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Re: Lady GaGa Thread
And here it is...
Born This Way
1. Marry The Night
--- Seems here GaGa is channeling Private Dancer-era Tina Turner. Very mid-80's. Not bad, a grower. Kind of comes across as 'stock' in areas.
2. Born This Way
--- In hind-sight this is looking like her Fame/Fame Monster-rival big gun. Gotta admit it's catchy as hell. I think the gay anthem-aspect is a bit too obvious tho, leaving the lyrics a bit predictable.
3. Government Hooker
--- Absolutely fucking terrible song. Just an absolute mess. No real melody, no real chorus. No real focus. I guess she's trying to do Ministry-lite.
4. Judas
--- Just as mediocre as I remember when it first dropped. On second listen, it sounds like such a mess of ideas. The melody doesn't even match the energy of the song. It almost sounds thrown on there.
5. Americano
--- Song seems to be her Queen "Mustapha" moment. I wasn't really a fan of that one either. The song lacks a backbone and focus.
6. Hair
--- Finally after a rough start, GaGa finds her feet something akin to her debut. Catchy as hell, extremely memorable. Love everything about it, and the smooth jazz horns. Best cut on the album so far.
7. SchieBe
--- Sieg heil. LMAO, seriously I have no clue if she even knew what she was doing here. Comes across as experimentation, but it's a total late-era Madonna-inspired clusterfuck.
8. Bloody Mary
--- Has a really groovy start, a foot tapper. Definitely a grower. Offputting at first, but the melody sticks in your head. Has that psychedelic pop feel of Depeche Mode, INXS, and The Cure. This is the first thing GOOD AND DIFFERENT she's done in comparison to her original albums.
***Black Jesus + Amen Fashion
--- Why was this held over for the SE? This is total Fame stuff. Great melody, memorable. Why give the other crap more of a spotlight? Great song, total misstep on her part not promoting it.
9. Bad Kids
--- I think she originally envisioned this as her "Youth Gone Wild", but something went amiss. Intro starts off like a rocker, then just kicks into generic pop filler. Very late-80's pop, channels one-hit stuff like Stacey Q.
***Fashion of His Love
--- Hmm, she goes for a Bangles & 80's Whitney Houston-sound here with more melody. Has some Stacey Q "Two of Hearts" techniques throughout. Not bad, a bit of plagarism. Decent B-side.
10. Highway Unicorn (Road To Love)
--- The same recycled beats & protools tricks are starting to get a bit old. Melody is nice, but really lacks the memorable quality of her finer tracks similar to this. The rest is just filler. B-side.
11. Heavy Metal Lover
--- Has absolutely nothing to do with the title. This is an experimental attempt at ambient rock. I give her kudos for trying. If you dig Moby, you'll like this. Otherwise, steer clear.
12. Electric Chapel
--- Love the intro, a bit more rockin', with guitars and Axl CD orchestras. Sounds like Turbo-era Priest or Sin-era Ozzy with a much lighter effect. A more successful attempt at ambient rock, with a metal edge. Probably one of the best tracks on the album
***The Queen
--- Intro sounds alot like a revisioning of "Las Palabras De Amor (The Words of Love" by Queen. The song even mentiones a 'Killer Queen'. It then goes into being a standard dance number. Has a bit of an Adam Lambert-feel. The second half of the song goes total Queen. Tempo slows greatly and goes into a Brian May-like solo all the way to the finish. This a stronger track that should been featured in the regular tracklist.
13. You and I
--- GaGa does a country ballad? What the hell. And the scary thing? It's actually pretty damn good. Also samples Brian May's guitar work in "We Will Rock You". Nice touch.
14. The Edge of Glory
--- Like Born This Way, The Edge of Glory in hind sight is one of her big guns on this album. Catchy as hell, very similar to her debut. Melody reminds me of KISS' "Tomorrow". One of the highlights of the album. Very SAXUAL! "I Still Believe!" xoxo
*** - Special Edition tracks not on regular release
Overall - 2.5/5 - Fairly Good. Okay I gave Born This Way an average rating. Why? Because this thing is a collasal mixed bag. Totally hit and miss, when it hits, she's amazing, when it misses, it's terrible. One of her HUGE Velvet Revolver Libertad moments is the fact that her Special Edition extra songs on 'Disc 1' are better than almost all of her B-sides on the album. Those three tracks are not only NOT B-sides, they're potential singles, toiling in obscurity off the main release. She could've easily trimmed the fat on the album, and threw those tracks on it and tightened it up. Which brings me to my second point - the album is TOO LONG. Maybe with The Fame combined with The Fame Monster, she could've pulled this off, but the material just isn't strong enough to go a 14 tracks, let alone a full-blown 17 tracks on the SE. There's TONS AND TONS of fat on this album that could be trimmed and saved for iTunes re-releases.
