General Lady GaGa Discussion

[JadeFan]

I swear to God is she does something on Marilyn, I will scream. We've already had SMASH, Marina and fucking Shy'm paddling in that crap already.

[Glitterizer]

I don't think The Fame Monster or Born This Way had a sonical mood at all except for some songs, and that's something I'd want from Gaga at least once, even if there's no lyrical theme. Just sonically cohesive like, ahem, a Goldfrapp album, or Ray of Light.
I want an album with undeniable production and just beautiful overall.

[Noir]

I hate Goldfrapp and I think they're entirely overrated indie-electro nonsense. That's what.

I didn't think it was humanly possible to hate Goldfrapp. You're definitely in a whole different dimension.

[DirtyPornStar]

I don't think The Fame Monster or Born This Way had a sonical mood at all except for some songs, and that's something I'd want from Gaga at least once, even if there's no lyrical theme. Just sonically cohesive like, ahem, a Goldfrapp album, or Ray of Light.
I want an album with undeniable production and just beautiful overall.

While I don't think she needs to take cues from Goldfrapp, I would definitely like a more understated approach with the new album.

And by understated, I don't mean Gaga Del Rey, of course... But it's not like she can't write a hit without having to throw everything including a unicorn-decorated, diamond-encrusted kitchen sink.

[beekeeper]

I thought the 'fear of' explanations were super redundant as it's clear that the album's cohesive strength does not lie in its lyrics, but its sounds.

Teeth and Speechless ruin the flow for me. I never though Telephone fit in all that well, either.

And I'm rolling my eyes really hard at that user going off on Goldfrapp. Number 1 is a greater badge of distinction on an artist's catalog than any random Hot 100 hit (feat. Taio Cruz, Flo Rida, Pitbull...)

[DanielS94]

Didn't Goldfrapp have a pretty big hit with Ooh La La? Everyone knows that one.

[Mushroom3]

I swear to God is she does something on Marilyn, I will scream. We've already had SMASH, Marina and fucking Shy'm paddling in that crap already.

I wish I was lucky enough to be able to mentally block out Nicki Minaj' monstrous song of the same name.

[Glitterizer]

Is this how Marilyn Monroe felt?

[JadeFan]

I wish I was lucky enough to be able to mentally block out Nicki Minaj' monstrous song of the same name.

Oh yeah and Nicki, how could I forget...

[TeenIdle]

RE: the... interesting posts about concept albums and if Gaga has done one and the whole "tacked-on" message thing, especially with The Fame Monster:

I think the best way to appreciate Gaga is to really look into when she discusses living between reality and fantasy and talking about things being finite and infinite at the same time. It's been present since taking on the "Lady Gaga" name and has kind of become her personal philosophy in allowing yourself to become limitless, etc.

Her songs are pop songs, but they're also more than that, and then they're neither, and then both. She's a popstar, and then a performance artist, and then neither and then both somehow at the same time. She has adopted the philosophy of just being limitless and allowing her art to grow without restriction, which is why there's probably been such an increase in quality since The Fame to Born This Way.

Born This Way, and her previous two albums, are just really good pop albums, but then they're also basically love letters to Luc Carl, as every song on The Fame Monster is either directly or indirectly about him, and the same goes for most of Born This Way and The Fame. That's one aspect to her personal connection to her songs, as she then has several others, like how Speechless can be both about Luc and her father at the same time, or how Fashion Of His Love can somehow be about both Luc and McQueen at the same time, and then also be a message for love and style in a woman, if you want it to be.

Something like Judas is obviously directly about her relationship with Luc Carl and constantly going back to him, but then it can be a message of not going back to someone who doesn't treat you right ,but yet you always do because there's something about it, thus being for her fans and not her, but then she can further expand that theme with biblical references and it opens up infinitely to her childhood in Catholic school, the relationship with religious iconography and the public, about Jesus and Judas, etc. Except, it can also be all of those, if you want it to be, and none if you don't want it to be - it can just be a really good pop song, which is why claims of her being pretentious make no sense as she's' not forcing a theme or explanation on you. Thus, the talk of concept records is a little pointless, as Gaga seems to be a concept in it self, just constantly developing and growing, and the public and audience can really just take whatever they want from the music.

