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Is the Christina Aguilera Version of “Do What U Want” Lady Gaga’s Attempt to Distance Herself From R. Kelly?

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The more I listen to pop music, the less I try to parse the songwriting. Not to be a rockist, but it’s difficult for me to find poignancy in a song written by a team of five to six songwriters, even when — as in the case of Lady Gaga’s “Do What U Want” — the themes are blunt and heavy-handed. Not that I paid much attention to any deeper meanings the first few times I heard the song. With the song’s pretty basic title and the collaboration with erotic-crooner R. Kelly, I wrote off the song as a catchy tune about sex, particularly sexual agency, underscored by the repeated line, “You can’t have my mind.” … Read More

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Music

Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga: A Tale of Two Pot Smokers

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Twenty-Year-Old American Woman Smokes Marijuana in Amsterdam. It doesn’t exactly sound like front-page news, but boy is the media going nuts over the fact that Miley Cyrus puffed on a joint during her performance at Sunday’s MTV Europe Music Awards. Here are some of the actual headlines: “What a Dope! Miley Cyrus Puffs Marijuana Onstage at MTV EMAs in Amsterdam”; “Miley Cyrus shocks yet again as she lets it all hang out and smokes ‘joint’ on stage at MTV Europe Music Awards”; “Pothead Miley Cyrus Lights Up Marijuana Joint Onstage.”  … Read More

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Music

‘ARTPOP’: Lady Gaga Reaches the Limits of Control Freak

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Do you remember what pop stars were like before Lady Gaga? It seems like a stupid question to ask just five years into her career, but her aesthetic and attitude spread so quickly upon her rise to fame that it’s easy to forget how different she was from most of her predecessors at the turn of the millennium. A meta-pop star whose career has been marked by carefully orchestrated spectacle, she ended an era when women in music were widely characterized as out of control. But in the past few years — and especially with the release of ARTPOP — Lady Gaga’s meticulous image policing has begun to get in the way of her music. … Read More

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Music

The Best Instagrams From Lady Gaga’s ArtRave

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No, we weren’t at Lady Gaga’s ArtRave thing last night, and neither were you. But hey, lots of smartphone-wielding little monsters were! Thanks to the wonders of the Internet (and, specifically, Instagram), you too can have the vicarious experience of watching Gaga perform songs from her new album, a record built around a radical fusion of art and popular culture that absolutely no one has ever done before, in a Brooklyn warehouse full of Jeff Koons sculptures. She lives for the applause, don’t you know? Anyway, click through and check out some pictures. … Read More

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Music

The 10 Albums You Need to Hear in November

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It’s getting toward the end of the year, which in the music industry means two things: big commercial releases and a precipitous drop-off in quality as the “festive” season draws closer. It’s not all bad, though. In amongst the stocking stuffers and superfluous best-ofs, there are still some quality releases, and as we do at the start of every month, we’ve pored over the release schedules to pick out ten of the… Read More

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Music

Lady Gaga Reveals ‘Artpop’ Tracklist, Premieres “Aura”

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Lady Gaga has released the tracklist to her hotly anticipated album Artpop, and the resulting titles aren’t incredibly surprising:

01.… Read More

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Music

Lady Gaga Is Better Off Without Jeff Koons

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“One second I’m a Koons/ Then suddenly the Koons is me.” So it shall be written, and so it shall be done — because, as you probably read yesterday, Jeff Koons has designed the cover for Lady Gaga’s new album ARTPOP. Plenty of people yesterday quoted the above lyric, which comes from the album’s lead single “Applause,” but it’s interesting to stop and think about why Gaga’s ongoing attempts at insinuating herself into the art world have led her to the door of the man famous for shooting underwhelming porn with his wife and making huge sculptures of metallic balloon dogs. … Read More

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Music

Best of Flavorwire: All Things Lady Gaga

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This week has been particularly heavy on Lady Gaga news and commentary, but Flavorwire has had its eye on the pop provocateur since she first broke out. We have pages upon pages about Lady Gaga stretching back to 2008, that thoroughly cover our reactions to the divisive star, ranging from excitement to confusion to fatigue, and more. So we thought it’d be interesting to dig through our archive of posts for our best commentary on the singer. Check them out and see why she’s held our attention for so long. … Read More

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Music

It Doesn’t Matter That Lady Gaga’s “Applause” Is Derivative; It Matters That It’s Awful

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Does it matter if Lady Gaga’s derivative? This debate has been going on ever since La Gaga first arrived on the scene, complete with an image carefully constructed from the detritus of performance art and queer culture, and the promotional budget to sell gazillions of records. It’s started up again after the release of the video for new single “Applause,” which, as with all of Gaga’s work, lifted imagery and aesthetics from a variety of sources. This morning saw the arrival of the “So what if Gaga is derivative?!” pieces, like this one in Slate. I submit that they’re answering the wrong question. … Read More

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