The Inexhaustible Genius of Lady Gaga

I struggle to put into words just how revolutionary, inspired, and original I find Lady Gaga. Her performance at the VMA's was the first time I was completely floored by her ingenuity and beauty and she has somehow outdone herself with her new video for Bad Romance. Not only is her music, at its core, incredibly gorgeous, original, and versatile, but her aesthetic with respect to her clothing and music videos is absolutely breathtaking.

Many people "don't get" Lady Gaga. Many reactions to her visceral VMA's performance I've heard have been along the lines of "that was really weird", or "i don't get her. why all the blood...?". My first response to comments like these are "it's not weird, it's genius, and you don't get it because for some tragic reason you are oblivious to the depth of the immediacy of abstract art and humanity she reaches on a daily basis".

Most people's initial reaction to the Lady is that she must be on tons of drugs. While I'm not quite naive enough to completely exonerate her from dabbling, I do think it's completely possible that she's not on any mood or reality-altering illegal substances. Why does someone have to be on drugs to come up with some of the things she does in terms of fashion and performance aesthetic? Could these thoughts not dawn on her when she's dead sober? Perhaps when the rest of the world was growing up and figuring out how to fit in, she was figuring out how to look more like Boy George and David Bowie. At least, that's what I like to think. Is everyone supposed to be Taylor Swift? I hope not.

I think Lady Gaga's music, lyrics, fashion, and general art aesthetic speak to the darkest and most twisted complications of human emotions that is all at once astounding, abstract, and accessible. Some find her aesthetic alienating, I find it freeing from every kind of suffocating convention of modern conceptions of music, fame, and fashion.