Review: Lady Gaga - Born This Way

Remarkably, Gaga has out-Madonna-ed Madonna on this monstrous pop record that consolidates her position as the world's unrivalled queen of pop.

Born This Way ticks most of the right boxes and contains more than enough guaranteed hit records to keep it in our consciousness for months to come.

Title single Born This Way sets the scene with Lady G's usual message of don't be afraid to stand out from the crowd while latest single Judas is pure pop bliss.

It's not a perfectly conceived record, however. For all it's exurberance, infectiousness and joie de vivre, it doesn't push the envelope quite as far as it might.

Gaga is a kooky fashionista and pop icon, a trend-setting, zeitgeist-capturing popnoisenik; but she doesn't reshape the terrain, like, say David Bowie in the 1970s.

Born This Way answers a lot of the questions that have been asked of the world's new doyen of pop - the only it doesn't really put to rest is this: how on earth did she fit into those shoes?

Review by Andy Richardson