Debunking CollabGa

[Decodekid 26,840]

As we're approaching our sixth illuminati renewal with DWAS, here are a few things to point out about collaborations 

1.  1-2 MAX 3 collaborations per album isn't even that high, even when you take into consideration a bunch of these aren't singles. 

2. We have no control over what goes 1 and what doesn't. Did Bad Romance reach #1?  Alejandro? Telephone? no, they could've though ! 

3. Fight me but Shallow is a solo song, its relevance and charting has nothing to do (musically) with Bradley   

4. In the past 10 years, it's been normalized to remix a song for it to chart, has Gaga ever done a remix to a previous single? no, they're genuine collabs. We've also seen interpolations, songs with +4 features, extreme sampling, covers, and nobody says anything. 

The whole argument is giving unemployed resentful millennial, or severely unemployed gen z who recently discovered Taylor Swift,  yapping on social media thinking they know a thing or two about pop music. Let's move on, bling not the music but our bling has QUALITY, half of y'all favs can't chart without 15 composers and their mothers, or 45 variants up our bussies, long live DWAS.

 

Edited December 30, 2024 by Decodekid

[Lucas 24,383]

16 minutes ago, Decodekid said:

3. Fight me but Shallow is a solo song, its relevance and charting has nothing to do (musically) with Bradley   

I don't think anyone on this forum disagrees with that! Only the dvmb stans on twitter who don't want to give Gaga credit for anything. But if it wasn't for the movie, the song would never go #1, we can't ignore the fact that a smash hit movie is probably the best promo a song can get

[SevenWonder 3,836]

Your Shallow point is 1000% correct.

The whole topic is utterly ridiculous to me. 

[Red 95,009]

Most people that bring that up also stan people whose last #1 was when Hannah Montana was still on if they have a #1 

[Night Vision 3,048]

The "no solo hit" thing is just a made up metric by haters to cope with the fact that Gaga keeps getting smashes almost twenty years into her career.

It's also kinda funny to credit Bruno solely for the success of DWAS considering it's also his biggest hit in years (possibly the biggest hit of his entire career after Uptown Funk), and he also hasn't released a single solo song since 2017.

[Killa 15,759]

Probably the only point people actually made about shallow was that the oscar performance and the duo relationship during promo made It even more succesful. 

I mean Bradley sings really well but somehow that wasn't even pointed out too much. She was a bigger shock that the narrative was never man this guy sings so well. At least It wasn't the main talk.

It could def be a solo and still be impactful, its def about the Moment in the movie but Also the lyrics. And the chorus and the whole ahhhhhhh Is basically the whole point of the Song lol

 

[Kayi 1,218]

And Gaga isn't the kind of artists who buzz bc of her relationships and friendships. Many popstars have stories with other celebs so ppl can connect their own stories to hers. While when they listen to a Gaga song they appreciate it for it's quality but they don't know what is it about. 

Ask a local abt what is "Heavy Metal Lover"... They wouldn't be able to say who is Lüc Carl, who are the Rivington rebels and what is Gaga's relationship to New-York. 

So when Gaga makes collabs she has some stories to tell to the ppl about how her and the collaborator made this song. They can appreciate the chemistry of the duo. 

But I saw recently ppl on Tik Tok finding it out about the Peter Van Der Veen (her bodyguard) annecdote on "Government hooker" vocals.

Oh if only they knew her whole indie New-York lifestyle lore !... I mean locals know a little bit about Lana's lifestyle before she became famous, so imagine if they knew for Gaga. 

[SevenWonder 3,836]

44 minutes ago, Night Vision said:

The "no solo hit" thing is just a made up metric by haters to cope with the fact that Gaga keeps getting smashes almost twenty years into her career.

It's also kinda funny to credit Bruno solely for the success of DWAS considering it's also his biggest hit in years (possibly the biggest hit of his entire career after Uptown Funk), and he also hasn't released a single solo song since 2017.

Totally.

Also, take Beyonce. From 2008 to 2022 she had ZERO solo number ones. Zero. (She did have two number ones: Perfect and Savage. Both features, btw.)

