SHOW ME YOUR TEETH, or, reasons why Lady Gaga rocks... [Like a Can Opener in a Worm Factory]

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So yeah, this Lady Gaga thing. I'm a little bit obsessed. A lot of this is to do with my personl headspace - she articultes perfectly the unashamedly driven and assertive elements of my sexuality whose expression i have to be very careful of IRL atm. But quite apart from the fact that despite representing a musical genre i'd usually hate i find her work insanely catchy, ideologically i think she does a hell of a lot of good and important things for me and for feminine sexuality as a whole. Think about it. Yes, she's unashamedly sexual, but her songs are unashamedly and unapologetically about *her* desires and needs. In a world and a muical genre where female singers as sexualised as she are usually playing on the basic message 'look what i want to do for you,look how hot I am' her songs are all 'what can you offer me, this is what i want.' 'Show me your teeth', 'i like it rough', 'i'm a free bitch, baby'. And she has equally assertive and catchy songs about *not* wanting sex, or sexual contact, and not being objectified: 'i'm not your babe...don'twanna kiss, don't wanna touch,just smoke my cigarette and hurt...'
She's like the feminocentric equivalent of cockrock: those wonderful driving, rolling bass beats combined with the bright, defiant power of the keyboard/synth riffs. And it matters. It matter that not every song about women wanting sex keys into the objectification of women or their essential function as the servicers or recipients of male desire. It matter that there's music out there that says 'yes, i want it, and i want it onmy terms, are you good enough?' ('i don't want no paper gangsta, got the flavour and no followthrough' ' i want somebody just as bright, as fabulous...') instead of 'look at me, don't you want me?' It matters that she writes her own songs, ater having built a career writing other people's, and desins her own iconography (and as i'mlooking forward to

steerpikelet discussing, she is a paraody of celebrity culture.) It matters that she's openly bi and kinky because she's a 'free sexual woman' and defiantly in control of her own sexuality, even (especially) when it involves submission, or s&m. It matters that she's confident about her own appeal (i'll get him hot, show him what i've got') but understands not being ('she loves to dance in the dark, cos when he' slooking she falls apar' - will attach interview link here later when i've got time, she's beautifully perceptive about it.) It matters thatdespite all this he's popular and respected by both men and women. Hell, the lady just RULES. Again,

steerpikelet pointed out a rcaefail image that i can't find on a quick image search, so she might not be perfect - but for me, right now, she articulates a confidence in female sexuality, in *my* sexuality, that' very valuable indeed.

Music:: Lady Gaga

location: hurry

Mood::

impressed

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There are 31 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

Lady Gaga & Kanye West: Is this the racefail image you saw? I was reading some articles about it recently; can't remember where though...

Interesting food for thought about a different presentation of female sexuality. I particularly like this: "She's like the feminocentric equivalent of cockrock".

Thank you

*Muses*

*grin* hanks for reading. Anytime! :o)

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"She's like the feminocentric equivalent of cockrock".

I would also vote for < href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muBMf_p4S-4">this :-)

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One questions: what do you think of Peaches?

Dunno, don't know her.But tbh, that's raher the point -not just that Lady G does this stuff but she does it out there in the mainstream. Teenage girls liste to this uff, tweenage girls listen to this stuff, and middle-aged men get it too. She' convertig people who usually hate maitream pop - me for one. And hell, thatcounts for something.

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Peaches is where Gaga gets a lot of her best moves. Check out her 2001 track "Rock Show", which states very blatantly what you've said above. She's also done duets with people as diverse as Pink ("Try This"), Iggy Pop ("Kick It", in a truly awesome zombie-thwacking video) and Shunda K from Yo Majesty. Plus, there are the outfits. Oh, the outfits! I don't think I even need to start on her reclamation of female sexuality, queer identity, public kink, etc. Her site is limited but pretty.

That's not a criticism of Gaga, btw. I think she's amazing at applying a pop sensibility to some complex ideas, and I think some of her stuff is frankly amazing, not to mention her thrilling visual aesthetic. But I don't think any of these ideas are new to "mainstream pop" (Beyonce & the Sugababes about 7 years ago are good examples, off the top of my head), and I personally feel it's a mistake to regard Gaga's stuff as especially envelope-pushing. She's in a grand and worthy tradition of female pop artists who use a combination of inventive image and great music to subvert received ideas about the female performance (cf also Madonna, Britney, etc).

