Lady Gaga needs her own thread

also it's pretty inane to say that madonna's videos didn't help her songs. give me a break.

i mostly agree with Gondry (still waiting to be knocked out by Gaga music-wise) but can't tell if he's saying Madonna's videos were always shit (false...and surely he loved Bedtime Story) or that they (over)compensated for "lack of melodies" or whatever (also false!). i wouldn't expect him to care about videos which lack clever visual tricks and gimmicks anyway.

it just seems like he's not focusing on anything in his commentary

Like I’m not a big fan of Madonna. I respect her very much, but unfortunately the videos didn’t help the music in the long run.

I don't get this. He was a huge fan of Michael Jackson, and even worked with Kylie. On what level are their videos more textured and important? MJ always had the bigger spectacle but Madonna's videos added something to the very meaning and perception of the song itself - Like A Prayer, Open Your Heart, Express Yourself, Deeper and Deeper, Bad Girl, Vogue etc. etc. etc.

yeah it's a completely bizarre argument !

if it's just about music, if u sit on their ass and tell me u don't love any of madonna's two DECADES' worth of classics, ur just flat-out lying

eh, I love lots of madonna's stuff but why does everyone have to?

no reason, of course. besides he doesn't say he doesn't like any of it he says he's not a big fan.

he also isn't making much sense

So music has to find its own way, which is good for the music. It becomes smaller and more alive and it’s not as crazy, except for some R&B. To me, it’s just talking about the surface. I compare it to Marilyn Manson. The music to me is very expected. I don’t think there’s anything in the tone or the melody that makes me say, ‘Oh, there’s something going on.’

what?

he doesn't like it

yea that's pretty much all that makes sense out of all that.

it sounds like all he's saying is "i don't like shock value"

or "i can't see beyond the shock value"

y'all know he says more in the rest of the article, right?

if people ask you things sometimes your answers don't really make much sense or you can't articulate them.

gondry trades in a kind of tweeness on the whole or a cute/surprising effect and, i would guess, doesn't really have an interest in the kind of vulgarity or "shock" that gaga goes for.

xp i think he's implying that like manson, gaga tried to be shocking or whatever but the music is boring so no dice

if people ask you things sometimes your answers don't really make much sense or you can't articulate them.

― jed_, Wednesday, March 17, 2010 6:44 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes, i'm aware of that, thank you for clarifying.

it sounds like all he's saying is "i don't like shock value"

sounds about right to me and that's quite a decent view to hold.

xp np

i completely understand rejecting the pursuit of shock value, but i think sometimes people get caught up in the public reaction to the point that they reject work based on its reactionary aims as opposed to its aims as a piece of work.

the telephone video isn't bad bc it's shocking, it's bad bc it's unfocused.

also, jed, it's interesting that you take up this argument, given the fact that a lot of the performance art and dance you see could be described as work with a shock value agenda (for ex ann liv young). and i think you've agreed in the past that it's important to have these things on the spectrum, to broaden it at large.

the point being made, I think, is that shock without substance is useless

(the argument is happening because no one can agree on what "substance" actually is)

xposts but it is vulgar.

re his answers it's probably more like he's confused that someone is asking him why he's not making a lady gaga video (rather than asking him about his actual work) and doesn't really have a firm answer other than that it's not his thing. he's likely never been asked to do one anyway?

gondry otm

that's true HI DERE.

it's just funny to me. ann liv young is a performance artist who regularly strips naked onstage, sticks guns in her vagina and dryhumps things, yet i distinctly recall you singing her praises, jed. i guess there are a lot of different meanings of "substance"

sur, yes, i agree that ann liv uses shock tactics to achieve some of her ends and sometimes her work is bad if that's all there is to it but in her best work there's a transformative aspect that helps it transcend that technique. i don't think that's the end in itself, plus i find her funny. but i'm not really interested in "shocking" work. if it's good work and it uses that then great.

lady shitshit

actually i think ann liv young is the only performer i've seen and liked that is shocking.

gaydy lala

i'm not surprised he's irritated though, his work is v. subversive and actually "arty" whilst gaga just throws enough money at the wall and lengthens her videos to obscene lengths in the hope that something sticks. i don't think she's actually mastered the video artform at all yet, contrary to popular hype right now.

actually i think ann liv young is the only performer i've seen and liked that is shocking.

― jed_, Wednesday, March 17, 2010 7:04 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what a performer to pick, though. of all people, to me, she seems to be the most obsessed with her audience's reaction. i hesitate to accept the notion that if it makes you uncomfortable, it must be good, which encompasses a lot of her followers.

