The Fame is Gaga's most misunderstood work

[Rio 5,088]

16 minutes ago, Finn The Human said:

This! The audacity for new stans to trash The Fame and then call ARTPOP her best album

New stans? I been here since December 2008 baby, probably before yourself 

ARTPOP is her best album, that's an opinion. That is an underrated and misunderstood album. I think The Fame is just underrated by the fanbase due to it being seen as "generic", as some have said. But the concepts are easy to grasp, it sold well due to its contemporary themes.

[Bebe 17,093]

22 minutes ago, HuffsAhoy said:

I don't think an album that continues to chart on Billboard nearly 12 years after it's release can be called misunderstood. If we really want to have this conversation, we can talk about ARTPOP; even though it's truly one of the worst albums of the 2010's. 

Why not? I mean Poker Face is the most successful single of her career and yet I bet you if you told a bunch of randoms on the street that Poker Face is about her bisexuality and her imagining herself with a woman while being with a man most people would be like "Oh really??"

Even Gaga has spoken about how most people didn't realise the meaning of Poker Face:

http://www.mtv.com/news/1610702/lady-gaga-says-kanye-west-saw-past-her-poker-face/

I don't really think commercial performance is really very relevant in this conversation, if anything I think the great pop records, the hooks and the catchiness of it all is part of what makes people dismiss the album as just shallow pop without really analysing the body of work.

[Chlorine 47,976]

Hmm I dunno. I feel like the intent was pretty clear. She was embodying fame as a state of mind. So I think the subject matter kind of followed, framing every day things / feelings etc. through a "Fame" lens. It kind of speaks for itself that she wrote an album "The Fame" when she wasn't famous, so it can't be taken at face value. 

[alsemanche 93,626]

Do people really not get the irony in The Fame? The lyrics are very clearly not to be taken at face value, same with the visuals. I mean it's not the most intricate concept or the deepest out there, even though it was quite groundbreaking in pop music for its time.  

[Gagaism 11,627]

I think when people choose “her best album” it’s something very particular and relatable with our vibration, feelings and other things that comes with that. 
I’m a stan from the very beginning and for me, ARTPOP is really her best, it was impactful to my life and its aesthetics were amazingly delivered.

But, we can’t deny that The Fame is truly a masterpiece, the beginning of pop renaissance of this generation that was followed by the impact on TFM. There’s not misunderstandings on the album, actually is the most easy to digest from her when we talk about concepts and meanings. 

[ThisGuyTony 30,185]

Absolutely The Fame had an impact. I think that it is shrouded with “catchy lyrics and hooks” which is why people don’t realize there’s a deeper message to it. 

[ThisGuyTony 30,185]

And while it does have a deeper message, I don’t think it compares to some of her follow up work, where she is more upfront about the meaning of songs (The Fame Monster, Born This Way, Chromatica) and those lyrics are more poetic in a sense. 

[DpHitch1992 1,158]

Great post! But I actually think the album is more miss-understood today then when it came out. The world went crazy for gaga BECAUSE 'the fame' was a different dark and artfull approach to what most stars where putting out on the subject. 

I feel like its looked on now as just the first gaga album and how she grew as an artist after rather than how it was and still is a magnificent peice of work for a debut album 

[Bebe 17,093]

28 minutes ago, Gagaism said:

I think when people choose “her best album” it’s something very particular and relatable with our vibration, feelings and other things that comes with that. 
I’m a stan from the very beginning and for me, ARTPOP is really her best, it was impactful to my life and its aesthetics were amazingly delivered.

But, we can’t deny that The Fame is truly a masterpiece, the beginning of pop renaissance of this generation that was followed by the impact on TFM. There’s not misunderstandings on the album, actually is the most easy to digest from her when we talk about concepts and meanings. 

The Fame isn't my favourite Gaga album, but I do think people dismiss it as a shallow pop album about fame. I think its giant commercial success plays a role in that too.

I see it all the time in reviews and in analysis. You just need to read through some of the reviews on Metacritic for the album. Even the positive ones.

"Empty lyrics are all part of the game when it comes to creating pop music--and Lady GaGa looks to have hit the jackpot here with her blend of sassy attitude, metallic beats and sharp, incisive songwriting."

"Icy love songs, shameless pop music that comments on its own shamelessness as it goes along: it's hard not to feel that you've heard a lot of this before."

"As the album's title and songs called Starstruck, Paparazzi, and Beautiful, Dirty, Rich suggest, the lyrics gleefully celebrate the most vapid and ephemeral aspects of celebrity"

"There’s not an ounce of irony in songs like the title track and “Money Honey”; what would seem merely superficial under normal circumstances is, in 2008, utterly obscene."

"Songs like the strut-tastic Pokerface and expensive Money Honey express her overwhelming desire for celebrity and fortune."

There isn't really any music review I can find that actually recognises that The Fame is a conceptual album and understands the messages behind it.

[buzzkill 5,152]

36 minutes ago, Bebe said:

What has commercial success got to do with understanding? 

Because that could meant you had reach a larger audience, and for that message you were tryin to sell was heard by a bigger number of people, which may or may not include them understanding what were trying to say. But for the years that followed it was clear that people understood gaga’s intentions and motives behind her debut album, because nowadays the album is really good perceived by critic and general public. 
 

for those reasons, in my opinion, the fame wasn’t misunderstood, and the commercial success was part of the era’s being understood and perhaps it can also be part of it’s meaning. (The fame monster as a follow-up) 

[HuffsAhoy 7,433]

1 hour ago, Bebe said:

Why not? I mean Poker Face is the most successful single of her career and yet I bet you if you told a bunch of randoms on the street that Poker Face is about her bisexuality and her imagining herself with a woman while being with a man most people would be like "Oh really??"

Maybe I'm just old  with a rusty brain, but I seem to recall that it was common knowledge that Poker Face was about her being bisexual? There was even some light controversy, I think. She even said so on her Barbara Walters interview. But to answer you question correctly, I think it's her easiest album to understand.  

[KURUSHITOVSKA 20,451]

It's true it's true

 

And ARTPOP her most overrated

[Stupid Oreo 14,249]

2 hours ago, Lucas said:

What's misunderstood about ARTPOP? 

DONATELLA

[Lemondeduerl 3,239]

I get the point, misunderstood doens't mean underrated. People understood the real meaning of ARTPOP. But for me The Fame is about playing a game, a game where you stop "being yourself" to be in a dream where you are famous, rich, beautiful, glamorous and all these things we think they are perfect. Like an ode to hedonism. We all know that all this stuff is fake but it looks nice. Like Madonna said " Hollywood, how could it hurt you when it looks so good"

 

 

[Esteban 2,300]

Wasn't it the initial postulate? It's meant to be satirical, I thought her intentions were crystal clear for everyone