Why is there criticism on chart obsession?

[XoXoJoanneGaga 629]

She didn't have a hit because it didn't go #1?  That is a joke.  MANY people knew about Applause and did like it and a very good amount of people (including a very large amount of non-fans) knew about Do What U Want and did like it.  I heard it all the time at college campuses at parties.  This delusion that she didn't have a hit cause the songs didn't chart high needs to stop. 

Applause and DWUW did well but she's losing a lot of momentum. It's okay for her to have an off era I'm just saying she needs to come really strong next time or the downward trend will continue fast

[Whispering 18,865]

Applause and DWUW did well but she's losing a lot of momentum. It's okay for her to have an off era I'm just saying she needs to come really strong next time or the downward trend will continue fast

 

So that is two hits this era, which is not what you said in your original comment. Gaga is still getting hits, to add to the others she already has. Some eras are going to be better than others. She will have some misses with a few singles along the way. All long term career artists do.

 

I'm sure it will all be fine in the long run, and you won't have to worry so much about her anymore in the future. ;)

[giskardsb 12,565]

Charts only reflect a certain reality of a songs commercial performance. Yet thanks to Stan culture many stans latch onto those numbers as being more important than anything. The most vexing are those that claim to like her music but then say she needs to change what she does in order to get more chart success. Those people care more about charts and looking good in Stan wars than they do about music and artistry.

Unfortunately some fans correlate chart success with song quality and will change their own opinion based on how the charts show the public to be reacting. Charts have absolutely nothing to do with quality. In fact charts more often have an inverse relation to quality.

It's only pop fans who give a **** about this because celebrity is so important to them. Rock and jazz fans measure an artist on their own merit and probably have no clue how their favorites show up on charts. They are fans of music not celebrity and don't have their egos ties up in how well certain Stan metrics are holding up for their fav.

Musicians with much less resource than Gaga put out great videos and releases. That whole argument is a red herring. The only reason "fans" obsess about charts is their own ego gratification. If you are a real fan your opinion doesn't change based on charts.

Be a hipster Gaga fan. Celebrate that she is unique and an individual and be ok with the fact that others may not get what she does. Feel sorry for those people and secure in your own opinion without needing chart validation.

[Rosalina 612]

It's not the fact that people are passionate about her chart success that I dislike, it's the fact that people use the charts as an indicator for the integrity of an artist. 

 

People keep pitting artists against each other based on how many #1s they've scored and how many albums they've sold, and it becomes a popularity contest. It's an unhealthy obsession that diminishes the value of real music and artistry; if you're not above everybody else, you're a 'flop', and being a flop isn't 'cool'.

 

Music is an art form, but 21st century pop music has become so commercialised - it's no longer a form of artistic expression; it's just a product. It's all about going to the club, or generic love and break up songs that have no real narrative or artistic flair - it's easy to understand, and it has to be, because if the GP doesn't understand the music, it's weird, and we all know that being weird soooo isn't cool. *cough*sarcasm*cough*

 

I honestly blame people like Simon Cowell and talent shows such as The X Factor and the Idol series for the demise of pop music, simply because it focuses on the artists themselves and not about music at all. All you have to do is be able to sing and look pretty, sing other people's songs well, and if you win, all you have to do is sing songs written for you by other people, and it automatically gets to number 1. 

 

I don't know about America, but in the U.K, every single winner of the X Factor had a #1 with their winning song, most of them being cheap cover versions. Only three out of 10 of The X Factor winners are still with the Syco label, and it's because of two scenarios. One, some of them started having more creative freedom due to their success, they started writing more complex material which didn't completely resonate with the GP, e.g Matt Cardle (arguably the only true artist to have won the show). Two, the fact that they were just completely awful artists anyway, and their exposure on the show was the only reason they made it big in the first place.

 

This is exactly what the ARTPOP movement is about: it's about making music both fun and having a true artistic experience, and driving out the commercialisation that has plagued pop music for the last ten years. 

