There were the bad performers who taped their concerts. For example, Madonna really thought her faux guitar playing and pretend-singing with a few tossed middle-fingers was just what America was waiting for. Or take divas Kenny Chesney and Beyonce who thought they could round out their bad and clunky stage moves and -- in Beyonce's case -- crotch grabbing with us-just-regular-folks footage and that would be special just because some network insisted it was "a special."
In all this time, only one special has been an unqualified success, Faith Hill's Fireflies. Faith created a program that qualified as special, that was appropriate for the holiday and that contained many nice surprises. It seemed to flow naturally and that's no easy feat.
It's a new decade and ABC thankfully benched big turkey Beyonce sparing America a third year of the diva lumbering around the stage with all the grace of a burly truck driver. Thursday night, ABC instead treated the country to A Very Gaga Christmas.
Lady Gaga opened strongly, dueting with Tony Bennett on "The Lady Is A Tramp." And then they went to Tony praising Gaga followed by street footage of Gaga which had us fearing that the testimonials that destroyed Tony's Thanksgiving special in 2006 or the follow-around-footage that brought down Taylor Swift's 2010 special was about to sink the Gaga.
Fortunately, they immediately moved to Gaga at her old school, Manhattan's Convent of the Sacred Heart, with a group of third graders discussing Thanksgiving food while they did arts & crafts. Most unplanned left curve of that non-scripted exchange? When Gaga, probably speaking for many Americans, expressed surprise that they were hesistant when naming favorite Thanksgiving foods but all knew King of Splatter Jackson Pollock.
From there Gaga performed what stands a good chance of being her anthem no matter what else she ever records "Born This Way." It was a standard performance. That's not an insult or surprising. The first solo number on a special is rarely the best, whether the performer is Judy Garland or Dean Martin, artists tend to ease into the performance. "You and I" and "Edge of Glory" quickly followed and relied more on Gaga's voice and piano playing. We've seen Gaga do "You and I" twice in concert and always think she does it better live than on the Born This Way album. Live, she gives it more time to breathe and also plays with it more. That was true of her performance here as well. If you've never seen her perform it live and missed the special, a 4-track EP entitled A Very Gaga Holiday has been released for download and "You and I" and "Edge of Glory" are both on it.
She and chef Art Smith then did some cooking revolving around Gaga family recipes, followed by Gaga performing "White Christmas" and "Orange Colored Sky" with her band (the two performances are also on A Very Gaga Holiday). Gaga then returned to the piano for her composition "Hair" (written with RedOne) which she used to talk about her mother and going to school.
Then Gaga was back with the band performing "Bad Romance." This would probably be a good place to note that Gaga has had 14 charting singles -- all making the top six with the exception of "Marry The Night" which has just been released and will surely be top five before December concludes. In a special that included cooking, crafts, an interview conducted by Katie Couric, a duet of "The Lady Is A Tramp" with Tony Bennett and holiday music like "White Christmas." Yet she still managed to perform five of her hits. Contrast that with Madonna -- who wasn't singing -- in a two hour televised concert where she avoided all the hits she was known for in a bad effort to pimp a poorly selling album -- something NBC felt was just the thing for Thanksgiving night 2006. Part of the reason Madonna's career is struggling (and it is struggling -- what was once the career sales low of American Life seems almost a peak when compared to the sales of the two follow ups) is that she spent the bulk of the last decade unsure of what she or her audience wanted.
Maybe she'll find her way back, maybe William Orbit will be able to help her find that way? Who knows? What is known is that Lady Gaga not only shows her up on the charts these days, she's also now shown Madge how you do a real Thanksgiving special. Though it's only the first year of the decade, Gaga's set a benchmark in much the way Faith Hill did in the '00s.