People them hide their issues with how she acts or her clothes within the music, which she seems to like as it allows her to bring up questions with issues in society, like why do you care how a woman dresses? Why is it wrong for her to dress like that? Why is it wrong for "Born This Way" to be so explicitly for her gay fanbase? What is wrong with showing support for gay youth? What in you is wrong or bitter that it makes you lash out against something positive? She's easily hit a cultural nerve like no artist of the last decade has and she's probably loving it, just like how she loved the absolute confusion for the Born This Way cover.

For the next album, it could be about the decay of the blonde superstar, or it could be about culture, or be a really cheesy self-love message, or it could just be a collection of really good pop songs or some combination of all those things. Gaga has allowed the listener to take whatever they want from her work.

[Digital_Fossil]

The idea of an album really has become a kind of outmoded concept in the iTunes generation, hasn't it?

Surely only from the perspective of ADD-suffering consumers like Archville6 who constantly "need" to update their playlists.

[T&C]

^For the iTunes generation maybe but anyone who isn't 16 can listen to a whole album (I hope).

Im glad to be a little older and experienced sometime without the internet. Nothing sells me more on an act, when I can play their works from beginning to end.

[Jonathan27]

TeenIdle basically signed, sealed and delivered the issue. Amazing post.

[PopFolke]

TeenIdle's posts should be compulsory reading for everyone owning any bit of Gaga's music.

[Glitterizer]

Im glad to be a little older and experienced sometime without the internet. Nothing sells me more on an act, when I can play their works from beginning to end.

Completely agree.
By the way, I am 16 and I like playing albums and buying the physicals, thank you very much (not trying to be a special snowflake here).

[JadeFan]

Completely agree.
By the way, I am 16 and I like playing albums and buying the physicals, thank you very much (not trying to be a special snowflake here).

You're 16 and you can make flawless playlists? AMAZOMG.

[LewJB]

"Gaga is ambiguous". Well, yes TeenIdle. That's the very problem with her for me. She needs to reign it in. I guess some people love the 'ambiguity' and it keeps the Little Monsters busy with their GCSE English Literature analysis but what I'd love is an album that makes sense, sounds good and looks good. For me, she's achieved that once with The Fame Monster (and only if you ignore any interview she conducted during the period. Probably best to ignore Speechless too).

[Noir]

Part of what made Gaga so great back in the day was her ability to generate mini-'eras' out of everything. She was exciting. Everything she did got us talking. She still is very exciting, but now the general public has got her figured out (or at least, they think so), and the hysteria and the novelty is over, nothing she does is as striking as it used to be. And that's just how the cycle of pop goes. Nothing wrong with that. I mean, you can't be in the spotlight forever.

I'm pretty sure her next album will be amazing (how could it not be? Lady Gaga is brilliant), but she'll have to be very careful if she wants to make an impact. She's set the bar impossibly high for herself.

[T&C]

I don't think anyone is worried musically about Lady Gaga. Born This Way was a very solid album, even if every track isn't great she more than delivered. I think if anything fans are worried about the presentation. She takes the visuals and interviews to the extreme and thats very offputting to a lot of people, even fans like me. I hated everything about this era, the artwork, the music videos (except for Judas, which ironically ended up underperforming).

[LewJB]

Agreed about the mini-eras. I think Paparazzi is the best example of that. I dare APC to argue that Gaga throwing about a bunch of ill-conceived, spontaneous looks would've been better for that campaign than the very simple mansionette murder narrative we had instead.

Then again, that's the only time she did that. Telephone is a laughable narrative, and then the less said about Born This Way, Marry The Night and Alejandro the better. Paparazzi was a proper 'first single' campaign I'd like to see from her.

[MissGranolaSuicide]

There is a big difference between a cohesive album and a concept album. A cohesive album *campaign* is a completely different thing again. All of Gaga's albums have been sonically cohesive but certainly not concept albums. An album can have a concept or concepts without being a concept album. Does that make sense?

The only album mentioned in this thread that I would consider a concept album is Metropolis. A concept album is The Wall or Outside or something like that where each song forms part of a narrative throughout the album. Most albums are fairly musically cohesive but you get the odd one (Adam Lambert springs to mind) that don't seem to know what it wants to be.

If Gaga has an issue with cohesiveness I think its it's in her campaigns and imagery not her actual music.

