Mini gig review: Lady GaGa

Lady GaGa's muse, Andy Warhol, once said: "An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them."

These words don't get flashed up on the screen during her gig at the O2 but they may as well have been. Because Stefani Joanne Germanotta has decided to give the audience, who are principally here for the Pussycat Dolls, a short history lesson in 20th Century art.

Between her songs, the video screens feature loving pastiches of Warhol's improvised encounters between Factory regulars like Nico and Edie Sedgwick (thankfully, they don't last a full 16 hours). The songs themselves are illustrated with images by Mondrian, while the stage backdrop is inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

To be honest, this is largely lost on the crowd, who are happy just to chant "Red Wine" in anticipation of GaGa's current chart topper, Just Dance.

Luckily, as much thought has gone into the front of stage production as the video installations. And the one thing GaGa hasn't picked up from Warhol is an air of studied ennui. The shiny starlet preens, twirls and poses, changing costumes three times in 25 minutes, and singing with a surprising powerful voice.

She only gets time for a handful of songs, and wisely chooses the standout moments from her 6/10 album - including the trashy Beautiful Dirty Rich, stalker ballad Paparazzi and future smash Poker Face.

In truth, the songs are the weak point, all show and no subtlety. GaGa has often been compared to Madonna and, in a way, that's true. The hedonistic music plays second fiddle to the carefully crafted image (and GaGa's dancing is as endearingly scrappy as Madge's pre-megastardom keep fit choreography).

But Warhol would be proud. He loved Hollywood, he loved plastic, he loved commerce. Lady GaGa just needs to keep in mind one of his final pieces of advice - keep defying people's expectations, because "if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning".

PS: I stuck around to see what a Pussycat Dolls concert would be like. BAD MOVE!

I've never experienced a more soulless, pointless piece of artifice. The low-point was a "solo section" where each Pussycat got to sing a song of their choice. I turned round to see what the O2's audience made of it, and got a vision of 20,000 people queueing in the rain to apply for an overdraft. While being aurally assaulted by a cat killing a badger.

Oh, and if you're charging £45 for a ticket, it is an absolute disgrace to perform to a backing tape. Shame on you, PCD.

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Inifinite waste of time

I have scoured the internets and found these things. Have fun.

:: An amazing collection of firework photographs choreographed to MGMT's really rather good Kids' song.

Fireplays from Jon Thomas on Vimeo



:: Could Batman exist in real life?
[Scientific American]

:: Maggie Gyllenhaal, does us an interview.
[Onion AV Club]

:: How making banal decisions like choosing what clothes to wear tires your brain out for the really important questions, like cake or death.
[Scientific American]

:: A free song from Amy Winehouse's flatmate!!!!!!1eleven, etc
[Popjustice]

:: Make spaghetti out of pick-up sticks and rubick's cubes
[Youtube]

:: This appears to be for real - an inexplicably coarse sex education lecture in the style of a Ladybird book courtesy of, er, Scotland's National Health Service.


"Shona has a banana in her lunchbox.
She shows Kirstie what she'd like to do to Tam if she had the chance."
[Be Books Online]

:: Roisin Murphy talks about recording a new album. Let's hope someone buys this one.
[Arjan Writes]

:: Find out what happened when I met the Pussycat Dolls (well, spoke to one of them on the phone)
[BBC]

:: How many of us are aware that when we look into a mirror we see an image on the mirror surface that is exactly half life size?
[New York Times]

:: Finally, is this really how three-year-olds deal with monsters these days?

Monsters!

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What we learnt from a morning watching Music TV

1) Craig David's beard is a metaphor for his music: Stylish, but overgroomed and boring.

2) Pussycat Dolls (pictured) look like they've come off the cover of Maxim, and their song has a killer hook: "Don'tcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?". Problem is, no self-respecting teenage girl will touch it, teenage boys won't be able to pick it off the shelves without going beetroot red, and 35-year-old pervs aren't a big single-buying demographic...

3) Kanye West has lost the plot. Gone are the socially concious diatribes, only to be replaced with boasts his money. And his cars. And his jewellery. And his fantastic sexual prowess. What a waste.

4) For someone who is ugly on a fundamental level, Gwen Stefani certainly scrubs up well in her videos.

5) McFly really need to be put out of their misery.

More reports from the frontline of music journalism later.

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