Lady Gaga: Whore of Babylon

Hey kids!

After his wife started getting bunches of flowers and hams of condolence in the mail, American author Mark Twain (one part Colonel Sanders, two parts Straight Oscar Wilde, no parts Shania) famously told a newspaper "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." When Alfred Nobel, French dynamite-inventor and arms-manufacturer, read his own prehumous obituary claiming that  "The merchant of death is dead", he was so upset that he started the Nobel Prize, hoping to leave a legacy that made someone other than the Mythbusters happy. John Partridge, a shoemaker turned astrologer with half the style of John Edwards and all the credibility, had a prediction of his death published by satirist Jonathon Swift, followed by an obituary a few months later. When Partridge tried to convince everyone that he was actually still, you know, alive, nobody believed him. You'd think he would have seen it coming.

A little-known fact about Mark Twain is that his moustache outlived him by six years, becoming a vice-treasurer for the American Baseball Negro League until it's death at the battle of the Somme.

Similalalalalarly, I've heard some our morbid-minded blog family muttering that D.I.D a Mess is as dead as house-flattened witch, and that we should quickly take our ruby slippers and click our heels back to Facebook before some little bitch comes along, steals them and starts gallivanting about in technicolour glory. Well I say, NO! This blog is still extraordinarily healthy, my pretties, and I'll get you and your little dogs too if you say a word otherwise. What? You think I'm turning into some kind of ridiculous blog tyrant? Your lack of faith disturbs me. There is only power, and those too weak to seek it. The struggle for world domination will be fought entirely between us, between Germans and Jews. ...Actually, ignore that last one.

(By the way Crucible Tongs, sorry, I'm joking, I'd never challenge your Freudian Floydian Blog dictatorship.)

Seriously though, this blog is still going strong. We had 9 posts last month, which is still heaps more than most blogs I know, and I think we're getting the variety right. I maintain that it won't be dead until no-one had posted for two months. But if there actually is anyone who does read this, we'd get all inspiredy if you dropped us a comment, even if it's just vicious abuse! What do you prefer? Pictures? Pithy? Profound? Informative? (ewww damacus, stop trying to vomit half-chewed wikipedia trivia into our collective lap.) Please disagree with us, or agree with us, or not care. WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO GET YOUR ATTENTION?!  Dress up in nine foot avatar suits and start having tail-sex? Personally murder Ray Comfort and hide his banana-smeared cadaver under your bed? Stuff coke cans in our hair and whore ourselves to the music industry?

And so we come, as we inevitably must, to the tenuous segue.

I hate Lady Gaga.

I know this is a controversial topic, and I am very much in the minority. Just the other day I had a very inebriated argument about this that nearly came to blood. I can hear the sharpening of stakes as I type, and the stuffing of mop-headed me effigies all ready for burning. I wouldn't be surprised if some deranged Gaga fanatic is planning to blow up the Danish Embassy right now because of my blasphemy.

Lady Gaga, aka Stefani Germanotta, has become incredibly popular over the last year for her own personal brand of weirdly-dressed neo-Madonna pap. Even the normally cynical seem to have a soft spot for the self-proclaimed cultural icon. Gushing journalists and the blogotariat, desperate for something that even slightly resembles a generation-defining figure also seem to go ludicrously gaga over the lady. (Bet you haven't read that pun before!) They read a lot more into pseudo-postmodernism and vain posing than is really there, just because she looks a little bit different. For example, an online reporter claimed:

"Her lyrics were symbolic of both the feminine mystique and female empowerment."

...Really? We're talking about the same woman who has said in interviews:

''I think it's great to be a sexy, beautiful woman who can f--- her man after she makes him dinner. There's a stigma around feminism that's a little bit man-hating."

...and...

"I'm not a feminist - I, I hail men, I love men."

"I hail men".... If that's what passes for feminism in the 21st century, then Germaine Greer is audibly rolling in her grave. Yes, I know that line is a little bit dodgy – technically she sleeps in a crypt. But either way, Gaga's ridiculous persona is little more than burlesque attention-seeking coupled with a bloated sense self-importance; I remember seeing her on an interview on Rove where she was devoid of humour and acted like... an arrogant, standoffish 23 year old in a stupid dress. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to move into a self-indulgent tirade about What's Wrong With Modern Music.

A 16th century Russian engraving of the Whore of Babylon

Germanotta's shows and film clips, all of which can be seen on youtube, offer the same extravagant mega-budget over-choreographed ridiculousness of Britney Spears at her worst, coupled with the same vacuous glibness. What is it with these people and feeling that they can't go anywhere without being escorted by a dozen oiled up dancers wearing matching rhinestone codpieces? Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, J Lo, Ke(dollar sine)ha and so many others... why does being blond, connected, somewhat attractive and having a modicum of talent guarantee you a spot on the global charts as long as you have a big-league manager with enough computer equipment to make it sound as if you can sing? That's not to mention the thousands of ultra-repetitive, lyrically idiotic, musically cretinous, misogynistic mass-produced pieces of nightclub fodder (Damn! Your a sexy bitch) that litter our radio airwaves. How do the most agonisingly inane strands of MTV spawn often manage to proliferate so cancerously? How does that song that you hate on the radio contribute in any way to the culture, ideas, philanthropy, the environment, the economy, inspiration or the betterment of humankind? Every time you listen to a Gaga song, you're emptying a watermelon cruiser into the crystal well of human achievement.

That's just your personal taste, Damacus, stop being such a snob. Well a few points there. Firstly, though tastes are mostly personal, judgment isn't exclusively subjective: we can agree with a fair bit of certainty that Shakespeare is better than Stephanie Myer, and Van Gogh isn't just as artistically significant as a five year old's doodlings. A few drug-addled disco-fiends might love Xanadu, but that doesn't mean that's it good. But even if judging something on it's artistic or literary merits isn't entirely a personal thing, then surely entertainment value is? Well, kind of. If we had equal access to various music, then how much you enjoy dancing to it is perfectly valid. But when we are constantly blasted with a certain song through tv, radio, the internet and venues, a degree of pack mentality, and sheer exposure, means that more often and not we will be forced to warm to it and the song proliferates. Often we only enjoy certain songs because media and corporations  have decided that they want us too, and we don't really have a choice. I've happily danced to Tik Tok enough times to know that that's well and truly the case.

Back to her so-called ladyship. I'll give her credit, at least for writing her own lyrics, but I'm not gonna give her credit for writing good lyrics. If you actually look at them, the words in Gaga's songs are trite, mega-repetitive (In a single song, there are 19 uses of the word 'telephone', and one use of the word *shudder* "burb") and full of truly awful innuendos.

"Cause I'm bluffin' with my muffin

I'm not lying I'm just stunnin' with my love-glue-gunning"

...Muffin? Glue-Gun? It's like a crap porn script written by the cast of Better Homes & Gardens.

With that, I leave you. Toodles.