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Is lady gaga really a musical genius?

Watch her Monster Ball tour live from Madison Square Garden (currently showing on Sky 1), particularly the a cappella 'Born This Way' shown as part of the closing credits.

By the way, the trumpeter was there at Carlisle to fill in while Gaga carried out costume changes. (You and I may think that changing costumes three or four times during a 'live' one hour show is a bit silly, but her fans expect it of her.)
 
Gaga's Monster's Ball concert was on Sky a few days ago so I watched it in yet another act of selfless research for the greater good of mankind. Is she a genius? No. Certainly no Hendrix, Bowie, Bolan, Beatles or anything like that. Not even close - her songs, even the really catchy ones, are just not quite strong enough to transcend their time and presentation IMO - I can't see any moving into the 'classics' / 'standards' category. Is she naturally talented and good in her field? Yes, very, and she works bloody hard too. I think she is way more entertaining than say Madonna or Kylie (even if she hasn't got anything remotely as strong as 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head'). What Gaga does is cabaret / musical theatre, and she does it intelligently and with humour - I'm sure she'd far prefer to be Lisa Minnelli than John Coltrane. I also suspect the intent may not be for middle-aged audio geeks to spend pages assessing her potential for genius. It is, I suspect, just a bit of fun, and none the worse for it.

Tony.
 
I think that she's already much more talented than Bowie or Bolan ever were. Hendrix and the Beatles don't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as either of those lightweights!

Genius? Who can say yet, she's only just released her second album.

Mind you, Jeff Buckley's genius was clear after his one (and only) album!
 
vuk said:
did you check out the 3-way video?
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Just watched it now, rather amusing.

graham55 said:
I think that she's already much more talented than Bowie or Bolan ever were.
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I just don't think she has anything even remotely as strong as Get It On, 20th Century Boy, Children Of The Revolution or any of about 40 odd Bowie songs. Do you really think they'll be digging her back catalogue out in 30 years time for TV ads etc? I don't. The likes of Poker Face are good, but not as good as Can't Get You Out Of My Head (which is a Bolan / Bowie grade pop song IMO), and her singing at the piano Elton style stuff, whilst having real charm, great communication with the audience etc, has yet to produce a Your Song, Rocket Man or Daniel calibre song. I like her, but I really don't think she's got the material yet. That is obviously fixable, so I'm certainly not writing her off at all.

Tony.
 
I think she is very talented and can actually pull off a song with just her and a piano without an autotune on her vocals, I bet Kylie can't. As for her longevity, lets see what transpires once the publicity stunts have gone, SHE may be still a good entertainer in a few years time but will her songs live on? The Carlisle gig I saw a bit of on Youtube looked entertaining but I don't think her songs remotely merit the tag of genius.
As for Mark Bolan the only thing what made him get the moniker of genius was to sadly die young.
I think Bowie did create a lasting personna with the Ziggy character which is still fondly remembered after nearly 40 years and he also has created some bloody great memorable music as well as some crap.
There are only a handfull of artists that come along who have this longevity but as to level the rank of GENIUS at them well I'll leave that to the toadying chat show hosts or Radio 2 presenters like that arse wipe creep Steve Wright.
 
Gosh, I don't mean to fall out with the site owner here, but Poker Face, Telephone, Bad Romance (plus a few others) will easily outlast Bolan's pop, in my opinion. And she's just getting started. (Bowie is surely an ephemeral joke. Laughing Gnome, anyone?)

And now K Minogue and Reg Dwight are being thrown into the mix. Well, I happen to think that Ms Germanotta has the legs on both of them, but we'll have to wait and see.

Graham
 
Pete, I'd marry her tomorrow*, but I don't kid myself that she'd be interested in a sad old b*stard who has a son of her age!


*just to get get a share of her fortune, of course!
 
With Ziggy, Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs Mr Bowie put out three consecutive albums of sublime quality.

Anyone that thinks otherwise is a wee wee pooh tinkle head.

Not even the mighty Pink Floyd could do that. I still play them nearly 40 years on.

AS for Bolan - Electric Warrior is one of THE great rock and roll albums. "Motivator" has a sublime guitar break ( two, actually. )
 
I think Graham is trying to "get down with the yoof" to impress his kids.
Come on, pub bands won't be covering Lady Ga Ga songs in 20 yrs time!
 
Tony L said:
Just watched it now, rather amusing.
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OK, but what about confirming full-on what camille paglia observed? i actually find gaga more physically attractive than madonna in most respects, yet somehow she manages to thwart all sexual impulse whilst encouraging it on the surface (being very close to naked most of the time and always tarted-up). having watched the video, i have to say that a virile heterosexual male could actually be excused for temporarily considering girlieman/boybander justin timberlake as a preferable desert island companion.

i was 19 at the time of madonna's inital popularity and paglia's "on fire" observation is spot on. back then, i actually despised her music just as much as gaga's, but madonna was trophy score #1 for me and everyone, no doubt about it, just as i imagine marilyn monroe was a few of decades earlier. (i'm just pursuing the "death of blonde bombshell" thesis).

the gaga video link was to a clip from the eternal "saturday night live" show (just explaining, perhaps unnecessarily, to our UK friends). here is madonna's equivalent on the same show way back (in the context of wayne's world):
[youtube]uKuqCcrL6oU&NR[/youtube]

even when she says no/not, the invitation is still there to everyone.

our modern-day, skinny-legged, skinny-jeaned, beard-wearing, fleet-fox-listening boy-men have no idea of life beyond the little screen in front of them or what a real woman should act like and feel like.

the defense rests, your honour.

vuk.
 
vuk said:
OK, but what about confirming full-on what camille paglia observed? i actually find gaga more physically attractive than madonna in most respects, yet somehow she manages to thwart all sexual impulse whilst encouraging it on the surface (being very close to naked most of the time and always tarted-up). having watched the video, i have to say that a virile heterosexual male could actually be excused for temporarily considering girlieman/boybander justin timberlake as a preferable desert island companion.
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I read the online extract of the Paglia article (here) and I agree with Alex Needham in the Guardian (here) that it misses the point to a really quite spectacular extent. She just doesn't get it at all.

Tony.
 
Anyone who champions Madonna in 2011 needs to get a life quite frankly.

Pop music is like an item of fashion clothing: wear it for a couple of months then discard it always to be forgotten.

mat
 
Madonna was just a rip-off Cindy Lauper, who attracted lots of attention by getting her tits out for the lads on a regular basis.
 
Lady Gaga is ugly, from her real name to her plain face.

This is why she became Gaga and wears so much make up and weird wigs.

She suffers from a massive case of low self-esteem and inflicts her musical misery on the world because she is abusive.

Jack
 
FFS Chaps, shit did I really say that? I mean the girl is just trying to make a buck don’t take it too serious. She is firstly an entertainer, musician second or even lower down in the pecking order.
She is also giving us something to talk about, how many posts so far? Not bad for someone who can't even write a proper tune in many peoples eyes.
 
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