Switched on Pop - Lady Gaga & The Pequeños Monstruos

Episode Date: September 20, 2022

After an enlightening experience at Lady Gaga's Chromatica Ball, producer Reanna Cruz takes a look at the connection between Gaga's music and the Latin sounds she's engaged with over the years, from traditional rancheras to the rhythm of reggaeton. Songs discussed: Lady Gaga, “Alejandro” Ace of Base, “Don’t Turn Around” ABBA, “Chiquitita – Spanish Version” Madonna, “La Isla Bonita” Rihanna, “Te Amo” Vittorio Monti, Sarah Nemtanu, Chilly Gonzales, “Csárdás” Lady Gaga, “Americano” Rosemary Clooney, The Mellomen, “Mambo Italiano (with the Mellomen)” Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, “Despacito” La Flavour, “Mandolay” Lady Gaga, “Dancin’ In Circles” Alejandro Fernández, “Como Quien Pierde una Estrella” Pedro Fernández, “Yo…El Aventurero” Lola Beltran, “Cucurrucucu Paloma” War, “Cinco de Mayo” Santana, The Product G&B, “Maria Maria (feat. The Product G&B)” Lady Gaga, “Dancin’ In Circles” Justin Bieber, “Sorry” French Montana, Swae Lee, “Unforgettable” Tego Calderon, “Pa’ Que Retozen” Rosalia, J Balvin, “Con Altura” Juan Gabriel, “Abrázame Muy Fuerte” Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, “Rain On Me” Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Arca, “Rain On Me – Arca Remix” Lady Gaga, “Fun Tonight” Lady Gaga, Pabllo Vittar, “Fun Tonight – Pabllo Vittar Remix” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and let you know over your sensia. Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm producer Rianna Cruz. I'm songwriter

Charlie Harding and I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. So I got to tell you guys I just saw one of the best shows of my life at Dodgers Stadium, Lady Gaga's Chromatic of All. Fun.

Lady Gaga was the first big pop act I ever saw in a stadium. It was one of the best shows of my life. I mean, understandably so. She is a performer of the highest caliber. I was looking around, and I realized it felt like home. It felt sort of like a quasi-spiritual experience, but it also felt like I was. in the center of a community, I saw people that were exactly like myself, and that is Latin little monsters. For those of you that don't know, Lady Gaga fans call themselves little monsters,

and being in that environment at Kromatica Ball, surrounded by people like myself, got me thinking about how much me and many others in my community appreciate her work. Of course, a lot of artists have Latinx fans and fan bases, right? But Gaga specifically has been incorporating this audience consistently, her whole career, while also, I think, genuinely appreciating the culture that she pulls from. And maybe you've noticed it, maybe you haven't, but listening to the references to Latin music she makes helps us understand Gaga in a way and how she may be heard by some of her Latinx fans. I wanted to explore that connection, primarily through the Latin influences in her music. Well, I've never been to a Lady Gaga concert, much less.

the Kramatica Ball. But Rian, I did watch your Instagram stories documenting the event. And I think what surprised me was to learn that Gaga is not just a pop star who makes hits. Her concerts are a place of belonging of community where people have a cathartic experience. So I'm pretty curious to learn about what Gaga and her fandom offers her Latino fans. I mean, I tried to track the source of it, and I thought maybe part of it was that she was a featured plot point on one of Latin America's most popular telenovelas, La Rosa de Guadalupe. There's like a plot point in which the kid on the show was bullied because he loves Lady Gaga and he's a little monster. I thought maybe it was also because she was sort of pandering with.

Chola makeup in the Judas video. Though iconic was maybe the not the best choice appropriation wise, but I digress. Throughout her career, I realized, though, that ultimately, this is not a new thing. More recently, she's collaborated with Latinx producer Arca

on the Dawn of Chromatica remix album. Arca spectacular. So here's the original. And here's the Rain on Me remix. Cromataka is such a special. spectacular album because it invites itself to the wildest remixes like Arcas. Exactly. And she's also collaborated on that same remix album with Brazilian pop star Pablo Vittar on a remix of Fun Tonight, which was done in the Brazilian genre of Forro.

Here's the original. And here's Pablo Vitar's version of Fun Tonight. No way. But this appreciation of Latin culture has always been present. And we have to travel back throughout her career to see that it's always been there. How far back do we need to go? Well, we got to go all the way back to 2009. Before the Despacitoification of pop music shook up the charts in 2017,

making Latin music and Spanish language music more popular among mainstream American audiences again for the first time since the Latin pop boom of the late 90s. Gaga's been doing this her whole career. Just look at 2009's Faye Monster Cut Alejandro. I know that we are young and I know that she may love me, but I just can't be with you like this anymore. Alejandro. The song mixes both English and Spanish.

