Lady Gaga, Pussycat Dolls and a Taxonomy of Vacuous Pop

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").

(see also stuff like Underworld's "Two Months Off" or "David" by Gus Gus)

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.

yes. this sort of posturing lost its meaning a long time ago, and I'm surprised how much the pop music machine thinks it can get away with saying "lol aren't the icons we're pushing upon you such hedonistic, out-of-touch bastards, doesn't it just make you sick." I mean, I know the public has basically said it loves this kind of shit, but how much more can it take before it gets bored and maybe a bit ticked off?

although I do kind of have to say kudos to them for finding an iteration of Paris Hilton who can carry a tune

xhuxk do you believe Lady Gaga has yet reached the same brilliant artistic caliber of Brooks & Dunn?

curt1s he's established that he's not a big gaga fan he's just sharing metal mike's filibuster

yeah sorry

hasty zingz

I like brooks & dunn btw

and xhuxk of course

not sure why people bother to try and zing his championing of non-canonical acts when his unwillingness to prune c+ps and defensive oversharing of how little he's willing to look up about an act he's dismissing seems a lot more annoying.

yes one thing this board needs more of is detailed arguing on how we can make fun of each other more effectively

if someone was writing "lol u like the cure" on this thread I'd do the same for you

Not all music listening is a research project, for crissakes, Miccio. And I would have editing Metal Mike's rambling down more if the Voice was still paying me to do so. But who cares -- I just put on A Split Second's 1993 Vengeance C.O.D. CD for the first time in years, and it's great. I like Belgian nu-beat circa 1982; have no real problem with somebody warming it over now, though I wish Gaga (and Furtado) sounded more Belgian. Have to thank Hi Dere for making the comparison though.

no one's saying you have to research to listen, chuck.

No, just to talk.

surprised such an easy target has such a huge thread... i mean no one really takes her seriously except for the teenage girls and homos she's targetting anyway.

i don't get how she can be praised for using 'cool synth sounds' when her two big singles utilize literally the exact same synth sound. also, and i know this is stupid seeing as we're all arguing with disembodied emails, i'd like to know why "poker face" is necessary after "just dance".

i think there are way more homos against her and straights for her than vice versa on this thread (and in xhuxk's inbox)

xpost

surprised such an easy target has such a huge thread... i mean no one really takes her seriously except for the teenage girls and homos she's targetting anyway.

― fauxmarc, Thursday, March 19, 2009 11:10 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

this is true for like kimya dawson post-juno, gaga's one of the two or three biggest pop stars atm right now

though I wish Gaga (and Furtado) sounded more Belgian

did you ever hear Girls Aloud's 'The Show'?

they ARE different, jordan. and i don't think just dance is as solid as you think it is.

i mean no one really takes her seriously except for the teenage girls and homos she's targetting anyway.

― fauxmarc, Thursday, March 19, 2009 12:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this statement makes me feel weird

Basically, all of that stuff was all over rave/dance music in the early 90s, started leaking into pop via crossovers like Snap! and Bizarre Inc, then detoured into hip-hop via Eminem/D-12 in the early 00s. I feel like it's been inescapable in pop music since 2004/2005, so I really don't get how or why people are saying they've never heard anything quite like it before. (ESPECIALLY when Rihanna AKA the singer who does "Umbrella"/"Don't Stop The Music"/"Disturbia" is so omnipresent)

And yeah, "Poker Face" is different from "Just Dance" in that "JD" is a decent enough song and "PF" is fucking horrible.

rong

i don't really hear Don't Stop the Music in these 2 songs at all either

another thing w/ her is that her annoyingness is manifested at least once in both singles, each time ruining or almost ruining a pretty good song. the puh-puh-poker face part in "poker face" is so horrifying and as much as i love "just dance" the bridge is unlistenable

it's far more stripped down xp

the puh-puh-poker face part in "poker face" is so horrifying

nope

I don't mind songs that are barely songs if there's something else about them I find engaging, whether it be the foundational beat, the arrangement, some weird sound effect, or, you know, ANYTHING. "Poker Face" is a warmed over retread of "Just Dance" with most of the singing (aka the best part of "Just Dance") taken out and replaced with some of the most irritating bullshit on the airwaves since whatever Chris Brown's last single was.

"just dance" is great, as i said on this thread earlier, to me because it breaks free of the trappings youd imagine youd find in a synth-pop song in 2008. its synth is huge and identifiable and lyrically it's as graphic and vivid as anything on the radio. "poker face" on the other hand uses nearly the same synth sound as "just dance" and is also pretty lame lyrically, esp. in the chorus

it sounds pretty ordinary to me

JD

the one good thing about it is the "i love this record baby" line

Poker Face is a pretty decent single. Its just Lady Gaga that I think is a BAD THING FOR MUSIC. Also Xenomania.

Chris Brown's last single was Superhuman fyi

agree totally w/ Surm's last few posts abt that song

I'm usually not a huge lyrics guy but the whole "I'm fucking blasted; maybe if I keep dancing everything will be okay" narrative trumps "uh, I wanna hump this guy... POKER FACE!"

the 1st line in poker face is so good it hurts

Yeah, I actually kinda like this stuff when I hear it on the radio but I don't really listen to the radio all that much so I don't really get hung up on overplay fatigue with this stuff. Its the way its being framed that pisses me off and I suppose its a bit like guys on Vampire Weekend thread frothing about Pitch4k reviews.