Radio Gaga, Papa, GagaRazzi

If there be nothing new, but that which is. Hath been before,
how are our brains are beguiled, Which laboring for invention,
Bear amiss.                                 Shakespeare, Sonnet 59

You've got the looks, I've got the brains, Let's make lots of money. - Pet Shop Boys

 
Author's Note: I wrote the commentary below the montage of pictures a couple of weeks before I went to a Lady Gaga concert – The Monster Ball 2010 – in Detroit during early September. Which was a whole lot like a Halloween play and color-splashed costume party, on a BIG stage, @ 120 decibels or more. What I missed, in the column below, is an important piece about Gagadom. Here it is. L.G. appeals – as escapist, clever, dance-pop entertainment -- to many adolescents, young adults, and (yes) even some older folks, like me. On stage, she reaches out to and connects with young people who have negative body issues; who feel unpopular (and uncool and outcast); who feel branded by the big L (loser); who are gay and lesbian, and who are otherwise "different" but long to 'find their voice.' Gaga claims hotly over and over that she is a free bitch, baby (note: she is not)! And she urges her audience to believe they can be free, as in more mature and self-loving too (note: they can) --– free to say what they need to; free to follow amazing and unlikely dreams; brave enough to speak truth to power; caring enough to vote; strong enough to stand against discrimination and hate-speech; fearless and full of passion. Look @ some of the pix that I took of her lively Little Monsters. Looks like a very good time, right. Halloween with an attitude and a kick. Boy George and Culture Club cubed. Pop and rock are meant to be like that, to shake you up with its bass- and drums-driven energy. In Gaga's concerts, however, the kicks roll with a cause. Become who you are! Stand up! Vote fearlessly! Get busy. Make your world better! – Oh, and, btw, while you are here, buy my $40 tee shirts, my $30 program book, and $20 CDs out in the lobby. A dance-beats girl's gotta make a living. -- Word!
 

 
     Hello again, little monsters. I have been thinking about something since I read an article last Spring called "The Last Pop Star," in Atlantic Monthly.
     By James Parker, the short piece tells unknowing readers about the short, hot-stuff, upward arc of a clever character, dubbed Lady Gaga (real name: Stefani Joanne Germanotta of greater New York city). It says, with humor, that she will be The Last Pop Star. It also shows how re-invention, re-imaging, and 'borrowing' from the styles of others lie at the rather Empty heart of crass creativity, and desire for fame and money, in our pop culture.  
      As I read Atlantic – my hairstylist June was painting a new mix of auburn color dye on the top of my head. I began thinking. Goodbye to the ash-gray. We all fall for pop culture in many ways. There may be 'nothing new under the sun.' But there are markers and little leaps – often built on what's come before; rip-offs in a word -- that shine a light on the path forward.
      I have asked, would it be possible to say something – simplified -- about a music-and- fame trend that is all about today? No? Well, maybe.
     I'll have three songs and three performers in mind. Were there, possibly, say, three 'moments' that mark how pop music and rock have evolved over the last twenty-five years? (I'm gonna exclude rap and hip-hop for now. What a huge set of leaps. But it came from disco days long gone, not rock 'n roll. (Maybe I'll write about that at another time.)
 
1. Radio Gaga: Glam, Synth-Rock, New Wave, and Social Comment
 
Freddie Mercury and Queen blew the global crowds of millions away, at the huge Live-Aid concerts in 1985, with the tune "Radio Ga-Ga." The big crowd sang along.

All we hear is Radio ga-ga. Radio goo-goo. Radio blah, blah. . . . . Radio it's true. Someone still loves you!

A lament. Since cable TV, and rock video (around 1981), had became 'the thing.' Rock and pop radio stations did not fade away. They paled. It was time for them to be 're- engineered' so they would appeal to listeners young and older.
         But, Radio Ga-Ga? The title seemed surreal. Like gag me. Too much down one's throat. Overly full. A spit up or back reflex. Actually, the song lyrics first were "ca-ca." (Queen lost that phrase quickly. Ca-ca mostly is a slang term for feces.)
       "Radio Ga-Ga" was a clever song. It was a leap. It brought together trends of the day. Glam rock, synthetic (computerized) music, New Wave sounds, and a dip into the tricky world of simplified, social criticism.
       (Time out: New Wave and Synth were romance-like music styles – by David Bowie (also a flashy glamour artist), Spandau Ballet, Ultravox, Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, Boy George, and Thompson Twins . Synthesizers took over. Real guitars and drums kinda disappeared. This new wave, synth-pop rose along with MTV.
       Want to impress? Claim that "Radio Ga-Ga" was a true marker (born in 1984-1985) that reflects some trends in pop music born 25 years ago. It drew from things that came before. It re-mixed them with flash and pop (and Mercury). It laid out a "new and improved" kind of idea. Welcome to pop culture.
       Want to really impress? Google or Wiki-search glam rock and '80s New Wave music. Fun reading. Learn a lot.
 
