Category — Lady Gaga

From The Mirror:

I’m so excited about going into the studio. I haven’t completely settled on what kind of music I’m going to make yet, but I would love it to be something like Lady GaGa…She is the new Madonna as far as I’m concerned.

To all my Muusers in the Miami area, I’ve got tickets for quite the affair next week!

On Saturday, March 27, gay club Score (Gaga stopped there after her New Years Eve performance his year–it’s been officially christened!) will be hosting a massive event during the Winter Music Conference, including performances by MuuMuse favorites Kelis, Wynter Gordon, Estelle, Lolene, and Agnes.

MuuMuse is proud to be giving away ONE PAIR of tickets to the event! To enter, send an e-mail to muumuse@gmail.com with the subject line “WMC” or send a tweet my way with the following phrase: “I want to go to the WMC, @MuuMuse!”

A winner will be selected and notified on Tuesday, March 23.

For those of you who’d rather stop by, tickets for the event are $15.

Click here to find out more about all the events going on at the Winter Music Conference.

From her official blog:

AMAZING !
Love GaGa, Love Beyonce and LOVE THIS !

There.

We can all go home now, and all counter-points are officially deemed irrelevant. Thank you for your time.

Today, Lady Gaga announced the second American leg of The Monster Ball Tour Starring Lady Gaga, presented by Virgin Mobile.

Per the official press release:

In keeping with Lady Gaga’s flair for the theatrical, as well as her innovative and creative spirit, the second leg of the tour promises to push the limits of the live concert experience, bringing fans a spectacle even more eye-popping than what they experienced during the thrilling first leg of The Monster Ball.

“It’s still called Monster Ball, but it’s more of a musical and less of a concert,” Lady Gaga said in a February interview with KIIS-FM’s Ryan Seacrest. “It has a New York theme, it’s a story, and the story is that me and my friends are in New York and we’re going to the Monster Ball, and we get lost.”

Click “Read More” to see the full list of dates!

Tickets for the concert will be available beginning on March 19 via Ticketmaster.

To celebrate this most monstrous news, MuuMuse is proud to announce a giveaway of muh-muh-massive proportions.

To enter to win one of TEN official “Telephone” limited edition posters (NOT sold in stores!) as featured in this post, send an e-mail to me at muumuse@gmail.com with the subject line “TELEPHONE” to win, or send me the following tweet: “I want to talk on the TELEPHONE with @muumuse!”

The ten winners will be randomly selected and notified on March 22 at 12 p.m. EST. Good luck!

[Read more →]

Photo courtesy of Joey James Productions.

The visual campaign continues for “Telephone” with this wonderfully illustrated poster, just released from Camp Gaga.

I appreciate the fact that she’s going ‘all out’ with this release, as concept-laden and perhaps excessive as it may be.

Pop music should always be an event.

And now, the official video premiere of “Telephone” by Lady Gaga, featuring Beyonce.

Things I loved:
The concept. Pulp Fiction meets Faster, Pussycat! Kill Kill! Half Grindhouse, half glamour…and it’s all guts and glitter in the end. How is this not a Quentin Tarantino production?
The Miss Mann cameo. Did you catch it? The second jail guard? It’s Miss Mann from Scary Movie! Which tucks away nicely into the next moment I loved…
The penis puns. “I told you she didn’t have a dick.” She’s taken a lot of shit in the press for her big dick, so why not have a little fun slapping it in our faces now and then?
The Beysus-to-Godga Honeybun snack munch. So cute, so fierce, etc. etc.
The Poison TV concoction sequence. A deadly serious Gagz takes a quick turn as an ice cold Paula Deen gone-terribly-wrong. Coupled with the peen punches, it’s nice to remember that ‘art’ doesn’t always have to be serious business.
Literally everything Beyonce did. The .gif Gods were truly smiling upon us tonight. How immense were those repeat-heavy shots of Beyonce manically wielding that telephone? Amazing.
The flowing outfits at the end of the video. Thelma and Louise take a stab at haute couture.

Things I didn’t love:
The gratuitous girl-on-girl kiss on the prison yard. It felt forced and, as Hard Candy Music’s Matt pointed out to me in our conversation, felt like Gaga was merely going for a ‘Banned on MTV’ video with that move. A smart move, though contrived.
The product placement. I know it must be done sometimes–that’s how these big budget productions get funded. But really, spending screen time on the home page of a dating website? There’s a thin line between tongue-in-cheek sponsorship and a full-length pop up ad.

In summation: The video is basically perfection.

With each boundary breaking video she’s released, Gaga continues to one-up herself as an entertainer in every way possible. There is literally no artist in the industry that is more powerful, influential or entertaining than Lady Gaga at this point in time.

