A month or so back via my connections in the nefarious literary underground I was offered a pre-publication copy of the first Lady Gaga biography, Behind the Fame by Emily Herbert. Not the kind of thing I usually read I must admit, but that’s why I wanted to read it, because there was no reason to read it. Follow me? No, I’m not sure if I do either. Let me add that I’m not remotely interested in Lady Gaga, but that only increased my desire to read about her. I’d heard a few of her tracks, and they were better than average electronic dance music, with a few clever/provocative lyrics. Well not really clever, just cleverer than average. So really here was a phenomenon that I just couldn’t understand. Why did anybody care? What was all the fuss about? Perhaps the book would help me find out. Not that I cared, of course
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Well, the book got off to a good start, sort of. Cunningly written in the style of a high school project, every sentence contained multiple clichés (“In the heyday of the 1980s, before it all came crashing down a few years later, it was a joy to be alive’); nevertheless, thanks to Ms. Herbert I rapidly learned some things I had not hitherto known such as:
1) Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani Germanotta.
And
2) She attended the same elite Catholic school as Paris Hilton.
Again: not that I cared, of course. It began to get mildly interesting when I learned that upon graduation from high school Lady Gaga had worked as a ‘gogo’ dancer and spent a summer out of her tree on drugs. However as she got off the drugs almost immediately, it was clear that she was not really out of her tree on drugs, but interested in seeing what it felt like to be out of your tree on drugs, in an abstract, self-analytical kind of way, almost as a homage to artists who really were out of their tree on drugs, like David Bowie or Lou Reed. At the same time, however Ms. Herbert also reminded us that even when out of her tree on drugs, Lady Gaga was still a very moral Catholic girl at heart, which is good to know.
Anyway, after establishing these vital facts the book explored Lady Gaga’s long struggle to become famous. To be honest it didn’t seem like she struggled very hard, or that it took very long. Lady Gaga quite rapidly met some producers and image makers who put her in touch with the right people, and before long she was writing songs for pop stars like Britney Spears and New Kids on The Block. I think she was around 20/21 at the time, although Ms. Herbert strives valiantly to makes it seem like a Charles Bukowski-esque four decade struggle with poverty and obscurity before finally hitting the big time. Simultaneously Lady Gaga was pushing her own material and quite quickly scored a record deal. Her records took off in the UK first where kitsch, camp disco stuff is perennially popular, before exploding stateside. And that brings us to the present day where she bestrides popular culture like a tiny colossus.
Was the Lady Gaga phenomenon explained by the book? Well, over and over again, Ms. Herbert uses the phrase ‘post modern’ as an all purpose signifier of arch cleverness on Lady Gaga’s part. Also over and over again she quotes interviews in which Lady Gaga is waffling on about her ‘art’, her desire for greatness, her refusal to behave like a normal person, her grandiose plans, and- Andy f*cking Warhol. That wig-wearing Slovak has a lot to answer for, friends. What becomes clear is:
1) Lady Gaga is fairly intelligent
2) Lady Gaga is extremely pretentious
3) Lady Gaga is immensely self conscious and has done a great deal of thinking about fame and how to manipulate the media.
OK, OK… but what is most interesting is how well tested- shopworn even- her tactics for manipulating the media are. For example, apparently there has been a lot of media blather about her supposed bisexuality. I can understand why this was a controversial topic in the early 70s when Bowie and Lou Reed were cavorting with both sexes, but today? Her constant shifting through images recalls Madonna or Bowie or Michael Jackson, only at a greatly accelerated pace. Speaking of Madonna, she also did that girl on girl thing a few years back when she kissed Britney Spears on stage, only that incident also included the frisson of gerontophilia, a shock as yet absent from Lady Gaga’s repertoire. As for mildly risqué lyrics and running around in her underpants … well we’ve had all that since at least the late 70s, only Debbie Harry was infinitely sexier and sang better songs. And so on. Gaga herself is aware that she is merely recycling pre-used shock tactics but her self-awareness only adds to the press’s fascination.
So anyway, that’s what I extracted from the book- now available in shops everywhere! Just as I was finishing it meanwhile the video for Telephone exploded everywhere. A hysterical blog in the HuffPo accused Lady Gaga of all manner of filth and depravity, asking what was next- a snuff film? Reading the piece I realized it was a dreary recital of ‘liberal’ political prudery – very similar to other strands of prudery only dressed up in 60s/70s era political jargon about sexism, feminism etc. So I watched the video, and noted that it was made by a tiresome prankster from Sweden- Jonas Akerlund. Over ten years ago he shot a video for the Prodigy track Smack My Bitch Up which also featured girl on girl soft core action, violence, nudity, and attracted almost identical complaints from the same ‘liberal’ quarters. I’d at least commend him for getting up the noses of the sanctimonious left if his bag of tricks wasn’t so predictable (last year he shot a tedious hardcore porn video for the otherwise sublime German heavy metal band Rammstein).
In fact, the Telephone video is only violent in the context of other pop videos. Any number of cop shows that are broadcast on cable at the same time as kid’s cartoons are infinitely worse. It is also less sexist than almost every rap video ever made. And while Ms. Herbert likes the word ‘post modern’ and Lady Gaga herself is fond of citing Warhol, well to me it’s all much more like a kabuki play, a ritualistic repetition of words and deeds that are in turn ritualistically accepted as shocking by the media, when in fact… nobody is really shocked. The Lady Gaga phenomenon is rather a weird acting out of now traditional gestures, largely emptied of their meaning, in which hacks longing for the genuine outrages of yesteryear settle for her ersatz reproductions. The interplay between Gaga and the hacks is itself a giant performance, much bigger than the songs, videos and concert tours, orchestrated and conducted by the Lady herself.
As for me, well when she gets round to stripping naked and rolling around in broken glass and bodily excretions like the late GG Allin, that’s when I’ll start paying attention- ersatz reproduction or not.
