With a new decade underway, I can’t help but wonder, “Will Lady Gaga dominate the teens like Michael Jackson did the eighties?”. Though Lady Gaga regulary lists her influences as Queen, David Bowie, and Boy George, it’s easy to draw parallels between her and the king of pop. After all, both launched a careers full of unconventional fashion, powerful vocals, and stunning music videos.
With videos like Lovegame and Paparazzi, Lady Gaga brings to mind traditional pop videos of the early 1980′s and turn of the twenty-first century. In Lovegame the parallels with Michael Jackson’s Bad are all too clear: urban underground setting, leather jackets, crotch grabbing – it’s all there. So, without further ado, here are two videos from the king of pop and 2009′s pop princess:
Hmm, I like the comparison, actually, and you make a good point I hadn’t really thought about. She’s definitely going to be something big, but I think it remains to be seen whether or not she’ll have the kind of massive influence that Michael Jackson did, but I would like it if she did, since I always felt like I missed out on something by not having the same feelings about MJ’s music that everyone else did….
Don’t you think Love Game is one of her weaker videos? I much prefer Bad Romance or Paparazzi.
Hmmm.
Well she’s like a mix of everything but with an avant garde edge. In some of her interviews she says she loves david bowie, 70′s glamour, and loves warhol. So it’s a clash of all that? I would say what’s unique about her is that she is fearless in what she wears and continues to search for things that speak out to her. It’s not what most people would wear daily, but I think she will definitively have an impact on our generation and the generation after ours if she keeps the creative edge on.
There’s the argument that says “Nothing has been completely original for the past 50 years” and somewhere I read that 1899 patent makers said that “all products possible have already been invented.” Granted that was 1899, but.. in my continuous research for new ideas.. I’ve been finding that statement to be true to various extents. You know, the shoe is an old idea but how to style it is new. So.. if that argument is true, for now all we can do now is create unique mixups of everything? The adventurer in me desperately hopes there are new ideas on the horizon. Have any suggestions on new ideas?
woah long comment (:
The death of originality is a huge theme in postmodern art criticism. Critics say in the art world it’s all been done before, and today’s artists are more like DJ’s mixing up styles and methods from the past than composers, writing brand new music.
I’ve always been pretty skeptical about this personally; I think that as much as things today combine older influences, they add new ideas as well. Thinking about much of the recent pop music that draws on the eighties. Even if a lot of their sounds are old, their vocals and styles are very current. Sure, La Roux sounds like Yazoo, but her voice has more subtlety and emotion that anyone you could pull out of the early eighties.
I am always on the lookout for new genres of music to emerge, however. Of course, I have no idea where to look!