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- iHaveNet.com: Music
Liz Smith
Lady Gaga
"CHANGE IS inevitable. Except from a vending machine," said
THE OTHER day we spoke of excess, in the form of the late producer and party-giver
But what to make of Lady Gaga, who's today's queen of excess? The pop singer dresses like an alien and rules the charts with her techno dance tunes.
Gaga recently put out a wild and wicked video, "Telephone" guest-starring
"Telephone" is the most elaborate video in some time. It recalls the classic (and expensive) works of
BUT, can Gaga hold onto her popularity? She has a powerful voice, though it is jacked up and often distorted via the electronica so beloved today. She can dance. She has humor. The outfits, however, are a gimmick that I fear will pall quickly; she doesn't need them. They look uncomfortable and even dangerous -- to herself and others. But that's just my opinion.
Lady Gaga is most often compared to Madonna, and cited as her inheritor to the crown as Queen of Pop. (It's certainly not going to be Britney!) Hard to judge at this point. The culture (and the music biz) has changed so much since Madonna's advent in 1983, that the landscape is almost totally unrecognizable.
Allowing for those changes, I don't "feel" Lady Gaga's impact as I did with Madonna -- La Ciccone was also interesting as herself, as a celebrity, a star, an instantly iconic figure on the world landscape. Madonna presented herself as a sexual creature, open to all experience. She was no mutant! Her "re-inventions" were mostly a matter of hair color, style and a different way of dressing. She always looked like herself, even when she shaved her eyebrows to
LADY G,'s transformations are far more manufactured -- deliberate costumes. One might say she is paying homage to the 1970s when performance art and camp sensibilities spilled out into the culture and the streets -- especially in New York City. Or perhaps she's taken some bits from
Of course, Madonna's music (her ballads anyway) and her early lush videos were more to my taste -- as much as my taste would ever run to current pop music or
As far as I'm concerned, the greatest thing Madonna ever did was her
MISS Gaga has yet to break through -- in my opinion -- as Madonna did, in terms of "stardom." No matter that Madonna's movie career never quite panned out, she always had that glamour vibe, albeit on the funky side. And her personal life was subject to wild speculation. She was -- and remains -- a gossip columnist's dream. (This columnist got to know Madonna, so there's that issue in terms of judging Lady Gaga's impact; she's not calling from Budapest with the scoop on her first pregnancy.)
Well, we'll see where Lady G. is 25 years from now. Initially, nobody thought Madonna would last more than a season.
Still, like Madonna, Gaga now finds herself the subject of major "think" pieces, such as
Hmmm ... although it would be absurd for Madonna, age 51, to be truly "competitive" with the much younger Gaga -- in fact the two appeared in an "SNL" skit, spoofing a rivalry -- maybe evaluations, such as McCormick's, will kick start La Ciccone into re-thinking what she's been doing in videos recently. She should get back to the mind-set that produced masterpieces such as "Like a Prayer" "Express Yourself," "Oh, Father," "Bad Girl," "Vogue" "Take a Bow" "I Want You" and even 2000's lovely, western-themed "Don't Tell Me."
MADONNA has her four children, her admirable charity work, her multi-mega-millions, her record-breaking tours, her gorgeous young lover, her legend and a mob scene wherever she goes. She ain't crying, and I'm not crying for her. Still, I could live forever and never again see Madonna's pelvic squat thrusts that she thinks is dancing, as in her most recent videos and concerts. We know you're fit, honey. And we know you love those techno sound effects. Enough.
It's time for another reinvention.
Will Lady Gaga Really Take Madonna's Crown? - Liz Smith
Article: © iHaveNet