The Death of “Lady Gaga”: A Retrospective Look At Her Career

[HermioneT 1,895]

That was an interesting read! Thanks for writing, even though I don't agree with everything. I think one of her main driving forces is the fact that she wants to create/be an enigma (which of course allows her to change and create her appearances and new projects in a way that keeps her in the game).

[Arcadia 1,366]

Thanks for that analysis! I enjoyed reading it. Agree and disagree in various points.

[gypsy101 5,423]

honestly i thought this several years ago. pop music was just the route that ended up working for her, that’s not her genre of choice

[pop a 911 3,571]

Very interesting to read and think about 

[ARTPOP 2,956]

I skimmed through it, correct if I am wrong.

Gaga is like any superstar who is really praised built on their fame. I believe even in the era before the internet there were a lot of great unknown artist but due to lack of fast communication (internet) it would almost never get the same reception. Neither Madonna nor MJ nor any other superstar have astronomically great quality music. It is all about the presentation rather than just the quality. She does music the gays like, so be it. Whether it is because of her status or just the music quality.

Ariana for example is number 1 when it comes to anything she releases, in Europe nobody knows about positions. It is all about the image again.

Gaga is not a musical god, no one is.

[The Bitch is Al8ve 13]

Sorry to dissapoint a really unwell and disturbing opinion but the whole DRAMA behind Gaga's pop death stardom is completly done by haters who can't accept the fact that we see a one of a kind artist living among the least talented. The media first bought this sad piece of lies in order to lower the trend of how this WOMAN changed everything about music, visuals, charts and how to make a human to lose all the hate it has towards every minority out-there, normalizing love, being kind to eachother, beliving in yourself at the lowest pit you've been into. She is more than your petty dump-to-dump statement. This is about what she changed in the lives of milions, and in the whole music industry. Her art will last FOREVER, the silly statements won't.

[flyaway 15,350]

Well, pop did catapult her to stardom but it doesn't mean it's all fake and inauthentic. She really embraced her LG persona and gave it her all. As she said, she did all of that because she felt insecure about herself. She became her own superhero and that took her name out there at the same time. As she's grown up, she got a new perspective on fame. Since the whole ARTPOP debacle and her trauma response, she doesn't see it the same way.

I think she feels torn towards pop because that's what got her popular in the first place. It gave her so much, but it made her lose so much as well. Nowadays, she shines more with her jazz and her passionate ASIB performance. That's the core of her craft and that's Stefani Germanotta.

[Nathaniel Arven 1,281]

I am so glad you bring that topic on, because even if it's oriented in a certain way, we cannot deny there has been a shift after ARTPOP. Some would call it a downfall, that started since the beginning of Born this way till the end of ARTPOP, but for me, it's all about another analogy. 

Like Bowie did with rock'n'roll, I think Gaga used pop as a vehicle, to disrupt it and put some art in it. And that's how she created her way to express herself. After Bowie killed Ziggy, he went through this 'soul/jazz' phase, and then very experimental, he even seemed to lose the essence of who he was and started to feel bland for his die hard fans while gaining GP approval (see the similarities ?)... But the thing his, after coming back in a dozen ways to what he was doing, this very artistic stuff, it's like he never left it, and his best works, for me and some other fans, are when he was in his 40's... 

I think like Bowie, Gaga is a musician at heart, a human with ideas and a vision in her heart, so all the things that were crafted along the way are never gonna leave her really. And I'm always very confident for the futur. 

Chromatica has been a challenging journey as a fan, but the music shows that no matter what she does she will craft something she loves and think is the right thing for her and for the people, and that she will never leave the music behind. 

[Pennywise 34,695]

36 minutes ago, The Bitch is Al8ve said:

Sorry to dissapoint a really unwell and disturbing opinion but the whole DRAMA behind Gaga's pop death stardom is completly done by haters who can't accept the fact that we see a one of a kind artist living among the least talented. The media first bought this sad piece of lies in order to lower the trend of how this WOMAN changed everything about music, visuals, charts and how to make a human to lose all the hate it has towards every minority out-there, normalizing love, being kind to eachother, beliving in yourself at the lowest pit you've been into. She is more than your petty dump-to-dump statement. This is about what she changed in the lives of milions, and in the whole music industry. Her art will last FOREVER, the silly statements won't.

