Told you she didn't have a dick
March 12, 2010 7:05 AM   Subscribe

Continuing the story from Paparazzi, Telephone from Lady Gaga and Beyonce. posted by mccarty.tim (216 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
Ah so, this is where people go when they get arrested by the fashion police.
posted by delmoi at 7:14 AM on March 12, 2010 [9 favorites]


Apologies in advance, hermitosis.
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:18 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Let's make a sandwich!
posted by oinopaponton at 7:20 AM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


It's basically a montage of pop cultural references (caged heat, that crappy Tarantino movie, etc) with great costumes and bad music. It's worth it for the costumes alone, and it looks like they probably had a lot of fun making it.
posted by Forktine at 7:29 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


This video makes a compelling argument for Miracle Whip (great way to murder people!). But Everyone knows mayo is the illest condiment in the hizzouse (skip to 1:58)
posted by delmoi at 7:34 AM on March 12, 2010


I am now gay.
posted by tigrefacile at 7:41 AM on March 12, 2010 [11 favorites]


mmm sandwich
posted by captaincrouton at 7:44 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Holy product placement, Batman!

*Virgin Mobile
*Beats, by Dr. Dre
*More Beats...specifically GaGa's "HeartBeats"
*Diet Coke
*Polaroid (in which GaGa owns stock)
*Wonder Bread
*Miracle Whip

I admit, however, that the last two sorta puzzle me.
posted by kaseijin at 7:44 AM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


Well, I'm guessing that Virgin Mobile helped pay for a chuck of that, two big placements. Not sure why Plentyoffish.com got the shout-out, they're a free dating site. And I loved that the fast food cup in the Pussy Wagon was from "Double Breasted Drive-Thru."

It's really nice to see someone bringing a sense of fun and absurdity back into pop art, while doing it so well.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:49 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Definitely the most Madonna-esque of the videos, in terms of hairstyle, makeup, dances, etc. Whether that's an homage or a send-up I guess lies with the viewer.
posted by PMdixon at 7:49 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


She's got a great voice, her tunes are annoyingly ear wormy, her lyrics are often laughable, she's completely absurd and I think she's more performance artist than musician. I love her.

"If Sir Elton, Madonna, Bowie, Matthew Barney AND Bjork went into Jeff Goldblum's 'Fly' pod, you'd get Lady Gaga at the other end. Awesome." - Adam Savage
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 7:51 AM on March 12, 2010 [23 favorites]


kaseijin: You missed Plentyoffish ("The world's biggest dating site!") who actually had a screen shot and a video of someone logging into the site.

The weirdest thing is the fact that these aren't even aspirational brands. Plentyoffish is like a slightly more upscale version of craigslist, and then Wonderbread and Miracle Whip?
posted by delmoi at 7:52 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I lolled when they said, "See, I told you she didn't have dick."
posted by greekphilosophy at 7:52 AM on March 12, 2010 [8 favorites]


Well, I'm guessing that Virgin Mobile helped pay for a chuck of that, two big placements. Not sure why Plentyoffish.com got the shout-out, they're a free dating site.

Uh, because they paid for it?
posted by delmoi at 7:52 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Apparently, I'm not the only one who saw Reform School Girls as an impressionable pre-teen.

I still regularly accuse people of "messin' with my personals."
posted by klanawa at 7:53 AM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


This made me *squee* in delight and gape in awestruck horror at the same time, for the full length of the video.

ur doin it right gaga
posted by fleetmouse at 7:54 AM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


Yay!! Was just listening to this track this morning going "Geez! I haven't listened to Gaga in weeks! Yay!"

Now I can go SQUEEE!
posted by cavalier at 7:57 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


And let me just add :55 seconds in that I am not a particular fan of Mr. Jonas Akerlund, but in this video it would seem that Lady Gaga can command him to be visual enough without being needlessly offputting. Bravo.
posted by cavalier at 8:00 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


dang. this is amazing.
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:00 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Uh, because they paid for it?

Well, sure, but as you mentioned about Miracle Whip and Wonder Bread, not exactly aspirational brands, so I'm thinking there's something else going on with the "low-rent" versions of some of these products being featured so prominently. Or maybe they were all just the highest bidders.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:00 AM on March 12, 2010


Do music videos use the internet as a primary means of distribution now? I can't imagine there's any part of this that would be allowed on TV. The makeout with the gender-ambiguous inmate alone would probably cause an uproar among the right-wingers. But then, it would probably also turn them on.
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:05 AM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


OMG LOL <3>Actually, those Diet Coke cans as curlers totally won me over. Also, the bright yellow tips on peroxide blonde hair is also kinda excellent. And the big hats. So many big hats.
posted by LMGM at 8:09 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Coors Light neon sign in the bar. Really reaching new heights of product placement.

My favourite part though is that Gaga can say "motherfucker," but when Beyonce says it it's bleeped.
posted by yellowbinder at 8:09 AM on March 12, 2010 [7 favorites]


Ah. I am charmed - yes, charmed - by this woman and everything she does.
posted by Jofus at 8:12 AM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


I am now gayer.
posted by Theta States at 8:16 AM on March 12, 2010 [9 favorites]


UNIVERSAL HATE
posted by Joseph Gurl at 8:17 AM on March 12, 2010


I think it's fair to say that Thriller would be a little under ten minutes long if it was made today.
posted by graventy at 8:19 AM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


Fuck you Lady Gaga, now I can't wear my leopard bodysuit with matching cowl without EVERYONE thinking that I'm just copying you.
posted by greekphilosophy at 8:19 AM on March 12, 2010 [22 favorites]


I can't imagine there's any part of this that would be allowed on TV.

Why not? Since when is MTV worried about "uproar among the right-wingers"? Back when MTV played music videos every one in a while they played this, which featured Christina Aguilera dancing in a flooded bathroom. And this which had a dude licking Briney Spears. No lesbianism, but I doubt that would cause much of an uproar these days.

I don't think Youtube's standards are any more lax then cabel TV.

Of course, MTV used to have rules against product placement...
posted by delmoi at 8:23 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I am an unabashed Lady Gaga fan. I think she's adorable and brilliant and insane and just what pop music needs. She writes really good pop songs -- they're catchy and pretty clever.

I hope the more money she gets, the weirder she'll become. I think she's gorgeous, certainly, but I like that she's not trying to be pretty most of the time, if that makes sense.
posted by darksong at 8:27 AM on March 12, 2010 [7 favorites]


I am usually not inspired by pop culture, but I have to admit I really really like this video, product placement and all.
posted by psylosyren at 8:29 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Is it okay to make lesbian jokes in this thread?
posted by ryoshu at 8:31 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


I have never been as confused as I am now. Those two videos have done more to confound me then years of calculus have.
posted by fizzzzzzzzzzzy at 8:39 AM on March 12, 2010


CIGARETTE GLASSES.

That's all I needed to see.
posted by The Whelk at 8:41 AM on March 12, 2010 [20 favorites]


Stunning. Simultaneously achieves new levels of shit both musically and video-wise.

A friend mentioned the Trololo song last night and his bafflement about what it could possibly originally have been... "Like, is it from a movie? Was it a variety show? What possible context could it be placed in and make sense?"

If there's still an internet in 40 years you could take any minute of either of those videos, post it on it's own site, and have people ask the same question. In short, wtf?

And why is motherfucker okay when Gaga says it but bleeped when Beyonce says it?
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 8:42 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


And oh yeah her makeup really makes her look like Early Madonna. It's neat, but I like my Gaga when she's being unfathomably weird rather than pretty - which is most of the time.
posted by The Whelk at 8:42 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Yeah, definite push for "sexy I'm all woman wearing underwear" GaGa. Not my preference, but hey, it sells, I guess.
posted by cavalier at 8:48 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Oh, and is that Perez at 6:10? And the telephone hat, amazing?!
posted by cavalier at 8:58 AM on March 12, 2010


And why is motherfucker okay when Gaga says it but bleeped when Beyonce says it?

It's not funny if you have to explain it.
posted by tigrefacile at 8:59 AM on March 12, 2010 [10 favorites]


One could beanplate why Gaga is not bleeped saying "motherfucker" while Beyonce is, but I think the answer is as simple as coke cans for curlers. It's just something they could do, so they did. And then people would mention it.
posted by crush-onastick at 9:04 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


*cough Kill Bill homage cough "pussy wagon" cough*
posted by The Whelk at 9:04 AM on March 12, 2010


You know, I actually kinda love Lady Gaga's videos ... is it bad that I watch them with the sound off?

I'm just not into dance music, is all
posted by Afroblanco at 9:08 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I can't imagine there's any part of this that would be allowed on TV.

They showed it on the E network last night and made a big deal about having to show it late night since it is too hot for earlier in the day.

