Screamo? Here's some androgynous undefinable sexuality.

Seriously what is going on with all these Lady Gaga covers that 'screamo' and 'techtronica' bands seem to be obsessed with releasing? Not to knock their legitimacy as real music, but, well, they're not; they're incredibly odd, and unbelievably generic. There's something irritating about a carbon-copy-cover which only has one difference: Shouting. Yes, that's not a cover, that's just the same song shouted, which, well, ya know, isn't really a tolerable or acceptable genre of music. Speaking of inexcusably irritating artists: What is up with Lady Gaga? How has she become this laudable figure of talent? It's confusing to say the least.

So how has Gaga made the world go Ga-Ga?

I've been thinking long and hard about what makes The Lady quite so popular: I looked at style, at music, at lyrics, at videos, and at the woman. I asked fans, I asked dissenters, I asked myself, hell, the only thing I didn't do was ask her - and that's mainly because I was frightened.

I reasoned that it can't be the music, because it's trite to the extreme: Every other chord sounds like something you've heard before, and cruising through the more ubiquitous tracks is like walking down the same road each and every day. The people are the same, the scenery is the same, and the beat of your feet on the pavement is the same. So perhaps it is the omnipresence? Adoption by default? I'm not sure, really, because the press far exceeds the playtime; sure there was a week where you couldn't move for want of a poker-face, and going clubbing was like sitting inside a womb for all the variation in the songs played: Choose Just Dance or Lovegame. But that week is far-gone, it never reached the unprecedented heights of Umbrella or even some of Spears' earlier stuff. Alas, no chance of self-aggrandizing sabotage, no implosion when the substance is realised lacking. I will admit that some of the tracks are catchy, but why is that necessarily a good thing? Some other things that are catchy: Plague, AIDS, chlamydia. Great. Exploding buboes or time with the p-p-p-paparazzi?

What's more is that the best Gaga song out there is a remix of Just Dance which has a much more interesting timing, and some much smoother mixes played over the top of it; it's much more cohesive and accessible. How's that for irony?

And why is she become this giant figure in the gay community? Is it because of the undefinable nature of her sexuality? Why in the hell is that interesting? Oh. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's because she's quasi-interesting that people feel the need to worship her for painting the town beige. She's label-less. Fuck that.

I hate this whole praising of so-called 'individualism': In what sense is deception individualistic? What's with this whole 'praise the "unique"' mentality we're adopting? Can we not see that by design and definition the 'uniqueness' of this girl is mere façade? I don't understand it. Individualism is fine, but individualism is undermined when the deciding factor in popularity is said individualism. It becomes an amorphous concept, and falls under the weight of hypocrisy. When we start to praise individualism into the mainstream, it is no longer individualised, it is mainstream and androgynous: It's the antithesis of what it defines itself as. The myth of Gaga is gossip-whore mongering, intellectual stasis: I'm sure she is by no means as interesting as the legend that surrounds her purports her to be. No one could cope under the weight of being so eccentric all the time; it's an act, and it is thus not to be praised. Pioneering indifference to public approval could perhaps, ironically, be something to praise; self-effacement would be dynamite to watch; conversely the pseudo-ambivalence is not something to credit nor to laud. Get over it. It's a masque.