Can Gaga Smash In Today's Pop Culture Landscape?

[Didymus 34,380]

Probably not. Her brand is severely damaged and scattered across age groups and genre customers.

She's no longer leading the pack, so if she'd jump on current musical trends she'd come across as a joke and damage her career even further with lackluster flops, and if she should do something different and unique it won't get mass attention because her name isn't enough to generate interest anymore.

She blew it. Half of the reason for her success was her music, but the other important half was her mystery, her obscure and unpredictable personality, and her futuristic yet retro presentation that kept her safe from comparisons with other stars, successfully maintaining her niche. She self-handedly destroyed the latter half of her appeal, and so ruined her chances for future success imo.

The only way I can see her moving forward is if she'd put a stake through the heart of her career and start marketing herself to a larger audience again instead of becoming a fan tribute artist. That would entail actively provoking her fans and ignoring their wishes. And I don't think she's gonna do that, sadly.

[illbekind 1,316]

39 minutes ago, TheodoreRx said:

 

 

 

 

Do we have to harm ourselves until something changes?

Hun, nobody said they didn’t like Gaga’s music as it is now and what she’s doing. We are talking about what Gaga needs for a smash. Not everyone here only likes commercial music. Take several seats. 

[TheodoreRx 1,540]

7 minutes ago, Didymus said:

Probably not. Her brand is severely damaged and scattered across age groups and genre customers.

She's no longer leading the pack, so if she'd jump on current musical trends she'd come across as a joke and damage her career even further with lackluster flops, and if she should do something different and unique it won't get mass attention because her name isn't enough to generate interest anymore.

She blew it. Half of the reason for her success was her music, but the other important half was her mystery, her obscure and unpredictable personality, and her futuristic yet retro presentation that kept her safe from comparisons with other stars, successfully maintaining her niche. She self-handedly destroyed the latter half of her appeal, and so ruined her chances for future success imo.

The only way I can see her moving forward is if she'd put a stake through the heart of her career and start marketing herself to a larger audience again instead of becoming a fan tribute artist. That would entail actively provoking her fans and ignoring their wishes. And I don't think she's gonna do that, sadly.

What fan wishes would she have to ignore? 

[ilgkp 1,157]

12 minutes ago, Didymus said:

Probably not. Her brand is severely damaged and scattered across age groups and genre customers.

She's no longer leading the pack, so if she'd jump on current musical trends she'd come across as a joke and damage her career even further with lackluster flops, and if she should do something different and unique it won't get mass attention because her name isn't enough to generate interest anymore.

She blew it. Half of the reason for her success was her music, but the other important half was her mystery, her obscure and unpredictable personality, and her futuristic yet retro presentation that kept her safe from comparisons with other stars, successfully maintaining her niche. She self-handedly destroyed the latter half of her appeal, and so ruined her chances for future success imo.

The only way I can see her moving forward is if she'd put a stake through the heart of her career and start marketing herself to a larger audience again instead of becoming a fan tribute artist. That would entail actively provoking her fans and ignoring their wishes. And I don't think she's gonna do that, sadly.

ok, but you know that everything can be fixed?

[Didymus 34,380]

17 minutes ago, TheodoreRx said:

What fan wishes would she have to ignore? 

Most importantly their wish to have a private, intimate channel of communication with her. The more Gaga confirms the idea that her fanbase is a group of a "select few" the more unattractive it will become for other people to become fans or identify themselves like that.

From late '09 onwards Gaga's kept this idea alive that to be a real fan of Gaga you have to be at least one of these: gay, weird, bullied, self-identified outcast, wannabe artistic, obsessed with fashion. Most people will not fall into any of those categories. Whenever a reporter says something like "Gaga is so well-known for her relationship with her fans" there's a boundary drawn between this cliché of her clan of fans no one really wants to hang out with ànd the rest of the world. That's a branding disaster.

She should probably never mention the words "Little Monsters" again and just focus on her work rather than the rapport with her stans. She sort of did that with C2C but she sadly chose a genre (and style of genre, it's not like she wasn't singing outdated jazz no young kid or even general adult is interested in nowadays) that didn't replace her circle of stans with a larger audience.

It's time for her to act more like Madonna and never acknowledge her fans whatsoever. It creates an open space for everyone to talk about her, good or bad, without being branded as someone uncool or tasteless. It's neutral and invites everybody to join in. From day one I've thought this "I love my Little Monsters" scheme was a strategy that would only work in the very short term. It's really ****ing things up for her now and I think she realized it too.

[Didymus 34,380]

@ilgkp Oh, surely. I think it could be with what I wrote above I'm just not sure if she cares enough about that kind of success anymore to go that far. My impression is she's kind of comfortable just doing what she wants to do, not feeling the need anymore to "smash".

She probably wants to go down the "I want to be respected for my craft" route in which case she's smart to go to acting because she's probably never gonna get that for her music albums unless she goes all Janis Joplin on us (which would cause her fans to freak out). The jazz performances are a clever way to find a compromise, and I do applaud that. But will it lead to '08/'09 type of success? Of course not.