Elvis Telephones Gaga

Alright, I'm not the typical listener to popular music. I barely know what people are talking about when they mention T Pain or Miley Cyrus, I am guilty of not knowing who Justin Beiber is. That's just the way I am, more of a Triple J and Fbi fan...

I am still aware who Lady Gaga is. And so is the Queen.



THE QUEEN! For the love of all that is good, how cool is that? The QUEEN herself watched a personal performance from Miss Gaga and met her... We have a terrifically up to date monarch! (I love the Queen, what a fantastic woman, she is like a communal Grandmother)

I've never really loved Lady Gaga, or hated her for that matter. I've been aware of her and her style, at first I thought she was a bit of a fruit loop who forgot her pants... But then I realised that this woman has created herself in a business so overrun by autotune that its insane, and while there are obvious signs of editing within her recorded music to enhance her sound (why wouldn't you after all? It sounds like an awful thing to do to a talented musician but its really a smart move in a business based around sounding good, it just needs to be done right). I heard her song Paparazzi live and acoustic, and thats what attracted me to her. I'm still not the biggest fan but I can appreciate Lady Gaga's real voice and I admit she has talent. Her videos have a high production quality and while she doesn't always look naturally beautiful, she has the guts to make an impression at a time where veering from the norm is usually despised... The American music industry has a predictable and safe formula that works for them after all...

The same goes for Beyonce, not my style. But her performance value is amazing and she deserves what she has.

I read an article today about the release of Lady Gaga and Beyonce's new video 'Telephone'. It mentioned the video was vulgar and horrible and had strong nudity and references to lesbianism.



I had a look for myself and no, I wouldn't show it to small children, of course its influential and kids aren't looking for irony, they're looking for idols (as are most teenagers). It's very sexual and I want to say before I begin, I completely understand why we wouldn't show it on daytime television for the kids in between ads for barbies and lego.... I'm with you there.

I have to say while it isn't the sort of music I listen to, the production value is still astounding, AND the video had a narrative (a very Tarantino-esque one... I mean, the video has a cameo from the Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill!!!).

I thin kwhat draws me to it is that it seems like a rip off of what Gaga would do, and she's having fun with it. She wears a pair of sunglasses made from cigarettes and even has a bikini made from an American Flag. There's blatant advertising for Virgin Mobile and PlentyofFish.com, there's lesbianism, naked ladies and murder... And while all of this has been done before in various music videos before now... The comment thats being made is wonderfully ironic, its supposed to shock the audience and make them go 'Look at what the world has come to: Gaga and her studded bikini... shame shame', its SUPPOSED to be one of those things you see on tday Tongith or A Current Affair blaming this popular culture for the poisoning and curruption of your children's minds...

But you can't blame her, sexualisation and Americanisation within the media has been happening for decades and it didn't start with Lady Gaga, more adequately it started with Elvis -the Pelvis!!!- Presley in the 1950s...



Look!!! Look at his outrageously lively hips!!! For the time period, THIS was controversial... And dear Elvis didn't even have a Tarantino inspired murder in HIS video... Just his sexy dancing. (Which he learnt from Forest Gump himself by the way!!) It's enough to make you want to write to the ABC about it, what a perverted young man!

I will admit, Elvis in his younger less fatter, less dead days was absolutely gorgeous and its a tragedy that I was born into the wrong time period so I will never have the chance to be one of his poodle skirt wearing, screaming fangirls... he was also a bit like Miss Gaga, not afraid to sex it up and break the mould, even if the sex mould is well and truly broken now. And even if he were alive today (and hiding out with Michael Jackson, Big Kev and Steve Irwin as they say), he'd have had a few too many peanut butter and bacon sandwiches for my liking anyway...

The thing is, social conventions will be broken. And if it takes naked lesbians in prison making sandwiches and wearing the U.S flag to cover their boobies and girl parts to do so... Then I think Lady Gaga is the perfect person to be approaching the situation with an ironic twist. Its like Marcel Duchamp with his work, the Fountain... he tried putting a urinal in a gallery as a Dada artwork, just because he could, as a dada qwork it had no meaning whatsoever. And because of that, critics kept referring to some deep meaning behind the work to do with plumbing and the urinal representing a female as a receptacle for male fluids... If there are people out there having a go at Gaga, they've missed her point completely that this is what is becoming acceptable in society, and thats rather unfortunate and quite funny too.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I think Lady G-G is pretty neat, almost as neat as Elvis.

But I still don't listen to her music