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Oh, and you may also like Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

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(I recommended that partly cos I think you might like them, and also as an example of the difficulty of defining the musical mainstream. Are you still an obscure hipster band when your music is featured on ads, film soundtracks and in 'Gossip Girl'?)

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yEAH YEAH YEAHS I KNOW, but it's not about sex in the same way, and yay peaches, but point still holds. i disagree about Britney, Sugababes, et, if their songs played in te gym are anything to go by. sorry, can't write more, firefox is fucked. Much more objectifying.

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really am sorry,just nothing will stay open long enough to finish setence

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I'm sure it'll keep! :-)

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I'm not sure I understand your point, in that case. What aspect of sex in pop music do you think is being examined in a previously unexplored fashion, manner or depth?

If the only songs you've heard are in the gym, you may only have a pretty limited palette for comparison. I don't know what gym you go to, or their music policy.

(PS A. asks if something is leaning on or otherwise affecting the F4 key of your keyboard?)

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Lady G writes her own suff, for her self, about her own desires. She designs her own outfits, icongography, arwork. Wtbwiw, the same is not true of the sugababes! Apart from anything else,lady G used to write for them! I did wonder about xtina aguilera, bu ui dunno much o her stuf.

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ARRRGHH THIS IS ABSURD. SO ORRY LOVE. A: NO, ALAS. RRGHHH

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Oh boo, don't get stressed :-( Sorry the F4 fix didn't work, I'm sure FF will be better tomorrow.

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Is writing one's own music (which Peaches does, frex) in itself a meaningful analysis here? I'm not sure I get the difference in abstract, only in terms of artistic control. Why is an artist who gets someone to write their lyrics fundamentally different from an artist who gets someone to play bass for them? They're both contributing here. Britney, for example, has commissioned writers to produce some pretty explicit stuff about her own life (or is it? Is stuff like "Toy Soldier", or "Piece Of Me" just part of the image? And if so, what do we make of her cover of "My Prerogative"?) - is this any more superficial than any other joint musical venture? Can only singer-songwriters truly express their feelings through the medium of music?

(On the writing point, Cathy Dennis is a well-known writer of v successful pop songs, and was briefly a very small pop star herself. Does being the writer make her the performer, or is Kylie or Britney the performer? Or is it a gestalt?)

The Sugababes are a good example in terms of what constitutes originality in pop when someone else is involved, considering what a hit "Freak Like Me" was for them. Gary Numan reckoned he loved it, which is hardly surprising as he must have made a few quid out of it!

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I just hae considerably more respect for pop as an art form when it's an authentic expression of an individual vision raher than a staged process where those responsible for the creationof a particular track or melody or lyrics aren't the ones who perform, usually because they have the wrong image,or whatever. Performane is interpretation, but a cover of a song already in the public eye, sometimes with the creator's consent, is different from he manufactured pop of a fw overtanned young celebrity wannabes being fed someoe else's creations because they look the part. And there's something that comes from life and professional experience even in covering a song - take the contrast between, say, ld lang's hallelujah and alexandra x-factor's. (I mean, what the hell was that about? she had a good voicem but no creative or interpretive spark at all, and it was just a pointless exercise.) Manufactured pop is just a travesty of something that can be real and meaingful and true, and for all that LG uses the tropes of manufactured pop, she uses her own ability to manifest contemporary expectations, celebrity archetypes, to undermine heir usual anodyne meanings. Which is why I thinkshe manages to do something that Peaches, however awesome, doesn't - because she's outside the contemporary body ideals,behaviour types, etc, she stands in opposition to the culture that imposes them, whereas Gaa can bring them down rom he inside, so to speak. Gaga ewmbodies them, and uses her abilty to do so to subvert them. And it's true that she worked her way up on pure talent and determination, she didn't just look good and get somebody else's songs handed to her on a plate, and i *respect* that. More than i would if she was a model that fell into singing by accident. She's clever and she's got her own ideas...

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I just hae considerably more respect for pop as an art form when it's an authentic expression of an individual vision raher than a staged process where those responsible for the creationof a particular track or melody or lyrics aren't the ones who perform, usually because they have the wrong image,or whatever.

