Gaga criticisms?

[Original Diva 4,945]

What are some interesting and valid Gaga criticisms you have heard?

I intend for this to be totally light-hearted in nature. I have just interesting things about her that I have never thought about before.

For example, a while ago I was on a Madonna forum and I recall someone who stated that they were a Gaga fan, but they wish she experimented with different time signatures, as all of her songs are the same standard time signature. I thought this was interesting to hear. I have never thought about this and I don't know enough about time signatures and all that anyway, but it just got me thinking about it and it has been on my mind recently.

Another is that someone said they wish Gaga did some more 'storytelling' kinds of songs. I think a lot of Gaga's music is focused on sharing a message or an idea, rather than telling a story, which I think is what this person was getting at. I believe they also referenced Taylor Swift, as her style of writing definitely has more of a storytelling aspect to it. Come to think of it, I cannot think of many Gaga songs which are 'Storytelling' songs except for Princess Die, Brooklyn Nights, You and I, and maybe Monster. Though, I guess you could also argue that Gaga's records may sometimes be a collection of songs to convey a set or series of emotions and stories... I don't know.

What are your thoughts? What have you heard that has made you think (seriously)?

[tomsches 17,325]

She could write an album without a song that uses the I-V-VI-IV chord progression. Not really a big criticism, but I feel like many times she resorts to this chord progression as opposed to experimenting more and it has been overused (not specifically by her but by musicians in general). 

[Bolkins 4,099]

I would argue that the songs from Joanne and ASIB were all story-telling songs to a degree. She’s more than capable of doing music like that and I hope she does more of it in the future. 
 

I think something she could be better at, and I think she doing it way more now, is keeping things under her hat. Months and years of teasing projects gets so tired and I think it sets up disappointment way more as the expectations become sky high. 
 

 

[NFRatwell 23,290]

“I cannot think of many Gaga songs which are 'Storytelling' songs except for Princess Die, Brooklyn Nights, You and I, and maybe Monster.“ Diamond Heart, A-Yo?, John Wayne, Dancin’ in Circles, Sinner’s Prayer, Just Another Day…

[Original Diva 4,945]

42 minutes ago, Bolkins said:

I would argue that the songs from Joanne and ASIB were all story-telling songs to a degree. She’s more than capable of doing music like that and I hope she does more of it in the future. 
 

I think something she could be better at, and I think she doing it way more now, is keeping things under her hat. Months and years of teasing projects gets so tired and I think it sets up disappointment way more as the expectations become sky high. 
 

 

And to add to that, sometimes things do not go to plan or they do not work out and thus they do not get released. Gaga used to tease such things straight away before receiving confirmation of such things, which led to fans being disappointed. Simple mistake. Clearly she was just excited to share her upcoming projects and ideas with fans. Understandable. Agreed on the fact that she has gotten better at this in recent years as well.

[Original Diva 4,945]

18 minutes ago, NFRatwell said:

“I cannot think of many Gaga songs which are 'Storytelling' songs except for Princess Die, Brooklyn Nights, You and I, and maybe Monster.“ Diamond Heart, A-Yo?, John Wayne, Dancin’ in Circles, Sinner’s Prayer, Just Another Day…

See to me those songs convey a meaning and are inspired by stories, but are not songs that actually tell a story. Some of them I do agree with and did not think of initially when writing this post though.

[Original Diva 4,945]

58 minutes ago, tomsches said:

She could write an album without a song that uses the I-V-VI-IV chord progression. Not really a big criticism, but I feel like many times she resorts to this chord progression as opposed to experimenting more and it has been overused (not specifically by her but by musicians in general). 

See, I know nothing about chord progressions, so I don't understand this, but it is interesting to me.

[Suspiria 10,683]

49 minutes ago, Bolkins said:

I think something she could be better at, and I think she doing it way more now, is keeping things under her hat. Months and years of teasing projects gets so tired and I think it sets up disappointment way more as the expectations become sky high. 

Maybe pre-ARTPOP but since then she's been deadly silent about absolutely everything. When was the last time she even teased anything? She hasn't even explicitly mentioned this Jazz album has she?

