some such

I have some thoughts about Lady Gaga

Up until now, you may have been tiptoeing around Lady Gaga — Top 40, post-cultural society, end of days, etc. — much as a “Gossip Girl” character would tiptoe around a homeless person. Lady Gaga, however, demands you pay attention. I posit that she is right, and you can avoid her no longer.

Why? Because she — whether independently or under the tutelage of directors, writers, producers, what-have-you is debatable but not terribly important — is producing some of the most bizarre performance art imaginable. Yet she is still selling out arenas and topping the charts.

Take, for example, this: the video for her single “Bad Romance.”

There are a few things I think we can all agree on:

1. If David Lynch had four minutes of live television on which to project his innermost thoughts, it might look like this.

2.The following things appear in this video: a hairless cat, a lot of Brazilian waxing, crossdressing, coffins, the “bath haus of Gaga.”

3. Have Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim been hired as Gaga’s consultants? (Videogum pointed this out earlier.) Not familiar with Tim and Eric? Here’s a music video Eric made recently:

There are also the photos of her playing a Dali piano while wearing an Elizabethan gown made entirely of red latex. And then there are her bizarre Grammy Awards outfits, which Giorgio Armani bears at least some responsibility for, whether you love or hate them. And there’s her Grammy performance itself, playing off this whole “fame factory” thing she has so cleverly adopted.

Sure, sure — we all know she’s wacky and wears high fashion and sings passable pop music about how hard she parties and how you can’t read her poker face (her poker face). This is about how highly I esteemed her roughly six months ago. But how about this fun fact? SHE WRITES HER OWN MUSIC. And I feel comfortable saying her handwritten music is objectively better than much of Britney Spears’s pre-fab pop. And we now know, without a doubt, that she is a much better singer than Taylor Swift.

If you take one thing away from this post, let it be this: Stefani Germanotta, as is her real name, competing in an NYU talent contest during her college days:

Motivational playlist

Need to do some house-cleaning? Exercising? Preparations for a night on the town?

Adam Lambert is here to help, with a thinly veiled song about middle America’s comeuppance for assuming he was just another vanilla “American Idol” performer. Also, fucking.

And here’s Lady Gaga. She doesn’t want to be friends — but she does want to get your ass in gear.

Also, how long has it been since you listened to the R. Kelly/Jay-Z “Fiesta” remix? Probably too long.

This LCD Soundsystem song is great for when you’re cleaning the bathroom and need to fool your brain into thinking you’re doing something bearable.

Still draggin’? Public Enemy exhorts you to get your game face on.

Listen to this playlist on YouTube, if you think that would be better.