Gaga recycled subcultural aesthetics without transmitting radical ideas

Evidence

Into this cultural moment emerged Stefani Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga. Her rise demonstrated how twenty-first-century performers hoping to engage with “cutting-edge” culture rarely achieved more than recycling a palette of zany antics. Gaga borrowed liberally from the century’s subcultural aesthetics without ever becoming a true conduit for radical ideas. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 245