[TeenIdle]

"Gaga is ambiguous". Well, yes TeenIdle. That's the very problem with her for me. She needs to reign it in. I guess some people love the 'ambiguity' and it keeps the Little Monsters busy with their GCSE English Literature analysis but what I'd love is an album that makes sense, sounds good and looks good. For me, she's achieved that once with The Fame Monster (and only if you ignore any interview she conducted during the period. Probably best to ignore Speechless too).

Something like Born This Way is probably her most specific work though. Born This Way was her first single with a clear message and purpose - it was about her young, mainly gay fanbase, Even most of the videos have been the most "connected" to the actual songs this era, with the lyrics finally matching the visuals. In You And I, she talks about her relationship and going to get him back - which she does in the video. Marry The Night is about being dropped from Def Jam, hitting a low point and continuing on with her attempt to make it big - which happens in the video. Even look at The Edge Of Glory, a song about reflecting on your life once you're faced with "the end" - where the video shows her dancing on what is supposed her old NYC apartment, while a very sickly Clarence Clemons, a huge musical figure in her childhood, plays on the front steps to the building.

The outfits and performances were all over the place with ideas, and it's perfectly fine to just not like the album or the kind of visuals being thrown out - 80s trash glam hooker simply isn't for everybody, but it seems a bit backwards to hold The Fame Monster as really reigned in and concise and specific, when, if you want to know Gaga's ambiguous ideas on fame and culture and media, you'd listen to The Fame and The Fame Monster and watch their videos, ie: Telephone's video somehow translating a pop song into a trans-right anthem and being a satire on consumerism. A bit out there and all over the place, no? While Born This Way is the album you'd listen to if you wanted to know who Gaga was as a person, with all her thoughts, beliefs, memories, and specific influences right there on the album for you. It's her most specific-to-her album and it'll probably end up being the most personal album in her entire discography when everything is said and done in 25-30 years.

Realistically, it's nothing any of her contemporaries could ever even imagine doing or are even capable of doing. Having an album called Teenage Dream with artwork set in clouds or an album called Cannibal with imagery set in a jungle isn't "cohesive". It's simple, like how some of Gaga's earliest work comes across. Don't discredit the thought put into Gaga's work and label it too much because it's not lazily done in a fashion that makes it easy be massively consumed without any thinking.

[Archvile6]

I'm 25. I'm a supervisor at work. I have a masters I'm finishing. I don't have time to sit there and listen to an album from start to finish every time I want to listen to music. I'm not ADD - I'm busy as all fuck. When I listen to music, I want to listen to the songs I want to listen to...not have to sit through an album just because it's "supposed" to be listened to that way. Most modern pop albums are fucking shit bar the obvious songs that were the most expensive to craft and had the most effort put into them, anyway.

[Mr Telephone Man]

Is this how Marilyn Monroe felt?

You can't even begin to understand, how much I laughed when I read this post. Maybe it's because I'm tired, but I couldn't stop laughing.

Still laughing...

[Archvile6]

Agreed about the mini-eras. I think Paparazzi is the best example of that. I dare APC to argue that Gaga throwing about a bunch of ill-conceived, spontaneous looks would've been better for that campaign than the very simple mansionette murder narrative we had instead.

Then again, that's the only time she did that. Telephone is a laughable narrative, and then the less said about Born This Way, Marry The Night and Alejandro the better. Paparazzi was a proper 'first single' campaign I'd like to see from her.

If I'm being honest, I don't like Gaga's presentation period. I think the only "era" I've ever really enjoyed was Bad Romance, and even that was tarnished by the typically awful acoustic renditions of a superb dance song. I don't like performance art, and I think she she looks ridiculous on stage more often than not. Her music videos are almost always giant messes with a few good bits here and there, some awful bits mixed in, and none of it adding up in the end. Born This Way covered new territory with me, though - literal embarrassment. I haven't liked most of her presentations before, but I never actually felt embarrassed. When she started giving birth to things, wearing fake pregnancies, and taking "Born This Way" so literal...I was genuinely embarrassed for her and for myself. Her attitude, dedication and music alone are what make me a fan of her. I can safely say that if her music wasn't so wonderfully perfect (to me) then she would be somebody I'd hate with a glowing passion.