January - May 2011 ♥️

[gagzus 24,729]

5 hours ago, Apec said:

No person could match what she did during TF-BTW. Like she said from bus to club/promo to studio to award show (performance) to bus to club to... I remember interviews and performances like every couple of days, setting my alarm to watch them live. She didn't even own a house/apartment, she went to her parents if she happened to be in NYC. Not to mention years-long tours with SO few breaks. I was worried though and think Troy had a responsibility to not overwork her like that, especially tour date wise. We saw what an a-hole he was in the end with her stress hip fracture at the tail end of the BTWB, while she was going ahead letting herself be overworked like that because she felt an obligation to us/was running from her demons. 😥

ARTPOP and CTC where nothing to sneeze at either. IAlmost nothing that came after was half-assed imho. It's a miracle she could and does as much as she does with basically everything that happened since her fibromyalgia diagnosis. Most would retire after getting fibro, seriously, it means you also likely suffer from many elements of CVS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) as well - I've read so much research on Fibromyalgia (still do) because a beloved family member has had it for 15+ years and boy, do some people here underestimate it.

Just recently her Jazz and Piano residency/LFS/Chromatica Ball and then Harlequin/Mayhem were immense efforts for any normal person, let alone a chronically ill one. But this is her calling in a way, music is how she processes all the good and the bad. It's her therapy, and creation/performing (as safely as possible) her outlet. 

To be fair, the landscape of pop in 2008-2011 was a much different place. Radio, Interviews and TV performances still were huge, tabloids and gossip magazines were huge, GETTY images had just became a big thing, social media was very infant and non-impactful until about 2010/2011 which is when Gaga became “Twitter Queen” and was the first ever (seems crazy now) person on the platform to reach 10M (and then 20M in 2012) followers I believe. YouTube was king and we cared about records on there, iTunes was the only way to listen to albums digitally besides burning physical copies or listening to the radio. 

Gaga still does a LOT of work now compared to what she could do, she just doesn’t need to do that. That’s why we call her the last “true popstar” because she was the last mega popstar to debut who absolutely took over pop culture in a world where the reach of things and the pace & scope of our knowledge was much smaller. 

A lot of younger fans who weren’t 15-20 when she came out don’t understand just how massive she was.
 

I genuinely believe it cannot be overstated just how famous, enigmatic and popular Gaga was as in her early years. I get that the thing is to be cool and not overstate things but we don’t talk about how powerful she really was from about 2009-2012 specifically. Even 2013 to a degree.

People think Taylor Swift is massive now, Gaga was just as (if not more) for the time and she did it without variant releases, collaborations (besides Beyoncé)— in fact, it was a big thing at the time that as a debut artist she had little to no collaborations of any kind in her early work. She didn’t date famous people, she was literally just known for her catchy songs, her fashion and for literally being herself. She was so enigmatic that for like 7 years people asked her almost in every interview about who the “real” her was and what she wore at home because she was truly an enigma.

And she still is an enigma, she’s unpredictable music wise—literally never seen anyone correctly predict a single album sound or creative direction on this forum since I joined like 10 years ago for instance. She disappears for months without barely a paparazzi picture appearing, she works on projects and companies without a single leak anymore… for 40 she could rest so much more than she does. 

Edited 15 hours ago by gagzus

[Apec 414]

5 hours ago, gagzus said:

To be fair, the landscape of pop in 2008-2011 was a much different place. Radio, Interviews and TV performances still were huge, tabloids and gossip magazines were huge, GETTY images had just became a big thing, social media was very infant and non-impactful until about 2010/2011 which is when Gaga became “Twitter Queen” and was the first ever (seems crazy now) person on the platform to reach 10M (and then 20M in 2012) followers I believe. YouTube was king and we cared about records on there, iTunes was the only way to listen to albums digitally besides burning physical copies or listening to the radio. 

Gaga still does a LOT of work now compared to what she could do, she just doesn’t need to do that. That’s why we call her the last “true popstar” because she was the last mega popstar to debut who absolutely took over pop culture in a world where the reach of things and the pace & scope of our knowledge was much smaller. 

A lot of younger fans who weren’t 15-20 when she came out don’t understand just how massive she was.
 

