Lady Gaga, Pussycat Dolls and a Taxonomy of Vacuous Pop

http://www.leona-lewis.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/leona-lewis-sydney.jpg

:(

this is a much better look on leona
http://cm1.theinsider.com/media/0/69/53/leona-lewis.0.0.0x0.428x419.jpeg

I think a lot of what is so infuriating about Gaga is that no matter how otherwise pretentious she is, that her music itself is far in the other direction of being totally workaday. If she could at least stick to one extreme, she would be more ignorable.

looks more like makeup than fake tan to me but i'm not an expert

stripped is a pretty amazing album imo. needs a poll at some point.

i can't decide whether i'd rather gaga's music lived up to the image or whether her rhetoric lived down to the music.

My dislike of Gaga has lessened somewhat since I realised the following:

a) I really like Cascada's very gagaist "Evacuate the Dancefloor"; and

b) Few if any people actually appear to swallow her schtick wholeheartedly;

c) Only the disco stick song actively annoys me when it comes on the radio now.

If I ignore her copy she's basically just Dannii with a better hit rate?

She seems less of a "problem" in this regard than most other leading lights of nu pop. I'm much more likely to read something disagreeable in a Daniel Merriweather review than I am in a Gaga review.

The other issue - and why Dannii is a relevant point of comparison here - is rule 5 of my taxonomy, namely that persistence is its own reward in the realm of camp pop. Each time Gaga pulls off some truly horrifying photoshoot, sh's actually wearing down your (or at least my) resistance so that next time you're (i'm) more likely to laugh with her rather than sneer at her.

I disliked Gaga from the moment I read the press-release accompanying my for-review copy of "Just Dance". But it's a truism to note that simply by hanging around and getting noticed and talked about, artists tend to seem less and less defined by their stage-managed debutante presentation over time, regardless of how much they try to shore it up.; One doesn't need to backlash against gaga so strongly now that the idea of gaga-backlash is engrained into her public image so unmistakeably.

as i've said elsewhere, my resistance to gaga is on the verge of crumbling. it hasn't yet - thx for reminding me about "disco stick"! - but apparently i danced to "poker face" at a wedding last wkend :(

i mean, partially or even largely this can be put down to the regrettable rise of much worse people, la cunting roux. after dealing with elly jackson i find i have very little hatred left over for anyone else. except dan black, who thankfully hasn't become successful enough to annoy on a daily basis.

i don't get cascada at all tho. i don't hate it but i can't imagine having strong feelings, or ANY feelings, about it.

it's easy to dance to music you don't like if it has a strong beat. I have danced to flo rida's "right round" on more than one occasion and I think that song is stupid as balls

I like her a lot on the Wale song

'evacuate the dancefloor' is so great

Cascada's very gagaist "Evacuate the Dancefloor"

awesome.

I look forward to the Bonzo Dog Gaga band.

fucking leona lewis' tan is like, vomit inducing

― surm, Sunday, 20 September 2009 18:51 (Yesterday) Bookmark

Ummm... doesn't she have naturally tanned skin, also known as being a black woman?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne2kRxUwndo

If you ignore the fucking ridiculous thing on her head, this performance is fantastic. I'm still not entirely convinced by the song but I am more convinced than ever that she's got some serious talent, which kind of makes how annoying she is even worse (ha, it's the "Kanye Effect").

omg cannot believe i watched almost 1.5 parts of 3 part lady gaga interview where she says fame is a thing u can get and i got it like paris hilton did - its a pretty tedious pov

she seems to think shes pimped some deep understanding of the mechanisms of fame - but its more like wow look how crazy that girl is dressed o hey this song is stuck in my head isnt it

Ummm... doesn't she have naturally tanned skin, also known as being a black woman?

― Samuel (a hoy hoy), Monday, 21 September 2009 12:53 (1 hour ago) Permalink

ummm, i know the difference between being black and having gross chemicals on your skin. thanks.

also lex, i think there was a poll on stripped! didn't dan start it?

anyway i think everyone gives gaga too much credit with all the buzz. it's like, that's what she wants...

she's just a talented, annoying pop star.

agreed completely, minus the talented part

idk she is definitely "talented" on a basic "can hit notes, write hooks" level, esp compared with the fucking amateurs we endure in the UK who can do none of those things, LA ROUX.

i think she's talented but is not translating that talent into songs i can stand

^^^^^ this

I heard a disco remix of "Paparazzi" on Saturday that was really, really great and just made me even more annoyed and irritated with the original.

cad otm

I just saw that MTV awards performance she did. It was really affecting because of all the costumes and because it's basically melodrama. Her voice wasn't very controlled, but she's moving around a lot. You don't really notice because of all the stagework, though. The shakiness almost made the whole thing seem more dramatic.

That's the only thing I've ever heard her do, though, except the disco stick song. This one, this paparazzi song, was okay. If I had a recording of that performance I would not listen to it.

Wait wait. I just remembered that I wasn't really posting to share my opinion, but that I wrote to ask what people thought of that performance.

Paparazzi is such a beautiful song. video's pretty good too, it turns out.

the VMAs were for me at least the first time she's edged into more entertaining than merely annoying territory

http://www.bollywood91.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/lady-gaga-vma-pictures.jpg

bottom right pic is Goldfrapp meets KISS

I love that term "Gagaist."

i'm pretty much obsessed with these gaga mind control articles

http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=2614

good lookin from this guy

http://vigilantcitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/30761512.jpg

i think i kinda like "poker face" now. stuck in my head so much :/

it's never quite satisfactory when i listen though, her voice is so flat and that bluffing with my muffin rap needs to die forever

"bad romance" is MASSIVE

A Taxonomy of Vorpal Jabberwock

xpost

"Bad Romance" is great, and as I care about her less for no particular reason I become more comfortable with "Paparazzi" being just-plain-awesome.

Here Lex, I'm sure you'll just love Chris Daughtry's rendition, which gets rid of the "bluffin/muffin" bit, thus making it perfect and very enjoyable to listen to. Really. Go ahead. Click it and see for yourself.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/t90dFkM9acg&hl=en&fs=1&";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/t90dFkM9acg&hl=en&fs=1&"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Show formatting help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t90dFkM9acg

those articles are blowing my miiiind.

what are they about? i don't have the patience to read them.

paparazzi is still giving me chills.

i basically refuse to listen to any of her newer singles out of fear that i might like them

lol

that stuffed animal dress on her is fucking gorgeous

reminds me of an awesome outfit i saw in vogue last month, with a top made out of beautiful little stuffed leopards.

She's more competent as a songwriter than most people would like to admit, right? I kinda like that song she wrote for Michael Bolton.

i love those articles

References to mind control, to secret societies, to Baphomet and to Metropolis are too widespread to be coincidences or results of artistic expression. There is an obvious media campaign pushing these elements into pop culture. What should we do about it? MTV says: Just dance.

was it someone here who showed me this comparison between roisin and gaga? http://idolator.com/5263432/roisin-murphy-knows-that-lady-gagas-imitation-is-in-fact-flattery kinda funny

The truth is somehow both weirder and more mind-boggling mundane than I ever thought.

I'm gonna bump this thread and leave it for my SisX0r to read and be amused be.

Yesterday the news went around that Irish dance innovator Roisin Murphy had called out the steamroller that is Lady GaGa for ripping off her style

lol

I didn't know Roisin was into Riverdance.