Eight dresses + one giant ego = a three star show

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett headlined the Gent Jazz Festival in Belgium yesterday. Apparently, there was a lot of hype about it since there had never been a celebrity as big as Gaga there before, but can hype sell tickets?

 
This article, when translated into English, wondered if the show was going to be "empty" since tickets had been on sale for over eight months and still weren't sold out by the time the article was published (on the tenth of July, so two days before the show).

Excuses being given for the poor ticket sales were: that the ticket prices were high (100 euro), that Werchter (Rock Festival) took place only a week before, that there was too much competition since there were free shows going on at the time as well, that Lady Gaga's fans wouldn't want to sit through a jazz show, and that Tony Bennett's fans wouldn't want to sit through a pop show.

So, what ended up happening? Was the show a success?

I don't know if it ended up selling out or not (though I have a guess), but this review gives the show a modest 3/5 stars.

Translated, the article asks, "did we get a good jazz show?"

They answer their own question with a straight "no".

Instead of jazz, they say they were presented with a "musical". They enjoyed Bennett's performance the whole way through, but only liked Gaga some of the time. Complaints were mostly about her belting when she didn't need to be, and about how the jazz bands playing with them, while talented, were basically forced to play a "Disney version" of the songs.

I guess this show was more of the same old thing that we've come to expect from Lady Gaga nowadays: hyped up mediocrity.

Lady Gaga mistakes Mariachi Festival for Pride Parade

Lady Gaga spent some time yesterday afternoon on the balcony of her apartment in Chicago, overlooking the city and watching the first-ever Chicago Mariachi and Folklórico Festival, thinking it was the Chicago Pride Parade.

Little did Mother Moron know that the Pride Parade route was actually several miles north of there in a different neighborhood, well out of view of her balcony.

Lady Gaga vs. Avocado

Lady Gaga performed during the opening ceremony for the first European Games in Azerbaijan on Friday. She played a boring rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine" on a piano covered with flowers.

Apparently, she hid out in a hotel for days to keep her presence at the Games a secret. Some sources say she faced criticism from her fans for showing up to this event at all, because of Azerbaijan's human rights record, but I have seen zero backlash or criticism of her performance anywhere. I'd ask if this was an example of media manipulation, but it doesn't seem like anyone's talking about this performance at all, good or bad.

In fact, Lady Gaga posted about it herself on Instagram, and that post got 73,000 less likes than a photo Miley Cyrus took of an avocado.

If that doesn't say something about Lady Gaga's current status as a pop star, I don't know what will. 

Another convenient song leak

Lady Gaga is between projects right now, so we've had to suffer through her nauseating attempts at grabbing our attention with news of her upcoming wedding and her oh-so-risqué fashion statements (she's going back to blonde! OMG!!!).

                                        

Maybe she's still not getting enough attention from all of that, because now there's a news of a new song leak... And by new song, I mean old song. "Partynauseous", which she recorded with Kendrick Lamar in 2012, has just leaked online - and what great timing!

Taylor Swift just released her highly anticipated video for "Bad Blood" featuring Kendrick Lamar, and in only four days it's already gotten almost 41 million views.

To put this in perspective, Lady Gaga's last single (G.U.Y.) has ~66 million views and it's been out for over a year now.

She's also been dropping hints about a new album:

Could "Partynauseous" have been leaked on purpose to try and gain something from Lamar's recent success? Is Lady Gaga trying to ride Taylor's coattails to get some press? Or was it just a coincidence? A perfectly timed coincidence?

Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Madonna at the MET Ball

They say the internet exploded when Madonna posted a picture of herself with Katy Perry and Lady Gaga at the MET Ball the other day:

The caption read, "Girls night out.......... Kissing the Ring........Finally"

The picture was then reposted by Katy Perry with the caption, "dropping our single tomorrow" and the hashtag #MONSTERCATREBELHEARTS, and Lady Gaga reposted it as well with the caption, "Breaking Hearts".

