It features a broader range of genres, such as heavy metal, disco, house, and rock and roll, while its lyrical topics include sexuality, religion, freedom, feminism, and individualism.

[16] In several interviews, Gaga expressed that she was mostly inspired by Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Bruce Springsteen;[27] other musical influences for the album include Prince,[28] Iron Maiden,[19] Kiss,[19] Queen,[15] TLC,[29] Pat Benatar,[30] and En Vogue.

[21][43][44] Jody Rosen from Rolling Stone compared the song's sound to that of 1980s pop and glam metal artists, including Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar and Bonnie Tyler.

Critics have noted vaudevillian elements within the song,[56] and it has been compared to the work of Judy Garland by Billboard,[57] with Gaga claiming that she sees influence from French chanson singer Édith Piaf.

[17] After "Scheiße" is "Bloody Mary", which is a relatively slow-tempo[25] and dark electropop song containing "plucked strings" and "filthy beats",[17] as well as numerous religious references, a trance-influenced melody,[18] and lyrics infused in French and Spanish.

[25] The next is "Heavy Metal Lover", a song of electropop and techno tendencies,[21][62] which has been noted to contain elements of house music,[63] electro-industrial beats,[64] and has been compared to the power pop of the 1990s.

[100][101] Acknowledged as a "magical message" by Billboard's Jem Aswad, the Gaga and Jeppe Laursen-written song was produced by herself, Laursen, Garibay and DJ White Shadow.

It was met with generally positive reception among music critics,[110][111][112] and was noted by MTV for its references to the work of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Björk, and the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, as well as to Greek mythology and surrealism.

[121] It includes a motorcycle gang representing the Twelve Apostles, and tells a modernized version of the Biblical story about Judas (portrayed by Norman Reedus) betraying Jesus, in which ends with Gaga as Mary Magdalene getting stoned to death.

[130][131][132] It charted in the top ten of nineteen countries and became Gaga's tenth consecutive top-ten single in the United States, debuting at number three on the Billboard Hot 100.

[207][208] The promotions for Born This Way continued with the performance of "Heavy Metal Lover", "Marry the Night" and the title track on the Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve in Times Square.

[219] Dan Martin of NME said that "it's a damn good thing" that Gaga "doesn't know when to hold back" and complimented her for pushing musical boundaries to its "ultimate degree.

"[45] Caryn Ganz of Spin felt that "excess is Gaga's riskiest musical gamble, but it's also her greatest weapon, and Born This Way relentlessly bludgeons listeners' pleasure centres".

"[221] Despite criticizing her for "letting her skills as a songwriter slide ever so slightly," AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine complimented Gaga's composing "sensibility" and "considerable dexterity at delivering the basics.

[228] The Village Voice's Rich Juzwiak commented that Gaga's "we-shall-overcome sentiment" is expressed more effectively through the album's "egalitarian use of house beats" than through her "sloganeering", which he found "trite" and "[un]insightful.

Gaga was the fifth woman to sell one million copies in a week, after Whitney Houston (The Bodyguard Soundtrack, 1992), Britney Spears (Oops!...I Did It Again, 2000), Norah Jones (Feels Like Home, 2004), and Taylor Swift (Speak Now, 2010).

Amazon sold an estimated 440,000 copies in its first two days at a price of 99 cents (at a loss of over $3 million) which contributed to its 662,000 digital sales, the largest in Nielsen SoundScan history.

[243][244] Following Gaga's Super Bowl LI halftime show performance, Born This Way re-entered the Billboard 200 at number 25, selling 17,000 total album-equivalent units.

Rolling Stone, in their list of the 50 Best Albums of 2011, ranked it at sixth place, writing "none of Gaga's previous exercises in musical plussizing prepared us for this kind of anything-goes extravagance".

[270][271] Digital Spy included Born This Way in their 25 Best Albums of 2011 list, at fifth place,[272] while the Daily Record ranked it at seventeenth out of twenty, commenting on Gaga having gone "full-scale European underground electro disco".

from Vulture opined that "with Born This Way, Gaga chose to recast pop as a safe space for vulnerable, misfit, queer kids to find their individuality and reinvent the world in their image.

"[286] Writing a retrospective of events after the album's release after five years, Jake Hall form Dazed called Born This Way a "misunderstood masterpiece", complimenting its "deliberately literal lyrics" in songs such as "Heavy Metal Lover", "Hair" and "Scheiße".

Noticing that it "represents the point in Gaga's career when she deliberately stopped studying her own fame and tried to use it to further her own message", he claimed Born This Way as her "most ambitious musical project to date.

[291] A street painting of the album's title and Daniel Quasar's re-designed version of the gay flag (which includes trans and queer people of color) has been made on Robertson Boulevard, while the key of the city was awarded to Gaga.

Gaga attended the ceremony wearing a Born This Way t-shirt from her own collection and thanked the LGBT community for "[being] the motherfucking key to my heart for a long time [...] I'll honor this and I'll cherish this, and I promise that I'll always be here for this day to celebrate with you.

[294] On December 13, 2022, after Joe Biden, the president of the United States, signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law at the White House, "Born This Way" started playing immediately as planned.

In an interview with HollywoodLife.com, Donohue expressed discontent towards Gaga's focus on Judas and Mary Magdalene, calling her "increasingly irrelevant" compared to people with "real talent", and attacked her for seemingly purposefully debuting the song and video close to Holy Week and Easter.

[420] On June 8, Gaga's beauty brand, Haus Labs, launched the Bad Kid Vault, a limited-edition makeup box set including 16 products.

He called it "an enormous, bravura flex of electronic pop", while stating that "on her best front-to-back album, Gaga belts each crushing hook with every fiber of her chest, with personal pain turned into placard-ready manifestos.

"[422] Mike Wass of Variety thought The Tenth Anniversary's bonus disc "sounds a little scattershot", and opined that it was a missed opportunity to include new versions of album tracks "Bad Kids" and "Government Hooker".