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OK, not really Jake Zavracky's point here, but no one clicks on a non-hyperbolic link, so let's go with it. (JSYK, Jake, I was just suprrised that you specifically, and our boy MINT E. FRESH liked LMFAO, not that people in general would.) Go check out his site some time anyway.
Oh, and this is unrelated, but just wanted to point out I saw a 50 year old man walking around the locker room naked yesterday blasting "The Humpty Dance" out of his ear buds.
Upon hearing my declaration that LMFAO is the band of the decade, which may be sort of premature (only sort of though) and anyway not really meant to be taken seriously, Luke O'Neil scoffed. "Are you serious? You seriously like LMFAO?". I do seriously like them and it's not something I say to be provocative, as in "check out what I like; you're too close minded and guarded and overly intellectual to allow yourself to like something as simple-minded as this, you are unable to love life and fun the way I do". I just like the simplicity, the absolute lack of pretense, and mostly that they hit all the pleasure centers without really trying.
So here's the question I keep coming back to: why do these types of people, people like Luke O'Neil, who scoff at LMFAO, get all excited about Lady Gaga? I remember having a conversation with Luke about how I didn't get what was so outstanding about her relative to any number of pop stars, and how I was bemused at the lip service she regularly receives from people like Luke and those of his ilk (read: Cambridge leftists). He vigilantly defended her. This conversation may not have actually occurred but it sounds right in my head and it works really well for the purposes of my argument. How did intellectuals like Luke O'Neil reach a positive consensus on her? I haven't heard any satisfying reasons.
So here's the question I keep coming back to: why do these types of people, people like Luke O'Neil, who scoff at LMFAO, get all excited about Lady Gaga? I remember having a conversation with Luke about how I didn't get what was so outstanding about her relative to any number of pop stars, and how I was bemused at the lip service she regularly receives from people like Luke and those of his ilk (read: Cambridge leftists). He vigilantly defended her. This conversation may not have actually occurred but it sounds right in my head and it works really well for the purposes of my argument. How did intellectuals like Luke O'Neil reach a positive consensus on her? I haven't heard any satisfying reasons.
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I find most of her songs incongruous: take for example the song "Judas" which starts off (after the vocal intro in which she repeats "Ju-das, Ju-das", the last time inserting "Gaga", an idea which is already overused in her catalog) with a monstrous, dark synth riff, and the verse continues along this theme, and then suddenly inserted into the middle of all this darkness is a sugary chorus which sounds like a different song altogether and may as well be Britney Spears, which there is nothing wrong with per se, just don't scoff at me when I say I like LMFAO, or Katy Perry, or the new Mariah Carey album. This incongruity seems to be a running theme with Gaga, where the poppy hook seems to have nothing at all to do with the rest of the song. Her songs all sound like mega-mixes to me, there's no cohesion. This is not to mention that the poppy hooks strike me as trite, there's very little there to get excited about musically.
She's been compared to Madonna, a comparison which I don't think holds up to scrutiny, unless we're discussing them as fashion icons. Madonna has had consistently great singles for 20 years*, Gaga already seems to be running out of ideas on her second album. I've never heard Lady Gaga sing anything that even approaches "Borderline" or "Live To Tell", I don't see the honesty there, the passion; Madonna's voice is ruled by the Id, Gaga's is practiced, thought out, deprived of the divine idea.
Is it because she wears neat outfits? I once asked a friend who said he loved Lady Gaga why he liked her so much, because as far as I could tell he never actually listened to her music, and he held up a copy of Vogue or Vanity Fair or one of those with her on the cover in some outrageous outfit that probably cost 100,000 dollars and said "this is why I like Lady Gaga", which I don't have to point out has nothing to do with music, and while I will give her credit for being adventurous fashion-wise, wearing a ludicrously expensive outfit while being photographed by one of the best photographers in the world with equipment that is prohibitively expensive to everyone besides a publication like Vogue is not so impressive a feat. People need their celebrity fashion staples. That's fine. But it has nothing to do with music. And therefore it seems odd that she's received this stamp of approval from people who claim to only be interested in art, and not marketing.
