I often say the best concert I never saw was Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour. Touted by Rolling Stone as “the best tour of 1990,” Madge’s ambitious ode to her “Like a Prayer” paydays juxtaposed Catholic iconography and heightened sexuality and culminated in a musical theater montage of masturbation, a less “Truth” and more “Daring” black and white documentary, and many a late-night pointy bra joke.
As a 15 year-old who felt the undeniable pleasure of watching the tour’s adult action on HBO, it was, for me, polished pop culture gold. Madonna’s self-revelatory set list hit close to home: to see her embrace her merry band of dancing queens was like a warm hug in a brand new decade, offering a much-needed key to my closet. Invited into the comforts of her red silk bed, I wasn’t alone. To this day, when the orchestral sounds of “Oh Father” rise up on Pandora, my heart bursts with absolute appreciation. “Oh Father. You never wanted to live that way. You never wanted to hurt me. Why am I running away?….You can’t hurt me now.”
Fast (and fashion) forward to Sept. 19, 2010. Exactly twenty years after Madonna unlocked the door, Lady Gaga toured North Carolina with the same merry band, for an audience dressed for what seemed an Immaculate Collection; but this time the pointy bra was rigged with flammables, and this generation’s answer to M’s “bedtime stories,” came armed to blow the doors off everyone’s bedroom closet…demanding for this era’s homos what Madonna could only embrace in her own sweet time.
Seeing lady Gaga live is like a warm, latex hug capped with an affectionate kick in the nuts. She yelled “Fuck” so many times amid telling me how much she loved me (along with 20,000 or so other “little monsters”) I thought for a minute that we might be dating. She spoke a lot: a lot about causes; a lot about gays; a lot about being born this way. So much talking and attempts at accessibility, in fact, that what to that point had been endearing was a little off-putting. Where were the subtle hints that gay sex was just one chapter in a larger coffee table book? Where was the pop princess who merely invited you into her bed, not chained you to it? Why isn’t there just a bit more Vogue-ing?
But one need only glance around the arena to see the true Gaga effect. Matures and tweens, hand-in-hand, all caught in a Bad Romance. She isn’t really selling sex; we’re just buying it. And in the process, Gaga gets us: if you can’t help but sing and dance to these songs, if her albums sweep the airwaves like contagion, she might as well control the message. And if “born this way,” were a drinking game, we’d all have been hammered by 10 PM.
Three years ago, I was introduced to one Stefani Joanne Angelina “Lady Gaga” Germanotta via PerezHilton.com, in a matter-of-fact video post featuring a mysterious singer in a subtitled short film called “The Fame.” In it, she appears to be living a French existential life amid remixed versions of songs from what was (and would be) her first album. It took about 20 seconds of her hooks and I was. I hadn’t seen this type of thing in a while….about two decades, actually. Something so familiar paired with a new take on the times. Nonetheless, no matter what they say, the ultimate flattery in pop is the inevitable sampling of style and song. As such, somewhere Madonna is smiling down on Gaga from her taut English cloud and telling Gwyneth Paltrow how she did it all better.
And she would be half right.
Surely, lucky be a Lady Gaga for having Madonna Louise Ciccone as her foremother, blazing a tabloid trail in a man’s world for bubble-gum gambles on religion, sex, social issues, (and, not to mention a few rubber ensembles). There would be no “Alejandro” without “La Isla Bonita;” no “Paparazzi” without “Vogue;” no “Bad Romance” without Sean Penn.
Yet, what gives Gaga an edge, and I argue here she has one, is not her marketability or manner or even her moxie—all of which Madonna could arguably have put a capital “M” in years ago. But at 24-years-old (born the year Madonna released “Like a Virgin”), Lady Gaga has already been dubbed one of the most influential people in the world (Time, Forbes), and is hard at work finishing her first arena tour, her third album, and her work to single-handedly repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Admittedly insecure and fragile, with a sometimes quiet voice that could be easily confused with that of a Disney deer, Gaga pairs her Madonna-esque music videos with YouTube confessionals pleading for awareness of LGBT issues and political action for a shared civil right. And while equally humane in their art, Gaga bests Madonna by exuding her fair share of full-fledged haute humanity, revealing pain and weakness that might allow anyone to walk in her, albeit 10-inch Alexander McQueen stiletto, shoes. She’s a nerd, an outcast, a freak: all of which Madonna could have been had we only been let in.
And while Madonna is undoubtedly a gay icon, Gaga is now the cause’s primary crusader, taking to the mic to “Milk” the masses with allusions to all—gay and straight—“little monsters” within. With her, Paris is always burning and with every play of her cunningly commercial new classics you find yourself closer to the flame….a [close your eyes, give me your hand] eternal flame that I hope will stand the test of time. As she alluded to last night, “I’m always working in the future…I’m not actually here, you’re listening to me in a stadium 10 years from now.” And between us, [just like that] she is beyond us.
I love Madonna. Yet, it’s hard to deny, Gaga. If only because we all know a little blond ambition can go a long way.
Sarah
September 20, 2010
Wonderful, Jen!