Oh, certainly not. I can’t imagine why anyone would think that song is progressive. Have you read the lyrics–EEK!

I didn’t even like it the first time I heard it, but the damn thing stuck in my brain and the next thing I knew I was humming it. The next time I heard it, I was singing it. Remember the you-tube of the baby dancing to it that went viral? Even babies get addicted to it!

Someone who knows much more about music than I would have to explain how this works but that song is like the “Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz” of music. Once you’ve heard Single Ladies, it’s super hard to get it out of your head.

That’s the only reason I used it as an example of a “catchy” song. I wasn’t commenting on the quality of it lyrically or musically or politically. I remember Jill linked to Beyonce’s video a while back so I wanted to use an example of a song/video that was presented here before.

“My grandmother is basically blind, but she can make out the lighter parts, like my skin and hair. She says, ‘I can see you, because you have no pants on.’ So I’ll continue to wear no pants so that my grandma can see me.”

It’s interesting that we can all watch the same music video and take so many different (to the point of being contradictory) things from it. I have been on the fence about Lady Gaga for a long time, but this is the video that made me like her. I think the use of color throughout the video is fascinating. And the way the dancing changes throughout the video and becomes more assured until the end where they’re in red and dancing strongly and fiercely for nobody but themselves is awesome.

“The turning point for me was the gay community,” she said. “I’ve got so many gay fans and they’re so loyal to me and they really lifted me up. They’ll always stand by me and I’ll always stand by them. It’s not an easy thing to create a fanbase. … Being invited to play [the San Francisco Pride rally], that was a real turning point for me as an artist.”

The whole article is here: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1610781/20090506/lady_gaga.jhtml

aren’t crystals slavic themselves? the czechs are famous for them…

As for Gaga not being attractive, I do think that as much as she’s skinny and blonde, she definitely isn’t conventionally attractive — she has strong features, a big nose, etc. And she dresses oddly — she may not wear pants, but you don’t get the feeling that she’s planning her outfits because they’re simply titillating. She’s striking, but not traditionally pretty, and she doesn’t seem to try to box herself into the sexy pop star thing. She’s definitely sexual, and I think she’s smokin’, but her brand is definitely more tied to aesthetic weirdness than sex appeal. I like her in part because she seems to be acutely aware of the male gaze, and she seems to like fucking with it. I think this video is a pretty obvious example of that.

But of course, to each their own. If you hate the video, ok.