Amazon Gags On Gaga

theodp writes "Having hawked Google Chrome over the weekend with an ad that aired on SNL, Lady Gaga turned her attention Monday to hyping Amazon's Cloud Player service. Fans were delighted to learn that they could download Gaga's entire 'Born This Way' album for a mere $0.99, until technical difficulties set in. 'Amazon is experiencing high volume and downloads are delayed,' Amazon said in a statement. 'If customers order today, they will get the full Lady Gaga, Born This Way album for $0.99. Thanks for your patience.' Some frustrated users meted out one-star ratings for the album as their way of protesting Amazon's slow service, lowering the album's rating to three stars. So, was that karma for upstaging Donald Knuth at the Googleplex?"

Comments

Amazon Gags on Gaga

[ColdWetDog]

Amazon has better taste than I thought.

Re:Amazon Gags on Gaga

[obarthelemy]

The girl can sing, and write lyrics and music. Can't dance though. Some of her songs are very good in their unplugged versions, and she does not shy away from catering to mainstream tastes with overproduced studio versions, videos, and her looks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiqHICcqi9s for an unplugged pokerface
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zet3eLu-ms#t=2m43s just for fun, another good unplugged something else, by someone else.

Re:Amazon Gags on Gaga

[blair1q]

Marilyn Manson meets Britney Spears

Re:Amazon Gags on Gaga

[jpate]

obligatory SMBC.

Re:Amazon Gags on Gaga

[thomst]

I don't think her music can stand on its own, but I enjoyed her performances on SNL as visual spectacle.

Speaking as a singer/songwriter/musician, I have to disagree. Gaga's material is not really my cup of coffee, but she certainly can write compelling songs. She sings very well, too - her voice is powerful, well-trained, and has decent range. And she can play a variety of instruments quite capably. (Before she became a pop star, she made her living as a session pianist in the demanding and very competitive world of NYC recording studios. You don't get those jobs because of hype - you have to be very, very good on your instrument.)

As I say, dance pop is really not my thing. At all. But, out of curiosity, I watched her "Monster Ball" HBO special. Relentless pandering to her audience and her obvious self-esteem issues aside, under all the glitz and spectacle, I was pleasantly surprised at her songwriting and performance chops. In particular, her new single, "Born This Way", with which she closed the show, is a genuine pop anthem - and, behind the closing credits, her a capella reprise of its chorus was even more powerful than the kitchen-sink production number that preceded it.

As for the "visual spectacle" aspect of her show, her (occasionally tiresome) speeches to the audience made it quite clear that she cultivates a fan base of people who consider themselves social outcasts - and gays, in particular. Since outrageous flamboyance is pretty much the sine qua non of gay pop culture, hers makes perfect sense, when seen in that context.

Anyway, I don't plan to buy her albums, but I have gained considerable respect for her as a writer, singer, and musician.

Re:Amazon Gags on Gaga

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

I'm still not sure that she wasn't previously a man. She has very masculine facial features. Does she shave before her concerts?

You can't be serious. Look at her hip to waist ratio. Those wide hips and that little wait mean gaga was always a girl. I wonder about the sexual orientation of any guy who buys into the gaga tranny myth. A hip/waist ratio like hers should be lighting up 1/2 of your neurons.

Humm.. paints bad.

[Tei]

As a user of Reddit, this is not news to me. Reddit is down more than any other normal website, and seems something to do with some *magical words here* from Amazon.

I have read somewhere that the cloud is a good solution for scalability. Maybe the Amazon Cloud sould search for a Cloud hosting solution :D

It seems Amazon has the skill to cut wikileaks money, but lack the skill to create a proper cloud.

Thanks for inappropriate ratings

[Duradin]

Thanks for making the ratings less useful.

You may think you're all-important and that your one time shipping experience should mean as much as someone who is reviewing the actual usefulness and quality of the product but all you're doing is adding more useless noise to the reviews.

So hats off to you Mr. Garbage-In.

Re:Thanks for inappropriate ratings

[MozeeToby]

But... they're not getting me my (nearly) free stuff fast enough! I'm deserve to get this album now because they told me that I could have it and I want it now and if I can't have it now I'm going to do whatever I can to hurt them.
[/sarcasm]

Honestly, people complain about food stamps and medical care being the problem with the entitlement generation, but I really don't have a problem with feeling entitled to basic human needs. The idea that you are entitled to the latest Lady Gaga album, and being so angry about a day or two delay in getting it that you sabotage the rating system, is quite frankly terrifying to me.

Re:Thanks for inappropriate ratings

[bkpark]

Thanks for making the ratings less useful.

It depends on what you are trying to get out of the ratings. If the rating is meant to reflect the entire purchasing experience, it's entirely appropriate that the overall rating should include how pleasant it was to buy from a particular vendor.

