Is Gaga a Mediocre Songwriter?

[River 127,429]

I think it depends on the song?

Like in the same album you can find the easy going lyrics like SL and Sewer Candy, but then 911, Replay, Sine has more depth.

But still these songs are not 'basic'.

[AVeryGagaHolyDick 31,991]

1 hour ago, Decodekid said:

I roll at my eyes at lay you down like 1 2 3

  Hide contents

The good news is the following words are “eyes roll back” 

[Decodekid 30,684]

48 minutes ago, AVeryGagaHolyDick said:

The good news is the following words are “eyes roll back” 

Wait 

[HotLikeMexico 6,551]

Sayin 911 is badly written is wild work. 

[REALITY 80,163]

Even though MAYHEM is my favorite album of hers (sonically), I also believe it's probably her weakest lyrically speaking. 

She has hits and misses, cause I think BTW is full of so many cool and interesting themes and metaphors. Chromatica also has some stellar lyrics.

[Omegahedron 353]

I think it's hits and misses but I would say that lyrical complexity and sophistication has not generally been her strength.

What she excels at is creating lyrics and hooks which are catchy and memorable. The laser focus and stuttering repetition is a classic Gaga sound she's carried throughout her career.

That said sometimes she takes it to excess and one of her worst habits is to hammer you around the head with repetition - which works sometimes for me but others just sounds repetitive (Million Reasons). 

Occasionally songs peter out so much that it seems half written (MANiCURE) or have moments of seeming a bit under written (I think the bridge to ZombieBoy is a bit weak, for example).

She's put out some abominable lyrics on some songs ("Just ask your gay friends their advice before you, get a spray tan on holiday in Taipei" is something you might hear on an SNL sketch).

For lyrics, I'd say that The Fame, The Fame Monster, Joanne and ASIB are probably her strongest eras which show a care and craft to the lyrics.

ARTPOP and Chromatica are probably have some of her weaker songs lyrically.

This all said, her vocals and melodies are generally excellent and more than make up for occasional lyrical shortcomings for me.

[Head Empty 26,981]

2 minutes ago, Omegahedron said:

She's put out some abominable lyrics on some songs ("Just ask your gay friends their advice before you, get a spray tan on holiday in Taipei" is something you might hear on an SNL sketch).

To be fair, lyrics like that are definitely intentionally campy. That doesn't make them good by default but it has its place on an album like ARTPOP.

[Oriane 22,767]

Look, I'm someone who's primarily drawn to good, catchy and beautiful melodies. There are very few artists who consistently make songs that have that effect on me, and Gaga is one of them.

She's great in that aspect, or at least used to, because her songs have mostly felt uninspired since Chromatica (she's still had a few hits here and there, but like any artist).

[MOT 3,607]

I think she's written plenty of great songs, so how many great ones do you have to write in order to be considered a great songwriter ? If 1 in every 10 songs you write is great and you write 500 that's a lot of great songs. 

I don't think she loses much sleep trying to write the perfect lyrics, but personally that's not what I'm listening for. You could ask the question as well where does songwriting end and production/performance begin ? Take TEOG for example. The album version is one thing, and then what she does with it on the piano is something entirely different, but she only wrote one song and it only took about 10 minutes.

Anyway, I'm rambling on, but the bottom line for me is that I think she's much closer to being a great songwriter than a mediocre songwriter.

 

[princedeeblebleble 3,639]

She's good generally with some misses here and there. Thought sometimes I feel like she rushes a bit, cause some songs have the potential to be brilliant but then the chours, lack of a new bridge or some lyrics sound half baked and it ruins the potential.

[Delulu Rogers 7,663]

I always thought she was just okay. A lot of her lyrics don’t make sense actually or even link to each other and there is a lot of reliance on repeating syllables to make it catchy. It works and I love it, but I wouldn’t call it genius. 

[TheARTPOPball 1,641]

I miss her metaphorical writing but in a world where the greatest songwriting alive is recognized as Taylor swift, I’d hardly call Gaga mediocre 

[MaybeKermit 5,205]

She’s not bad at all, like most of u say; she has some hits and aome misses… which is ok

BUT

I struggle more with her lyrics mostly being “on the surface” and recycling the same themes over and over on each album.

she’s 20 years in her carreer and we still get simple, basic, sometime meaningless lyrics.

that’s what I mean when I sometimes say that Madonna’s music is way more deep than Gaga’s, in some ways.

like how’s life? Hows your bond with your dad changed? Betrayal by team members ? ExpectTions of growing older? We know she would have wanted kids by now, how does it make her feel that she didn’t get pregnant yet,….? ……………..

Edited 8 hours ago by MaybeKermit

[TheARTPOPball 1,641]

1 minute ago, MaybeKermit said:

She’s not bad at all, like most of u say; she has some hits and aome misses… which is ok

BUT

I struggle more with her lyrics mostly being “on the surface” and recycling the same themes over and over on each album.

she’s 20 years in her carreer and we still get simple, basic, sometime meaningless lyrics.

that’s what I mean when I sometimes say that Madonna’s music is way more deep than Gaga’s, in some ways.

like how’s life? Hows your bond with your dad changed? Betrayal by team members ? ExpectTions of growing older? We know she would have wanted kids by now, how does it make her feel that she didn’t get pregnant yet,….? ……………..

In her defense the last time she made an album with personal themes half the fan base shat on it 

[candydarling 1,987]

3 hours ago, TheFrenchGuy said:

She's very clever and efficient. She can write amazing hooks and really smart wordplay. That said, I do think her storytelling in the past few years could use some love. Some of the concepts feel a bit surface-level, and I wish she'd push her ideas further. She's sometimes a little too efficient in her songwriting; for someone who used to be such a maximalist, she's so edited and curated now I've been missing her twisted sensibilities a bit. Songs like Hold my hand, Shape of a Woman, and even some songs on Mayhem are very straightforward, I miss the half psychotic sick hypnotic and the skeleton guns of it all you know? 

yeah i miss her more metaphorical l, abstract and non sensical lyrics pre joanne