I will say the album goes a bit "White Album" (that term is overused today). At times she sticks with her tried and true dance routine, so much that it comes across as stale in places. Yet when she tries to branch out and do something out of her mold, it can be a mixed bag with only "Electric Chapel" and "You and I" really shocking you.
Born This Way definitely shows even more movement on her part to be considered more of a rocker rather than clubber. Once again, there's nothing really new or groundbreaking here. She borrows elements from the past, but all the RIGHT ones, to put together her own homage and it still works, just like The Fame.
However the extended-length (for no real reason), and the largely hit and miss of the songs, leaves it feeling like it's missing something, and certaintly doesn't compare to The Fame alone, and certaintly not if you combine The Fame and it's follow-up EP.
She also seems to borrow so much that if you're familiar with the stuff she's borrowing, it can be a bit distracting, and seemingly lazy on her part. As far as i'm concerned, the "Tonight yeah baby" parts on The Edge of Glory is a complete lift of the "We're gonna fall in love" parts on KISS' "Tomorrow" from their Unmasked album in 1980.
The songs just aren't near that memorable here. The choruses don't get stuck in your head in the same manner as the last two albums, with maybe the sole exception of Born This Way (I now know why it was the first single, and the title of the album).
My personal custom mix would be something like...
1. Marry The Night
2. Born This Way
3. Hair
4. Bloody Mary
5. Black Jesus + Amen Fashion
6. Fashion of His Love
7. Heavy Metal Lover
8. Electric Chapel
9. The Queen
10. You and I
11. The Edge of Glory
THAT should've been the album.
Re: Lady GaGa Thread
http://www.undercover.fm/news/15037-lad … econd-week
Lady Gaga Sales Drop 85% In Second Week
By Paul Cashmere
Wed, 08 Jun 2011
Lady Gaga ‘Born This Way’ sales have dropped 85% in the second week but even then it sold more than any other album in the USA.
Hitsdailydouble.com states that week 2 sales were 169,387, or around 850,000 less than the previous 1.1 million sales week the week before.
The big debuts this week come from Death Cab For Cutie, Eddie Vedder and My Morning Jacket.
Death Cab For Cutie ‘Codes and Keys’ will debut at no. 3 with 100,000 sales. Eddie Vedder ‘Ukulele Songs’ will come it at 4 with 68,000 sales and My Morning Jacket ‘Circuital’ will debut at 6 with 50,000 sales.
Flogging Molly ‘Speed of Darkness’ is also expected to debut in the Top 10 with sales around 27,000.
It's a quiet week for new music on the chart. Also expected in the top 50 for the first time this week are albums by Black Stone Cherry, Trin-I-Tee 5:7 and the Dave Matthews Band.
Re: Lady GaGa Thread
WHOA, damn.
Looks like word of mouth is spreading. I'm telling you, I haven't ran into anyone with a good word to say about it.
This thing was wildly anticipated, but as soon Judas hit and that was supposed to be a "big un", people ranked it up to suck, and bailed.
The sad thing for her, is GaGa's deeper cuts on Born This Way are FAR FAR FAR better than her singles. Hell the SE-exclusive songs are some of the best stuff to come out of these sessions, and yet she makes them SE-exclusive, huh?
The problem for GaGa is the typical GaGa fan is NOT a deep-album cut type of fan. They're a singles fan.
So there are good songs on there that will go largely ignored, because her own fanbase are largely composed of bandwagoners.
jmho
Re: Lady GaGa Thread
In her defense, I remember seeing a youtube video of her in concert about a year ago now where she sat down at the piano and played a "new" song. I'm pretty sure it was "You and I". And before she played it she said that she was going to play it because she loved the song and thought her fans would too, even though the record company would never allow her to release it as a single. Or something along those lines at least. Which just proves what we already knew, record companies don't always make the right choices. Because if Lady Gaga was calling the shots, it seems she would've gone with "You and I" and maybe things would've been a little different.
Although, over a million albums sold in the first week. You can't complain about that too much, especially in this day and age.
Found it here. The audio isn't great, but you can here her explain at the beginning. I do remember liking this song instantly though. Should definitely be a single.
Re: Lady GaGa Thread
You and I is the best song left that has a cross-appeal potential to bring the album back, unless she wants to tap the material on the SE, OR re-arrange the tracklist and wait and re-release the album later with different singles.
Imo they could easily pimp You and I out to a modern country audience, even though GaGa isn't really their thing.
Re: Lady GaGa Thread
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/ … gamania-2/
GagaMania
Or lack thereof.
