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Post by Xteenuh on May 2, 2010 17:33:41 GMT
YES FLORENCE, YES!!! You're exactly right, and thats what I love about her.
P.S. I hate Taylor Swift's music, I hate it so much. Her lyrics are like the bad poetry I wrote in my secret diary when I was 10 years old. I understand her appeal to a lot of people, but... ugh.
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Post by husbandwifeheroin on May 2, 2010 17:42:12 GMT
I did quite like Love Story to be fair, but the others make me sad inside
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Post by Rhiflect on May 2, 2010 18:33:02 GMT
Back when I was on a metal forum. Amazing ♥
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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on May 10, 2010 10:55:22 GMT
Joanna Newsom on Lady Gaga.. I think she makes some fair points. But then I like Gaga's music.. and Britney's I dig good pop music you know? It's the significance of Gaga that I think is overstated and rated.
"Far from being a pixie, she worries that she doesn't read enough and watches "too much crappy TV". She's also a big fan of Jay-Z and Kanye West – though not Lady Gaga. "I'm mystified by the laziness of people looking at how she presents herself, and somehow assuming that implies there's a high level of intelligence in the songwriting. Her approach to image is really interesting, but you listen to the music, and you just hear glow sticks. Smart outlets for musical journalism give her all this credit, like she's the new Madonna …" She breaks off and laughs. "Although I'm coming from a perspective of also thinking Madonna is not great at all. I'm like, fair enough: she is the new Madonna, but Madonna's a dumb-ass!"
Later, she emails to clarify what she describes as her "late-afternoon dopiness" on this subject: "I may have contradicted myself. My problem isn't actually with Lady Gaga. But there's not much in her music to distinguish it from other glossy, formulaic pop. She just happens to wear slightly weirder outfits than Britney Spears. But they're not that weird – they're mostly just skimpy. She's fully marketing her body/sexuality; she's just doing it while wearing, like, a 'fierce' telephone hair-hat. Her sexuality has no scuzziness, no frank raunchiness, in the way that, say, Peaches, or even Grace Jones, have – she's Arty Spice! And, meanwhile, she seems to take herself so oddly seriously, the way she talks about her music in the third person, like she's Brecht or something. She just makes me miss Cyndi Lauper." And on the subject of Madonna: "I shouldn't have called Madonna a dumb-ass. Her music and she have just gotten so boring to me, this last decade. I think maybe she doesn't hold her money very gracefully, the way some people can't hold their drink. But one thing she is surely not is dumb." She signs off warmly and sweetly, but it's not exactly a retraction."
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Post by tarantella on May 10, 2010 14:04:43 GMT
Well, I agree that there isn't much braininess to Gaga's music, but so does Gaga herself. I think it's fantastic that she's come out and said "I make soulless electronic pop" -- she's always been perfectly honest about the construction of her music and herself. I'm not a Warhol fan, but I love how Lady Gaga uses his ethic to produce and package herself. Gaga is a musician, a fashion designer, two+ albums of music, a theatrical show, Stefani Germanotta, a model, a sculpture, a cultural phenomenon, and many other things besides.
It's the cultural phenomenon part that I love best, because no one can deny that she works really fucking hard for it. It's all artifice, and she's so sincere and passionate about making the lie into truth -- which she does, I think, for all of her fans. People who aren't interested may not agree. But Gaga provides a beautiful fantasy to so many -- from the teenage girl who really takes to heart Gaga's words about always being true to yourself, to me. I had honestly never been as excited for a music video to come out as I was for Bad Romance or Telephone. That is worth something to me.
I think there's a great deal of intelligence and soul in the production of Lady Gaga, and I think she inspires a lot of intelligent and soulful activity in return. That's the crux of the experience for me; the music itself is such a small part of it.
I have feelings about Lady Gaga, okay.
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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on May 10, 2010 14:41:26 GMT
One thing I will say about Gaga is her music seems to be getting more distinctive as her career progresses. Something like Just Dance was pretty indistinguishable commercial pop, where as Bad Romance is much more quirky and individual.
