Lady Gaga, Pussycat Dolls and a Taxonomy of Vacuous Pop

Email #2:

here's my Gaga wordpad collection of the most interesting Youtube interviews (and a couple ditto TV or club performance clips)

PAPARAZZI Album Chart Show / UK***

Billboard interview "i would die"

at 4:35 "i love swedish pop music" (german TV interview)

Jingle Ball backstage w David Archuleta

Dear Mr President

group letter Dear Mr President

paris hilton interviews GaGa

interview for Album Chart Show

GaGa loves the beatles

interview w/left cheek boltz at 1:31

australian interview / 5 min

Email #3

Jimmy Draper:

i interviewed gaga a few weeks before her cd came out, back when "just dance" was just a dance hit..she was super personable and pretty funny but i honestly don't "get" what she thinks is so Innovative about her work (she used the word literally at least 8x in our interview). then again, i dont really care either cuz the cd is amazing. she really is a trip tho--like when we talked she was comparing herself to madonna (but saying she one-ups madonna in self-reinvention = RIDIC) and bowie and art people...i left out the relaly, really obnoxious stuff from the article cuz i thought it'd make her sound super deluded and bonkers--in a bad way, and didn't want to go there. looking fwd to seeing her in detroit next week.

her xmas tree song is one of the only xmas songs i've ever liked

More Metal Mike:

yeah if you collected all the people who were bonkers/half-nuts back in 50's rock, well, a greyhound bus wouldn't half hold them all...

half again trumped by john lennon in his ThUg early phrase, or Brian Wilson on any given day in the 60's.

maybe what she's tripping on is that bowie or maddy never put on a blonde wig...

ohhhh and MAJOR drug use/abuse in her teen years (or beyond) according to bios/background info. never underestimate the modesty level of someone who's coked up!
combined with an upper-class academic-type (NYU) background

somewhere on google i ran across an audience member's short review of a small-ish gaga club NYC gig last fall... according to the poster, she passed out onstage, her dancers attempted to get her back up and moving, whereupon she stagedived into the crowd, passed out again, and her retinue gave up, gig over after 3 songs.

the rock/pop world needs more lunatics, i always say. (her natal chart w/o rising sign has major NO IMPULSE CONTROL, a mars/uranus conj. in fire. and other things of that
nature).

the most impressive thing about the best tracks on the album (half of more of it in toto i'd say, and i haven't close to digesting the lesser half yet) is the VARIETY of great vocal sounds. starting with the sound/tone of the vocals in the first place. it's got her handprints all over it, that and the synth/keyboard sounds (which are nearly endless in their variety of tones). ohhhh and whoever is reponsible, some GREAT drum/rhythm sounds.

one cool thing about her songwriting is how well she uses words as SOUNDS, lyrically.
maybe an entire 1/2 of Poker Face is (vocally) just sounds, right.

everything i've read indicates that gaga is completely over the moon/obsessive about songwriting.

the last two britney albums are pretty neat production jobs (from the two or three main producers) but gaga's shit is just two steps beyond, sonically.

which reminds me that someone should take max martin/luke's fucking drum machine away. the current Kelly (Clarkson) hit (which is treadbare enough to begin with, as a song) HAS to have a live non-clicktrack drummer or it's just, c'mon, jeez, it's fucking annoying is what it is.

Email #4, more Jimmy Draper:

there's a LOTTA non-album stuff floating out there by her, btw--a bunch of it weirdly subpar for her, but i'd recommend :

Big Girl Now with New Kids on the block
Fashion on 'Confessions of Shopaholic' soundtrack (orig. she gave it to heidi montag and while heidi has a brilliant "heidi!" thrown in at the intro, gaga;s is better and doesn't sound like she's speaking in tongues like heidi does-- it's basically a novelty tho)
Disco Heaven itunes bonus track
Eh Eh (Pet Shop Boys remix)
Xmas Tree mp3

plus of course she co-wrote Britney's amazing Circus bonus track QUICKSAND with Intersciope producer Fernando Garibay., apparently her other track for brit didnt make it on.(She said she gave a bunch of songs to Britney's team and they claimed 2 of em for her)

and totally yes re: her use of sounds. The "Mah mah mah mah" sound that opens Poker Face is brilliant/makes every gay club ive been in lately pretty much explode

this IS convincing

chuck are you seriously

copying emails to us

This is essentially convincing me that Gaga is a horrible person and I should do everything in my power to ensure I never accidentally give her money.

hold your judgment until you've watched all ten videos, you two

i lol'd @ "makes every gay club i've been in lately pretty much explode."

oops, left out email 1 1/2, fuckfaces:

lady gaga quoting / citing her love of "Swedish Pop" (in at least two audio/TV interviews that are on Youtube) is the chickens coming to roost. her and Max Martin would probably be about 3 too many control freaks in the same mixing room, but it looks inevitable i would say. since she co-writes with everyone/anyone who's producing, Max ditto as a writer, that is probably a far less volatile combination.

