Is anyone else disappointed?

[MonsterOfSpain 8,275]

The only sing I don't like is Jewels & Drugs... but like the majority on this fan base tbh.

[garnite 6]

at this point i'm only disappointed in Jewels N' Drugs.  really really awful.  some cringey lyrics in the other songs but i can live with them and i've grown to accept them for what they are.  but Jewels N' Drugs is a blight.

[vicnaustin1 0]

no no no....I loved Swinefest!!! I think these songs were amazing and are just gonna keep on growing on us. I think that there's a touch of nostalgia layered throughtout and they are fresh all at the same time...it's what Gaga does so well. I think they album is gonna be full of hits....and plenty of surprises still to come. Everything is so layered....actually hearing ARTPOP and seeing her perform it....Aphrodite-Venus descended to the stage to spread some love around! go Gaga go!!

[Hamlet 67]

Well, I really enjoyed the performance, I think she was on point and the song's overall were a lot better than I expected.

[Nissa 51]

Don't even worry about it! I wasn't offended at all. It's funny, I usually am the one who's fiercely defending Gaga against negative opinions, and here I am on the other side now... I was a bit upset last night, too, so I wasn't at my most articulate. I didn't mean to sound disrespectful. 

 

I guess what I was trying to say is that Gaga just acts very differently now, and has been for a while. I understand that she's trying to be more vulnerable and honest, rather than covering things up as she might have done before, and I have no problem with that. But...it's very strange, and it's difficult for me to articulate, so I might just botch things again, but it seems like not just now, but over the past year or so, she's been simultaneously pulling walls down between her and her fans, and putting other walls up. Or so I've felt...maybe others disagree with me. 

 

She communicates directly with her fans through her website, by posting and chatting and liking/commenting on posts, so it should feel like she's the closest she's ever been with her fans. She also has been taking off the wigs and the costumes, and giving us peeks into her private life with her family and her boyfriend.

 

Yet, even with all of that, she feels so much further and more separate from the fans than she did before, particularly during BTW. Of course there was the twitter blackout, and for a long time, I attributed it to that. But even now after she's tweeting again, it feels like I just have no idea who this person is that I once cared so much for. Maybe it was a fallacy for me to ever feel that way, because I truly don't know her, without ever having talked to her, and maybe never will. But at one time, there was at least an illusion that we all were in touch with her and knew her somewhat on a personal level, because of her candidness on stage, in interviews, and through online communication.

 

Things like the Princess High costume, the cherub tattoo on her head, and the septum piercing I just don't understand. I don't know where they're coming from, or what they're supposed to be saying about her. Regardless of how one feels about how these things look, or one's opinions on marijuana or tattoos/piercings, this type of expression through body modifications and frankness about d--gs is really quite different from what she's done in the past. So I've found myself asking, why are things different now? Why has her form of expression changed? And I have no answers. 

 

She's become a bit of an enigma in that way. Yet at the same time, she said that she wants to be more honest and show us what's underneath all the costumes. So...which one is it? I don't understand what she's trying to accomplish here. 

 

I thought that Born this Way was all about how the costumes and the wigs were a natural extension of herself, and how she could be more honest through a disguise, much like a jester, than without one. And I totally agree with that. I don't think there's anything wrong with putting on a mask. I think that's the only way to speak the truth, without fooling ourselves by trying to be honest without them. Honesty can sometimes be the biggest deception of them all, because we have to posture ourselves to try to meet the expectation of what honesty means, if that makes any sense. When you have a mask on, you can blab all you want without thinking about the consequences. That's true honesty, in my opinion. 

 

I really agreed with that philosophy during BTW, and now that she's trying to go back on it, I just find it disingenuous. 

 

Woops, that turned out to be a novel. Sorry! Analyzing is my pastime...

 

I think I know what you mean. Oh and first off, did you read Gaga's interview with Stephen Fry in 2011, right before BTW (the album) was going to be released? It's a fascinating conversation about the masks we wear and what they mean to her - she even mentioned something about them being natural and more honest in many cases. Recommended stuff.

 

I kind of interpreted her speech at Swinefest differently, though. I got the feeling that she wasn't denying or undoing the fact that everyone wears masks (for better or for worse) and so does she, nor that they aren't as honest and "real" as what she showed before/during Swine. It was like she was talking about one specific matter, the (s-xual) trauma of her past, and hasn't been able to approach it in a way she feels comfortable with. She's always incorporated those themes in her work (Just Dance, You and I video, MTN video, etc.) but I think her speech was more a contained examination of those specific events and how she feels that right now it was more suitable for her  - and possibly more honest in a way - to try and tell the story as what she perceives would be as "maskless" as possible, as "stripped down" as possible. Stressing the "what she perceives" part.

 

The hurt must be so pervasive I thought she meant that in this moment in time it should be exposed like a raw nerve for her to be able to continue to live with it. I didn't interpret it as a wholesale denial, more like a confirmation that yes, she wears masks like all of us and that some masks are the hardest yet sincere or telling things to wear while sometimes some of them can present the easier route. I thought she did also imply that everyone has to wear the latter type sometimes and that that isn't necessarily wrong - I believe she added "...and so can you" in her speech to underline this point. To me it seemed that in relation to the hurt she feels surrounding this trauma they have always presented an easier way out.

 

One could argue that there is nothing but the masks in all of us (because after all, what is the human mind if it's not communicating with or being stimulated by the external?) or that she was merely replacing one mask with another in her speech. I feel she's always been as open, honest and vulnerable to us as she was now (hello entire BTW era!), and that it was merely her transitioning in her approach vis à vis those specific events, not that she showed the "real" her for the very first time. Though she did do it in a very showy way and used an admittedly clumsy and contradictory "do the clothes wear me or do I wear the clothes"-type metaphor while doing it. I guess it's hard to express it more subtly in a few lines during a highly theatrical and visually loaded show. So I just interpreted it as an exclamation with a limited scope, especially because she made a point of mentioning that she wasn't talking about every mask ("not always, I am my hair after all").

 

...If that makes any sense. My thoughts are so jumbled! I could be totally wrong, this was just how I interpreted it the first time. I do agree that I really didn't get her (hopefully past) obsession with pot, her shaved head (though a nice gesture towards Terry Richardson) and her pierced septum either. I guess she's looking for herself as we all do but the whole Applause era and Swinefest completely washed away my worries because I felt I saw the exact same person that I feel so close to there. I get where you're coming from, though, and hope she'll be able to set your mind at ease too as soon as possible. :) You're the type of a--lytic and dedicated person I can identify with as well.

Edited September 3, 2013 by Nissa

[evilvenus1210 0]

the songs at Itune fest are the experimental ones that she was talking about,so the rest would be better and more catchy