I'm ashamed to acknowledge I was watching E
posted by birdherder at 9:08 AM on March 12, 2010


Afro, there are several minutes of non music in this video you may enjoy. I am remarkably suprised just how very far they stretched the concept of this being the "music' video since the song itself is so, well, obvious and simple, and this video's story is anything but.

SQUEEEEEEeeee
posted by cavalier at 9:09 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Gaga's great and all, but can I get some love for Bettie Page Beyonce? She first made an appearance in Video Phone and now I CANNOT GET ENOUGH.
posted by ourobouros at 9:10 AM on March 12, 2010 [8 favorites]


In regards to the unequal bleeping:
I routinely hear Money for Nothing on the radio with a slur against gays unbleeped. (The lyric is ironic, but that's not the point for censoship). I bet that the same word would be bleeped on a top 40 station.

My guess is that it's a racially charged commentary on unequal censorship.
posted by Jorus at 9:11 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Betty Page Beyonce going "You've been a BAD GIRL GAGA" is gonna show up in young women's coming out memoirs in about 8 years.
posted by The Whelk at 9:12 AM on March 12, 2010 [18 favorites]


The video actually has nothing to do with the song, and in fact it seems like they're only even playing music like 50% of the time.
posted by delmoi at 9:12 AM on March 12, 2010


I'm with you ourobouros, but I have to say Beyonce Page's costumes in this video were FAR superior (and vastly more flattering) than her costumes in Videophone.
posted by greekphilosophy at 9:13 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


And why is motherfucker okay when Gaga says it but bleeped when Beyonce says it?

My wife's friend's cousin was the second lighting director's executive assistant's dogsbody for the shoot, and they told me there were concerns from Beyonce's management that leaving it unbleeped could spark a rumour that Beyonce had something approximating a personality. She may be good singer and a good dancer, and I am sure she is very pleasant, but sweet goddamn is she pencils in the eye boring to watch otherwise. She's like the Anti-Charisma.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:21 AM on March 12, 2010 [6 favorites]


This won't show up on MTV. Not because of the gratuitous sexuality and language, though. There's just simply too much music for MTV's current schedules.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:26 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Okay! Guys! This has been bothering me for a long long long time, and I'd like somebody to finally back up my paranoid belief:

Does Lady Gaga look like David Lynch's pet singer Julee Cruise? Because I think they're dead ringers, and beyond that I think Gaga has some similar bizarre, distressing moments, yet I never hear the two compared.
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:28 AM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


I'm just glad to see a story coming together. Gaga goes to jail for killing her boyfriend in Paparazzi. She gets bailed out in Telephone, gets revenge (?) on more bad (?) men and a dog (o_o). Nice.

I'm assuming Bad Romance takes place in the alternative timeline where Ziggy Stardust fell through a black hole and Gaga's friends with Sasha Fierce instead of Beyonce.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:31 AM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


Julee has a stronger chin and longer nose, similar eyes and face shape tho.
posted by The Whelk at 9:31 AM on March 12, 2010


I really love the idea of Gaga and Beyonce being an updated Thelma and Louise/Wonder Woman/Betty Page/The Bride from Kill Bill. I want to see them continue their Road Trip while trying to avoid Texas.
posted by piratebowling at 9:32 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I like the background on LadyGaga.com that goes with the music video, and I'd love to make it my wallpaper, but unfortunately, it has the videoframe on it.

Any photoshop wizards or otherwise talented/insider MeFites know how to clean that up? I use my laptop to take notes, and I'd love for my classmates to get more false-positive gay vibes from me.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:38 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Ah. Another example of showing how strong and independent you are as a woman by being exactly what every man fantasizes about.
posted by flarbuse at 9:39 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Holy product placement, Batman!

It's a visual gag meant to be noticed. It's playing off of the idea that they are in a "movie".
posted by cazoo at 9:45 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


OK, maybe as a gay guy I'm disconnected from this sort of thing, but does this video honestly represent a straight man's fantasies? Even a little?
posted by Help, I can't stop talking! at 9:47 AM on March 12, 2010


Ah. Another example of showing how strong and independent you are as a woman by being exactly what every man fantasizes about.

I cannot tell you how many times my boyfriend has begged me to poison his coffe. And sandwich. And honey. BUt I'm a good feminist and make my own rules, so I'm like, "Nuh,-uh, that conforms to antiquated gender rules that I can't get behind."
posted by piratebowling at 9:47 AM on March 12, 2010 [48 favorites]


Ah. Another example of showing how strong and independent you are as a woman by being exactly what every man fantasizes about.

Maybe I'm vanilla, but I've never fantasized about a blonde wearing a bright blue telephone hat poisoning me. I think you're just snarking to snark yourself snark.
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:47 AM on March 12, 2010 [9 favorites]


It's a visual gag meant to be noticed. It's playing off of the idea that they are in a "movie".

It's not funny if you have to... Ah, whatever.
posted by tigrefacile at 9:50 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


I'm wondering what products were placed as a metajoke on product placement, and which products were placed because money was put up, and which were examples of both. I could see Miracle Whip paying for placement since they did buy all the ad space on Colbert after he joked about them, but I really doubt Wonder Bread would do it.

There's also a general sense of Lady Gaga going for low brow brands, which is probably saying something about all the aspirational brands in other music videos. For example, Beyonce feeds Gaga a Honey Bun, which is one of those cheap shrinkwrapped pastries you can get at a gas station.

I wish Lady Gaga didn't already have deals with Beats by Dre, because that is placed in nearly every music video. Sending that up by wearing crappy Walkman headphones would be nice.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:51 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I had to check the credits when I saw the "Let's Make A Sandwich!" graphic.

The fact Gaga hasn't invited Eric Wareheim into the Haus is a crime that future generations will condemn her for.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:58 AM on March 12, 2010


This also seems like the thread in which to offer up the gayest and greatest (unofficial) Gaga video EVAR. (NSFW, or anyone who has issues with gay S&M vampires.)
posted by PMdixon at 9:59 AM on March 12, 2010


Fix your link, PMdixon, as it sounds awesome!
posted by mccarty.tim at 10:04 AM on March 12, 2010


Détournement.
posted by everichon at 10:05 AM on March 12, 2010


Oh, link fail. Tragic. This should be better.
posted by PMdixon at 10:06 AM on March 12, 2010 [5 favorites]


but I doubt that would cause much of an uproar these days.

My first introduction to Lady Gaga was through Molly Lewis' cover of Poker Face. After watching that video a few times I decided to track down the original. It wasn't to be found on youtube so I went to MTV's site and found it. Three words were bleeped in the video. Not any were the famous seven; they were Russian, gun and muffin.
Seemed like odd things by which to be offended.
posted by Tenuki at 10:06 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


yes, Tenuki, but everyone knows that "muffin" meant VAGINA.
posted by pinky at 10:24 AM on March 12, 2010


Do you know how to tell when you are old? When you watch this video and think, "I sure wish those two girls would put their seatbelts on."

Good. I'm not old yet.

PMdixon, thanks for posting the Haus of Gaga!
posted by immlass at 10:25 AM on March 12, 2010


Yeah, definite push for "sexy I'm all woman wearing underwear" GaGa. Not my preference, but hey, it sells, I guess.

The watercooler conversations in my office are my dipstick for "mainstream culture" at any given moment, and it's suprising how strong the legs are on the "Lady Gaga is a man" meme among that set; it's basically the only thing they know about her. So in that regard I found the full-on vag shot 30 seconds into this vid a little desperate and sad, rather than funny or anything else.
posted by anazgnos at 10:26 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Right around 3:20 or so is an homage to Madonna's Open Your Heart.
posted by asockpuppet at 10:43 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


yes, Tenuki, but everyone knows that "muffin" meant VAGINA.

Damn. I was really hoping it meant muffin-top

I was hoping for a follow-up in which she rhymed diamond rings with bingo wings.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:48 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


It would be weird to be the woman in that Wiki article on muffin-tops, and to find out that you are the illustrative example of that idiom.
posted by everichon at 11:06 AM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


it's suprising how strong the legs are on the "Lady Gaga is a man" meme among that set

I suppose I could see how it got started. The over the top videos plus the "Lady" preceding her name is sort of drag queen-ish.
posted by electroboy at 11:06 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


The more of these GaGa/Akerlund collaborations I see the more I like them. Best music and videos since Outkast released Speakerboxx/Love Below. Those who dismiss her music as more of the same have not sat down and really listened to it.

Skeptics of her musical significance should really check her solo piano arrangements of a few different songs. The dancey beats and glossy production are just gift-wrapping for some seriously fine songwriting and musicianship.
posted by anigbrowl at 11:09 AM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


it's suprising how strong the legs are on the "Lady Gaga is a man" meme

They said the same thing about Gwen Stefani, if I recall correctly. I think it has something to do with their "overdone drag queen" aesthetic.
posted by Afroblanco at 11:11 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Muffin top is a dance song from 30 Rock, Peter.

