Lady GaGa

[Necrometer]

I know this is like... older than time news, but still:

in Poker Face, she totally says "puh-puh-puh poker face fuh-fuh-fuck her face"

true story



and in case there's any question, 1:20

[The Arsonist]

Lady Gaga says "NO" to Weird Al parody song.

http://alyankovic.wordpress.com/the-gaga-saga/

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

I was really hoping that this blog entry would be all about me announcing the release date of my new album.

Sadly, it’s not.

In a metaphorical nutshell, here’s what happened.

I wrote and recorded what I thought was going to be the first single off of my new album: a parody of “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga called “Perform This Way.” But after hearing it, Lady Gaga decided not to give me permission to release the song, so… it won’t be coming out commercially anytime in the near future. Sorry.

Okay, now the long version.

I had written, recorded, mixed and mastered 11 of the 12 songs for my new album and was just waiting to come up with that one elusive “big idea” for a parody that I thought I could turn into the lead single and video. I was well aware that “Born This Way” was coming out, and I thought that just might be the pop culture juggernaut I had been waiting for… but after hearing the song, I was reluctant to tackle it. Because it was such an earnest human rights anthem, I thought some people might consider a parody to be in poor taste. Plus, I was really kinda predisposed not to do a Lady Gaga parody anyway because, well, that’s what everybody in the universe was already assuming I would do, and I hate to be so predictable.

But a few weeks later, a parody idea popped into my head, and I thought it had a lot of potential – enough to warrant telling my record label that I’d finally found my next single. Based on my concept, I was reasonably sure that my parody wasn’t really going to offend anybody… but I still decided, as an act of good karma, that I would donate all the money from sales of the song and music video to the Human Rights Campaign.

I was very excited now, because I knew that the second I got the official blessing from Lady Gaga, I could lock in an official release date for my album and announce it to the world. (My record company needs 8 weeks of advance notice to confirm an album release date – so in order to be as timely as possible, I almost always have to lock in the date before I’ve even started writing the lead single.)

I had my manager contact Lady Gaga’s manager to see if she would okay the parody. Here was the exact pitch:

I’d like to do a parody of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” called “I Perform This Way.” The basic concept is that I, as a Lady Gaga doppelganger of sorts, describe the incredibly extravagant ways in which I perform on stage. Meat dresses and giant eggs would most likely be referenced, but also much more ridiculous made-up examples of bizarre wardrobe and stage production. As with all my parodies, it would be respectful of the artist, while having a bit of fun with her larger-than-life image.

I hadn’t written a single line of the song at this point, but that was the concept I had in my head. Because of my 30-year track record, most artists know that my songs are all in good fun and they’re more than happy to approve a parody just based on the concept alone.

We eventually got a response from the Gaga camp: she would need to “hear it” before she would approve it.

Okay, I thought, she wants to know exactly what the lyrics are going to be before she signs off on the parody. Some artists just are a bit more protective of their material and don’t want to take any chances. Fair enough.

I was right in the middle of my Australian tour and I didn’t have a whole lot of free time, but I cranked day and night until I had a set of finished lyrics.

We send the lyrics to Lady Gaga and wait on figurative pins and needles for her to give us the go-ahead. After a few days, we get our answer: “She actually needs to hear it. Otherwise the answer is no.”

Hmm. Well, this was mystifying to me. At this point she has the lyrics… and hopefully she is familiar with her own song… and the parody is basically her music… with my lyrics. It really shouldn’t be that hard to decide – based on having the lyrics right in front of you – whether or not you’d be “okay” with a parody. But, alas, we’d been given an ultimatum. If she didn’t hear it, she wouldn’t approve it.

Okay then. I decided – based on my belief that people are basically good – to go through the trouble and considerable expense of actually recording the song. Now, I never do that – never. But because I was really excited about this parody, I decided I would faithfully jump through as many hoops as Gaga deemed necessary.

After the Australian tour, I was supposed to go on a long-awaited family vacation over my daughter’s spring break – but because I now had to record what ostensibly was going to be my “hit single” as quickly as humanly possible, I cut our vacation short and came back to L.A. to spend long days and nights in the studio. The band and I worked around the clock. On April 11, I put the finishing touches on the mix and mastered the track. Done.

