Lady Gaga needs her own thread

the song? is fucking way more awesome than single ladies or hard, and one of my favorite songs of the year, definitely.

she can't dance, she can't act and she has those cold dead eyes but she has written some great songs (although, i don't think this is one of them). the thing that really irritates me about her is her complete lack of style, only a kind of desperation to have an effect and she's do anything to have some kind of impact. this is her at her most desperate - smoking cigarette shades? it doesn't even make any sense.

― jed_, Monday, March 15, 2010 2:26 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

i actually disagree with this whole post. i think she dances well enough for her videos, i think her cold, dead style of acting is appropriate for the music and her style, which i think she has a lot of, however stupid it may seem at times.

the song? is fucking way more awesome than single ladies

ok now that's nonsense

"hard" isn't in nearly the same league as "single ladies" or "bad romance" or those other songs you mentioned. otherwise dope post plax

i think i pretty much agree 100% with your take on her surm, but I saw a clip of her on Jonathan Ross, and she was talking abt how her shows are really extravagant, but that at the end of it she really just wanted the spectacle to be a catalyst for coming to the show and meeting other ppl, that she was kindof initiating a scene more than being the focal point for one. I mean you can say its horseshit, but its a nice idea nonetheless, and it kinda resonates with the amt of gay teens i saw that dressed up as her for halloween last year. I mean her message is a positive one, just not a partic radical one.

xxp yea let's dance to single ladies with a bunch of women on the dance floor and get our hands up in the air ONE MORE TIME shall we

i understand the validity of some of her ideas, plax, definitely - but i think stating tjat you value her self-fulfilling, after-school-special ideas on pop art above the songs she's penned is more wrong than anything else.

haha i def see ur point, and yeah I wouldn't have any interest in what she says at all if i didn't think that she's released some great songs, also I know ur a bigger fan than I am so

she can't act

The stilted line deliveries in the Telephone vid are intentional, I would think.

they are

well, plax, i think the main difference between u and me is that i do actually think most of the songs on "fame monster" approach the next-level brilliance of Break The Ice.

*approach being the key word

yeah that is probably a big difference between our take then!

"Break The Ice" is kind of boring, though.

says the man who likes LoveGame

guys, be truthful: how genuinely 'weird' or 'arty' is the music of lady gaga

louis

No one said her music was weird or arty; keep up

guys, be truthful: how genuinely 'weird' or 'arty' is the music of lady gaga the cardiacs

those kinda politics dont wash here

try reading the actual thread and responding to what people are saying as opposed to skimming for buzzwords that you can use as a basis for a devastating logistical takedown

sorry, "beatdown"

The stilted line deliveries in the Telephone vid are intentional, I would think.

well, yes. i'm not saying her acting is bad because her delivery is stilted. stilted line delivery and complete lack of emotion can constitute good acting (someone like candy darling being a good example of that) but even on those terms i find it unsuccesful.

i am not trying to take her down, but to me she seems like a popstar who makes normal pop and does weird things, whereas lines like

The whole thing about gaga is that her composition treads the line between weird and incredibly poppy more than most.

seem to give undue credit to her musical range

but yeah, proceed, it's not my place to call you guys. lette the mynne talke of gagge

LJ

stop calling
stop calling
I don't wanna talk anymore

lj that sentence you quoted doesn't call the music "weird" per se, it's saying it's on the line b/w weird/arty and poppy. which i'd agree with

hmm, maybe I will have to let lady gaga into my life

i dunno, i wonder how helpful the word "weird" really is this discussion

plax (ico) is so OTM in that earlier post.

guys, be truthful: how genuinely 'weird' or 'arty' is the music of lady gaga

not at all really - the clothes and spectacle just cover up very standard electro-pop, which appeals straight to the Midwest. Hipster Runoff said it best:

"Feel overwhelmed by GaGa mania. I think she really appeals 2 middle america, though. Like she represents something ‘zany’ and ‘glamorous’ that helps ppl disconnect from their real lives’, and gives them an absurd image to lose themselves in."

hmm, maybe I will have to let lady gaga into my life

+1

so, just added to the list of songs i didn't realize were so good: so happy i could die

like, really

also HER VOICE does not get enough mention, tho people recognize that it's the real deal

http://lineout.thestranger.com/lineout/archives/2010/03/15/part-of-the-weekend-never-dies-rendezvous

There's a bunch of assholes dressed in shit costumes inspired by Lady Gaga. I hope this ends soon.

what exactly makes them assholes?

being dressed like Lady Gaga, apparently

I hope this ends soon.

it's not even a thing unless you're looking for it.