Still, muffin for vagina works better in Pokerface, as Gaga's confirmed it's about having bisexual feelings while having sex with her boyfriend. Google it, she's said it in a ton of interviews.
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:18 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Damn that's a lot of product placement. Also a crazy-ass video. Cigarette glasses and diet coke curlers for the win. Also all the tits and ass.
posted by chunking express at 11:18 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I want to know who the brunette at 2:17 is. It looks like Gaga. Is it her, her sister, a cousin, a random extra?
posted by pinky at 11:22 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


lady gaga is so damn quirky i love it. i wonder what it was like on set. i wonder if beyonce was ever like, "damn girl, i don't know about that..." to lady gaga, cuz lady gaga comes up with some weird ass shit!
posted by crystalsparks at 11:22 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I want to know who the brunette at 2:17 is. It looks like Gaga. Is it her, her sister, a cousin, a random extra?

It's her sister.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 11:27 AM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


I'm not completely sure when the Lady Gaga is a dude/hermaphrodite meme started, but my first exposure to it was watching a YouTube video of her performing at a concert in a short dress and straddling a... motorcycle, I think? After she got off, her dress was hiked pretty far up, and she casually but deliberately shimmied it back down in front of the audience, but not before you got a glimpse of something. Probably just her underwear, but a lot of people on Twitter seemed to think it was a penis.

Shortly afterward, an interviewer asked her about the rumor, and she said the rumors were true: "I have a poon and a peener."

Probably all publicity stuntery, but I kind of love her for saying "peener."
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:29 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I'm holding auditions for a parody of Telephone/Videophone. It's going to be a fully steampunk dance hit about sexting in Morse Code called "Telegraph." Current casting needs: a vaguely ethnic Bettie Page, several hot shirtless men, and two trained stunt horses.
posted by greekphilosophy at 11:32 AM on March 12, 2010 [20 favorites]


I perfer her comment on *some?* English chat show

"There are rumors that you're ...actually a man."

"Well I do have a huge donkey dick."


and then I feel in love with her forever.
posted by The Whelk at 11:35 AM on March 12, 2010 [17 favorites]


that's awesome, Blue Jello Elf!
posted by pinky at 11:49 AM on March 12, 2010


Sigh.

I was enjoying this video... until the music started. :-(

I like a lot about Lady Gaga - and she actually writes her own music and plays and sings it live. That's a Big Deal for me. I so wish I liked that music. But I don't.

It isn't even terrible - it's just completely regular and unmemorable. I actually like music like this on the rare occasions when I drive, because I believe I become a road hazard when I listen to engaging music.

Frankly, I don't even see how this is particularly catchy - I realize that I'd heard this song in passing before and it made almost no impression on me. To me, catchy is something like "Walk Like An Egyptian" (first one into my head, there are hundreds) where even one note from the song not only cues you into what song it is but sets the whole thing whirring.

There's also the whole "era" thing. I really didn't like Nirvana at all - I expected them to be far more hard-core than they were, I was deep into the Butthole Surfers at the time - but "Teen Spirit" is somewhat catchy, and also the very sound an identifier of that era.

But, except for the autotune (sigh), this Gaga song could have appeared any time in the last 20 years.

:-( :-( :-(

Minty, Minty, what a shame that never took off...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:49 AM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


Wow. Just.....wow. Love the song, love the video. I want to have this playing constantly for the rest of the day.
posted by mogget at 11:50 AM on March 12, 2010


i have a vague recollection that beyonce does not curse because it is offensive to her mother; she apparently was required to curse for some role, engendering distress. i thought the bleeping in the video was a cute way of acknowledging and making light of this.

i'm looking forward to seeing (freezing?) the cast list, as i think some of the actors themselves are part of the cultural references. i'm fairly sure that the guards escorting gaga into prison are actual veterans of the chained heat genre.

i've seen this video about eight times now and am made giddily happy by it.

let's make a sandwich! /fotb
posted by fallacy of the beard at 11:51 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I like Snopes' take on the rumor, which can basically be summed up as "Lady Gaga's a bisexual slut, someone would have told the tabloids a long time ago," which can be seen in the last paragraph. Not because it's fine deductive reasoning, but because I just like how base it is for Snopes to say that.
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:53 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I, for one, LOVE the song. It's the best out-on-the-town anthem since "Just Dance" (tellingly, also by Gaga). If you hate having fun, I guess disliking it makes sense.

I kid.

Not really
posted by oinopaponton at 11:54 AM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


It isn't even terrible - it's just completely regular and unmemorable.

Yeah, I remember hearing about Lady Gaga and this song called "Poker Face," and I was like, huh? Cause I didn't recognize the name. But then somebody played it for me, and I was like okay, I've heard this a million times before. What was weird was that it never occurred to me that an actual person had made it. I guess I always assumed that all dance music was generated by a perl script or something.

Having said that, I do like her sensibility and style. Her videos are very enjoyable with the sound off.
posted by Afroblanco at 12:00 PM on March 12, 2010 [6 favorites]


I'm not a huge fan of the music(take it or leave it, really), but I loves me some Gaga videos and the Gaga metafilter threads are immensely entertaining as well. Keep it up, y'all.
posted by owtytrof at 12:03 PM on March 12, 2010


Still, muffin for vagina works better in Pokerface

Yeah, I knew it was vagina really. But I still think it would have been way cooler if she'd been bluffing men with her well-concealed spare tyre.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:05 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


anigbowl, thanks for those links. She's a decent piano player... but those arrangements and songs are, unfortunately, very regular, even by the very conservative standards of today's pop music.

Random example: Freddy Mercury doing "You Take My Breath Away". Mercury isn't as technically good a piano player as Gaga, this part is not as complex but his ear for harmony is simply on a higher level - listen to how the internal harmonies shift from minor to major to diminished and back down again as the song gets more heated and then dies down again. (Gaga's stuff also doesn't breathe very well - it has a slightly mechanical feel - but that's just youth, she'll get past that...)

In our grandparents' era, the ability to just knock out piano arrangements at the level of Gaga was commonplace. My dad could have done a pretty decent job at this, or tens of thousands of people of his generation... the generation before that, the piano was essentially the TV of many households, and not only did they have reams of sheet music, people would just play their own arrangements of pop music they'd heard and really think nothing of it.

Heck, this talent still exists, I've dated at least one person who could do it.

So, yes, I'm very happy that there's a pop star again who can actually sing and play an instrument - and who has an amazing personal style - but it makes me very very sad that her music is so regular.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:08 PM on March 12, 2010 [8 favorites]


I think this qualifies as a 3 video.
posted by GammaGoblin at 12:09 PM on March 12, 2010


Fashion credits
posted by oinopaponton at 12:09 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Okay but on the ferrealferreal, why did Gaga kill that dog?
posted by greekphilosophy at 12:13 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


how could one not like a song with three different choruses? i hoped this would be one of the singles as soon as i heard it.

plus there's the neat i don't know what you call it musical effect viz. kinda busy...kinda busy that i would characterize as a delayed resolution. i think many of her songs have unexpected elements like this that prove her songwriting unique and intuitive.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 12:14 PM on March 12, 2010


The references in this video abound, another example.

(Meta-cyanide: Frank Herbert's Dune, Fex-m3: Star Wars universe, Tiberium: Command & Conquer series)

via
posted by LooseFilter at 12:25 PM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


One more random keyboard player... Keith Emerson, only a year or two older than Gaga is now (and incidentally quite drunk during this live show...).

I'm not a massive ELP fan - it fits into the category of "music I'm happy to hear" and I own just one of their albums, which I got last year in a garage sale - but even though Keith Emerson's outfits aren't a patch on Gaga's, he's simply a whole order of magnitude better keyboard player.

And this was almost 40 years ago. Consider how much better the rhythm sections are these days compared to the stiff and tiny sounds of that era...

Again, nothing against Gaga! It just makes me sad that the level of musicianship in the music world is so low these days that she's considered a "fantastic" musician.

Complaining won't solve anything though... I'm working on fixing this, by simply becoming a virtuoso player myself ("put up or shut up", yes?) and running my own internet radio station (we're not actually going live until April, but we've been running shows with decent response...) and simply by going out and seeing a lot of live music.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:28 PM on March 12, 2010


people would just play their own arrangements of pop music they'd heard and really think nothing of it.

This just gave me a moment's fantasy of banging out rag-timey versions of Revolting Cocks or Green Velvet on the Upright. Now I am in a slough of despond because this will never happen.

