When “Poker Face” first came out, it was “featured” on last.fm so I watched it. I thought it was really well-produced with a great video, but found the music itself totally bland and lacking any personality or redeeming value. Now, I’ve watched Lady Gaga reach impressive heights of adulation and ubiquity in a very short amount of time and accidentally read about her in publications from Rolling Stone to the New Yorker and been subjected to the ill-advised semi-nudity of many imitators in bubble costumes this Halloween. After the continuous unrelenting all-media onslaught of promotion I have broken down and am listening to her entire album. I’m giving it a good try, three or four spins. And damned if it still does not sound like well-produced but essentially soulless, pointless and often melodyless eastern european 80s pop.
Lady Gaga: The formula seems to be Lite Fetish + Thierry Mugler + Sunglasses – Pants
I do love some of her outfits, I like her videos, I guess her dancing is ok. But it’s not like she designed the outfits, did she? Her fashion is fun but still not as creative or unexpected as Bjork in her heyday. Her videos don’t really go with her songs and I’m sorry to beat a dead horse but the degree to which the dance routine in the “Bad Romance” video rips off and does not pull off the “Thriller” zombie dance is just….. well.
Bjork: Still awesome over the decades.
So I ask you why? Why is she so popular? Is it just her clothes? Are we so starved for entertainment as a culture that we’ll listen to absolutely anything if it’s forced on us enough? Is it her aesthetic closeness to a cartoon character that makes her easy to understand and mentally digest? Is there something about her actual music that I am missing? I’m bewildered.
December 11th, 2009 - 12:56 am
Thank you. I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve tried really hard to like the superhighlyOMGacclaimed “Bad Romance” video, but all it is to me is a great many cut-to-this-outfit edits with some CGI teases over a song that can’t tell where it really wants to go.
She’s managed to cement herself as an ‘image’, but your comparison to Bjork is key.
December 11th, 2009 - 10:05 am
IDK, but I kind of love her. I couldn’t stand that shitty overplayed “Just Dance” crap, but Bad Romance and Paparazzi are catchy, and having listened to a few of her acoustic performances, she actually does seem to have a bit of talent somewhere under all the overproduced stuff.
I don’t pretend to have any actual taste, though.
December 11th, 2009 - 10:25 am
I have mixed feelings. I thought she was pretty annoying at first, and can’t stand her early (i.e. mid-2009) hits like Just Dance, Pokerface, Love Game (is that even the title?), etc. But her fashion sense is starting to grow on me, because I think she is at least doing it earnestly rather than faking it in a sexy-Britney kinda way. Also, I really love the song Paparazzi. Can’t help it. And I enjoy Bad Romance, particularly the techno version of it I heard at the Gomorrah reunion. The video is way overhyped, though, and yeah, badly Thriller-esque.
I don’t for the life of me know why she’s so popular, though. And I agree 100% that she’s nowhere near the awesomeness of Bjork.
December 11th, 2009 - 7:51 pm
The songs seem catchy in the same way all generic 80s europop is catchy. There just doesn’t seem to be any “meat” or musicality to any of it.
Rachellll, I’m glad someone else can see the Thriller homage because I have been given blank looks for bringing that up. KIDS TODAY.
As for Paparazzi, I maintain that it is, note for note, a Gwen Stefani song. Indeed, when I first heard it, I wondered how I’d missed Gwen Stefani having a new single and Gwen Stefani simultaneously losing her wicked bounce and winking vocal sparkle. The lyrics are nonsensical and the idea of someone who has been famous for about fifteen minutes writing a song called “Paparazzi” causes a withering eyebrow raise from me. I do like the Hollywood mugging for the mugshot photos at the end and am disappointed more was not done with that part of the concept–after all, crime and destruction of physical and social boundaries are the quickest ways to get really famous, from Jeffrey Dahmer to Tiger Woods.
December 12th, 2009 - 2:43 am
This is great. The main issue I have with Gaga is the huge, outrageous image doesn’t match the generic music. I like Bad Romance because finally the song is quite epic like the video. Horrid dancing aside, the other thing I had trouble with was the way her videos always told such a drastically different story to the song. Bad Romance does this too (song is about wanting a guy who doesn’t love her to love her no matter how F’d up they’ll be together whereas the video is apparently about sex trafficking…) but for some reason it works better than, say, Paparazzi the song being about an obsession with a famous person and the video being about a famous man attempting to kill his girlfriend before she kills him. The whole thing is confusing!!
December 12th, 2009 - 10:09 am
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I have been in a state of perpetual confusion for some time as people all around me seem to be obsessed with Lady Gaga. The Bad Romance video seems nothing more than an attempt to mash together elements of other peoples work, hoping to appear so avant garde that people will only continue to believe that Lady Gaga is a work of God.
I am also put off by the presence of random product placement in the video. Multiple computers with headphones resting on them, quite clearly being the “Beats by Dre” headphones. I believe other products were placed through out the video, but the Beats by Dre headphones featured alongside sales figures of Lada Gaga albums or whatever it was. I feel like I’m expected to view this video as original and experimental, but then I see product placement and feel that this is no more than a ton of money being thrown at creating a video that simply appears to be more than it is.
May 12th, 2010 - 6:13 pm
Ugh. Her music is crap and without diamond precise production would be even crappier.
You are so correct on all accounts.
And yes, the only way she has risen is thru marketing, marketing, marketing and the almighty dollar. If the music companies decide they want someone to rise and for the masses to bite they will sink so much cash into pushing that crap out of all speakers, getting all over the tv, the streets, the billboards, the magazines.
Generic people love generic music and whatever is in front of their little dumb cow faces, mooooo. They eat it up. Buy me one daddy!!