Live Review: Lady Gaga at the 87th Academy Awards

Lady Gaga. You insanely talented woman. I will not belittle you by saying that you should have been doing this since 2008, because you changed the pop landscape for decades to come, and pushed artistic boundaries and stood by your work in good times and bad. Throughout your career, you have seen ups and more recently your downs. However, you just send the pendulum back on an upward sing.

First off, what a voice. This was your best vocal performance, period, hands down. The six months of vocal training have been showing not only in this performance, but in your work with Tony Bennett and your live performances since. The vibrato: magnificent and effortless. The placement: semi-operatic, excellent and strain free. The texture, the timbre: lush. When we look back at videos from 2009 up to even 2013, we see some characteristics that have been erased. You have answered your critics, and you have politely smacked them in the face.

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Live Review: Lady Gaga - Do What U Want (Acoustic) @ Alan Carr

Gaga has had a pretty good year (or not, depending on what side of the ARTPOP fence you are) and she might have ended her year on a massive high note. This performance really showed off all of her strengths, her voice, her ability to sing acapella without issue, and her piano skills. It wasn't too weird, in fact it wasn't really weird at all.

Gaga is at home in both restrained and explosive settings, but this shows off a potential for universal appeal. With just a xylophone, a piano, and a great vocal, Gaga managed to blow the roof off of the place, all without alienating any demographics. Grandpa and Grandma aren't going to be flashed by anything, and maybe the lyrics are a bit too sexualized for them, but they will probably be too busy thinking, "Sweet baby Jesus, she has pipes!"
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American Music Awards - Live Performance Reviews

Katy Perry - Unconditonally: Katy Perry blasted Lady Gaga 3 years ago for using blasphemy as entertainment, yet she does a similar thing by using a culture that isn't her own for her own entertainment. Not as offensive, but it does stick out a bit. She's calling back some of the asian elements she used during her One Of The Boys era, and sadly she brought back some of those vocals. Not nearly as polished as past Prism performances. Though her great stage and stage presence helped save an otherwise forgettable performance. B-

One Direction - Story of My Life: A mature song, mature performance. Solid, but not perfect. Harry was getting throaty/shouty in the bridge, Zayn had some register transition issues, and Niall missed a note or two during his solos, but it was still a vast improvement over their TCA performance. They kept it simple, and it paid off. B

Ariana Grande - The Way / Tattooed Heart: The inclusion of The Way intro made sense, but why Tattooed Heart? Is it the next single? Why not Right There? Of course the vocal performance was everything we have come to expect from Ariana, stratospheric belts, sweet head voice, but a noticeable lack of whistles. It seemed to be a very short performance, and it doesn't seem as if this could send her to the Top 10 again, but there's nothing that negative to say about it. And nothing great to say either. B
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Track By Track Album Review: Lady Gaga - ARTPOP

The day has arrived, ARTPOP has leaked in its entirety, slightly more than a week before its worldwide release. The expectations for Gaga are running high, all eyes will be on her first week sales (I.E. "WILL IT SELL AS MUCH AS BORN THIS WAY?") or "Will she get better reviews than Born This Way?" How does she fare? Lets take a look.

Aura: The initial demo seemed promising, especially considering it was a demo. But this was more of a backtrack from the demo unfortunately; she took out her vigorous growls and let a lethargic vocal replace it. Aura is a disaster, a calling it a hot mess would be putting it lightly. But at least Gaga's knowledge of how to make a fantastic hook is still there. ARTPOP has started out on the wrong foot. D+

Venus: Another mess. Choppy lyrics, jutting from side to side. What is the point you are trying to make here Gaga? "Aphrodite lady sea shell bikini / Garden panty / Venus." What? Again, the chorus saves it from being a true hot mess, but it is still concerning.  C

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Single Review: Lady Gaga - Venus

Originally slated to be the 2nd single from ARTPOP, Venus dropped in full today. In essence, it is everything we would've thought ARTPOP would sound like.

It's sparse in its lyrical content (and thought), but it is chuck full of gritty synths, drums, and the electro-pop magic that we all dreamt of when we thought "ARTPOP." That being said, thank god this song was scrapped in favor of Do What U Want as the 2nd single. It lacks a hook, along with many other pop characteristics, instead opting for electronic flavors. Lady Gaga did a strong job with the production (the build up in the latter part of the song proves that point), and it does capture an out of this world sound. That is not Venus's problem: the problem is its choppy verses and chorus. Venus hops along with its strange lyricism, being left to stand on one leg, AKA the production.
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