Because it is my Journal damnit, you all get an article and thinky thoughts
By now you're probably SICK to death of hearing me talk about Lady Gaga.
Too bad, I'm going to talk about her some more!
Today I got a link to an article with an interview she had with the LA Times.
"I'm getting the sense that you're a little bit of a feminist, like I am, which is good," she said. "I find that men get away with saying a lot in this business, and that women get away with saying very little . . . In my opinion, women need and want someone to look up to that they feel have the full sense of who they are, and says, 'I'm great.' "
/This.
The article articulates a lot of the reasons I like her as an artist. If you don't read my rambling, read the article
MUSICAL INTERLUDE!
Woooo someone took video of Speechless from The concert on Sunday, which is by far the song I was most looking forward to hearing live.
Actual music starts at 3:20ish
Click to viewThe Evolution of a Little Monster
- By Lanna.
I think oparu first linked me to Poker Face in mid-to-late march. I added her to my pandora station Techno-pop on 4-11-09, but I'd been listening to her on youtube before then.
Poker Face is...strange as a music video. Here is this bottle blonde in the most outrageous outfit I think I've seen since bjork wore the swan dress on stage. The whole production straddles this line between home-made-do-it-yourself and professional polish. The music is damn catchy. It's an ear worm I cannot get out of my head. It's pop. It's glam. It is out there.
I tilt my head and think "You know what? it's like if Freddy Mercury and David Bowie had a daughter and her godmother was Madonna."
Part of that thought was no doubt because of "Gaga" which, I later learned, is a direct reference to "Radio Gaga", by Queen.
So I check her out on Google/pandora/wiki. She's referenced in various sources as a "Theatrical Pop Artist" and I think "Yeah no shit." She's written music for big name performance artists like Brittney Spears and the Pussycat dolls. I'm not particularly a fan of either act, but that isn't exactly something you can entirely dismiss. What have I written for a top 40 artist? What was I doing professionally at 19? Yeah. She builds her own props and as someone who's done numerous artistic DIY projects? hell yes this is going to endear me to her as an artist.
It's a casual liking for awhile, but she's on my playlist and I grab Just Dance because XM radio plays it and Pandora thinks I should listen to it and, again, can't get it out of my head. It's a guilty pleasure. There are some glimpses of the greater depth beneath it all. Her Album is called The Fame and my first reaction is that it's Simon-Cowell-and-disney-produced-music-lollipops-OK-magazine-and-Paris-Hilton love letter. It is disposeable music. Flash in the pan...but then there is this part of me going "well...There seems to be more under the hood." I'm intrigued by the overt theatrics.
I can justify the guilty pleasure because between the music and the outfits and the whole packaging, I get that it's performance art. She shows up in outrageous outfits that i've never seen off a runway and I can dig it because she's doing it for the performance art aspect - this isn't an American Idol. I read about how she travels with the "Haus of Gaga" who are described as both "support group as well as design staff" and it makes me think of Andy Warhol's factory.
Definitely not American Idol.
Paparazzi hits with the delicious Alexander Skaarsgard, though I saw the music video well after I heard the actual song. It is a story on many levels, but all about obsession. Obsession with fame and fortune, obsession with love, with another person, with chasing the media stars. It's a musical kaleidoscope of imagery. You tilt your head and look at it another way and there is something that fits with the whole of the picture, but it is its own distinct message. What i'd sort of absorbed was happening in Poker Face and Just Dance, I can see most clearly in Paparazzi.
I listen on youtube, on and off, for a couple months. Then I break down and just buy the album. I've been burned by artists before - I buy the album and find that all the goodness has been culled and sold to me on the radio. Not so with the Fame. While there are songs I'm not so thrilled about (summerboy and discoheaven I'm looking at you), Paper gangsta is oddly appealing as is Eh Eh and Boys Boys Boys is something just dying to be sung with the girls out on a night on the town (or Boys if you swing that way).
