This thread is a really hilarious read when you still haven't listened to the album, you leak-listeners don't know what you've missed. :lol:

Are we really bringing a woman whose success came off the back of her appearing half-naked and faux-eccentric* act into a debate about good pop music?

*In fact, if you type "faux-eccentric" into Google search, the first result that comes back is related to Lady Gaga.

+1

well, since we've been reduced to PFYM vs Poker Face, I wouldn't be feeling too smug about it if I were you...

No. Her success came on the back of having some fucking amazing pop songs. I agree with Pennyroyalty, she really has achieved mass communication ... laypeople, pop and tight indie fans alike,she can claim to have a real range of fans. Certainly, her eccentric image is part of the package, but somehow I don't think Manic Street Preachers would quite be the band they are without their image. Everything is contrived in its own way, although you can pick and choose what you want to be cynical about depending on the rationale you want to adopt. Don't be Evil, Don't be corporate, Don't release records on Sony... get me? Great tune though.

^ exactly. Just like Lady GaGa, the Manics started out with an image and it got people's attention, which I expect is what they wanted.

Except Lady Gaga didn't start out with an image in the days when she was getting dropped by record companies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys9UI4NT_nI

Yeah man, it couldn't be anything to do with the fact that she's writing ace songs now. It has to be due to the fact that she is no longer boring and that she is now faux-eccentric and cynically getting her fanny out everywhere. How cunning, making us unsuspecting people feel like she came out of the womb like that! She just isn't 4 real, is she?

oooh caught in a bad romaaance.

I was cynical about Lady Gaga at the start, but when you're humming the tunes to yourself around the house you know you've been won over.

I think the idea for this Manics album was flawed from the start. I can't see a band like the Manics achieving mass appeal again. I think the record industry has changed so much. The charts are a much different place. I don't know. Just look at the top 20. The Manics don't belong there. Maybe they're showing their age in their approach to 'mass communication'?

I hasten to add that I haven't actually really listened to the album yet. Heard every song about once, and some a few more times. So these are just first impressions.

Am I tripping or something? She's got 3 or 4 really catchy tunes - for when you're out on the town. Pissed basically. Not for when your sober. The following have written "amazing" pop songs - Beatles, Stones, Abba, Nirvana, Oasis, Michael Jackson, even Madonna, even Manic Street Preachers. You know, amazing in the sense that 30/40/50 years down the line the next next generation or even next next next generation are still going to be putting them on and trying to figure out the lyrics. If people are still playing Poker Face and Let's Dance in 30 years time . . . well, they won't be will they. Some really catchy pop/dance numbers, absolutely succesful as far as they go, but reality check . . .

They will be though. They're two of the biggest songs of the last couple of years. It's those that are going to be played over a retrospective of the 00s. Not fucking Your Love Alone is Not Enough, or anything by the Manics. Surely 'mass communication' is about the songs being sung by drunks across the UK on a Saturday night?

Aye, I'll wack a tenner on that.

Serious? "Love is all around" was number one for about 6 months. Heard that around much these days? Brian Adams likewise with that song from Robin Hood I can't even remeber the name now - says it all - also number one for about 6 months. Britney Spears, Limp Bizkit, Blink 182 - they were all huge you know. If I ever hear my great grandchildren playing any of that bollocks, and LG I mean you as well, I'll put them out of their misery. There is great pop music out there - it may not be the Manics at the moment but it sure as shit isn't Lady freaking Gaga. And the funny thing is I actually quite like her songs. Jeez.

In order to "communicate", I would argue it is necessary that the audience have at least 10% of their brain functioning. On the one or two occasions that I have personally enjoyed Miss Gaga's company by means of partaking in drunken song crimes against common decency, I can assure you that hasn't been the case.

By the way, Poker face sold about 800,00 copies on its way to number one. Thats only about 1 million less than 1994s 'Love is All Around' Wet Wet Wet - and of course we'll all still be playing that record when we start land on Mars in 3001. (Sorry about the multiple posts, i'll go to bed now, I'm even beginning to annoy myself)