what do you call it when….

I’m trying to think of the word that means “thing.” Okay — in this sense — Lady Gaga is a pop star, sure, a hard-working musical person who got to the right place at the right time with the right outfit and became hugely popular. But i’ve become convinced that there’s something else about her…I want to say the words “angst,” or “ennui,” or “pathos,” none of which describe the thing I want to but a general sense of “something”-ness, what I want to say is that there’s something else to her that is a bit transcendent, otherworldly, primally human and emotional….

All this, sure. But i’m ALSO pretty convinced that she for real. Meaning, she actually does know how to read music and is maybe kind of crazy like a lot of white girls from New York are…But also that she doesn’t get the ideas for her schtick from a focus group, that she may be much more “original” than your average pop star. She actually writes music, and has a relationship with that piano that is a little unsettling, maybe, but genuine. All of it genuine. Genuinely weird, too — her collaborations with artists (Damien Hirst, et al) doesn’t seem gimmicky, while of course her entire thing is gimmicky…But she does force Americans to expand their notions of what’s palatable, what’s acceptable, from a celebrity. She is genuinely weird, and every so often she and her entourage of young creatives put out something that is more art than not art. Its remarkable.

…I mean Josh Groban and Celine Dion can say what they do is “art,” as in “I would do anything for My Art” — which, of course, I can easily imagine Celine Dion or Pete Wentz saying that on the Regis and Kelly Show. When people like that happen to make good music, it’s just fine, its okay, its good like a new good product from Johnson & Johnson is good, and helpful to life for at least some segment of people. And to that extent, Lady Gaga songs are just like well-made products, helpful to gays and people working out the world over. But - there’s a big difference - she has a variously complicated, fully-rendered and truly “experimental” stage show that is an inextricable part of what she’s doing, and thats what make people LOVE her. That’s the part that makes her interesting.

The question, of course, is just how long can you keep that up, how long can you stay popular yet genuine, or interesting, in the current world of popular music. Hmm.