Dear Lady Gaga: Stop ruining music.

Seriously, what the fuck is up with Lady Gaga? She writes a couple of average pop/dance songs and everyone goes crazy. But like their on drugs crazy i.e. so over the top crazy that it’s silly.

There’s nothing unusual about this – think of all the average pop songs that have hit number one in the past (you’ll find one every week from the year 2000 on…). They’ve all come and done their business, and stuck around for a bit to enjoy the smell of their own songwriting faeces, but eventually the stench has worn off and they’ve moved on. Lady Gaga is still around, like some sort of grotesque sexually transmitted disease reminding you of the absolute minger you pulled two months ago – seriously just go an see the doctor, it’s not going to go away.

In any other business I’d say, “Of course, we live in a society where the public only gets what the public wants – we, as a collective, have to take some of the blame.” And to an extent that is true here. It’s only because we want Lady Gaga to be successful that she is – if we stopped buying her CD’s or watching her videos or agonising over her sexuality she’d probably return to the swamp that spawned her sooner or later. However I feel it’s also a reflection of the music industry as a whole, a sad reminder that even though independent record labels are starting to make a comeback due to digital distribution and the publicity of the internet, the major record labels with their board of musically inept directors are still in charge. They don’t so much throw the ball to us in the hope that we’ll catch it, rather that they shove it down our throats repeatedly until we give up fighting and let it just stay there as some sort of giant second Adams apple.

However this isn’t a post aimed at my disgust at the music industry (although I hope those feelings are evident). This is a post about Lady Gaga’s lack of songwriting talent. And I intend to prove it.

Take her recent single, “Telephone”. From what I gather from reading the lyrics it seems to be about a girl who want’s to see her boyfriend that night, but he doesn’t want to and so she goes on some sort of childish spiteful quest to get wasted and go clubbing/partying. Who knows why he turned down her. Maybe he was busy at work. Maybe he just fancied a night to himself, run a big bath and watch some Malcom in the Middle on TV. Maybe he was looking after his sick Grandma – bet she’d feel bad then. Bitch. Anyway he obviously feels bad about turning her down and so is texting her to see how she is and, after finding out that she’s hideously drunk, tries ringing her several time but fails miserably. Exciting, thought provoking stuff eh? Try spoilt child syndrome.

“Just a second; it’s my favorite song they’re gonna play and I cannot text you with a drink in my hand, eh? You shoulda made some plans with me; you knew that I was free. And now you won’t stop calling me, I’m kinda busy.”

This line really pisses me off. Not only because it’s so plainly written in such a ’spoon-fed’ fashion, so that even the main-est of mainstream listeners can grasp it’s meaning, but also because of the meaning itself. This girl in the song is a bitch. An absolute, spoilt child, game playing, manipulative bitch. And most songwriters write of themselves or their own experiences = Lady Gaga is a bitch. Either that or she’s just writing music for the industry, for what people ‘want’ = sellout = bitch.

“Stop callin’, stop callin’,
I don’t wanna think anymore!
I left my hand and my heart on the dance floor.
Stop callin’, stop callin’,
I don’t wanna talk anymore!
I left my hand and my heart on the dance floor.”

Somewhat better here. Shall I tell you why? Because the meaning is slightly ambigous. Audiences of whatever medium like to make the form something of their own, to attribute some personal meaning to it and this is usually achieved by creating some sort of ambiguity (or perhaps I should say some room to manouevre…). Out of context with the song these lines get you thinking…” I wonder who’s calling her? Why has she left her hand and heart on the dance floor?”. It is then ruined by this.

“Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh…
Stop telephonin’ me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh…
I’m busy!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh…
Stop telephonin’ me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh…”

There’s ambiguity and then there’s mindless time filler. This is just silly. What does this mean? The only thing I can pull out of it is that the girl in question (probably Lady Gaga herself) is an obsessive attention freak – she tell’s her boy to stop calling but instead of doing the sensible thing and turning her phone off, or less drastic putting it on silent and ignoring his calls, she answer’s everyone and tells him to “Stop telephonin’ me!”. I suppose he’s to blame as well, he should probably stop telephoning her.

Ok so I feel this has ran it’s course a little now. My last reccomendation is to read the lyrics of ‘Telephone’ aloud to yourself, as if you were a news reporter on TV or radio. And just notice how dumb you sound. How silly you feel. How ashamed you are to be a part of the whole soul destroying experience. If you need any tips on how to do it then check this out:

I’ll leave on this note. People would argue that they don’t listen to the words, that they aren’t a big part of the song for them – that they really don’t mean much. And I appreciate this, I really do. I understand that we’re all different and we all make different parts of things important to us. For me, words are really important in songs. That doesn’t mean to say I that haven’t drunkenly danced or sung to Lady Gaga whilst clubbing. It just means that I wouldn’t willingly sit at home and listen to her for entertainment.

