On the evening of Sunday, Feb. 15, the music industry's biggest night was unfolding at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards. While usually the tributes section of the award show is seemingly done begrudgingly with a melodramatic montage, this year's tribute—to some of the most prolific artists in music history—was one for the record books in terms of the talent provided and the spectacle of the performances.
The most anticipated of these spectacles came with pop super star Lady Gaga and her advanced, over-the-top tribute to late music pioneer David Bowie. Throughout her career, Gaga has been very open about how Bowie influenced her as a person and musician. The performance itself seemed very thoughtful, focusing on the different stages of Bowie's career and the music and fashion he gave us during those stages.
In terms of showmanship and personality, Lady Gaga was the best choice. And while this seemed like a match made in musical heaven, something felt off as I watched the different parts of Gaga's performance unfold; I didn't know what it was, but it was something that grabbed my attention and prevented me from fully engaging the performance.
By the end of the night I had no idea why I wasn't happy with the performance—but I seem to have found my answer with the responses to the performance on social media. While everyone seemed to worship the ground Lady Gaga strutted on, and freak out over how phenomenal she was, one person who, like myself, was unimpressed was David Bowie's own son: "Warcraft" director Duncan Jones. The day after the Grammy's, Jones posted a cryptic tweet about the definition of "gaga," supposedly referring to Lady Gaga herself:
First of all, before all you little monsters attack him for maybe not liking the performance as much as you did, you should probably try to see things from his perspective. To Lady Gaga, and to music fans around the world, David Bowie is an amazing musician whose style and music inspired millions; to Jones, his father is not musician David Bowie, but David Jones.
He doesn't see his father as this god-like rock star, but rather as his dad, who he really cared about and whose death is still very raw to him. And I think that may have been what I found wrong with the performance. It wasn't so much a tribute to David Bowie and his music as a hi-tech spectacle recapping the various characters Bowie has played. The real David did not factor in.
It seems that, ever since her performance at the Oscars last year, people have been praising Lady Gaga more than ever. And with other performances, like Super Bowl 50 and FX's "American Horror Story: Hotel," this is probably the most popular and beloved Gaga has been since her "Bad Romance" days. While this attention is well-deserved (she is very talented and innovative), it feels as though too much of that fodder went into her tribute performance last week.
While the performance itself meant well, it just felt like too much of a spectacle. Though it's easy to argue that Bowie's own performances were spectacles themselves, complete with crazy outfits, I highly doubt that he had a moving robotic keyboard to help get his image across. Even if it didn't mean to, the tribute seemed more like a spectacle of how great Lady Gaga was, and how inventive the costumes and machinery were, when we were really supposed to pay attention to the majesty of David Bowie and his music.
All in all this performance was just too much, which caused people to lose the meaning of why Lady Gaga was even there in the first place: to give a tribute to David Bowie. The thing with Lady Gaga and David Bowie is that, even though their shows and image are a highlight of their careers, it's their talents that really take center stage. And in the case of The Grammys, it was the image that took the place of the talent.
If Gaga wanted to do an amazing performance for the sake of David Bowie fans and music fans, she would have kept only one of her eccentric outfits and just performed Bowie's songs with all her heart. Instead, we got another episode of the "Look how amazing Lady Gaga is" show, when we should have gotten an authentic tribute to one of the best musicians in recent history. Sorry, Mother Monster.
