Music video: Lady Gaga serves fashion and trauma as she pops a "911"

Lady Gaga threw her Monsters a chunky-ass bone by releasing a music video for "911". This is one of the weaker songs on Chromatica for me personally. But the Monsters love it. It became popular online outside of the Monster pit thanks to a meme. And it's the one song on Chromatica which sounds like it could be slotted into The Fame or Born This Way. So it absolutely made sense for "911" to be the next song from Chromatica to get a music video - before you even get into the lyrical content, what the song means to Gaga personally and the way in which it can resonate with others who have or currently are experiencing mental health issues.

The music video for "911" was directed by Tarsem Singh, known for his work on the cult classic film The Cell which starred Jennifer Novoclez , and makes direct references to the 1969 film The Color of Pomegranates.

After "Stupid Love" and "Rain On Me" really hammering the whole Chromatica aesthetic with all the pink shit, it's nice to see Gaga release a visual void of pink wigs, metal scraps and punk attire. Especially as the videos for "Stupid Love" and "Rain On Me" weren't that great anyway. Visual consistency is nice and all. But we just plain needed a reminder of what Gaga does best in a music video, and "911" is just what the doctor ordered.

Lady Gaga has never been in a vehicular accident as depicted in the music video, and that is not what the song "911" is about. Just as Lady Gaga was never thrown off a balcony and jailed for murder, and is not what the song "Paparazzi" is about. The music video narrative is to heighten the drama and also the trauma in the song, as well as provide a nod to the song title by featuring response teams and paramedics.

The whole of Chromatica is about Gaga's battle with mental health issues in different capacities and settings. But "911" is the 'THIS IS DEFINITELY ABOUT MY MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES' song on the album, where-as it may be easy to skip or overlook this narrative in the other songs and put them into different contexts. This isn't a bad or wrong thing to do. It's one of the great things about music and how we connect to it. We take it in a way that makes sense to us.

It's great that a star with a platform as big as the one Gaga has is being open about her mental health and her love for LG flat screens.

💿 Album review: Chromatica