There are apparently people out there who not only find Lady GaGa’s music appealing but, further, find her a powerful and insightful musical voice for a new generation. These people are idiots, and the fact that most of these morons can vote goes a long way to explaining why so many Democrats keep getting reelected.
It’s not just that her music is bad – though it is, an intermittently catchy collection of overproduced beats laid over nonsense lyrics that would embarrass a slow-witted high school sophomore. It’s not just that her singing is reminiscent of the hum of a dental drill, a monotonous, atonal mind-chisel that – when combined with her inane lyrics – reminds one of the chanting of some unholy love child of Rain Man and Tiny Tim.
And it’s not just that she’s pretentious, presenting herself as the sorta-androgynous spoke-being for a coterie of alleged nonconformists whose nonconformity is expressed via rigid conformity to GaGa’s vision of pseudo-transgressive fashions and brain-dead self-affirming slogans.
No, the biggest problem with Lady GaGa isn’t that she’s another lame pop star. It’s that she’s so damn boring.
As an act of personal sacrifice, I listened to the sneak release of her latest song, an atrocity called “Judas.” If you want to share my pain, be my guest, but don’t say you weren’t warned. The Huffington Post, your number one source for all things that suck, is right on top of the earthshaking cultural event that is “Judas”:
The song and video are told from Mary Magdelene’s perspective, with lyrics such as, “When he comes to me, I am ready/ I’ll wash his feet with my hair if he needs/ Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain/ Even after three times, he betrays me/ I’ll bring him down, a king with no crown…”
Wow. Heavy. I guess I’m supposed to be one of those bourgeois squares whose mind is going to be blown by GagGa’s willingness to take on those terrifying Christians. I’m here to report, however, that the only thing that blows is the song.
First, not being one of the socially retarded 18-25 years old shut-ins who make up her rabid fan base, I know that Lady GaGa is not blazing some sort of new path here but, rather, is trodding down the same dull superhighway of anti-Christian imagery that’s been going on forever. I was around when Madonna did the same crappy song a quarter century ago, except back then it was called “Like a Prayer.”
Poor Rebecca Black has gotta be sitting there pondering the unfairness of all the dissing she’s endured and thinking “Heck, I’m only fourteen. I have an excuse!” At least “Friday” has no pretensions – it’s just a terrible, terrible pop song. But Lady GaGa thinks she’s making a statement, and the problem is that there are millions of mindless nimrods out there who probably agree – though none of them could articulate just what the statement is with any greater specificity than some lame self-empowerment mantra like “I gotta be who I am in order to be the most me I can be!”
Again, I remind you that these quarter-wits can, or soon will be able to, vote. And many of them have or will breed.
I’m not angry at Lady GaGa exploiting my religion to sell records – it’s not like some future musical footnote who delights her dimwitted fans by dressing in a gown made of rib-eyes is going to do to Christianity what the Romans, the Moors and the liberal wing of the Democratic party have been unable to do.
No, I’m bored, and I’m disgusted with her fans who settle for so little. Lady GaGa – geez, I even hate writing out that ridiculous moniker – is merely another in a long line of pompous “artists” who try to provoke…badly… and end up just being tedious. Great, Gaga, you played off some Bible verses – what else ya got?
You know, the Sex Pistols blew minds because they attacked a target that could and would actually fight back. When they cranked out “God Save the Queen,” they were taking on (among other things) a society’s ridiculous embrace of the bizarre concept of royalty – and it was risky. People in Britain liked the monarchy – Johnny and Sid and the gang weren’t just risking their record deal and airplay but they stood the real chance of getting their punk asses kicked. You think if Bobbie Law had decided to put a little scrutiny on the Pistols’ lifestyle they couldn’t have found enough to lock the boys up for a couple of decades?
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“Anarchy In the UK” wasn’t just a publicity stunt (although it absolutely was that too; Malcolm McLaren rules) – it was reality. In contrast, Lady GaGa is merely a little girl playing dress-up blasphemy. The biggest “risk” she’s running is a scathing press release from the Catholic League’s Bill Donahue fulminating impotently as usual about this latest industry “outrage.” He’s the go-to guy for entertainment sites when some pretentious twerp tries to cash in by trashing the church – he ought to demand a percentage off the back end.
“Judas” is not just a terrible song – it’s so very much less. It is pathetic posturing by a “nonconformist” who conforms exactly to every preconceived notion of the liberal elite about religion, about culture and about everything else. The only way Lady GaGa could ever blow my mind is if she wore an Ayn Rand costume onstage and sang about looking for John Galt.
As for mining the Christian imagery, well, you’d think that mother-lode would be running a bit dry by now after a few decades of every would-be transgressive tunester tossing some cross/rosary/nun iconography into his or her or s/his videos. Yawn.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she really does want to provoke, to take a real risk, to make a real statement about real repression. So I eagerly await Lady GaGa’s next big hit featuring a bunch of burka-clad women casting off the clothes that symbolize their oppression while gay Muslim men throw stones back at the savage primitives who would murder them. She can title the song, “See, I’m Not Just a Hypocritical Poser Who Takes On Only Targets That I Know Will Never, Ever Do Anything About It.”
Yeah, that’ll happen.