Lady Gaga, Pussycat Dolls and a Taxonomy of Vacuous Pop

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.)

I have never listened to Lady Gaga and thought she was doing anything remotely new or exciting.

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.

― Hard House SugBanton (blueski), Thursday, March 19, 2009 8:18 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i feel this. it sounds very ordinary and very odd at the same time. like i hear the drum machine and the basic production but i also hear weird nuances that sound like someone was having some stoned fun with effects. and it kind of sends chills down my spine, which i know is a gag-worthy comment.

i also really like how the chorus vox are so much more expansive and heavy than the verses'.

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.)

All I said is that all of this is having the exact opposite effect on me; it's making me like her less and I didn't like her that much to begin with.

Also, having not heard her album, I'm hesitant to call her "high-energy" since her two radio hits are 119 bpm.

fwiw the elements that struck me as relatively "weird" sounding were the murky-sounding looped one-note synth detail that comes in after 8 seconds (a lower version of what you're already hearing- it makes me think the video should involve submarines), some of the backing vocals (taking their cue from 'Gimme More') and Gaga's affected low notes (not really camp but aiming for the same kind of warped mania as say Roisin's 'Ramalama (Bang Bang) - nowhere near as good as that but it works well enough). i guess my point is it reminds me of these much better tracks but i'm not seeing this as a bad thing.

i feel this. it sounds very ordinary and very odd at the same time. like i hear the drum machine and the basic production but i also hear weird nuances that sound like someone was having some stoned fun with effects.

^^ yeah this is one of the things that producers seem to be struggling with these days, doing this sort of thing right. I'm all about the cool synths and fucked-up druggy effects, but it seems like everyone currently producing music who likes these things makes a) dreadful spastic amelodic hook-free indie-electro or b) dreadful cluttered amelodic hook-free top 40 a la Lady Gaga. ("JUST. DANCE." is not a hook in 2009 ok? It just sounds like you were too lazy to think up good lyrics).

right now mainstream rap is the only genre I've found that utilizes the elements I like properly, but I'm worried that its top 40 side is going down the same unfortunate path as Lady Gaga et al (see: Flo Rida "Right Round")

"JUST. DANCE." is not a hook in 2009 ok? It just sounds like you were too lazy to think up good lyrics

no worse than Britney's "Gimme gimme more gimme more gimme gimme more" really (better tho that track is)

agree that 'Right Round' is awful tho

definitely worse than gimme more imo

TS: "JUST. DANCE." vs "PUH-PUH-PUH-POKER FACE PUH-PUH-POKER FACE"

vs "UMBERELLA-ELLA-ELLA AY AY AY"

I'm hesitant to call her "high-energy" since her two radio hits are 119 bpm.

Yeah, that's why I didn't spell it "Hi NRG." I mean, she clearly has energy (and her beats do too), even if they might not get played on anybody's 12 Noon Aerobics Show like Evelyn Thomas or Miquel Brown or Pamala Stanley used to. She's hardly mellow.

i just find the latter quite amusing ("Pukka face? wtf?") and not particularly annoying (the "MOMOMOMO" after it helps) xposts

Just Dance just doesn't strike me as exceptional in any way. it's not bad, but it doesn't get me excited.

dan plz transcribe the lyrics to "caterpillar girl"

vs "KUHTA-KUHTA-KUHTA-KUHTA-KUHTA-KUHTA-KUHTA-KUHTA-CATERPILLER GIRL"

I think that's the thing about "Poker Face" that irritates me so much; the chorus is decent but most of the song reeks of budget "Umbrella", and I don't actually like "Umbrella".

xhuxk, i'm still not convinced either, but i'm on the fence. can metal mike work in a comparison to the new york dolls? i think that would make me like her.

i don't hear Umbrella in Poker Face at all, and the rihanna references in general are lost on me ::shrugs::

i can see the comparison with 'Disturbia' because they're songs with same aims and palette (but 'Poker Face' is the more twisted variation - maybe even a better song overall? didn't really like 'Disturbia')

true i didn't think of Disturbia

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.

Heavy HEAVY lols if Metal Mike thinks the Lex is a pop music hater. Will he seize up if he learns the truth?

or any of us, I feel like Lady Gaga is more offensive to people who really LOVE pop music.

so if i'm not offended, i don't really LOVE pop music?

proved by LOGIC

oh come on now, if I though anybody actually listened to anything I said on this board I just wouldn't post. But her "this is fashion this is art" bs just seems really condescending to pop music, like she's being ultra clever and intertextual and using pop music as this culture she can act out her Downtown '82 fantasies with. This bs rarely flies with me because it just seems so condescending, like it wants to have its cake and eat it, the giddy thrills of pop music but the respectability of being OMG TOTALLY AVANT or whatevs. Like Surmounter I think pointed out, Blackout was way more twisted and arty than this but we didn't have Britney mouthing off about deconstructivist pop music. Like, bonkers pop music has always existed and her acting like she's some post-ironic take on it while really sounding fairly conventional is both 0_o and annoying at the same time and my face isn't able to contort into an expression that communicates my reaction to this silliness.

How dare you hate pop, you hippie.

¯\(°_o)/¯

the moral is 'show don't tell'

well, yeah

I mean srsly, if your idea of being a serious artist is running around without wearing pants, you might need to get a couple of new ideas.

^^^

the moral is also 'lady gaga has done too many drugs'

altho i love some of her hot "pants" outfits

I think the overcoked ego thing is pretty much to blame.

Still waitng for somebody to pinpoint what the precedents for her synth sounds are, btw. (There must be lots, seeing how she's doing nothing new and all.)

NOW IT'S ON

SNL's Deep House Dish

Her synth sounds are all warmed over Belgian nu-beat circa 1992 (specifically thinking the Praga Khan axis, but also stuff like A Split Second); these same sounds have been all over major pop records for several years (the most ILMesque predecessor probably being Nelly Furtado's "Maneater").