I am personally unable to derive any more depth from Gaga's songs than I can from say the Dream or Selena Gomez or any number of artists who would be scoffed at by intellectuals like Luke O'Neil. Her words are possibly more profound than your average top 40 lyric, but then I find LMFAO saying "everybody just have a good time" to be more honest than Gaga saying "I was born this way" which is transparently manipulative. A gay anthem sung by someone who isn't gay.* Nonetheless, "Born This Way" is a dance floor anthem that will probably be played in gay clubs from Chelsea to West Hollywood for the rest of time, and Lady Gaga is already a legend. So what the hell do I know?
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*Madonna didn't write the majority of her early singles, which is why I use the word "had" rather than "wrote".
*She claims to be bisexual. This is called marketing 1
1I shouldn't say that. I don't know. I've never met anyone over the age of 30 that claims to be bisexual. But I suppose it could be something that actually exists.
*She claims to be bisexual. This is called marketing 1
1I shouldn't say that. I don't know. I've never met anyone over the age of 30 that claims to be bisexual. But I suppose it could be something that actually exists.
--JAKE ZAVRACKY
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15 comments:
them lmfao's is pretty decent ear noise.
SAW THEM PLAY the Kiss cocncert or whatever like two years ago and no one gave a shit because their song wasn't on the radio yet. They struggled like pros to get the party started though. Good on em.
I can't believe how long it took me to write this stupid thing.
Ok MC Minty Fresh does not like LMFAO because we had this discussion right here in our living room as I was grimacing in pain listening to their latest pile of shit. They were on the Real World, no? Also that Afro dude was in the hotel room next to me at the Murray Hill W Hotel. Not a good tipper.
Yeahhh, so... you are being "guarded and overly intellectual" about Lady Gaga. I like her for exactly the same "simple minded" reasons you enjoy LMFAO. But also I like when gay men shower me with praise, and she has really effectively facilitated that.
Sincerely,
A Cambridge Leftist who likes to dance and not be bummed out
I like pop music.
I like to dance and be bummed out though.
The point is not really that I don't like Lady Gaga, the point is that I don't understand why other people do if they're going to write off things like the Dream or Rihanna or LMFAO.
I never said I didn't like that LMFAO track. I'm kind of over Gaga too anyway.
I kind of feel bad using you as a device in this post, even though I hope it's obviously tongue in cheek, because you're very open minded with music I think. But I am probably over thinking it. That's what I do.
Oh, I got it myself, no doubt. I liked it better when you had my named misspelled the whole way through though.
luke o'nail. am i right ladies?
lmfao fucking sucks. so does lady gaga. so does katy perry. it is institutionalized, corporate music. made solely to make money, with no other purpose, nothing benevolent in the minds of the creators. it is an apparition of everything which has gone terribly wrong within our society. the amount of AMAZING fucking music being recorded these days is dizzying, and somehow the shit on the top of the charts is the scum that got scooped from the bottom of the barrel. the way i see it, anyone oozing over lmfao like you did, while you are entirely entitled to your opinion, you are irreconcilably depraved by delusions forced upon you by society, you are a slave, you are inundated, but most importantly YOU SHOULD NOT BE BLOGGING ABOUT MUSIC.
this one's for you, mate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBY-lTlrcNE
haha look at how mad this guy is.
Sooner or later all of my comments on PTSOTL lead back to commercial R&B. This is a good one from The-Dream:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7EDF5twfJE
Also LMFAO are the nephew and grandson of Gordy Berry. I'm sure if had those kinds of connections and rich family background I'd be... probably a strung-out worthless cokehead playboy with lots of illegitimate children and a huge supercar collection. So maybe it's best things turned out this way.
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