Ga-ga

If I had been asked six months ago how I felt about Lady Gaga, I would have probably have used an expletive or two, and ranted a little about pop music and such. But recently, the world seems to be going ga-ga over Gaga. She made it onto Time mags list of 100 Most Influential People in the World list, leading the 'artists' section with a blurb written by Cyndi Lauper. South Park paid homage to her in their particular style by having Eric Cartman sing Pokerface during an episode. A few videos have made the Youtube rounds like the a capella version of Bad Romance and some of our soldiers in Afghanistan doing their own version of Telephone. Glad I know that my tax dollars are being spent wisely, keep up the good work, troops. I also just stumbled onto this teenager who does an impressive cover of Paparazzi on piano.
So now, I find myself intrigued by the Lady. Her lyrics are at times bizarre and charged with dirty sexuality. She writes most of them herself, which is quite a departure from most pop music stars, who sublet this tedious (and ultimately forgettable) task to firms in Nashville that crank them out like the sugar-pills they are. Gaga has actually made something possibly memorable, and despite my general abhorring for anything pop, find myself not changing the station when Pokerface comes on. Is that because of the purported meaning of the song? Possibly.

However, I'm much more entertained by Lily Allen, whose lyrics leave nothing to the imagination as does Gaga, but isn't nearly as bizarre, and can be downright cute, despite her notoriously bad behavior. Youtube her, but beware, some songs are NSFW.