SELF-SLANDER: Lady Gaga goes on a headhunt for herself on Twitter.
By Antonio Serros, Staff Writer
In an ironic turn of events, life began to imitate art this past year as Lady Gaga’s passé “Paparazzi” music video unfolded its spandex, bedazzled splendor into her life (sans the dead models and an abusive Alexander Skarsgård). The now self-fulfilled prophecy began with her devastating hip injury in mid-February, followed by a glamorous recovery in a custom Louis Vuitton wheelchair, and concluded with the spinning headlines of “SHE’S BACK” and “WE LOVE HER AGAIN” that accompanied her returning single “Applause.” However, just like in “Paparazzi” when she falls dead out of the public eye, she was slapped with the premature criticism of “LADY GAGA IS OVER!” They just can’t lay off the mediocre journalism, can they?
Well, Gaga sure does want love and revenge when it comes to her relationship with the media. For the promotion of her latest single “Do What U Want,” (featuring R. Kelly of all people) Gaga took to Twitter to fire a series of slanderous tweets aimed not at her naysayers, but at herself. In the career-long catharsis of criticism, Gaga deluged some of her most popular criticisms, tweeting satiric slander such as “LADY GAGA IS A REDUCTIVE MADONNA COPY! SHE’S OVER NOW!” and “LADY GAGA IS FAT NOW!” with degrading photos and interviews attached.
The tweets that reflect the scathing critiques Gaga has become synonymous with are woven into the smooth Chanel tweeds that compose “Do What U Want.” In the single, the new blonde, weave-and-thong-donning singer’s voice flows over a percolating synth beat, gradually becoming more hoarse and aggressive as Gaga belts “You can’t have my heart/ And you won’t use my mind/ But do what you want with my body” —a true testament to the vile, insidious Perez Hilton types of the pop culture circle.
From the iPod glasses to the Sedgwickian swan-human hybrid, Lady Gaga is always one or two (or maybe five) steps above the rest of her competitors when it comes to innovation. For “Do What U Want,” Gaga collaborated with Kelly to add a clever twist to this avant-garde, R&B infused pop track.
Now, Kelly doesn’t exactly have a crystal-clean reputation, especially through the media’s viewfinder. However, Gaga always has a few tricks or McQueen accessories shoved up those billowing sleeves of hers. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Kelly’s inclusion is just further representation of the very negative, misappropriated images the media distort with their grimy, avaricious hands. Whatever the case may be, their voices seamlessly overlap as Gaga again reminds us to “Write what you want/ Say what you want about me/ If you’re wonderin’/ Know that I’m not sorry.”
The all-encompassing icon may not care, but the general public certainly took an interest; the new single quickly sprang to number one in more than 66 countries. Gaga, even in all that hot, restrictive leather, broke a record that she herself set in 2011 for the quickest single to reach number one on iTunes.
So fickle is the media industry in its vacillation between adulation and condemnation, but Gaga seems to be beyond all that Mean Girls-esque drama, writing on Twitter that she “write[s] for the music, not the charts.” Throwing a little shade there, Gaga?
Gaga is coming to snatch weaves with ARTPOP, which she sarcastically dubs “album of the millennium.” With its futuristic, musical innovations it wouldn’t be a shock if that turned out to be true, leaving us so two-thousand-and-late.
Photo courtesy of www.digitalspy.co.uk