Lady Gaga’s Haters Gotta Hate

On Monday Boy George made Lady Gaga’s recent Vanity Fair cover story the focus of his “Postcards From The Edge Of My Bed-lam” blog post written for Paper Magazine.

In the Vanity Fair story Gaga talked about her past troubles with cocaine and confessed that she still partakes in the drug from time to time.

“I won’t lie; it’s occasional,” Gaga said. “And when I say occasional, I mean maybe a couple of times a year.”

Boy George wondered why Gaga felt the need to share this juicy bit of information.

“If Lady Gaga were about to be exposed as a drug user I would understand her recent confession to Vanity Fair that she is an ‘occasional’ coke sniffer,” the British singer and former frontman of Culture Club wrote.

“But why offer up this information on a whim? Could it be that her use of coke is not so “occasional?” As a recovering addict who knows how dangerous ‘occasional’ use is, I can think of no reason for Gaga to reveal this to her young audience. … One has to wonder how much of a grip Gaga has on things. Up until now she has seemed almost annoyingly professional and focused and this seems out of character!”

The guy makes a good point. The Vanity Fair story also included a quote from the singer in which she said, “I do not want my fans to ever emulate that or be that way. I don’t want my fans to think they have to be that way to be great. It’s in the past. It was a low point, and it led to disaster.” If Gaga wants her little monsters to say no to drugs, she should probably think of a better strategy than telling fans, “do as I say, not as I (still occasionally) do.”

Meanwhile, over at NME.com, songwriter and producer Mick Stock, who has written and produced hits (along with his Stock Aitken Waterman partners Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman) for Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue, Donna Summer and Bananarama, sounded off about the oh so scandalous pop stars of today.

Stock described Lady Gaga as “just a pole dancer” and “a deceit.” He also pointed a finger at Rihanna.

“The stuff that Rihanna [releases] and the recent stuff is extremely explicit. So in that sense I don’t regard it as pop music.

“I’ve always held out for decent pop, which to me is music that can be appreciated by all ages. The more racy stuff that you see going on nowadays is not something you could put two to ten-year-olds in front of, and you’re embarrassed if you sit there with your mum. I find that [style] almost anti-pop because it targets the 18-25 year-olds to the exclusion of everybody else.”

What do you think about his analysis? Should pop music be more kid-friendly? Or is Stock just sorry he didn’t come up with Lady Gaga’s “LoveGame” himself?

Click here for Boy George’s blog post.

Click here for the Vanity Fair story.      

Click here for the NME.com story.