Why does Lady Gaga get a free pass from hipsters?

i didn't issue it

what we need is a bona fide hipster to answer this question.

You need to get a unicorn, first.

Coz, like, the only way to find a true hipster is to take a unicorn into Shoreditch, and the first person the unicorn lays its head in their lap - that's a true hipster.

is that the same as taking a white wolf to Williamsburg?

By that logic, all hipsters are virgins.

Guys, this is who can provide a definitive answer

gageir hongraga

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max)

Please never do this again, max.

"poker face" and "just dance" are much much better songs (and better suited for the dancefloor, which is key) than fucking "hit me baby one more time" which is music for ten-year-olds.

This is also true... adding "Paparazzi," "Bad Romance," "Alejandro" into the fold as well, all are great.

Does this mean that GaGa has finally received her long-desired hipster pass? Does it come with a gift bag or other free swag? Inquiring minds want to know.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13823-the-fame-monster/

Whatever it means, I like Scott's take on the album.

http://www.41n93w.net/pix/babooshka_gaga.gif

It's because she's from outer space

^^^^^^^^^^ i'd be hard pressed to think of a current female artist who sounded *less* like kate bush than gaga

nicki minaj

Does this mean that GaGa has finally received her long-desired hipster pass? Does it come with a gift bag or other free swag? Inquiring minds want to know.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13823-the-fame-monster/

I like Scott's review, a few minor quibbles aside (for example, the Krusty good/evil switch at the start is rather far fetched, but will resonate with Pfork readership who are used to seeing Gaga as a disposable, "evil" pop star and are now faced with seeing "Bad Romance" and "Paparazzi" in Pfork's Top Tracks of 2009, then a 7.8 rating for her newest EP).

What I found most immediately telling, though, was the blurb on the main Pfork page, which more or less validates Geir Hongro's view that OMG you guys, she is not just a pop star, she is a SONGWRITER, goddamnit!

Lady Gaga's second record, containing "Bad Romance" and "Speechless", finds her coming into her own as both a songwriter and a pop star.

Makes me wonder if the blurb wasn't written by Scott, given that he doesn't mention a damn thing about songwriting in his actual review...

Anyway... The Fame Monster's good listening all around, so I'm glad that Scott may convert a few unfortunate Memory Tapes fans with his review.

but ... she is a songwriter. lol @ 'unfortunate memory tapes fans'

Debussy's Children's Corner was written for a three year old's entertainment fwiw

total masterpiece

serious lolz@the notion of Gaga's songs being musically edgier than britney's though

Still waiting for her hit single featuring glissandi hooks

steve what the hell are you talking about...

thought it was a v fair review, basically agree with the "switch" analogy, just cuz I couldn't stand her before this new EP, which has two songs I love

Which two?

also really don't get how gaga is supposed to be edgier/more dancefloor-oriented than britney. just about anything on blackout works better as dance music, imo. (with the added bonus of being sleazy as hell!)

but she wears cool clothes and has neat videos, yeah.

just about anything on blackout works better as dance music, imo.

That's kindly overlooking her other ~4 or so albums, which mostly work better as music for ten-year-olds.

i mean i can see arguing that lady gaga is more club-friendly but you are either vastly underestimating lots of britney singles or vastly overestimating the difference between them.

i am growing to accept that i live in a world where most people like lady gaga but let's not kid ourselves here.

wtf with this false dichotomy?

That's kindly overlooking her other ~4 or so albums, which mostly work better as music for ten-year-olds.

eh, not really. "toxic" isn't even on blackout and people go nuts to that.

and honestly, who cares? why do we even have to take her whole career into account? can't we just, you know, judge her on best material instead?

call all destoryer otm.

I know 12-year-olds across the country went gaga for "I'm A Slave 4 U".

lol

you guys are arguing with an ilxor who chose the sn 'ilxor'

I guess I just feel bad for brit sometimes... :-/

Everybody should lay off that girl. She's a saint.

you guys are arguing with an ilxor who chose the sn 'ilxor'

Why is this a big deal again?

I know 12-year-olds across the country went gaga for "I'm A Slave 4 U".

