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The warmth, originality and chutzpah of her earlier work and performances, has been replaced by something that borders on the megalomaniacal.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