My beef with Lady Gaga

This week saw the release of H&M's holidays campaign via a glitzy You Tube video, featuring Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett:

The campaign rather cleverly adds a new dimension of 'Christmas Album' to Gaga and Bennett's 'Cheek to Cheek' collaboration, which was released earlier this year.

I wanted to like this album but I found myself unable to hear beyond, at times, Gaga's forced vocals. I also found myself unable to see beyond her imagery, which jars with what is supposed to be an homage to the jazz standards.

In an attempt to understand why this latest era in Gaga's evolution has rattled me so, I found myself coming to the following conclusion:

Lady Gaga is without doubt the most contrived artist of our times.

The warmth, originality and chutzpah of her earlier work and performances, has been replaced by something that borders on the megalomaniacal.

She bastardises and unashamedly borrows the work of those who have gone before her, with a tour de force not unlike the 'Mecha-Stresiand' in South Park, swallowing genres wholesale, with no deference  or respect to the original artist. They are simply trophies she acquires as her own, in an ill attempt to try and prove to the world she is a credible artist.

Gaga's much self-hyped prior release, 'ARTPOP', is just pop music. It's not the highly conceptual art piece that she made it out to be. It's a bunch of fairly good pop songs, which have had more imagery thrown at them, then you can shake a (disco) stick at. In the end, the whole project smacked of desperation more than it did originality, which is a shame, because (and I repeat), she can write a good pop song!

These are the reasons why I can no longer relate to Lady Gaga as an artist. There is no sincerity, there is about as much warmth as a leaky hot water bottle, and dare I say it, there is no brilliance anymore; just a huge ego that thinks it's a creative genius however in reality, is just a wannabe.

Now I have gotten that off my chest, I am off to listen to the 'PopArt' album; and by that I mean the Pet Shop Boys hit collection, which is actually a much more genuine and successful attempt at bringing higher cultural references into pop music.

I am a monster!

Ten songs you never knew were produced by PWL

The familiar sound of Stock, Aitken and Waterman (SAW) and their various sound engineers - all covered here by the Pete Waterman Limited (PWL) umbrella - is one that defined the eighties and early nineties.

Here are 10 lesser known gems that you may be surprised to find PWL had a hand in making:

10: Kylie Minogue: Tell Tale Signs

Kylie's eponymous debut was a blend of brash europop (for which PWL would become best known) and R&B lite; a nod to their earlier work with Princess ('Say I'm Your Number One') and Mel & Kim (More Than Words Can Say'). Follow-up 'Enjoy Yourself' continued in a similar vein, with four notable exceptions; 'My Secret Heart' - quirky and more chord changes than you can shake a stick at, 'Heaven & Earth' and 'Tears on my Pillow' - the album's obligatory ballads, and 'Tell Tale Signs' - marking the arrival of torch-song Kylie, and to this day remaining a fan favourite:

9: O'chi Brown and Rick Astley: Learning To Live (Without Your Love) (Midnight Lovers Mix)

PWL do American style soul, performed here by O'Chi Brown and Rick Astley, prior to Rick's worldwide fame. Incidentally, Brown originally recorded 'Whenever Your Need Somebody', which Astley later went onto achieve global success with:



8: Bananarama: Mr Sleaze 

SAW used a number of Bananarama b-sides to experiment with different genres, including the funk driven 'Mr Sleaze in 1987'. This rare groove sound was used earlier in that year, on SAW's 'Roadblock'.






7: Andy Paul: Anna Maria Lena 

You may know that Pete Waterman and Mike Stock (along with Steve Crosby) wrote and produced the UK's 2010 Eurovision entry - 'That Sounds Good To Me'. You may not know, that SAW produced Cyprus's 1984 Eurovision entry - 'Anna Maria Lena':



6: La Toya Jackson: Just Say No

Perhaps not the preferred Jackson PWL wanted to work with, nonetheless SAW contributed three songs to La Toya's 1988 eponymous album. 'Just Say No' was written for Nancy Regan's anti-drugs campaign:



5: Expose: Point of No Return (PWL Remix)

In 1987, PWL Mixmaster, Phil Harding, remixed 'Point Of No Return' for the American freestyle sensation, Expose.

A year later, SAW worked with another freestyle group, Sequal. 'Tell Him I Called' is the best known song from this collaboration:






4: Depeche Mode: Strangelove (Pain Mix)

Maintaing the balance between alternative credibility and pop sensibility, Phil Harding comes up with the goods yet again on this Depeche Mode remix:



3: Banarama: Ectasy (Chicago House Stylee)

Thanks to the influence of Pete Tong (head of London Records A&R at the time of the emerging chicago house sound), PWL experimented with the genre for one of Pete's better know acts, Banarama, in 1987:




2: The Visionmasters and Tony King featuring Kylie Minogue: Keep On Pumping It

Released in 1991 with the rave scene in mind, 'Keep On Pumping It' featured a sample of 'I Guess I Like It Like That', taken from Kylie's fourth album, 'Let's Get To It'. 'Rave Kylie' continued into 1992, with the club influenced 'Do You Dare' and 'Closer', which featured as b-sides to 'Give Me A Little More Time' and 'Finer Feelings' respectively:







1: Mandy Smith: I Just Can't Wait (Cool and Breezy Jazz Mix)

Mandy Smith may well be remembered for two reasons; her short-lived marriage to Rolling Stone Bill Wyman and this version of her 1987 single 'I Just Can't Wait'; still seen as an influential record on the then still emerging Balearic House scene.

The same laid-back guitar groove (courtesy of Matt Aitken) can be found be heard on 'Matt's Jazzy Guitar Mix' of Rick Astely's 'It Would Take A Strong, Strong Man':