The sales figures are in. Adele beat out Lady Gaga. At least by the "Hits" numbers. 113,000 and change to 105,000 and change. (One can ask why the SoundScan and "Hits" numbers are so similar and SoundScan charges so much for theirs but…)
So what do we want to say here? That sales don’t matter?
Sales are only one piece of the puzzle.
But if you play the Top Forty game you live and die by airplay and sales numbers and in both those spheres, Lady Gaga is anemic.
Now if Gaga is going to launch a new career, something based on fame more than music, she’s got a great launching pad. Everybody knows her, if not her music (yes, today you can have a number one hit and still be unknown to many…)
But Gaga broke the number one rule of the music industry.
IT’S ABOUT THE MUSIC!
Gaga dropped the ball. Her album just isn’t good enough. Ask radio, ask the fans. She garners attention, but people would rather spin something else.
Doesn’t matter how many Twitter followers you’ve got. If Twitter was about talent, Ronnie the Limo Driver would be bubbling up, hell, he’s got over 100,000 followers!
Ronnie the Limo Driver?
Yup, he’s Howard Stern’s driver.
Got it?
Twitter followers and Facebook friends are like MySpace friends. A number that’s got nothing to do with talent and has everything to do with self-promotion.
It’s hard to create great music.
But when you do, the public rallies around you, especially when you’re coming off a fresh round of success.
How many times have we seen this movie?
Peter Frampton, star of the decade. Released "I’m In You" and he’s just about over, hell, he never recovered.
Maybe if Gaga wants to start a fashion line.
Or wants to run for political office.
But if she’s interested in music she’d better stop the worldwide promotional tour and get back into the studio. Strip it all down, sit at the piano and convince us she’s real.
Yes, this is what’s wrong with big time fame today. It’s about marketing more than music. Play to the middlemen, the ignoramuses at the newspaper, which are run by Luddites and are on the verge of going out of business. Once upon a time music was cutting edge. Now it’s just another piece of junk hawked by companies a hell of a lot less savvy than Procter & Gamble.
But one great thing about statistics is they’ll tell you where you are, but not where you’re going.
So Gaga isn’t dead yet.
But she’s pointing in the wrong direction.
And all that hogwash about Interscope picking a release date and sticking to it. They should have put out the album the day of the first single, before the bloom was off the rose.
Enough with the set-up.
Music isn’t about set-up, music is about the NOW!
A hit touches people’s hearts. Doesn’t matter if you tour, doesn’t even matter if it sounds like anything else. You hear it and want to play it again. Others hear it and ask what it is.
Great music sells itself.
I’m not saying a major corporation can’t get you to GO.
But it can’t get you past NO!
The Fame Monster.
Where in that moniker is there anything about music?
What makes Gaga different from Snooki or JWoww?
What makes an artist different is the talent, the creation.
A musical star is nothing without the music.
And we love those most who create the music themselves. They’ve got a constant well to draw upon called their life. Otherwise, you’re just at the mercy of hired gun songwriters and businessmen interested in money, not music.
All this hogwash about Polaroid and the alternative retail venues.
Now here’s the truth. I kind of like Gaga. She’s us. She’s not beautiful, she had to work hard to make it. I’d love to see her turn it around.
But I will not sit here and listen to the bully label tell me what a great success this is.
I will not sit here as the mainstream press twists and turns and states inanities while demonstrating its cluelessness.
Everybody knows who Gaga is.
They know who Rebecca Black is too.
FAME IS NOT EVERYTHING!
MUSIC IS!
Make music your calling card. No amount of talking about music, whether it be in e-mail or on Facebook or Twitter, is going to make a good song a hit.
Good. That’s the problem today.
There’s more good stuff than ever before.
But we’re only interested in great.
We’re all time-challenged. Even the prepubescent. Music and entertainment are plentiful.
Music is the one art form that goes straight to the heart, that can resonate with a person more than any other.
Respect the music. Make greatness your goal.
Jimmy Iovine is not a musician. Nor Irving Azoff. They can’t make the music and neither can I.
But we all know it when we hear it.
And it turns out most people don’t want to hear Gaga’s music. They’ve moved on.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
Nothing triumphs like great music. Ticketmaster fees are irrelevant when the act’s hot. People don’t care about cost, they just want to get closer.
That’s music’s power.
Doesn’t matter what you look like.
Doesn’t matter if you’re rich.
Like they used to say in the days of vinyl, IT’S IN THE GROOVES!
More people are making more music than ever before. The barrier to entry is low.
But that doesn’t mean we want to listen to it.
People have rallied around Adele.
They’ll rally around you too.
IF YOU’RE JUST THAT GOOD!