I also hear the whole thing as a concept, which, to me, was fairly novel in my experience. I buy a lot of music ala carte because of the previously mentioned dissatisfaction with buying albums before. I'm still bitter about overpriced CDs in a lot of ways, maybe. To get a concept album I had to go back into the era now looked on as Classic Rock. I'm not into the indie hipster scene. I imagine there are more whole concepts there than in the mainstream of modern musical production (which I don't have a lot of respect for because of the relentless machine that gave us cookie-cutter icons and was as good an icon for The Establishment as one might wish to find in the lawless days of Napster and it's heirs in the nascent interwebz)
This is when I realize what The Fame is - it's both love letter and critique of modern pop culture with the 24hr news access and internet sites that stalk stars and famous people, it's about the tragedy of success, media whoring and how the media ultimately shapes and is shaped by the audience. I thought it was sort of ballsy for a debut album to be about "Fame" and that in itself is intriguing, because it is both insider and outsider, subject and commentator. It's the juxtaposition of the beautiful and the grotesque of the prevalent modern culture.
And it's filled with danceable, belt it out in the car or the shower ear worms.
In short, I realize that not only does it work on the disposable pop-level the way the Backstreet Boys and that whole era of cheaply produced and sold Disney graduates, it's smart.
With this knowledge, I begin lurking at Gagadaily and ladygagafans. She's on SNL and I love it because she's fighting with Madonna and they both look like they're having fun.
The MTV VMAs and she's killed on stage. oh dudes.
It's not comfortable to watch, even knowing going in what the song is about and what the music video looks like and knowing it's Gaga and she's going to just Go There. The moves are jerky and modern, the costume is bizarre and straddles the line between sexy and painful to look at. Is it trash or high culture and who decides which category it falls into?
She's telling a story musically and visually and people react. Love her, hate her, she's getting a reaction. I think a lot of people who dismiss the art are made uncomfortable by her: she's out there, she's pushing buttons and making you react and feel and that's not always something a person wants.
(I will totally acknowledge that there are people who are just sick of people playing Just Dance for the billionth time. and there are also people who are forced to be with rather militant fans who need to lighten up)
I hear her older stuff and dudes? She's a musician. As one myself I can appreciate this. Her amusement at people being baffled by her actually singing at her shows? Love.
She starts talking about Monster and where it came from and I'm on board the crazy train by now. I'm down. Let's see these monsters, Gaga.
She mentions Speechless, written for/about her father/mother/family struggle. I'm initially skeptical. "Oh she wrote it for her father to convinced him to have surgery. Great another boring Ballad."
Bad Romance leaks.
Holy shit. That's what Evolution looks like.
She's hot at this point and has clout to make and do things she wants to do. It's lower, it's a bit more gritty, it's as much of a kalidescope as Paparazzi is and I listen to the leaked track with the sound bites over and over because it's really phenomenal. I can't wait for the new record to hit for real. She's not sticking with the idea of Fame and Money and Weath and all the beautiful tragedy- Now it's moving into a personal space.
It's about wanting what you know you can't or shouldn't have. Or think you can't. It's about falling in love with the wrong person or your best friend, or the Bad Boy - a monster. She references Hitchcock and I love her a little bit more. We're introduced to a newphrase that seems like it will be the new rallying cry, "I'm a free bitch, baby!", and yet it harkens back to the earlier Gaga with it's references to fashion, amazingly danceable tune, ear-worm hooks and kalidescope presentation.
No Way leaks. I love this song because of the piano and message: "Dear boy who cheated on me: Fuck you. I'm Gone. No way in hell am I coming back."
In a world where Twilight is reigning over Teen and Tween girl hearts (despite the negative lessons to be learned there), Gaga's narrator is pretty much telling the cheating bastard to fuck off, she's not sticking around, because he's disrespecting her as a person and She doesn't belong to him. Granted it's more lyrical and not exactly proper grammar, but I'd still rather have my theoretical daughter taking a lesson from Gaga than Bella Swan.
So she's making the interview rounds now in preparation for her Tour and for The Fame Monster: I hear more about Speechless and the story and it's pretty damn plain to hear that this is something she feels deeply about: it isn't false or manufactured or "oh hey I was doing this anyway, let me use this song to make a point." No, it's absolutely the case she loves her family and they're still a huge part of who she is and were a part of who she was. It isn't lip service.
The story also resonates with me personally. My dad's had this cough for close to a year now. We've been telling and telling and telling him to do something about it. He kinda does but it never gets better. He's been put under observation for his heart and really? If he goes? NOT HAPPY TIMES.
