GAGA. THE GAGA. Happy Birthday, you wonderful weirdo girl. You’ve made pop music something to be proud of, and you’ve definitely made me dance and sing a lot more than usual. I LOVE you so. Your style, fashion and performances are so entertaining and amazing. Thanks for being our favorite Mother Monster.
Take a look at our girl Gaga back in 2009 at the VMA’s. This will always be my favorite performance of hers, because it was, of sorts, her debut into main stream pop music. She sang wonderfully live (a feat for pop music, let’s be honest), danced, played the piano and scared the shit out of everyone in the audience and the world. And that, folks, is how the legend was born…
Charming! Here’s Rihanna on the set of her and Coldplay’s new video for “Princess of China.” Why’s she so angry all the time?! I’d like to see some photos of her on a lake, with frizzy lake hair, no makeup and a HUGE smile, ya know?
Rumour has it Lana del Rey and Marilyn Manson are an item. Also, her hair is really long. Jealsies!
Marilyn Manson is weird. Like, he STILL dresses like a 90s alternakid? I guess he’d get more ridicule for dressing like a 40 year old hipster. He feels much older than than though. Can you imagine Marilyn Manson in his 70s? He’s gonna be stoned as fuck.
But a nice George Clooney-esque suit would be a refreshing change for ol’ MM. Maybe LDR (which whenever I see LDR I think people are talking about FDR or maybe one of his relatives or a vice president or something) will whip him into shape with some Sinatra-inspired duds.
Let’s just hope this is a confusing moment in LDR’s life. Don’t be another Evan Rachel Wood, because she like drank his blood and piss and shit. I just made that up, but you never know. Some people like it supa freeky.
This is a REALLY good pop song. I think the fact that it’s by Good Charlotte totally hurt it. They seem like nice guys, but there’s something about their style and vibe that is just offputting. And you just always feel kind of uncool when you think of Good Charlotte or listen to their music. If this song was done by anyone else, it would have been a WAY bigger hit. It’s just infectious.
Just picture this song super electronica with more bass and keyboards and less guitar, and an entirely different band attached to it. Fucking awesome.
Nicki Minaj. Loud, weird, split-personalitied. What’s her deal? I’m leaning off the fence with her antics and uninteresting career. Let’s give her a good look.
The Evidence
She made a name for herself by doing feature spots on lots of successful songs, namely “Monster” by Kanye West. Her part in that song is so fucking rad. She was getting “50k for a verse” when she had “no album out.” That’s pretty awesome. +5
Embarrassing and tired. Image via obama.net
Her Grammys performance was tired. The Catholic church thing has been done by Madonna, Gaga, Sinead O’Connor, etc. Not to say that only ladies growing up under Catholicism can perform using Catholic imagery and metaphors, but it’s just a tired concept. It’s boring. It’s no longer shocking or edgy to dance suggestively while criticizing Catholicism. It’s been done. A BILLION TIMES. Next! -2
The split personality thing is exhausting and a little mentally frightening. It seems like a cheap marketing ploy and a creatively busy subject. Sure, Madonna reinvents herself. But that floats along with an album. Is it too much to deal with multiple personalities on one album? Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce was way cool, but Garth Brooks’ split personality Chris Gaines pretty much ended his career. Nicki’s personalities are hard to keep up with, especially this early on in her career. Is one personality not enough to keep Nicki Minaj’s career afloat? -3
Her style always looks as if she’s trying to out-gaga Gaga, and also like she’s just putting on crazy shit for the sake of putting on crazy shit. Musicians tend to dress a little cray though, so it’s nothing really new or specific to Nicki Minaj. Her style is just annoying. 0
Ahh, the hip hop feud. Yes. You’re coming right along, Nicki Minaj! Granted, Lil Kim probably started this one to garner press for her non-existent career. The “hip hop” feud is kind of a right of passage into the world of hip hop and beyond. If you’ve ever been to rap battles or simply listened to hip hop or rap, it’s a sort of art form lyrically speaking within the genre. Biggie and Tupac did it, 50 Cent and Ja Rule, Jay-Z and Nas, etc. So what’s wrong with the ladies getting into it? Besides, who knows how deep many of these feuds run. After what happened to Biggie and Tupac, many of these “beefs” may be mostly for publicity. Red meat kills! 0