[MAXX 275]

Because they think that they can manage her career, and normally want to be basic as hell just to sell

And also 'Music not the bling'

[GypsyDope 0]

because stan culture has been brainwashed into thinking that having a bunch of number ones will tangibly lead to money in the artist's hands. but thats not how it works, no artist sees immediate results from a chart position, look at rihanna, im sure she doesnt have as much of a net worth or touring pull as gaga, yet she has like twice the hit singles. 

 

and by the ****in way, gaga's music became successful off of its catchiness and its own merits, not because it went number 1, which a lot of her singles even didnt. bad romance was #2, edge of glory was #3, her songs didnt help her career through what number it was, it was because they resonated with pop culture. some even lower chart positioned singles still managed to widen her popularity. its the focus on THE number, THE position, that ONE moment, that's where the criticism is drawn, because its dehumanizing the experience and its training an entire generation of music listeners into devaluing a piece of work simply based on its chart number. 

edited

[aaronyoji 2,054]

Charts only reflect a certain reality of a songs commercial performance. Yet thanks to Stan culture many stans latch onto those numbers as being more important than anything. The most vexing are those that claim to like her music but then say she needs to change what she does in order to get more chart success. Those people care more about charts and looking good in Stan wars than they do about music and artistry.

Unfortunately some fans correlate chart success with song quality and will change their own opinion based on how the charts show the public to be reacting. Charts have absolutely nothing to do with quality. In fact charts more often have an inverse relation to quality.

It's only pop fans who give a **** about this because celebrity is so important to them. Rock and jazz fans measure an artist on their own merit and probably have no clue how their favorites show up on charts. They are fans of music not celebrity and don't have their egos ties up in how well certain Stan metrics are holding up for their fav.

Musicians with much less resource than Gaga put out great videos and releases. That whole argument is a red herring. The only reason "fans" obsess about charts is their own ego gratification. If you are a real fan your opinion doesn't change based on charts.

Be a hipster Gaga fan. Celebrate that she is unique and an individual and be ok with the fact that others may not get what she does. Feel sorry for those people and secure in your own opinion without needing chart validation.

YESSS this!!! people put so much emphasis on chart success thinking that it'll directly affect the artist's work and it won't. indie artists like bjork are no where near the charts at all, yet she has a networth in the millions range and puts out top of the line, high end concerts, music videos, APPS that actually change the game. its weird how everyone praises gaga's older work for being so d.i.y and resourceful, yet now people worry her work will be sub-par if it didnt have a giant budget. 

[Born To Slay 10,996]

......she reminds me of the decay of Britney.

MTE

And Britney is still around to this day

[nomorescheisse 0]

It's fine when people talk about what singles they think would be better or things like that, but when they call ARTPOP a "flop" just because she sold 2.3 million copies instead of 3 million copies or whatever, it gets really annoying.  It's SO OBNOXIOUS when people think they're funny with things like "ARTFLOP" or "Lady Flopga."  It's so incredibly stupid, like, it seems like some people on here are only fans if Gaga's #1 all the time.  Why should your fandom be contingent on her chart performance?  Don't these people care about the actual music or performances at all?  It just really bothers me and it turns Gaga into some commodity rather than an artist and a human being.

 

Edit: Not to mention a bunch of people on here think they, as high schoolers (typically), know better than Gaga's team, who have so much more experience than all of us combined in this industry.  I trust that Gaga's team know what they're doing (besides that whole DWUW fiasco, I'll give you that...)

[LaLuna 12,732]

Unfortunately, pop music is all about numbers and who will perform better on the charts and sell the most albums. But at the same time, record execs are partially responsible for this obsession with numbers because they only put out music that they think will sell and they hire writers and/or producers that they think are able to churn out #1 hits. In the end, it's all about money.

 

And it seems that this obsession with numbers has been passed on to fans in some way, because fans of pop music, for the most part, want their fave to be #1 at all times and there's always this competition between fan bases like "my fave outsold your fave therefore she's better and I win".

