Telephone Is Still a Perfect Song

Driving beat: check! Passe in pleasers: check! Fully staffed wardrobe and art departments: you get it.

Telephone is still eating me alive 16+ years after the release of the biggest pop crossover of a generation, and revisiting it has reminded me of so many things that inspired me at a very amateur time of dance in childhood. The music video clocks in over nine minutes of subversive visuals, including an incredible wardrobe not only for Gaga and Beyonce, but the entire cast of dancers. Giant hats, gaudy patterns, Warhol shoutouts, UGH, this whole thing is so juicy. The choreography is hard and punchy. There’s a weird wacky story that actually interrupts the song and gives us something more than simply the song with lip synch visuals.

Gaga’s been on the record on this track and how it’s so deeply personal to her, from her relentless internal monologue to her unending nights spend in clubs entertaining, rather than being entertained. The pressure to nail hit after hit doesn’t only follow pop moguls around: it rears its ugly head in so many contexts. Women are living in hell and paying for the wrongdoings of the complacent and powerful. Not to mention, our phones are even more glued to our hands and eyes now than they were in 2009, and data companies are stealing our information and water to make more data centers to steal our information and… so on.

Telephone works for so many reasons and will live at the top of my charts for a long time. Love pours out of my headphones and screen when I listen and watch, and I’m reminded of a time where I choreographed for hours on end with no commercial goal ahead. The love of the game is going to keep us together. There are billions of us and a few of them.

[Sorry I cannot hear you, I’m kinda busy.]