Posted on 07/22/2010 1:58:55 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
...No one in recent pop memory has been a greater enemy to the authentic than Lady Gaga... Not long ago she was playing confessional piano music in tiny New York rooms...
Lady Gaga has become successful by adhering to the belief that there’s no inner truth to be advertised, or salvaged: all one can do is invent anew.
It wasn’t that long ago when artifice appeared to be on its last leg. In the mid-to-late-1990s female performers especially were in a confessional place, a movement captured and branded by Lilith Fair...
...About one-third of the original dates have been canceled, reflecting a soft concert market but also shifts in mainstream tastes...
...This new feminism is more about the opportunity to make choices than about any specific choice itself. And it’s freeing, this expansion of musical liberation into spaces visual as well as sonic, instinctual as well as intellectual, performed as well as lived.
By contrast Lilith in its prime — when it was a major summer tour — trafficked in a very specific brand of feminism: organic, direct, unadorned, intimate. There were attempts to expand the festival into a bigger tent, especially in 1998, when Queen Latifah and Missy Elliott were among the performers. But in the main Lilith prized urgent singer-songwriters with readily perceptible left-leaning politics.
The last couple of years have seen the first wave of 1990s nostalgia... But Lilith aesthetics haven’t aged well....
...In many ways it is a bastardization of the Madonna model. From the start of her career Madonna was a savvy pop trickster, using outrageous imagery as a distraction while smuggling ideas about religion and social politics into her music. Most of the Gaga generation, however, is interested in distraction as an end in itself...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Gaga is sure no Povi.
I’m a 39 year old guy and had never previously heard of a lady gaga. Don’t care about the dirt but she has a great beat.
She needs a chin implant.
A few little monsters around here.
Unfortunately, she's a terrible role model for her fans.
The country is going down the tubes. This is the biggest waste of time you can post.
Ga Ga is a great singer/song writer and yes she is outrageous to get noticed, so what?Listen to her unplugged type stuff like Lady GaGa Poker Face Acoustic - BBC Radio 1 Live (HQ) AND she has talent but you don’t have to like it.
Alanis Morissette was the queen of that mid 90's ethos barfing chick rock movement. She landed there because re-invented her act after failing to make it as a bubble gum popper. She's no poster child for authenticity. Pop is style over substance by definition. There are boat loads of super talented female vocalists who are serious about their craft. The Lady GaGas of the world don't lessen the real talent thats out their. You just have to take some time to find it.
I have resisted finding out who Lady Gaga is, although I gather she is some sort of pop singer who dresses in outlandish costumes. Is there any reason I need to know more?
Perfect description.
“She is a one trick pony”
Hardly. The Fame her first album 4 hits. She made history in the fact she is the first new artist with four hits in a debut album. I believe either The Fame or The Fame Monster made Diamond.
Personally, I think she is great. Not for kids though.
Yes indeed. I am one.
I called them "Angst Muffins".
She looks like a teenaged mall rat in those pics.
Funny I always thought she was way better looking in her brunette days.
That’s interesting, coming from someone whose last name is “blonde”. :)
Yeah but the wacky clothes and shoes is going to get real old real quick.
Yeah, she will evolve as an artist. Quite frankly I can’t wait to see what she is going to do next.
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