Personally I wish she'd do the opposite and just be more clear about what's going on. Just rough ideas about what her general public plans are for the year or whatever. Maybe casually mention if she's filmed a music video or recorded something, like most artists do. Not everything needs to be a complete secret with constant dead silence.

[flyaway 15,350]

I wished she stopped cancelling every dmn project 

Also I would love her to risk even more. She seems too worried about losing her fans so she's chasing back her dance roots, but maybe a new perspective will make wonders. 

[tomsches 17,325]

4 minutes ago, Original Diva said:

See, I know nothing about chord progressions, so I don't understand this, but it is interesting to me.

It's just a combination of chords which is very popular in music. It involves the 1st, 5th, 4th and 6th chord of a scale. For example: G, D, Em, C

Gaga uses this progression a lot. Off the top of my head: Paparazzi, Pokerface, Alejandro (I think), Hair, The Edge Of Glory, Heavy Metal Lover, Highway Unicorn, Gypsy, Fashion!, Fun tonight. 

To be fair, I think She's used it less in the her last 2 albums

[Celloo Deng 53,868]

I'd like to see her experiment more with her sound and do more collaborative work. 

[Tinnitus15 50,644]

tbh she should be more opened for collabs on other artists' albums or just droplet songs like ariana.Thus  she'll release new music now and then, feeding us with content 

[Suspiria 10,683]

I wish she would be more self aware and accepting of her position in the world.

She is one of the biggest stars of all time, one of the wealthiest people in the world, she is hugely respected and has contacts with everyone in the fashion and entertainment industries. She works with her friends and seems to have an extremely supportive team. There is absolutely no valid reason that she isn't consistently putting out the best of the best, mind-blowing content, other than herself holding herself back.

 

It seems like she's too scared to embrace the megastar "Gaga" that she is. It's like she's ashamed of how successful and powerful she is, so she holds herself back and tries to not acknowledge it. She wants to be some humble girl next door but now she's too attached to the comfort and wealth to give up on the industry. She's scared to fire her friends or tell them to improve. And I guess she feels bad maybe that anything she does might take attention away from real world issues (which I respect).

I just wish she would stop trying to make herself smaller and seem more humble than she is. She worked hard to get to this point, I wish she would embrace it and make the most of it. I think Beyoncé is a great example of how to do it.

[Original Diva 4,945]

9 minutes ago, Cello said:

I'd like to see her experiment more with her sound and do more collaborative work. 

Now see this one is interesting to me because with every collaboration Gaga does, comes a very mixed response from fans. Some fans really hate when Gaga collabs for some reason and claim they can be 'inauthentic'. This is a criticism I saw a lot with Chromatica

[Original Diva 4,945]

9 minutes ago, Suspiria said:

I wish she would be more self aware and accepting of her position in the world.

She is one of the biggest stars of all time, one of the wealthiest people in the world, she is hugely respected and has contacts with everyone in the fashion and entertainment industries. She works with her friends and seems to have an extremely supportive team. There is absolutely no valid reason that she isn't consistently putting out the best of the best, mind-blowing content, other than herself holding herself back.

 

It seems like she's too scared to embrace the megastar "Gaga" that she is. It's like she's ashamed of how successful and powerful she is, so she holds herself back and tries to not acknowledge it. She wants to be some humble girl next door but now she's too attached to the comfort and wealth to give up on the industry. She's scared to fire her friends or tell them to improve. And I guess she feels bad maybe that anything she does might take attention away from real world issues (which I respect).

I just wish she would stop trying to make herself smaller and seem more humble than she is. She worked hard to get to this point, I wish she would embrace it and make the most of it. I think Beyoncé is a great example of how to do it.

Maybe she does not want to do this and does not want to be that anymore. Maybe she just does not feel that she is up to it anymore. I am sure it must be incredibly stressful and exhausting to try and constantly please her fanbase, who are incredibly critical. Trying to constantly outdo yourself and reach a higher peak and constantly try to innovate and be a certain thing must be crazy and exhausting.