best music video ever? Lady Gaga and Beyonce - Telephone

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

I respect Kristeen more as well. To clarify it was gaga in the clovenhoof hair boots.

Eek... yeah. My first thought was, "Those are still at couture level. Can Kristeen afford those?"

I'll respect Gaga if she orchestrates a big finish and then goes and gets a PhD in something. Not until. Manipulating the media is an art, but not a high art.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

Eek... yeah. My first thought was, "Those are still at couture level. Can Kristeen afford those?"

I'll respect Gaga if she orchestrates a big finish and then goes and gets a PhD in something. Not until. Manipulating the media is an art, but not a high art.

Well put.

 

[MindlessRuffian]

It's a less argumentative, female version of Real Talk.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

It's a less argumentative, female version of Real Talk.

Yeah, why argue when you can just poison the f***ers?

 

[Dave]

The director of that video is named Jonas Åkerlund.

He did the film, Spun, which I hated, but he has done a LOT of videos. I think that this one looks fantastic. Look at the color for example. Lots of really cool details too. I love the Mexican girl with the huge mickey mouse hair who is in the fight scene for about 2 seconds.

We're beyond product placement now. Can product placement actually be an artistic choice? Maybe. A music video is an advertisement. In effect the whole thing is a product. But I think Lady Gaga is one of those High/Low artists that offers something more than surface. She's not only Madonna and David Bowie, but Andy Warhol as well.

She got Beyonce to say "motherf......". Okay?

As far as what the video is about, and why it's happening in a prison, what is happening in our world? Why does Beyonce appear onstage with her dancers carrying weapons? Why does Rihanna's latest video take place in a military setting? I don't know, but I think it's a reflection of current events and where we are at psychologically. They have toned down the color-coded terror warnings, but we are still encouraged to live in fear of enemies that we can do nothing to guard against. Maybe the product placement really is a key. It is so blatant that it can't be accidental, and no one involved with this needed the money. Maybe the video is meant to be discussed.

At the same time, to me, it's very entertaining, and this is the first Lady Gaga song that I didn't resent having it stuck in my head.

 

[Dave]

DadaMadonna! Hey, you're right! That is fun! It's like babyspeak! Which is appropriate.

Yes, you could say all those things about GaGa. But you coudn't say for sure if it's one thing or the other, could you? The video is so stupid and badly written you can't even say if any of it is 'intended' to be one thing or the other. It totally disarms you. There's nothing you can say about it that can't be contradicted. It doesn't even have the procedural integrity of a Rorschach test.

Not saying this makes it a bad video.

In a work of art, which is what we are treating this advertisement as, do you need to be able to say it is one thing or the other? I think the fact that you are holding it to such a high standard says more than your comments about your opinion of the quality.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

Technically, the video was well executed. The little Sims treatment in the diner was cool. The stop and look into the camera then continue dancing was cool. You're right, the color was gorgeous. But the content? Ima break it down for you:

Gaga is put into jail because she was a bad bad girl.
There's some fighting.
Beyonce posts bail for Gaga and becomes the safe hero, reminiscent of the Kanye moment.
Gaga cooks poison for Beyonce to use on her deadbeat boyfriend and apparently the whole diner.
Gaga uses Mayo in her kitchen and makes calls on a Virgin phone.
The team of witches donning cowboyesque Spy vs. Spy, black and white pillars flowing garb set off into the sunset empowered by their inherent witchiness and proud that they killed a bunch of people using said witchiness.
TO BE CONTINUED....


Is this Lady Gaga's story? Did she dream this up? Is this her tale to tell? Or is it some phoney, contrived bullshit plot cooked up by a bunch of bullshit men in order to disseminate and glorify an actual painful tale using two candy pop poster children that the masses are happy to consume? Think illuminati too stupid to design their own set so borrow Tarantino's stage to dance their lacquered dolls on when he did it better the first time. This video can suck it.

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

Dadamadonna, I am so gonna use that now and act like I made it up myself thx

 

[Worm]

To answer your first question- yes, it's possible.

Well, okay. So is this video empowering or degrading? I know you'll say it's ambiguous-- but you claim it's possible to come down on one side of the debate. What is your opinion?

 

[Worm]

Dadamadonna, I am so gonna use that now and act like I made it up myself thx

It makes me think of Sandie Shaw's "Ya-Ya-Da-Da".

 

[CrystalGeezer]

I read how she got her name, it was compliments of autocorrect from a text message. A friend or producer or something always sang Queen's Radio Ga Ga when she'd enter the room or something. So one day he texted her "Radio Ga Ga" and the autocorrect made it Lady Ga Ga which she loved and it's been her name ever since.

