that everybody was intimidated by her and shaking in their boots....

Even Beyoncé immediately wanted a piece of the Gaga pie early on and even went double dipping...mind u Bey was the established act of the two of them and still was humble enough to work with her....

BUT....madonna did co-sign Gaga in 2009 so idk exactly what went wrong except for that Madonna didnt expect her to grow bigger than she did since it was pre-TFM and BTW...

But GaGa was at fault for lying about Madonna's team sending an email approving which was actually what started the whole question and answer. She didn't just say it for no reason

1 hour ago, limelight elixir said:

she was right. fast forward to present day, and no one really cares about the song now. that said, back in 2011, it meant A LOT to even have a song like that. gaga's heart was in the right place, even if the song isn't that great.

According to whom? You? Lol. A song doesn't get 850M streams if 'no one cares about it', for comparison, HIAM by Britney that also peaked at #1 by MPG in 2011 is struggled to even hit 20K daily streams.

Whenever Pride Month comes around, critics and media lists consistently name it the ultimate #1 Pride anthem of all time.

28 minutes ago, iC0NIC said:

But GaGa was at fault for lying about Madonna's team sending an email approving which was actually what started the whole question and answer. She didn't just say it for no reason

and then naming whitney as the inspo instead must have pissed madge of i guess...yeah it's all giving misunderstanding gone messy from the looks of it

It's the way Madonna had the GP googleing definition of reductive that is iconic