I enjoy interesting aesthetic/visual presentation in music artists, but to me it's the icing on the cake, or the free toy with your cereal. When it comes to evaluating an artist, especially when it comes down to longevity, tis always the songs that'll make or break you. On that criteria Gaga is certainly one of the leaders in her field; in terms of genre and chronology. It's just the media coverage of her feels wildy hyperbolic and disproportionate to said quality.
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Post by lastgoodbye on May 10, 2010 17:30:58 GMT
Soz Joanna Newsom, having a weird voice doesn't automatically make your music intelligent, either. What's "intelligent music", anyway!? An album full of pop hits which sell millions of copies all over the world, while not belittling or degrading yourself in the process? That seems quite intelligent to me.
I can't think of a single other example of what intelligent music could mean. Is it filling your lyrics with quirky metaphors and cutesy one liners? Do you have to have a harp or a string quartet or something in order for it to qualify?
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Post by idreamofcherrypies on May 10, 2010 17:51:55 GMT
^ For me intelligent music is stuff like Kate Bush's, all references to philosophers and folk tales and theories and complicated spiritual stuff, back in the days when it would have been more difficult for her to check that she was using a word correctly or hadn't misunderstood an idea or person, or to find other subjects to sing/write about [/voice of the Google generation]
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Post by lastgoodbye on May 10, 2010 17:55:02 GMT
I adore Kate Bush myself, but... isn't that analysis a tad pretentious? Singing about philisophers and folk stories in your music doesn't make it intelligent music, it just means you yourself may or may not be fairly clever.
edit - I think the point I'm trying to make is... being 'intelligent' isn't the most important thing about music. The idea is to make GOOD music, not intelligent music. Gags isn't trying to make intelligent music. It's not like she released an album full of crappy, poorly executed political commentary on which she tried to be intelligent, and it flopped (bless him).
And it's not like she's trying to be all mythical and inspired by Kate Bush like many other female artists are - like Newsom, I'd go as a far to say. Which is why I take exception to Newsom's put-down to Lady Gaga, that her music is so dumb, people who like it are lazy. No.
"assuming that implies there's a high level of intelligence in the songwriting"
- Just because they're not played on the harp with quaint lyrics and a pseudo-intelligent little veneer over it, or whatever, doesn't mean it's not intelligent songwriting. Being able to write a massive song like Bad Romance, which appeals to people all over the world, and of all ages etc etc and sells millions, actually yeah, that is intelligent song writing. I get a big feeling of sour grapes from Newsom in that interview.
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Post by sarah on May 10, 2010 18:06:18 GMT
i think what most people mean when they say "intelligent music" is anything that isn't to do with every day life and relationships and what not. much in the same way that some books, tv programmes, etc. are considered more "intelligent" than others. perhaps compare Eastenders or reality tv with "proper" dramas and series, terrible cheesy horror films with "deep" arty films, or indeed most "mainstream" music vs the ~*super quirky indie world*~. people seem to love making out like anything that is deemed "unintellectual" is terrible and cannot be enjoyed by anyone with two braincells to put together. i personally don't enjoy lady gaga's music at all and i'm not sure i get whether she's making a point about anything (IT'S ALL TOO DEEP FOR ME) but it doesn't make me smarter than someone else who prefers to listen to her over whatever i choose to listen to.
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Post by Tellurium on May 10, 2010 19:07:49 GMT
I think "intelligence" in music also speaks more to the complexity/layers/nuance of the composition of the music. Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 is more intelligent than Aqua's Barbie Girl, etc. Lady Gaga's music follows the pop formula, verse-chorus-verse, and relies on simple (if very sticky) pop hooks. So Lady Gaga's 3 minute electronic ditty's about wanting to party are less intelligent than Joanna Newsom's 9 minute opus's with their more esoteric lyrical style. Whichever one you prefer (I'm not really a fan of either) Joanna's work has a little more to sink your teeth into.
I think that's what's usually meant by intelligence. But I agree with you, Florence, that that doesn't really make one sort of music better than another. It's obviously not what Lady Gaga is going for, so her not achieving it shouldn't really be a point of criticism. And Bad Romance shouldn't be belittled for having mass appeal. Certainly I've never really thought about music's "intelligence" when I'm deciding what I like to listen to.
