Being a Lady Gaga fan is akin to being in the closet. Like a deep, dark, terrible secret you cannot truly avoid for fear of going insane, one day you will have to face the music and admit to this forbidden desire, with the danger of losing the love and respect of your (more tasteful) friends.

So says my boyfriend, anyway. 

And I can see what he means. Admit to liking Lady Gaga and prepare yourself for a shower of derision and condescension, most of it from so-called “real,” self-appointed, “sophisticated” music fans.  The kind of people who overstate their own knowledge of pop but use it to patronise anyway, as if the only people who can possibly like Lady Gaga are dumb listeners who don’t know their music history. Puh-leeze. It is possible to know what Gaga is ripping (and riffing) off and still enjoy her work. It is possible to like Gaga not because of lack of knowledge, but because, you know, regardless of where they came from, you like her tunes.

But that’s the thing about Gaga, for me, anyway. I WANT to like her, I really do. And I do like her, to an extent, as far as all her visual and presentation work is concerned. But I have tried to get into her music, and failed. And in the proper context too: drunk, snorting poppers in a gay bar. But, alas… Nothing.

Until I heard “Do What U Want” that is, a relatively slow groove that marries the cold electronics of Glass Candy/Italians Do It Better with the over-heated melodramatics of guest vocalist, R&B don R Kelly. The wisdom of putting Kelly on a track with that name/hook may be very questionable (as are the lyrics of the track itself) but the song and production are pretty undeniable. Musically at least, Gaga seems to be finally transcending her influences.

Yet it seems like the irony of life, which has happened before, that once a major pop act begins to release interesting, decent music that I like, the public goes off them. Which, if the lukewarm response to the ArtPop album leak last week is anything to go by, is already happening. To an extent it is understandable. Gaga’s “weirdo” schtick could be said to be wearing thin, and perhaps she is presenting nothing new to the fans who have been soaking all this up for the last five years. Especially now that practically everyone in pop has to feign some kind of wacky weirdness in the wake of her huge success. But maybe just because of that overload of the faux-strange, right now Gaga actually comes across like she’s, whisper it, the real deal.

And before anyone starts, don’t bother trying to throw names of artists and bands at me in the presumption that, like, if only I’d heard that Nina Hagen b-side from ‘82 I’d see that the only proper course of action to regain credibility is to dismiss Gaga out of hand as just another pop product. Pop she may be, but so fucking what? I mean, seriously, who else is out there doing anything close to these things in popular music right now? Being the first musician to perform in space (yeah, let’s repeat that: IN. SPACE.) Her performance art tutelage under Marina Abramovic. Handing over design duties to Jeff Koons (even if he is over-rated, name another pop act who have given an artist of his stature control of their whole aesthetic, not just a record sleeve.) Her recent red carpet, ugly-teeth look (which seems to me as much a tribute to Jodorowsky as Michael Jackson.) Creating, and piloting, a flying dress called Volantis.

I have yet to see Gaga perform live, and from what I have heard, it is her live show that will make a convert of even the most cynical stone-heart. Looking at this very recent ArtRave show, I can see why that may be. Nevermind the Jeff Koons set design and the bizarro Gareth Pugh inflatable outfit (which already has come in for stick for apparently resembling the KKK) there’s stuff going on here that reminds me—in a good way, not a reductive way—of one of my all time favourite acts, the Pet Shop Boys, a band that managed to combine all the best bits of art and pop with genuine sophistication and class. 

Yes, she is pretentious, yes, she is over-rated, but maybe now that she’s on her fourth album, and actually beginning to deliver some decent music, Lady Gaga will shed some of her more fickle fanbase and begin to appeal to the real weirdos out there. I think it’s beginning to happen already, but we shall see. Would it even be possible to convert some of you dyed-in-the-wool, cynical DM readers to the dark side?

Lady Gaga - ArtRave (Full Show)
 

 
PS I don’t know if this rip is legit or not, but somehow I doubt it. Watch it now before it gets pulled!