* kicks pebble *
posted by everichon at 12:29 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


I'm making sandwiches for lunch for the rest of the month.
posted by mdonley at 12:33 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Also also: from 8:45 to about 8:52, what's the Swedish at the bottom in the "news ticker" say?
posted by mdonley at 12:37 PM on March 12, 2010


We need a MeFi Recipes section more than ever. We're all gonna be serving each other poisonous sandwiches for yuks and guffaws, but how will we know if our recipes work right? As LooseFilter explained, three of the poisons suggested in the video don't exist in real life!
posted by mccarty.tim at 12:37 PM on March 12, 2010


I really hope we do find some deep encoded message in the video that leads to us dialing into a BBS in Washington, leading to a studio MP3 of Future Love instead of all the live performances.

But if it's just a video, I'm still happy.
posted by mccarty.tim at 12:40 PM on March 12, 2010


This is the best argument against suspended animation I can think of. See, we've all been accustomed to Lady Gaga over the last few years, like the proverbial boiling frog. If you were to show this to a human from 2007, they might have a psychotic break. Whereas now, we're like, huh, Kraft must've switched agencies.
posted by condour75 at 12:41 PM on March 12, 2010 [22 favorites]


the answers to why wonder bread and miracle whip might be in their parent companies - GE and General Foods/Phillip Morris have pretty deep pockets. i personally think it's meta commentary, made only more meta by the fact that she probably got paid very well for the product placements.
posted by nadawi at 12:47 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Lupus_yonderboy, you make great points - I'm a pretty poor musician so maybe I like her music because I don't have the skill to follow more complex chord progressions of the kind in your (outstanding) Freddie Mercury link, and also because I do enjoy the synth & drum machine-laden gift-wrapping the tunes are delivered in.

I guess I'm optimistic partly because she seems in such full control of her image and commercial strategies that she can afford to keep exploring and expanding her musical range without too much business pressure. But now that you've brought up comlex harmonies, I have to go and listen to some Kate Bush.
posted by anigbrowl at 12:49 PM on March 12, 2010


Was that RuPaul I heard in the very beginning, cat-calling?

Also, I fucking love Lady GaGa. Completely and wholly and fantastically.
posted by kalimac at 12:54 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


in let's make a sandwich, i wondered if there was some element of commentary on how gaga has been criticized for product placement in her videos (which i think started out as a kind of parody of product placement in rap videos), while other product placement (as in cooking shows and on food networks) seems an unquestioned part of the landscape. i wouldn't know enough about video production to know whether gaga even needs product placement, but if it allows her the financial means to make videos like this and offers her creative control over how it is implemented, i'm pretty happy with it.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 12:57 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


things that are awesome: gaga's page on tvtropes
posted by nadawi at 1:00 PM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]




"You are now witnessing the birth oif a true supervillian."

I can read her p-poker face?
posted by PMdixon at 1:27 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Well, that was...odd. The product placement was shameless and stupid and distracting on its own, and the entire thing felt very disjointed as a narrative, but what was up with the poisoning? I think this "murder is a pretty awesome and feminist thing to do if the guy is an asshole" trope is extremely problematic, as well. It's very questionable to conflate men who are maybe abusive or murderous with men who are just jerks.
posted by clockzero at 1:40 PM on March 12, 2010



Holy product placement, Batman!


You forgot CAUTION© brand tape.
posted by clearly at 1:44 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Being less interested in the music videos than the meta-references in them, I jumped into Wikipedia for a quick history of 70's women-in-prison exploitation films.

Huh. Jonathan Demme directed "Caged Heat"?
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 1:49 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


ClockZero, maybe that's Gaga's point. Maybe she killed the first dude because he almost killed her, and now that she has a taste for blood, she intends to kill all men with poison. I mean, she's bound to get life after sentencing anyway. Why not go full hog? "Once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger."
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:59 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


It isn't even terrible - it's just completely regular and unmemorable.

Yeah, this song does nothing for me. The video is cool and all, but it doesn't save the song.

Leaving aside the stripped down acoustic versions she performs which I think are often really good, I thought "Bad Romance" was just way, way better musically than "Telephone".
posted by Justinian at 2:05 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


I like the background on LadyGaga.com that goes with the music video, and I'd love to make it my wallpaper, but unfortunately, it has the videoframe on it.

Any photoshop wizards or otherwise talented/insider MeFites know how to clean that up? I use my laptop to take notes, and I'd love for my classmates to get more false-positive gay vibes from me.


Say that you love me, mccarty.tim.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:07 PM on March 12, 2010 [5 favorites]


...but what was up with the poisoning?

i would easily fall into overanalyzing it beyond what was intended, but the first thing i thought with tyrese in the video (spoiler: being poisoned) was about how gaga has spoken out against homophobia in the industry, and tyrese apparently hasn't had much kind word for gayfolk. i don't know that it would have been intended as a general anti-homophobic statement, though it is her with the gays in the kitchen cooking up the food, and they're the ones dancing at the end with all the dead folks around them.

maybe there's something to the fact that she's poisoning guys from within classic feminine roles--cooking in telephone, fixing her boyfriend a drink in paparazzi.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 2:08 PM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


That video is so many different kinds of amazing, even with the product placement (the Verizon and Polaroid were awful but the Wonderbread was inspired!) The coke can hair rollers have cemented Gaga as my idol. Swoon!

Beyonce was great too, but i was so distracted by her ill-fitting yellow dress that I had a hard time focusing on anything else. Wrong bra size, honey! The cups are too small! Gah!

Maybe that's just me because i'm a bra-sizing nerd and Beyonce is doing it wrong.
posted by ukdanae at 2:10 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


OTOH... maybe I should take that back. mccarty.tim:
I like Snopes' take on the rumor, which can basically be summed up as "Lady Gaga's a bisexual slut, someone would have told the tabloids a long time ago," which can be seen in the last paragraph.

Nice piece of sexist reasoning there, timbo. Snopes only points out that no one has ever said, "I had sex with her, and she has ___ for genitalia."

No sex partners willing to comment = bisexual slut? Fail.

Especially since she describes herself as celibate, and that's not been debunked, either. Celibate sluts... the mind boggles at your world.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:17 PM on March 12, 2010


Ah. Another example of showing how strong and independent you are as a woman by being exactly what every man fantasizes about.

This reminds me a little of an editorial I read in which the writer was annoyed by Lady Gaga's having appeared on a magazine cover:
I'm loath to say that her feminist, self-determining shtick was all talk and no trousers – not least because the lady's never been much of a trouser wearer – but it certainly sounds like all chat and no puffball skirt. In true lads' mag style, the image is of a topless blonde, in black leather-like trousers, one gloved hand coyly positioned over her boobs, the other not so coyly rammed against her crotch. Jutted hip, parted lips and vacuous expression tick the remaining boxes that constitute the mainstream image of sexy.
She was indeed posed as the writer described, but she was also wearing a strap-on.

Also I was enthusing about Lady Gaga at a friend the other day, and she didn't get why everyone was excited about the whole "Lady Gaga is transgressive and subverting the norms of female sexuality!" "No she is just reinscribing those norms!" debate, because hadn't we been through this before with Madonna? I'm too young to remember that, so this is the first time around for me, and it's new and thrilling. I also like catchy dancey music and women with nine-inch cocks and beautiful things that are a little creepy or menacing or grotesque. The Barbie makeup in "let's make a sandwich"! Lady Gaga please never change ♥
posted by bewilderbeast at 2:22 PM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


Good call, IamBroom. I kind of ran away with my (apparently over-steeped in the patriarchy) imagination and inferred too much. Thanks for calling me out, so that I can avoid saying stupid shit like that in the future.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:36 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Wow, it's a shame a song so catchy turns out to be so trite and vapid. That much energy into a song about cell phones? If you want to listen to a good song or two about phone calls, I've got some Cake to serve you.

The video has a pretty inspired first half. The second half (post-jail) is just kind of boring, with an almost-inspired though pointless sandwich sequence.

What a waste of talent, time and money.
posted by m0nm0n at 2:59 PM on March 12, 2010


Metafilter: What a waste of talent, time and money.
posted by mccarty.tim at 3:06 PM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


Did anybody else notice that during the scene where she's got the big bottle of poison in the kitchen and you hear a little cheer go up, the POISON bottle is actually a bottle of...

wait for it...

PEPSI BLUE? Dead serious. DEAD. Talk about product placement! (Pause at 7:04 mark or so)

I KNOW YOU'RE ON HERE GAGA, OUT YOURSELF.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 3:18 PM on March 12, 2010 [9 favorites]


PEPSI BLUE? Dead serious. DEAD. Talk about product placement! (Pause at 7:04 mark or so)

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure it's a cleaned out bottle of Karo Syrup.
posted by Partario at 3:36 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I heard that she's actually a chick.
posted by clockzero at 3:51 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


There is nothing that I don't like about this.
posted by ColdChef at 4:13 PM on March 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


I dont know what to think of it all. Dont have anything positive to say about it.

