"Speechless: The adjective inducing world of Lady Gaga"

I have always said, jokingly-seriously, that if Andy Warhol wouldn’t have painted you then you don’t matter to pop culture. I'm sure it’s just one of those conversation starters that people love me for (no sarcasm here...move along). Sometimes people try to talk to me about music by squeezing in some indie-bands and I admit to secretly thinking, “These guys aren’t bad, but there's no way Andy Warhol would’ve painted them, they're boring” I do feel pretty confident that Mr. Warhol would have painted Lady Gaga... about 20 times this year alone. She is definitely not boring.

Lady Gaga is quite possibly the most adjective inducing pop star to come along in over decade.... since one Britney Spears at the very the least. That is where the comparison to Britney (who I love) ends, but where the comparison to whole other list begins. Blondie, Madonna, David Bowie, Michael/Janet Jackson, Prince, Grace Jones, you know people Andy would’ve painted. No digs on Gwen Stefani (who I also like), but Lady Gaga seems to be pop-phenom Gwen wanted to be, but just never quite got there. Lady Gaga exudes a certain confidence, intelligence, and attitude that only a special kinda person can pull off. Some pop stars are just too sweet... which is fine, I love my sweet popsters, but to change the game a bit you gotta go after it Red Queen style. Take heads now and take names later.

Of course, it is fine to compare to artists to artists, I mean let’s face it all of pop-culture is rather repetitive; but where the media, the critics, and even the fans sometimes fail is to measure an artist on their own accord. This is where Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Gaga to the masses) excels. She is slowly/quickly building her own case... “C’mon I challenge you not to like me or at the very least know who I am and respect me”... is the vibe I get from her. Hell yeah.

MTV Shows

She understands the ways of Pop Art better than anyone since Madonna. Lady Gaga gets that unless your music is good all of the outfits, statements, and performance in the world won’t make you matter. For better or worse every single she has put out has been a repetitive radio smash, but as a music fan she gets interesting when you start digging around her album and not listening to the “singles”. You start to understand that any number of tracks could be singles and that’s a hard feat in the world of 2009 pop music... especially an American pop act who is just expected to churn out the money shot single in hopes of selling people a record.

This is where Lady Gaga gets even more interesting. In some ways she is the first pop star of the download era. This is something I will write more about in future, but quite simply the iTunes Store, the internet, and the media are creating a culture of letting the single matter again... which I find incredibly exciting. Yet, she could be the one artist who takes advantage of this and seems to want to make great albums. I love it when artists are at odds with the logic of the times.

See, in the 1990’s and early “noughties” the labels took even more advantage of the record buying public (if that’s possible) by selling us albums by artists only capable of writing one or two good songs, but forcing those artists to make an album. Back in the 1950’s and 60’s, in the heyday of the ’45 record, artists could press a great single and that was ok... that was all they had in them so that is all that was expected. Just because you can't write an album doesn't mean you can't write one the greatest songs of all time.

This was my initial reaction to Lady Gaga, which was fine. I heard “Just Dance” and thought... holy crap that’s a good pop song and proceeded to buy it instantly out of the iTunes store. Then came “Poker Face” which I didn’t like as much, but was fine. “Paparazzi”, though, was fantastic... so I got the record. And then the new record. Yes, I call them records... which she would probably appreciate.

Where I’m going with this is that she makes really good music, it might all be fleeting, but we'll just have to wait and see. Right now she is making the most interesting 4 chord pop music this side of the Atlantic which already makes her fun in my world. She makes bold over-the-top statements about changing pop music forever and I think, “Hell yeah... go do it. Shake it up!”

I want to believe.

The best thing is that if she wanted to be just be a flavor of the month... she would’ve already succeeded; she could’ve taken the money and ran. But there is one song on the Fame Monster called “Speechless” which sounds like a lost David Bowie song. It’s amazing. I listened to like 10 times in a row the other day. I don’t think flavors of the month write songs like that.

"E-Bow The Essay" (Or I don't want to disappoint you)

“E-Bow The Letter” might just be ballsiest single by a major label band in the history of pop music. Of course, R.E.M. is one of those bands that divides people. Some people completely love them other people completely loathe them. I am in love camp and have been since I was 10...when I discovered my older sisters “Dream A Little Dream” original soundtrack album. That album featured “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” which melted my little 10 year old brain. I liked words and that song had lots of them. Needless to say, R.E.M. became the first “proper” band I got into.

