On first glance, Lady Gaga’s video for “Perfect Illusion” looks like your standard straight-to-Vevo upload. It’s got all the tropes: Gaga starts by singing and dancing in front of a happy crowd while the sun sets, she throws herself around the desert for a bit, which everyone knows is classic pop video territory, there’s even a mosh pit, which is something we’ve all seen before. But “Perfect Illusion” is more than the sum of its parts. It is a bombastic, high-charged assault on every sense.
Throughout the whole thing, Gaga has a glazed look in her eye, as though she’s been taken over by a robotic pop mastermind. She thrusts and swings her ponytail around like a possessed helicopter that’s about to take off and crash somewhere. She kicks the sand and does a little star jump like she’s just touched a plug with wet hands. My favorite part comes in at 2:36 when she grabs the drummers head by his hair and squeezes him into a headlock, as if she’s on the verge of strangling him to death. Her eyes are constantly rolling to the back of head like Satan has opened the entrance door to her brain. Just watching this video will make you feel out of breath. See for yourself below:
