Tag: "Lady Gaga"

After Lady Gaga‘s lackluster “Edge of Glory” music video, it was nice to see Mother Monster returning to truly WTF-inducing form on the video for “You and I.” Two words: Mermaid. Sex. Gags kindly explained to MTV just how, exactly, a mermaid would have sex with a human, saying, “Well, that’s actually part of what the metaphor is—you can’t… No matter what you do, there’s this giant boundary between you and someone else. So that’s what it’s about, perceiving in your imagination that there’s something magical inside of you that you can make it work.”

Okay, sure, that sounds like a plausible explanation. And as an added bonus, it got us thinking about the sexual metaphors in some of our favorite songs. So if you’re looking for tunes with sexy references that are less obscure than mermaid intercourse but slightly subtler than “Let’s Get It On”, we’re here to help.

Continue reading ‘That Song’s About Sex?!’

I’ll never forget the day Basia lied to me. Twice. I was interviewing the Polish singer (best known for her 1988 hit “Time and Tide”) shortly before the release of her 1994 album, The Sweetest Illusion, which was coming five years after her previous album, London Warsaw New York. That day, she promised me two things: First, she would never again make me wait so long for new music. Second, she’d never release a run-of-the-mill greatest hits album featuring, well, her greatest hits. She felt that at the very least, artists owed it to their fans to reprise their hits as brand-new tunes, not just repackage the same old songs.

Her next studio album, It’s That Girl Again, wouldn’t arrive until 2009, nine years after she had released Clear Horizon—The Best of Basia, one of those run-of-the-mill greatest hits albums featuring, well, her greatest hits.

The morals of this story: 1) You can’t rush inspiration. 2) The first cut isn’t only the deepest—sometimes it’s the best, too. That’s a lesson Mariah Carey may have learned last year when she scrapped plans to release Angels Advocate, a remixed version of her Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel album, after a new version of “Up Out My Face” (Memoirs‘ best song) featuring Nicki Minaj limped onto Billboard’s Hot 100 at No. 100 and refused to go any further.

But apparently, Lady Gaga, the reigning queen of remix albums and EPs, still hasn’t received the memo. When she released Born This Way back in May, she put out a special edition that included a separate disc with remixes of five of the album’s songs. (Bryan Ferry did a similar thing with last year’s Olympia.) Divine inspiration or clever marketing ploy? Perhaps a little of both, but “Born This Way”-with-a-twang never would have spent six weeks at No. 1. The “Country Road Version” makes for an interesting one-time listen, but I never need to hear it again.

Continue reading ‘Sound And Vision: Director’s Cuts — From Lady Gaga to Kate Bush, the Mixed Results of Tampering with Your Own Songs’

Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Ke$ha and, of course, herself. As Rihanna sees it—or saw it in the September issue of Glamour magazine—they’re the girls who run the world of pop in 2011.

What? No Britney Spears. I’m pretty sure leaving her duet partner on the recent No. 1 remix of “S&M” off the list was an innocent oversight. But what about Christina Aguilera? That omission must have been intentional. (By the way, I’d certainly argue that Pink, who’s between albums and focused on mommyhood at the moment, and Adele, whose 21 album is outselling all of theirs combined, would qualify as much as Ke$ha.)

There was a time at the dawn of the millennium when Aguilera was the pop princess-in-waiting, second only to Britney Spears. But 2010 was truly her annus horribilis. First, there was Bionic, her fourth studio album, which failed to produce a major hit single and didn’t even go gold. Then her summer tour was cancelled. (She blamed scheduling issues, but the forecast no doubt called for limp ticket sales). And by autumn, her tepidly received film debut in Burlesque (a guilty pleasure and future camp classic if ever there was one, but mostly thanks to costar Cher), was doing nothing to restore luster to her falling star.

Her October divorce from Jordan Bratman, the father of her 3-year-old son Max, blemished her personal record, and flubbing the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Super Bowl XLV in February, further tarnished her professional one. By the time she was arrested for public intoxication in West Hollywood on March 1, her career seemed to be flatlining.

Get it to the OR! Stat!

Continue reading ‘Sound And Vision: How Christina Aguilera Can Ignite Her Comeback? (Psst, She Doesn’t Need Eminem!)’

