Lady Gaga has always stood as a present day pop anomaly.
As an artist, Gaga – born Stefani Germanotta – has carefully skated on commercial relevance by offering an EDM-wrapped package similar to the radio’s top offerings, yet qualitatively different in its decoration with undeniable vocal talent and stage presence oft-lost on her pop competitors. These qualities, much like her ever-changing image, saw her inaugural years court as much positivity for her eccentricity as it did negativity for claims of being gimmicky.
Yet, for as meteoric as her rise to pop dominance was, her slide down the slope of commercial relevance has seemingly met similar acceleration. Indeed, the years that followed her blockbuster ‘Born This Way’ album don’t see her every “hairdo and don’t,” on-stage antic, nor music release greeted with the same level of intense media coverage they once received. While the cause of this shift has seen many-a-finger pointed toward the allure of “her gimmick fading,” others even argue that her inconsistent choice of sound (i.e. departure from “black music”) is to blame.
I, on the other hand, will argue that neither are the primary perpetrator, but instead wish to place a lens on Gaga’s aggressive social agenda which, in turn, caused the drift of her faithful buying audience. Full analysis below:
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