There’s just no use arguing anymore…

Lady Gaga truly is the next Madonna, isn’t she?

Take heed: The music video and/or short film for Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s “Telephone” is headed our way on Thursday.

According to an official press release, the nine minute Jonas Akerlund-directed “epic” will pick up where “Paparazzi” left off and is set to premiere on Thursday’s E! News, which begins at 11:30 p.m. EST. The video will then be made available on both Vevo and Gaga’s official website at midnight on Friday.

Prepare accordingly.

I first introduuced Lolene in August with the arrival of her deliciously trashy track, “Sexy People.”

Now, she’s ready to begin: “Rich (Fake It ‘Til You Make It)” is Lolene’s official debut single, a Gaga-ian inner fame mantra that promotes the notion that belief can make it happen, even if you start out with nothing: “I walk like I’m rich, I talk like I’m rich, I spend like I’m rich, but I ain’t got no money,” she proudly declares in the song’s chorus.

To hear the track in full, click here.

Will those Hollywood dreams come true for the singer? Time will soon tell.

“Rich (Fake It ‘Til You Make It)” will be released on April 19.

Lady Gaga made an appearance on tonight’s episode of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, where she performed “Brown Eyes” in an extraordinary dress called “The Living Dress,” as well as her first ever live rendition of “Telephone.”

While the first performance highlighted Gaga’s massive talent as a singer and musician, the latter seemed to underscore her slightly sub-par dancing abilities. I mostly blame the song, however–I’m of the opinion that “Telephone” is perhaps one of the weakest tracks off of The Fame Monster. It’s just too all-over-the-place for me!

She also sat down for an interview with the host, which turned out to be quite the improvement from the cold awk-fest that was her first appearance.

Still, Gaga remained Gaga throughout, which means we still have no idea who the fuck she is as a person.

There’s just nothing about the ‘always on’ aspect of her persona that I find appealing. I simply cannot connect to an artist that’s always in artist mode! I want to know deep down that you have a soul, and not one that’s been manufactured ‘for the fans.’

Great entertainer, though!

The Family Jewels is the debut album by Marina and the Diamonds (real name Marina Diamandis–see what she did there?).

Having just been named the #2 “One to Watch” on the BBC’s prestigious Sound of 2010 list, Marina is about to endure a great deal of scrutiny and criticism under the magnifying glass of the English press with the album’s release on February 22. But is she worth the dreaded hype?

Marina’s full, throaty delivery style has the ability to quickly divide her supporters from her detractors, meshing Regina Spektor’s quirk and Fiona Apple’s angst with a heavily theatrical flair. Never one to shy from over-enunciation, Marina tackles the bulk of her debut with a bold, brassy delivery and a dizzying array of instrumentation and sound.

The formula works wonderfully for the most part, as with the gorgeous, slow building “Obsessions” and the electro-bubbly contemplation of “Are You Satisfied?”Occasionally though, the album suffers from becoming all too much (and shrill), as evidenced by “Hermit the Frog,” a jumpy, quirky piano and strings-led number that sounds as though Marina is recalling the tale of her deflowering whilst spinning around a carousel filled with Broadway singers and marching band members.

The highlights of Jewels that shine brightest reside in its beginning and end, including “Oh No!”, “Shampain” and “Rootless,” a rewarding, slower moment of choral coos and ample amounts of harpsichord: “Running with my roots pulled up / Caught me cold so they could cut / What there was left of love / I’m rootless, I’m rootless.” Though just as ‘epic’-sounding as the rest of the album, it’s a much needed comedown from the occasionally overwhelming production.

If there’s a major criticism to be made about this album, it’s not the music, but rather the messages behind them. Lyrically, The Family Jewels offers a strange, if not inconsistent array of tales. “I know exactly what I want and who I want to be / I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine / I’m now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy,” Marina announces in the delightfully explosive “Oh No!,” only seven songs after the seemingly contradictory “I Am Not A Robot.”

As with many of the songs that simultaneously fete and belittle the impossible dreams of fame and beauty such as “Girls” and “Hollywood,” Marina’s bouts of maniacal lyricism and celebrations of excess (“I’m obsessed with the mess that’s America”) too often position the singer as an unreliable narrator. We’re never entirely sure just who or what she’s singing about and, by the end, left wondering whether anything being sung is even sincere in the first place.

Then again, if the occasional contradiction in pop music were important, Lady “I hate money!” Gaga would be nowhere, money honey.

Marina’s debut is full of infectious melodies, bright sounds and fresh, delicious hooks. Even if the album as a whole may be a bit too much to tolerate in one spin, it’s not hard to see that there are more than just a few gems hidden in this box of Jewels.