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Is lady gaga really a musical genius?

vuk

\o/ choose anarchy
this is what they keep saying on the radio, but i keep placing my bets on mozart and bach. am i being naive? is she simply more impenetrable than coltrane and beyond my generation v sensibilities?

b




vuk.
 
absolutely a genius imo, you just have to dig a little deeper.

i swore to stop "digging" into pop celebrities after my montreal incident with sam fox a long time ago, so you're going to have to explain .


vuk
 
She's a fairly competent keyboard player who writes a lot of her material so that straight away puts her ahead of the majority of todays acts.

But her success is not because of her musical skills though, as pleasant as her music is, it's how she has managed to create a 'superstar' role for herself. She's taken the media-driven preference for style over substance and adapted the "Madonna Business Model" for the 21st century: Look good, be slightly controversial, be slightly enigmatic, make 'dancy' music with mass appeal, employ the hippest side-men in the studio, reinvent yourself every 5 minutes. Pretty much under her own control has created a very powerful 'brand' which ensures constant interest from the media (nearly as much as Katy Perry ;))

So, 'genius'. I don't think so. But a very savvy person who recognises that being a pop star these days is not about the music.
 
The thousands of years of the human desire to create music have converged on this moment in time, and are being channeled through Lady Gaga and her meat costumes.
 
I think there are some unusual skills involved to keep people's attention over very long periods. Madonna could do it. Then again, maybe so can Paris Hilton.
 
A read of her biography on Wikipedia is pretty long for someone still only 25 years old, and she certainly isn't a product of anyone's manufacture - she is the real deal. Obviously a very determined and talented artist whether you like her or not and very much more of a modern day Bowie than a Madonna - there is far more to her than the single persona for a start, but there is an awful lot more to her than just a pop musician. It would appear that she is an artist who has chosen music currently as her media rather than just being a pop musician, meaning that she is truly an artist in the proper sense of the word.
People like this don't come along very often. She isn't for me personally, but nevertheless I can recognise her extraordinary talent. Whether that makes her a genius depends on whether you would call Bowie or McCartney a genius. If yes, then yes. She seems to have the ability to absorb absolutely any subject and use that knowledge to her advantage, so she is clearly frighteningly intelligent.
 
So, 'genius'. I don't think so. But a very savvy person who recognises that being a pop star these days is not about the music.

'Twas ever thus. A famous quote from a music producer in the 60s (Mickey Most?). He pitched up at a party with Jagger et al in attendance and saw a then-16 Marianne Faithfull sitting on the floor in the next room holding court to a bunch of slavering young men. He apparently said "Who is THAT? If she can hum I'll make her a star!"

Humming is about all MF is good for, and look at what happened.
 
To me the challenge is how to describe what she does. It's not 'musician' but music is part of it. Performance artist? Or is that too vague. Lady Gaga can be hired to be a newspaper editor for a day.

Some products are such an integration of sectors that they become hard to describe. Pokemon cards are merchandising for the pokemon movies. The word merchandising suggests it's not the core business. But what if it is?
Pokemon movies are adverts for the cards and the nintendo games.
 
'Twas ever thus. A famous quote from a music producer in the 60s (Mickey Most?). He pitched up at a party with Jagger et al in attendance and saw a then-16 Marianne Faithfull sitting on the floor in the next room holding court to a bunch of slavering young men. He apparently said "Who is THAT? If she can hum I'll make her a star!"

Humming is about all MF is good for, and look at what happened.

I'm guessing you've never listened to her Broken English album then?
 


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