Lady Gaga - charisma free zone

[Robert_S]

I can always count on the Vigilant Citizen to make pop much more interesting!

http://vigilantcitizen.com/musicbusines ... -of-horus/

[JimC]

Ern O'Malley...

[Mr.Samsa]

Everything Ian said

She was a "real musician" for a little while, played keyboard and sang, no costumes, no show. Her voice sounded great but like any other girl with a guitar or keyboard and some nice melodic songs, she was invisible in the crowd. I don't think she is revolutionary, rather she is smart enough to take a cue from Madonna and marylin manson, and sell herself as a package. People eat up, and I can't bring myself to "hate the playa"

Yeah, that's probably a pretty good description. Here's a youtube clip from before she went crazy:



I don't know if I'd say she was "talented", but she was a decent enough singer and pianist, then realised that people are only interested in those who are special or retarded. Since she had no particularly special talent, she had to make herself into a retard.

[Beelzebub2]

Um, I think i'd rather listen to pneumatic drill 24/7.

[Tero]

I was led to believe she designed her own costumes.

That aside; I don't see the point in her.

Yeah, Madonna at least had two points.

[Coito ergo sum]

Lady Gaga shocks the MTV world by dressing up like a stereotypical lesbian:





Did she "cross the line" by dancing around in a t-shirt and long pants?

[Animavore]

But... But... She does all her own music!

[Coito ergo sum]

She bears an eerie similarity to....

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

[hadespussercats]

I was led to believe she designed her own costumes.

No, that's Armani, believe it or not-- she's his secret muse.

http://www.google.com/search?q=armani+g ... d=0CCAQsAQ

[hadespussercats]

I saw her on a chat show - was it Graham Norton maybe?..I was struck by all the things you say Dev, except there was one thing that made her stand out a bit to me and that was the knowingness of it all. She is clearly conscious, aware and in control of the monster in ways that people like Elton John were not.

There's nothing there by way of talent though.

..and she has three albums in the charts.

I saw that episode. Actually, I was surprised-- I thought she was rather charming. Funny to watch Gwyneth Paltrow actually sucking up to someone she sensed was cooler, though.

But then, when GaGa performed, she was lip-synching. WTF? So much production you can't actually sing the tune?

[Coito ergo sum]

[mistermack]

If you aim your performance directly at dummies, you can make a huge amount of money, both sides of the Atlantic. There have ALWAYS been american stars that do it. That kind of "stardom" has got a life of it's own, so once you can get it moving, you can feed it if you're clever.
Americans seem to respond to it more instinctively. Britons respond to it from foreigners, but not so much from brits.

It's called hype. I call it "Big Star Bullshit". It adds value to any level of talent. Bob Dylan was the first that I noticed. Good singer songwriter, but the "big star" bullshit that came with him was GIGANTIC. And it worked. It's the hollywood technique, so it's not surprising that americans are best at it.

I've got no complaints though. If people buy it, so what? Nobody forces anybody.
Mugs are there to be relieved of their money. That's what they are for. It's a different kind of talent, but it's still an art.

[Posse Comitatus]

Looking at some of her videos it's utterly bizarre how badly the aesthetics mesh with the music- they're similarly unoriginal but otherwise poles apart. The visuals across her videos (I saw born this way on about 50 screens on a loop for about an hour in a gay bar once - don't ask) stand as a kind of magazine digest of the last five years of the self-consciously avant garde contemporary art scene, while the music is essentially Taylor Swift-meets Queen - I'm not saying the music lets down the visuals but at least the latter rips off something vaguely interesting.

Born this way's video apes (unattributed) Kenneth Anger's luficier rising - the aestehtics are virtually identical just more day-glo- before becoming a kind of Brambillo-pastiche (civilisation, cathedral). That's been done before (Kanye West's really I think quite brilliant video to Power but at least he did the right thing in making it a commission- actually supporting the artists he likes- while Gaga's team reproduced without attribution)- and it is stealing. Gaga has spoken out against filesharing and allowed people to be prosecuted for sharing her songs but I think the hypocrisy is breathtaking when held against her own intellectual dishonesty and opportunism.

The lack of attribution is just bizarre because its not like she doesn't have the money on hand to commission the artists themselves to do something new - and it's not like the source material (and the plagiarism is so pervasive and direct- its not slight similarities here and there) is especially obscure. It was never going to go unnoticed and just makes her look so ridiculous. She makes an approximation of the visuals but any sense of an underlying concept or god-forbid message is hollowed out

Really I think she's just a shit Tesco-value corporate Bjork - where *cough*interesting*cough* clothes and visuals were at least matched with something approximating fresh sounds and risk taking and who at least chose to work with artists rather than leeching off them. She's a parasite and a joke. Bad for fashion, bad for music and bad for contemp art.

[Feck]

I'm so glad the gays(sorry that sounds horribly homophobic but ) like it .........considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons[1] while making cheap mass-produced objects that are unoriginal.
She seems to be going after Madonna's tiara ?

[rachelbean]

I can't believe this hasn't been posted yet