When Lady Gaga released her lead single ‘Born This Way’, she was widely criticised for plagiarising Madonna‘s classic hit ‘Express Yourself’. When NME confronted Gaga in April about the rip-off song, she flipped out and insisted she did not steal the melody. Madge reacted. On her Youtube channel, she uploaded an MTV performance of ‘Express Yourself’ the night before Gaga was set to perform ‘BTW’ at the Grammy Awards. Now Madge has spoken and says Gaga’s song was indeed a remake to ‘Express Yourself’. Deets below.
Gaga previously addressed the Madonna plagiarism claim in NME:
“I am not dumb enough or moronic enough to think that you are dumb enough or moronic enough not to see that I would have stolen a melody. If you put the songs next to each other, side by side, the only similarities are the chord progression. It’s the same one that’s been in disco music for the last 50 years. Just because I’m the first f*cking artist in 25 years to think of putting it on Top 40 radio, it doesn’t mean I’m a plagiarist, it means that I’m f*cking smart. Sorry.”
And yesterday, Madonna addressed Gaga’s reported ‘plagiarism’, which caused ‘Express Yourself’ to trend:
“I thought, this is a wonderful way to redo my song (‘Express Yourself’). I mean, I recognized the chord changes. I thought it was… interesting”.
Such wisdom in Madonna’s comments on the ‘BTW’ and ‘Express Yourself’ comparisons. Madonna is never one to hold her tongue, and responses like this one will certainly have fans rubbing their hands in glee. But the question is, do you agree with her claim that Gaga swaggerjacked her song?
