Karma: $1.29

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Bricu
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Karma: $1.29

Postby Bricu » Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:25 pm

So I linked Bad Romance to Fedwynn and Indarra (or should I say Grizelle). Anyway, since that time, the song has been stuck in my addled brain. I ended up buying it....but i accidently got the ring tone as well.

So Hil and Dave? yeah, you got your own ringtones now.
I drink to keep you pretty
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Yva
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Re: Karma: $1.29

Postby Yva » Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:29 pm

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
So if you meet me have some courtesy, have some sympathy and some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste.

Duugvilder
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Re: Karma: $1.29

Postby Duugvilder » Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:35 pm

Nice!

As an aside, I discovered Lady GaGa about a week before heading up to Toronto for my annual horror convention goodness. I was going through my roommate's iPod and discovered her album hidden among the various soundtracks to slashers, splatters, and giallos. We agreed, as much as we hated to admit it, that we both dug her music. And we had the exact same look on out faces that every other male I've met has had when admitting to liking Lady GaGa. It's the look usually reserved when a star player on your favorite sports team goes down with an injury or your wife/significant other announces that you need to take her clothes shopping. It's essentially a wince locked perpetually in place.

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Ulthanon
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Re: Karma: $1.29

Postby Ulthanon » Mon Dec 21, 2009 10:11 pm

Hate that woman.
[Fells] says: I LOBE DACNIEBG kiTTLES

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Israia
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Re: Karma: $1.29

Postby Israia » Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:35 pm

Ulthanon wrote:Hate that woman.


Why?

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Ulthanon
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Re: Karma: $1.29

Postby Ulthanon » Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:40 am

I was reading an interview that she gave, and she said something to the effect of,

"I'm not masturbating all over a piano trying to find soul. I make soulless pop music. But if you're in a club dancing with someone, high on Ecstasy, and you hear my music? You'll feel soul."

So, let me get this straight. I have to be drugged out of my mind, grinding against someone I'll never meet again, in order for your music to have any substance to it?
I can't get behind that. I think that's a terrible thing for a musician to say, and I more or less declared war on her since then.
[Fells] says: I LOBE DACNIEBG kiTTLES

Duugvilder
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Re: Karma: $1.29

Postby Duugvilder » Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:19 am

Ulthanon wrote:So, let me get this straight. I have to be drugged out of my mind, grinding against someone I'll never meet again, in order for your music to have any substance to it?


I think that's the most honest any of these pop stars has been about their music. Most of them (Madonna, Britney, Christina, so on ad nauseum) want you to believe that there's some deep meaning to their music. Madonna actually had the gall to give Quentin Tarantino an autograph that included the note: "It's about love..." As if the vast majority of her career HASN'T been about shallow music about sex and materialism.

Lady GaGa, on the other hand, openly admits (and I saw the interview where she essentially says this) that her music, videos, and persona are all part of her art, and she liken her art to Andy Warhol. Her art is pop art. Nothing more, nothing less. 15 minutes of fame and all that. Frankly, I find her refreshing...and catchy as hell.

If you must hate someone - if you truly want to declare war on someone - may I suggest the Black Eyed Peas? Don't get me started on them...in fact, if you and I ever come across them on the streets, I'm more than willing to hold them down while you punch 'em repeatedly in the head.

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Israia
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Re: Karma: $1.29

Postby Israia » Tue Dec 22, 2009 5:56 am

Not to mention, she was probably trolling you. No shit.

Her songs/music actually have a crazy amount of background meaning.

To steal the OP of the SomethingAwful megathread on her:

One of the most elusive and complex artists of our generation, Lady Gaga represents not only the hedonistic, existential despair of the modern age, but also a glimmer of hope and a deep-seated, wistful longing for traditional values. Let us first consider the very nature of her as an artist. Not content with the name that her parents gave her - Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta - she has boldly made a statement of self-definition. As surely as Napoleon reinvented himself and defined his time by crowning himself Emperor of France, Ms. Germanotta has performed a similar act. Not only did she choose her own name, Gaga, but also took on the persona of a "Lady" - refined, aristocratic, from a different and more elegant age.

Her corpus of work is similarly impressive. Her hit single "Just Dance" is not only a revival of modern pop, but also a stunning narrative of an innocent, confused girl thrust into the midst of a world of hedonism. It is the first step toward her inevitable corruption, fall, and ultimately, catharsis and transfiguration. As we shall see, the totality of the experience of Lady Gaga's album "The Fame" is necessarily intertwined with grand themes of music and forbidden love, and is the spiritual heir to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde as well as owing a debt to the poetic but non-musical Inferno by Dante.

