Grace Jones dislikes Lady Gaga

[Leeroi]

Should have phrased better. What I meant by "old" was she's been in the business for such a long time.

And I wasn't comparing her to Pavarotti, I was saying she was singing opera and clearly she shouldn't have by her voice, or instead they should have chosen a real opera singer since that duet was sung in opera fashion.

And heavy popularity and heavy criticism goes hand in hand in pop music, and imo this is one of them. No one really cared much for her at the beginning. And then Pokerface popped up and everyone started talking more about her sexuality and fashion more so than her actual singing abilities; very much like when Madonna came up with Like A Virgin.

 

[drappedup]

Everybody is hating on Gaga like they hated on Britney early in her career. Everybody said Britney coped Janet Jackson and Madonna. Now people are saying Gaga is copying Grace and Madonna. When I listen to Britney I don't expect to get enlightened or expect any deep sh!t from her. I just like to dance. Same with Gaga I imagine.

Why are female artists so mean to each other.

Exactly! No one is an original of anyone, I don't why every artist gets bashed one way or another so heavily in regard to this. Like for the new Telephone music video all of the youtube comments were blasting Beyonce, saying she was copying Gaga. It's JUST a music video they BOTH collaborated on! A FUN music video meant to be humorous and fun to dance to!

^because people blindly and ignorantly put gaga on this pedestal as if she's so original and she's that innovative. even she herself with her pretentious "art" attitude thinks she's doing something so revolutionary. sorry but she's not and i can understand why people want to put it out there like that. i mean grace is obviously somebody she tries to emulate.

and i think grace is in a position to critique anybody she wants to in my eyes because she is that influential. you hear any pop artist today-goldfrapp,lcd soundsystem,ladytron,hot chip,the shortwave set,santigold etc.-and most have and will acknowledge grace jones as an influence. the biggest difference i see however is that many of these artists truly know how to interpret that influence rather than directly trying to copy it.

and i wouldn't have such a problem with it myself if she would actually admit that she does take sounds from other artists. i've often said her music sounds nothing more than peaches and miss kittin.

.....huh? When has Gaga ever tried to claim she's so innovative? If anything, I have seen her talking about influence she has gotten from others. Have you ever actually watched any of her interviews? She never tries to claim she's so brilliant and original, and oftentimes talks about her origins of inspiration and all that. Seriously.....I'm lost with this post.

And, anyway, it's completely tacky of Grace to just out of nowhere blast Gaga like that. I hate when celebs do that to each other, especially for petty reasons like this....OMG YOU'RE COPYING ME!!!! I mean, seriously? Everyone is inspired by everyone. Even in her hay day Grace drew inspiration from things and people around her. EVERYONE does. That's why this sort of thing makes no sense unless it's flat out blatant and direct copying, i.e. like with that "Carlos Mencia" dude plagiarized other comedians material.

 

[Squizree]

Oh here we go again with the Lady Gaga hate. The ONLY reason Lady Gaga is criticized so brutally is because she's super famous.

There are MANY MANY MANY other artists who "copy" even more than Lady Gaga but aren't viciously criticized as much as Lady Gaga.

And I don't get it. Lady Gaga has said, countless times, that she is inspired and refers to other artists.
And it's getting very irritating hearing people continuously bring up the "disco stick" line. It was the ONE line, get over it. A lot of her songs have cool lyrics that still mean something. Especially Speechless and Bad Romance.

Sure, she's commercial and "mainstream" and blah blah blah, but that doesn't mean she's a useless singer and performer.

 

[sethii]

Her songs all sound the same to me. The lyrics are pretty terrible and her voice is not special. She cannot dance and is nothing special to look at. She is great if you like to hear noise in combination with moving colourful shapes and flashing lights. For people who don't like Lady Gaga just don't go to her thread, change the channel if she's on TV, don't search for her on youtube etc. Works well for me! Don't waste your time on her when there are so many better musicians.

