Kylie Minogue drops a version of Lady Gaga's "Marry the Night" and fails the assignment

So, it's been 10 years since the release of Lady Gaga's Born This Way (can you believe!?), and she's celebrating the occasion with a re-release of the album, which features reimagined version of songs from it by other artists. Key word...REIMAGINE. Remember this, because it's important.

So far, we've heard reimagined versions of "Judas" from Big Freedia and "Born This Way" from Orville Peck, both of which are COMPLTELEY different takes on the originals, as they should be; as they are reimagined versions of the songs in the styles that the guest artists are known for. You wouldn't call up Big Freedia to reimagine your song, and expect them to not give what Big Freedia is known for giving. Just as you wouldn't call up Orville Peck to cover "Born This Way", if he wasn't gonna throw on his cowboy hat with the long fringes and country up that shit. So, with this in mind, I really don't know what memo Kylie Minogue was given when she was asked to do "Marry the Night", because this right here is some doo-doo.

First of all, I'm really surprised to see Kylie even be a part of this album. But it makes sense. This re-release of Born This Way includes a curated list of artists with connections to the LGBTHIJKLMONP community, and you can't get gayer than Kylie Minogue. And commercially, Kylie has had an incredible year, with her 2020 album Disco entering the UK album chart at number 1, which also charted on the Billboard 200 and had Kylie make a splash in the US in a way she hadn't done since her 2001 album Fever. Also, Lady Gaga and Kylie Minogue's fanbases both intersect - both are comprised of predominantly white gay cis men. Kylie is also very game for a collab and feels no way about hopping on coattails. In 2019 she featured on a song with Tove Lo. In 2020 she guest appeared in Duolingo's Studio 2054 livestream gig for a team-up on her Disco cut "Real Groove". And in May of this year she featured on Years & Years' song "Starstruck".
Kylie covering a Lady Gaga song at the request of Lady Gaga herself is a win for Kylie every which way. But this cover is not good. This is not a reimagining of a song. Its karaoke.
There's is NO reason for me to play Kylie's version of "Marry the Night" over the original, when she doesn't sound as good as Gaga, and the instrumental sounds like a far lesser version of the original. We don't even get the breakdown at the end and that's the best part of the fucking song.
I'm mad at whoever allowed Kylie to phone this in. The RGB 255, 255, 255 gays™ will love it because it's Kylie singing a Lady Gaga song. But this shit is mad basic. There is so much more Kylie could have done to make the song her own. I don't get why Kylie just didn't do a Donna Summer / Gloria Gaynor disco style version of the song, given that they were inspirations for some of the songs on her last album and the damn thing was called Disco, and album of which I'm sure Kylie would still like to sell some copies of.

💿 Album reviews: Lady Gaga's Born This Way | Kylie Minogue's Disco