So the moderately anticipated Lady Gaga SXSW keynote speech was a disappointment yesterday. And not just because Gaga didn't make her entrance into the about-halfway-full, sterile downtown Hilton ballroom dressed like a pig roasting on a spit, as she did for her junk-food sponsored SX gig at Stubb's BBQ the night before. (Instead, she hit the hall dressed like a modern-day Marie Antoinette in what looked like a puffy wedding gown fashioned out of lace and down comforters, with platinum dreadlocks to match.) The speech was disappointing because it wasn't a speech at all, but rather a run-of-the-mill Q&A with former MTV News and current Fuse News guy John Norris.
Aside from whatever time went in to designing and garbing up in that outfit (which made the singer look like a head floating in a cloud of crumpled wrapping paper from Crate & Barrel when shown in close-ups on the video monitors), Gaga really didn't have to put a whole lot of time and effort into preparing for this, which is even more of a letdown in light of Dave Grohl's job-well-done when he did last year's keynote, or Bruce Springsteen's orator's masterclass the year before — both those guys clearly put a lot of thought into their speeches. I wanted to see something as special and unique as that; I can watch a softball interview with Lady Gaga anytime. And was it ever a softball interview, with Norris — who, with his frosted, swooping, Vintage Bieber hair, looked unintentionally more ridiculous than his Q&A subject ever intentionally has — gushing and truckling at every aspect of Lady Gaga's very existence, in between bouts of Terry Gross-style naval-gazing, opining and anecdote-sharing. (We don't care how many shows YOU saw at the Roseland in the '80s, John.)
It seems like a missed opportunity. "We don't have to talk about that," Norris said, when bring up how she fired longtime manager Troy Carter. Riiiiight. And we, the captive audience, don't NEED to hear it, but we'd sure as fuck fucking like to. Shouldn't this be a unique opportunity to hear about the dos and don'ts of the biz from an icon's anecdotal perspective?
Gaga faced (fairly minor) criticism for appearing at the festival at an event sponsored by Doritos. Of course, Norris — and by extension, fans who submitted (pre-approved) questions, didn't ask Gaga the obvious question here: What is your favorite flavor of Doritos? Do you even eat Doritos? #ArtPop.
Come on, Gaga, you wouldn't be here if not for the payday (and I know that includes a large payday for your Born This Way Foundation). It rules that, in the course of cashing in, you stylized a well-received one-time-only show that, by many accounts, transcended clusterfuck of corporatized bullshit that is velvet-rope SXSW, but you could have done it for free, or for fun, right? Certainly a lot of the other bands slogging it out at the festival do.
So, because effort (or the lack thereof) begets effort (or the lack thereof), instead of recapping Gaga's spoken sentiments about shitty industry suits and artistic integrity — which always came back to a plug for the singer's major-label-bankrupting ARTPOP; many of her responses ended with a pause and then her simply saying "#ARTPOP" — I've decided to list a handful of colorful quotes, listed without context.
"I'm not saying vomit isn't going to change the world …"
"You don't know fuck about the music business, [Doritos-gate haters]."
"Bold bravery." #Doritos #ARTPOP
"Nobody is going to remember what you tweeted when you die."
"Nobody knows how many clubs I played or how much piss I stepped in."
"Do I even wanna make music anymore?"
"I'm not from a factory."
"I'll be myself until they fucking close the coffin."
"I'm sorry I didn't sell a million copies the first week!" #ARTPOP
"I don't know what fuck all I have to do with Katy Perry."
"I have integrity." #ARTPOP
"I love ARTPOP! That album got me through the hardest time. … That's what the fuck it's all about." #ARTPOP
"I never let anybody tell me what to do."
"My talent matters more to me than the money does."
"Having people envy you is no fun at all."
"Don't sell out to this business. Sell in."
"… And then I started taking [up] compressors and impressing everyone."
"Is it all back to tits and ass? That's sad." #ARTPOP
On the Olympics going to anti-gay Russia: "Don't make a deal with the devil. … We can all be bold." #Doritos #ARTPOP