Did anyone say, in 2021 or whenever, that Bey could only get a number one with Ed or Megan or some other collab? 

Of course not! Because it's a silly argument.

Collab hits are just as valid as solo hits. A song is a song is a song. 

[lastpopicon 4,250]

1 hour ago, Decodekid said:

As we're approaching our sixth illuminati renewal with DWAS, here are a few things to point out about collaborations 

1.  1-2 MAX 3 collaborations per album isn't even that high, even when you take into consideration a bunch of these aren't singles. 

2. We have no control over what goes 1 and what doesn't. Did Bad Romance reach #1?  Alejandro? Telephone? no, they could've though ! 

3. Fight me but Shallow is a solo song, its relevance and charting has nothing to do (musically) with Bradley   

4. In the past 10 years, it's been normalized to remix a song for it to chart, has Gaga ever done a remix to a previous single? no, they're genuine collabs. We've also seen interpolations, songs with +4 features, extreme sampling, covers, and nobody says anything. 

The whole argument is giving unemployed resentful millennial, or severely unemployed gen z who recently discovered Taylor Swift,  yapping on social media thinking they know a thing or two about pop music. Let's move on, bling not the music but our bling has QUALITY, half of y'all favs can't chart without 15 composers and their mothers, or 45 variants up our bussies, long live DWAS.

 

[Anderson123 35,924]

3 hours ago, Decodekid said:

3. Fight me but Shallow is a solo song, its relevance and charting has nothing to do (musically) with Bradley   

Yes it does lol. People fell in love with Gaga and Bradley's chemistry. The Oscars performance was a MOMENT and through all the movie cycle people wanted them to be together.

I don't understand why you guys pay so much attention to comments like "Yeah but it's Bruno's song it doesn't count as Gaga blah blah". The song would not exist without her. Same as Shallow, It is Gaga's as much as it is Bradley's  because he as a director made the song THAT important to the movie story.

[PawUp 132]

To #4, didn’t Gaga collab with Xtina on DWUW during the end of ARTPOP era to help it chart because they decided not to use the original R. Kelly version? That’s considered a remix of the original because there is a completely new verse of lyrics. But besides the point, it didn’t chart well still and it was over a decade ago. 

[PartySick 146,393]

At the risk of sounding unemployed  

3 hours ago, Decodekid said:

1-2 MAX 3 collaborations per album isn't even that high, even when you take into consideration a bunch of these aren't singles. 

Absolutely agreed. Anyone who argues against collabs in general is just silly.

3 hours ago, Decodekid said:

We have no control over what goes 1 and what doesn't. Did Bad Romance reach #1?  Alejandro? Telephone? no, they could've though ! 

Which is precisely why we shouldn't give a single sh*t about the charts  Gaga is rich, she'll never financially struggle again in her life, and she's shown herself to be a talented musician. 

But let's not sit here and pretend it wasn't Ariana's fanbase, the Blinks, Bruno's fanbase, and their respective GP appeal that made songs like ROM, Sour Candy, and DWAS huge  

They could still be cute hits with just Gaga (even though DWAS is Bruno's song) but #1? Doubt it. And that's fine 'cause as long as the music's good, that's what matters.

Bruno's consistently been one of the most streamed artists and Gaga jumped like 30 spots on Spotify after making a song with him.

And if the Weeknd collab comes, it'll be huge 'cause he's adored by the GP and his fans.

And again, that is ok.

3 hours ago, Decodekid said:

Fight me but Shallow is a solo song, its relevance and charting has nothing to do (musically) with Bradley   

Shallow exists within the context of ASIB, which is both Gaga's first serious movie role and Bradley's first director role.

Not only was the film huge (deserved 'cause they're both amazing in it), the celebrity aspect of it drove a lot of the success. You couldn't walk into a store without seeing magazines talking about their suspected affair  

Thinking Shallow would take off without Bradley and ASIB is just silly. Even the stans didn't like it, they forced themselves to like it after it got huge.

