Lady Gaga's greatest crimes against good taste

Illustration by Jillian Tamaki

Pop sensation Lady Gaga first graced our ears last summer with the tune Just Dance. Since then, the diminutive singer has racked up platinum-album sales and a Grammy nomination, all while prancing around pants-less (most of the time). Earlier this week, it was announced that the relentlessly raunchy Gaga would be performing at the MuchMusic Video Awards in Toronto on June 21. Here is a list of Lady Gaga’s greatest crimes against good taste.

1. Her name. Admittedly, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta is a mouthful, but “Lady Gaga” is infantile.

2. Glorifying drunk disorientation. Gaga’s breakout single, Just Dance, chronicled her misadventures in clubland, with lyrics like “Where are my keys? I lost my phone” and “What’s going on? What’s the name of this club?”

3. Making false promises of good pop music. After the infectious Just Dance, Gaga’s singles have become less danceable and more disposable (see: Poker Face and LoveGame).

4. She gives gambling a bad name. Gaga challenged us to decipher her vacuousness, singing, “You can’t read my poker face” in her sophomore single, Poker Face.

5. She gives wigs a bad name. Her poker face is indeed unreadable — it’s hidden behind a blonde helmet that would inspire envy among females in the Legoland population.

6. She wears Halloween costumes all year round. Gaga is like the get-up that prompts the question, “What are you supposed to be?” Seriously, is she channeling fashion crimes from the ‘80s, or is she a really convincing drag queen?

7. Two words: “disco stick.” In the song LoveGame, Gaga states, “I wanna take a ride on your disco stick.” Disco stick (n): a phallic apparatus of Gaga’s invention that makes disco dancing way dirtier than it needs to be.

8. She is profoundly self-absorbed. “Every time you see me, it’s performance. When I’m sleeping, it’s performance,” she told The Canadian Press. We’re sure her REM cycle is absolutely riveting.

9. She made a sociology project out of her newest single, Paparazzi. “[The song] has a real, genuine, powerful message about fame-whoring and death and the demise of the celebrity, and what that does to young people.” It’s nice to know that, in the midst of her celebrity, Gaga still thinks of the children.

10. She has inspired bad parodies. In this mock-recreation of Gaga’s video for Poker Face, a bunch of hairy dudes in blonde wigs sitting around a card table, then a pool. Like Gaga’s own video, it’s irritatingly sustained for four minutes.

-- Katie Hewitt