It seems possible to me that fuelling discussions such as this one is the main aim of the clip.

I strongly believe that this will not age well in the way that Thriller or the like did.
posted by therubettes at 4:16 PM on March 12, 2010


The hat/veil things they were both wearing at the end were awfully close to what I imagined the disfigured narrator of Chuck Pahlaniuk's "Invisible Monsters" to be wearing.
posted by mireille at 4:17 PM on March 12, 2010


I hate her music, and turned this video off as soon as the song started. Which is a pity, because the esthetic/style is awesome. More Lady Gaga! Less Lady Gaga music!
posted by Sova at 4:17 PM on March 12, 2010


The hat/veil things they were both wearing at the end...

those look so familiar to me--specifically in the way they are wearing them--but i can't place from where.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 4:32 PM on March 12, 2010


"If Sir Elton, Madonna, Bowie, Matthew Barney AND Bjork went into Jeff Goldblum's 'Fly' pod, you'd get Lady Gaga at the other end. Awesome."

Sigh. Is Klaus Nomi so easily forgotten? Gaga hasn't forgotten him. Hell; she's wearing his suit in that first scene.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:33 PM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


Her videos are very enjoyable with the sound off.

Jeez, Afroblanco, we get it already. You like watching the videos. You don't like listening to the music. Maybe you need a comment signature for the Gaga threads.

(FWIW, this was my least favorite track on the new album and I was disappointed in the push for it to be the next featured single. This video has gone a long way toward soothing the burn until the "Teeth" video blows up.)
posted by hermitosis at 4:36 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


I usually DETEST pop music but I kinda dig Lady Gaga's schtick. Maybe I like it because it pokes meta-fun at pop music while still having one foot in it. Plus it's got the creepy/menacing thing going for it, which is nice.
posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 4:38 PM on March 12, 2010


"Ah so, this is where people go when they get arrested by the fashion police."

That line just may have justified the entire existence of the video...
posted by brenton at 4:39 PM on March 12, 2010


I recently abandoned my Gaga-cott by downloading her first record. I listened to a song or two. They were OK, I guess. They've got a beat and you can dance to them, as the kids used to say.

But I figured this video would be a better representation of the Gaga Experience. So I made a conscious effort to sit down with no preconceptions and just watch the show.

I watched all the way to the end. And though I wouldn't watch it again, I think I sort of Get It now. That delightful shot in the diner where Lady Gaga is just posing there in this magnificently outlandish costume because I'm-so-fucking-fabulous is all the argument she needs really.
posted by Joe Beese at 4:40 PM on March 12, 2010


Performance art? Maybe I'm too old, or too straight, but I just don't think this is about stupid, trashy music; this is stupid, trashy music.
posted by Flashman at 4:42 PM on March 12, 2010


I will now dream my favorite dream where Johnny Weir shows up in a Lady Gaga video and dances and Michael DiMartino signs the whole thing and I DIE of GAY. Blissfully.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:44 PM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


hers isn't typically the type of music i listen to, but i couldn't help falling for her songs. on a recent car trip i listened to both albums back to back, and it struck me that it's like listening to somebody's greatest-hits retrospective of the past 30 years.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 4:48 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


She's the first conceptual art pop star. I wouldn't call it performance art... But I don't know nothin' about art, I just know I dig everything she does... but the version of beyonce's videophone with gaga on it is a downgrade. This song... well... the video is better than the song, but then... after seeing the video a couple of times I ended up liking the song.

"I left my head and my heart on the dance floor" true.

The song has sort of a similar concept to Ke$ha's (with 3OH!3) "blah blah blah" but with a telephone instead of live face to face conversation...
posted by nutate at 4:48 PM on March 12, 2010


false-positive gay vibes from me.

False! Damnit! It's happened again!
posted by The Whelk at 4:50 PM on March 12, 2010 [5 favorites]


Also, Quentin Tarantino is known to drive the Pussy Wagon, so he gave more than consent on this one.
posted by nutate at 4:50 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


nutate: "She's the first conceptual art pop star."

Somewhere on a distant planet, Ziggy Stardust is brushing a tear from a rouged cheek.
posted by Joe Beese at 4:58 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


nutate: according to gaga, tarantino suggested she use the pussy wagon.
posted by nadawi at 5:01 PM on March 12, 2010


Ziggy don't care. Ziggy's off on a mad run in the ballrooms of Mars. Ziggy think's it's ADORABLE
posted by The Whelk at 5:04 PM on March 12, 2010


Joe Beese: the ziggy stardust album reached #75 on the us charts... so as... extremely influential as it is, I wouldn't call it pop... also it was a concept assumed by an already established star. Who didn't keep it up, that persona at least. Whereas Gaga has been conceptually nuts from the jump.

Lady Gaga - THE FAME: Part One (done before she popped off)

More info from the director of that video here on reddit.
posted by nutate at 5:09 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Ah, yes, Glamour Prison.

I guess they didn't show the other wing of the prison, which holds Animotion, the Thompson Twins (appropriately, all three of them in a 2-person cell), Ah-Ha, Yaz, and the Human League.

That video had a lot of bright, shiny colors and lots of movement, I guess. I'm all for making more interesting music videos, but this 'evolution' of making progressive, non-related singles to make a serialized 'video concept album' seems a bit awkward to me. Maybe this is just the weird 'pupal' stage of something interesting, now that individual music videos are much less important than they were previously.
posted by chambers at 5:10 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Madonna, look upon these works and despair! Truly, you have been eclipsed for mainstream transgression (although Dirty did a pretty good job there, but Gaga seems a great deal more interested in doing it consistently).

That said, like a few others, I wish I enjoyed her music as much as the videos are entertaining.
posted by rodgerd at 5:10 PM on March 12, 2010


Okay, I wanted to make sure I'd watched this a few times before beanplating. Because I think a lot about Lady Gaga, and I want to do this whole overthinking thing right.

I was talking with an artist friend of mine about Andy Warhol yesterday. About how in a lot of ways his art wasn't the visuals, but the way he so rabidly fought to lower his art and sell himself out. The statement he made was that art is allowed to be blatantly commercial, and more, that there is an art to being blatantly commercial.

Gaga obviously is indebted to Andy Warhol. Wasn't her first stage name Candy Warhol? And from the things she says live it's obvious that, regardless of if it shows in her lyrics, she thinks a lot about fame and popularity and the lowest common denominator.

Bad Romance got me thinking about this for the first time. It was the first modern pop song I really fell in love with. Like, listening to that it finally hit me that pop isn't shit music. It's just not trying to do what other music's doing. It ignores emotionality, complex theory, interesting forms (as primary focuses — lots of pop does play with that, but it's never the core), and focuses instead on pure sonics. It's not about the chord progression as much as it's about how carefully the one synth line blisters, and how subtle certain other ones are.

I live next to a guy who's absolutely obsessed with electronica and synthetic music, and one thing he said to me as we listened to a song stuck out: "When you listen to this song, not much is happening. But because everything that does happen is so precise, you don't need any more for it to work." That's the craft going on here. It's absolute sugar, yeah, but there's an art to making it as unhealthy as possible.

In a way, pop music is ironic in the way Quentin Tarantino is ironic. It plays with elements and acknowledges openly that it's playing. But because of that insincerity, because it's so honestly stated, it can achieve a certain feeling of hyperreality that supersedes what it was originally imitating. Pulp Fiction is a deconstruction of a pulp movie, but its violent scenes are brilliantly crafted. Bad Romance picked apart pop cliche after pop cliche, and, while it was very clever about it, it still managed to be a brilliant pop song. That's what pop art was all about, right?

So I was watching this music video through that lens. And watching it from the Warhol/Tarantino perspective, parts of it are just incredible. The scene with Beyonce and her guy, where everything's subtitled, and the Japanese girl gets Japanese subtitles? No explanation, no real necessity, but it's superbly done. All the shots are gorgeous. They're overkill, they lack even the pretense of subtlety, but that doesn't make them bad art. It just makes them a certain kind of art.

The entire sequence where Gaga is in the kitchen, and her hair is violently yellow, her lips violently red, and the phone on top of her head violently blue... it feels like an animated Warhol painting. It's moving plastic. And it pays homage to that ultimate modern plasticity with its bubbly Japanese menu pop-up. It's absolutely terrific.

Joe Beese, you bring up Bowie, but Bowie wasn't a pop musician. He was really working within various genres, shifting constantly. So far Gaga has dealt purely with pop. Her music is nakedly striving to be popular. Even her album titles explain that. So she's doing what Bowie did, but purer and shallower.

