He Is Right Of Course

Kylie Minogue mentor Mike Stock says Lady Gaga's performances are not family friendly and sexualising children.

Mike Stock – one third of the legendary pop factory Stock, Aitken and Waterman – said the music industry had gone "too far".

"It's not about me being old-fashioned," he said. "It's about keeping values that are important in the modern world.

"You can't watch modern stars like Britney Spears or Lady Gaga with a two-year-old – 99 per cent of the charts is R'n'B and 99 per cent of that is soft pornography.

 "Kids are being forced to grow up too young. Look at the videos. I wouldn't necessarily want my young kids to watch them.

I have to agree with him. I flip across to the music TV stations sometimes and a lot of it is, as he says, simply soft porn. It's no wonder kids are growing up too soon.

As a reviewer on Stuff said of Lady Gaga's Auckland show - 

Call me old-fashioned, but pop stars do have some obligations. And as Gaga spoke "the truth" and instructed the audience to "never listen to anyone but themselves", to get their "cocks out" and to go out and drink loads of alcohol with their matters, I felt sorry for the parents of young children in the audience. I felt sorry for the teachers that have to deal with these silly, stroppy little adolescents. I felt sorry for future employers of highly strung know-it-all brats.

I'm not about to say that this all comes from Lady Gaga - she is after all just playing a role. But she knows who is buying her music - she has some awareness there. And sure, the audience spanned a huge age range, and sure, loads of older people (presumably) have bought her albums. But there were plenty of the young and impressionable - under 18 - lapping up every instruction.

Gaga fans go gaga for her - she knows this and manipulates it. So that is good - when it comes to putting on an amazing show that relies on some form of participation and suspension of disbelief. But not so good when we're hearing Gaga, in her faux-soft voice saying "do you think I'm sexy?" Fake blood all over her in a one-piece leotard. "Because," she goes on to impossibly suggest, "I find all of you sexy."

To be honest, I have to praise parents these days who have to navigate their children through the minefield that is today's world, in terms of what they get shoved in their faces from the internet, the TV, liberal teachers in classrooms, and on and on. I don't know if I'd be able to handle it. I know there are going to be comments here that say it's all harmless, but it isn't.