TheTornadoTimes

“Rah, rah, ah, ah, ah. Roma, roma, ma. Gaga, ooh la la. Want your bad romance.” Totally meaningful stuff, right?

This is what I think of Lady Gaga and most other artists today who seem to think that rhyming the words “Mars” and “cars” make them lyrical geniuses.
I sit baffled at the lack of significance in lyrics nowadays—how audiences sit amazed at the fact that Lady Gaga “can’t read” a person’s “poker face,” and how Katy Perry wants an “extraterrestrial” to “infect [her] with lovin’.”

All I used to do was ridicule these artists and tell my friends that such untalented people should not be on the tops of music charts.

But one day I was asked if I had heard Lady Gaga sing before she was Lady Gaga—before she wore raw meat to the Video Music Awards and arrived at the Grammys in an egg.

Overtaken by curiosity, I went home and searched “the real Lady Gaga” on YouTube, and found the name “Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.”

No costume, no two-worded attempt at an iconic name, no eggs—but an actual name. What I found was a little startling. It was Lady Gaga singing live while playing the piano. Not performing, but rather, just sitting on a piano stool, wearing a simple turquoise dress, and pouring her heart out to the audience. There were no stunts, no shiny, fatal accessories, just a girl and a piano.

For once, she wasn’t performing fake songs deliberately composed to get stuck in peoples’ heads like Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” Now, I’m not saying she was the most amazing singer I have ever heard, but at least she was real.

If Lady Gaga was still Stefani Germanotta, maybe I wouldn’t despise her. Maybe her lyrics would actually mean something instead of desperately trying to be “different.”

I’m all for individuality, but modern-day “artists” have lost the meaning of the word.

They don’t try to be themselves, they try to stand out in order to attract audiences—to keep them hooked on their songs, ensuring that they make their millions.

This is not Lady Gaga’s fault that she has become this metamorphic being that changes its form every 10 seconds. It is our fault, the audience.

Where were we when Stefani Germanotta was first starting out? Were we there to appreciate her talent and help her rise above? No. And after years and years of trying, what other choice did she have but to become Lady Gaga? Not much.

In her first album (when she was still Stefani) titled “Red and Blue,” her voice is actually heard. It’s not auto-tuned to the point where she doesn’t even sound human. The lyrics weren’t quotoable, but at least they had some sort of meaning.

I have to admit, even back then she wasn’t as talented as other artists like Adele or Jason Mraz, but we could connect with her as just another person battling ordinary challenges.

And now she, as many artists, has become a conformist to the modern day desire to be futuristic and unreal.