And she's very, very good at it. I had the same reaction to The Fame when I first heard it: "Eh. Alright pop." But the more I listened the more songs hooked me. Every song is hitting a different pop note. It's all shallow, but it's different kinds of shallow. It's a masterpiece of shallow pop. The song that I tend to bring up during Gaga beanplatings is Beautiful Dirty Rich, because that was the first one that proved she was capable of writing a good pop song without a leading synth. Fame Monster continued her diversification. Yeah, it's all pop, but it's pop going weird places. It wouldn't be weird if it wasn't pop, but it is.

I'd also like to say, because it's not an angle taken during pop discussions, but I think this video shows an impressive maturation on Gaga's part. I mean, she's always been perfectly produced, so maturing means something different here, but the music more confidently introduces quirks in its texture, and the video itself is somehow fuller. It's still Gaga bizarre, but it doesn't feel as bizarre. It feels, as I said, poppier. She's getting away with more.

And for that reason (sorry if this is a corny thing to say), I couldn't help but think that she looks positively gorgeous in this video. In Poker Face and all her Fame videos, she looks fantastically weird, but in Bad Romance and now this she's got positively bursting charisma. Every little thing she does draws the eye. I like that. Pop hasn't had that otherworldly beauty to it in a while, and I like that somebody's bringing it back.
posted by Rory Marinich at 5:21 PM on March 12, 2010 [56 favorites]


The more of these GaGa/Akerlund collaborations I see the more I like them. Best music and videos since Outkast released Speakerboxx/Love Below. Those who dismiss her music as more of the same have not sat down and really listened to it.

Skeptics of her musical significance should really check her solo piano arrangements of a few different songs. The dancey beats and glossy production are just gift-wrapping for some seriously fine songwriting and musicianship.


No, really, they're just less bad than the hyper-produced official releases. Any occasional promising fragments of melody are invariably soon followed by a hasty transition to uninspired filler.

She may stand out in her willingness to wear more random things than anyone else, and maybe that's significant. But the music is not.
posted by Anything at 5:26 PM on March 12, 2010


Rory, I need to buy you ...a beer.
posted by The Whelk at 5:27 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I've been enjoying Bad Romance and have been getting increasingly intrigued by Lady GaGa. But those cigarette glasses? This is getting serious, I'm not in love yet or anything....damn...cigarette glasses.
posted by marxchivist at 5:31 PM on March 12, 2010


She's a talented singer and a talented pianist. Certainly not groundbreaking. She's a masterful songwriter, up there with whoever wrote Britney's stuff (and Telephone was originally written for Britney). She's got a brilliant fashion sense, certainly. The performances of hers that I've seen have been incredible, and apparently the live shows are just as good.

I think she's a legit. genius. But her genius isn't in one of those things as much as it's the way she's able to weave all of them together. If she was Telephone-the-song and nothing more, she'd be a great pop musician. If she was just the music video, she's be a great celebrity. If she was just the live shows and the piano she'd be a great performer. But the fact that she does all of them, and has such a control over her image and her works, means she's a new breed of pop star, and with that control she's doing some terrific things.

The overreaction to the piano videos, I think, is that seeing her play is the first indication a lot of people have that Gaga is anything more than a braindead pop ditz. I heard Just Dance and thought she was Britney Spears mk. II, and paid her no mind. Didn't realize she'd written it, or that she'd done anything else meaningful. But when she showed herself to be a competent performer, then I realized that perhaps she wasn't some bimbo sell-out. Perhaps she was a smart, talented musician who was being cleverer about this pop thing than I was.
posted by Rory Marinich at 5:45 PM on March 12, 2010 [8 favorites]


Wow, that thing is just crammed with fun, and thank heaven GaGa gets ever Ga-gier. I'm pretty certain that approximately half the planetary population of whatever gender/orientation (me included), would pay serious cash money to have her and stern BettieBeyonce sit them down and tell them that they'd been a VERY, VERY BAD GIRL!
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:51 PM on March 12, 2010


People, people!

MOST BRILLIANT POP ARTIST EVER

and

MOST TALENTED MUSICIAN EVER

Don't need to be the same person! Musicians, embrace your inner GaGa! IA IA!
posted by cavalier at 6:08 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


It ignores emotionality, complex theory, interesting forms (as primary focuses — lots of pop does play with that, but it's never the core), and focuses instead on pure sonics. It's not about the chord progression as much as it's about how carefully the one synth line blisters, and how subtle certain other ones are.

Congratulations, you've discovered the appeal of techno. Simon Reynolds bean-plated extensively on this topic in his book Generation Ecstasy.
if techno can be thought of in this way-[the track as a framework for the display of special effects and processing] - what, then, constitutes the 'sublime' in techno? The answer is 'sound in itself'. In most music, timbre and 'chromatics' are the medium, teh pigment as it were, through which teh important thing -- the melody, the emotional meaning -- is expressed.

In techno, melody is merely an implement or ruse for the display of texture/timbre/sound matter
.this is why most rave music shuns complicated melody lines in favor of riffs, vamps, and ostinatos. in the ultraminimalist 'tech-house', simple riffs serve to twist and crinkle the sound fabric in order to best show off its properties what you thrill to is the scintillating play of 'light' as it creases and folds, crumples and kinks.
techno and house create a subtly different form of heightened immediacy than african music -- a sort of future-now.
Timbre saturated, repetitive but tilted always toward the next now, techno is an immediacy machine, stretching time into a continuous present.
Which is where the drug technology interface comes into play. Not just because techno works well with substances like mdma, lsd, etc, all of which amplify the sensory intensity of the present moment. but because the music itself drugs the listener, looping consciousness then derailing it, strandit it in a nowhere/nowhen, where there is only sensation, 'where now lasts longer.'
posted by empath at 6:13 PM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


She's a masterful songwriter, up there with whoever wrote Britney's stuff (and Telephone was originally written for Britney).

...wasn't that Stefani Germanotta?

(ahem)
posted by miratime at 6:17 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


And actually, Simon Reynolds talks extensively about a song called Mentasm in that book, and in particular, a sound that he called the 'Mentasm stab', which became a primary signifier for 'hardcore techno' in the 90s. The first thing I noticed about Bad Romance when I heard it was that it had the Mentasm sound in it.

Mentasm (the 'mentasm' sound starts as soon as the track does)

Bad Romance. (Mentasm sound at 55 seconds or so)

She also lifted some pretty common trance and progressive house sounds, too-- the german hard trance bassline, and the dutch trance supersaw synth. Bad Romance is basically a slowed down rave record with a pop chorus.
posted by empath at 6:23 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Is this where I go to vehemently post about how much I think Lady Gaga sucks and everyone else's opinion doesn't matter because I think Lady Gaga and no good music has been made since Elton John/Styx/Glen Campbell/The Who/Herman and the Hermits/Chuck Berry/Zeppo Marx?

Because I otherwise have nothing to do...

My life sucks.

Sigh.
posted by IAmBroom at 6:25 PM on March 12, 2010


She may stand out in her willingness to wear more random things than anyone else, and maybe that's significant. But the music is not.

Yeah, man, she's no Arcade Fire!
posted by Justinian at 6:32 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I never like her music the first time I hear it, but it inevitably worms its way into my head and soon enough I love it.

That is, literally worms. I think she's invented some kind of alienesque creature transmitted by sound waves that slowly eats your brain. I can only hope that when it bursts out it transforms us all into becostumed copies of her, because can you imagine how fucking awesome that would be?
posted by Solon and Thanks at 6:34 PM on March 12, 2010 [8 favorites]


A memetic virus, transmitted by sound, aggravated by visuals, it is very sophisticated, very dangerous, always learning, able to stop anyone from having fun this beat this sick I wanna take a ride on your disco stick.
posted by The Whelk at 6:36 PM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


condour75: "If you were to show this to a human from 2007, they might have a psychotic break."

I was just remembering a 1983 article in Newsweek about the then-burgeoning new genre of "music videos" that anxiously touched its pearl necklace over the disturbing imagery in Billy Idol's "White Wedding" and - I shit you not - Greg Kihn's "Jeopardy".

I wonder what that writer would have said about Lady Gaga.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:37 PM on March 12, 2010


Something said on I wanna say Spinnwebe years ago "You remember all those people up in arms about the hot dog going through the donut in DEVO's videos. Didn't they know Britney Spears was just 8 years away?"
posted by The Whelk at 6:40 PM on March 12, 2010


Whoa. Looking at her TVTropes page, I just realized Lady Gaga is 23 years old. I was totally shocked. I mean, thinking about it obviously that she's pretty young. But I apparently had this conception of her as a timeless being of sorts.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 6:42 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


There is no "most talented musician ever." That said, for a generation it's been accepted that the greatest band of all time was also a pop band, The Beatles; Kind of Blue was an artistic masterpiece but it also sold millions of records; genius classical musicians like Itzhak Perlman and Glenn Gould have seen similar extraordinary popularity. Genius and success are not necessarily inverse.