Yes, if you want to use the rating to gauge to product and buy it elsewhere, rather than the site where you found the ratings, including the vendor performance would make the rating less reliable for you, but it's you who are using the rating in an unapproved manner, not the customers who are rating inappropriately.

This isn't to say that ratings break-down by category won't help, though.

Re:Thanks for inappropriate ratings

[The Archon V2.0]

So hats off to you Mr. Garbage-In.

Scary thought: These are some of the people that vote in elections.

GugaGaga

[wasimkadak]

Didn't care much about the album. The 20GB cloud storage offered with it seemed worth it.

Re:There is no such thing as karma.

[Haedrian]

I'd say the fact that you successfully downloaded the album in question is a sign of bad karma.

Re:There is no such thing as karma.

[coinreturn]

There's a "Post Anonymously" checkbox, you know?

Anonymous should have used an album...

[turbclnt]

...apparently, this would be the best way to DDoS Amazon :).

A Day Late and $6 short

[VGPowerlord]

So, I saw this and went to Amazon, only to find out that the "today" mentioned in the summary/article was yesterday, May 23rd. /. editors REALLY need to:
1. Post stories sooner.
2. Fact check.

Re:There is no such thing as karma.

[cpu6502]

>>>I'd say the fact that you successfully downloaded the album is a sign of bad karma.

The music you listen to isn't any better. (Probably.) I like Gaga's songs, and radio music in general, which has led a lot of friends to criticize me for it. So I naturally ask, "What do you listen to?" and then they play stuff that sounds, amazingly, like the stuff on the radio. (Except with an 'alternative' label.)

Point: People are so damn quick to criticize other people's tastes. And I'm sick of it. If that guy wanted to download Gaga's album for 99 cents, big fucking deal. It's HIS life, not yours, so stop insulting the man.

Re:There is no such thing as karma.

[Zerth]

Some of us only bought it for the free 20 gigs of cloud storage.

Re:$.99?!?

[RogerWilco]

Shrug. Most of the current fans weren't around when David and Freddie did their thing. (or Boy George, Madonna, Prince, etc.)

It's new to them, and GaGa is basically the only one doing it now.

My mom always tells me that fashions have a 30 year cycle. If that's the case, Lady GaGa might be the first of many.

Re:There is no such thing as karma.

[billcopc]

You must be new here.

Re:There is no such thing as karma.

[EastCoastSurfer]

I'm with you! I listen to nearly everything (not much country though) depending on my mood.

Lady Gaga is actually a very good singer. You can find her old stuff on youtube that she did pre being famous. Her current act is all about entertainment with music and visuals and I think she delivers.

Re:There is no such thing as karma.

[scubamage]

Agreed. I like Lady Gaga. I find it interesting that there seems to be so much vitriol on a site popular with geeks towards a woman who was heavily inspired by things like Metropolis. Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one, they all stink.

In soviet russia...

[numbski]

...Lady Gaga gags on you? Soviet Russia might be better than I'd first thought!

Re:There is no such thing as karma.

[jd]

If you can find this on the radio, I'd be impressed. Same with these guys or these. Radio just doesn't play the stuff I listen to. Ever.

Now, your point of not judging other people's music, that I can agree with 100%. Except for rap, though I suppose I'll allow two exceptions, so I guess it's less a rule and more an opinion. Yeah, I quite agree that it's their life, their choice in music, etc. I'm not a fan of Gaga but that doesn't give me any right to judge those who are. I do question the inclusion of some of Gaga's more... extreme work on the kid's compilation albums advertised on Cartoon Network - the one place not showing cartoons any more. That doesn't feel right. But, hey, I didn't object to The Strangler's Golden Brown when a kid, so what do I know?

Re:There is no such thing as karma.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need to know who the artist is before you criticize music, you aren't criticizing music. You're looking for justification of your own prejudices.

Risking a tangent...

[HikingStick]

What was described is really one of my pet peeves about online ratings systems. The ratings system at Amazon is clearly intended for the product itself, but you'll often see lower marks because of something unrelated to the product (e.g., shipping times, difficulty reaching the seller). To me, that destroys the value of the ratings system.

I often refer to customer ratings at Amazon and other online retailers when making my own purchase decisions [Full disclosure: I'm a regular reviewer at Amazon.] Often, I'll look at those overall ratings if I'm just getting a feel for the products out there. In such cases, where people give the product poor reviews because of problems with the delivery system, they unfairly steer other consumers away from what may be otherwise excellent products.

It would be hard for Gaga to claim any real harm from the practice (simply because of the volume of sales that will be processed anyway), but it could make a huge difference for a small producer or independent craftsperson whose products are sold through Amazon itself, Fulfilled by Amazon, or Amazon's affiliates program.