The New Yorker on Lady Gaga

Sasha Frere-Jones is one of my favorite writers.  His pieces about music give context to the art and often sort out what an album/genre/phenomenon actually means.  In other words, his writing goes far beyond “good,” “bad,” and “relevant.”

I was so excited to read his piece about Lady Gaga.  It addresses the lazy one-hit-wonder dismissals, attests to Gaga’s smarts, and credits her songwriting talent.  Woo.  I totally agree.

Still, I’m tired of reading that Gaga isn’t as strange as she claims.  Yeah, her songs are straight-forward Euro dance, but they’re the only straight-forward Euro dance songs on mainstream radio.  That genre’s been missing from the US forever (a critic would cite how long).  I acknowledge the emergence of dance-inflected hip hop – but that’s not the same as actual straight-forward Euro dance music.  I would say that it is a big deal for Gaga to reach number one twice with such music.

It’s also a big deal that she has a hand in forming her image.  Pop stars tend to be positioned as sex symbols by a staff of image makers, and then we have Gaga in consistently weird, futuristic, unsexy get ups.  It’s brave, and it’s deliberate.  My only qualm is that it doesn’t always seem sincere.  Her videos betray tiny moments of cute normalcy – the girl can’t keep up the fierce attitude of her veneer.

So, yeah, Gaga is vulnerable and thus not as weird as she’d have us believe.  It’s not because her music isn’t a significant departure from the norm.

Hipster Runoff Exegesis

I love Hipster Runoff.  It puts current youth culture into perspective, and it’s of course hilarious.  I could go on and on with compliments and still feel like I’m holding back.  I bring it up at parties, hoping someone else is a fan, but I have yet to have a fun conversation about it.

Hipster Runoff Exegesis goes farther with HRO analysis than I ever could.  It gets academically analytic (I think) with comp lit and maybe some philosophy.  If you like to feel stupid occassionally (I do), you’ll love this blog.

Orange Alert’s From Interview

Wow, Jason from Orange Alert is a really smart guy.  He asked really engaging questions and wrote an excellent, insightful intro.  I’m hugely flattered to have From showcased in such an intelligent, fun forum.  We go into my potentially copyright infringing projects, or, as he writes, “What is fascinating is that her knowledge of marketing and zest for promotion is leading to interesting approaches to her music and to her product distribution. It shines through in her unique musical production, but also in her inventive videos.”  I’ll take it!

More about the “off-kilter pop collage she creates in her musical adventures” here.

It’s a great read.  Thanks, Jason!