the best song (and her favorite, and all my friends' favorite or 2nd favorite) on the gaga album, Papparazzi, is the pop-culture song Redd Kross were trying/hoping to write for (a) decade(s) and never got it done. and it works (lyrically) on about 3 levels (of interpretation) where the McDonald brothers had trouble just getting Level 1 to the finish line. not that Bubblegum Factory isn't a classic, tho out of place out of time for the late 80's hair-metal era.

without orig drummer Ron Reyes/Chavo though, they could never rock the early songs for shit (after the fact) (last year's gigs all over youtube, ditto) after summer 1980. (the little 12 year old drummer they had with the brief 5-piece of DEZ/gr CHET LEHRER (future wasted youth leader/lp, and Lucky circle jerks' brother)/2nd gtr, was just fine though. best fucking 12 song - 14 minute set i ever saw by a "name band" (at the Fleetwood, right after we played our 4th bill slot on the 5 band bill) (jack TSOL's first band Vicious Circle was the 5th band).

oh thanks, now im convinced

We are the crowd,
We're c-coming out
Got my flash on it's true
Need that picture of you
It's so magical
We'd be so fantastical

Leather and jeans a watch on my wrist,
Not sure what it means,
But this photo of us
It don't have a price
Ready for those flashing lights,
Cause you know that baby i

Im your biggest fan
I'll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi,
Baby there's no other superstar
You know that i'll be your
Papa-paparazzi

Promise i'll be kind,
But i won't stop until that boy is mine
Baby you'll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi

I'll be your girl
Backstage at your show,
Velvet ropes and guitars,
Yeah cause you'll know
I'm staring between the sets
Eyeliner and cigarettes

Shadow is burnt
Yellow dance and return
My lashes are dry
But with teardrops I cry
It don't have a price
Loving you is cherry pie
'Cause you know that baby I

Im your biggest fan
I'll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi,
Baby there's no other superstar
You know that i'll be your
Papa-paparazzi

Promise i'll be kind,
But i won't stop until that boy is mine
Baby you'll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi

Real good
(We dance in the studio)
Snap, snapped
(That xxxx on the radio)

Don't stop boy, rewind
We'll blast it but we'll still have fun!

Im your biggest fan
I'll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi,
Baby there's no other superstar
You know that i'll be your
Papa-paparazzi

Promise i'll be kind,
But i won't stop until that boy is mine
Baby you'll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi

lol

Had she been taking Kanye-pills when this was written?

i believe that is the song redd kross were writing for 1. years and 2. never got it 3. done

fuckfaces

(that said, I never liked Redd Kross so yeah, maybe this is 3 times as deep as anything they came up with, I wouldn't know)

This is essentially convincing me that Gaga is a horrible person and I should do everything in my power to ensure I never accidentally give her money.

― Wes HI DEREson (HI DERE), Wednesday, March 18, 2009 3:52 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

completely otm

re-edited 'just dance' vid based on sequence from my 08 mix - 2nd half with the Moby/Kris Menace is best (and made me like her/this track's vocals much more)

i was just reading an old metal mike saunders review of demons and wizards by uriah heep and he called them PUNK rock

i dont get it — we're supposed to celebrate her for being an ex cokehead who can't get thru a show? she's just as subversive as 'this one time i kissed a girl' katy perry, which is to say, not subversive at all. and the fact, like perry, that she plays up her DARING image makes it even worse

also all her songs sound exactly the same. idk why anyone would need anything from her beyond "just dance"

yes, but at 4:35 "i love swedish pop music" (german TV interview)

this does have the ring of truth tho:
the most impressive thing about the best tracks on the album (half of more of it in toto i'd say, and i haven't close to digesting the lesser half yet) is the VARIETY of great vocal sounds. starting with the sound/tone of the vocals in the first place. it's got her handprints all over it, that and the synth/keyboard sounds (which are nearly endless in their variety of tones). ohhhh and whoever is reponsible, some GREAT drum/rhythm sounds.

one cool thing about her songwriting is how well she uses words as SOUNDS, lyrically.
maybe an entire 1/2 of Poker Face is (vocally) just sounds, right.

maybe an entire 1/2 of Poker Face is (vocally) just sounds, right.

the thing is, this is exactly what I hate about "Poker Face"

oh that's actually what i love about it.

and i think if she kept her trap shut, people wouldn't find her so obnoxious. just some basement production dance trax, is all i hear.

i've still never heard her speak. maybe i should keep it that way?

the uriah heep review was from like 72! or maybe even 71 but yeah i didn't know ppl used that term that early on.

i am talking about uriah heep in a lady gaga thread, what happened to me?

xp -- yeah. seems like her whole "i'm an artist" routine is excrutiating and embarrassing

i am talking about uriah heep in a lady gaga thread, what happened to me?

It means you're on ILM, what else did you expect?

Yeah my big mistake re Lady Gaga was to read her press release before I listened to "Just Dance" - it put me of her from the very start.

Same mistake I made with Vivian Girls. I saw that awful, awful bathtub interview and immediately wrote them off. Heard the album at a friend's over the weekend and actually liked it!

i am talking about uriah heep in a lady gaga thread, what happened to me?

It means you're on ILM, what else did you expect?