Aw I hope innocent drag acts don't start getting accused of being Gaga rips.

for me, the key thing about lady's songs are the way her voice is positioned in the mix -- it's at once huge and small. edited like a club voice, but with the chops of something bigger. fills the track resonantly but keeps up with the beat.

yeah kinda O_o abt ppl thinking gaga shows beyonce up as being safe

― plax (ico), Tuesday, March 16, 2010 12:17 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

I guess I should clarify here - as someone who doesn't keep my finger on the pulse of pop, for all of Beyonce's idiosyncrasies, she still comes off in my mind as pretty safe i.e. it's pretty easy to separate Beyonce the person from Beyonce the persona.

It just seems plain wrong to accept her own rhetoric the way I kinda feel like is happening a little on this thread now.

― plax (ico), Tuesday, March 16, 2010 12:39 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

I think this is OTM in so far as that Gaga's success is predicated upon people buying into her rhetoric, and maybe part of the reason why I have a much harder time humanizing her than with Beyonce.

just got done talking to some students about telephone, lady gaga and beyonce - they seemed to agree that while beyonce can be weird (or whatever descriptor you want to use), beyonce is pretty clear that that weirdness is just one side of her - whereas lady gaga only presents that side of herself, and thus that is the only image we know her by. you could say that beyonce is polychromatic whereas lady gaga is decidedly monochromatic - you can't imagine gaga doing an 'irreplaceable' type vid or song, for example.

i see what you're saying, but following your logic, you would conclude that being polychromatic is to be more safe than being monochromatic, which seems odd.

I don't see the contradiction there - if you know that the weirdness/offbeat/whatevs is just a mask that the performer puts on, it's easier to rationalize as just being 'part of the performance'

yea but you're also saying that lady gaga is more limited than beyonce in the scope of her performance. you can't imagine her doing certain things, but you can imagine beyonce doing pretty much anything, even if it isn't as committed

hmmm.... lady gaga

^^ otm

yeah surm I agree with that - and that makes it easier to separate the persona from the person imo, thus more 'safe'

i've got this mash-up of the choruses and nonsense hooks from "bad romance" and "poker face" that gets in my head on occasion, but i still get bored when i hear either song (seeing is a bit more engaging) and couldn't sing the verses for you.

― da croupier, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 13:00 (10 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

kinda have a pet theory that this is actually something that's subconsciously appealing in all gaga's stuff, some sort of maddening absent centre that's not just down to the whole distracting extraneous pr whirligig but seems to me to be something intrinsic to everything of hers - putting like and dislike aside for a second i'm always quite interested to sit thru any given gaga song again whenever one comes on, just to fill in the gap, and then lose it again. even her face! - i can never really exactly recall what she looks like. it's proper peculiar.

― r|t|c, Thursday, November 19, 2009 7:46 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark

hahah this has happened to me (ra ra ra ah ah ah....CANT READ MY CANT READ MY) and I was thinking something similar along r|t|c's lines - she's some kind of tabula rasa or nonperson, ghostlike maybe, which of course is helped by how many costumes she puts on, her purposeful dead-eyed look, etc. etc. you may also insert the following words in previous sentences: lacuna, decentered

i might come back and defend "speechless" against rtc at some point

the "telephone" video STILL sucks

for me it's the middle that really sucks. i love the beginning, and i can appreciate the dance number at the end. the diner shit + the recipe is retarded, especially when those round pop-up shades show up again, the same ones she wore in paparazzi (on B this time?). get a new schtick.