The obsession with Stipe and company continued into my middle school years. I got “Green”, “Out of Time”, and “Automatic For the People”. I loved them. I then set out to buy every R.E.M. record from 80’s as I discovered that there was whole era of their music I had missed. I was obsessed. I read every interview or article I could find on the group. I thought Michael Stipe was the smartest person in the world and started seeking out books, records, and artists they talked about. For a brief period I even tried to be vegetarian, because Michael Stipe was.

One of the artists Michael Stipe spoke of in his own little obsessive way was Patti Smith, who quite frankly, scared my little 13 year old being. I bought her record “Horses”, because he said it was the best thing ever, but I was probably a few years too young for it. I didn't get it. I can appreciate now, but I could really appreciate her after what happened next.

In 1996 my R.E.M. obsession is still there, but by this time I had dozens & dozens of bands to follow and R.E.M. had gotten borderline trendy with "Monster". I didn't blame them...it was just a little annoying as someone who had loved them forever. I can't imagine how their fans from the early 80's felt. R.E.M. had invented alternative music in someways, but themselves were now a Grammy-winning household name. It is during this time that R.E.M. does two of the most interesting things that a band has done in my time of being a music fan.

One: they sign a multi-million dollar 5 album deal with Warner Brothers. This is interesting because R.E.M. is well past it’s prime as a "singles" band and I think they know it. It just shows how fucked up the record industry had gotten in the 90’s offering “established” bands tons of money and then not understanding why they didn’t sell 5 million copies of every album. This is the beginning of how out of touch music labels were about to become... the fallout which is happening now. R.E.M. took the money and ran. God bless them.

This dovetails with the second interesting thing the band did. They released “E-Bow the Letter” as a single. The first time I heard it I was mesmerized. I thought it was haunting, brilliant, and a complete out-of-left-field choice for major label single. My beloved R.E.M. had infiltrated the majors (from the indies) and released this gem of a song.

I also loved it because it was career suicide. There was no way in hell that song was getting played on the radio. And I was right... it bombed. It was their biggest hit ever in England, which seems about right, but it the States it received a shrug and in turn in started the slow decline of sales for the “godfathers of American Alternative” music. And in someways I couldn’t have been happier; I had my R.E.M. back. Plus, I like words and this song has lots of them.

See the reality is that all bands that sign to major labels have to sell out a little... its called business. You make a record, take it to label, and then they deicide what the single should be that “sells” the record. R.E.M. had had a string hits, but in 1996 the alternative boom was declining and R.E.M. was in the unique position of releasing whatever they wanted to because they were a hot commodity. They chose this odd song in which Michael Stipe sings with his hero Patti Smith about the spiraling culture of stardom. Brilliant.

She never had to deal with the same crap R.E.M. did, because Patti Smith was always in the margins a little, but the fact that R.E.M. was able to help introduce her to generation of music lovers who might not have heard her; and to do it on this song...well, I really admired it. In some ways "E-Bow the Letter" is the song that killed the major label. It was the first chink in the armor if nothing else.

They need not give me any more reasons to write about them, but they still do and I hope they keep at. Damn, I love R.E.M...just love them.

Robbie Williams & His Accidental "World Anthem"

This is going to seem like an over-the-top statement, but if you are reading a blog about pop music then you should be accepting of over-the-top statements.

My statement is this. If we ever make contact with an alien civilization I want Robbie Williams’ “Angels” to be the first thing they hear from this planet. Not just any version, but either the Live from Knebworth, England version or the live version on the UK “Angels” single.

Some people were upset that this song was voted into the UK’s top 10 songs of all-time a few years back, which struck me as pretentious at best. When he stops singing and 300,000 people sing back at him at Knebworth... I mean holy shit, what else do you want from a song(and people wander why the man has an ego). That is the dream of anyone who has ever written a song.

In fact, sometimes when I start to question the humanity of this world we live in I pop in the aforementioned single that has one of the best live versions I’ve heard of the song... and I’ve heard a lot. On this version Robbie Williams dedicates the song to his mom and then proceeds to pour his heart out on the stage except for the second verse; when over 100,000 people do it for him. That is almost more moving in some ways.

As someone who has always wanted to make his mom proud, I find it to be a goose-bump inducing moment of triumph for Mr. Williams, who ironically, was someone I had a hard time “getting” early in his career. I thought his “band” Take That was a joke and his going solo to be, well, unneeded.

