I like Taylor Swift. I don't find her anywhere near as grating or fake, personality-wise, as Gaga. I agree with others' opinions on here that Gaga's nothing special and certainly not the "misunderstood freak" she likes to present herself as. It gets on my nerves how someone like that can exploit the image some of us had to bear unwillingly for profit. But, I won't go there today.
With that said, I can see how Taylor Swift's music can be irritating. As a matter of fact, it is (well, more a matter of my opinion). As much as I love her as a person, her songs, generally speaking, get on my nerves more than Lady Gaga's, and that's really saying something. Although they're written from the heart, Swift's songs are quickly proving her to be somewhat of a one-trick pony. It seems as though the only thing she can write about is love/breakups. Granted, that's pretty much what most mainstream musicians write about when they're not singing party hymns or expressing their penchant for drugs and alcohol, so that horse was not beaten to death exclusively by Swift.
However, the thread exclusively asks for musicians who have been
overrated. Taylor Swift, in my opinion, is not really overrated. Music critics have yet to hail her as the next Tim McGraw or whoever country music fans look to as an idol. She's just a sweet girl with an ok voice and a guitar, decent lyrics considering her age, and an annoying theme. That's all.
Rihanna has similarly failed to be compared to anyone noteworthy, aside from a few insinuations in the past that she might replace Beyonce. However, Beyonce herself holds no iconic status in mainstream music, so the comparison quickly fizzles into the realms of triviality.
The only ones who have been compared to noteworthy and established musical icons are Britney Spears, Beyonce, and Lady Gaga. Although Britney's vocals aren't anything impressive (she can sing well, for the record), her hold over an entire generation of fans and ceaseless appeal across time (ten years later, she's still relevant, right?) make her out to be a force to be reckoned with indeed. She might not exactly be an immortal musical icon like Michael and Madonna, however, she is definitely the icon of an entire generation. Anyone who grew up in the late 90s can fondly remember (although others may not remember so fondly...) how Britney's music, video, and dance defined the latter part of that decade, and the beginning of the next.
Beyonce is the most vocally talented out of all the musicians on this list. She's proven herself to be well-versed in more than just mainstream pop music, although she's also guilty of beating the "girl power" pony to death. From her days with Destiny's Child (Survivor), to her latest, "Girls (Who Run the World)", the whole girl power thing has been a recurrent theme in her music. However, she doesn't suffer as much of a scathing review on my critique due to the dead horse being a worthy one to beat a few more times so the misogynists of the world can finally get the message. It certainly is a preferable "dead horse" theme to the more popular ones: sex, drugs, romance, breakup, upbeat "self-esteem" songs, and pissing x group of people (religious people or parents, usually both) off. Despite her very real talent, Beyonce does tend to be overrated, a memorable example which comes to mind being that one time when someone from some music magazine (I remember this being posted here, although the source is vague, but if anyone really must know this I can edit this and dig it up for you) tried to insinuate her upcoming album would be similar to Michael's
Thriller. To my ears, this would mean her next album would be her most over-rated one (HIStory fan here), however, to the general public
Thriller is the "best" Michael Jackson album, so saying something would be "reminiscent" of it is crossing dangerous overrating territory. Beyonce herself does not give in to such nonsense, however, so I'm confident in saying she's a pretty humble and agreeable person, from what I've seen of her.
With that said, Gaga is definitely the most overrated person out of this entire list. The media is mostly to blame for this. She's been relevant for only two years, and already the speculations and comparisons to both Michael
and Madonna have been made. Music critics and magazines have given her albums stellar reviews, despite them not being anything special, both vocal and lyric-wise. Had they been rating a live performance, I could understand the hype. The woman can most definitely sing, and plays her instrument of choice quite well. However, so can many others, so the fact that she can actually sound decent live does not warrant automatic "icon" status, which is what most of the media seems to want to shove down her (and our) throat(s).
In regards to being prematurely hailed as an icon, Gaga does manage to remain pretty level-headed, once stating she would need to further develop before any such thing could be claimed. However, she's guilty of playing up on other things, such as the "misunderstood" image when she's really nothing of the sort, and capitalizing on media coverage of her trivial gimmicks for profit, which might actually hurt her in the long run, as focus is being deterred from her work. Unsurprisingly, some of her fans actually buy into said image, despite the fact that, pre-Gaga, she would not be seen as anything we might recognize as "Gaga", and looked to all like an average girl (which is what she still is, despite the wigs and make-up). Evidence of this abounds in her songs, especially in her latest album release, and in the fact that she enjoys doing what normal people her age do. Therefore, there is nothing to "misunderstand," and the only people who would dare call her a "freak" are shallow imbeciles who can't look past a person's appearance and see how plain and uninteresting they truly are on the inside. Her fan base is also one of the most annoying fan bases of all. Although not
all her fans act in such ways, a significant portion of them seem to be under the delusion that Madonna never existed, and therefore Gaga is totally original, etc. Granted, delusional fans exist within virtually any fan base (I recall one such Beyonce fan claiming she was more relevant than Aretha Franklin! LMAO!), but this seems to occur more often among Gaga fans than any other mainstream musician's fan base, for some reason. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that most of them are young, stupid, and clearly know nothing about mainstream music history beyond the last five years.
As she is overhyped through the media's hand, part of her own fan base, and her own attention-grabbing gimmicks and ridiculous statements, I'd say the conglomeration of overdrive earns Gaga the top place as the most overrated singer out of all the ones mentioned here.
There is a difference between overrated and annoying. Something can be technically good
and horrendously overrated, as I believe Gaga is. Had we been debating over who had the most annoying music out of everyone listed here, Rihanna and Taylor Swift would have taken the top two spots on my list, lol. Actually, that order would exactly resemble the order in which you listed them all in your poll, with Rihanna being the most annoying, and Britney Spears being the least annoying.
