Lady Gaga Should Make Silent Movies
Over at The Awl, Choire Sicha says this about the new Lady Gaga video:
I largely get it. I mean, obviously I groove on the, I guess, excitement level? And I don’t despise the music, although it’s remarkably unremarkable. But I get it!
Okay, so the video is daring in its visuals and aesthetically interesting — it isn’t a sensibility I particularly like, but I can appreciate its stylistic appeal to others, and its draw as spectacle.
But why is Lady Gaga a successful recording artist? We can all freeload off her spectacle sans purchase. Who is buying her singles on iTunes? Let’s compare the song in her new video to Poker Face, an earlier Gaga hit. As it happens, Poker Face makes me want to pour concrete into my ear holes whenever it is forced upon me in a bar or even via the ambient ring tones of strangers. Telephone is definitely less annoying. But “unremarkable” is the best thing you can say for it. Why would anyone buy it disaggregated from the visuals? And even with images intact, the video suffers due to the sub-par lyrics: they don’t seem to have anything to do with what’s happening onscreen, whether you’re casually watching or a hard core fan versed in all the background.
Despite all this, critics are hailing the video as the best thing we’ve seen since the heyday of MTV. “A nearly ten-minute long mini-epic directed by Jonas Åkerlund and featuring Beyoncé and cameos by Tyrese Gibson and glam rock outfit Semi Precious Weapons, ‘Telephone’ is nothing short of a masterpiece,” Japhy Grant writes. “…And doesn’t Gaga’s arrival in the ‘prison for bitches’ bring back memories of Paris Hilton’s brief incarceration? Åkerlund and Gaga are offering up a pointed commentary on how even L.A.’s grit is buffed to a glossy sheen.”
To be declared a masterpiece in the music video realm, shouldn’t you have to master every aspect of the medium? Compare “Telephone” to “Smooth Criminal,” a classic Michael Jackson vid that offers an enduring pop hit, exceptional costumes, images that generally complement the lyrics, and choreography that climaxes in the kind of “no one has ever seen that before” dance move that MJ unveiled at various peaks in his career.
As for social commentary in the Gaga video, I am sure I don’t understand it well enough to opine, but I can report that the gritty side of LA is actually just gritty, and isn’t at all “buffed to a glossy sheen.”
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Music videos are a visual medium, and Lady Gaga is most interesting as a visual spectacle, but what finally strikes me about this new effort is the gulf between its extreme ambition in the visual realm and the utter indifference to its “written content” (for lack of a better term). Why didn’t Gaga get a better song? Surely there are decent lyricists who work for a quarter of what they pay creative directors. And why is the situation so seldom reversed? Whether we’re talking about network television or Avatar or Hollywood movies, the visual and technical aspects are so frequently superior to the actual content, whereas it is hard to think of a high budget project where the writing is exceptional but the production values are as sub-par as writing we often see.
What about the visuals was so spectacular? I feel like I am really missing something. I thought the video was tedious and unimaginative. It also smacked of effort.
— Indar20 · Mar 15, 10:00 PM · #
THANK YOU!!!!!
— Daniel · Mar 15, 10:16 PM · #
Who cares about the words. they only interfere with my fantasizing.
— c g conway · Mar 15, 10:48 PM · #
“Why didn’t Gaga get a better song? Surely there are decent lyricists who work for a quarter of what they pay creative directors.”
The fact that you don’t like a particular genera of music doesn’t actually make it bad. It’s not like it’s that different from her other songs.
Also, the song of the CD is much better then it is in the video. In the video it’s all chopped up, and it seems like a lot of the lyrics were removed from the video. The song is actually about being annoyed by someone who keeps calling you while you’re at a party.
Anyway, Lady Gaga actually writes her own songs, and she started off as a songwriter herself.
“Here’s an example of her less poppy music, from when she was in school: “Why didn’t Gaga get a better song? Surely there are decent lyricists who work for a quarter of what they pay creative directors.”
The fact that you don’t like a particular genera of music doesn’t actually make it bad. It’s not like it’s that different from her other songs.
Also, the song of the CD is much better then it is in the video. In the video it’s all chopped up, and it seems like a lot of the lyrics were removed from the video. The song is actually about being annoyed by someone who keeps calling you while you’re at a party.
Anyway, Lady Gaga actually writes her own songs, and she started off as a songwriter herself.
Here’s an example of her less poppy music, from when she was in school:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM
— example · Mar 15, 10:51 PM · #
It’s true of many recording artists these days that they seem compelled to write all their own stuff, or at least a lot of it. That wasn’t true in American pop until the 60s, and even today some people still do plenty of covers.
But these people aren’t singers, they’re “performers.” In fact, many don’t even sing when they perform on stage; they lip-sync. They have to be personalities. Listen to many of the judges’ comments on Idol.
Perhaps Gaga feels it would be some kind of failure to sing someone else’s lyrics?
— John · Mar 16, 02:01 AM · #
Is this a serious question?
Compare Avatar and the Hurt Locker for all the answers you need.
I’m just glad The Wire made it through all five seasons.
— Panglott · Mar 16, 03:50 PM · #