We Appreciate Your Fandom, Lady Gaga, But You’re Not “The Next Iron Maiden”
It’s no secret that Lady Gaga is a metalhead. She was wearing Slayer shirts publicly before God Hates Us All made that a cool thing to do again. She has a song about banging metalheads. she covered Van Halen, and she even wore a Maiden shirt while meeting Babymetal and doting on Black Sabbath. The woman’s made her opinion on metal perfectly clear.
So while it’s not surprising that she went all fangirl on Iron Maiden in a recent interview with CR Fashion Book, it’s still mad endearing. Gaga tweeted:
I wore my own personal Iron Maiden "NUMBER OF THE BEAST" tee-shirt on a major fashion cover @ironmaiden I'm so proud to be a fan ???? 666
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) August 19, 2015
Nice! Way to pepper in the metal, Gaga. She went on to say the following:
“[Iron Maiden are] one of the greatest rock bands in history, in my opinion. Some people really don’t know the importance of metal and the scope of it. Those guys were filling stadiums, and they still are. And it’s because of the culture of the music, the poetry that’s so powerful, that whenever the fans come together, they unite in the essence of what Iron Maiden is all about.”
Fuck YES. Thank you, Ms. Germanotta. While many mainstream artists wouldn’t even deign to spit on metal, you’re repping (what should have been voted) the greatest metal band of all time! You understand that metal is art, and that it’s some of the best art. God, it’s so refreshing to hear someone say —
“I always used to say to people, when they would say, ‘Oh, she’s the next Madonna.’ No, I’m the next Iron Maiden.”
— uh, well, now, wait a second.
Obviously, Gaga’s quote is more about her aspirations as a musician than any sort of claim to fame. And to be fair, there are definitely comparisons that can be made between Lady Gaga and Iron Maiden. Both are arena-filling musical acts of international acclaim. Both rock outlandish onstage outfits and write their own material. Both have talent and vision. So yeah, I get it.
Buuut, the nit-picky metalhead in me can’t help but squint at that quote. Lady Gaga is a futuristic fashionista pop star whose weirdo clothes and backup dancers are often the stars of the show. Even if you stripped them of every last bit of of stage clothing, pyro, and giant Eddie puppets, Iron Maiden would still be operatic rock wizards who could crush a crowd the size of a small country’s population.
More so, Iron Maiden were, in my mind, real pioneers, and as I mentioned in my blogger’s spat with Seargent D and Max Frank, most of Lady Gaga’s music sounds like every techno song I’ve heard in an Eastern European hostel lobby. I can’t picture Lady Gaga wailing on a twelve-minute track based on a Coleridge poem.
THAT SAID, we salute Lady Gaga for her love of metal and Maiden, and urge her to continue defending the faith and leaving the oath unbroken. If she ends up opening for Maiden, we promise to wait at least four songs into her set before going to get a beer. And even then, we’ll make sure to get her one, too.
[via]