Paris Hilton.

Kim Kardashian.

Heidi Montag.

Julianne Hough.

In a world where making a record is as easy as starring on reality TV, and even easier when you have your own show, Rebecca Black was bound to happen.

Don’t worry. Black, the fourteen-year-old from Anaheim, California, who made us wonder if she was making fun of shallow pop stars or being one herself in her viral YouTube video “Friday,” hasn’t gotten her own reality show. Yet. But isn’t it only just a matter of time?

What she does have is a level of fame—or infamy, depending on how you want to look at it—without having any discernible singing talent. Before it was yanked from YouTube in June over a dispute between Black and her former record label, Ark Music Factory, her “Friday” video had logged some 161 million views. Black became an Internet favorite, with article after online article devoted to her and her music—well, her song. Some people loved her; some people hated her; everyone was talking about her. Everybody’s still talking. Katy Perry even invited Black to costar in her “T.G.I.F. (Last Friday Night)” video.

• You’re too pretty to hide behind the camera, Justin Timberlake.
• Dress like Amy Winehouse.
• Rihanna too sexual? You don’t say.
• Ladies, start your engines. New Ryan Adams is on its way.
• That’s a lot of emo for one album.
• We have a hard time believing Kings of Leon are going to pull an Aerosmith and kick out Caleb Followill.
• Lady Gaga’s favorite Lady Gaga songs.
• Beginning to think someone put a curse on this summer’s tours.

Go ahead. Admit it. The first time you heard Katy Perry‘s “I Kissed a Girl” way back in 2008, you knew that by the time the novelty of a song about dabbling in lipstick lesbianism ran its course, so, too, would the career of the straight woman who was singing it.

Then something strange and unexpected happened when the clock struck Perry’s 15th minute of fame: It kept right on ticking. How did she pull it off? I have a few theories.

No. 1. She’s shallow and proud of it. Unlike Lady Gaga, Perry won’t take credit for trying to save pop music, gay people or the world. She never pretendsthat her music is anything more than feel-good pop. Who else would invite Rebecca Black, the most-hated pop star who’s not really a star (“Friday,” which peaked at No. 58 on Billboard’s Hot 100, wasn’t the big hit everyone seems to think it was) to co-star in one of her videos (“T.G.I.F. [Last Friday Night]“)? “Firework” is about as deep as Perry gets—and lest she come across as too earnest, she tempered the semi-serious message with firecracking boobs in the video.

No. 2. She’s up with regular people, because she’s one of them. Gorgeous but not intimidatingly so, sexy without selling sex, Perry also manages to be quotably catty while still being likeable. Gaga is outrageous and memorable, but she keeps her emotional distance. For all her avowed egalitarian values, there’s something distinctly remote about Gaga, on and off her records. You don’t imagine yourself hanging out with her on a day off. Britney Spears has lived in a bubble for years. Beyoncé is too fabulous. And Rihanna plays with guns.

That leaves Perry to bring a little humanity to pop divadom. She doesn’t have to be photographed taking out the trash to convince fans that she’s just like them. She could probably have any guy in Hollywood or on the charts, but instead of hooking up with a genetically blessed stud of the moment (so Taylor Swift, so Miley Cyrus), she went and married Russell Brand, a goofy comic with a sketchy past.

No. 3. She rocks the singles scene. She lacks Adele‘s vocal power, and she uses many of the same producers and co-writers that her peers have been passing around for years (for the love of God, girls, give Dr. Luke a rest!). But Perry’s singles still stand out, and they’re sturdier than they might initially sound. “Teenage Dream” and “E.T.” don’t exactly blow you away on first or even the 10th listen. They burrow into your subconscious slowly. But once there, they don’t let go. (Ironically, Perry’s crowning musical achievement, the Timbaland collaboration “If We Ever Meet Again,” which I’ve seen fill dance floors from Buenos Aires to London to Melbourne, only went to No. 37.)

