A Brief (Clumsy) Word on Lady Gaga...

I will admit that I'm not one who listens to the radio ever--my iPod and records keep me musically satisfied--so I'm not always up to date on the latest artist. It took me a good while to even hear a Lady Gaga song. At the point I'd heard my first Gaga song, I had heard so much about the mystique of Lady Gaga, both from those who absolutely love it and those who are vehemently against it (and all shades in between), that I almost felt pressured to have an instantly strong reaction to it--and since I'm a Christian, and Lady Gaga is provocative, I should probably denounce her entirely.

I will admit at this point that while I am by no means a huge Lady Gaga fan, I enjoy a few of her songs on occasion. Everyone has to have a pop music fix every once in a while, right? Sure, there is much of the product of Lady Gaga that I could do without, and, because I heard so much about her before actually hearing/seeing her, I avoided (e.g., the "Telephone" video). We could talk about that for a long time, but let's save that for another time, cool?

Lady Gaga is worth our attention. I'm not saying we should do so because we should pay attention to every pop singer who comes on the radio or star who wears ridiculous dresses. In fact, usually those things dissuade me from paying attention to respective person. Here are a few reasons why I think we should pay attention to Lady Gaga (namely those who are Christians):

1. Her music is popular. Sure, it's easy to get on the slippery slope of having one's time consumed by becoming informed on what's popular (because that changes constantly). But in this day and age, at least in America, one would be hard-pressed to find many people who haven't heard at least one Gaga song. Like it or not, she is one of the more important voices of our generation, for better or for worse. One should not denounce something that one has not first examined.

2. Her lyrics are not polished. Some sects of Christianity are concerned with only listening to "Christian" music, reading "Christian" books, watching "Christian" movies. Derek Webb has spoken wisely when he said (roughly [from memory of tweets of his]), "The term 'Christian,' when applied to anything else besides a person, is a marketing scheme." Christians can become concerned with overly polished, "safe for the whole family" material. But the fact is that this world is not "safe for the whole family," and we are not "safe for the whole family" people. We are grimy, sinful, and deceitful. When we only absorb things that are happy, we develop a skewed view of the world. Even much of the Bible recounts people blatantly and repeatedly sinning--even the people of God. Even those who are redeemed still sin. Lady Gaga at points demonstrates the sinful condition of all of us, which leads to...

3. She speaks truth (sometimes). Take for example her latest single, "Judas." In the song there is a lyric, "Jesus is my virtue, but Judas is the one I cling to...I'm still in love with Judas, baby." What a true statement! Even when doing our most "holy" actions, they are still tainted by our selfish desires. Lady Gaga hits on what nearly all of "Christian" music shies away from--human depravity. We as Christians, do we not often find ourselves loving our sin and ourselves, and sinning often? I added "(sometimes)" because I have not listened to a large amount of her music, and I can't make that claim. No one, especially one who is blatantly not a Christian, always speaks truth (but no one is exempt from finding/speaking truth).

4. The kingdoms of God and man are at work in everything. This sentence is stolen from my visits to the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College in 2009 and 2011. It is in essence a better articulated summary of my previous three points, which is this: A.) There are themes of sin and redemption in everything, not just in "Christian" art. B.) No person (sans Jesus) ever only speaks truth or acts perfectly. C.) No person is beyond realizing, understanding, and speaking truth.

I've been spreading the link of the new Lady Gaga album, Born This Way, which is on sale via Amazon MP3 for only $0.99 right now, and I wanted to explain myself a little bit--albeit a bit clumsily. I think that, for less than a buck, an entire album is worth examining, thinking about, and looking for truth in. Hopefully this at least causes you to approach Lady Gaga a little more thoughtfully and intentionally.


[Note: If any of you keep up with this blog, you have noticed an absence of posts. This is due both to my amount of schoolwork this semester as well as my computer, of which the battery and power cord have been unpredictable. Hopefully my computer will be back up and running soon.]