Friday, February 13, 2009

Lady Gag Gag? A Small Rant.

So, yesterday I'm at work, and these two teenage Britney Spears lookalikes are going through our new inventory, picking out clothes. I was straightening the fourways and happened to overhear some of their conversation. We have some new outfits that are very 80s, and also some outfits that are very glamrock, from the 70s era, ala Bowie, T Rex, etc. Lots of neon, silver and gold, ruffles, leopard print, stripes, etc.

So the girls come across this one shirt that's covered in gold and silver stripes and has a lightning bolt design on it.

Teenybopper One rolls her eyes. 'God, that is like, so pathetic. Lady Ga Ga just wore that exact same outfit like, two days ago on MTV!'

Teenybopper Two. 'I know. Half the clothes in this store look like they came out of her closet. People are so unoriginal these days, they can't think of anything by themselves!'

Then of course, both girls buy several of the items they were just dissing as unoriginal.

For those of you who don't know who the infamous Lady Ga Ga is, she's this r&b/techno/pop singer who was unknown all of 30 seconds ago and now has blown up for a crappy hit called "Let's Dance", that trust me folks, is nothing to write home about. She has a decent singing voice, but she banks all her fame on the clothes she wears and her ridiculous blond heavy-banged wig.

Most importantly, she presents this image to her fans of being this totally original envelope pushing diva who dresses, sings and acts like nobody else. It's true that she looks different from any other singer of THIS ERA, but she is about as original as a sheep wearing apple bottom jeans. Who does she steal all her 'original style' from? DAVID BOWIE!

See for yourself:

Aladin Sane Pictures, Images and Photos

Lady Ga Pictures, Images and Photos

LADY GA GA Pictures, Images and Photos

Lady ga ga ily Pictures, Images and Photos

I don't have any real problem with artists drawing from other sources - music is timeless and belongs to everyone. And her music doesn't particularly sound like Bowie's anyway. Her look, however, is a direct ripoff of his 'Ziggy Stardust' period. And it irks me that little 16 year olds that were born in the frickin' 90s and probably don't even know who David Bowie IS are saying that our store is stealing from Lady Ga Ga's style to make a buck. Correction, nitwits: we are stealing from the 70s and the 80s to make money off emokids like you who want to look as cool as your GRANDMOTHER did back then!

(This is not targeted to actual 15, 16 or 17 year olds who have in fact heard of David Bowie and do in fact like music that is well, good. I know you guys exist)

How depressing. I am officially old.

(this was originally posted on MySpace, and edited for Blogger)

3 comments:

  1. People my age (16) are rediculous. Lady GaGa's music is a downright bad influence and just synthetized crap, yet I once read someone saying she was a "fresh breath of pop air". Pop music nowadays is more like pollution to me. A fresh breath was more like Coldplay's 'Viva la Vida', with all those instruments.. Whether people liked the song or not, I still think it was so much different to what we hear nowadays.

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  2. If you go watch a few interfiews, you'll see her very clearly state that she pulls inspiration from Bowie.

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