Or so I thought.

A couple days later we got the final word: Lady Gaga says “no.”

*silent scream*

And that’s it. As of this posting, I still don’t know specifically what kind of problem she has with the song (obviously I take a few jabs at her, but y’know, it’s satire – that’s how it’s supposed to work). And I’m especially confused as to why she waited until I actually recorded the song (at her insistence!) before saying no. It’s not like there were any surprises in the finished song that she couldn’t have foreseen by, you know, READING THE LYRICS.

A conventional release for the song and video would have also raised a nice chunk of change for the HRC – an organization which I have to assume Gaga supports. Hopefully, if fans enjoy hearing the song online, they’ll make a donation anyway.

My parodies have always fallen under what the courts call “fair use,” and this one was no different, legally allowing me to record and release it without permission. But it has always been my personal policy to get the consent of the original artist before including my parodies on any album, so of course I will respect Gaga’s wishes. However, given the circumstances, I have no problem with allowing people to hear it online, because I also have a personal policy not to completely waste my stinking time.

So I uploaded the song to YouTube, and will be making free mp3 downloads available on weirdal.com shortly. Hope you enjoy it.

Man, I wish you all could have had a chance to see the video we were going to do for this thing. It was going to be BEYOND AWESOME, and disturbing on many levels. Oh well.

Anyway, I realize that this may be way more information than many people would care to know about the whole situation, but I just wanted to set the record straight before any crazy rumors started. There’s really nothing more that I have to say about it now, so hopefully I won’t have to be answering questions about Lady Gaga in interviews for the next 20 years.

I know this news is disappointing to many of you. Believe me… nobody is more disappointed than I am.

Thanks for listening. I’ll keep you posted.

Your pal,
Al

[Mari_Mar]

I chuckled a few times. But the beginning was a little...

[necrothrash]

Guys don't you see that Weird Al's acceptance of Lady GaGa Qualifies her as the next great Pop Star?? This is an accolade not unlike musical gems "Eat It" and "Like a Surgeon."

[Necrometer]

hahaha, solid parody - Weird Al is great at what he does

really stupid choice by gaga

[John Jr.]

what a stupid bitch.

[father of lies]

Man I want to see that video... The sound sounds like it could be from Devo - Something for Everybody, but I haven't heard the original...?

[kmfcm]

you really thought she'd have enough of a sense of humor to let something like this go through???


ha ha haaaah

[Frickin' Slayer]

Aries r known to be a sign very much n touch with their youth,and childhood. perhaps that's how she arrived at a name such as "gaga"?

[Chad]

he's a jew but only the bottom tier of the illuminati hierarchy, so clearly gaga, who is in the top tier, was dissatisfied with how his low level jewish mockery might fuck up the deeply encoded satanic messages within her latest pop single

she looks like a droopy eyed clay figure fucked something with a dumb dough face...she looks like a transgendered alien wrapped its flesh around a gay boy

and in interviews she's clearly mkultra...what a cunt...

illuminati cunt...

[Frickin' Slayer]

ya,she's clearly mk ultra/illuminati. there's sooo much like evidence out there. its hidden n plain sight, as i like to call it.

[Chad]

part of my last post was a joke, but in all honesty...there is so much symbolism here that is clearly demonic/world-transference in import. it's so obvious that I almost wanna give props to whatever satanic forces engineered it. google ''revelation of the method'' if you wanna know why they'd be so open about this

the modern world is a bad trip and individuals are the puppets of evil forces

[Necrometer]

Chad what do you make of this "wear ear condom next time" line in the song Judas? Clearly she is a master at what she does, but might she be going to far, flaunting her own awareness of the infectious power of her message (and its ability to impregnate the minds of listeners)? Could she be shooting herself in the foot by ribbing the masses with a taunt to protect themselves, or is her chokehold so strong that she's beyond toppling?