Did you open an account just to say this? 

[Pennywise 34,695]

Anyways, good effort but this just reads like a lot of assumptions with little substance tbh. If you do want to write an essay on this topic, it should go further than simply regurgitating what have been speculated a thousand times already. 

[Mother of Puppies 34,236]

I agree with some of your points, but not with everything.

 

I strongly believe that she likes pretty much every music genre - which is the reason why she has tried quite a few of them. Pop, Rock, classic, EDM/House, Heavy Metal, techno, country, jazz etc.

So Gaga/Stefani loves and breathes music itself, because she is a MUSICIAN and not just a popstar.

[VoidTwo 259]

No, I think you missed a few points: 

Gaga is and has always been more than a pop star. It's not a downgrade to have less hits while maturing as a human being and as an artist and putting out more mature work. Honestly, "she didn't have a hit as big as Bad Romance since TFM" because she widened her artistic range and focused on the message, which is way more important than the "shock value". Yes, the shock value (I wouldn't even call it that, besides a very few shocking performances and outfits it's not that she wore a necklace made of real severed heads or did some Alice Cooper-esque stuff) was there to break into people's knowledge and cement herself as a legend, but it's normal that - if you are a true artist - you will evolve. The Lady Gaga character reinvents herself anytime and it's what sets her above anybody else tbh

Also, stop with the "she scrapped LG5 to make Joanne!!! 11!": she was only recording some songs and then she changed her direction. LG5 IS Joanne. And it was one of her most right choices in her career. 

Honestly, you said that this was not a post to slander Gaga, but ultimately it is a compilation of assumptions you made based on the fact that you like the old Gaga's career choices more than Joanne and Chromatica. And it's not a negative thing, I mean, it's your opinion but you're here only to stir up drama: these are not objective points and your post ends up among the countless, pointless rants on this cult site. 

[Kermit the frog 1,761]

I don't think she's never been into pop. She has a very eclectic taste and we've seen this often. 

I do agree that she seemed disinterested with her past two albums, especially with chromatica. 

I don't agree that bowie's dead changed her. I think it was first the disillusionment after BTW/Madonna comparison that crushed her soul and brought her back to earth (which is unfortunate, she deserved to stay up there) and then the success of ASIB, which made her think that she can be a full-time actress (she basically admitted in one interview she only became a singer because she failed in acting) 

Ever since after ARTPOP all she's been trying to do is to please the general public and to prove to everyone that she's talented and she's a serious adult. I'll leave the interpretation of this to psychoanalysts, but it kinda screams daddy issues. 

[The Bitch is Al8ve 13]

29 minutes ago, Pennywise said:

Did you open an account just to say this? 

Been out of the page for at least one and a half years. So yes, I did that and I'll stay around

[Kermit the frog 1,761]

5 hours ago, rinasawachanta said:

There is a conceptual error throughout the essay. There is no such thing as a self or an essence that the individual, in this case Gaga, takes it upon herself to reveal or cover up. Gaga is everything you described and more. At times more histrionic, at times more down-to-earth, at times more outlandish, at times more stripped-down. It's all part of who she is: her accents ("fake" or not), all her looks, the way she's changed (even physically). It all makes Gaga/Stefani. It's not about "peeling back the layers of the onion" to find out who lies beneath them, but realizing that the subject IS those multiple layers.

Also this. It's especially ironic with Gaga because I (sometimes) feel that the more "stripped down" her performances are, the more she's putting on a mask. 

And in general I don't think there is anyone more core-less than her, a living chameleon-actress. This is not meant as criticism, but I feel like she has this acting-personality trait that makes her appear super dishonest in interviews - we will never know what she's really like. Her documentary on netflix showed us how neurotic she really is, that was the closest I can think of.