I miss you Gaga
I was about 22 years old, living in a student house in Hilversum (The Netherlands) in a small room, almost as big as a bathroom. I was 22 and just doing that. I had good contact with my fellow roommate and neighbor Myron. One a Tuesday night I was irritated with him to no end. Constantly I heard the intro of a catchy pop song. The synthesizers were popping through the walls. At that time, I had no idea that this was Lady Gaga's Just Dance and that this song would change my life.
In 2008, I had tickets to a concert by the Pussycat Dolls. Yes, you know, that slightly vulgar girl group that Nicole Scherzinger was the lead singer of. I was ecstatic when I later heard that Lady Gaga was the support act. The show was unprecedentedly good. The supporting act was much better than the main act. Lady Gaga also excelled in terms of staging. It was clear to see that she invested every single Euro in her own show. The rest is history.
I was there when Lady Gaga gave her first own performance in the Netherlands. She performed at the Melkweg in Amsterdam. Lady Gaga treated the first 30 fans to a drink in the cafe of the pop venue. Unfortunately, I was just too late. The coffee hour with the little monsters became world news. I was waiting outside irritated and hysterical. However, the show made up for everything. Standing in the front row, I could look straight at Lady Gaga. Our auras crossed. It was a night to remember. Upside down, she stood on a piano performing live & acoustic Pokerface. Currently still accounting for nearly 1.6 billion streams on Spotify.
Less than a year later, Lady Gaga performed at the Ziggo Dome. A pop arena with room for some 17,000 screaming fans. Unheard of, barely a year ago, she performed at the Melkweg in front of a paltry 1,000 fans. Lady Gaga's career was exploding and gaining momentum. During that time, I visited Lady Gaga around 12 times. Never before had I spent so much money on a woman. She invariably opened with the strong song Dance In The Dark.
After the success of the album The Fame, Born This Way was released. For a moment, I thought Lady Gaga had missed the exit. Surely a new style of music could turn out differently right? Fortunately, Alejandero, Bad Romance and Telephone more than made up for it.
Over 5 years later, Lady Gaga was loaded. This was evident in the experimental music that followed. Artpop (2013), Joanne (2016) and Chromatica (2020) didn't do much for me. Christina Aguilera also had such a phase with the 2010 album Bionic. Not a worldwide success and mostly very vague and experimental music. I understand it. Lady Gaga doesn't need to do it anymore either. She's loaded.
I miss Lady Gaga. The Lady Gaga of Just Dance, Pokerface and LoveGame. I keep hoping that one day she will come back with arty pop songs like Paparazzi, Alejandro and So Happy I Could Die. Thank you Lady Gaga for everything you meant to me during an important time in my life. I miss you Gaga.
Please forgive me if you see a spelling error in this text. I'm writing in Dutch 🇳🇱 and this text was translated using Deepl.