But after I heard "Angels" I gave him a free pass into my world of four chord pop music and I have been a pretty big fan of him since. It helps that he is from England, as I tend to give people from that great place a free pass anyway, but the reality is that he is consistent talent and has a huge ego that makes for interesting press. Like I said when 300,000 people sing your song (Guy Chamber's song actually) back at you... you are bound to get a little ego. As well you should.

There is an early live version of this song where Robbie sings it in Berlin, Germany. Freakin’ Berlin. I mean keep in mind that we are only 50 years removed from WWII and this Brit is standing on stage singing a song about angels and the entire audience sings back at him. To me that is what music is about and that is why this song is amazing, dare say it, healing. It reminds a little bit of "Imagine" by John Lennon which could also be a contender for the first thing I want aliens to hear from us, but there is not a video of 300,000 people singing "Imagine". Sorry John.

So, in the end it doesn’t seem strange to me at all that this is the song I want to be statement of our planet. It’s a song of hope that is not corny. It’s a song of love that is not mooshy. And it’s a about angles that isn’t religious. It just feels nice. Which is why 300,000 people sing along.

Because in a world of war, AIDS, famine, etc--- it’d be nice to show another planet that hundreds of thousands of people can occasionally come together and just sing.

Daft Title

I used to hate covers... Cover songs that is. I’ll probably save that topic for a whole other essay, but I was thinking about that today as I listened to several versions of “Bizarre Love Triangle”. See, I often say that the record that made me love covers was Mandy Moore’s 2003 record Coverage, and that might be true; but the song that endeared me most to covers was a little Australian band’s cover of the song that I obsessed over in high school.

Frente’s version of “Bizarre Love Triangle” made me do a double take the first time I heard it because it was so, well, so different. They took an electro-pop masterpiece and scaled it back to nothing but an acoustic guitar and a stark, completely naked, one take vocal that still brings me to near tears.

Last year one of my favorite bands covered it and it became my favorite version, but you know what, I think Taylor Swift could cover the song and I would think it was one greatest things ever; because it is a perfect song and anyone who sings it with any amount of conviction is going connect with a listener.

Today at work I was listening to the original New Order version and it really hit me how good this song was. See, liking a great pop song is like getting a big crush. You get so caught up in the feeling of the moment you don’t even quite realize how good (or bad) it is until later. Today when I was listening to this song my brain about and heart about exploded as I connected the dots about emotions this song stirs up at certain times in my life. It just might be the ultimate crush song.

“Every time I think of you I feel a shot right through with a bolt of blue... living a life I can’t leave behind.” Wow. There are so many good lyrics it’s hard to even cherry pick the best ones out, but the real reason this song is so great because of the storytelling devices. I’m not sure the listener ever knows the point of view of the singer. Are they the one crushing, the one being crushed, or a third party to the ensuing emotion.

I think this is why Angie Hart’s vocal on the Frente version is so crushing (no pun intended). You feel little bit stark when dealing with the topics this song offers up. “I do admit to myself/That if I hurt someone else/ Then I'll never see just what we're meant to be” is not the kinda lyric you sing lightly.

The South version is my favorite, not just because they are one of favorite bands, but because they deconstruct the song a different way entirely. They shake the “ultimate crush” theme down to it’s grade school roots by incorporating music boxes and xylophones... which gives the song an even more bittersweet, if not pseudo-innocent, resonance.

It’s safe to say the New Order crafted the perfect song with “Bizarre Love Triangle”. A song about love, regret, new love, and the excitement of uncertainty, but uncertainty nonetheless. The questions are painted there on the wall, now make you choice, but choose carefully; because as this song proved to me today you can listen to a song thousand times and not really hear it until the thousand and first time you play it. Maybe people are the same way.

“What came first: The music or the misery?" (Or Dear, Cyndi)

“What came first: the music or the misery?" (Or Dear, Cyndi)

I didn’t mean to get sad, but I remember I was in the family car. We were coming home from grocery shopping and I was about 6 or 7... so it was about 1985. I was in pretty high spirits, probably because I had just gotten a candy bar (see that was the deal... if we were good and didn’t bug our parents while grocery shopping we got a candy bar at the checkout. I personally think that is why grocery stores keep the candy there) anyways, back on topic.