For people who like Gaga that's great she entertains you but don't hype her up to be some amazing genius, or a fashion icon. She has NO style. Just look at her before she had money to wear head to toe runway looks. It did irritate me when I was in a Jean Paul Gaultier thread and people were saying 'thats very lady gaga' If I ordered something from JPG and wore it, does that make JPG very 'sethii'? Of course not. Her crazy fans don't even praise JPG they praise Lady Gaga for inspiring him. Please.

Grace Jones isn't 'totally' original and most pop stars are not. Wasn't her iconic image crafted by a famous designer/artist in the 80s? And she wasn't just keeping to some underground clubs. She did very mainstream TV chat shows, and mainstream movies (remember her in James Bond?). Her singing was worse than Gaga by far. They both draw on inspirations from other aspects of culture. So the argument over who is 'the original' isn't so interesting for me.

What is annoying is when Lady Gaga fans attack people like Grace Jones and Roisin Murphy and say they are 'jealous' - when they should be thanking those artists for providing Lady Gaga with material for her next song.

 

[drappedup]

^ Exactly to what Squirzee said. And there are so many other artists who should be getting this bashing. At least Lady Gaga is trying to be vibrant and slightly "different" than some of the more one dimensional singers out there like your wannabe artists (i.e. remember Paris Hilton trying to be an artist? Remember Hilary Duff? Lindsay Lohan? Ashlee Simpson? List goes on and on). Her lyrics are catchy and clever, and while typically they are not "deep", she is simply NOT trying to make them the most meaningful, poetic lyrics ever. Seriously. Either she's getting criticized for being pretentious and artsy and condescending and arrogant about her, as some of you have said, "art" or she's just some manufactured silly one dimensional pop singer with no talent, as, again, some of you have said. WHICH is it? I have seen plenty of interviews with her referencing where she gets her inspiration. She has decent vocals, the concept of her album "The Fame" was clever, her music videos are cool, she can play the piano, and she's quirky. She's definitely more entertaining and interesting than 90% of the mainstream musicians today, and that's more than good enough for me, since that's ALL I look for in mainstream music anyway (as should anyone).

 

[Squizree]

It did irritated me when I was in a Jean Paul Gaultier thread and people were saying 'thats very lady gaga' If I ordered something from JPG and wore it, does that make JPG very 'sethii'? Of course not. Her crazy fans don't even praise JPG they praise Lady Gaga for inspiring him. Please

This irritates me too. A LOT.
It was that child Perez Hilton who first proposed that Jean Paul Gaultier most recent Haute Couture collection was "inspired by Lady Gaga" What an idiot.
JPG was doin' his thang DECADES before Lady Gaga.

What is annoying is when Lady Gaga fans attack people like Grace Jones and Roisin Murphy and say they are 'jealous'

This is typical die hard fan behavior and you'll see this with EVERY famous person. I like Lady Gaga and I consider myself a fan, but I'll never have enough stupidity to say she's 100% original or whatever (or anyone for that matter). I went to her concert and she's a fantastic performer.

 

[drappedup]

Also, sorry, wasn't allowed to edit my post with this:

Her songs all sound the same to me. The lyrics are pretty terrible and her voice is not special. She cannot dance and is nothing special to look at. She is great if you like to hear noise in combination with moving colourful shapes and flashing lights. For people who don't like Lady Gaga just don't go to her thread, change the channel if she's on TV, don't search for her on youtube etc. Works well for me! Don't waste your time on her when there are so many better musicians.

For people who like Gaga that's great she entertains you but don't hype her up to be some amazing genius, or a fashion icon. She has NO style. Just look at her before she had money to wear head to toe runway looks. It did irritate me when I was in a Jean Paul Gaultier thread and people were saying 'thats very lady gaga' If I ordered something from JPG and wore it, does that make JPG very 'sethii'? Of course not. Her crazy fans don't even praise JPG they praise Lady Gaga for inspiring him. Please.