 

Don't get me wrong, I do want Gaga to be successful, she's worked so damn hard to get where she is now, it would just be sad to see her fade back into oblivion. But at the end of the day, while it's okay to care about how well Gaga's albums and singles do on the charts, the reason why we all love Gaga is because we love her music and personally, as long as she keeps making great music that I enjoy listening to, I won't stop being a fan because her album or single flopped.

[dy2light 31]

Are we all forgetting the tours and the revenue from that?? She gets MILLIONS of dollars from her touring (that's no hyperbole). Whether she ranks high on the charts is not so relevant at this point. It may have been relevant at first, but now she has a dedicated fanbase, immense name recognition, and rapidly-selling tours.. And just because she doesn't chart as high as some other artists sometimes doesn't mean she doesn't get attention and success. Her G.U.Y. music video definitely made the rounds. And let's not forget the sold-out Roseland shows. Oh, and what about SXSW? Yes, that was controversial, but once again, it showed that she is, in fact, present and doing her stuff. That conclusion was only confirmed with Roseland and G.U.Y.

 

THAT is why chart obsession (or passion, or whatever you want to call it) is criticized. It is simply unnecessary. It wastes people's time and energy. Gaga is so f*cking successful right now, and this current success is NOT based on chart performance.

It's fine when people talk about what singles they think would be better or things like that, but when they call ARTPOP a "flop" just because she sold 2.3 million copies instead of 3 million copies or whatever, it gets really annoying.  It's SO OBNOXIOUS when people think they're funny with things like "ARTFLOP" or "Lady Flopga."  It's so incredibly stupid, like, it seems like some people on here are only fans if Gaga's #1 all the time.  Why should your fandom be contingent on her chart performance?  Don't these people care about the actual music or performances at all?  It just really bothers me and it turns Gaga into some commodity rather than an artist and a human being.

 

Edit: Not to mention a bunch of people on here think they, as high schoolers (typically), know better than Gaga's team, who have so much more experience than all of us combined in this industry.  I trust that Gaga's team know what they're doing (besides that whole DWUW fiasco, I'll give you that...)

ALL OF THIS. spill that tea, gurl 

It's not the fact that people are passionate about her chart success that I dislike, it's the fact that people use the charts as an indicator for the integrity of an artist. 

 

People keep pitting artists against each other based on how many #1s they've scored and how many albums they've sold, and it becomes a popularity contest. It's an unhealthy obsession that diminishes the value of real music and artistry; if you're not above everybody else, you're a 'flop', and being a flop isn't 'cool'.

 

Music is an art form, but 21st century pop music has become so commercialised - it's no longer a form of artistic expression; it's just a product. It's all about going to the club, or generic love and break up songs that have no real narrative or artistic flair - it's easy to understand, and it has to be, because if the GP doesn't understand the music, it's weird, and we all know that being weird soooo isn't cool. *cough*sarcasm*cough*

 

I honestly blame people like Simon Cowell and talent shows such as The X Factor and the Idol series for the demise of pop music, simply because it focuses on the artists themselves and not about music at all. All you have to do is be able to sing and look pretty, sing other people's songs well, and if you win, all you have to do is sing songs written for you by other people, and it automatically gets to number 1. 

 

I don't know about America, but in the U.K, every single winner of the X Factor had a #1 with their winning song, most of them being cheap cover versions. Only three out of 10 of The X Factor winners are still with the Syco label, and it's because of two scenarios. One, some of them started having more creative freedom due to their success, they started writing more complex material which didn't completely resonate with the GP, e.g Matt Cardle (arguably the only true artist to have won the show). Two, the fact that they were just completely awful artists anyway, and their exposure on the show was the only reason they made it big in the first place.

 

This is exactly what the ARTPOP movement is about: it's about making music both fun and having a true artistic experience, and driving out the commercialisation that has plagued pop music for the last ten years. 

So much truth tea in this post 

[elsongalang 8]

Mygahd, there are tens of thousands of artists out there who can barely reached even just a state-level celebrity status! She's doing fine, it's the music god damn it AND NOT THE FIGURES! It's the music that we enjoy and not the numbers! And why do we complain? Instead of doing that then better move and help her get those numbers being craved for!