She even has lyrics specifically about Mexico and also references the names of several Latin men throughout the course of the song. Alejandro, Roberto, Fernando, and is a conglomeration of several foreign influences. The opening violin uses the melody. I don't know if you caught this, Nate, from the Italian composer Vittorio Monti's Cisardas.

Listen to the violin here, and listen to the beginning of Alejandro. Fascinating. Nice. find. Gaga goes all around Europe for this song. The song sounds very similar to

Swedish Axe Ace of Bass and Abba, specifically the song Don't Turn Around by Ace of Bass. Oh wow. That's got to be the reference track. I mean, we just talked about interpolations last week. I feel like that's something that went under the radar on Gaga's end.

Absolutely. And at large, this song actually follows in a tradition of pop stars dipping their toes into the pool of Latin pop. Aba, who I also just referenced, have a whole Spanish language album called Grasias for La Musica, where they do all of their hits in Spanish, like Chiquitita. The classic La Isla Bonita by Madonna.

And the same year that Alejandro came out, Rihanna also did her Spanish language banger, Te Amo. So there's clearly a tradition. at large of pop stars dipping their toes into the world and into the sounds of Latin pop. Rihanna, hearing all of these reference tracks, make me finally understand Alejandro, because when it came out, it didn't make any sense to me. And I wasn't thinking it even connects all the way back to Abba and that it's in conversation

with what Rihanna's doing at the same time. I'm wowed. I get it now. Glad to help you understand the twisted mind of Lady Gaga. the track, if we look at it, is simply synth pop with quote-unquote Latin influences. A lot of reviews of the track when it came out, just say Latin-tinged instrumental or Latin instruments are used. And upon close listening, I really could not pull anything immediately identifiable other than the lyrics and other than the general tone of the song. However, I found this live version of Alejandro performed on American Idol and it brings out a larger connection.

Clave Spanish guitar Oh, here we go Piano Montuno So it gets rid of the sort of reggae beat synth pop thing And then moves into the

Clavee The Spanish guitar and the piano Montuno I talk to the producer of this live version of Alejandro and the Fernando in question in the song Alejandro

No Her producer Fernando Garabé. He explains where this sound comes from. Disco was really big in the Latin community. Even the mid-80s high-energy disco. Like, Mandalay. That's what's playing at every party, like down the street.

They're like old serving Vega speakers that would always blow out. You hear all this influence, but yet it's coupled with like dance pulses, right? And like high energy, which was what it was called. So that's Latin. Wow. So it's almost like he's saying that the sounds of Lady Gaga, which don't necessarily sound immediately like Latin pop, actually are major influences within those genres. Like all the synth, heavy, poppy, high energy beats. Exactly. He's sort of pulling these ideas from Latin freestyle and high energy and Latin disco and all of these other things that might. might not necessarily give Latin, so to speak, but in this context, it reflects a larger Latin culture. So Gaga could have left it with Alejandro. A lot of pop stars have their one Latin song,

and that's it, they're done. This is going to be a thing with Gaga, though. Two years later, post-Aliandro, she releases Born This Way. And there's a track Unborn This Way that is written and produced by Lady Gaga, DJ White Shadow, and also Fernando. Fernando. This is Americano. Wait, where has this song been all my life? Did you clock the beginning as actually Mambo Italiano? No, that just adds another layer to this masterpiece.

A girl went back to Napoli because she missed. the scenery Met a girl in East Elaine In floral shorts I as sweet as maine She sang in Ate's into body

Pan-European Mixing Italian references with Caribbean Latin beats Very interesting It's basically a summary of Lady Gaga Because she's

an Italian-American doing all of these things. I think it's really smart, personally. This era, the Born This Way era in general, was rife with connection. You have Fernando musically directing her tour. She even did a Born This Way mariachi version, which is really fun. Whoa.

Digging deep into the YouTube archives. So Fernando also produced Americano. When I talked with him, I asked him specifically, what was it that made American? to him a Latin track. Well, have you heard the lyrics? And he's right. Gaga on this song sings in both Spanish and English, telling the story about

two girls falling in love in East L.A. She says, my songs are for the revolution. My heart hurts for my generation. And she's saying this in a song that Gaga has described in an interview with Vogue as a big Mariahe techno house record. Her words, not mine. Wow. I mean, when I listen to this, something that occurs to me is I'm not a fluent Spanish speaker by any means, but I think I know enough to detect that, you know,

her accent, her pronunciation, maybe it's a little wanting. But at the same time, maybe there's a sense of goodwill that's engendered by the fact that she's trying in the first place, which is more than a lot of pop stars do. I mean, I remember when one Justin Bieber performed Despacito live and clearly did not actually learn any of the Spanish lyrics of the song that he had helped send to number one. And in a really grotesque rendition, simply said the words burrito burrito over and over again.

