Comments on: Things I Hated but Grew to Love

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:11:04 +0000

I haven’t, but if you include her nutzoid outfits, you can (sort of) count her as a “performance artist”. And most performance artists are pretentious and irritating as hell. But they can be fun, too, and like I said, Bad Romance was fun. I enjoy the song, and I adore the video. And I like some of her other songs from Fame Monster, too. TBH I don’t much like any of the stuff I’ve heard from previous albums (which isn’t much). I certainly don’t take her seriously and I would roll my eyes at anybody who did. As long as I enjoy the songs and she makes me laugh, it’s all good as far as I’m concerned

By: Enrico

Enrico — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:49:09 +0000

You never saw an interview with GaGaloo saying stuff like that?!
There are a billion interviews where she says she’s not making pop music, but pop ART. Yeah, sure.

By: josh

josh — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:57:44 +0000

Yeah.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:54:37 +0000

I agree completely that many pop artists are incredibly gifted. Gifted does not necessarily mean “visionary”, however. Michael Jackson was *incredibly* gifted. And his life (from childhood on) was as tragic as he was gifted. I’m not sure if he was a visionary or not. I’m not sure I can judge such a thing.

I understand how passionate you are, and I respect that passion. It’s going to get you frustrated and hurt sometimes, because the music industry is a particularly cruel and unfair world (as is book publishing), but anything in life that’s worth doing comes with that sort of risk, doesn’t it?

By: josh

josh — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:43:14 +0000

I hate when people write off pop artists as flash-in-the-pan people who don’t deserve respect since they are on the top 40. Many pop artists are incredibly gifted.

And I know about marketing and publicity (I work in it), but I can still be frustrated by it. Music and the business around it is the one thing in life I am most passionate about so it’s hard for me to not think about it and become irritated by it.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:39:41 +0000

Well I’m highly skeptical of *anybody* claiming that *any* pop star is a “musical visionary”. Bllleaaahhh. And as for “fairness” with regards to who gets famous and who doesn’t, since when has the recording industry been *remotely* fair? Talent isn’t enough. Marketing and hype and how your label treats you has always been a big part of the game from day one. I gave up on worrying about why some people made it and others — more deserving — didn’t a loooong time ago.

By: josh

josh — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:07:02 +0000

Justerz: I know a good HANDFUL of people that follow Gaga around religiously and try and convince me that she is a musical visionary beyond compare.

And have you ever seen an interview with Bjork? She IS incredibly humbled by the much-deserved praise she gets. When she is parodied it has NOTHING to do with her being a pretentious music know-it-all…the spoofs are always about her weird demeanor and bizarre sound.

I just don’t see the big deal about Gaga and think that she’s getting more attention and praise then she deserves while other musicians who are much more talented and who don’t wear st00pid outfits get shafted.

She’s fun pop music. Yes, she’s talented. But her gimmick is what gets to me as does how people fall for it hardxxxcore.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:01:29 +0000

But — Josh — I don’t *know* anybody who thinks GaGogglez is “reinventing music” or the “end-all-be-all of the music world”. Everybody I know who likes her music just — likes her music because it’s catchy goofy pop, and because her over-the-top outfits are … well … funny.

If I saw an interview with her where she claimed to be everything you say she thinks she is, then I’d roll my eyes 360 degrees around in my head and then I’d have to check myself into the ER to get my optic nerves untangled.

I admit that I couldn’t *stand* her when I first saw her. I thought her “look at me!!! aren’t I weird!!!!” schtick was sooooooo old and tired. I don’t deny that her schtick still very much on the edge of tolerable, but I still suspect that Craig is right and she knows what she’s doing and doesn’t take herself as seriously as you think she does. In the meantime, I can laugh at her ridiculous outfits and I can enjoy her pop for what it is: pop.

As for Bjork — she’s every bit as deserving of the spoofs that have been done about her on SNL and MadTV and elsewhere as Lady Gaga is about the spoofs she’s inspiring. “Humble about herself”? I must have missed that part

By: josh

josh — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:53:03 +0000

Tam: And yay! Bjork is a genius and soooo humble about herself! GaGogglez could learn a ting or dos from her!

By: josh

josh — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:48:28 +0000

I also hate things that people blindly follow to an extreme extent, like Lady Gaga. I see her and my eyes melt over her blatant egoism about herself and I can’t understand why so many people think she’s the end-all-be-all of the music world. She’s making goofy pop songs about having sex…she’s not reinventing music altogether.