[Chad]

Chad what do you make of this "wear ear condom next time" line in the song Judas? Clearly she is a master at what she does, but might she be going to far, flaunting her own awareness of the infectious power of her message (and its ability to impregnate the minds of listeners)? Could she be shooting herself in the foot by ribbing the masses with a taunt to protect themselves, or is her chokehold so strong that she's beyond toppling?

like any mixed message, she'd be able to back off from it, make easy comparisons to ''right wing'' uptight behavior, etc, all to get another spot on Ellen's show and creep her way inch by inch into the goodwill of the dumb American housewife.

we're in harsh times...some of the stuff in that video is immediately terrible to see, so that if I had a child, I wouldn't allow it in the house. but it's there for a reason...it's there to implant images while it erodes standards. life has been robbed of so much meaning and we hear it all the time, that families are bored. but we have really reached a crisis point here. end stage stuff. the images in that video are poisonous...watch it again and then imagine if that could've been shown when you were 12. then imagine where it's going. the dam is burst. I don't blame any parent for homeschooling their kids and running to the hills.

[Stefani Sadler]

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/amplif ... re-broken/

lady gaga pissed people say born this way sounds like express yourself

Denial:
"No. Listen to me. Why the [expletive]...? I'm a songwriter. I've written loads of music. Why would I try to put out a song and think I'm getting one over on everybody? That's retarded."

Rage:
"What a completely ridiculous thing to even question me about. I will look you in your eyes and tell you that I am not dumb enough or moronic enough to think that you are dumb enough or moronic enough not to see that I would have stolen a melody. If you put the songs next to each other, side by side, the only similarities are the chord progression. It's the same one that's been in disco music for the last 50 years. Just because I'm the first [expletive] artist in 25 years to think of putting it on Top 40 radio, it doesn't mean I'm a plagiarist, it means that I'm [expletive] smart."

Indignation:
"Nobody in this room at any point looked around and said, 'Oh my God, it's 'Express Yourself.' Not once. Listen. I swear to you. ... It's so funny to hear you say, 'It must have been a homage,' I'm like, NO. When I homage, I [expletive] homage with a big sign saying I've done it. Why would I not do that now?"

Devastation:
"I just don't want my fans... I don't know. This is exhausting. I just don't wanna perpetuate that [expletive]. I'm sure you want to address it but it's just so ridiculous. I was just [expletive] shell-shocked by it."

Religious Pandering:
[Starts crying] "I feel like honestly that God sent me those lyrics and that melody. When you feel a message to give to the world and people are shooting arrows at it... there's no way for something that pure to be wrong."

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

[Chad]

here guys, for your consideration...two clearly occultic videos/songs...these fit right in with that gaga one. watch them and realize that the world around you is a huge horror movie. this is the scariest shit ever once you're tuned in. watch closely...

[Stefani Sadler]

i wonder who those pop artists are trying to rip off...

[Frickin' Slayer]

there's abt 1,000 youtube videos all dedicated to the illuminati symbolism of lady gaga. its up to the individual if they want to educate themselves. shes just 1 of a long line. shes a victim of the same satanism that she propounds. mk ultra is a world-wide network,and is synonymous with sex abuse. notice she went to catholic school as a youngin. im not implicating catholocism as a religin,its the corrupt illumanists that infiltrated it,as well as all religions. and lady gaga is n aries. most divas n pop stars r aries. this is bc aries r the sacrificial lamb of the zodiac. im sure that symbolism isnt lost on the illumanists.

[fallbacktostone]

chad is there an elite level deconstruction of that katy perry vid out there? my feeble brain isn't seeing the rich tapestry of evil under the surface..

[postaddiction]

here guys, for your consideration...two clearly occultic videos/songs...these fit right in with that gaga one. watch them and realize that the world around you is a huge horror movie. this is the scariest shit ever once you're tuned in. watch closely...

[youtube]http:/be]

>http://outube]

That's pretty wretched.

[Steeb]

Wow, Weird Al nailed her. No pun intended.

[doomeddisciple]

I wish he had. Worst thing a celeb can do is not take the piss out of themselves.

[Necrometer]

I hope the Gaga backlash is so violent that she is relegated to the underground...

[postaddiction]

Lady Putnam

damn it\

[Necrometer]

YOU WORE A LOBSTER ON YOUR HEAD - YOU'RE GAY