But yeah. There is no "most talented". There isn't even a way to pretend to rank them unless you're Rolling Stone magazine, and Rolling Stone is certainly not most anything.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:57 PM on March 12, 2010


Grand Central "Station"? For shame, Beyonce.
posted by smackfu at 7:31 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Plentyoffish is like a slightly more upscale version of craigslist, and then Wonderbread and Miracle Whip?

I think she's saying she really likes Talladega Nights.
posted by dirigibleman at 7:32 PM on March 12, 2010


And actually, Simon Reynolds talks extensively about a song called Mentasm in that book,

Amazing how common that sounds now. It's like generic video game background music.
posted by smackfu at 7:34 PM on March 12, 2010


Don't think too much just bust that stick.
posted by The Whelk at 7:39 PM on March 12, 2010


So. In Paparazzi, the audience kills her. There's an omage to all of the young women killed by fame. She strikes back against the representation of the audience, her boyfriend, and she's imprisoned.

Then Bad Romance comes around and she's commodified and sold to the highest bidder (representing the audience? her record company? the patriarchy??) who she then sets on fire, wearing a polar bear.

And in Telephone, which I believe is the continuation of Paparazzi, yes? Not Bad Romance? She kills an entire diner of people. And a puppy dog. She's striking back against the audience that tore her down? She doesn't like people who eat at diners?

I love her but she scares me
posted by jnaps at 7:45 PM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


I'm now officially old... after about 1 minute, I was just thinking WTF is wrong with this generation...

/ leaves to tell Elvis to stop gyrating!
posted by HuronBob at 8:38 PM on March 12, 2010


Amazing how common that sounds now. It's like generic video game background music.

most synths have it as a preset now.

Btw, I don't think she is remotely responsible for the sound of her records. She has some very talented Swedish house music producers working on her albums and they are using up to the minute club sounds, which I don't think she is the driving force behind.

The vocals and melody, yes, but the arrangement and production is not her and that's a significant part of the reason her records sell.
posted by empath at 8:52 PM on March 12, 2010


"Your music is bad and you should feel bad!"

No, seriously, it is and you should.
posted by dephlogisticated at 9:02 PM on March 12, 2010



"Your music is bad and you should feel bad!"

No, seriously, it is and you should.
posted by dephlogisticated



Thank you for showing us the way. We had no idea!
posted by Windigo at 9:08 PM on March 12, 2010


LADY GAGA IS PEOPLE!
posted by The Whelk at 9:15 PM on March 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


That made me kind of fall out of love with Gaga. The song's weak and there are too many ideas.
posted by limnrix at 9:18 PM on March 12, 2010


Also also: from 8:45 to about 8:52, what's the Swedish at the bottom in the "news ticker" say?

It's part of the lyrics: "Not that I don't like you, I'm just at a party. And I am sick and tired of my phone r-ringing. Sometimes I feel like I live in Grand Central Station. Tonight I'm not takin' no calls, cause I'll be dancin'."

There is so much to like in both videos, but the cigarette glasses take the cake for me. Although I noticed that her Swedish pronunciation in the Paparazzi video is actually pretty good, she must be hanging out with a bunch of Swedes.

And I'm just gonna go on record here to say that CitrusFreak12's piano and voice rendition of Poker Face is my favorite Gaga cover ever. :)
posted by gemmy at 9:39 PM on March 12, 2010


I think the song is weak actually, it's all over the place, but so is the video, it's a great oh-godI've got too many ideas for one thing kinda thing, and I like that. She's a murderous moppet out for revenge against the world in the name of being fabulous. She calls her fans Little Monsters, her album is The Fame Monster, her Grammy show was all Frankenstein motifs with "She's a MONSTER! and she's turning you all INTO MONSTERS!", the lyrics to this and her other song contain lots of "don't think" "can;t think" "stop thinking" lines, so complete incoherence is natural, Lady Gaga is a monster, a patchwork of other popstars, an idea in her video of a Product (see Bad Romance, where she's being led around with a Wii) a thing that turns on it's creators (this video). Lady Gaga is a monster and she's turning all of you into monsters
posted by The Whelk at 9:42 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Or more to the point, I think the Lady Gaga character was created with the idea of being it being a kind of Frankenstein's Monster of Pop with a dose of Maria from Metropolis on top, she's always seen as robotic or blank or being thrown around, carrying around, tossed about like an Object.
posted by The Whelk at 9:44 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


re: grand central station, if you're have to care you can just decide she's talking about the subway stop rather than the train terminal.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:54 PM on March 12, 2010


I can't imagine that whoever designed that hooded leopard outfit wasn't subliminally (or overtly) thinking about this. Man, I've watched this thing too many times today.
posted by pinky at 10:07 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I do love the song, but in this case its just an excuse to make a video. And what a video it is. mmm sandwich.
posted by captaincrouton at 10:27 PM on March 12, 2010


Somebody needs to pair up the song with the video of nokia cell phones being tested/destroyed.
posted by captaincrouton at 10:29 PM on March 12, 2010


I was wondering what this one was gonna be like, because what an insipid song that is. (referring to any phone situation short of needing one in an emergency as a "disaster" needs a great big helping of get the fuck over yourself)

But this was about as thorough a distraction from the song itself as you could possibly get. Zowie.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 10:29 PM on March 12, 2010


(that is to say -- simply solution to phone ringing off hook -- turn the mofo off)
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 10:39 PM on March 12, 2010


Telephone is supposed to be a continuation of Papparazzi, yes. She killed her boyfriend in that video, and that's why she's in jail.

Saw an explanation on E! today.
posted by zarq at 10:49 PM on March 12, 2010


From the tropes page:
# Continuity Nod: The "Telephone" video is a sequel to the "Paparazzi" video. It being the same Gaga was implied throughout "Telephone", but it wasn't confirmed until the mugshot from the end of "Paparazzi" showed up at the end of "Telephone".
And that page is awesome. Thanks, nadawi. :)

I took your advice and watched her in concert. You were right. :)
posted by zarq at 11:00 PM on March 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Or more to the point, I think the Lady Gaga character was created with the idea of being it being a kind of Frankenstein's Monster of Pop with a dose of Maria from Metropolis on top, she's always seen as robotic or blank or being thrown around, carrying around, tossed about like an Object.

Yeah, so this thing works on many levels. To some, she's just a pop star. To those who are more conversant in pop-culture memes, she's Frankenstein/Maria. To those with a more paranoid and conservative bent, she's a tool of the Illuminati.

But there's only one real interpretation, as signified by her one-eye gestures. And in your heart of hearts, you may not know exactly what that gesture means, but you know what it makes you want to do. It makes you want to laugh and smile and sing and watch ridiculously silly/smart videos and

DANCE!
posted by treepour at 11:43 PM on March 12, 2010


Rory Marinich, I thought your Warhol-related comments were spot-on and amazing, and thank you for saying them . . . though I do have a quibble with people who characterize Warhol as the (perhaps ironic) triumph of image/product over authenticity/labor.

When I first saw a classic Warhol in person, I was shaken, and I cried. I'd seen the very same image in various reproductions (textbooks, posters, etc), but seeing the real thing . . . reality had been imprinted on that canvas, just like film imprints the actual light that hits it, and that reality was profoundly and alarmingly and heartbreakingly human.

I dunno, I think I may be the only person who has this feeling about Warhol. I mean, if the theories he's credited with are correct, there should be nothing different about seeing his work in a textbook or poster and seeing it in person. But, for me at least, there's an amazing, profound difference, and this tension between theory and what you actually encounter (even though what you encounter is produced in the frame of that theory) is as almost mysterious and profound as the existence of art itself.

Anyhow, this is way more a derail about Warhol than it is a comment about Lady Gaga. The latter is awesome, surreal, fantastic pop, and she may bring a bit of Warhol-theory-esque stuff into that pop, but . . . in my opinion, Warhol actually isn't at all pop, at least in the way that we now think of pop, and even in the way that Warhol's own writings and statements would have us think of pop.

I guess I think of Lady Gaga as the kind of figure Warhol would have created -- pure image on the outside, but human, brave, and weird on the inside . . . with the human part constantly creating and destroying the image part, but the image part insisting the human part doesn't even exist.

Not to end on a downer note -- because I find Lady Gaga's presence in my own consciousness a really fun, joyful, openly-gay-friendly, and deliciously weird presence -- but these Velvet Underground lyrics suddenly come to mind:

all the people are dancing and they're having such fun
I wish it could happen to me
'cause if you close the door
I'll never have to see the day again

posted by treepour at 12:23 AM on March 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


I never like her music the first time I hear it, but it inevitably worms its way into my head and soon enough I love it.