So, Maybe the fact that Gaga here is really doing the thing, really committing to it, is a bigger gesture than necessarily having the perfect pronunciation of every single word. She's just obsessed with Latin culture, and it comes from a very genuine place of respect and hurt. And I think part of why Gaga appeals in this way is that she expresses the deepest empathy. And sonically, she actually promised at a point in time a mariachi. version of Americano, full mariachi the way that she did the Born This Way cover. But it never came officially. However, you can hear connections in the way that she sings her vocals, which are sweeping

and melodramatic, much like rancheras and mariachi vocals from regional Mexican artists. And we're going to give Gaga's vocals a comparison after the break. Convierte your passion in a business with Shopify and bathe records of ventas with the form of the way of the good conversion

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The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. You can compare here the vocals from Alejandro Fernandez in Como Can Pierde a strea to the vocals in Americana. Yeah, when you listen to those two excerpts back to back, you really hear that big voice, chest voice, a lot of reverb, a lot of vibrato. It's very dramatic, even cinematic in a way.

You can tell this is a style of singing that's all about kind of. of telling the story and putting the maximum amount of emotion into your voice. There's also a mariachi connection in the refrain, the la-l-l-l-las that she does, right? And this reflects a sort of gang vocal tradition in mariachi, where all of the members of the band get together and sing O's or laws or something similar. So this is Yo El Avuntarero by Pedro Fernandez. Here's Lola Beto. with Cuckoo Rukuru-Cuckoo-Paloma.

And hear how Gaga does these vocals on Americano. And the song has one more interesting connection that I think normally would go under the radar. Listen to this lyric about two minutes into Americano. I met a girl in East Delane. In floral shorts, I as sweet as made. She sang in aides into Barrio core. So Barrio references side, which is a part of a town in a Spanish-speaking country, or the Spanish part of a large town.

She mentions East L.A., a place that in the 2020 census has over 95% Hispanic residents, the highest proportion of any U.S. city outside of Puerto Rico. and sonically, a place that has been mentioned in tracks across the Latin music sphere, from artists like war in Cinco de Mayo, and the classic Maria Maria by Santana. So I thought that was pretty cool. She's like speaking directly to a place that is the hub of Los Angeles Latin culture. And one that has its own rich musical tradition. I love hearing that reference because it kind of widens the world of the song a little bit.

That was 2011. We're going to flash forward five years now and go to 2016 for a minute and Gaga's album, Joanne. There's a cut on Joanne written by Gaga, Blood Pop, Mark Ronson, and Beck, surprisingly, called Dancing in Circles. So what do you guys hear in? I mean, the thing that stands out to me is that characteristic regga tone rhythm. in the background. I was not expecting to hear that on the album that I think was supposed to be like Gaga's country turn.

So kind of a... Gaga's return to roots. Right. Kind of a cool surprise. Yeah. It's something that we talked about actually a few episodes ago, the quintessential treceo rhythm. And this is the trisio stripped down to its bare bones.

Of course, we talked about it in the hound dog episode. and there's a wonderful history and context provided over there. But in this context, the Traceo has permeated its way into pop music, particularly Latin-influenced pop music. You can hear it in Sorry by Justin Bieber. And the hip-hop of the same era, like Unforgettable by French Montana and Sway Lee, which is an excellent song, by the way. It's the same thing, just slowed down.

In terms of exploding assumptions, this is almost, the inverse of what Fernando was describing earlier. He was saying that when you think of Latin music, you might not think of, like, techno and house and disco, but that's a big part of the Latin music tradition. And now I feel like it's almost, we're hearing the opposite. Like, when you think of pop music, you might not think of Latin influence, but there it is. There's that characteristic rhythm, soundtracking these songs that you might not necessarily think of as being part of that tradition. So I don't know.

