Music in the 21st Century Was Accused

Music in the 21st century was accused of being increasingly derivative and irrelevant. Interest in individual performers, in the era of iTunes, was being relegated to the sidelines as teens assembled their own 'mixes' rather than sought to embrace the output of an individual artist. It was said that the era of the great soloist and the great musical concept album was dead. With her first album The Fame in 2008, Lady Gaga changed all of that and silenced the industry's critics. Yes, she is frequently outrageous and provokes controversy for her attire as well as her voice. But underneath all of the glam and glitter, Lady Gaga has proved that she a unique mix of vocal talent, showmanship, and social activism. She has also generated a huge following on Facebook and Twitter. Lady Gaga's fans do not simply download "Poker Face," "Telephone" and "Born this Way" online. They love Gaga, and follow her every word and move. She calls them her 'little monsters' -- her code name for people who are unafraid to be different and weird, as she says she was in high school.

Lady Gaga's meteoric rise to fame illustrates the American dream: if you work hard, regardless of your background, you can still succeed if you have talent and tap into the unmet needs of the listening public. She began as an ordinary 'club kid' named Stefani Germanotta attending the Tisch School of Performing Arts at New York University. She had no particular connections to the recording industry. However, she fused her academic studies of the idea of 'performing' femininity. She adopted and exaggerated the styles of old Hollywood starlets -- and drag queens. Although Lady Gaga was a young woman, she set out to become a drag queen herself -- a larger-than-life figure who was 'Gaga,' not merely the ordinary, suburban teen role she was born into but chafed against. Lady Gaga found confidence creating a new identity, but in doing so, she 'found herself.' "When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl...Then I say, 'Bitch, you're Lady Gaga, you get up and walk the walk today'" ("Lady Gaga tells all," Rolling Stone, 2010).

Lady Gaga works tirelessly at her efforts: "I write music every day" she says ("Lady Gaga tells all," Rolling Stone, 2010). "When I'm not working, I go crazy" ("The Rise of Lady Gaga," Rolling Stone, 2009). Although it has been said that there are no second acts in American life, before becoming 'Gaga,' Lady Gaga was bottoming out -- she was addicted to drugs and had dropped out of school. Her health was not good -- lupus runs in her family -- and at a relatively young age she lost hope. But through music and performing she reinvented herself. As well as being danceable, her music offers an aggressively postmodern intellectual critique of the role of women modern-day society. Her music "pays blatant homage to ABBA, Queen, Eurodisco and Marilyn Manson. Gaga doesn't care. She wants you to trace her references. 'John Lennon talked about how with every song he wrote, he was thinking of another artist,'" she said, making a less expected connection to a pop deity" (Powers 2009). She is "a monster talent, that is, with a serious brain" that reflects a deconstructionist sensibility (Powers 2009). She uses pastiche and parody, but in an intelligent and ironic fashion.

Gaga wants her music to 'mean something' -- mean something in how it strikes a blow against women's subjugation to men and homophobia. Yet is musical and tuneful enough to be played nearly non-stop on contemporary radio. One of her first hits "Let's Dance" relates a woman going from club to club, getting tipsy on wine, and not caring about seeming like a 'nice girl.' "Poker Face" takes a cool and dismissive attitude towards loving a man. "After he's been hooked, I'll play the one that's on his heart," she sings. The song was also said to reference the singer's bisexuality.

Even when songs like "Paparazzi" speak of obsessive love, irony rather than sincerity is always the dominant mood. "Paparazzi" compares the singer's love to a superficial stalker of a celebrity, rather than celebrates desire. But perhaps the most radical role reversal of all of Gaga's songs is featured in "Telephone." The song's lyrics tell of a bored woman, annoyed by pestering calls of a lover who will not leave her alone as she drinks and dances (presumably with someone else) in a club. The video is far more outrageous, portraying Gaga and Beyonce going on a killing spree, Thelma-and-Louise-style, after being angered by a leering man in a diner. However, the lyrics are in their own way just as radical, given the conventional image in song of the woman waiting by the phone, praying that the man will call her soon.

Gaga's activism has linked her strongly with gay rights, which she celebrated in "Born this Way," encouraging all of her listeners to be themselves, regardless of what society tells them is wrong or right. She also has dressed in drag, including wearing a tie while speaking on behalf of same-sex marriage rights. Through her success and her willingness to be 'on the edge,' Gaga hopes to inspire others. "When I say to you, there is nobody like me, and there never was, that is a statement I want every woman to feel and make about themselves...I don't make it as a defense...I know my greatness is individual. And I want every woman to be able to say that" (Powers 2009).

Gaga's persona is highly sexualized. Yet "her new songs address serious themes like women's shame about their bodies and the need for open communication in relationships; her often physically distorting costumes show that the pursuit of the feminine ideal is far from natural" (Powers 2009). Until Gaga, much of the trend was creating sleek, Botox-ed bodies that looked anything but natural. Gaga emphasized the unreality of the music machine and its creation of starlets, rather than concealed it with smoke and mirrors. She is the first mainstream female artist to suggest the constructed nature of modern femininity by proclaiming herself a drag queen, and suggesting that to some extent all female attire is drag.

Gaga's costumes, which she designs herself, are designed to underline the constructed nature of femininity. They are harsh and alienating, like her meat dress, which suggests that all women are to some degree 'meat' in the public eye. Regardless of whether one agrees with her use of the meat dress, it was one of a long series of shocking fashion displays that aim not to create a beautiful feminine body, but aim to show how strange and harsh the methods of creating a feminine silhouette may be, from sky-high shoes to pointed brassieres. Gaga says that she loves fashion, but her clothes act as a kind of mockery of the attempts of female stars and singers to look conventionally beautiful through equally painful but obvious means.