Why so serious, Lady Gaga?

Today, Britney Spears released the video for her new single “I Wanna Go.” It’s all the things we’ve come to expect from Spears at her best: silly, sort of derivative and a whole lot of fun. In the video, Britney Jean holds a press conference but quickly tires of the reporters’ nonsensical questions and lets them have it. She then takes to the streets to flash a child, get frisky with a sexy policeman and take out a bunch of cyborg photographers with a microphone.

“The video did what it was supposed to and then some,” Perez Hilton told MTV News earlier today. “Not only do you see Britney having lots of fun, but you also hear her speak and are just watching her look very normal.”

Spears is having a banner year, with a well-reviewed tour, her sixth No. 1 album, her biggest hit in years (“Till The World Ends”) and now yet another buzzed-about video. Good for her! But what we’re most excited about is that she’s done it all with a smile on her face. For the first time in a long time, Spears seems at ease and ready to have a good time.

Which brings us to another woman we love: Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga is deadly serious about everything. And that’s fine, we guess; she’s a very different type of pop star than Britney. But sometimes it kills the vibe. Right? Wouldn’t it be nice if she dropped all the posturing for just a second and let lose a little bit?

We don’t mean to over think things, but in a weird way, it’s almost as if Britney Spears is more self-aware than Lady Gaga. (Yeah, we said it!)

Britney makes fun dance songs that are intended to make you bounce around and sing in your car or hit the floor of your local dance club. That’s it. She’s all about having a pretense-free good time. Gaga is a pop artist who wants to convey something deeper, of course … while also making you bounce around and sing in your car or hit the floor at your local dance club.

Britney Spears

They stand on opposite ends of the same spectrum: Both churn out great (if very different) pop songs that make you want to dance your ass off, but Britney’s greatest ambition is to be carefree while Gaga aims for the opposite, i.e. to be thought-provoking.

Her aspirations toward something bigger are a great thing – someone needs to bring substance to pop music – but Gaga sometimes seems to take herself so seriously that it can come across as joyless. And isn’t that the antithesis of what pop is supposed to be? For us, one of the most striking examples of this came at the Grammys this year. Gaga’s performance of her mega-hit “Born This Way” was awesome, and she clearly knew it, breaking out into spontaneous smiles while singing. Then at the end of the performance she snapped back into character with a stone-cold stare.

The whole time we were thinking: “You just nailed it and the song is supposed to be a celebration of being yourself. Aren’t both of those things reason enough to smile?”

Does she equate obvious displays of happiness with frivolity? I suppose we’ll never know.

This is all more of an observation than a criticism (don’t hate on us, we openly identify as a “little monster”). She reassures us all the time that she loves us and herself and her art, but wouldn’t it be great if it seemed like it? We adore her music but worry that between all of the conceptual weirdness and self-seriousness, something gets lost.

Really we just want Mother Monster to smile once in a while.

I Wanna Go is slaying all on its own. Top 15 on iTunes, 20mil radio impression already with one of the biggest increases yesterday

and the music video has more views than Edge of Flawp which had lyke 7 full days before it came out to rack up dem hytz. Which it did not

'I've been writing for the new album, and I've almost finished the recording process. We've recorded 16 songs so far, but obviously all of them can't make it. I've also been writing for... I don't know if I should say this, or even if I'm allowed to, but I've been writing for another huge female artist who is re-releasing her album in the Fall. The song is beautiful, mystical, very 'My Immortal-like', very Everytime-like... hint hint! But enough of that! The album is being released on October 4th...

nervermind... it was fake...

my soul has been crushed.