Send "Lady Gaga " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 As a rule, I don't defend my taste in music because who, ultimately, cares? It's not worth talking about. For whatever reason, I have made an exception for Lady Gaga. Maybe it's because she's one of the few super-popular artists that I truly love, maybe it's because so many people seem to hate her, or maybe it's because so many people seem to hate her for stupid reasons, but whatever it is, I've felt the need to not only justify my love for her, but also to defend her as a person and as a performer. Because here's the thing: I admire Lady Gaga. She's not one of my heroes. I don't look up to her. But I admire her all the same, because she is my ideal role model for young people. She reads from the Gospel of Gaga, which has only one chapter entitled "Be Yourself." She seems smart, in her own way, but not truly intelligent enough to use her status as role model to manipulate her fans, as some would, which is great, but even more, it means that she can't be misunderstood. She's smart enough to say what she's thinking and to express it well enough while also seeming like there isn't a hidden agenda. Whatever people might think of her, she believes what she's saying.But is she a gimmick? Because that's been the issue at the heart of discussions about Lady Gaga. Certainly, you can still be a gimmick even if you believe the things you're saying. In her case, the gimmick would be the music itself as simply a vehicle to show off her singular fashion sense and to become someone that people can look up to. I've never agreed with that. Even in some of the more vapid songs on The Fame, she at least seemed to be putting in an effort even if the result was uninspired. The Fame was essentially a run-of-the-mill pop album with a few more standout tracks than one would normally find on such a record. There were a few eccentricities present (she definitely seemed to love herself, working the word "Gaga" into most of the songs), but really, if she had kept making music like that, she wouldn't be where she is now. She might be just as popular as a musician, but not as an icon. That's where The Fame Monster comes in. That EP was such a stratospheric rise in quality (not to mention subject matter) that it was almost unbelievable. It was comprised of eight of the best pop songs ever, and I can say that with a completely straight face. But that's not what makes the EP so interesting. It's the fact that she was suddenly the go-to role model for disillusioned youth, for abused people, for homosexuals, and what makes the EP so good is that she didn't try to be that. She wrote a song about her relationship with her father, a song about a girl who's nervous about having sex with the lights on, a song about masturbation. It wasn't a bunch of songs about being yourself, about standing up to oppression, or about not caring what people think, not really. You can find those themes if you're looking, but they weren't thrown in your face. So for her next album, Lady Gaga had two choices. She could keep writing songs about whatever struck her fancy and let her fans gather from them what they wanted to (as with The Fame Monster), or she could deliberately play to her status as role model, catering to the people in her audience that are dumb enough to need "BE YOURSELF" spelled out in every single song in order to listen. This is the whopping identity crisis at the core of Lady Gaga. She may be the hero of people who are oppressed for being who they are, but she must wonder what her other fans get from her music. Because it's not just her "monsters" listening. It's bitchy girls, it's guys who have no qualms about using demeaning terms to describe gay people, and so on. Basically, people who like catchy tunes and don't pay attention to the message. What's it like to tell those people to be themselves? Or maybe she really doesn't think about it. By all accounts, she lives more as the character of Lady Gaga than she does as a normal person named Stefani, and there have been reports of how draining that is for her. Some tabloids postulated a number of times that she was headed toward some kind of breakdown, which was actually believable, unlike everything else they publish. Here's the thing though. If she broke down, it would only solidify the legend of Gaga even more, and she would be resurrected (three days later, perhaps), stronger, and with even more power to save....full text |
| Guardian |
| There's an unnerving moment that occurs when hearing Lady Gaga's second album, Born This Way, for the first time. It comes as soon as the plodding keyboard chords ring out on opening track Marry the Night and you wonder if the stage is set for this to be the first of several self-indulgent ballads. It will be a fear familiar to anyone who tuned into Radio 1's Big Weekend expecting a rapid-fire run through her storming pop hits and was met inexplicably with several minutes of jazz trumpet. Among the madness, the Madonna-comparisons and the meat dresses has Lady Gaga lost track of what made her little monsters fall in love with her in the first place? Buy it from Buy the CD Lady Gaga Born This Way Polydor / Interscope 2011 If so, it would certainly fit the most recent narrative Lady Gaga's rise to the top of the pop tree has landed on a particularly wobbly branch during this album's promotional campaign. First fans grumbled that the title track bore remarkable similarity to Madonna's Express Yourself. Then disapproving voices in the gay community complained that Gaga had hijacked their sexuality as a marketing tool. So intense was the chatter around Born This Way, in fact, there was even a backlash over the artwork. Such fears on the musical front, however, do not last long Marry the Night's softer stylings are soon sent packing by what Gaga had always promised would be "sledgehammering dance beats". It's a pattern that holds throughout Born This Way. No matter how a song begins pizzicato strings, operatic vocals, 80s rawk guitar it's soon engulfed in buzzsaw synths and robo-precise rhythms. This is shameless, club-orientated pop that aims for instant impact. Gaga has made much of the various themes on offer religion (Judas, Bloody Mary), freedom (Road to Love), identity (Hair, Born This Way) and these messages are hammered home rather than hinted at. Nobody expected Born This Way, hyped by Elton John as a "new gay anthem", to reference post-queer theory texts, but it's safe to say that subtlety isn't one of its strong points. Elsewhere, Hair uses follicles as a metaphor for freedom not exactly a brave new concept for anyone who's seen the 60s musical Hair (or caught the sermon from Danny in Withnail & I for that matter)....full text |
| Gigwise |
| To say there's been a lot of interest in this song would be an understatement. It's initial release date of February 13 was announced on New Years Eve a time when the world is normally welcoming in a New Year rather than a new single before being brought forward by two days due to the huge demand. Elsewhere, Lady Gaga has already posted the lyrics on Twitter, prompting everyone from Justin Bieber to James Blunt to try and guess what the song will sound like, and, if you go to her official website, you can sit transfixed staring at a countdown clock. The video, we're told, took 72 hours to film, and reduced the crew to tears. Regardless of whether you're a 'Little Monster' or not, you can't argue against the fact that Lady Gaga has come a long way in a little over two years - or at least knows how to generate publicity. So then, what does it sound like? Well, in short, 'Born This Way' is the campest, most uplifting song you're ears have probably ever been exposed to. It's a hard-hitting slice of euphoric hysteria that's tailor-made for the dancefloor and, in places, somehow even manages to make 'Bad Romance' sound like a ballad. Lady Gaga wasn't lying when she told American Vogue recently that she'd been getting into German techno, because it's one of the many genres she's managed to cram into 'Born This Way'. The others trance, euro-pop, electro all rise and fall in thunderous fashion, tamed only by the Lady Gaga's voice, which sounds more mature than ever. Now it's like a hybrid of Dolly Parton and Madonna when the latter could still hold a note without the addition of auto-tune and was making songs like 'Express Yourself', a clear influence here, rather than '4 Minutes'. But where the song really shines - and where its success if poised - is lyrically. 'Born This Way', it seems, is an anthem written exclusively for Lady Gaga's fanbase of Little Monsters, which in arenas across the world over the past 18 months has grown to transcend race, religion and sexuality. Don't be a drag, just be a Queen whether you're broke or evergreen, she sings during one of the song's haunting breakdowns, before adding: I'm on the right track baby, I was born to survive - a line that will probably have Gloria Gaynor filing for a royalty cheque....full text |
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