Gaga Claims To Have Written Generation's Anthem
-by Jeremy Gloff
-appeared on TheNewGay.net
-April 12th 2010

I am biGagaual. I love her sometimes. I despise everything she stands for sometimes. Here I sit uncomfortably on the fence and undecided. Her existence leaves me conflicted about the state of pop culture. I am an opinionated person and Lady Gaga has thrown off my steadfast equilibrium.

I care not to reboard my endless internal pendulum that swings between “Gaga’s awful” and “Gaga is the best thing since…”. Instead I wish only to speculate on the tidbit of information that Miss Gaga herself recently posted on a fan site. Recently, while in Amsterdam, Lady Gaga claims to have written the song that is going to be “the anthem for this generation”.

One must admire her chutzpah. Traditionally a generation’s anthem works its way into the cultural psyche silently, over time. Bob Dylan may not be known for being modest but he certainly wasn’t shrewd enough to declare “Blowing In The Wind” as the anthem of his generation months before its release. Similarly Kurt Cobain surely must’ve been unaware of the generation he would impact while writing “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.

But it’s 2010. Top 40 music has lost much of its mass cultural impact. Is this current generation really defined by any songs or artists? Is it even possible for any song to crossover into all the various niche markets and subcultures that have developed?

I am anticipating this supposed anthem that Lady Gaga has written. Let’s face it…proclaiming a song as the anthem of a generation months before its release is about as post-modern as creating an artificial character for the purpose of being truer to who you really are.