Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance video is strikingly artsy for pop music. But along with high-art aspirations, the video offers bald, unashamed commercialism: It has no fewer than 10 product placements. Gaga and crew make use of an iPod, Philippe Starck Parrot wireless speakers, Nemiroff vodka, Heartbeats earphones, Carrera sunglasses, Nintendo Wii handsets, Hewlett-Packard Envy computers, a Burberry coat, Alexander McQueen high heels, and La Perla lingerie.
"This isn't a music video so much as the QVC Channel you can dance to," writes Dan Neil for the Los Angeles Times. There was a time when the public demanded that musicians abstain from commercial tie-ins; indeed, Gaga's greatest feat is that the business aspects of Bad Romance don't seem to sully its artistic accomplishments. "The last stone of any church-state, art-commerce, virgin-whore wall has been toppled," writes Neil, "and—my God!—we don't miss the wall."
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