Mystified, I crept in confusion, terrified, as if it was illusion, hypnotized by indecision, I felt as though I was an intruder, trapped inside the walls of my own world, crawling up the cracks of my weak soul, guided by some higher deep voice from the dark into the unknown
Last Gaga's album, recently awarded with two well-deserved Grammys, is probably one of the most solid works she's made since 'Born This Way', my favorite record in her discography, and a great comeback to her darker dance style after the rocker 'Joanne', and with permission of 'Chromatica', which was a pretty satisfactory return to pop as well, but experimented with rather techno sounds instead. As usual, the combination of powerful raw vocals with the artist's indistinguishable songwriting, full of epic melodies and complex production arrangements, has turned this last compilation of songs into an utter success that leaves 'little monsters', where I include myself, yearning for more.
These new 14 tracks (17 in the deluxe edition) are an exquisite mix of the best sounds from each of her artistic eras, reminiscing mainly 'Born This Way' and 'The Fame Monster'. From the opening song and lead single 'Disease', where she shows an amazing and extensive vocal range while expressing her mental health struggles with fame and psychosis in the lyrics, to the last one 'Die with a Smile', a lovely duet with Bruno Mars. It's hard to choose a favorite song because most of them are equally fantastic, but I must admit that I like the darker Gaga side, which shows mainly in the first four tracks of the album, more in sync with the ‘Born This Way’ era, as I stated before. The following tracks get more romantic and less rocker but keep the rebel and dance vibe that characterizes Gaga. The whole album is an homage to the 80's sounds and aesthetic, mainly noticed in songs like Killah, The Dead Dance or Shadow of a Man, this last one particularly reminiscing Michael Jackson melodies.
Without the shadow of a doubt, Lady Gaga is back for more with this album, although she has never really ceased to be one of the most inventive and notorious voices of our generation.
Favorite songs: Disease, Abracadabra, Garden of Eden, Perfect Celebrity, Killah, Zombieboy, The Dead Dance and Shadow of a Man.
About 9 years ago, I recorded a music video for the song 'I'll Be There for You', the first one I ever produced professionally. That video showed delicate content related to themes like self-harm or suicide and, although I liked the message I tried to transmit with it, the result was very poor and amateur, since I had very little experience shooting videos like that on my own, and I was struggling with more severe psychotic and depressive symptoms back then. So, after I finished recording and producing the demo for the song ‘If I Killed Myself’ one year ago, I thought that it would be a great idea to do some kind of remake for it, since the whole black and white concept that accompanied the old video would fit perfectly in with the themes and musicality of this new track.
So, once I decided I would go for that concept again, I began to search for references of other music videos and movies on the Internet that could serve as inspiration for the making of this new video and, thanks to that, I discovered amazing songs like Zevia's 'Why Do I Exist?' or Nessa Barrett's 'Dying on the Inside', that talked about similar mental health related themes and, therefore, made me feel less strange and alone about making this type of artwork. I also did some research on movies about time loops like 'Groundhog Day', 'Happy Death Day' or 'Coherence', since I wanted to describe suicide attempts as something reminiscent of that, although it didn't show exactly the same way I had in mind in the final result.
However, I think I managed to do a pretty good job this time with aesthetic and cinematography or, at least, better than with the other video. I recorded most of the scenes during the summer. Thankfully, I bought a portable air conditioner that made the whole process much easier. I wanted to release the video in November, so I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for that. I used the green screen a lot in this video. I tried to record some real shots in the bathtub, but the illumination and aesthetic did not look as good as with the green screen. Even simple shots from the bedroom were made by using that technique because, then again, it made the qualityimprove a lot.
All in all, a music video that is far from perfect, but is coherent with the song and its message, and an improvement compared to the video I made almost a decade ago. I'm happy and proud of the result.
As a kid, I always felt detached from religion, and everything related to the concept of Jesus Christ. I went to a religious school, and I hated that we always had to say a prayer at the beginning of our lessons and right before leaving. Later, I switched to a public school when I was 7 years old because they closed the other one and, although we did not have to say any prayers there, we were still taught religion, which was my least favorite subject along with physical education. It wasn't until High School that, as students, we were given the choice of an alternative subject called 'ethics', which was a change I went for as soon as it was offered.
However, I prayed when I was being bullied. I felt so desperate that I needed something to believe in. I remember that when I began to smoke pot, I would get out to the balcony at night, so that my parents could not smell it, and I would look at the sky and use the word 'Lord' repeatedly. 'Why, Lord? Why me?' Over and over again. Suddenly, I was recurring on that thing I had been trying to escape as a child. I just couldn'tconceive of a world that was so evil and poisonous, where some needed to feed on other people's insecurities like mine. So, I prayed and prayed on that balcony during that period of my life for things to get better, hoping someday they would if I could finally get to move into the city. Little did I know that the answer to that 'why' I had been asking to the night sky for so long, would arrive disguised as a psychotic break, that would later develop into a mental illness named schizophrenia.