Madonna later posted another one of herself with Lady Gaga and Alexander Wang at an after party:

The caption for this one read, "Looking to the Future!! So much fun last night!"

The pictures and captions, along with one of Lady Gaga's previously deleted tweets ("High heels on the dash, breaking hearts and burning cash"), have led to some speculation that the three ladies may be planning to release a single together.

What do you think? Could there be a collaboration in the future? Or did Katy, Madonna, and Gaga just happen to take a couple of pictures together?

Lady Gaga "too lame" for Sony

Another day, another Sony email leak.

While shopping for music for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 soundtrack, Rihanna, Lorde, Ellie Goulding, and a duet between Alicia Keys and Pharrell were considered... but guess who wasn't?

That's right... Lady Gaga!

In fact, she was dismissed before she was even suggested!

The emails, which can be found linked here, state that Rihanna was "not interested", but that Ellie Goulding was liked, that Lorde was "cool", and the Alicia Keys/Pharrell duet would be "cool" too, but just "not right for Spidey".

So what did they say about Gaga? That she was "too lame"!

More specifically, the email said:

 "I think gaga might be too lame after die antwoord made fun of [her] in [their] video."

She's talking about the song/video "Fatty Boom Boom" where Die Antwoord mocks Gaga by having a lookalike of her get mutilated by a lion (among other things). If you haven't seen the video, here it is again:

Remember that drama? Where Gaga defended herself by saying, "At least I'm popular?"

Because that's something that someone that was a victim of "childhood torture" and "bullying" would say, right? That's something that someone that started a foundation to stop bullying would say, right?

Anyway, that happened in October 2012 - smack dab in the middle of her Born This Way Ball concert tour. You know, the one that got cancelled halfway through because of a "labral tear" in her hip that ended up being a secret broken hip that somehow no one on the staff knew about?

Maybe the people at Sony haven't been into her since then. And who could blame them?

There are some rumors flying around that Gaga will be voicing Betty Boop in an upcoming film (as well as providing music for it) but those rumors are said to be untrue. There may be a Betty Boop film in the future, but Gaga is not involved and Sony will not be either.

Oh well! Guess we'll just have to settle for seeing Gaga on American Horror Story!

Or... y'know. Not.

When Monsters Attack

The claws are out and Natalia Kills is the target.

The singer has received some controversy lately for an explosive rant directed towards Joe Irvine, an X Factor New Zealand contestant, accusing him of having “no value or respect for originality”, saying that he’s a “laughingstock”, and so on, because in her mind, he was ripping off her husband, Willy Moon.

The rant is here, if you can stomach that nonsense again:

The couple has been fired from the show, they’ve both publicly apologized, and they both seem to sincerely want to move on from the incident. I’m sure their careers do too. However, it looks like the general public is not ready to let that happen so soon.

Kills has revealed that she (along with her husband) have been victims of some pretty brutal bullying on Twitter. She’s re-posted a few of the tweets on her own Twitter account, but it seems the hate was too extreme for Instagram, which did not allow such photos/comments/whatever to be re-posted on their site. By reading some of the comments on her Twitter, it's not hard to see why.

Kills has re-posted a particularly nasty tweet sent to her and her husband by a devoted Little Monster:

                                                       Sexism and homophobia in 140 characters or less.

It's nice to see how Lady Gaga's message of love and tolerance is being spread throughout the world, especially in her Little Monster kingdom. And his use of the word "flop" is pretty laughable too, considering who he's got on his profile picture.

Anyway, I doubt Lady Gaga herself will actually get dragged into this, but it's interesting to see how much of an impact her anti-bullying messages are having on her own fans, even after all these years.

Lady Gaga has excused her fans' vicious behaviour before - like when they are coming to her aid - but what about in situations like these? She's not involved. She's not being attacked. They're not defending her. They're just being downright nasty. And for what? There's no reason to send a message like this to someone, unless your goal is to hurt them.

I'm not saying Kills and her husband are innocent here, far from it. But are these disgusting tweets really called for?

Does Lady Gaga have a responsibility to say something when something like this comes up?

What do you all think?