Lady Gaga needs her own thread

also HER VOICE does not get enough mention, tho people recognize that it's the real deal

http://lineout.thestranger.com/lineout/archives/2010/03/15/part-of-the-weekend-never-dies-rendezvous

There's a bunch of assholes dressed in shit costumes inspired by Lady Gaga. I hope this ends soon.

what exactly makes them assholes?

being dressed like Lady Gaga, apparently

I hope this ends soon.

it's not even a thing unless you're looking for it.

Aw I hope innocent drag acts don't start getting accused of being Gaga rips.

for me, the key thing about lady's songs are the way her voice is positioned in the mix -- it's at once huge and small. edited like a club voice, but with the chops of something bigger. fills the track resonantly but keeps up with the beat.

yeah kinda O_o abt ppl thinking gaga shows beyonce up as being safe

― plax (ico), Tuesday, March 16, 2010 12:17 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

I guess I should clarify here - as someone who doesn't keep my finger on the pulse of pop, for all of Beyonce's idiosyncrasies, she still comes off in my mind as pretty safe i.e. it's pretty easy to separate Beyonce the person from Beyonce the persona.

It just seems plain wrong to accept her own rhetoric the way I kinda feel like is happening a little on this thread now.

― plax (ico), Tuesday, March 16, 2010 12:39 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

I think this is OTM in so far as that Gaga's success is predicated upon people buying into her rhetoric, and maybe part of the reason why I have a much harder time humanizing her than with Beyonce.

just got done talking to some students about telephone, lady gaga and beyonce - they seemed to agree that while beyonce can be weird (or whatever descriptor you want to use), beyonce is pretty clear that that weirdness is just one side of her - whereas lady gaga only presents that side of herself, and thus that is the only image we know her by. you could say that beyonce is polychromatic whereas lady gaga is decidedly monochromatic - you can't imagine gaga doing an 'irreplaceable' type vid or song, for example.

i see what you're saying, but following your logic, you would conclude that being polychromatic is to be more safe than being monochromatic, which seems odd.

I don't see the contradiction there - if you know that the weirdness/offbeat/whatevs is just a mask that the performer puts on, it's easier to rationalize as just being 'part of the performance'

yea but you're also saying that lady gaga is more limited than beyonce in the scope of her performance. you can't imagine her doing certain things, but you can imagine beyonce doing pretty much anything, even if it isn't as committed

hmmm.... lady gaga

^^ otm

yeah surm I agree with that - and that makes it easier to separate the persona from the person imo, thus more 'safe'

i've got this mash-up of the choruses and nonsense hooks from "bad romance" and "poker face" that gets in my head on occasion, but i still get bored when i hear either song (seeing is a bit more engaging) and couldn't sing the verses for you.

― da croupier, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 13:00 (10 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

kinda have a pet theory that this is actually something that's subconsciously appealing in all gaga's stuff, some sort of maddening absent centre that's not just down to the whole distracting extraneous pr whirligig but seems to me to be something intrinsic to everything of hers - putting like and dislike aside for a second i'm always quite interested to sit thru any given gaga song again whenever one comes on, just to fill in the gap, and then lose it again. even her face! - i can never really exactly recall what she looks like. it's proper peculiar.

― r|t|c, Thursday, November 19, 2009 7:46 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark

hahah this has happened to me (ra ra ra ah ah ah....CANT READ MY CANT READ MY) and I was thinking something similar along r|t|c's lines - she's some kind of tabula rasa or nonperson, ghostlike maybe, which of course is helped by how many costumes she puts on, her purposeful dead-eyed look, etc. etc. you may also insert the following words in previous sentences: lacuna, decentered

i might come back and defend "speechless" against rtc at some point

the "telephone" video STILL sucks

for me it's the middle that really sucks. i love the beginning, and i can appreciate the dance number at the end. the diner shit + the recipe is retarded, especially when those round pop-up shades show up again, the same ones she wore in paparazzi (on B this time?). get a new schtick.

and like, the editing with all the food? i mean . . . why are we focusing on nasty scramble plates covered in syrup in a song about HER CELL PHONE

because she is poisoning people for calling her while she's trying to dance

lol

i love gaga's repeated references to red wine. i don't know why exactly. it's a really refreshing alternative to the Patron name-drop.

you know that the one in "Let's Dance" is actually her saying "Red One", aka the name of the producer

and actually the rest of them may be "Red One" as well, I can't think of any of them in her other singles so I don't know for sure

just realised this song is called Just Dance

haha I've done that like 500 times over the past 2 days, oops

omg really!? that's disappointing, i really liked it as "red wine." so i guess it's just "so happy i could die" then? :/

she's definitely talkin bout some red wine in "so happy i could die," and i do love that line. i like imagining her sipping on wine. so proper.

i love how ur correcting surm on lyrics to a song u don't know the name of!

and actually the rest of them may be "Red One" as well, I can't think of any of them in her other singles so I don't know for sure

she's definitely talkin bout some red wine in "so happy i could die," and i do love that line. i like imagining her sipping on wine. so proper.