Always Remember Us This Way is another good example of this. Only Gaga sings but without ASIB it could have been a cute hit but not nearly as huge as it ended up being.

3 hours ago, Decodekid said:

In the past 10 years, it's been normalized to remix a song for it to chart, has Gaga ever done a remix to a previous single? no, they're genuine collabs. We've also seen interpolations, songs with +4 features, extreme sampling, covers, and nobody says anything. 

Well, just this year alone we've had those stupid "sped up" "remixes" dropped for Gaga's viral song that they decided to make an official single a decade after its release based solely on the fact that it went viral.

We've also seen DWAS randomly slapped onto LG7 just to give the album an automatic streaming boost.

We've seen her totally ditch the promo for a few projects 'cause they weren't received well.

Like, either her label suddenly has total control over her or she personally cares more about her PR and sales than ever before.

And it's not like she's struggling either, she's consistently been in the top 50 spots on Spotify for years so I don't really understand the defensiveness on display here.

Anyway, all of this ranges from "ugh" inducing to "it's not a big deal". Gaga has to rely on artists with streaming success to get her own numbers to where they are now. Disease and Harlequin basically sandwiching a song that will be one of her biggest hits is enough proof of that. I don't understand the need to be dishonest about it either? Like, since when are we obsessed with how much she sells?  

It's not like she's a leech sucking streams off of her fellow artists. She contributes at least a little, if not she's the main brain behind the creative process. She just needs a little help from people who succeed more where she doesn't.

Which is, again, perfectly ok  

[Decodekid 26,840]

3 minutes ago, PartySick said:

But let's not sit here and pretend it wasn't Ariana's fanbase, the Blinks, Bruno's fanbase, and their respective GP appeal that made songs like ROM, Sour Candy, and DWAS huge  

Def agree with you on this one, she's def pulling numbers from other fanbases but as I said, not every collaboration ends up becoming a single, nor is every collab she's done successful . Sure, coincidentally she has more #1s with features but it's not like her other hits weren't as close to peaking 

But on the other hand, it's not like she's the only one profiting from others, I'd dare to say Telephone and Sour Candy, were most likely to give the feature a boost tbh, it helped BLACKPINK with the western market, and Gaga was on top of the game when Telephone came out.

6 minutes ago, PartySick said:

Thinking Shallow would take off without Bradley and ASIB is just silly. Even the stans didn't like it, they forced themselves to like it after it got huge.

 

Yes the movie played a huge role of it becoming a hit, she had a big platform to her advantage,  but I mentioned that musically speaking  it's technically Gaga's song, it's not like Bradley was the mastermind behind it like Bruno's involvement with DWAS. 

11 minutes ago, PartySick said:

We've also seen DWAS randomly slapped onto LG7 just to give the album an automatic streaming boost.

Def agree, I'm also a bit frustrated regarding this rollout, hopefully things will be different once 2025 starts and DWAS peaks.  

[Decodekid 26,840]

33 minutes ago, PawUp said:

To #4, didn’t Gaga collab with Xtina on DWUW during the end of ARTPOP era to help it chart because they decided not to use the original R. Kelly version? That’s considered a remix of the original because there is a completely new verse of lyrics. But besides the point, it didn’t chart well still and it was over a decade ago. 

R. Kelly's version remained the official version promoted throughout the whole rollout. Sure the Xtina remix might've been a boost but it was never treated as a replacement up until recently by fans

[MadArchitect 581]

4 hours ago, Lucas said:

I don't think anyone on this forum disagrees with that! Only the dvmb stans on twitter who don't want to give Gaga credit for anything. But if it wasn't for the movie, the song would never go #1, we can't ignore the fact that a smash hit movie is probably the best promo a song can get

Asib was very successful as a movie but not as successful as Shallow as a song, to this day way more people know and love shallow and havent even seen the movie, specially internationally and abroad, so for what ive seen the real tea is that a smash hit song like shallow was the best promo a movie can get, Asib benefited more from its massively successful songs than the other way around