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, March 18, 2009 9:25 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave etc etc

First time I saw Lady Gaga I thought she was some Russian Eurovision type and was thinking "well, good for you".
When I realised she was yer bog standard American popstar with shitloads of cash behind her I lost interest. I really try not to let marketing etc of an act affect how I hear it, but this is SO MUCH marketing it dictates the style of the music, the bored singing style, everything.

and i think if she kept her trap shut, people wouldn't find her so obnoxious. just some basement production dance trax, is all i hear.

Basically this otm.

Gaga's schtick basically seems to be that she is smarter than the eurodisco she's peddling which makes it ironic which makes it popart and not pop. What do I mean when I say she is smarter? I mean she keeps fucking telling us that she is smarter. This is the only distinction between Lady Gaga and Basshunter.

xp -- yeah. seems like her whole "i'm an artist" routine is excrutiating and embarrassing

and so unsubtle - like, she doesn't even pretend to say "arty" things, she just comes out and literally says things like "THIS IS ART I'M AN ARTIST".

also her music sux too - not plumbing any particular depths or anything, but just blah reheated electro of no consequence whatsoever

"metal" mike

fuck music imo

shit is a lost cause, evacuate

tru dat

Basshunter plays DoTA though. More geek cred than Gaga.

chuck are you seriously

.......

copying emails to us

― roxymuzak

haha

no one will be shocked that i find her music dreadful, personally, although even i can't deny the fundamental catchiness of "just dance." but i do find her a fascinating figure for a number of reasons:
* her upper-class NYC background, not typically a spawning ground for female pop stars, at least not recently
* her imaging a la terry richardson/american apparel -- surely the last step in the full-blown mainstreaming of the last night's party aesthetic?
* her chart successes-- call me cynical but i can only imagine that the record company threw a ton of money at this project, and for whatever it's worth (quite a lot to them), it worked wonders

and finally i'm intrigued by this fetishization of the "club," something that's been going on since fiddy's "in da club" and right through any number of recent top 40 songs i can't recall now whose principal theme is getting down and dirty in the dance club. why the club? why is gaga so intent upon casting herself as a "dance" artist? it all seems to go hand in hand with the TMZ-style obsession with celebs' drunken shenanigans (which seems to have hit peaked w/ the antics of paris and her coterie, as far as i can tell); there's this fantasy of the club as a zone of total promiscuity and permissiveness (cf, again, last night's party). in many ways it's not that different from the fetishization of the club/party in house and techno, of course (berghain's rep for licentiousness, etc.), and yet in its pop incarnation it strikes me as... just this free-floating signifier, a purely speculative expression....

tim, i'm sure you have something to say on this subject, and better phrased than my half-awake mumbling.

actually think 'Poker Face' sounds quite weird for a big pop song - feels like a plus

weird only if you hasn't heard 'don't stop the music' or 'disturbia' or [insert any dancepop hit from past 2 years here]

*hadn't

maybe if novelty has a very fast metabolic breakdown in your system.

weird only if you hasn't heard 'don't stop the music' or 'disturbia' or [insert any dancepop hit from past 2 years here]

no i've heard those and i think there is a difference - a couple of elements on the LG track seem odder than any Rihanna thing. a better comparison would be with Danja's Britney stuff but particularly the stuff they probably thought would be 'too weird' to release as a single. 'Poker Face' chorus is totally ordinary tho, it's just other things going on around it.

uhh what elements? seriously, the britney album? i think gaga has managed to fool you :(

More Metal Mike, buried in another email (which yeah, I'm copying. Thanks for noticing):

so far, 1 ex GF, and two merch-help people, ages 20 through 38 who all are big on 4/4 4-to-the-floor 80's dance music, LOVE the album beyond description. on any kind of decent loud stereo (or in a car) it is a pounder.

my favorite part of its sound/production is that it has my favorite "cool synth noises" by about ten miles. if there's ever been anything else like them, ever, i'd sure like to know what they are. she's doing them with a sort of "excitement level" (for want of a better phrase) that's akin to how guys used to crank it up playing rock-guitar.

i also dig that the album/gaga is bringing out the "pop music haters" and making them crazy. hahaha sorry all you music-hippies, her lyrics (the best ones) are awesome.

But anyway, I never said I agree with him. (Just said he's "slowly starting to convince me that Lady Gaga might not be as horrible as I thought", hardly a ringing endorsement.) My reaction to her has so far been mostly negative (wrote a short screed to that effect on Idolator last year), but I have a feeling what's bugged me has been a lot more her clearly annoying schtick and marketing than her music. (The quasi-decadent cleverer-than-Eurodisco pop-art routine actually reminds me a lot of electroclash from a few years ago, as does the blankness of her voice sometimes -- amazed nobody's made that comparison here. She's just gotten bigger than electroclash ever was.)

But it's possible the schtick is making everybody (including me) underrate the music. I think part of Mike's point is that high-energy Eurodisco-like dance music never really hits in the States anymore. She sure doesn't sound much like Rihanna to me. As for the precedents for her particular synths sounds (or "basement production dance trax," whatever), now I'm curious, too. (I'm no expert on current dance music, so I don't doubt that they're out there.)