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Post by idreamofcherrypies on May 10, 2010 19:23:30 GMT
I adore Kate Bush myself, but... isn't that analysis a tad pretentious? Singing about philisophers and folk stories in your music doesn't make it intelligent music, it just means you yourself may or may not be fairly clever. edit - I think the point I'm trying to make is... being 'intelligent' isn't the most important thing about music. The idea is to make GOOD music, not intelligent music. Gags isn't trying to make intelligent music. It's not like she released an album full of crappy, poorly executed political commentary on which she tried to be intelligent, and it flopped (bless him). And it's not like she's trying to be all mythical and inspired by Kate Bush like many other female artists are - like Newsom, I'd go as a far to say. Which is why I take exception to Newsom's put-down to Lady Gaga, that her music is so dumb, people who like it are lazy. No. "assuming that implies there's a high level of intelligence in the songwriting" - Just because they're not played on the harp with quaint lyrics and a pseudo-intelligent little veneer over it, or whatever, doesn't mean it's not intelligent songwriting. Being able to write a massive song like Bad Romance, which appeals to people all over the world, and of all ages etc etc and sells millions, actually yeah, that is intelligent song writing. I get a big feeling of sour grapes from Newsom in that interview. I can't explain it really, I just spent ages typing and it made no sense. Essentially, I agree with you, it's just that as someone not very bright at all, my first instinct when hearing 'intelligent music' is to consider music that deals with intelligent things, rather than the wider picture. I do think intelligent music can be about everyday life though, or just clever observations, or a knack for putting things well. And I don't know who this Joanna person even is but I'm not warming to her much. The whole thing reminds me a bit of in My Fair Lady, when Alfie Doolittle goes to collect Eliza from Henry Higgins' house and they really love him. Couldn't find a clip of it though. What I like about Gaga (and this is probably just an incoherent rehashing of previous posts) is the way her songwriting is, as everyone agrees, GOOD, but stays vague enough that she can make any music video she wants to fit it, and call that the 'point' or 'meaning' of the song. I think she is always about the whole package (like Tara said so beautifully) and just to zoom in on her writing and hear glowsticks isn't really playing the game the way Gaga wants or intends it to be played. I would love to live inside Gaga's head for a day or two. Did anyone see that Andy Warhol programme, the Modern Master's one? They talked about how he's from a poor background and how in his art this is what he wanted to say about consumerism and this is what he meant politically, and this is what he wanted to say about America's attitude to something, and then either towards the end (or maybe not at all and I saw it somewhere else) they explain how he said if they want to understand him then just look at the art, there's nothing below the surface. And it was just such a funny contradiction, I sometimes wonder if Gaga isn't trying something similarly Emperor's New Clothes-ish. Either way, she has the Roisin Murphy seal of approval, which is good enough for me. edit: I've always found Gaga's production and business sense clever, I think this whole time I've been using 'intelligent music' interchangeably with 'intelligent lyrics', and therein lies the problem.
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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on May 10, 2010 19:42:05 GMT
Singing about philosophers and folk stories in your music doesn't make it intelligent music, it just means you yourself may or may not be fairly clever.... it's not like she released an album full of crappy, poorly executed political commentary on which she tried to be intelligent, and it flopped (bless him). This is all very true. Some of the dumbest music in the world is the kinda that tries to embrace the "highbrow" be that in terms of political comment, musical experimentation or lyrical poetics. Simply because translating those things into pop music is hard very, very hard so if you're going to have a crack at it, you have a greater chance of looking like an idiot. BATTLE BATTLE etc. I think all this stuff about "intelligent music" is a bit too general a term, suggesting some sort of empirical concept of intelligence that I simply reject. Intelligence, especially in art/entertainment is subjective. I don't think there's any serious debate that both Gaga and Newsom's music didn't take intelligence to produce. The same could be said for the minds behind Cheryl Cole or Scouting for Girls' music (insert your own awful musical acts of choice here!). Producing a professional recording obviously takes intelligence of some kind or other, even if it's just the technical intelligence of working the knobs of the mixing deck properly. The application of intelligence is not the issue for me, it's a