One of Lady Gaga's most popular songs, "Bad Romance" celebrates the kind of lusty passion and desire found in a bad romance novel.
The song was the lead single from Lady Gaga's second album, The Fame Monster, which was initially released as an expanded version of her debut album, The Fame.
Lady Gaga debuted part of this song on the October 2, 2009 edition of
Saturday Night Live. The full version was unveiled four days later at the finale of fashion designer Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer 2010 Paris Fashion Week runway show.
At the time, Gaga was red hot; her first two singles, "
Just Dance" and "
Poker Face," were huge global hits. She quickly became a media magnet thanks to her daring looks and string of intriguing dance songs like "
Lovegame" and "
Paparazzi" that took on the cult of celebrity. "Bad Romance" elevated her to an even higher level of stardom.
Moroccan/Swedish producer RedOne helmed the song and wrote it with GaGa. He also collaborated with Lady Gaga on "Just Dance," "Lovegame" and "Poker Face."
The song went to #1 in many countries but surprisingly, not in America, where it stayed at #2 for seven weeks, held back by the Jay-Z/Alicia Keys collaboration "
Empire State of Mind" and Kesha's "
TiK ToK."
The song's music video is Gaga's most-viewed. It was directed by Francis Lawrence, who's helmed clips for the likes of Britney Spears, Janet Jackson and Gwen Stefani.
Lady Gaga told MTV News that she knew she wanted to work with Lawrence. "It was collaborative. He's a really pop video director and a filmmaker. He did I Am Legend and I'm a huge Will Smith fan, so I knew he could execute the video in a way that I could give him all my weirdest, most psychotic ideas," she said. "But it would come across to and be relevant to the public."
In the video, Gaga wears some razor-blade sunglasses. She explained to MTV News: "I wanted to design a pair for some of the toughest chicks and some of my girlfriends - don't do this at home! - they used to keep razor blades in the side of their mouths. That tough female sprit is something that I want to project. It's meant to be, 'This is my shield, this is my weapon, this is my inner sense of fame, this is my monster.'"
When "Bad Romance" reached #1 in the UK at the end of 2009, Lady Gaga became the first female solo artist to have three chart-toppers in a calendar year.
There's a healthy bit of gibberish in the lyrics ("Roma Roma-ma"), as well as some French. The French part is: "Je veux ton amour et je veux ta revanche," which translates to "I want your love and I want your revenge."
The nonsense syllables jibe with the theme of the song, as Gaga is so consumed with passion she can't form words.
A congratulatory "ra ra" to Lady Gaga is in order because when this song climbed to the top of Billboard's Top 40 Airplay Chart dated January 17, 2010, the New York hitmaker became the first artist in the tally's 17-year history to send her first five singles to the #1 spot.
Said Gaga to Billboard magazine, "Just six months ago, 'Bad Romance' was nothing but a dream, a recurring melody, a lyric hidden on a napkin on my tour bus. Now, it's my fifth #1 record, and a reminder to fans to always follow their dreams. I would like to thank all my beautiful little monsters and my incredibly supportive team for the most memorable year of my life. To have had such a phenomenal reception to my second album, The Fame Monster, is life-changing. I'm so happy I could die."
Gaga unwittingly started an unhealthy trend in the video, where her eyes were digitally altered to make them look bigger and bolder. Several Asian contact lens companies manufacture a product known as "circle lenses," which cover part of the white area in the eyes to make the pupil look larger. Encouraged by Gaga's wide-eyed look, American teenagers flocked to buy these lenses online despite opticians warning they could lead to problems like eye infections, damage to vision, and even loss of sight.
The song's video received 10 nominations at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, tying with Peter Gabriel's "
Sledgehammer" for the record of most nominations for a single video. It went on to win seven of the categories including the prestigious Video of the Year award.
This won Best Song at the 2010 MTV European Music Awards. Lady Gaga also won the trophies for Best Pop and Best Female at the ceremony.
"Bad Romance" was the top-selling single of 2010 in Europe, according to the Billboard European Hot 100. Runner up was Kesha's "TiK ToK" and in third place was the Black Eyed Peas' "
Meet Me Halfway."
The Fame Monster was one of the best-selling albums of 2010 worldwide, with sales of about 6 million, around the same total as Eminem's Recovery.
"Bad Romance" won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Gaga performed her song "
Born This Way" at the ceremony, where
The Fame Monster also won for Best Pop Vocal Album.
Music licensing company PPL announced that this song had the most plays on radio and in public places in the UK in 2010. In second place was Eminem's "
Empire State of Mind and in third another Gaga tune,
Alejandro."
At Bill Clinton's 65th birthday celebration held at the Hollywood Bowl on October 15, 2011, Lady Gaga performed a special version of this song for the former president reworked as "Bill Romance." Gaga then told him, "If someone had told me so many years ago I'd be doing that right in front of you... I would have given them a good American 'F--k you.'"
Gaga closed out her halftime performance at the 2017 Super Bowl with a rendition of this song, rocking a football theme with a very fashionable set of shoulder pads. Her backup dancers also wore designer helmets and pads.
Grammar geeks cringe when they hear the offending lyric, "You and me could write a bad romance."
Me is an objective pronoun and can't perform an action like writing, so the subjective pronoun
I is needed: "You and I could write a bad romance." After all, you would never say, "Me could write a bad romance."
Gaga made a similar error on her hit "
You and I."
This was chosen by the writers of
Billboard magazine in July 2018 as their best video of the 21st century to date. They explained that it "went beyond the kind of spectacle" that rising artists such as Lady Gaga "had the resources to pull off."
Billboard added: "It offered a glimpse into an entire cinematic world that thrilled and disturbed in equal measure, expanding the possibilities of what a music video could achieve - and challenging other stars to step their game up at the same time."
This is Adele's favorite karaoke song. During one of her 2023 Weekends With Adele residency shows in Las Vegas, she enlightened the audience about her favorite tunes to perform on more intimate stages. With a gleam in her eye, she proclaimed, "You know what's the best karaoke song to do? 'Bad Romance' by Lady Gaga."
Adele couldn't contain her enthusiasm as she burst into the iconic gibberish introduction of Gaga's 2009 smash hit: "Ra ra ah ah ah, roma ro ma ma." She joyfully shared how much fun she has when belting out the track.
Adele playfully admitted that there is one aspect of the song that still poses a challenge for her. With a shrug and a smile, the megastar confessed, "When she starts speaking French, I've got no idea what she's saying."
Gaga namechecks three famous Alfred Hitchcock movies in these lines:
I want your psycho, your vertigo shtick
Want you in my rear window, baby, you're sick
Here's the breakdown:
Rear Window (1954)
James Stewart witnesses a murder (or does he?) while spying on his neighbors.
Vertigo (1958)
James Stewart again, this time in a mind-bender where he investigates a murder.
Psycho (1960)
Anthony Perkins plays Norman Bates, a man you don't want to see in the shower.
Gaga is a big fan of horror movies, Hitchcock in particular. In 2015 she starred in the series American Horror Story: Hotel.
