January 10, 2011

• I'm GooGoo Over Gaga

  

  The Lady is Genuine

  The Song 2-13-11 The Record 5-23-11 (From Lady Gaga's Twitter feed on 1-01-11)

  Stephani Joanne Angelina Germanotta is releasing her sophomore effort officially on May 23rd. The "album" (I still call them that) is called "Born This Way". The single from the album will be released on February 13th. You can find "snippets" of the song all over YouTube

  I first heard (the now ubiquitous) Lady Gaga in late 2009. It was the song "Paparazzi" and I liked it enough that I investigated the artist. (I thought she was singing "Barbara Rossi" at first listen.) By the time the video for "Telephone" was released early this year, I was possibly Gaga's oldest "little monster" (the term she uses to describe her fans.) Although the dance pop I heard at first seemed at first listen quite disposable (or did until some of the songs became "monster" hits), I was taken especially with the videos I watched on her official YouTube channel. I subscribed immediately. One Friday evening I spent a couple of hours watching all the videos I could find. (The official vids, not the thousands of knockoffs on other YouTube sites.) "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" made me smile. "Paparazzi" is an epic minimovie. She made no contest about the fact that she has many influences, and those influences are highly audible and visible in the vids. Her sense of humor is wonderfully evident. I called her the love child of Madonna and Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo. The videos really caught my eye. However, it was the singing in the vid for "Eh Eh (There's Nothing Else I Can Say") which caught my ear.

  A lot of "old fogeys" my age are content with relistening to their musical past (I still have over 1000 vinyl records in my music collection) I will freely admit that I don't "collect" music anymore. But thanks to the internet, and specifically "internet radio stations" like Pandora, which I have fed into my living room entertainment center over wifi, I keep up with most of what's "happening" even though I might not care for much or it, or think that other musical artists have covered a lot of the same ground with better results in the past. I don't watch American Idol. The last CDs I purchased in earnest were in the late 90s. There's been a whole decade of music since then. I loved discovering Napster in the early aughts. A big section of my music collection has always been what I somewhat possibly chauvinistically call "chick singers". MP3 files of Christina Aquilera and Britney Spears started to appear in the music folder on my hard drive.

  I always collected the "artist" and not individual songs. I thought I would be dismissing Lady Gaga as a dance pop diva, but I didn't actually buy the "Fame/Fame Monster" double album CD (which incorporated all the released material from her first record and the followup EP.) until May of 2010.

  While the dance tunes are quite catchy, I wanted to hear more songs like "Speechless" and "Brown Eyes" where the listener can actually hear the Lady's beautiful voice, unhampered by electronic flourishes.

  In the meantime, Lady Gaga has become quite a phenomenon. She is everywhere. And she's pissing people off with her New York attitude and approach to celebrity. Frankly, I like the NY connection, and the fact that she didn't start out on the Disney channel, but on the NY club circuit. Her behavior at Mets games and "in your face" comic fashion sense (like wearing a dress made of raw meat at the MTV Music Video awards show.) has made her almost as many enemies as fans, and she sort of instills a "love me or hate me" vibe when reading internet comments about her exploits. However, it's the music I love, and I think she's a breath of fresh air in an otherwise cut and paste cultural world.

  Here is a sample of Lady Gaga, singing "You and I", a new song live. I don't know for sure yet, but certainly hope this is on the new record. I'm sure I'll be one of the first (and probably the first of my age) to get "Born This Way" when it's released. Not too long ago I was talking to somebody who was visiting me at my place, and she made the comment that she thought Lady Gaga was a male, something she'd heard in idle conversation. There was some talk and internet discourse earlier in her careed concerning whether or not the Lady was indeed a lady, or a transgender artist (which Gaga lampoons herself in the longer version of the "Telephone" video) The truth is that Gaga is a spokesperson for the gay, lesbian and transgender community, but she's all girl.

  Besides her singing, which is displayed wonderfully not only above, but on the many clips online from her appearances on the Ellen DeGeneres show, which championed her early on, Lady Gaga is a classically trained pianist. She has musical chops. She's not a flash in the pan. She's the real deal, and I'm proud to be an older, bald, little monster. I haven't really gushed over any one in pop music since Gwen Stefani in the early 90s. My musical muses are all getting long in the tooth. The last time I saw Carlene Carter, she was overweight and unrecognizable.

  I'm really excited about the new Lady Gaga album. I'm glad I can still get excited about new music, and I have this wonderful new force to thank for it. Thank you Stephani. I'm glad you were Born This Way.

  Required Reading: 1. Growing Up Gaga. A FANTASTIC in depth article (with lots of photos) from NY Magazine writer Vanessa Grigoriados. 2. The Lady's Wikipedia entry. 3. Last Photo is from 2007 in an article from W magazine.

  EDIT: 7:15 p.m. I wrote this entry this morning before going to work. After work, I typed "Lady Gaga New Music 2011" into the YouTube search bar. A lot of the music from the new CD is on YouTube, which makes sense in the music world of today. On first listen, much of it sounds like disposable dance pop. In a comment, Emily (BoureeMusique) stated "Her voice is only "good" or "pretty good," but she knows how to use the best of it." I'd elaborate by saying she doesn't have an incredible range, but since she writes her own music, she doesn't have to. Personally, I'm in love with her voice when you can hear it. I wish she'd sing more ballads, and bluesy pieces. Some commenters simply don't like her, and I'll admit, if you don't like most of the "type" of dance music she sings (cast thee out, autotune) then possibly she isn't for you....right now in this really early stage of her career. You'll have to evacuate the dance floor for now. I predict she will blossom and extend her repetoire, and she will last, like Streisand, (who does have an incredible range, but is ancient history for anybody not born during the baby boom) or Cher (who handed her an MTV award.). BTW, back in her day, Cher's Bob Mackie designed wardrobe was pretty outlandish. I was one of the very few of my assembled group of friends who embraced Madonna in the 80s, a decade which she owned as far as pop stardom is concerned. (The joke in the admonition to "evacuate the dance floor" will fly over the heads of a lot of older readers, perhaps. When Cascada released the song in 2009, it was immediately compared to Lady Gaga.) MFN/ppf  

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