Grace Jones isn't 'totally' original and most pop stars are not. Wasn't her iconic image crafted by a famous designer/artist in the 80s? And she wasn't just keeping to some underground clubs. She did very mainstream TV chat shows, and mainstream movies (remember her in James Bond?). Her singing was worse than Gaga by far. They both draw on inspirations from other aspects of culture. So the argument over who is 'the original' isn't so interesting for me.

What is annoying is when Lady Gaga fans attack people like Grace Jones and Roisin Murphy and say they are 'jealous' - when they should be thanking those artists for providing Lady Gaga with material for her next song.

A couple things. I don't care if you think her songs sound the same, that's fair enough. If you don't like her voice, also okay. If you don't find her attractive, eh, I really don't either, most of the time. And music video comment too, whatever everyone has differing taste in videos. But the WTF one to me is the dance comment. I think she actually is a pretty good dancer. I wouldn't place her on Janet level or anything, but who is, especially of today's current female roster? Only ones who seem to be true and genuine phenomenal dancers are Beyonce, Shakira, Ciara.....that's really all I can think of. Lady Gaga is good enough. Who even bothers to do real dance sequences in their music videos anymore, female-wise? It's sad, because most don't. I'm glad Lady Gaga does, at least in some of hers. Other female singers just stand there awkwardly in the middle with a group of background dancers moving around them.

....and what Lady Gaga fans are you talking about here? I never see anyone saying her fashion is brilliant or edgy. I actually REALLY REALLY hate her fashion sense. It's hideous. And she's definitely no genius. Maybe sometimes clever or quirky at most. Only people I ever see boasting about things like that, or making such outrageous claims are really young or blindingly diehard fans. So it seems odd to me that you're lumping together ALL Lady Gaga fans into one category. Finally, Lady Gaga talks about her inspiration all the time. I'm not sure what you and some of the others expect her to say in regard to "THANKING" these artists she gets inspiration from. Do you want her to write a blog post about it? Maybe dedicate an intro or interlude or something on her next album? Seriously. It just seems so silly that people seem to want her to make some big spiel of a speech thanking Grace Jones (for example) or others when she has ALREADY acknowledged her musical inspirations multiple times. I just don't get it. Why keep beating a dead horse? She's already talked about her inspirations. That's fine enough. Is she supposed to be forever indebted or something?

 

[misscheriedior]

Her songs all sound the same to me. The lyrics are pretty terrible and her voice is not special. She cannot dance and is nothing special to look at. She is great if you like to hear noise in combination with moving colourful shapes and flashing lights. For people who don't like Lady Gaga just don't go to her thread, change the channel if she's on TV, don't search for her on youtube etc. Works well for me! Don't waste your time on her when there are so many better musicians.

If you ignore Lady Gaga then how do you know that all her music sounds the same? How do you know she can't dance?
I can understand that you don't like her and I'm not expecting you to but I don't understand how you can say she has no talent.

Anyway.. I'm just gonna leave these here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7HvURBhMGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oGcio1OOfI

 

[Les_Sucettes]

We are talking about two different kettles of fish, Grace Jones is a hugely influential cultural reference and Lady Gaga is a successful pop star. Regardless if people think her act is good or bad(And I'm the last person to discuss this, because i simply do not rate pop music after the 80s), the path she chosen was already taken before, ( it can only produce a yawn from anyone over 30), she is not product or a reflexion of her generation, she will have trouble leaving her mark after the hype dies down.
And it has nothing to do if she has a battalion of stylists or if she has a team telling her what to do, Christina and Britney were totally manufactured pop princess, but still their tackiness is the cultural reference of a particular period.

I read her interview in the Guardian and I can understand Grace Jones comments, it must be very annoying to see someone doing something that you did way before being hailed as someone original. It happens to us in a small scale all the time, and if for us can be mildly irritating, who am I to ask her to be graceful about it.