That is, literally worms. I think she's invented some kind of alienesque creature transmitted by sound waves that slowly eats your brain. I can only hope that when it bursts out it transforms us all into becostumed copies of her, because can you imagine how fucking awesome that would be?


This "invention" is known as 'repetition' and it works for pretty much any music that does not consist of the screams of pigs being sawed to death.
posted by Anything at 1:46 AM on March 13, 2010


It took a pausing of the video frame for me to realize that the yellow covering her left eye when she walks out into the diner is a phone handset. SQUEEEE
posted by cavalier at 10:34 AM on March 13, 2010


I had this thought a while back that Michael Jackson is going to be for my future children what Elvis is to me and my generation: the greatest performer of a generation who died stupidly and is now revered by people who were alive when his stuff was being produced and generally elevated to legend status.

Same could be said for Lady GaGa being the Madonna of our generation: strong female pop artist pushing the limits of the genre. I'm going to take it one step further: I think Lady GaGa is both the Madonna and Michael Jackson of our era. She's an amazing performer and is pushing the music video to do things that haven't been done since "Thriller." I just hope she doesn't also die stupidly while attempting to make a comeback twenty years from now.

I think she's achieved a level of fame that no female artist - not even Madonna - has done before. She really is Michael Jackson/Elvis/The Beatles caliber. She absolutely knows how to sell herself and does so brilliantly.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 2:53 PM on March 13, 2010


One of the poisons that appears in the "Let's make a sandwich!" section is Tiberium. As in, the fictional substance from the Command & Conquer video games. WTF?
posted by danb at 3:20 PM on March 13, 2010


Oh, I missed LooseFilter's comment above, sorry.

My WTF still stands.
posted by danb at 3:21 PM on March 13, 2010


Oh lordy, I've already thunk this beanplate to death, but here goes anyway . . .

She's the first conceptual art pop star.

I agree that she belongs in that category, but why the first? E.g., what about Bowie -- doesn't he belong there too? If not, I'm curious as to what you mean by conceptual and how/why Bowie doesn't fit the description.
posted by treepour at 4:38 PM on March 13, 2010


Follow the money.

Product placement finances Lady Gaga's art. Every artist needs a patron.

Back in December I read this post THE MUSIC VIDEO IS THE ADVERTISEMENT: LADY GAGA GOES POST-MCCLUHAN ON US ALL. In it Dave LaFontaine said, of the video for Bad Romance:
But the real action here is in the video to the song. Blew my mind. Didn’t think that people had budgets like this anymore. Costumes that would make Gaultier sick with envy — white latex with “Where the Wild Things Are” shiny plastic crowns, some kinda homage to LeeLoo’s orange strappy outfit in The Fifth Element and a Eastern European mobster/white sex-slave buyer with a steampunk-ish articulated brass chin. Looked to my eye like about a week in production, probably about $500K in total costs of models, locations, crews, lighting, post-production.
That comment, from a person who makes videos struck me. It's all fun and games to make an OK GO style video and try to get it go viral if you're starting from zero and can create some buzz. But who has money for music videos? It makes no sense. Yet clearly, money gets spent. LaFontaine ends up his brief post with analysis that looks prescient in the context of this new latest spectacle:
I had thought that Madonna and Michael Jackson were about as sophisticated as you could get when it came to figuring out ways to build up a juicy public image, and then squeeze it until rivers of cash started running out. Not so. Lady GaGa has rightly recognized that selling CDs if for chumps; anyone can pirate them, and pretty much does.

No, you need to sell things that people can’t copy – or at least, if they do, it kinda defeats the purpose. So Lady GaGa’s come up with the list of high-end commercial goods to do "Hero Shots" of in the video and obviously done revenue deals with them.

As a business model, I have to say hats off to the Lady. She’s adapted to the draining of value from the content (i.e. nobody actually buys music anymore – at least, not like they used to), and migrated over to where the money still lies.

When advertising no longer works, when information is a commodity in which we all drown for free, then the only things that are left that have any value are physical objects that we can wear, eat, drive or plug in, as well as what cultural anthropologists call “fetish objects” that bestow special status because they signify that we hae enough disposable income so as to be able to waste a couple grand on some gaudy sunglasses.

I'm not sure if this is the way that all news & entertainment is going to have to go in the future. All of it sponsored, with big shout-outs to the guys footing the bills worked into the info-stream every 10 seconds or so. I do know that if this works, we’re going to see a lot more of these “branded videos” online.
CDs don't sell, so sell something else. What's kind of amazing is that there's so MUCH going on in Lady Gaga video that the product placement doesn't overtake it. It's kind of amazing to remember that Neil Young's video for This Note's For You assailed pop music videos for product placement. Such concerns are almost beside the point. You either play in that realm or you don't.

Regardless of the business and art bits, that girl can play and can really sing.
posted by artlung at 5:13 PM on March 13, 2010 [4 favorites]


I do wonder if she's going to spawn a host of side characters. However capably she may simulate a katamari, a single person can only affix so many consumer items to oneself.
posted by Anything at 5:31 PM on March 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


interesting article on the ad placement in the video:

Mr. [Troy] Carter told Ad Age that several of the brands were Gaga's ideas and did not pay to be included. A scene in which Gaga curls her hair with Diet Coke cans was an homage to her mother, who used the exact same grooming technique in the '70s. Another sequence, in which Gaga poisons a whole diner full of patrons, is interspersed with footage of the singer making sandwiches with Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip. Mr. Carter said Gaga wanted to juxtapose the poison sequence with all-American brands, and suggested Wonder Bread for an unpaid placement. Miracle Whip, meanwhile, made a paid appearance to appear in the clip.

but i also like this part:

This just the second music-video integration for Plenty of Fish, which still does the bulk of its advertising online. She admitted the brand was "nervous" without creative input, but very pleased with the outcome.

not only is gaga getting the kinds of brands we would never have seen in music videos (and opening up a new source of funding for her projects), but she doesn't give up creative control over how or whether they are used. i don't know the nature of the agreement with wonder bread and miracle whip, but it was pretty bold that she was able to make it part of a scene implying she was using the same food to poison a bunch of people.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 6:59 PM on March 13, 2010 [2 favorites]


Diet Coke didn't exist in the '70s.
posted by Flashman at 7:17 PM on March 13, 2010


amanda fucking palmer singing gaga, palmer, madonna
posted by nadawi at 7:37 PM on March 13, 2010 [5 favorites]


A riot of color and motion, I love it. I guess I "get" the Gaga thing finally, and hear her telephone thing...listening in.
posted by porn in the woods at 8:19 PM on March 13, 2010


"Your search - "Gagafilter" - did not match any documents." (now fixed)

It's kind of amazing how much discussion a music video can spark.
posted by artlung at 10:06 PM on March 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


I think the PlentyofFish inclusion is for the purpose of making a "Mrs Officer" joke- if you look at 4:38, you can see she is logging in as Miss Officer- surely a joke on Lil Wayne's song Mrs Officer.
posted by Aubergine at 12:43 PM on March 14, 2010


This is the first Lady Gaga song I've heard that doesn't seem completely bland and forgettable. Progress!
posted by martinrebas at 7:04 AM on March 15, 2010


OK, maybe as a gay guy I'm disconnected from this sort of thing, but does this video honestly represent a straight man's fantasies? Even a little?

Yup. There hasn't been a piece of actual straight-men's porn or skin-mags in... geez, it must be fifteen years or so now... that hasn't featured women wearing consumer electronics as hats. Don't let Playboy and FHM fool you; they're primarily marketed nowadays at closeted gay men who want to appear straight.

The poisoning thing that Greg Nog alludes to is just a recent fad in the northeast. It's the phone hat (or in other porn / skin the cd-player hat or the iHat or whatever) that's the key to the straight male id.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:09 AM on March 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


An occult analysis of the Telephone video, from the_very_hungry_caterpillar's deleted post.
posted by Pronoiac at 9:11 AM on March 15, 2010


Pfah. Gaga is just alluding to the poisoning mania which Mackay describes in Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds, which, wicked! In contrast, her treatment of Cimbrian and Teutonic migrations into Gallia in the vid for So Happy I Could Die is much more problematic, just undigested Gibbon, but I am sure she will clarify matters in some sequel.
posted by everichon at 9:47 AM on March 15, 2010


With her yellow hair and make up, Gaga reminds me of this comic-book-styled-costume. Sort of Dick Tracy-ish. Whatever. She's amazing all around.
posted by exlotuseater at 8:14 PM on March 15, 2010


porn in the woods, I see what you did there.
posted by whuppy at 10:43 AM on March 16, 2010




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