You know Lady GaGa.
She cites Queen’s “Radio GaGa” with her name. She cites David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust character with the thunderbolt. (She’s an admitted fan of Madonna, and regularly talks to Kanye West, as well.)
But her message isn’t exactly “Under Pressure.”
No, she wants to be famous. As she lampoons the excess of celebrity in her videos. But she also wants you to come and enjoy her fame along side her. At least that’s what she’s saying.
And in the middle of a recession, a good number of people love her for it.
(There’s also the matter of the discostick.)
My first encounter with GaGa was with her first single and it’s video, “Just Dance.” Now, at the time it didn’t really stand out to me. It’s a glitzed-up version of a house party. The lyrics:
What’s go-ing on on the floor? /
I love this record baby, but I can’t see straight anymore /
Keep it cool, what’s the name of this club? /
I can’t remember, but it’s alright, a-alright/
blur the lines between “this night is a hot mess ” and “this night is a mess.” There are things in the video that I catch the next few times around that will carry on to other videos: outrageous fashion that has high couture bleed into pure costume, the dancing that’s half-robotic/half-vogue, members of the Haus of Gaga (Space Cowboy) and the fact that she really can sing.
However, I just brushed it off as some New York hipster thing. Yet there was a nagging feeling that I had been to the party in the video, somewhat scaled down. Minus humping an inflatable orca. Well– at least I haven’t.
Then came “Poker Face.” Which to me meant a few things. One, the fact that she can craft an entire song around the conceit of gambling means she know her way around words. Two, the “mah-mah-mah” is sublime and a sign of musical genius (I later found out that she is classically trained on piano). Three, she is my kind of crazy.
From there I kept on hearing her everywhere, which eventually got me to listen to the entire album. Now, I’m not going to talk about the album too much. I want to focus on the ideas that Lady GaGa is put forth and the character she is playing.
So here’s my short review: The Fame is that it is very top heavy, and a few songs don’t fit all that well on the album. For example: “Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)” is one she should have handed off to someone else as it doesn’t fit with the persona of the album. “Starstruck,” “Paper Gangsta” and “Boys Boys Boys” are okay songs on an album with some really amazing tracks. “Again Again” and “Brown Eyes” belong on a fictional acoustic/piano driven E.P. I just made up called Ivory that would feature that ragtime-ish version of “Poker Face”. And the fact that “Disco Heaven” is not on the album proper is a dirty shame.
Back to the idea of GaGa herself. One needs to listen to her interview and her weekly transmission to get a better idea of what she’s singing about in her songs.
There are however two types of on interview with Lady GaGa. There are the dumb ones where the interviewer ask her what her name means, or goes the whole ‘Lady Gaga, you’re so weird’ route. The interviews that are actually enjoyable and informative to watch don’t try to hard to push against her, and she becomes less of a character (still GaGa though) and is more relatable and you learn a bit about her art. For example, this FUSE interview:
See, not as wacky as you might have orginally thought. It touches on the art aspect of her work and how hard she has worked to get to where she is. Radio Nova, an Australian radio station has a longer interview with her (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). I think they were one of the first to play her singles, and she generously paid them back with an exclusive interview.
In that interview, she talks about the real life applications of fame. Things like how fame is shared, artistic karma, how celebrities spend their money and her views on paparazzi. To me she’s seems to be very much a realist. You can’t spend all your money out of the gate without workingequally as hard and still be famous. You can’t be an artist creating art for an audiance and not want recognition. So Lady GaGa dress the way she does partially because she’s really into fashion (Her hair-bow is actually inspired from a runway show.
But that’s just her in interviews. The weekly Youtube video transmissions– Transmission GaGa-vision are better.
Lady GaGa has been sent to earth to infiltrate human culture one sequin at a time.
is the introduction to each video in a stardate fashion. It’s just her beingsilly and nodding again toward Bowie. But it’s a great way for her to let fans into snippets of her world, and to watch them from the beggining to see her become well-known to really famous.
Episode 7 of the transmission is the one that made me fall in love with her though.
Yes, she referenced Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. And it’s not like she decided to name drop it out of the blue to sound smart either. She’s talking about art and to truly love someone you have to share your art with them. She then discusses with her dancers whose she’s been touring with about the concept of the fame. She explains in another transmission that fame is coming into a supermarket and people knowing who you are. The Fame is doing the same and people wanting to know who you are.
At this point I stopped thinking of her as some– though very talented– pop starlet that dabble with the topic of fame and celebrity to someone that is actually creating art. She’s a self-marketing powerhouse with various talents.
The idea of the fame is actually quite positive. It’s similar to the ‘girl power’ thing of the 90’s but not limited to girls. It’s self-confidence, not vanity. While there is a lot of materialism, it’s a positive excess. It’s not name-dropping or gossiping about people to get ahead. It’s about having fun, occasionally very trashed and looking good doing it.
Or in her own words, from her website:
The Fame is about how anyone can feel famous. Pop culture is art. It doesn’t make you cool to hate pop culture, so I embraced it and you hear it all over The Fame. But, it’s a sharable fame. I want to invite you all to the party. I want people to feel a part of this lifestyle.
and in talking to MTV about the message of her first album:
This idea of ‘The Fame’ runs through and through. Basically, if you have nothing—no money, no fame—you can still feel beautiful and dirty rich. It’s about making choices, and having references—things you pull from your life that you believe in. It’s about self-discovery and being creative… The music is intended to inspire people to feel a certain way about themselves, so they’ll be able to encompass, in their own lives, a sense of inner fame that they can project to the world, and the carefree nature of the album is a reflection of that aura.
So now some of the songs take on different meaning for me. Sure “Just Dance” doesn’t change much, but it takes on a far less tragic tone. ”Beautiful, Dirty, Rich” both lampoons trust fund kids while saying you can have fun with out money. “LoveGame” and “I Like It Rough” talk about the trials of relationships and dating while being an artist/celebrity. The best example of all thus GaGaness– the fashion, the mulimedia, the references– is the new ”Paparazzi” video, almost a short film in the vein of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Obviously, these songs are not going to be great works of poetry, but it’s considerably good for something that has a good beat and you can dance to.
Love her or hate her, you cant deny her talent or her persistance.