 

[Worm]

Eek... yeah. My first thought was, "Those are still at couture level. Can Kristeen afford those?"

I'll respect Gaga if she orchestrates a big finish and then goes and gets a PhD in something. Not until. Manipulating the media is an art, but not a high art.

Dr. GaGa, then?

I will only respect GaGa if her "big finish" is death by car crash or an elaborately staged Busby Berkeley assassination in a public square. I'm not wishing death on her. It's just the only way she can redeem herself artistically. If you're making a "meta" career around the postmodern worship of fame, no "event" or "artwork" would wrap things up as perfectly as orchestrating your own glamorous death (I wanna die just like JFK). We won't see that, of course. She doesn't have the balls. As we have now verified.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

Dr. GaGa, then?

I will only respect GaGa if her "big finish" is death by car crash or an elaborately staged Busby Berkeley assassination in a public square. I'm not wishing death on her. It's just the only way she can redeem herself artistically. If you're making a "meta" career around the postmodern worship of fame, no "event" or "artwork" would wrap things up as perfectly as orchestrating your own glamorous death (I wanna die just like JFK). We won't see that, of course. She doesn't have the balls. As we have now verified.

Ok, but isn't art about fame what Morrissey does? Aren't his 21st century shirt-rips about the fact that the crowd savagely rips the shirt to shreds? Symbolic particicution of the object of worship? The effect is heightened if you look at him now, without knowing what he used to look like. I mean that the shirt he throws out now is symbolically the same shirt he threw out in 1991. He's all the MORRISSEYs at once, now.

 

[Worm]

I read how she got her name, it was compliments of autocorrect from a text message. A friend or producer or something always sang Queen's Radio Ga Ga when she'd enter the room or something. So one day he texted her "Radio Ga Ga" and the autocorrect made it Lady Ga Ga which she loved and it's been her name ever since.

Precisely. (Technology + echoes of pop history) X accidents = The Art of Lady Ga Ga (rhymes with Dada).

You can unpeel her onion for an eon without reaching the end. She's more like the fiscal crisis of 2008 than she is Madonna.

EDIT: Wiki says her arm has these words of Rilke's tatooed on it: "In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?"

A few paragraphs above, Ga Ga says: "When I'm writing music, I'm thinking about the clothes I want to wear on stage".

There is no way to figure her out.

 

[Worm]

Ok, but isn't art about fame what Morrissey does? Aren't his 21st century shirt-rips about the fact that the crowd savagely rips the shirt to shreds? Symbolic particicution of the object of worship? The effect is heightened if you look at him now, without knowing what he used to look like. I mean that the shirt he throws out now is symbolically the same shirt he threw out in 1991. He's all the MORRISSEYs at once, now.

I grant you there's some similarity. The difference is that "there's no there there". Morrissey has the songs. GaGa doesn't. I don't mean that as an expression of my personal taste. I'm sure there are people who like the songs she releases. But as I said above she's a pasticheur and Morrissey isn't. This isn't a matter of debate. It's what she is deliberately, self-consciously attempting. She lays out the terms on which she is meant to be interpreted.

With Morrissey the code of fame is playfully used as a means of understanding a very real person hidden away behind his art. The twenty-digit combination to unlock and so forth. It doesn't matter if there is anything "real" behind his art. We feel there is, even if this is yet another artistic design of his.

With GaGa the code of fame is an end in itself ("The Fame" and "The Fame Monster" are the names of her two albums). Celebrity is pointededly what GaGa is about; it's her only justification, the only reason anyone takes her seriously as a star worth talking about is as an elaborate practical joke about the nature of celebrity and the commodification of pop.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

I grant you there's some similarity. The difference is that "there's no there there". Morrissey has the songs. GaGa doesn't. I don't mean that as an expression of my personal taste. I'm sure there are people who like the songs she releases. But as I said above she's a pasticheur and Morrissey isn't. This isn't a matter of debate. It's what she is deliberately, self-consciously attempting. She lays out the terms on which she is meant to be interpreted.

With Morrissey the code of fame is playfully used as a means of understanding a very real person hidden away behind his art. The twenty-digit combination to unlock and so forth. It doesn't matter if there is anything "real" behind his art. We feel there is, even if this is yet another artistic design of his.

With GaGa the code of fame is an end in itself ("The Fame" and "The Fame Monster" are the names of her two albums). Celebrity is pointededly what GaGa is about; it's her only justification, the only reason anyone takes her seriously as a star worth talking about is as an elaborate practical joke about the nature of celebrity and the commodification of pop.

