Pop Riot-Alejandro and the Sands of Time

Recently I’ve been listening to the same song on repeat over and over

again and I have come to the conclusion that there is no hope! Lady

GaGa has finally infected my eardrums with a catchy dance beat and a

cheesy adoration for a Casanova by the name of ‘Alejandro’. Where

could a former teenybopper go to hide from such a sensation?

The truth is; it has taken me a long time to come around to

‘Alejandro’. I (like most everyone else that heard the first 10

seconds of the song) knew it was a rip on a classic Ace of Base tune

from the early 90’s. It seemed that as soon as the song was released

there was an instant backlash against the Monster Muncher GaGa and her

sample. It was the one song that everyone one hated to love.

As a child of the 80’s I grew up during a time where Ace the Base

ruled the airwaves with their hip songs about new beginnings and love

lost,  but who knew they were too cool to sample? It instantly turned

into a Can’t-Touch-This moment. Ace the Base, all of sudden, became

the purest remnants of what we loved of an era ravaged by grunge and

gangsta rap. Lady GaGa had come along and tainted it with her sex,

drugs, and weird costumes. She could do it to Madonna but ‘The Sign’ was a big whopping OH NO SHE DIDN’T! (Cue the head role)

The truth and truthiness of the matter is that Lady GaGa, in all her

dysfunction, is more like us than you may want to admit. She may wear

meat dresses but she loves a good pop tune just like you and me. ‘The Sign' is catchy and sweet as the summer days that I spent at camp dancing to it on the playground.  I almost feel that if the

situation were in reverse, I wouldn’t be turned off by it at all.

Pop music is like champagne at a P Diddy party, it’s free and

flowing. And it’s irresistibly delicious to the ears. If you were

going to sample a song you loved, wouldn’t you rip a something that made

you feel good every time you heard it?

In reality, we shouldn't be hating GaGa for her pop lust, we should be shooting her high fives. She reminded us of a song that even we, ourselves forgot was awesome. Let's stop being so prudish about our past pop love affairs and start having a shagging good time whenever the mood strikes us.