2. Smells Like Teen Spirit: Grunge, Punk, Slam, and Social Comment
 
Later, the city of Seattle, and its budding garage-rock bands got into the act. Hello, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, and Soundgarden.
       Grunge rock became a kind of new word in music during the early 1990s. Yes, the bands were grunge-y. Simply defined, grunge was harsh distortion guitars, apathy, and despairing (there's little hope) lyrics. Performers belted out stripped-down, punk-ish chords (compared to, let's say, New Wave, glam, and meoldic-synth rock music). The musicians looked skeevy, scrunchy, anti-theatrical. The anti- to the drama of Queen and Lady Gaga style? Yes. Yes, a pendulum had swung.
       The song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (1992), by Nirvana, is the ultimate grunge example of a song. It was an alternative. It was different, dishy, yet somehow echoed the before.

I was trying to write the ultimate pop song . . . I was basically trying to rip off The Pixies. I admit it. The song being soft and quiet, then loud and hard.

                                                                   Kurt Cobain, Nirvana (D. 1994)

       Kids loved it. Adults shunned it. It was a new rock 'n roll fusion. Smelled faintly like . . . trouble, all the way (if you were a parent). It was an inventive reclaiming of old rock 'n roll. Anti-glam, anti- commercial, punk and rock. -- Pop! Welcome to our shared media culture.
To this day, Smells is usually rated one of the all-time great rock 'n roll tunes.
 
3. Lady Gaga and Her Little Monsters
 
Now there's Stephanie all dressed- and made-up. Lady GaGa. And back to the James Parker article.
        There is nothing new under the pop-driven sun, truly. Not a lot of meaning. Just a drive for Fame. And money. And success. And influence. Hey, I surprised and dee-lited you with that one, did I not, my little monsters.
        A music past is being cleverly, relentlessly, re-worked and re-imaged (outrageously), glammed up, made more surreal and hardcore to the world by the Lady Gaga. As in: Gag me, woman. No more please. That's a enuff now! . . . Well, okay, maybe just one little' dance-beat drama more . . . '
       Take a look at L.G. as her real, younger self on YouTube. Her first album was titled Red and Blue. She looks normal. Italian. Dark-haired. Kind of pretty in a simple manner. A girl raised by a New York City family, who went to Catholic schools.
       She was the leader of the Stephanie Germanotta Band in NYC bars. She could, even then, belt a wicked tune – what a voice!, ah, smells faintly like punk, dressed-down grunge, dance music, and pop romance all fused up.
       Stephanie embraced her "Radio Gaga-ness." She morphed, from 2004 to 2010, into a lace-wearing, heavily make-up'd, over-the-top, neo-pop character – singing often about unhealthy pop/romance relationships . . . . while also all about dance-stomps, performance art, outrageous fashion eye-candy, and catchy tunes. Sizzle. Pop. A pendulum has swung back. (She has noted often, 'If a pop song doesn't feature a catchy chorus, well who cares, WTF?')

At first, "Gaga" wrote songs for Britney Spears and New Kids. She worked hard. She sang her heart out everywhere she could. She learned to dance. She adopted bizarre European fashions. She must have suffered some nightmares, along the way, 'monsters in her bed' as she says in one song. Have you seen some of her video dramas . . . like "Bad Romance?"
 
During interviews, she now says her multi-platinum Fame is due to hard, focused work. Rehearsals behind the curtains. I believe her. She is an outrageous, super-hot, and a fun talent to watch. Parker writes about this "The Last Pop Star":

Her assault on the culture has been meticulous. . . . It's pop music, but Gaga-dom is the thing: a persona, something like the incarnation of Pop Stardom itself, foisted upon the world. In wigs and avant-garde getups, she appears, strange-eyed - her large, high-bridged nose giving (an alien) otherness to her face. Gaga "refracts the white hot radiance of Pop."

      Oh, the drama of modern pop-art. "I pray the Fame won't take my liiiiiife," she intones with a hidden smile, dabbed all over with fake blood.
      If there is one Gaga song/video above all to watch on YouTube, it is "Paparazzi." The 7:11 minute, daring version. It's SJG  and her co-artists storytelling (painfully) about a glam, but rock-bottom, death culture -- one riveted on fame and money and despair and empty prestige.

Leather and jeans, Not sure what it means, Garage glamorous, But this photo of us, It don't have a price, Ready for those flashing lights. (You know) I'm your biggest fan, I'll follow you until you love me. Pa-pa, pa- pa, paparazzi!

         Like her persona (a starstruck stalker) in that song, her little monsters are all about today's pop culture. Many are tsk-tsk'ed harshly by adults. That's no new view of young people in rock. Just a re-found idea in rock 'n roll -- such as, those who like it are bad seed.
         Lady Gaga echoes all 25 years of pop entertainment since 1985, to a certain degree. And she outrageously serves some things kinda new onto the table. Get the picture, paparazzi? Perhaps her white-hot career will go on for a long time. If so, like the once 'shocking' Liberace did, she will be smiling all the way to the bank. 
 
What's Next?
 
         Now you know the pop/rock story, in severe shorthand, since 1985. One, two, three. What's next?
         Today, we don't know a lot. Pop culture trends on. Popular music blazes on. What goes around comes all the way back around too, right, Justin? Pendulums swing.