THis is brilliant. I guess the question I have is does she know she's doing this? Or is she an actual REAL puppet communicating a boardroom's message with the fringe benefit of basking in fame and stardom in the meantime while getting paid?

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

I guess the question is does she know she's doing this? Or is she an actual REAL puppet communicating a boardroom's message with the fringe benefit of basking in fame and stardom in the meantime while getting paid?

I think she knows. I'm not sure her fans do. The difference is that I think people who take Morrissey seriously see the various layers he's showing us.

But I think that makes her the winner, because she is perpetrating a hoax very successfully. And that's why I said I'd like to see her do something truly intelligent with what she's showing. Not like the point needed to be proved. But in order to be true performance art, she has to make a statement acknowledging that it is a piece, a performance.

Morrissey's painting is so much more finely nuanced that it fails, in a way, because only a few get it. But then, maybe the bafflement and indifference many display toward him are part of this message too. And wait, how is he not a pasticheur? Yes, he's more subtle, but he glued together bits of pieces of his favorite literature and stars to create his work. More in the early days than now. Is it because he was showing us these other icons, not trying to become them?

Thinking further... was his intended audience really just the people who became his audience--the disaffected, disenfranchised? The anti-popstar popstar for people who don't like popstars?

Her intended audience is clearly the whole world.

 

[Worm]

THis is brilliant. I guess the question I have is does she know she's doing this? Or is she an actual REAL puppet communicating a boardroom's message with the fringe benefit of basking in fame and stardom in the meantime while getting paid?

This is exactly my point. It doesn't matter anymore if she's a real person or a puppet, an artist or a publicity hound out for a fast buck. These dichotomies have collapsed. When Madonna "revolutionized" music, the notion of a woman consciously selling herself as a commodity was unusual. The finest compliment anyone ever paid her-- which she ate up-- was that she was a savvy businesswoman. Even in the first rush of fame people were pointing out she was better at self-promotion than singing.

GaGa has emerged in the wake of Madonna-- twenty-five years later, let's not forget-- and now the savvy businesswoman who consciously sells herself as a commodity is every bit as much of a cosmetic rock and roll gesture as platform boots, spandex, and onstage fireworks. It is just another narrative to adopt, no different than putting on a purple sex wig. GaGa doesn't know if she's selling out any more than we do. The marketplace and the domain of the artist fused together when she was still in diapers.

Okay, so she's still in diapers sometimes.

You will note that her video depicting "strong, sexy, self-empowered women" is predominantly a ten-minute homage to a four-hour homage depicting "strong, sexy, self-empowered women" created by a man ("Kill Bill"): a copy of a copy.

She's pure commodity. There is no criticism of her music possible-- at least, nothing that stands on terra firma. She's just there, like a Coke on the shelf. Some like the taste of it. Others like Fanta Grape. That's about all you can say. You could as soon deconstruct a toaster or a stick of deoderant.

 

[anon x]

I love the gaga,I will adopt her,I think.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

You will note that her video depicting "strong, sexy, self-empowered women" is predominantly a ten-minute homage to a four-hour homage depicting "strong, sexy, self-empowered women" created by a man ("Kill Bill"): a copy of a copy.

Which was an homage to an array of 70s film styles...

She's pure commodity. There is no criticism of her music possible-- at least, nothing that stands on terra firma. She's just there, like a Coke on the shelf. Some like the taste of it. Others like Fanta Grape. That's about all you can say. You could as soon deconstruct a toaster or a stick of deoderant.

No, you can't really criticize the music, the exact music doesn't matter. It's passable, common, electronic pop. But you can examine the phenomenon of Lady Gaga. As we've just shown. Nothing is beyond criticism. If it was made and someone paid attention to it, it has an effect. If Lady Gaga is a bottle of Coke on the shelf, she is about Coke as a brand and an icon, and the fact that people have allegiances to brands.

At 1:30 this morning, a worker was killed on a nearby highway while he was filling potholes. The driver of the car that hit him ran away. On the newspaper web article reporting the incident, you can post comments. One comment read something like this, "I knew Bill, he was a great man and I'll miss working with him. He's probably sitting in heaven right now, drinking a Diet Pepsi." That brand was so much a part of that man's identity that it's the first thing mentioned after he's dead!

And although the message is not new to those of us who are skeptical and afraid of the effects of our purely consumerist culture, that's what Lady Gaga's overall message seems to be. Unless I'm just giving her and her producers too much credit.