It's just kind of making me rethink some of the ways I perceive cultural influence in pop. The sound is majorly the rhythm of regatone and its sister genre Dembo throughout the entirety of its history. Going all the way back to 2003's Paque Retozen by Tegocadoron to current regaton like Rosalia's Con Altura. So you listen to this, and you might not immediately think Lady Gaga is trying or attempting to make a reggaeton song, but she is using a reggaeton rhythm to connect with Latin audiences, albeit maybe on a subconscious level. The ubiquity of that rhythm in the way that it has spread all around the world makes me think that it is, in some ways,

the really important cousin rhythm to the fore to the floor house beat, rather than have everything do, do, do, do, do. It's do, do, do, do, do, do, do. And it gives you this syncopation in between what would otherwise just be steady four to the floor. And that subtle shift in rhythm, it's amazing how it transcends so many different kinds of genre from reggaeton through hip-hop, pop everywhere. It's really illuminating to hear all of these Latin musical influences across Gaga's catalog. Is there anything else that might draw Latinx fans to her work and her persona? Well, yeah, I actually talked to some fans to see what they thought about Lady Gaga's appeal to Latin Little Monsters and why she means so much to fans like themselves.

This is Stephanie. I feel like us as Latinx people, we are so used to our idols and divas just being so theatrical and so. open and pouring their emotions in such passionate ways on stage. You can feel her emotion just like Juan Gabriel or any other iconic Latinx performer. Stephanie brings up a really great comparison. Here's Abraza Me Very Fuerte by Juan Gabriel. So there's drama there and I feel like people connect with that and the inherent theatricality and melodrama of Latin genres like rancheras, like mariachi. I also talked to my roommate AJ and he echoed what Fernando said about the dance music connection. A lot of her music, especially when she first came

onto the scene, was very like disco heavy, which I think comes from her early 2000s, New York club scene. And that's like so Latinx, like all my family parties growing up. She definitely went to like a couple of Puerto Rican festivals, you know. So other people also see the dance music connection there. I also talk to my friend Orlando, who spoke to the larger idea of magical realism and Lady Gaga, something that permeates a lot of cultural Latin touchstones. I was born and raised in rural Mexico. Gaga became quickly a source of creative inspiration of what could be done visually and sonically.

And definitely she became an escape. As someone who came of age in a Latin American developing country, the United States and its culture currency has always been put on a pedestal. So you come across someone like Gaga, whose entire ethos at the time was about creating this idealized life, conceptually, that's something that was already meant to work and resonate with someone of my background. So you could see that Gaga is forging these powerful connections with her Latin. fans. And I asked the man himself, Fernando Garabé, Gaga's producer, what he thought about this connection. What I noticed, especially growing up, was that, you know, we had mariachi, we had, romantic, but, you know, it's all about I messed up and I'm sorry, rhetoric, right? And, you know, if you notice in our culture, it's only appropriate to cry when you're singing. And then here you

have this community who grew up with that mindset in America. And they're listening to artists that say the opposite. In the 80s and 90s, you have like Morrissey, the Smith, Nirvana, Depeche Mode. And all of a sudden, Mexicans feel like, oh my God, like I feel witness,

I feel connected. I think these lyrics tell me that, you know, it's okay to be sad, right? And that is the connection with Latinos so dearly with like Gaga, with like Morrissey, with like these advocates of being your authentic selves. These bands,

say it's okay to cry. You know, like the cure, their whole ethos is like, boys can cry. And putting that in the same situation as Lady Gaga, I think they're very similar and it's very apt how both artists in their lyrical messages express the same things. Gaga, for example, is you are born this way.

It's okay to be who you are. It's okay to feel things. It's okay to experience life the way that you want to experience life. which is a rejection of a lot of the stereotypes put around Latin machismo. So taking it back to being at Chromatic Ball and standing in a crowd of Latino little monsters, it really puts it together. And it honestly all makes sense why she appeals specifically to my community.

It feels very natural and it feels very homey. And I see Lady Gaga in the same way that I see someone, like Mark Anthony, or I see someone like One Gapri out. It's just, it's natural and it's fitting. And I thank Gaga for putting all these references in her music and making fans like myself feel at home. Switched on Pop is produced by Raina Cruz, edited by Jolie Myers-Meyers, engineer by Brandon McFarland, community management by Abby Barr, illustrations by R Us Gottlie. Our executive producers are Honor Rosen and Ashok Karwa, a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture. You can find more episodes of Switched on Pop wherever you get podcasts.

talking the Apple Podcast app. We're talking Spotify. We're talking overcast. If you're a deep head, you know what I'm talking about. And we're talking about our website, www.switchedonpop.com. If you fall into the category of a Latin little monster, please reach out and tell us why you like her

and what turns you in to a Latin little monster. That's at Switched on Pop. on Twitter and Instagram. We'll be back next Tuesday. And until then, thanks for listening.