I genuinely believe it cannot be overstated just how famous, enigmatic and popular Gaga was as in her early years. I get that the thing is to be cool and not overstate things but we don’t talk about how powerful she really was from about 2009-2012 specifically. Even 2013 to a degree.

People think Taylor Swift is massive now, Gaga was just as (if not more) for the time and she did it without variant releases, collaborations (besides Beyoncé)— in fact, it was a big thing at the time that as a debut artist she had little to no collaborations of any kind in her early work. She didn’t date famous people, she was literally just known for her catchy songs, her fashion and for literally being herself. She was so enigmatic that for like 7 years people asked her almost in every interview about who the “real” her was and what she wore at home because she was truly an enigma.

And she still is an enigma, she’s unpredictable music wise—literally never seen anyone correctly predict a single album sound or creative direction on this forum since I joined like 10 years ago for instance. She disappears for months without barely a paparazzi picture appearing, she works on projects and companies without a single leak anymore… for 40 she could rest so much more than she does. 

We're in complete agreement - I know it was a different time for new artists (I was 17, almost 18, when she dropped Just Dance and have remained hooked ever since). She was everywhere and imho the biggest artist on the planet within a couple years and I sincerely believe her to be a legend now. I was talking about how as a huge fan, to put it mildly, I loved that we got so SO much (like I said, my alarm clock functioned more as a Gaga-is-here!-meter every 2 days at MOST) but in the back of my mind by the time we reached - I think it was the middle portion of - the BTWB I thought her non-stop schedule/those rapid timezone changes she experienced for basically years on end couldn't be good for anyone, that's all I meant.  And I genuinely believe she was not able to process some of her biggest traumas at first due to her stardom.

As I've seen the fibromyalgia effect up close and read a lot about it for more than a decade+, when that news hit I thought she'd HAVE to stop, physically, and was devastated for her. But lo and behold, she still does much more than even many big debut or other very popular acts do, like you said. I think that‘s because we're fortunate enough to stan a woman and artist who, with such vision, creativity, songwriting and performance prowess (done as safely as possible now, what with her ideas!) not only aims to improve but needs to use those tools to stay true to herself, as it were. Like it's her healing and her calling, her personal therapy of sorts because that's the way her body/mind seems to function: she craves creating art to make sense of this world and our/her own place in it. As a chronically ill person myself that's just something I'm in awe of.

She could rest A LOT more, definitely agreed, that was actually the point of my post, sorry if I wasn't very clear.  I readily believe a quote of hers from a good long while back: "If I hadn't become famous I'd still be performing just as much, just in local bars rather than on a concert stage." 

Love your explanation of her allure and enigmatic nature from 2008-2013, I remember those days vividly, as well as how amazingly cool it was to see this hard-working woman have such a meteoric rise and reign, nay grip on pop culture, on the back of her own songs, vision and just being herself as you so eloquently put it.  But I also love, now that she's a "proper grown-up", her lifting up that veil to get to know her a little more when she wants to, the ups and downs that she can well and truly open up about on her own terms, etc. And yes, if I were a betting person (just say no, kids! Lol), I'd never pick which genre(s) she's going to explore next. She's still an enigmatic person on many fronts, which is her boundary to set. We are fans of a true inspiration, is my point!

So no disagreement from me on anything in your post here. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Apec

[MercifulAir 900]

7 hours ago, bxr said:

The Government Hooker Mugler capture reminded me of this January 2011 Mugler sonic anatomic transformation station

 

  Reveal hidden contents

And a lil‘ marvel in the cadence of March

TL;DR: 

The NOSTALGIA! I used to listen to this on the bus every day my senior year of high school in anticipation of this album! 

[Junko Enoshima 4,672]

19 hours ago, loveandpeace said:

Also I miss when the biggest popstars by numbers weren't k-pop idols...

what a weird thing to say

[warhol killah 9,308]

Oh believe me the amount of peformances she had this era was INSANE. The number of TV performances, small concerts, festival and club lives + the fact she had to travel to every continent per single release. The era was fully packed! I only realized it when I was editing the evol video and I had to compact (some of) her many performances into 3 minutes.