When Teenage Dream was released in August of 2010, the reviews were mixed to downright hostile. But Katy Perry is not an album artist. Her music is best digested in bite-sized nuggets. By the time Teenage Dream was logging it’s third No. 1 hit single (“Firework”), it had been nominated for Album of the Year at the GRAMMY Awards, alongside critical favorites by Eminem, Lady Gaga and Arcade Fire. Strong, distinctive videos pulled off without any assistance from hordes of gyrating dancers helped too. Look for her nine nominations at the August 28 MTV Video Music Awards (more than any other artist) to further boost Teenage Dream‘s staying power.

The album has created a fifth Top 3 single and shifted more than 1.5 million copies in the US, and it’s still going as strong as, if not stronger than, the superstar albums that came after it. Rihanna has sold nearly as many copies of Loud (released in November 2010), but after three No. 1 hits, she’s struggling with the fourth and fifth singles, neither of which is likely to go Top 40. Lady Gaga’s Born This Way opened spectacularly in May, then cooled off quickly, with none of the singles repeating the success of the No. 1 title track so far. And poor Beyoncé. Her fourth solo album, 4, has yet to produce a runaway hit at all.

By the time Gaga is trying to extend the lifespan of Born This Way with an expanded limited edition release featuring five new radio-friendly tracks, Teenage Dream’s “Peacock” or “Circle the Drain” probably will be scaling the charts.

But will we still be singing along in 2015? That’s open to debate. Pop history is littered with artists who fell out of favor after two huge albums (see Debbie Gibson, Perry’s “T.G.I.F.” video mom). But even if Perry is just a pop footnote by mid-decade, she’s already surpassed everyone’s wildest teenage—or grown-up—dreams.

The MTV Video Music Awards have always been a major source of drama in the world of music and A-list celebrities. From the 2003 Madonna and Britney Spears kiss to the more recent Kanye West and Taylor Swift incident, this annual awards show is constantly providing fans with something to talk about. But is that the only reason the program draws in viewers? The VMAs differ from more traditional award shows such as the GRAMMY Awards not only because fans can vote, but because there’s also the feeling that anything can happen. It seems that the hype is not built up around who will take home the most Moon Men, but what superstar with shock us the most.

In the past couple of years, the same few artists have been nominated for almost every category. The winners of each award have been fairly easy to predict and there have rarely been any surprises in the nominations or winners. This year, it seems like MTV is taking a different approach. While the nominees are fairly varied (Lady Gaga isn’t even nominated for Best Music Video), it’s curious as to how they came up with these choices. Lesser-known bands (by mainstream standards) like Manchester Orchestra, Foster The People, and Cage The Elephant were all nominated for their music videos this year. The problem is, MTV barely features bands like these on TV. In fact, there are rarely any music videos played on the channel, unless you’re watching in the wee hours of the morning. How much do MTV’s nominations and musical opinions really matter to the general public?

Foster The People

Cage The Elephant

Maybe this is MTV’s way of trying to stay relevant in the music world. The nominated artists have definitely made an impact in the past year. They have appeared on late night shows and played the biggest music festivals across the country. But MTV doesn’t recognize most of these artists except for this one night. Do the Music Video Awards mean anything for music or are they just for show and amusement?

Check out the 2011 nominees here and vote for your favorites!

The final minutes of Sofia Coppola’s indie tearjerker Lost in Translation contain a surefire formula for clearing out the Kleenex box. As Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson share their teary goodbye, a nostalgic, reverb-laden drum pattern kicks in to underscore the couple’s bittersweet farewell.

Alright, Sofia, we know we’re supposed to be sad already! The real question is: why do those drums work so well at bringing on the waterworks? Whether listeners realize it or not, they most likely have heard that same beat many times before. The opening drum pattern of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” isn’t merely a catchy groove. It’s the distillation of more than forty years of pop music history.

The story of the beat begins with legendary producer Phil Spector, whose production style defined the sound of ’60s girl groups and expanded the sonic palette of pop forever.  Spector would often record intricate orchestral arrangements that included doubled or tripled parts for brass, strings and woodwinds.  He would then play these recordings back into an echo chamber, where microphones would capture the reverberating wash of sound onto a master tape. This signature method, dubbed the ”Wall of Sound,” transformed Spector into an icon and inspired legions of others, most notably Brian Wilson, to emulate Spector’s reverb-heavy production style.