But like everything, you tend to forget unless it's tossed in your face. You take stuff for granted. I can honestly say the concept of Speechless reminded me not to take my parents for granted and yes, I have bugged dad quite a bit about getting his health issues fixed. Mom too for that matter.
Monster seems to be extremely personal in a way The Fame wasn't and it absolutely is coming through in the music.
Speechless leaks.
Remember when I thought it might be a sucky ballad?
So. Not.
Again, it's the kalidescope effect: there are many ways to interpret it. There was a definite source, but from there you can totally see how it can be many things and speak to many people over many issues. It's a new sound. it's a rock ballad. there is guitar and I am totally digging the John Lennon/Elton John vibe the song rocks.
More Leaks. Monster Ball is announced. She calls us little monsters and seems to be having a true love affair with her fans. again: skepticism, but damn if I don't feel fuzzy when she mentions her "Little Monsters" in interviews or on the radio. It's a group identifier and we're solidified.
Bad Romance hits.
LAYERS.
All the layers from the song and now there is this visual layer as well: Is it about human trafficking? it is more of a metaphor than that? Is it because of the media and culture forming young women from unformed things into "The Perfect Woman" to be sold to men? Is it about the woman forcing herself willingly to be what she doesn't want to be because she somehow needs it...and this begs the question WHY? Is she a monster being subdued? Is she a victim? Is she the willing participant? Or more like frankenstein: the unwilling creation that turns (or should turn!) on the creators.
The Monster concept is taken to a very literal place, but beyond the spandex and Alexander McQueen shoes and bear-skin cape, there is a very important and real message in there: Why do we do this to ourselves, our sisters, our daughters and Hell, our sons and brothers? Is it right? Why do we permit it?
It's a provocative video. It is not comfy beneath the danceable tune and the monster paws (which have become the symbol of the Gaga fan), and it isn't supposed to be.
After the recitative-ish "Walk, walk, Fashion Baby..." the song builds into a big finale that's determined and resolved. The music video certainly seems to imply that some kind of mental equilibrium has been found and fuck it, if she's not going to do what she thinks and take back the lost control of the situation.
Among the fans, we're doing the little monster paws, miming the dances, buying the single. She's red hot and there are tons of interviews and appearances ramping up to The Monster Ball.
There is something undeniably appealing about being "A monster." a horrid thing usually associated with nightmares - The Other. The Outsider. The Creature. The evil thing you're not supposed to cheer for.
Who the hell hasn't felt like an outsider? Here is a space where it's okay to be creative and crazy and out there and fuck everyone else. It's a subtle and very positive message taken loud when she starts talking about it in interviews and damn if my realistic and skeptical heart isn't buying it. It's possibly a cheap trick to tag into that vibe, but damn if I'm not making little paws while I'm belting out Bad Romance in the car.
And about here is where I decided to go to see Gaga. I hemmed and hawwd about it. Money. who'd go with me when most people see the lack of pants and the masks and the Kermit-skin coat? But, screw it. it would be a HELL of a show anyway.
turns out I was able to drag hockeysaurus with me :D :D :D
and we had THE BEST TIME. It was a great show. there were costumes! there was Dancing. it was a party.
I saw people in their 70s and teens. I saw parents as chaperons, and parents who were there with their 20 somethings, I saw men and women my age, older, younger. and it was a fucking awesome time. Everyone had found something and was there to enjoy it; be it because of the catchy dance tunes, or her social activism or because they liked the performance art, or a bit of all of it.
Being there was a little bit like being part of an interactive art instillation. Damn me if I didn't think "Fuck. Yes." during the Monster Manifesto act break. Hell, if she wants to do a collaborative art piece with a million fans through music and activism that subverts some of the poisonous aspects of fame and fame-seeking/adulating culture? Sign me up.
So a lot of people are surprised when I say I'm a fan of Lady Gaga. I mean I get it. The stage name made her kinda hard for me to take as well.
But, if you can get over having heard poker face for the billionth time, and look past the Hello Kitty gown and the latex dresses, there's a lot there that's really and truly positive that makes rocking out to Bad Romance in the car that much better.