Yes, this post is primarily about Lady Gaga...
I think a lot of people like to point fingers and call an artist overrated without really getting to know them as an artist, but just listening to one, maybe two songs. A lot of artists are put out there - especially pop artists - for the radio hits. Things that people think will play well in someone's car that people can dance to, is in my opinion, the music industry's main concern. Most people want a song to play on the radio that they can dance to and sing along with, as a matter of fact. But with that, those are usually the overproduced songs that draw attention to the artist and people only seem to listen to that song.
Everyone that knows me knows that Lady Gaga is my favorite artist, and yes, of course I'm going to post my opinion of her where many others seem to think that she's not creative, seeing as how that's something Gaga herself aspires to continue to be. The main thing that sticks out to me is the autotune comment. I think it's silly how people can say that and then ignore the fact that she can sing live and sound nearly identical to the recording. People think that if a song sounds too good to be true, the only reason for it to sound that way is autotune. I think those people should take a listen to Gaga, and then Britney Spears, who's perhaps the queen of autotuned songs. I can even be so bold as to go to say that some people who think Lady Gaga is overproduced clearly didn't listen to her debut album in full. They'd realize that each of her songs actually do have meaning. They just need to listen closely and be a little more metaphorical with finding them. So many people think Telephone is about someone calling someone in a club, so many people think Poker Face is about playing Poker, so many people think Paparazzi is really about the paparazzi. Give Brown Eyes a listen and then tell me her songs have no meaning. There's only one song I feel that doesn't have any meaning to it, and that's Just Dance. Oddly enough, that's the only song I don't like that she's released.
Most people who find something overrated hasn't actually tried it. So many people think Justin Bieber is overrated, and while I'm one of them - mainly due to him always being a trending topic on Twitter - I gave his album a listen. I liked one or two songs, but the rest I found were all about the same thing.
That being said, pop music always seems to be considered overrated - and with good reason. But if you're logical about it, you'd realize that pop music seems to dominate the world when it comes to listening to the radio, or searching for music in online stores. When I go to any music store around here that sells albums, I've found that there are 3x the rows of pop than there are any other kind of music genre. It goes with the territory of being in pop music to be considered overrated.
People like different types of music - I myself am someone who listens to just about anything other than rap, which I find to be nonsense apart from perhaps three artists - and I respect that. But people who find a certain genre to be repulsive really shouldn't point fingers at untalented artists without at least finding the meaning behind that artist. Truth is, just about every single song has meaning - be it on the surface or something underneath. When it comes to Lady Gaga, her song meanings are underneath. Only a handfew of people seem to appreciate songs that don't have the message spelt out for them or take the time to find the message.
Now, Britney Spears is something that's overrated because I feel the way people have been talking about Lady Gaga towards Britney. All of her songs are autotuned - she can't sing like she used to be able to, I think that much is obvious to anyone who's taken the time to listen to the songs from her past. I think Britney's a wonderful entertaining, and can dance her ass off, but when it comes to raw vocal talent, she doesn't have it and she has nothing else to make me think otherwise when it comes to her voice these days. I think Britney's musical talent has gone so far away from what it used to be, she should just take a long earned break from the industry and get the voice she once had back. She did have talent when it comes to music, but now I don't think she does. She relies too much these days on autotuned music. I know people will reply with "It was a demo," but did you take a listen to her version of Telephone? I realize it was a demo, but demos don't have that much autotune in it. Most demos I've listened to don't even use autotune.