Why? People have been covering each other's work since time immemorial. The notion of "authenticity" in art is as bizarre as the notion of "purity" - cf the book "Faking It", which analyses this particular obsession and reveals the confusion underlying it.

I suspect we're coming at this from very different perspectives. For me, the idea of authenticity in popular music sets up an artificial binary system in which one category of performers is lauded and the other attacked, on the basis of external factors agreed by the self-appointed group of taste-makers (it's no coincidence that these modes of discourse often crystallise around particular points of gender, race & class, either - DEFINITELY read "The Sex Revolts" for more about this). Not only that, but our notions about what fits in what category shifts as tastes do (see, for example, opinions about sampling or rapping in the 1980s from Proper Rock Critics), but there always has to be an "out" group. A hell of a lot of these ideas have been applied downwards from those who see themselves as the victors of musical history, or are damn bitter because they think they should be, since they're supporting "real" music, not "manufactured crap".

If you haven't read much about the frequently heated debates on Rockism, then I definitely recommend doing so. It's very interesting (oh, and while I loathe Paul Morley, his linked article is worth a butchers).

As to the possibility of getting at culture from the inside, fifth-column style, I'm not really sure about the usefulness of that. It's certainly a concept punk laughed at, and it's no coincidence that Guy Debord was an inspiration there. Now, it's reasonable to argue that Gaga represents that kind of constructed situation he suggests, a radical construction which brings about change through its presentation to its spectators, but I'm not so sure. I've never really believed in his solution (I think the Spectacle is far too ingrained to be that easily disrupted), not least because mass capitalism has been co-opting radical artistic gestures for centuries, and getting better at it all the time. And if I did believe in Debord's solutions, I still wouldn't believe Gaga represented a sufficiently rupturing presence to make any of that happen - she's good, but she ain't that good, and she IS essentially working within an established framework.

Now, that's not to say I don't like her, because I do. But my criteria for liking music come down to "Do I enjoy this?", not "Do I think this is Good Music?". Levels of authenticity are an unhelpful distraction to me, a Manichean "them v us" set-up which actively spoils enjoyment (FWIW, I don't like either version of "Hallelujah", but then I'm not massively fond of the original either. I generally like Leonard Cohen a lot, though).

Damn, I really must get you to read Chuck Eddy, don't know if you'd like him but he can be highly distracting.

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Hm.

Where would a band like the Manic Street Preachers fall on the spectrum of authenticity?

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Further:

Relevant extract from Sanneh's very famous 2004 article about rockism...

But as more than one online ranter has discovered, it's easier to complain about rockism than it is to get rid of it. You literally can't fight rockism, because the language of righteous struggle is the language of rockism itself. You can argue that the shape-shifting feminist hip-pop of Ms. Aguilera is every bit as radical as the punk rock of the 1970's (and it is), but then you haven't challenged any of the old rockist questions (starting with: Who's more radical?), you've just scribbled in some new answers.

Pertinent?

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I'mnot sure quite what you mean by 'rockism', i'll read and get back to you. But the authenticity thing - it's because i am, instnctively,moved by people expressing their emotions. That simple. hat's why i obsess about bandls like Pulp and Placebo who manage to emote and analyse simultaneously. And if what perfrmer/s express is a series of dance moves set to a track constructed by someone else, they're not doing that. Covering a song, often, they are, and often commenting on contemporary culture as well - the travis britney covers, f'rinstance, or even some of the amateur covers on youtube, feel real because there's obvious feeling there and enagement with the song, not simply an attempt to make money (this is particularly true in the case of amateur covers).

But as you say, it's not about theory, for me, it's about 'do i like this, does it speak to me?' and Gaga does, for reasons outlined above. And hell, she's been thinking about and creaig and writing in the genre she creates since she was about 14 - she cares passionately about it, and about those who supported her, and i respect that. And it's a positive relief in the gym when one of her videos comes on,becaue despite the endless parade of body types akin to hers, she uses her incredibly OTT styling combined with genuinely good - catchy, emotive, driving - songs to draw attention to the artificiality of such constructions, and i think that's very useful. (plus, she's not that thin!) She's obviously bright, engaged with what she does and her own representation, and enjoying it, and i enjoy that.

get me to read things. Yes! x

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I think it's a mistake to suggest that performing "series of dance moves set to a track constructed by someone else" is not about expressing emotion. I find dancing quite an emotional activity, myself.