 
Some anti-gay party poopers hired a plane to fly above a Lady Gaga concert yesterday in Tacoma, WA at the start of her US tour.

The virulently anti-LGBT Florida Family Association hired the aircraft to fly their “NOT Born this way” banner over Lady Gaga’s “Born Brave” bus (a LGBT educational resource for young people that is tailgating her U.S. concert dates) for several hours and then to fly continuously around the Tacoma Dome parking lot from 1 PM until sunset before her January 14th concert.

According to the FFA, the protest cost $1,900 and the group is soliciting more money to target further Lady Gaga tour dates. In their fundraising efforts for the stunt, the group asked their members:

“How would you feel if your child or grandchild went to a concert where unbeknownst to you they were convinced to embrace a homosexual or transgender lifestyle for a lifetime?”

I don’t know about you, but for the life of me, I cannot imagine deciding to change my sexual orientation because of a pop singer tried to convince me of it. Not that this has anything to do with Lady Gaga or the wonderful message she’s putting out there, of course.

The group’s monetary appeal went on to read:

“The fact that someone these kids do not know spent significant resources to fly a plan to tell them they are NOT born that way will prayerfully speak to their souls.”

Yeah, right. They pointed and laughed is what they did.

Outside of the Staples Center here in Los Angles before Lady Gaga’s “Monster Ball” show a few years back, there was a single sad-sack asshole Christian guy protesting, his sign accusing Gaga of being the Whore of Babylon. Owing to the number of people we saw telling him either to go fuck himself, or simply passing by him and paying him absolutely ZERO mind like the nutcase he was, I’d estimate his rate of converting Lady Gaga fans to Christianity at about zero as well.

The FFA feels differently:

Thousands of kids who might have otherwise worked through their pubescent sexual identity issues will be inspired to accept the wrong choice based upon this unscientific, emotionally charged propaganda. What’s brave or kind about telling thousands of sexually frustrated teens that they were Born This Way when a high percentage of them would have ended up taking the straight heterosexual path for life?

(Whistles, shakes head)

Still, talk about a terrific waste of money, eh? I hope every fucktard thinking of donating to the FFA gives and gives generously. Last spring, the FFA flew a banner during “Gay Days” at Walt Disney World to tip off parents that there were (whispers) homosexuals in the park.

Via Joe.My.God

 
Anne Pigalle says ‘enough is enough’ to Lady Gaga, over the pop diva’s alleged copying of the fabulous chanteuse’s celebrated image.

Ms. Pigalle tells Dangerous MInds that she will be posting a series of comparative photographs that will highlight apparent similarities between her own celebrated and idiosyncratic style with Lady Gaga’s recent make-overs. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but nothing beats originality.

Now, judge for yourself, as we post a selection of these pictures.
 

 
More from Pigalle/Gaga, after the jump…
 

 
A selection of pop’s bold in beautiful in drag.
 

Robert Plant and Roy Harper.
 

Annie Lennox in “Who’s That Girl?”
 
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
More beautiful people after the jump…
 

 
The song is depressingly conventional. It could be Shania Twain or the Dixie Chicks - you know, MOR country music. But, the video is a slick machine, sexy, beautifully shot, and so outclasses the song that they seem to come from different universes all together.

This is what happens when an artist is expected to constantly up the ante while running out of fresh musical ideas but still has a terrific sense of theater. Huge disconnect.

Oh, I nearly forgot…the song is called “You And I” and it was produced by Mutt Lange, who a DM friend just reminded me is Shania Twain’s ex. Thanks Tim. Now it makes a little more sense, but it doesn’t make it any better.

Brian May on guitar.

Oddly, I can’t find any information as to who directed this mini-epic. It’s like a mash-up of Peter Greenaway, David Fincher and, as DM reader Framk noted, Matthew Barney.
 

