The "Lady" vs "Gaga" narrative

[zerojk 4,797]

I'm honestly kinda over a lot of people (including fans) wanting to encapsulate her in either one extreme or the other

it's either that she wants to please the GP with commercial digestible ballads, or she wants to please the fans with experimental "dark" pop music, it's either completely black or completely white, and when you think about it, in her peak years, she used to be both at the same time and that was the wonder about her, she used to have this magic formula where her music was perfectly balanced being "experimental" for her fans and still be a commercial success, she could release a dark pop song and still perform it live at the piano and it made perfect sense.

now it feels like she needs to chose to deliver for one group or the other, when it doesn't have to be that way at all, i honestly feel like this idea limits her when chosing the artistic direction of a new project, hence why Chromatica had this "no ballads" rule in the creation process.

Thoughts? 

[River 104,116]

she is radio friendly and experimental at the same time right now with 2 singles.

I don't think she's giving too much attention to this lady vs gaga narrative, it actually doesn't exist, it's a fanmade thing

 

[Chlorine 47,746]

I mean... she is doing that.

Everything is compartmentalized. Despite running so many mini-eras at once, none of them have anything to do with each other. There's no cohesion... it's jarring. You just have to accept that all of those disparate things = Lady Gaga. That's how she's chosen to do it, that's how she wants it, and it seems to be working for her, so who are we to question it? 

 

[Decodekid 26,467]

Good point, but seeing it from a different perspective, I feel like back then we used to have those crossover moments as a way of her introducing these different approaches to music little by little, until she was confident enough to actually pursue them. 

[Juanne 265]

Gaga is back (Lady is resting)

I mean cute, but uhhh, bit too cliche for me

[Borisapillar 8,085]

It’s made up 

[Schwerk 6,955]

She's a multifaceted woman. She always is both and more. I understand she wants to lean towards one or the other sometimes.

I never saw them as separate, there was always glamour in her weirdness and weirdness in her glamour.

It's not too different to me wanting to wear all black and sneakers one day, and wearing a vintage 70s bright coloured dress and gold heels the next. I've never conformed to one style and I can't image I ever will.

[Edonis 28,549]

it's always been corny tbh

[Lucas 23,512]

46 minutes ago, zerojk said:

hence why Chromatica had this "no ballads" rule in the creation process.

A ballad just wouldn't fit on Chromatica in the middle of all these uptempo dance songs... She worked on 1000 Doves as a piano ballad and even put this version as a Target deluxe track

[HugoJG 1,059]

Thanks! She is LADY GAGA

[Ladle Ghoulash 15,904]

Interesting early interview where she explains the genesis of her name (start at 1:55). She states that part of the reason she’s *Lady* Gaga is to subvert conventional notions of what a woman or a “lady” can be; but I also think if you view the use of “Lady” as a sincere contrast to “Gaga” (which she defines here as “crazy”), then you can view it as something of a bifurcation (elegant, but crazy/rebellious). But, as others have said in this thread, I think the point of the juxtaposition of the two parts of her name is actually more a synthesis of the two implications: she can be sophisticated, she can be crazy, she can be whoever/whatever she wants to be, regardless of convention or expectation. She’s not *an* icon, she’s every icon.

Edited 39 minutes ago by Ladle Ghoulash

[ToxicHot 6,432]

I love how she refuses to be put into a box, even so many years into her career.  

[killme89 970]

I disagree , they literally called her a man and didn’t know she could really “sing” till years later.