 

[Salvatore]

Either she's getting criticized for being pretentious and artsy and condescending and arrogant about her, as some of you have said, "art" or she's just some manufactured silly one dimensional pop singer with no talent, as, again, some of you have said. WHICH is it?

It's both . Her tone and feeling in interviews is very pretentious about her 'art' when it's just manufactured mainstream pop . And I, too, hate the 'That's so Lady Gaga' as if she has copyrighted and patented every last look in the fashion book from here to eternity . Annoying .

 

[Thanatos]

.....huh? When has Gaga ever tried to claim she's so innovative? If anything, I have seen her talking about influence she has gotten from others. Have you ever actually watched any of her interviews? She never tries to claim she's so brilliant and original, and oftentimes talks about her origins of inspiration and all that. Seriously.....I'm lost with this post.

Um have you even? I've seen and read plenty of interviews with her and she clearly thinks those things, which is why I think a lot of people of people don't like her. The difference between her and other pop stars like Rihanna, Beyonce, Britney or whoever is that they more or less just get on with it and don't brag and boast about how great they are, as she does. If she were original, hugely talented or any of the things she thinks she is then maybe it would be a bit more tolerable, but she isn't. So people should just accept her for what she is and not make out she's anything more. The only problem I have with LG is her attitude, the things she says and other peoples delusions about her, that's it, nothing else.

I didn't find Grace's comments out of line or too harsh at all, for one she was asked what she though of LG, what's she supposed to say "no comment"? You can't blame her for stating her opinion about someone, almost all celebrities do it, I don't see how it's any different.

 

[Scott]

well,let's be honest she gets much of her visual image from fashion and past style icons anyway. if she didn't have any of that i don't think she would be as dynamic in her image as she is. i mean have you seen her the way she looked only three or four years ago? she could have been any mall rat in your town. and that's why i don't buy any of this from her. i mean i appreciate that she puts good designers out there in such a way but to me it seems so surface rather than a real identity. i think it's the one aspect that really separates her from people like roisin or MIA because however you feel about their music,at least they're authentic in how they express themselves and how they've created their own style. they've been doing what they've been doing since before we really knew them.

it also drives me mad too when certain fans(not all,by no means)suggest that in everything any other artist does is so gaga....whether it be a certain style of a video or whatever.

 

[Scott]

you know,in my experience,i've learned that the more pretentious and condescending you sound the more desperate you are to be accepted or perceived as an artist. quite honestly,it's the kind of attitude that so often gets conveyed by gaga.

 

[triple_full]

I have to agree in part with Grace on this one...
I have been largely unimpressed by Lady GaGa in interviews and articles. Beneath the 'outlandish' facade I find her personality to be dull, manufactured and unispiring.
For me, Lady Gaga is a product of advertising rather than creativity substance. Shes a relativley talented pop writer/singer, with a very clever marketing team behind her. Strip away the frills and froth and the remainder is very average.
Without wishing to sound cruel, her looks are not commercial or marketable enough to secure her career (unlike Britney etc) and her long term influence will never match up to a true innovator such as Grace Jones. She has cleverly been able to compensate for this with the crazy fashion ensembles that get her noticed.
Having said that, what she does is working for her just fine at the moment, and you cant argue with sales and success. You have to applaud her (or her mangement) for creating such a worldwide brand.

 

[lizbabe09]

Hm..interesting. How does the saying go? imitation is the highest form of flattery? I appreciate Grace's straightforward "say what I want" attitude, it's something I've always loved about her and no one should ever expect her to say "no comment" although I agree with what was said about not needing to comment on pop stars today. Grace has already cemented herself in the business and Gaga is trying to do the same and while I'm not a big Gaga fan, hardly a fan at all actually, I do find her pretty amusing, especially with today's market and lack of "interesting" artists. I can see why it would be annoying for someone to copy (for the sake of not changing the words around) me but inspiration has to come from somewhere or someone and if that's the case, I'm glad someone is influenced by Grace because she's sensational. The only problem I have with Gaga is not her but the fans that think she's the best thing since slice bread. It gets to a point where you can't comment on her lipstick shade without having someone chew your head off about how revolutionary she is or about the statement she's trying to make by wearing matte pink lipstick. I do find her to be an interesting figure in today's pop (which is seriously lacking in the creativity level) but it's all a bit too ridiculous.

