Pretentious Music Alert: Lady Gaga = Pink Floyd's "The Wall" + Late '90s Pop Idols?

I sadly missed seeing probably the only thing worthy of actually seeing at the Grammy's last night live: the highly-discussed Lady Gaga/Elton John duet/mash-up that opened the show. If there's anything more lame than the usual Grammy performances that take a recording artist from one era of music and have them perform with an artist from another era of music, I'd like to know what it is. (Actually, I know what it is -- when it's an artist from one era and totally separate musical genre, like when Andrea Bocelli and Mary J. Blige sang together last night.) But Lady Gaga's total inherent weirdness ended up meshing quite well with Sir Elton John:

What sets this performance over the top for me are a few things:

1) Lady Gaga's stage show. I know that most pop stars have elaborate staging for their tours similar to this one, but I am really loving how meta her entire performance has become, taking the themes (and title) of her album-and-a-half The Fame Monster with her on tour, which is reflected not just in her live show but her music videos, songs, etc. In fact, her "Fame Factory" stage set-up reminded me a lot of Pink Floyd's The Wall tour -- all high concept, kinda tongue-in-cheek, but also carrying a bit of a message. I'm not quite sure if her entire presentation is her being just a little bit ironic (dontcha think?) or if she's really in on some kind of self-referential prank, but either way, it's a helluva lot more enjoyable than watching Pink be "shocking" by singing a ballad with no drums and getting involved in a Cirque du Soleil-style act like she did last night.

2) Lady Gaga's inherent weirdness. Her songs might be pretty straight-forward when listened outside of the context of her performance, but her style is influenced just as much by high-fashion as it is pop music. That she manages to constantly be onstage not wearing pants and not seem like she's doing it just for attention ala Britney Spears is maybe a teeny-tiny-little-bit ... feminist? (Help me out with that one, ladies.)

3) Lady Gaga's voice, and obvious overall talent. Damn, she's got a voice on her, don't she? She sounds like a different singer in every one of her songs. Plus we all know she's musically trained on the piano and most likely many other instruments. Taylor Swift, I love ya, but face the facts that Lady Gaga's a tour de force who likely will have much deeper career longevity.

This entry was posted by Unknown, on Monday, February 01, 2010. You can leave your response.