Although there seems to be a connection between schizophrenia and religion, I never believed I was Jesus Christ myself during my first psychotic episode. I believed it was quite the opposite, actually. I thought I was the antichrist. I had been so repressed my whole life by my surroundings that it made me develop this hate and inner homophobic feelings towards myself without being aware, and I was so deeply immersed in such state that it took me years and years to get to identify those patterns and learn how to reverse them little by little.
SONGWRITING
This song is about these so-called delusions of mine related to the idea of the Illuminati cult and the manipulation and slaving that they've been supposedly inflicting on society for a long time now. I always felt like something was off in this world, but ever since the COVID pandemic struck our realities, it all seems to have inevitably become more obvious. The evolution of AI, fake news increasing day by day, social media used as a distraction from what is really happening... it all just seems staged to me. The world is curiously becoming more schizophrenic than ever, but at the same time, I think it's meant to happen this way, to become exposed. It seems like they're fighting against the whole Jesus Christ concept and they're using the LGBT community for it somehow. I am gay and I've been struggling my whole life to be accepted and respected for being a compassionate and non-violent human being, and it's obvious to me that homophobes, racists, misogynists and people in general who don't accept that we are all different and equal at the same time, need to be reprimanded about it, but if there's something else I am certain of, is that I don't like lies and manipulation, and all the chaos and conflicts that are taking place in the world right now feel like a big lie to me. I don't think it's a matter of taking sides, I think every human being has to fight their own battles, but if there are people in power who are using this in order to achieve their own interests and not the ones that benefit us all as equals, we should be aware of that.
One of my theories is that maybe there is a real connection between schizophrenia and religion or Jesus Christ. As I explained in the beginning of this post, I've never felt related to the whole Christianitymorals and stuff, but I never chose to be schizophrenic either and yet it happened. I obviously don't believe I'm Jesus, but when you are told and treated as if you did, you start to believe there might be some connection. Maybe it's in our DNA somehow. Or maybe it is just a delusion. Whatever the case is, it has sort of made me realize that my mission is to try not to kill myself ever. I guess that should be everyone's mission, to not kill anyone, even if it's themselves, and I'm not trying to demonize suicide or euthanasia at all either, I believe that if someone is in real pain, they should be given the choice to leave this place through the least painful method available, and we should be compassionate about it, but if this delusion of mine has led me to believe that my schizophrenia is not a death sentence, but a reason to fight and learn something about my nature and teach it to the rest of the world at the same time, I'd rather be a little more delusional than skeptic sometimes.
PRODUCTION
This track did not experience many changes from the demo to the master. The instrumental remainedpractically the same. I did record some real guitars for it and added a bassline as well, but I'm still getting familiar with the process of producing my own compositions from scratch and crafting them with all the necessary arrangements. I was not used to adding basses before, since I didn't know much about the instrument, and I did not pay much attention to the drums either, so now I'm slowly learning to give them the character needed for each piece. The vocals and the harmoniesI'mvery proud of. I feel like I've improved so much since I began making music years ago, and I think it'sprobably the best aspect of my productions currently.
Even though I always knew that singing was my true passion, I studied film direction in Barcelona more than a decade ago. I try to remember kindly the artwork I made back then, considering that I was psychotic and depressed at that time, but I am aware that, despite all the efforts I made, those works were not very good. The silver lining is that I gained some knowledge and experience about film making that I can apply now in making my own music videos.
I've been recording videos for YouTube covers for the last two years, but I have not recorded a video for one of my own songs until now. I did record one for the song 'I'll Be There for You' of my first album in 2016, but I was very fat back then, and the quality was amateur. So, although this new one I've made for the song 'Make Me Psychotic' is far from perfect, I'm very content with the result, considering that it has all been made within the four walls of my bedroom and with a very small budget.
At first, I thought about the padded room as the main concept for the photo shooting and artwork of the physical distribution of the album 'A Scream in the Night', which I intend to make in the future, even if it's just a few copies. Later, I thought it would be cool to use it in the music video of the first single, so I began to think about ways of creating the padded room without using the green screen recourse. So, what I did was ordering some foam rubber on the Internet, cut it into equally measured squares and add later some adhesive white leather on. Finally, I put the squares together on the walls that surround my bed, which is supported by a white chest of drawers that made it look like the perfect white floor I needed. The space was small but effective enough to use it for close-up camera shots.
I also thought it would be interesting to add some backstory in the video besides the padded room concept, so I decided to introduce the doctor character to create this contrast with the mental hospital patient, and give this message that anyone, including people who work on the medicine field, are vulnerable to develop a mental illness. For the shots where both of them appear together, I had to film the patient's first and then, walk out carefully without moving the camera angle or the table and items on it, go to the bathroom to shave off my beard, change the clothes into the doctor's and record his respective shots.
I wanted to use the green screen again for the final shot, where I walk out of the hospital, but I found out this new AI tool available on the Internet for video creators and, although I was a little skeptic at first, I decided to use it leave it that way in the final cut of the video. I look much thinner than in the rest of the video, but it still works effectively. As I said before, the result is far from perfect, but I like how I managed to create something decent with the little means I had.
