Lady Gaga vs. The parameters of pop

A lot has been said about Lady Gaga, but comparatively little has been said about her newest album. At least compared to her earlier major-label work. Musically speaking, they’re both pop albums, though if you took away the distinctive vocals of Gaga, it wouldn’t be that crazy to assume that different artists made the two albums. Yet it’s not like that’s never happened before, so why has Born This Way not had the same buzz? It very well could be a transition album suffering a sophomore slump, or just one of those albums where the artist basically decides to abandon their past and do what they want, thus alienating fans of earlier work. Either way, Born This Way doesn’t have the same star power as her last efforts, and her preference for the 1980’s impeded her matching her own benchmark of popularity.

When The Fame started getting played on the radio, it started off with a warm reception. The leadoff single, “Just Dance”, persuaded you to do as the title told you to, unless you’re like me and live in shame because you can’t dance at all. It made the listener go, “Wow, this artist could be a really good one hit wonder!”

But then Gaga scored another hit.

And then she put out five more hits or so, thanks in part to the release of the accompanying The Fame Monster.

Gaga’s meteoric escalation to fame was capped off with the general consensus that she was a bona fide star. Her song “Paparazzi” probably became even more relatable for her to sing about. In 2009, she no longer was the quintessential starving artist in New York/LA trying to make it big. With the explosive personality of her music (mirrored appropriately by her public appearance), Gaga had joined the ranks of other pop rulers such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in their heyday. The most incredible part of all of this was that she was still so… fresh. She was a noob, some might say.

Possibly the most amazing thing about Gaga’s strangeness and her music was how quickly people snatched it up. But how much of each had to do with Gaga’s outlandish getups and loud actions? There is no denying that she’s a very talented and very skilled individual, so that definitely scored her some points. Yet that’s not the most important thing with popular musical artists; just look at Blink-182. No offense to Blink fans, I’m an active listener, but their music is simple and easily digestible. That’s not a bad thing. In fact, keeping it simple pays off far more often. The Fame (Monster) pushed boundaries but stayed within the parameters of what pop music was supposed to be.

Yes, her seemingly infinite amount of shock value helped, but she has made really good music. The Fame was well received, according to Metacritic. Critically, Born This Way racked up similar reviews on Metacritic. However, it’s worth noting that the latter received less sparkling adulation from the common listener. This implies multiple things, with one of the most prominent and most important being that while the quality of music was still there, the charm wasn’t.

Great pop artists are the ones that can recognize those parameters I mentioned of what would be well received by the masses and what won’t. I can’t really confirm it, but I once read Rivers Cuomo of the band Weezer made a reference book to use that noted what worked in pop songs and what didn’t. Assuming this is true, Cuomo had figured out that those parameters existed and tried to catalogue them. Weezer fans probably would argue against the lack of experimentation and darkness in newer Weezer music, but that’s a whole other essay/blog.

The problem that’s stopped Born This Way from achieving the same success as it’s predecessor isn’t that it stepped out of the parameters of what pop music is supposed to be, the problem is that Gaga used the parameters that were established in the 1980’s. It’s hard to be mad at her for being true to her influences, because really, that’s not a valid reason to dislike someone. However, not liking 1980’s music is a good reason to not like music influenced by that decade, and that’s what’s happened with Born This Way.