Frequent visitor and commenter – not to mention Great White Shank chops-buster extraordinaire – Jana’s comment from yesterday’s post was rid – er, misguided. Here’s what she said in response to my observation that Lady GaGa “…is just the latest example of an increasingly crass society and a generation that has never known, and likely will never understand taste, class, and appreciation”:

Substitute the year 1957 for 2010 and substitute the name Elvis Presley for Lady GaGa…it still reads the same from back then to now, only now you are the old geezer who just doesn’t get it.

OK, fine. Let’s do a little comparison and see exactly how the “King of Rock and Roll” and the “Queen of Crass” stack up to each other:

and…

vs.

and…

OK, so fashion and styles have changed in 53 years, I get it; I ditched my “I Like Ike” mohair suit decades ago. But that’s not what I was referring to. Oh sure, there are those out there who might hear, oh, something like this, and after that, thinking this is an improvement in terms of both musical talent and taste, and that’s OK. But 53 years from now people will still know who Elvis Presley was, and Lady GaGa’s footprint upon American popular music will be smaller than the dot over the “i” in “nit”. As in nitwit.

Don’t get me wrong here, believe it or not, I’ve heard a bunch of Lady GaGa’s stuff – Tracey and Tam both think she’s great. And I think she has a decent voice, even if there’s really nothing distinctive about either it or her music to – at least to my mind – differentiate her from any number of techno-pop chicks that have come down the pike over the past decade. To me, she sounds like Christina Aguilera fronting a Ace Is Base recording. So don’t tell me The Great White Shank doesn’t know (at least somewhat) his popular music.

But that’s not what I was talking about. Heck, when even Jerry Seinfeld calls her out for being a jerk, that tells you something. Was Elvis outrageous for his time back in 1957? Did people back then consider his act vulgar? Like someone I personally admire might say, “You betcha!”. But Elvis throughout his troubled life nevertheless remained a gentleman, was raised right, and treated people with respect. Lady GaGa is nothing more than a meagerly talented, over-hyped, self-centered twit whose only concern is seeing how many people she can shock, insult, or outrage with her boorish behavior.

If that’s what passes for “cool” and pop culture in this day and age, so be it. But let’s keep our heads and not be blind to what has become of American pop culture over the past 50 some-odd years. There’s a vast difference between Elvis Presley and his art, and Lady GaGa’s. Me? I blame Barack Obama. 🙂

Sigh. All this talk gives me “a mess of blues”.

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Pool temp: 90 degrees