Lady Gaga..Live (nearly) Nude Girl!!!

Is Lady Gaga already becoming the last big thing?  Sales of her latest album Born This Way have dropped 85% in the second week after release.  The writer Roger Friedman echoes what I've been thinking for some time.  Such as, doesn't this woman ever take a break?  Every time I turn around there she is.  Looking weird.  There used to be an old adage in show business:  Always leave them wanting more.  Lady Gaga has thrown that quaint old saying into the woodchipper.  (First rule of show business?  Never leave your wallet in the dressing room.)   She seems pathologically addicted to attention.  It must be really tiring to always be in character while walking around in futuristic orthopedic shoes.   Which brings us to this.   This must be what happens when you look in your Bizarro World Costume Closet and realize you have nothing new to wear.

 I've read that Lady Gaga practices celibacy.

This is one way to keep temptation at bay.  

I will shamefully admit to having a certain fascination with Lady Gaga as a cultural phenomenon.  It's not that I like her music.  She has one song (Bad Romance) where I don't wrench my shoulder racing to switch it off when comes on the radio.  It's not that I think she's hot.  (As is attractive.)  She is probably the most polar opposite of hot that I can think of.

I dislike what she contributes to "Rock" music (such as it even exists anymore) but with Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Ke$ha, Selena Gomez and all the rest of the auto-tuned, instantly famous, instantly disposable garbage that passes for popular music why single her out?  These people move a lot of product and make a lot of money.  I'm a devout capitalist, so I can't fault her for that.

I think what it is, is that she seems like such a phony and fraud.  More celebrity exhibitionist than musician.  She's like Madonna, but at least Madonna, love her or hate her, was innovative.  The First.  The Prototype.  The Gaga seems like a bizarre, hyperactive copy.  The bastard offspring of Leigh Bowery, Boy George, Madonna and the Early 90's Club Kids brought along for the gangbang.

Leigh Bowery

Club Kids

She's even, in the few interviews I've suffered through, voiced pretensions that are similar to Madonna's pretensions.  Only more pretentious.  (At least Gaga doesn't put on a phony English accent.  Yet.)  Here are some random quotes:

“This evening I’ll probably stay in and listen to this new song I recorded today. I like to roll around in bed with my songs and figure out what feels good.”

“I was very excited because my room is this gorgeous penthouse with a white baby-grand piano in the living room. When I saw it, I started to cry. I played for a couple of hours, then gave my assistant a heart attack because I wouldn’t take a shower. I was like, ‘I’m not showering. I’m being brilliant and writing.”

“When you make music or write or create, it’s really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you’re writing about at the time.”

Ok, whatever.

This is interesting to me because it appears with her fame that Lady Gaga is the quintessential pop star for the age.  Flash, boom, bang...next.  Lady Gaga, Facebook, Twitter, Rock Band, video games, Wii, Netflix, Sexting, YouTube, Stream your video, instant book on your Kindle, iPhone/iPad, you got an App for that?   Entertain me.  Entertain me.  Entertain me.

It's been said that the music that you loved in your twenties is the music that you love for the rest of your life.  There's a certain truth to that.  (I do try to keep up with the indie rock bands.)  As my oldsters die off I play less Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey at funeral visitations.  Now I'm starting to get the early Boomers with their James Taylor, The Eagles and Eric Clapton.  (Tears in Heaven is a biggie.)

I'm well aware that I'm reaching the "Hey you fucking kids! Get the hell offa my lawn!!!" stage of my life, but for what it's worth, my prediction for the longevity of Lady Gaga is 3 more years.

Which is the same amount of time I gave Madonna in 1987.