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This post was found to be inappropriate by the moderators and has been removed.Is this a poem…or lyrics?….
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Nomadland
First Cow
The Forty-Year-Old Version
Martin Eden
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Sorry We Missed You
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
The Assistant
His House
Possessor: UncutPicture: Nomadland
Director: Kelly Reichardt, First Cow
Actor: Luca Martinelli, Martin Eden
Actress: Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Supp. Actor: Bill Burr, King of Staten Island
Supp. Actress: Essie Davis, True History of the Kelly GangBionic kinda deserves the reputation it has. It has a few killer tracks (Elastic Love is about the best thing Christina has ever done, and I’m sure her fans will disagree, but whatever), and yes, it does take risks, but honestly, taking risks isn’t necessarily a good thing, and the end result is an uneven mess of an album. There are maybe enough tracks there for a solid EP, and that’s it. It’s no underrated masterpiece.
And Lotus… well. that one… better not get into that one…
ReplyCopy URLI would argue that Born This Way is only a step and half better than Bionic. Both albums were overly ambitious, attempted too many different sounds and could have used a great deal of editing. BTW’s few best songs eclipse Bionic’s few best however. “Elastic Love” is indeed the best thing Christina has done. Had the album been more in the vein of that song and “Monday Morning” perhaps Perez’s pathetic trolling would be somewhat justified.
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This post was found to be inappropriate by the moderators and has been removed.I would argue that Born This Way is only a step and half better than Bionic. Both albums were overly ambitious, attempted too many different sounds and could have used a great deal of editing. BTW’s few best songs eclipse Bionic’s few best however. “Elastic Love” is indeed the best thing Christina has done. Had the album been more in the vein of that song and “Monday Morning” perhaps Perez’s pathetic trolling would be somewhat justified.
Oh I think that is quite a stretch. Bionic isn’t the pile of trash that it’s made out to be, but nothing on that album even comes close to the levels of greatness in “Heavy Metal Lover,” “Government Hooker,” “The Edge of Glory,” “Bloody Mary,” “Electric Chapel” and arguably a few more. Born This Way will never get the appreciation it deserves and that is mostly Gaga’s fault. The album was overhyped and the era was mismanaged.
ReplyCopy URLThe only truly great song in Born This Way for me was The Edge Of Glory. There are a few solid ones (Hooker and… something else I can’t remember because it’s been so long). But it suffers from the same problem of Bionic: ambitious, but not a lot of cohesion, and it was very uneven. I also think the problem both Gaga has is that, “Glory” excluded, she makes such a point of not making songs that feel personal. Because there was difference between songs that feel like they are about stuff she finds important and songs that feel completely genuine, straight from the gut. Speechless in TF was also an exception, but most of the time, it’s frustating that she’s been popular this long and she still keeps her poker face (see what I did there?).
I do give Bionic and Christina a bit of an advantage over Born This Way because I do think it’s a Christina album not just because some sonic similarities in the ballads to stuff she had done before, but because it feels like Christina really is singing about her most of the time, not about some thematic outside of her or some character she made up that happens to be named Lady Gaga (who now apparently thinks she is the personification of all pop culture ever and uses the most generic song to make such a pretentious, bold statement. And no, I will not let it go).
ReplyCopy URLI don’t think anything on BTW reaches “Bad Romance”, but I do like “Government Hooker”, “Marry the Night” and “Heavy Metal Lover”. I don’t think those songs are that much better than “Elastic Love”, “Monday Morning” and “Bird of Prey”. I don’t get affected by hype. BTW was in serious need of editing and like Rena said cohesion. I give it a slight edge over Bionic, because at least it’s never dull and unlistenable. Bionic’s weakest points were difficult to get through. I don’t really care about personal. I didn’t like either “Edge of Glory” or “Speechless”. When modern pop stars do “personal” aka sentimental it rarely works for me.
ReplyCopy URLI think Speechless and especially The Edge of Glory earn their sentimentality, though. But I agree personal doesn’t work frequently with pop stars (part of why I don’t like Pink and Kelly is because they are too earnest and try to pass as authentic so much it just comes off as another calculated formula). I think what I meant is more some kind of genuine personality, something that isn’t a theme built around a hook gimmick or the topic du jour for her. I guess I’d just like some kind of personal delivery, some consitant perosnality even if the material itself isn’t the most personal, instead of all detached unearned theatrics all the time. I think Christina has that a bit, although I don’t think she’s particularly one of the best at it, even if she has a great voice. Both are pretty volatile though, and to be honest, Christina also lacks career cohesion (although her albums usually have much clearer direction than BTW).
I just don’t think there’s a real personality to Gaga. Her point of view is too nebulous and she shifts perspective way too much. Even artists that like to change their musical direction much, like Madonna, usually have a common thread that ties the work together. I don’t see that much with Gaga, I see some recurrant elements, but even those are used in a very scattered manner.
ReplyCopy URLI like a few of Pink’s more “emotional” tracks. A couple of Christina’s as well. But Gaga can’t pull it off. That’s mainly due to her ever shifting persona and the general artifice of everything Gaga. The Edge of Glory was just too cheesy for me. Speechless was lyrically horrific. And both songs were deeply self-aware and derivative. She needs to stick to the artifice and just deliver some good sentiment free pop tracks. I get all the personal I need listening to Fiona all day and night.
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