Why is making money any less "real" a purpose for art? It's madness to suggest that music-making isn't inextricably part of the activity of mass capitalism. Hell, isn't it this PRECISE intersection which motivated the ultimate pop critique/capitulation in "Skank Bloc Bologna"? And that was 30+ years ago.

Oh yeah, speaking of which: sorry to recommend more Simon Reynolds but srsly, read read read 'Rip It Up And Start Again', which you can get in Fopp for about 3 quid now. You CANNOT go wrong, even though Reynolds is quite infuriating, with this as a primer for thinking about the intersection of music and politics in the morass of uncertainty after punk's swaggering Year Zero. This stuff is all in there.

Also, the work of Jon Savage is really instructional. 'England's Dreaming', his book about punk, is fucking MASSIVE. I read it when I was 17, I think, or maybe just 18, and it changed the way I thought about music. He's also written another huge tome about the construction of "the teenager" from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries, which I've only read a little of but it lovely.

You definitely, definitely need to read up around rockism, because this really is one of those huge defining conversations of the last couple of decades, and especially the last few years, and this conversation is all about the analytical techniques of rockism. It's hugely instructional in many ways, even if rockism, like essentialism, is something very few people will admit to. I was very pleased when a friend told me the word about 6 years ago, because I was overjoyed to have a simple explanation for the collection of Things Which Pissed Me Off about people's attitudes to music - and believe me, the goth scenes I've known have been chock-full of rockism.

I must get you and

plumsbitch talking about this at some point but, as I said, I've very happy to rant about this more over tea and cake :-)

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:oP ys. i will STOP RAING AT YOU ONLIE ad we'll do it in person sometime, dammit.But ooh, daning as emoional? Dancing is one of the very few placess i go to get away from my thinking, feeling, aalytical self (and yes, they're all in a bundle for me, i don't feel without consciously leting it drive me, etc.) But it's likew rough sex and exercise - one of very, very few sanctuaries from emotion. My body runs it and i lose myself, and that's precious.

Just Dance, in fact. Hmm. ;oP xxx

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Hey, I'm not saying it's that way for everyone, but it definitely is for some people.

I am totes happy to discuss this online, but I think it's a lot harder to be nuanced and talk about all the various dimensions of STUFF. Do read the linked article, and prob the Morley one on the Wikipedia entry, they're a useful starting point.

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Christina Aguilera did do "Dirrty" in 2003 and she's worked with other very sex-positive artists like Lil Kim, such as on "Lady Marmalade" (now there's a complex sex song, which has many comflicting themes of power and objectification, and that's what, 35 years old?). Also, I'd argue "Genie In A Bottle" was very much about sex on her terms, and that's a decade old now.

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updated reply; BEYOND AWESOME! :OD ;OD

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Oh, I'm glad you've been enjoying. BTW, conversation has been reminding me of this: P J Harvey's '50 Foot Queenie'

An explicit reclaiming of male space!

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Also:

Slate article from early December which talks about Gaga, which I thought you might like.

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You make a very convincing argument for the cockrock noisy sex-positivity stuff, and consider me convinced! :)

But: the disability fail stuff is quite argh. There's lots in her act that seems to be massively bombastic and attention-grabbing, *and of course fair enough because she's a performer and it's her prerogative and it's about time*, *but*, this isn't an appropriate way to get headlines, I think.

http://cripwheels.blogspot.com/2009/09/lady-gaga-and-wheelchair.html

In addition (ie. not excusing the disability fail - I'm less well-versed in the racefail btw) of course she's going to get the media leaping on her *whatever* she does. And the noisy sex-positivity is worth cheering and getting behind, as is the radical headline-grabbing (where it doesn't fail).

'If you're a pop star and you're a woman then it's much more likely that people will say your art sucks...'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dxDREaCyjE

I'm not well-versed in any of the various fails, but I found the racefail article I read recently, which you might find interesting:

http://www.racialicious.com/2009/12/22/die-already-king-kong-racism-lady-gaga-edition/

I'm with you on the yay for noisy sex-positivity. :)

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you write very well.

November