We were driving up Charlestown Road in Clarksville, Indiana when “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper came on the radio. I immediately zoned out, listened mesmerized, and then became incredibly sad. This is probably not normal behavior for a 6 year old, alas here I was drowning in sea of chiming guitars and soft-synths. I remember my mom asking me, “What’s wrong honey.”-- and I couldn’t answer at first. Finally, I was able to get out in a low, hushed, slightly tear abiding voice, “That song just made me really sad.”

Thus my fate was cast to the wind as far as I am concerned as I was already a fan of music; Ms. Lauper made me a music fan, an ever slight variation on theme. My dad, being DJ, had already solidified my love of music with the stacks of 45’s and records lying around. My parents used to let me put on headphones and plug me into the stereo much the same way parents sit their kids in front of the Disney Channel today. There is a very early picture of me floating around about age 4 where I am wearing a Snoopy: Joe Cool T-shirt and headphones. It’s pretty damn cute and I’ll have to find it.

The point of all this is that song affected me. My dad bought us (me) a copy from Shively Records in Louisville, because I kept asking for it. I remember that trip to Shively Records also yielded a copy of “Somewhere Out There” by Linda Rondstadt & James Ingram, because I was also throughly obsessed with An American Tail. But it was Cyndi Lauper that made an undeniable impression on me and probably my music taste to this day. I mean it doesn’t take many moves to get from Ms. Lauper to Lily Allen who I am equally obsessed with today. Her song “Chinese” off of It’s Not Me, It’s You gives me close to the same feeling as “Time After Time”.

The odd thing is that “Time After Time” really isn’t a sad song per se. Yet there is vulnerability in the vocal and lyrics that belie the theme and make me sad every time I hear I hear it. The lyrics want to be hopeful (“If you fall I will catch you/I will be waiting/Time after time”), but the idea of waiting for someone to fall and then perhaps fall again is both sad and beautiful; and obviously painted a picture of heartbreak for me long before I had any idea what heartbreak was.

The power of pop music is that I love Cyndi Lauper as much today as I did then for most, if not all, of the same reasons. “She Bop” makes me as happy as it did when I was 7 (even though I had no idea I was singing along to a song about female masturbation) and “True Colors” makes me sad (even though I had no idea it was about an abusive relationship... and long before I had been manipulated by Kodak commercials imploring me to “capture the moment”)

Some people would say the very statement that a song can make me feel the same way at age 7 or 30 is the reason pop music is as empty as that candy bar my parents gave me that night before Ms. Lauper filled my head with these crazy notions of melancholy, but the point of any music, or of any art for that matter, is to get an emotional response from a person on the other end. So perhaps people are right. Maybe “pop music” is bad for your soul, but I think something that can make you feel equally “bouncing-off-the-walls” happy and “dear-god-why-am-i-upset” sad is fascinating.

I mean I love “real music” too (whatever that means), but I am the most emotionally connected to four chord pop songs that go: verse/chorus/fade. I probably still spend too much time listening to music, but who cares. It’s one of the major things that gets me out of bed everyday. I mean I wake up everyday convinced I am going to hear a better song than I heard the day before and you know what... that logic has worked for me so far.

Luckily I got out of my “tumultuous teens & 20’s” when pop music "supposedly" matters most to a lot of people, but I still find myself drawn to pop music more than ever; and quite honestly, I find it a relief I that still find myself moved both happily and sadly by both songs new and old; even though I was told I would “grow out of it”.

I guess it all boils down to how you are programmed and we are all programmed differently. As John Cusak’s character Rob Gordon famously monologued in High Fidelity:

“People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”

And that my friends is a good question. Of course, his character is only focusing on the sad songs which help share in our sadness. How many times, though, has your own personal “She Bop” or any other upbeat pop song brightened your day a bit?

Come on... how many times?

Introduction or something

Inspired by some of the great people around me (i.e. puncuatedlife.blogspot.com, thehotdogbattle.wordpress.com, churchofatheists.org, & others) I think I will actually do something with my blog in the coming weeks... you know actually write some stuff. I have many music essays done or near done. They will be about pop music of course, because what else am I really going write about.

Just remember: If your song goes verse/chorus./verse/chorus/bridge/fade... then you make pop music. Whether you are Radiohead or Lady Gaga. So pretty much everyone is fair game.

Stay Beautiful,

Eric

"In the end the love you make is equal to the love you take"