Plastic surgery? Ugh. It’s so passé. Gaga’s got a nose and she fucking rocks. The nose job, the alleged butt implant?! WTF is that anyways? It’s hard to take people seriously and to see them as “real” when their bodies are created in a surgical room? Embrace yourself, don’t break and remake yourself. Aight? -2
Her new song with David Guetta is a definite departure from hip hop into electronic pop. But can she actually sing, or is this a bunch of auto-tune baloney? Because she sounds exactly like Rihanna in the chorus. You wouldn’t know this was Nicki Minaj until she started rapping in the short bridge. Exploring different genres is cool, but this song is kind of a bland and easy foray into pop music money. 0
Speaking of POP, Nicki just signed a deal with Pepsi to be the spokeswoman for their new product, creatively called Pop. Amazing marketing, as it’s apparent from her David Guetta collab that she will indeed be dipping a toe into the money mountain that is pop music and pop music’s endorsement deals. I foresee a lot of four-chord song variations with edgy yet radio-friendly rap spurts and an obligatory Kanye/Drake/whoever the industry tells us is “hot” collab. It’s not like this isn’t what happens on every pop music album, but as a probable genre switcher from hip hop to pop, I’d expect a little more creativity. 0
Honey, no. Image via mojosteve.blogspot.com
The Score
-2
A lot of my scoring comes from my honest inability to find anything that Nicki Minaj does interesting. Her weird outfits are nothing new, fashion forward or exciting. Her features on other people’s songs are awesome, but her album Pink Friday was only OK. And her split personalities are lame. She’s exhausting and confusing. I will be surprised if she is still around in 5 years.
Wow. One of the most famous teen pop couples of all time. Actually, THE most famous couple of popdom. Selena and Bieber are awesome, but there was something sooooooo different and exciting about JT and Brit. Probably Brit’s oversexualized (but shit, I loved her) persona and all of Justin’s amazing pop dance hits with *NSYNC. Girls wanted to be Brit, guys loved her, guys (secretly, you know you did) wanted to be JT and girls luuuuuuuved him. The most perfect pop couple of all time.
No couple could last in that outfit. I don't even think a single person could survive that. Image via asapicnicbasket.blogspot.com
Until shit hit the fan.
It was so tragic (in a first world, small town teenybopper kind of way), because we had been raised on Disney fairytale relationships, and our B and JT were another product of Disney. That’s all a lot of us knew about relationships: You get your prince, a huge castle, sweet dresses and some waiters that dance and sing and shit that’s it! But then the bitchy stepsister of reality rings the doorbell during your Disney-valium-idea-of-life nap and totally fucks everything up.
Granted, the breakup was way good for their careers. Well, Britney’s not so much I guess. She went on to record In the Zone which was awesome. After that it was all barefoot cheeto K-fed shaved head madness.
But JT’s solo career pretty much needed that breakup. Even if it did crush all hope for fairytale teen love for the rest of us. I mean, Cry Me a River was amazing. And outed the alleged reason JT and Brit broke up. And got lots of people to pay attention to his music.
As much as my like, 12 year old self was idolizing a beautiful, popstar couple, it clearly makes sense that these two pop stars were not meant to be. JT tells us what happened:
“We were two birds of the same feather — small-town kids, doing the same thing,” Timberlake said to Vanity Fair. “But then you become adults, and the way you were as kids doesn’t make any sense. I won’t speak on her, but at least for me, I was a totally different person. I just don’t think we were normal; there was nothing normal about our existence. We spent way too much time being the biggest thing for teenyboppers.”
Totally makes sense.
Dear Britney and Justin,
You looked good on covers of BOP and the posters that lined our rooms. And I loved your sappy, kitchy b-side McDonalds CD release, as well as every CD you both ever put out. Everyone I know learned all your dances. I will always remember your pop outfits, songs and dances with the greatest teen adoration and love in my heart. It may have been a dark childhood to teen stardom for y’all, but you were truly entertaining and made fun music to dance to in our rooms. You will forever own the title of best pop couple, and that is fucking rad. Own it. Work it. Please do an album together (yeah right, but we can dream.)
LOVE, 20sum POOR & FAB
P.S. This Britney song “Heart” from the aforementioned McDonalds b-side CD release will help you move on from teen pop and everyday heartbreaks. (Or just drink a shit ton of wine and chain smoke)
2PF 