 
This photo of Missing Persons’ frontwoman Dale Bozzio is from a 1980s issue of CREEM Magazine, but if you didn’t know that and I told you this was Gaga would you be able to tell the difference?

Thanks, Skye Nicolas!

 
Of the most searched-for topics on Google that lead random people to Dangerous Minds, perhaps the single most popular is “Is Lady Gaga a member of the Illuminati?”

I kid you not, there is usually at least one person, at all times of the day or night, who is visiting us to research whether or not the world’s biggest pop star is, in fact, a member of that most secretive of secret societies.  Another way way it gets phrased is “Lady Gaga” and either “Satanic conspiracy,” or “Revelations” but that’s obviously a dead giveaway of a Christian conspiracy theorist. Apparently, some people truly seem to believe that Lady Gaga figures into Bible prophecies (and it’s not just Gaga, it’s Jay-Z as well). This post is dedicated to them. It will be one of our most popular posts ever, in the long run, trust me.

Not saying that she is in the Illuminati, but if she is, Lady Gaga is certainly milking her membership for all it for all it’s worth to forward teh gayz agenda. From Joe.My.God:

The fastest-selling single in iTunes history, “Born This Way” has already sold millions of copies worldwide and has gone to #1 in more than 30 countries. Whether you’re a Gaga fan or not, you cannot deny the unprecedented impact of hundreds of millions of people singing out loud, that yes, we were born this way. Lady Gaga is pushing the movement forward in ways few could have possibly fathomed.

He’s absolutely right. That song is a wonderfully subversive, absolutely unstoppable meme. It’s a magical incantation of social engineering—it’s a spell—and Lady Gaga knows this. The nursery rhyme simplicity of the lyrics gnaw their way into your brain and don’t let go. The idea of a homophobe having that song stuck in their head all day is a pleasant notion, and you know fully well that’s happened a lot.

I think you really have to hand it to Lady Gaga. When she turned down the Target deal after they wouldn’t guarantee to her that they would shun donating to all anti-gay politicians, she was truly proving to her fan-base that she is who she says she is. It took a lot of integrity to turn down that much money. There could have been a way to “spin” it and still collect their cash. She could have played it off, if she wanted to, and yet she didn’t. The Illuminati could use more like her!
 

 
Striking a blow straight to the heart of celebrity vanity, the newest edition of the Popbitch newsletter contained the following item:

Neatly proving just how ineffective social media actually is, 18 celebrities (and Jay Sean) sacrificed their “digital lives” for charity last week, vowing to stop updating their Twitter and Facebook feeds. Social network silence from Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake and others until their fans donated a million dollars to [Keys’] Keep A Child Alive campaign to help fight AIDS.

With six days gone, donations were still under $300k. The celebs got restive - Usher just plain gave up and started tweeting - so a billionaire patsy, and longtime AIDS funder Stewart Bahr, was drafted in to pay it off.

It would have cost the celebs’ 35 million combined followers less than 3 cents each to buy back their lives and get them tweeting again, so it appears their fans are staunchly pro-AIDS, or no-one really cared very much about what they had to say in the first place.

Laying down that kind of bread, couldn’t Bahr have pushed his weight around even a little bit and negotiated a way to still keep Kim Kardashian off Twitter?

Subscribe to Popbitch.

 
Difficult to tell from the box cover, but like the real thing, it certainly hints at it! Gaga goo goo!
 
Via Oh No They Didn’t! where you can also see the back cover.

F*king epic remake of “Telephone” by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé by a bunch of bored soldiers in a base in Afghanistan. Clearly they are as bored there as I am here. I’m glad I know that all the money I got reamed for this year out of my hard-earned pay for writing about Lady Gaga went to Lady Gaga YouTube remakes in the desert.

(Thanks, Josh McCafferty!)

