Googoo Gaga: Art for Crazy Sake!

Lady Gaga's latest video "Telephone" premiered last night on the E Channel at approximately 11:35pm. I know this because I had just finished watching my favorite show on E! "Chelsea Lately" (in the future E!, don't manipulate Chelsea viewers like this) and I was about to go to sleep when Mr. Ryan Seacrest hoisted himself onto my screen. He was shouting something about a world premiere of one of the best videos of all time. I then had Lady Gaga herself starring at me and thanking the E channel for having the "courage" to play her NINE AND A HALF MINUTE music video/art deco short film. So what was I gonna do, I took a stiff shot of tequila and settled in.

We start in a prison. Gaga enters showing a little pit of breast (come on E! there could be children watching). The other "inmates" who are made to look like they just stepped out of a Vogue cover shoot (thongs and all), call out hermaphrodita (?) slurs as Gaga gets stripped and violently thrown into her cell by the guards. Oh no the injustice, the horror, the fear.

She then gets a call from Beyonce.

Now, this is when the disco, LSD based rhythm of this mind blowing song starts and Gaga's synthesized vocals begins. The video along with the beat speed up and the plot twists begin. Gaga bursts out of prison in a completely different outfit than the one she was wearing in prison and high-tails it onto the open road with Beyonce. As they speed away they share a sandwich.

Unfortunately, this post modern Andy Warholish reference was completely lost on me.

I then fell asleep for a few minutes. I think there was more singing about a telephone and some radical dance moves, crazy eye makeup, American flag costumes and yellow hair. When I remember gaining consciousness Gaga was making ANOTHER sandwich.

By this point the song was so ingrained in my brain that I probably won't be able to get it out until at least sometime next year. Thank you Jonas Akerlund, the master mind behind this piece of SHART (that was art and shit mixed together, see what I just did there :)

Akerlund you are no Tarantino, so don't make it out like this little piece of marketing that you have created is going to alter the world as we know it. And despite the attempted distractions of hair, make-up and telephones, this is basically a ripped off Madonna video from the eighties.

I like Lady Gaga, Poker Face is a great song to dance to at a bar when you are drunk at your Bachelorette party, her style is unique and interesting if you are insane and that Barbra Walters interview really showed a side of her that not many people get to see: a young girl who is being completely manipulated by a record label (oh we have never seen that before.............Gaga stay away from the razor).

If anyone for a second thinks that Stefani Germanotta (Gaga's real name) created this alter ego purely based on her creative spirit, I would call bullshit. I am sure Stefani would not mind the occasional opportunity to stand on stage as herself and just sing.

Of course I could be wrong. I know that Lady Gaga has a huge fan base and people do really love her, but for me I just get that foul stench of pretension whenever I see her perform or see her on the red carpet. I know she has been compared to Micheal Jackson, Madonna, and Elton John, but for some reason those guys didn't make it look so forced and they were highly talented songwriters, performers and musicians. Gaga you keep rocking out, just don't forget to telephone Stefani Germanotta every once and a while.