Lady Gaga And Bruno Mars’ Die With A Smile Is Cinematic To A Fault - Single Review

Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ Die With A Smile puts on full display both artists’ appreciation for theatre. While the combination of a stunning, soaring chorus, thunderous percussion, and the threat of the end of the world adds up to a positively huge duet, there’s a touch of warmth missing from the equation. The track delivers all of the familiar flashy, campy tricks you’d expect from both Gaga and Mars, but in their pursuit to maximize the size of their romantic proclamations and gestures both artists neglect the importance of compelling intimate details. 

From a technical standpoint, the track is exceptionally impressive. Two of pop’s most salient voices push each other to belt out shimmering tones and seismic verves that build towards a climactic final chorus full of verve. That driving desire to get bigger and bigger is also sort of the problem. The doom preaching is full of clichés and pushes this stadium-sized ballad into the side of overindulgent. Just a touch of subtlety and a more personal set of lyrics would go a long way toward endowing the track with a greater emotional depth. As the adage goes: bigger isn’t always better.