The “Wall of Sound” technique is most famously preserved in The Ronettes’ 1963 Spector-produced single ”Be My Baby.” As Ronnie Bennett’s lovesick lead vocals float above a lush orchestral arrangement, session drummer Hal Blaine drives the song forward with a propulsive backbeat.  What ultimately became Blaine’s most lasting musical legacy, however, were the song’s first five seconds.

Recognize that beat?

It’s unmistakable. Ever since the original “boom, boom boom, cha!” of Blaine’s 1963 session recording, that very same drum pattern has appeared in innumerable pop and rock songs from every decade. Doubtful? Just check out “Heat of the Moment” by Asia, “The Bucket” by Kings of Leon, or for a truly contemporary example, “Hair” by Lady Gaga. Yes, it’s everywhere, and the beat doesn’t always appear at a song’s beginning.  It can be found hidden in a pre-chorus or a bridge, constituting a tongue-in-cheek wink back at the pop history of the last half century. Similar to the classic Hollywood sound effect the “Wilhelm scream,” the “Be My Baby” drumbeat is a type of in-joke for pop musicians who commonly acknowledge its significance to the history of their craft.  The beat’s continued preservation signifies everything that is special about music in the first place: the feeling of community, the emotional connection and, of course, the unabashed tendency for artists to rip each other off. And as of now, you’re in on the joke.

Casey Desmond

With a shock of flame-red hair and a voice that can shake the rafters, Casey Desmond is not one to be easily overlooked. Just ask Adam Levine, who picked the Boston artist for his team on NBC’s The Voice after hearing her power through Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” Desmond belongs in the same echelon of electro-pop performers as Natasha Khan and Alison Goldfrapp—all are sequined sirens able to lure listeners to the dance floor in seconds flat. “Rendezvous” is steeped in ‘80s pop, a punchy mix of wiry guitars, swirling synths, driving drums and Desmond’s dreamy, sailing vocals. “Loose Ends” is another quick hit of adrenaline—glammy, sexy and kinetic. “If you ever wonder why I’m never surprised, I’m over here babe, listening to your phone line,” Desmond purrs. She may like to tease, but if you’re looking for electrifying pop, heavy with hooks, Desmond’s a sure thing.

It really shouldn’t come as a shock to anybody that Lady Gaga has managed to piss people off once again. The “Mother Monster” superstar has made it clear that attempts at being outrageous and controversial are her thing. She was addressed last year by PETA for showing up to the MTV Video Music Awards in a meat dress. More recently, Gaga has been criticized by the Catholic Church for her “Judas” music video. Her loyal fans believe her to be one of a kind, but many don’t see any originality. Regardless, there’s no denying the buzz created everywhere she goes. So what did she do this time?

Well, Lady Gaga was recently in Australia and during a performance in Sydney she came on stage dressed up as a mermaid…in a wheelchair. This is apparently her new alter ego, Yuyi. It doesn’t seem worth it to question the meaning or reason behind the new character; Gaga’s history of crazy costumes should be enough. But a few disability organizations feel differently. After the show, the Roman Reed Foundation for spinal chord injury research tweeted, “Dear @ladygaga how about using your celebrity status 2 try 2 get us out of wheelchairs. Instead of cruising one. Cool?!” Other organizations mirrored these sentiments, hoping Gaga would use her fame to help their cause instead of just for entertainment. Following her concert, Gaga was the target of offended fans that took to throwing eggs at the pop star and her entourage. She has not taken to Twitter at this point with any kind of response to her fans or the disability foundations.

Aren't mermaids supposed to be colorful?

Should Lady Gaga be subjected to this constant criticism? She’s definitely asking for some kind of reaction. Whether or not the response is actually legitimate, it seems obvious that most of her choices are bound to draw criticism from somewhere, and that she’s willing to deal with the consequences. But then there’s the issue of how far is too far. It’s doubtful that Gaga used a wheelchair on stage to purposely offend anyone, but that doesn’t mean that the prop didn’t do just that. It’s possible, though, that Gaga meant to use the wheelchair as a way to empower those who are permanently confined to them. After all, her message has always been to be yourself and to embrace your uniqueness. What do you think?