given. The issue for me is depth or substance. Keep in mind I'm a man who prefers Skins to The Wire and would rather listen to Florence and the Machine (or Gaga for that matter) than Animal Collective or whatever vapid muso-hipster shit the cool kids listen to these days. To me finding substance; meaning layers that stimulate and reward repeated listening/viewings/whatever of a creative work over a number of years and provoking a lasting intellectual or emotional response; bares no relation to the arbitrary seal of intellectual credibility the media and the chattering classes uses to create the consensus of what is cool and uncool, mainstream and alternative, highbrow and lowbrow. I find Gaga's music solid ephemeral entertainment, it makes you dance, makes you feel good.. I don't however believe it has substance of any kind going on the definition I just laid down. Does that make is less valid? No.. it just means I look to other qualities and presumably Joanna Newsom does too.. I don't think y'all should be hating on her for expressing her opinion. Saying it's sour grapes is pretty weird seeing her and Gaga are far too different to be in any sort of competition. Such is the danger of "celebrity" that the sort of free opinioning we do on these forums becomes news to be anaylsed. (which of course I must be blamed for, for posting it here!) I don't think Gaga's music is original or "new" in the slightest, nor are her lyrics really about anything. The production is the kind of sheeny, airless and lifeless kind that's so uniform in modern pop music that it's hard to tell a Gaga, Killers or R'n'B record apart if you're listening to the radio and not really paying attention. As Tara said, her stuff is artifice driven, and I think it's a misconception to attribute the concept of "image, artifice for its own sake" to Warhol as people often do. If you read the Philosophy of Andy Warhol (good book, I'd recommend it) you'll see that his work expressed a lot of quite weighty (and deeply individual) ideas and concepts with a real lightness of touch, that some misconceive as frivolous. I respond to ideas more than I respond to artifice/aesthetics, so I'm not really getting what's so revolutionary about Gaga's look and visuals. That whole "art for arts sake" catwalk world is kinda vapid and decadent to me. But who I'm I to offhand dismiss a whole branch of artistic expression? It's likely my failing for not "getting it". Ok.. all this waffle could pretty much come down to this. Like all speculation, there is no way of proving or disproving this but... I think in ten years time, people will still be pouring over and enjoying Joanna Newsom's records, and not Gagas. The reason why is I believe Newsom's work is more distinctive and imaginative and her lyrics make use of language in a more original and thought provoking way. It'll stand the test of time better.. I think. Gaga is good, but if she doesn't evolve into being about more then wacky hats, glossy studio craft and the same empowered female sexuality and appropriation of gay culture that Madonna introduced before most of the posters here where born than her moment in the sun of the zeitgeist just won't last. Good luck to her, she's certainly helping make a mainstream music culture than was dominated by boring generic boys with guitars a few years back more interesting. My problem is that people seem to have convinced themselves she's some revolutionary innovator, not just a fun popstar, in a way that betrays the whole point of non-rockist proudly ephemeral pop-craft.
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Post by irrelevant on May 10, 2010 19:55:33 GMT
she should do that 'rah rah' stuff and its rhyming variants barbershop-quartet style for the next album.
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Post by lastgoodbye on May 10, 2010 20:02:37 GMT
I think in ten years time, people will still be pouring over and enjoying Joanna Newsom's records, and not Gagas. NO WAY! I would bet a lot of money that it was the other way round. Seriously. I know that record sales don't nessesarily show how good an artist is, as someone who thinks that Owen Pallett is the best musician in the world you obviously don't have to tell me that, but they are a measure of how much impact an artist has, and unless I've seriously had my head in the sand, barely anyone has heard of Joanna Newsom. I know you've admitted that you "don't get" Lady Gaga and think that people over-exaggerate her impact, but seriously.. you don't get Lady Gaga. Stuff like this is why Lady Gaga will still be a household name in ten years, and Joanna Newsom still won't be: You may not think her music is important, but because of the way she conducts herself and her image, conversations like this happen, and they are important.
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Post by lastgoodbye on May 10, 2010 20:15:05 GMT
"The music has always been outright provocative, and most of the time the kids don't know what they're talking about when they hear the words. But when they see the pictures.. they process things a little differently. So treating Lady Gaga as an idol!? I don't see it."
