Goo Goo for Who?
by Nick Hugon (International Affairs), published May 24th 2011
After Lady Gaga’s highly anticipated second Saturday Night Live appearance, I have a bit I want to get off my chest about America’s premiere pop artist.
Gaga’s SNL appearance came on the heels of the fourth single from her upcoming album Born This Way. She had her moments in the episode, but her more memorable contributions came during comedy sketches rather than in her musical performances. Like in her first appearance, she attempted to fit more than the customary two songs into the two performance slots. The first thing I’d say is that while her medleys seem a bit forced, her first SNL outing was very impressive. It was early on in her rise to superstardom and one of her first widely-accessible, live broadcasted performances. I clearly remember how pleasantly surprised I was by her tangible vocal and piano skills, if not by the songs themselves. As The Fame and the subsequent The Fame Monster sold their millions upon millions, Gaga’s more popular hits grew on me and I can say I didn’t minded many of them.
Now, I want to come out and say I really don’t like any of the first four singles from Born This Way. So if you’re a big fan, take what I’m saying with a grain of salt. That being said, my first complaint has very little to do with what she’s actually singing and more to do with how she sings it. This time around on SNL, the first thought in my mind was ‘where has her voice gone?’ She gasped through her lyrics and let the accompanying recording do the singing for noticeable segments. Now I know she was dancing a lot of the time, which is an added complication. I would point out, however, that Michael Jackson did the same thing unbelievably competently. I know that’s steep competition but if she truly is the new ‘queen of pop’ as she’s being hailed, she should be able to stand next to the king. Throughout her performances, I only remember her unleashing her once-impressive Aguilera-esque throaty bellow once, and it seemed forced.
Now, on to content. Fans can henceforth take offense as they please.
I give Lady Gaga credit for actually making an effort to make her music representative of issues and not entirely mindless. On The Fame, she took a look at open and oftentimes ambiguous sexuality and its relationship with fame and love, and her upfront portrayal of sexuality drew natural comparisons to Madonna. While I stress again that I am biased a bit negatively, I’ve always felt she was just doing Madonna’s gig all over again. Someone must have told her, because with certain tracks on The Fame Monster and continuing onto Born This Way, GaGa has veered away and begun taking a look at religion and sexuality and the influence of their confluence on an individual’s identity, something that Madonna certainly NEVER had anything to say about (see: Madonna’s entire discography. Also see: Madonna’s name).
In a stupid music survey I took earlier this year, I listed ‘Born This Way’, the eponymous debut single of the upcoming album as my ‘Least Favorite Song.’ Okay, I’m sorry. ‘Born This Way’ isn’t my least favorite song ever. I was just very turned off by it because Gaga’s music seems to be gravitating towards crappy, unimaginative and synthey club beats.
As I mentioned before, I think Gaga has REAL musical talent, and she obviously has a knack for a hook. I saw ‘Born This Way’ as a huge waste of that talent and, to be honest, I’m just getting tired of the whole ‘be yourself’ theme that’s becoming synonymous with Gaga’s name. She’s becoming more and more of a one-issue brand with this. That isn’t to say that her stance is wrong (on the contrary, I wholeheartedly support it), it’s just all getting a bit stale with how literal she’s making her message. Her songwriting is weak on ‘Born This Way’ and just lays the message out for everyone to see. There seems to be very little artistry involved and almost no creative portrayal of her worthy cause that would keep it a little more fresh and manageable.
Like I said, though, I listed ‘Born This Way’ as my least favorite song. Well, it’s not. It’s alright, though I don’t much care for it. Then I heard ‘Judas’ on the radio the day it was released.
Oh god.
This song has a beat that might be fun to listen to if I was ass-deep in Jameson’s. Other than that, I have very little in the realm of nice things to say about it. Gaga, with all of her vocal acumen, raps in some strange false-Jamaican accent in the same style as Nicki Minaj and then, whenever she launches into that grating ‘Ju-DAASS’ it sounds like Eminem gets her with the gerbil trick from ‘Fack’ midway through.
Gaga followed up ‘Judas’ with ‘Edge of Glory’ and ‘Hair,’ both of which I find more manageable than the previous atomic failure of a song. They’re just incredibly unimaginative. They sound like they could easily be by Cascada, the artist famous for releasing a bunch of songs that have the exact same beat. So I still maintain that ‘Born This Way’ is the best of the four, which is really saying something because you know how I feel about it.
I read something a while ago that really rings true to me right now. I don’t remember where I read it so I unfortunately can’t give credit but it stated something to the effect of: Lady Gaga has made a deafening impact with The Fame, but the jury will remain out for a long time to see if she has staying power at the top. To me, Lady Gaga’s music isn’t cutting it to call her the world’s current top musical symbol. Her staying power is, at the moment, coming from her fans who flock to her because of the admittedly admirable ideals she stands for, not for any musical accomplishment, and that’s a bit of a shame.
Born This Way dropped May 23rd. It’s getting rave reviews from critics, so maybe I’m in for a surprise. To be fair, there are ten tracks we haven’t heard yet, and by most reports Gaga has really pushed her genre past what the first four singles would suggest. I guess we’ll see, but I’m getting the feeling that once I’ve given Born This Way a chance, I’ll be unsatisfied. I keep imagining her lackluster performance alongside those first few notes of the acoustic rendition of ‘Bad Romance’ on SNL back in October of 2009 when my jaw dropped and I said to my self ‘MAN, can she sing.’