Many of the “little monsters” had been surprised that the video for ‘Disease’ was not released at the same time as the song last Friday. The video is released, however, when there are only hours left until Halloween arrives and it makes sense, since it is terrifying.
Under the direction of the Ukrainian Tanu Muino, well known here for her work with Rosalía (‘I swear’, ‘Chicken teriyaki’) and other celebrities such as Dua Lipa, Cardi B, Harry Styles, Lizzo, Lil Nas , Lady Gaga appears here in different scenarios with psychological terror as a common link. Behind this ‘Disease’ lies a struggle with herself.
If “disease” is a word that we all associate with ‘Bad Romance’, and the sound of the song is reminiscent of ‘Born this Way’, the true precedent of the video for this song – even above ‘Marry the Night’ or ‘Judas ‘- looks like ‘911’ from ‘Chromatica’. In that lyric the chorus said “my biggest enemy is me”, in the video we saw several characters banging their heads against a wall or similar surfaces, and that is another image that Lady Gaga offers us here, in this case against a car.
The artist explains this topic this way: “I think a lot about my relationship with my inner demons. It has never been easy for me to face how I am seduced by chaos and confusion. It’s something that makes me claustrophobic. ‘Disease’ is about facing that fear, facing myself and my own inner darkness and realizing that sometimes I can’t escape the parts of myself that scare me. So I try and run away from them but they are still a part of me. I run and run but in the end I will always find that part of me, even if it is only for a moment.”
Lady Gaga has reached Spotify’s global top 12 with ‘Disease’, although it has currently fallen out of the top 50. Until we see if it is revitalized by Halloween, one of the markets where it is best understood is the United Kingdom, where it appears in the top 3 in the midweeks. His biggest current success continues to be the splendid duet with Bruno Mars, ‘Die With a Smile’, which has also just released a live video.
