>> "John Wayne" by Lady Gaga. I miss that moment in our pop culture when a new Lady Gaga album was more of a cultural event than a piece of music. Joanne is an excellent pop album, but it doesn't mean anything more than that. Academics aren't writing ten thousand word essays about it. But I like this song's engagement with tropes: Aware that lyrical invocation of John Wayne in our modern moment implies a deconstruction of 1950s masculinity, Gaga undeconstructs. She makes an embrace of toxic masculinity a conscious choice, with inherent risks leading to risky rewards, and in doing so stakes a female claim to toxic masculinity.

Oh man, sold! I wasn't listening to Joanne because I miss the Lady Gaga qualities of Lady Gaga, rather than sad soulful ballads that I figured this album would be. But that sounds like a song that I would be into.