(Examiner: Soldiers in Afghanistan remake Lady Gaga ‘Telephone’ video)

(Lady Gaga/Beyonce—Telephone: The Remixes)

h+ magazine just published a significantly re-written, revised and expanded version of my essay “Lady Gaga and the Dead-Planet Grotesque,” updated for the “Telephone” video.

If David Bowie’s chameleonic posturing prefigured the hypertext web, Gaga may be the first version of a human being we have seen capable of thriving in the era of the social web. She is shiny, clickable, and malleable in the face of endless attention fragmentation. She is an adaptive strategy. Without any solid or “real” self, her identity becomes whatever it needs to be, immune to the toxic shock of the incoming century, fully geared up to party in the ruins. Is it any wonder that she’s provoked the response she has, both adulation and hatred? She’s the first non-boring thing to happen in pop music for almost fifteen years.

Consider Lady Gaga in prison in the beginning of her new video. That’s all of us, “held captive” in the modern condition — but Gaga is the Magician, able to transform any situation to her will. Five minutes in and she’s reassembled her outfit from chains and cigarettes and is wrapping herself around the girls in the prison yard. The other people in prison are already listening to her songs on her branded Lady Gaga headphone… she set the context before she even arrived. Though she may be in prison, she already rules the world. This is what adaptation to the 21st century looks like. The brand “Gaga” can be reassembled from anything, even in a vacuum, even from trash, just as we must learn to do with our own masks of self…

(h+: Lady Gaga and the Dead-Planet Grotesque)

(Lady Gaga: The Fame Monster)

This premiered just now. Please, Dangerous Minds readers, please—explain to me what I just saw!?!?!?

(Watch big here.)

(The Fame Monster [Deluxe Edition])

(Special Bonus: 4chan thread on video here, while it lasts!)

 
Like so many of us these days, Megan Williams, 10, was just dancing around with a dressing gown cord while listening to Lady Gaga.  Tragedy struck when Megan looped the cord around her neck:

The cord, which was tied to a bunk bed, tightened as she danced around and strangled her to death.  The alarm was raised when her 15-year old brother ran downstairs to their mother Lisa saying: ‘Megan’s hanged herself.’  Mrs Williams tried to revive her daughter using tips she had seen on television but the schoolgirl died later in hospital.

A coroner later said the accident graphically illustrated the dangers of children playing around with cords.  Cords and Lady Gaga, that is.  Your move, Vigilant Citizen!

Schoolgirl, 10, Accidentally Hanged Herself With Dressing Gown Cord As She Danced To Lady GaGa

 
Karin Dreijer of the Swedish sibling duo The Knife, also known professionally as Fever Ray, shows Gaga how it’s done.

Via Bob Lefsetz

 
The new decade’s barely 8 days old, but I’m already sensing a developing continuing theme.  Consider this: a zeitgeisty popstar whose authenticity is a subject of endless debate assumes a role in a company whose hallmark products no longer exist!

Lady Gaga’s success continues this week, with the announcement that the singer has been made a creative director of Polaroid.  Despite the fact that the traditional analogue Polaroid cameras were discontinued last year, the company continues to sell a range of digital products and sees Lady Gaga as the ideal spokesperson for a “speciality line.”

“I am so proud to announce my new partnership with Polaroid as the creative director and inventor of speciality projects,” said the pop star.  “The Haus of Gaga has been developing prototypes in the vein of fashion/technology/photography innovation, blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era.  Lifestyle, music, art, fashion: I am so excited to extend myself behind the scenes as a designer, and as my father puts it, finally have a real job.”

It is not clear what role the 23-year-old singer will play at the 73-year-old imaging company, but Polaroid confirmed “new products by Lady Gaga will hit retail shelves starting in late 2010.”

Well, The Guardian might not know what role she’ll be playing, but readers of Dangerous Minds certainly have a good idea—it rhymes with “moccult!”

Previously in Dangerous Minds:
God Hates Lady Gaga: The Song

Lady Gaga and the Dead-Planet Grotesque

Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson: Puppets Of The Illuminati!