"Happy in the club with a bottle o' red wine..."

okay, um Teeth is unbelievable

SHOW ME UR TEEF

http://www.fugly.com/media/IMAGES/Random/big_yawning_cat_with_sharp_teeth.jpg

finally watched this video with my bf after so many people talking about it and my bf pointed out that both the song and the video are reminiscent of the rambling of an eight year old when they make up little songs- the whole "and there there was a prison and then they escape and then there was a diner and then they made sandwiches and there was a cell phone and this one girl and then more people and then they killed this other guy and then more people danced and then they ran away the end". And her songs are kind of a big mess too, one damn thing after another, one little earworm and then a verse and then another and then another and then another with no real cohesion, when you hear it you can practically see people pasting this shit together in ProTools. On a theoretical level, I kind of like the notion that messy, de-centered assemblages can be hugely popular. So if I was being theoreticall consistent with the qualities that I like in, say, seventeenth century prose or art brut then I *should* be into this. But I just find the actual experience of listening to Lady Gaga cringe-inducingly awful. I hate her singing voice, the sheer Broadway Sally "belter" thing she's doing just sounds terrible to me. The trashiness would be fine if it was cool trash but this just sucks imo. Which should probably just trigger a "ha ha, u old" reaction.

Plus the feeling that it's somehow mandatory for gay dudes to be down with this gives me a rash. It's just reminiscent of the way fags bought into Madonna in the 80s. She is our queen, bow down, etc. Fuck this shit.

okay, um Teeth is unbelievable

― plax (ico), Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:33 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you didn't know!!?

twice boiled cabbage is death OTM (although i love "bad romance" and do find it cohesive) what's more depressing is how ubiquitous this video will become and how it will be watched by young kids, young girls especially, and the messages it sends out are just depressing.

Plus the feeling that it's somehow mandatory for gay dudes to be down with this gives me a rash. It's just reminiscent of the way fags bought into Madonna in the 80s. She is our queen, bow down, etc. Fuck this shit.

Ugh, yes. QFT.

re: cabbage's post:

you're absolutely right that you can see the seams in the production of her music. it's messy, scrappy and maybe even lazy, and the subjective part is whether or not it all comes together somehow. obviously for you it doesn't. i think it comes together in one sad, manic moment of a girl sitting at the club bar, singing about the shit that just happened to her week: all of it - messy, ugly and valid in its stubbornness.

and with regard to her popularity, i totally understand the likeness to madonna in terms of scene appeal, but at some point, these things can be boiled down to just really liking the music. the shared bond that you perceive in mass reactions like this could be as simple as the notes she's hitting, as opposed to the scene she's repping.

and regarding young girls, i don't necessarily find this the right forum for discussion on female development, but that's just me.

shes got the fattest ass i would bone her butt so hard

she doesn't have a dick btw

lol @ u both

Michel Gondry says: 'Not interested'

http://www.movieline.com/2010/03/exclusive-music-video-pioneer-michel-gondry-on-lady-gaga-im-not-interested.php

Michel Gondry has made some of the most indelible music videos of all time for some of the biggest acts of the last two decades, including Radiohead, Björk, Foo Fighters, The White Stripes, Beck and even Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones. So when Movieline caught up with him today to discuss his forthcoming documentary Thorn in the Heart, it seemed a great opportunity to feel him out on the new vanguard of the form: Lady Gaga, whose epic “Telephone” video has swept popular culture with a fury, frenzy and inspiration not seen since the glory days of which Gondry himself was a part. His response — which swept through genre monoliths from Michael Jackson to Madonna to Marilyn Manson — was unexpected to say the least.

“I’m not interested,” he said. “To me it’s like a form of Marilyn Manson. It’s hard for me to talk about it; I’ve seen a couple of videos of hers, and not for very long. I stop watching them each time because I don’t think there’s melodies. I’m sorry to be negative. Like I’m not a big fan of Madonna. I respect her very much, but unfortunately the videos didn’t help the music in the long run. Well, I guess it helped it to survive to the point where the video was irrelevant. So music has to find its own way, which is good for the music. It becomes smaller and more alive and it’s not as crazy, except for some R&B. To me, it’s just talking about the surface. I compare it to Marilyn Manson. The music to me is very expected. I don’t think there’s anything in the tone or the melody that makes me say, ‘Oh, there’s something going on.’

More on the article

pretty otm

I stop watching them each time because I don’t think there’s melodies

Like I’m not a big fan of Madonna

well indeed o_0

i mean no one actually says that unless they want to make a Point About Madonna (and what (they think) she "represents") right? if it's just about music, if u sit on their ass and tell me u don't love any of madonna's two DECADES' worth of classics, ur just flat-out lying

also it's pretty inane to say that madonna's videos didn't help her songs. give me a break.

i mostly agree with Gondry (still waiting to be knocked out by Gaga music-wise) but can't tell if he's saying Madonna's videos were always shit (false...and surely he loved Bedtime Story) or that they (over)compensated for "lack of melodies" or whatever (also false!). i wouldn't expect him to care about videos which lack clever visual tricks and gimmicks anyway.

it just seems like he's not focusing on anything in his commentary