Old Lady Concert Rules: Loving you is cherry pie

Some pop confessions I need to make:

• Madonna's "Lucky Star" was the first pop song where I memorized both the lyrics and the video choreography. If pressed today, I could sing the song and probably do about half of the choreography. Eighties-era Madonna will always be my favorite.
• I stopped listening to boy bands after New Kids on the Block. I cannot stand any of the 90s era boy bands, but I enjoy Justin Timberlake's solo work. 
• I adore Ariana Grande as a human being and a member of the Hairspray Live cast, but only know two of her songs and only like one of them.
• "Toxic" is my favorite Britney Spears song because everyone has one favorite Britney Spears song.
• The Spice Girls are overrated. 
• Even though I actively fear the Beyhive, I don't love Beyonce. I appreciate her artistic vision and her social activism. The only Beyonce song I listen to is "Crazy in Love" and that's mostly because of the line about pagers which makes me giggle uncontrollably.  
• Until yesterday, I would have considered myself, at best, a casual Lady Gaga fan. 

I feel so much better after getting all of that out. Most of the true pop music I love is from the 1970s and 1980s, the best time for pop music. Give me David Cassidy (let's hope he gets better), Madonna, and every British synth band ever. While the 1990s was a heady time for pop music, there was so much else going on that I didn't focus on it much. By then, I was into rock, metal, old school punk, and alternative/indie music. Pop isn't my thing and that has continued well into the 2000s. I would never begrudge anyone their love of pop music; love what/who you love and own it. That's my motto when it comes to anything pop culture.

So I was late to the world of Lady Gaga. Her first album, The Fame (later reissued as The Fame Monster) was released in 2008 and catapulted her to stardom with songs like "Poker Face", "Paparazzi", "Just Dance," and "Bad Romance" (on the reissue). I was less interested in the songs on her first album, but drawn to the stage persona she created. The visual story Lady Gaga tells is amazing. It's avant-garde and weird and fun. It fells very much like long-form performance art. She was (still is) intriguing in the same way Bowie was intriguing in his many characters and personas throughout his early albums. Lady Gaga was another space alien dropped into our midst to bring us art and music and love. I just ignored her at first.

It wasn't until the Christmas after The Fame came out that I started to have an appreciation for Lady Gaga and her music rather than Lady Gaga and her spectacle. I was in Detroit for Christmas that year with my family and we happened to have a Canadian pop/rock station on while we were in town (you can get some Windsor-based radio stations in Detroit and some Detroit-based stations in Windsor). Anyway, "Paparazzi" was in heavy rotation on this station, playing every hour. Normally, this would annoy me. It's part of the reason I don't listen to pop stations; it's always the same songs on rotation. It gets boring. However, in this case, I became obsessed with the song. I was genuinely disappointed when I didn't hear it while in the car. I wasn't focused on the visual of the video, which is fantastic, but on the lyrics. At it's core, "Paparazzi" is about fandom. Obsessive, stalk-y fandom, but fandom nonetheless. There's a wonderful lyric in the third verse (I think), "Loving you is cherry pie" that I adore. Listening to this song on repeat that Christmas made me appreciate Lady Gaga for than the spectacle. I was starting to like her for her lyrics. I went home, bought a bunch of her songs, and and read the liner notes, one of my favorite musical past-times. Lady Gaga can write a song.

In the years since my Canadian radio obsession, she's released several more albums including the wildly successful Born This Way, worn a dress made out of meat at the VMAs, won some Grammys, and stole AHS: Hotel from everyone else who was on the show. She gave an amazing performance at the Super Bowl and performed with Metallica. She also did an album with Tony Bennett and has become an advocate for LGBTQ causes, created the Born This Way Foundation, worked with "Uncle" Joe Biden on the "It's On Us" campaign, and released the haunting "Til It Happens to You" for the film The Hunting Ground.

And then there's Joanne. Her current album, the one she's on tour with, is awesome. It's some of the pop-ness of her previous albums, but there's more rock and country influences weaving their way through. The lyrics on all of the songs, but particularly "Joanne," "Diamond Heart", and "Million Reasons," are solid. I can listen to the entire album on my commute to work in the morning and it's awesome. I feel like if you didn't like her previous albums, you'd like this one. It's got a little something for everyone. Critics have called it her most personal album; she even alluded to that during the concert. The album has a more mature, but also vulnerable and raw quality that the other albums don't have. I can listen to the whole album and start over again without even thinking twice. That doesn't often happen for me with full albums.

I had the opportunity to see the Joanne tour last night here in DC. My company has a suite at the Verizon/Capital One/Figure Out a Name Already Arena and I got tickets in a ticket lottery. My friend, Emily, joined me for the concert. I don't know that Emily and I can ever do things like concerts and baseball games together again; it seems like we always end up in the most extreme version of the event we can experience. It's exhausting. For the record, now that I've seen the show, if I could go back in time and buy tickets I would. A Lady Gaga concert is worth the money.

To say that it was a good concert would be like saying we need water to survive. It was a phenomenal concert; it's definitely in my top five concerts of all time. A Lady Gaga concert has everything: elaborate sets, fire, costume changes, cheeky language, love, rainbow bridges that make one think of The Wizard of Oz, risque choreography, salty language, awesome choreography, and beautiful lyrics. There were moments when I was overwhelmed by her talent and her humanness all at the same time. Some of my favorite moments were when she played the piano with nothing else going on. The acoustic version of "The Edge of Glory" was one of my favorite concert moments of all time. We also got to be involved in the American Music Awards (AMAs) which were on last night too. She performed "The Cure" from the concert on the show. Later on, they cut back to us when her category was announced and she won for Best Female Pop/Rock artist. It was a cool addition to an amazing experience.

As I told my mother, it felt like Lady Gaga wanted to give us all a hug and a puppy, but also wants us to be super fierce and not take anyone's shit. She talks about her pain, both emotional and physical, as a source of inspiration. She encourages people to ask for help and to understand "invisible" illnesses like chronic pain and mental illness. She told people to be nice to the 2 people in the arena who didn't cheer when she asked if they were part of the LGBTQ community or an ally of said community. Lady Gaga has created a space where her fans can come together and be themselves and love life and each other and be awesome. Lady Gaga fans, the Little Monsters, are delightful. Part of the fun of the show was seeing people in costume (from their favorite songs and albums), including a large number of men in the outfit from the cover of Joanne. Gentlemen, I salute you and your white pants. It's so different from other fandoms I've experienced. I'm sure there are catty Little Monsters, but I've never met one.

I woke up this morning, after way less sleep than I'm used to, feeling amazing. I had a wonderful Monday. Is it after effects of a truly inspirational concert experience? It might just be.

Please excuse me while I go listen to Joanne again.

 Happy Thanksgiving from the Island! A new Lazy Movie Weekend post will be up on Saturday (or Friday night if I'm super ambitious).