2.23.2011

Why I'm giving up the Gaga.


It's time for me to say goodbye. We had a good run, but the curtains have to come down.

I gave my all to love you. I loaded you up on every party playlist I was tasked with creating. I sang off-key to 'Love Game' every drunken opportunity I got. I defended you from critics, I highlighted your ingenuity and potential, and I deemed your sartorial choices as inspired. But enough is enough. I'm not going to take your antics any longer.

Maybe it's your fans. Maybe it's the fact that every dim-witted broad that called me a "lesbian" in high school like it was an insult now has two Bud Lights and practically creams their pants when someone plays 'Poker Face' on the jukebox, blissfully unaware that the song discusses fantasizing about women whilst fucking men. You've made it clear you identify with the freaks and the outcasts, but your bleach-blonde hair and catchy hooks have made you the idol of the run-of-the-mill folk. You traded your Times Square cabaret for Top 40 radio.

I can't blame you. I don't really believe someone can sell out, and if you want to bring gay visibility to the masses, I can't devalue that. But somewhere along the line, your head got more inflated than your Monster Ball ticket prices.

You just take yourself so seriously. As though making pop music is life or death. As though you are the future of entertainment as we know it. As though you didn't rip your musical stylings and attitude from those who came before - those who your young fans don't remember and certainly don't respect. But I'm your age, and I know you stole your "Born This Way" riffs from Madonna. I know your wacky costumes are more Cher than Stefani Germanotta. I know your glitter and androgyny originated on a man. I know your British affectation is inorganic, your impractical shoes are straight off the feet of Daphne Guinness, and the simple fact that I know this makes you tired. Meat dress aside, your repackaging of everything edgy makes you about as sad as Britney Spears' hair extensions.

Pop culture is not meant to be revolutionary. It's not traditionally meant to be political. If you want to make it so - do it - and own it. But at least fucking laugh at yourself. Don't show up at the Grammys in a pod you claimed to sit in for three days to marinate your 'artistic spirit' and then charge people a hundred dollars to see you sing for an hour. Take off the wigs and the heels and be real for five minutes. And the next time you go to a baseball game, just wear a fucking shirt like the rest of us.

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