The guy inadvertently hit the nail on the head there. He doesn't think it's suitable having little girls growing up and seeing Lady Gaga, dancing in her underwear with lesbians in prison – she's "too provocative", too bold. I'd much rather have a generation of girls growing up to see Gaga on their screens (the same way a whole generation grew up seeing Madonna) than, like I said, growing up with just Cheryl Cole, or some video girls simpering and grinding around some guy, or no prominent women at all. There are no other women who are this outrageous and fierce and fearless being played on radio and tv screens across the world, not to the extent she is, and that's why she's significant.
And to bring it back to Joanna Newsom - I don't even mind her, I think her music is quite good. But there are plenty of sort of, music student, indie ladies playing pretty music on their guitars/harps/ukeleles/etc and singing clever lyrics and composing what might be really fascinating, beautifully crafted, intelligent, lovely music. And fans of that kind of music will always seek them out, and maybe some of those music fans will buy up Joanna Newsom back catalogues in ten years time. But she could equally sink into obscurity.. which she's kind of already in, and Gaga won't.
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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on May 10, 2010 20:17:59 GMT
Who said anything about being a household name? Neutral Milk Hotel are not a household name.. nor are The Velvet Underground or My Bloody Valentine yet their music is constantly being discovered by and exerting influence on the musical culture 10 to 40 years after it came out.
Your defination of Gaga's significance in terms of cultural or even political terms rather than musical quality alone is the exact reason I don't think it will endure in the same way. What's radical and risqué now will not be thus in twenty years time. However quality composition, songs and lyrics have a timeless quality isolated from their chronological and cultural surroundings.
The Darkness sold a shitload of records and had the cultural commentators all in a froth less than seven years ago. Just sayin'.
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Post by lastgoodbye on May 11, 2010 6:08:17 GMT
What's radical and risqué now will not be thus in twenty years time. Madonna!? I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I think Lady Gagas pop music is good enough to still be played in ten years time, like Madonna, or Wham, or like, The Spice Girls. The 'cultural significance' is just another reason why. Also, what's to say she won't be still releasing in ten years, like her seventh album or something? It's more likely that she will be than Joanna Newsom.
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Post by admin on May 11, 2010 11:24:09 GMT
The Darkness sold a shitload of records and had the cultural commentators all in a froth less than seven years ago. Just sayin'. Was that seven years ago? I am a crone. Lots of intelligent, reasoned responses to Joanna Newsom's criticism, but I have some maths for you: Joanna Newsom has released three records, has produced ONE good song (the one about the meteorite being the source of the light); Lady Gaga has released one record - The Fame Monster, the best record of 2009, was a BONUS DISC - and has produced OVER 9000 good songs. Therefore Lady Gaga is AMAZING, and Joanna Newsom should take her stinking harp and drag her twee fairy ass back to the woodland glen from whence she pranced, thank you very much. (Sorry, but she is awful.) I think there's something in this notion that Lady Gaga produces generic pop music, though. Because... to an extent, yes. But - and I think this has a lot to do with her being at the helm of what she does, rather than producing pop music by committee - she goes that extra mile, pushes things that little bit further, sees that fine line between genius and insanity and does the Running Man all over it, in high heels, wearing a telephone. It's not just the visuals, either: can you imagine Britney's people okaying a single where the hook is essentially her bellowing nonsense (hahaha, have you heard '3', etc. etc.)? RAH RAH ROMA MA! RAH RAH ROMA MA! GA GA OOH LA LA!, etc. At the same time, when you listen to something like 'Just Dance' or 'Paparazzi' now, two years later, it sounds generic, because a lot of people are copying what she was doing then (just look at Crosstina's hair, who is she trying to kid?). And, also, SHE IS GREAT HATERS TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT, etc. (Sorry, I am awful.) Cheerio, Michael. xxx
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Post by Tellurium on May 11, 2010 11:37:00 GMT
LIES and SLANDER Bushman! LIES AND SLANDERRRRR!!!!!
If you're going to pick one good Joanna Newsom song, it HAS to be Peach Plum Pear. It just HAS to.
Sorry, I'm just don't get how you can think Emily is her only good song. I get not digging her in general, but that particular song doesn't really stand out in her catalogue as "special", IMO, much as I like it.
Um... so yeah... Now to think of something to contribute to the actual topic of this thread...
I actually bought The Fame right when it came out. And I thought Just Dance and Paparazzi sounded generic back then too. *shrugs*. I enjoy the record still sometimes, though.
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