Now if I wanted to kill myself and had run out of paracetemol it could be an option. However, I’m not really a fan of slow and painful deaths…

'A Spoonful Weighs a Ton' and life is a slippery state of mind

"And though they were sad, they rescued everyone.

They lifted up the sun.

A spoonful weighs a ton.

Giving more than they had the process had begun.

A million came from one.

The limits now were none.

Being drunk on their plan, they lifted up the sun.

Forcing it off with both hands, the trapdoor came undone.

Above our heads it swung.

The privilege had been won.

Being drunk on their plan, they lifted up the sun.

Yelling as hard as they can, the doubters all were stunned.

Heard louder than a gun.

The sound they made was love."

The selfless words of Wayne Coyne, frontman of The Flaming Lips, never cease to amaze and inspire me. In a world where the emphasis is almost always on 'what we don't have' or 'what we must try to achieve' or 'what we want to be or own' the art of appreciating ones own life has taken a rather unfortunate backseat. From time to time we are reminded of how grateful we should be - the recent Haiti earthquake disaster for example showing the true horror and despair in some people's lives - and for a few days we overlook life's flaws and feel lucky to be living the life we were given. But holding on to this feeling is a hard task, like trying to hold on to a bar of soap in an incredibly bubbly bubble bath. It slips away from us, almost inevitably sometimes and it's so ridiculously easy to get demoralised by this and stop trying. Sure sometimes taking a rest and trying again later can be useful - time away from anything allows for important reflection. But so many people, myself included, sit around waiting for life to happen, waiting to feel happy, for some amazing to situation to occur and make everything worthwhile, when in reality it's very rare that something comes entirely out of nothing. This is why it's so important to grab the soap whilst you can, because the more you let it slip away the smaller it becomes and the more difficult it becomes to hold onto.

The truth is if you don't grab the big soap bar of life and get a hold of it soon, you risk one day there being nothing left to grab at all.

So for all metaphorical intents and purposes, it's time to dry your hands, grab that soap and don't let go.

My review of Daddy Day Camp

Before watching Daddy Day Camp I was actually quite excited. I had found the original enjoyable enough and had thought that Adam Sandler was actually quite good in it. Then I remembered that the film I was thinking of was Big Daddy and that I’d never actually seen the first in the series of Daddy Day insert word beginning with C here.

It was a good thing that this epiphany had dawned on me before the titles to Daddy Day Camp had started to roll – imagine how disappointed I would have been, waiting for gormless and samey (yet at the same time unusually charismatic) Adam Sandler to appear, to find that guy from Boat Trip and a less overweight John Goodman rip-off fill my screen instead. I think the shock may have been too much to cope with.

But even this simple realisation couldn’t have prepared me for the torture I was about to endure. Daddy Day Camp is about two guys that don’t want to let their sons go to a day camp because one of them (the one from Boat Trip) was bullied there when he was younger, so they decide to build and run a camp themselves. That’s right – BUILD.

They could have just spent more time looking at other camps, looking over the facilities and investigating their previous history. They could have even asked their sons which camps they wanted to go to. But then, of course, Hollywood wouldn’t have been able to make such a shit film. So they build a camp instead.

And of course it’s rubbish, the kids don’t enjoy it and everything goes wrong. And then the next day loads of the kids have gone to another camp across the forest where they ride quadbikes and swim and actually have fun. And then the smart arse badly acted leader of the ‘better’ camp challenges the guy from Boat Trips camp to an Olympia or something. But they can’t win because their kids are such pussies. So they recruit the help of the guy out of Boat Trip’s father (who just so happens to be an ex-army corporal) to help them. But they have father son relationship issues and ….OH MY GOD suddenly I’ve zoned out and I’m just waiting for the film to finish. I’ve become so depressed by watching this film that I’m actually starting to feel disappointed in myself for sitting there and continuing to watch it. I’m actually devastated.

Maybe I’m being too harsh - I have spent the last few months watching films made by great auteurs such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick after all. Maybe I should just teach myself to accept that some films will never stand up to others and that lowering my standards is a good way to make bad films better. I mean it’s all relative, right?!

WRONG. No Hollywood – NO. I will not be bullied into watching half arsed crap and accepting it, even if a lot of budding movie enthusiasts are. Daddy Day Camp is the reason I’ve avoided mainstream, supposedly ‘fun’ films, for the last 5 months. Never again shall I let my guard down.

Though the new Indiana Jones film does look quite good…