 

[AD011620]

I kind of like Gaga... but Grace Jones is above A class... she is a true Icon... and Scot I am you fan now because you said it soooo well;-))))

^because people blindly and ignorantly put gaga on this pedestal as if she's so original and she's that innovative. even she herself with her pretentious "art" attitude thinks she's doing something so revolutionary. sorry but she's not and i can understand why people want to put it out there like that. i mean grace is obviously somebody she tries to emulate.

and i think grace is in a position to critique anybody she wants to in my eyes because she is that influential. you hear any pop artist today-goldfrapp,lcd soundsystem,ladytron,hot chip,the shortwave set,santigold etc.-and most have and will acknowledge grace jones as an influence. the biggest difference i see however is that many of these artists truly know how to interpret that influence rather than directly trying to copy it.

and i wouldn't have such a problem with it myself if she would actually admit that she does take sounds from other artists. i've often said her music sounds nothing more than peaches and miss kittin.

 

[AD011620]

I don't think Grace Jones is jealous of Gaga... seriously?! Grace is an embodiments of originality and sometimes she is a piece of art herself let alone her music and some other work...

Elthon John always s..cks up to young artists and all these Grammy bla bla bla performances... whereas Grace does nort hunt for fame or musical reparation... she is just Grace...

No problem with being influenced by someone... we all are influenced by some kind of human influence machinery...

Gaga is very entertaining and very talanted... but again people who consider her original are missing point... her music is absolutely non-original... but I did buy her album and enjoyed it to some point... Gaga is art for people who think that No.1 at billboard makes song great... I think music strats below Top 100;-))) with some exceptions of course;-)

 

[Spike413]

I doubt I'll ever understand the intense hatred Gaga brings out in some people due to all of her perceived offenses.

Reading the posts in here it seems like the hatred that she's on the receiving end of should actually be targeted at some of her fans. She doesn't claim to be a pioneer, her fans make her out to be one. She doesn't claim to be a genius, her fans treat her like one. She's never been quoted as saying she was the first to do any of the things she's done, nor has she been quoted as saying she's the best at it, as far as I know. I can completely understand hating her because you dislike her music or think she's silly or whatever. I can't understand hating her because some of her fans just don't know better.

As for Grace, while I respect what she's done and love her as an icon as well, this reeks of desperation. Whenever an icon pulls this, like a couple of years ago when Debbie Harry accused Madonna of ripping her off back in the day, it just comes off as a cry for attention by someone who is not as important as they once were. And since some of this is turning into a worship fest for Grace's artistic genius I'd just like to point out that her image was planned and engineered by her and Goude, in case anyone has mistaken it for pure artistry or spontaneous expression. She may have done it first but her look was no less fake or practiced that Lady Gaga's is today.

 

[inhirnamy137]

I guess she feels the same about Rihanna because she copies her style also

 

[liv4beauty]

I can understand the Gaga hate.

Lady Gaga IS arrogant. I've tried to like her but I've watched too many interviews where she constantly categorizes her product as "art". Sorry hon, but true artists don't have to point it out. Her fans only make it worse.

Her image is also a fabrication. I've seen pictures of Gaga prior to her current persona and she was nothing more than any girl you'd find on Jersey Shore. It's as if she read an edition of 'how to be avant garde for dummies' and went with it. Remember the backlash that Vanilla Ice went through in the 90's when people found out that he was not from the 'hood'? Same thing here.

If she simply continued to churn out mindless pop tunes without all the art hoopla, people wouldn't be so hard on her.

Anyway, love me some Grace!