After being tempted into abandoning the good of the intellect and "just dancing", the heroine-Gaga is subjected to a radical assault on her view of love. In the second track, "Lovegame," we can see lyrically that love, which was something once treasured and divine, is now reduced to something pedestrian -- a mere "game". "Let's have some fun, this beat is sick," she sings, her tone mechanical and robotic - a sign, surely, of the sickness that she feels infesting her own soul. As an individual, she is beginning to be subsumed into the hedonistic masses around her.

This theme is born out in the following track, "Paparazzi". It opens with a powerful statement of crowd-identity: "We are the crowd", she sings. Like the damned in Dante's Hell, she has lost her own identity and can only be understood in the context of an observer (in Hell, Dante; in The Fame, the ideal listener). The loss of identity is not total, though, not yet - her verses end plaintively with "I", that strong assertion of self, but soon degenerate back into the mass pronoun "We". Furthermore, the "I" pronoun is used most often immediately before "Paparazzi", suggesting that she is no longer defined as a human being, but instead as a social role. The choice of "Paparazzi" reminds the listener of the overall theme - as a spectator to the Gaga-heroine's corruption - and serves to shame the listener into a greater appreciation of this role.

Following "Paparazzi," the mood of the piece changes dramatically. In the philosophical interlude "Poker Face", Gaga questions the act of interpretation itself. Can anyone truly understand the artist as their own self -- read their poker face? Gaga seems to think not: "like a chick in the casino, take your bank before I pay you out" brings the artist's elusiveness into a painful new light.

Gaga continues her descent throughout the next few tracks. In "Eh, Eh" she expresses notions of confusion and regret (my friends keep on tellin' me that something's wrong") but does not make any apologies for her corruption. However, she also makes an attempt to shift the blame onto the nameless "Boy" in the song, subtly suggesting that she is not responsible for what she has done to herself. The next track "Starstruck" continues this trend, hinting that she has been corrupted by a charismatic, alluring Other.

The title of the seventh track, "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" suggests that Lady Gaga is beginning to come to terms with her fallen state. The choice of the word "Dirty" in the song is illustrative: despite having all worldly pleasures, she feels tainted and filthy by them. The fact that this song is the seventh is clearly an allusion to numerology - Seven is the number of the Divine, which has enabled her to begin to see the folly that she has fallen into. The following three tracks are further meditations on the nature of this corrupting "dirt" -- why else do women corrupt themselves if not for one or more of "The Fame" "Money Honey" or "Boys Boys Boys"?

"Paper Gangsta" shows that Gaga has finally begun to reject the world she has fallen into. She doesn't want a "paper gangsta" that won't deliver what is promised; the hedonism and "just dancing" mentality has failed to give the "follow-through" that she craves so desperately.

"Brown Eyes" is a pining song, a song of longing and redemption. It in this mysterious character's brown eyes that she has finally been redeemed. Who exactly this man is deserves further scholarly inquiry, as many interpretative themes open themselves up.

In "Summerboy" there is a hint of recidivism. Gaga sings about "checking out other guys" while her martini glistens; even though she is back on her feet, she acknowledges the weakness of the flesh and the possibility of backsliding.

On the UK version, there are two bonus tracks - "Disco Heaven" and "Again Again". The former is an obvious call to her ultimate success in overcoming herself. The latter, I contend, calls back to the beginning - like Nietzche, Gaga holds up the idea of eternal return as a basis for building modern philosophy, morality, and art.

I hope these brief notes have helped to add to your appreciation of Lady Gaga, a true "Artist" and one of the few truly postmodern, avant-garde figures in music today. It would be of immense interpretive interest if you, too, posted your thoughts about her work and impact upon music, both "in situ as music" as well as a phenomenological experience.


Then again, that could all be a load of crap. I don't know. But it's nice to think that's there.

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Tiforis
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Re: Karma: $1.29

Postby Tiforis » Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:42 pm

People read far too much into shit.
I'm all man and all machine, a little sicko, little mean
I rock your brains out and you're sure to be damned
I lick your little finger then chew up your hand
for that's who I am: The Biomechanic man.

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Itanya_blade
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Re: Karma: $1.29

Postby Itanya_blade » Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:00 pm

Frankly, the music is catchy and singable. Enjoyable and pop.

Just like not every movie I see has to be awash in great meaning, neither does the music I enjoy.


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