October 30, 2014

Why did the "bubble burst"?

According to the Daily Mail, "Lady Gaga has become an oldies act at the age of 28."

     http://thehonestyhour.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Lady-Gaga-ARTPOP-Berlin.png  

They gave the artRAVE 2/5 stars, saying "in concert, you get the best and worst of her, all wrapped up in one perplexing package."

Apparently, she came on a "tiresome 35 minutes late" and let the show run an extra 13 minutes long.

"I'll have to pay a fine, but that's okay. I don't give a shit about money," she said.

And this is where we get our flashback of her buying a $24million mansion and writing brilliant lines like "I am rich as piss" for the album she's touring. Because someone who doesn't care about how much money they have wouldn't possibly brag about it. Or live extravagantly. Right?

Anyway, they go on to say of the concert that "...while the eyes are enjoying [a] feast, the ears are being offered fast food."

http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE0LzA3LzIxLzBiL2xhZHlnYWdhdG91LjQ5Zjc0LmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTE0NDB4MTAwMD4KZQlqcGc/1ef4804f/96e/lady-gaga-tour3.jpg

And, "The tracks from the last two albums are largely junk, with the role of the bright orange slice of plastic cheese going to a series of ghastly guitar solos."

Maybe the worst part of the whole thing is her lack of self-awareness. "Gaga herself seems to have no idea how bad these songs are," they say. "She throws away most of the old hits early on, leaving Bad Romance as the only ace in her hand for the finale."

Their last complaint of the show was that she gave "the longest speech heard at a gig since Kanye West’s infamous lecture at The Big Chill in 2011, and only marginally less maddening."

So, besides the visuals, did they actually like anything about the show? Yes - they go on to compliment her rendition of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" at the end, saying that only in jazz does it appear that she really does care about the music.

(Hey, didn't we used to hear that very same rhetoric when she first came out singing pop?)

   http://static.entertainmentwise.com/photos/Image/1308lgaga1.jpg

Anyway, they state that while that while she's sold an estimated 150 million records worldwide, her album sales in Britain look like this:
    >The Fame/The Fame Monster (~3 million) >Born This Way (~1 million) >ARTPOP (~200,000)
And, in a similar fashion, her worldwide album sales look like this:
    >The Fame/The Fame Monster (~15 million) >Born This Way (~6 million) >ARTPOP (~2.5million)

The plummeting album sales are not unique to Britain.

Why did the bubble burst?

"In her first year, Gaga pumped out proper hits, starting with Just Dance and culminating in Bad Romance, but then she and her sidekicks suddenly lost the knack," they say. "The title of Artpop says it all: she considers herself an artist, while the public sees her as a pop star."

Basically, she's not embracing what her audience sees her as, and instead demanding to be something else - whether they accept it or not (and they're not).

Read the review + article for yourself HERE: "Less Lady Gaga than Lady Bla-Bla: The bubble has burst for a very simple reason"

To sum it up: her music since The Fame/Fame Monster is terrible, and the "I'm an artist" mantra that she's trying to beat into our heads is just not working.

Do you agree?

What do YOU think is the biggest reason for her downfall?