Unemployment is rising, housing markets are collapsing, the price of eggs is somewhere around one million dollars per embryo and Lady Gaga has released an incredible new single after weeks on top of the world. If you’ve been clicking your heels three times, hoping to be transported to a happier period, it didn’t exactly work as planned. We’re smack dab in the middle of 2010 again.

The music isn’t merely a distraction from the daily horrors; it’s Gaga’s way of confidently opposing the artless philistinism levied by the right wing’s frightening agenda.

But you don’t need me to tell you that. If you witnessed the collective cultural collapse that was the release of the video for Gaga’s latest song, “Abracadabra,” during an ad break in the middle of the Grammy Awards, you surely felt it too: the sweet, unmistakable sense of nostalgia. The single is the second taste from Gaga’s upcoming album “MAYHEM,” due out March 7, after the album’s lead, “Disease,” was released last October. “Abracadabra” is a sonic return to form for the pop star, a pivot to the heavy European dance basslines and phonetic chants of some of her most beloved hits like “Bad Romance” and “Judas,” this time with more polish. The sound instantly evokes a touch of wistfulness for the Obama era, when times were just as uncertain. Still, it was easier to block out bad news with radio-heavy car rides or by cranking up the iPod volume using its click wheel. Now, no matter how fast we run, the grim reaper’s scythe is still inches from our heels.

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After “Abracadabra” was released, that sentimental yearning for the past was immediately echoed across both social media and proper reviews. For days, people have been joyfully calling Gaga’s triumphant return a “recession indicator,” one of the internet’s latest favorite phrases. By that reasoning, the quality of Gaga’s music and the economy are moving on opposite poles: When one goes down, the other must go up.

While “recession indicator” is simply a joke phrase, it got me wondering: Is Gaga an indication of the recession, or is the recession an indication that we need Gaga? Perhaps it’s when things are at their most politically and socially dire that the general public becomes less content with the swill they’re being fed, and looks for something with a bit more substance. There’s no denying Gaga has substance in droves, and “Abracadabra,” along with a handful of other meaningful Gaga moments from Grammys night, feels like precisely what the public needs right now. The music isn’t merely a distraction from the daily horrors; it’s Gaga’s way of confidently opposing the artless philistinism levied by the right wing’s frightening........

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