Originally Posted by boddism:
“The problem is her artistic pretentions are just that: pretentions. Her wacky.imagery has become stale & her music is not great art-its just pop.”
The OP has worked through the various epithets of 'Self-Righteous', 'Hypocritical' to settle on 'Pretentious'. The last term is at least a little less morally condemnatory than the earlier terms but I think all of this thread is somewhat confused and says more about the people posting it than it does about Gaga.
Gaga only aspires to art not great art and the only requirement for something to be art is that we accept it as art. A lot of pop music is art, some of it is great art (The Beatles, VU, Prince) some of it is utter garbage.
Also artists, even great artists, go through indifferent periods but you judge then on the artistic artefacts they produce through the course of a career. And so far Gaga stands up quite well.
I'm not a Gaga fan but some of her music and imagery is beautiful and disgraceful at the same time. And she is far from the most pretentious artist ever.