HI DERE is right, this is a subjective argument. i just don't like to see something discounted purely because it strives to fuck with its audience. there are better reasons. i am actually kind of guilty of this when it comes to ann liv young, insofar i think she pigeonholes herself to some extent.

plus i was genuinely shocked by it!

otoh when i read about her or see videos of her work i think it looks crap.

but the actual shock in "the bagwell in me" is how complex and subtle it is for all its vulgarity.

also it's pretty inane to say that madonna's videos didn't help her songs. give me a break.

"Live to Tell" is a thorn in that song's side, but that's srsly the only one I can think of, and most of that is bcz it is a movie soundtrack video (clips of Sean Penn walking &driving around in the woods looking like a mouthbreather).

i don't know that i've seen that one!

also, the parental sort of association of anything perverse or experimental with marilyn manson is kind of funny at this point

it's a pretty terrible video and kind of highlights everything wrong with Sean Penn

I think one of the things that most characterizes lady gaga for me is that there is a broadness and lack of subtlety to almost everything that exists as an outward manifestation of what she actually does, while at the same time the essence of who she is as a celebrity/artist and the effect her performances seem to have on the public is kind of mysterious. Her lyrics, music, dress, stage sets, videos are all taken to a cartoon level of childishness, yet like with madonna there seems to be a lot more going on beneath the somewhat crass surface. I don't think she is a bad influence on children, because I don't think they or anybody could possibly take her storylines literally, but she does make a strong case for it being ok to be weird/different, which has got to be a good thing. I like that she doesn't conform to standard notions of beauty and glamour.

I've noticed that the whole product placement aspect of the telephone video seems to bother people. The "appropriation without alteration" aspect of it is very interesting, though.

at least among the people I know (mostly very casual music listeners), she is seen as a somewhat refreshing change to the cookie-cutter pop/rnb princesses of the last several years.

she does seem to like the idea of poisoning people....

I find her refreshing just from the standpoint of seeing someone genuinely capable of singing their songs

"Live to Tell" is a thorn in that song's side, but that's srsly the only one I can think of, and most of that is bcz it is a movie soundtrack video (clips of Sean Penn walking &driving around in the woods looking like a mouthbreather).

Well the video was boring as hell, but for the fact she wept away all the crucifixes and bangles and jewelry - that whole Madonnamania look - for the sophisticated image in the video, makes it important, marking the first and most important "re-invention" of her career; which though risky moved her star trajectory into the stratosphere.

Gaga needs to take notes on that if she wants serious longevity.

btw guys the Telephone video is great and I'm totally baffled by the idea that it's not. I mean it's fucking funny! What more can one ask for?

if u sit on their ass and tell me u don't love any of madonna's two DECADES' worth of classics, ur just flat-out lying

you really think madonna made "classics" for more than just one full decade??????

Her career is pretty much unblemished from the standpoint of influence and commercial success from 1982 through 2002; it wasn't until American Life that people started giving her the stinkeye

I may be biased because I never sucked Ray Of Light's dick

does anyone seriously suck ROL's dick these days, anymore tho? - it's flaws have become really apparent with age. Still Erotica alone makes 90s Madonna classic and then there's This Used To Be My Playground, Secret, Take A Bow, I'll Remember, Beautiful Stranger on top + Don't Tell Me, Die Another Day and Hung Up from the 00s. All v. respectable in their own right, for a popstar past their first (unimpeachably classic) decade.

Erotica alone makes 90s Madonna classic

Shhhh... Geir may be watching.

but yeah just to follow up my previous post: it seems clearer and clearer to me that Gaga's shtick isn't liberation through shock (for despite the pastiche of Weimar decadence in "Bad Romance," it's "Disturbia" that most clearly borrows Manson's drapery) but liberation through unabashed goofiness. So if Beyonce is just at the world's-been-conquered stage in her career where she can just enjoy being goofy because who's going to stop her, Gaga's whole thing is the possibilities of eking out marginal identities and room for personal freedom within the interstices created by drag, costumery, big wigs, Warholery, and basically being the queerest thing on TV in the last decade.

Anyway it seems to strike a chord....can't remember if it was here or in 2009 Trax results thread where I was going on about this, but I think Gaga's appeal at street level has very little to do with anybody thinking her 'art' is particularly sophisticated, but a lot to do with people admiring and envying the amount of FUN she seems to get away with having. It's a different kind of liberationary politics than a lot of people may be ready to get down with, and I'm open to the idea that it's also kind of vacuous and lacking in content or complexity, but I basically appreciate what she's doing.

i think that's what saves her visual shtick, that ballsy goofiness.

she does make u laugh.

dont really care bc i kinda hate michel gondry videos tho

think Doctor Casino is otm here. I'm not really as interested in what lady gaga is doing as much as I am interested in why she's blowing up/pumping out #1s/is some on some world level event status right now.

Listening to So Happy I Could Die at least twice a day now :/