Actual huge LOL in the middle of my office workplace. Brilliant job, Dan, I'm impressed.

serious lolz@the notion of Gaga's songs being musically edgier than britney's though

he wrote that? uhhhh

huh

i could understand it if he was praising gaga's sheer force of character over britney's, but britney has traded on the latest hott beats for most of her career - certainly since 2001

Who do you think I'm addressing though?

where did this britney stuff come from?

The first post and then

"poker face" and "just dance" are much much better songs (and better suited for the dancefloor, which is key) than fucking "hit me baby one more time" which is music for ten-year-olds.

i.e. not from Scott's review.

What Scott does say is that Gaga draws from a variety of pop divas including Britney:

"In "Bad Romance" she alters whoever Lady Gaga the Pop Star might be into any number of female types-- at times recalling Britney Spears, Madonna, an Anime character, Angelique, Christina Aguilera, and Amy Winehouse. In that sense, she's a perfect 21st century pop icon-- a regular person willing to manipulate herself into whatever it takes at any given moment to be a star."

...

"Elsewhere on The Fame Monster, she morphs into other stars-- Freddie Mercury on "Speechless", ABBA on "Alejandro", Madonna on "Dance in the Dark", Britney Spears on "Telephone", Kylie Minogue on "Monster", and Christina Aguilera on "Teeth". Yet instead of hopelessly retro, it comes off very modern, in part because U.S. pop and hip-hop is currently drawing heavily from Europop, hi-NRG, and dance music."

Lex if you could control your nausea when clicking on a pitchfork link I reckon you'd find that your and Scott's takes on nu-Gaga are actually very close to one another. Scott's Krusty the Clown opener is basically a variant on your Trojan Horse metaphor - though of course it doesn't imply the sense of strategy which the Trojan Horse model contains.

where did this britney stuff come from?

Well, to quote two passages from today's Pfork review, for starters:

In "Bad Romance" she alters whoever Lady Gaga the Pop Star might be into any number of female types-- at times recalling Britney Spears, Madonna, an Anime character, Angelique, Christina Aguilera, and Amy Winehouse.

Elsewhere on The Fame Monster, she morphs into other stars-- Freddie Mercury on "Speechless", ABBA on "Alejandro", Madonna on "Dance in the Dark", Britney Spears on "Telephone", Kylie Minogue on "Monster", and Christina Aguilera on "Teeth".

(<3 u scottpl!)

Whoops, Tim beat me to it by a minute or so!

I think lex is probably right to at least some extent-- seems at least like a change in opportunity coupled with a need to play safe at the start. Whether she assumed from the first move it would all work out like this or pounced when the time was right are two different things, but not sure it matters much in the end. She was savvy and smart either way.

Don't think many of you give her debut album enough credit; it's not like The Fame Monster is a HUGE leap forward, more like a subtle and effective refining of her modus operandi per se.

isn't the trojan horse a common interpretation at this point? i mean she went on SNL and sat at a piano improvising a bluesy thing - "i used to be a waitress look at me now i heart NYC!" - and lotsa people went oh ok she's a conventional musician, bet she's just doing this pop shit to gain a foothold before expressing herself

As per ilxor, I imagine she's also learning on the job, getting a better sense as time goes on of how to combine the various elements, which haven't really changed so much as become more elegantly (though not less bombastically) intertwined.

e.g. one clever aspect of "Bad Romance" vis a vis its predecessor "Pokerface" is that the lol-u-weird component (the "rah rah" bit) is deployed discretely as a kind of announcement, leaving a chorus that just shines on its own, meaning you can choose which part of the track you will allow to become yr earworm. Whereas with "Pokerface" the "p-p-p-p-p-p-p-po-pokerface" kind of retroactively bleeds into the otherwise harmlessly tuneful chorus that precedes it, making the chorus seem less memorable by comparison but also making the ostentatious (or fauxstentatious) oddness of the stuttering a more invasive proposition, its edge of annoyance made sharper through mental repetition (you can't help but hear it in your head whenever the song is mentioned).

Tim F you always manage to make songs I hate sound so appealing. :P

Ha, I think "Bad Romance" is one of those songs that would for most people teeter on the edge between liking and hating, and then once it falls on either side you either really like it or really hate it.

i'd be hard pressed to think of a current female artist who sounded *less* like kate bush than gaga

but they both crimp their hair!