On the eve of her first single in eight
months, Popjustice’s Peter Robinson,
profiles the woman revolutionising music.
Before 당신 get stuck into what will be an extremely illuminating read, take a few 초 to draw up a mental list of every massive popstar of the last 50 years. Now start crossing names off. Start with everyone who couldn’t actually sing live, everyone who doesn’t write their own music. Keep on crossing the names off when the popstar isn’t funny 또는 self-aware, doesn’t care about their fans, has never sported a costume made entirely of dead Kermits, isn’t open about their sexuality, has no political viewpoints and – this is the tricky bit – is simultaneously selling tens of millions of songs. Chances are you’re probably already down to two 또는 three names 의해 now, and the only one whose 음악 you’ll hear on the radio today is 24-year-old, Lady Gaga.
Of course, it doesn’t take a list of crossed-out names to tell 당신 that Gaga defines this era of 인기 music, and the public debut of her phenomenal new single Born This Way ahead of May’s album of the same name, will propel Gaga’s fearless, inventive, sex-charged pop juggernaut through at least another 18 months. Born This Way already sounded like a hit when Stylist first heard it in demo form last spring. Now it’s ready to face daylight – the song is a confident, stylish equality anthem likely to raise a few eyebrows and, most importantly, it’s got a cracking tune.
Most popstars succeed because they make what they do look easy but Lady Gaga makes her job look impossible, and she’s set some impressive targets for anyone looking to take her throne. Kylie Minogue’s take on it is that Gaga “dropped a meteor in the middle of the pop landscape”. In 2010 alone – when she didn’t even have a new album out – Lady Gaga became the first artist in Billboard history to send her first five singles to number one. Gaga became the first living person to reach 10 million 팬 on Facebook, The Fame became the top-selling album in digital history, and Gaga was nominated a record-breaking 13 times at the VMAs. She became the first person to reach six million followers on Twitter, and the first artist in history to reach 1 billion views of her 비디오 on YouTube. Her Monster Ball tour played to over 150 sold out nights and grossed £83m, while Forbes calculated that Gaga herself earned £39m.
It’s been fascinating enough to watch Lady Gaga from afar, knocking out Bad Romance in a 20ft bathtub on The X Factor 또는 appearing at a rally to lobby Congress on homophobic laws on gays in the US military. It’s a whole different level of extraordinary to actually meet Gaga, as this Stylist correspondent has on various occasions over the last few years. The first time we spoke was near the end of 2008; she was 22, Just Dance was a few months away from release. The single was about getting drunk in clubs, but it was instantly clear that Gaga was unusually thoughtful. She explained that her Lady Gaga persona was born when she realised that the weird girl named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta from New York who everyone made fun of at school was the most interesting part of her personality. “I’ve always felt famous,” she added. “You can create your own fame if you’re committed to your work”.
Two years on, this commitment is already legendary, and her unique spirit is unwavering. Sometimes when you’re with her she will behave like an excited, wide-eyed kid then, in a 스플릿, 분할 second, will switch personalities and speak with the authority and knowledge of a woman twice her age. One woman twice Gaga’s age is, of course, Madonna, the last singer to have captivated the planet in this way while remaining firmly in the driving seat. But 의해 the end of 2008, pop was crying out for someone who would shove a rocket up it, and as it turned out pop’s saviour came in the form of someone with rockets blasting out of her bra.
“She has a creative aesthetic that stretches beyond songwriting into the fashion and even technology fields,” says Jill Bradshaw, Trend Director at New York fashion-forecasting company Stylesight. “While other musicians may take style direction from others, such as their stylists, Gaga takes direction from herself.” Pop style has always been one of fashion’s main routes from the catwalk to the high 거리 and it seems ironic that an act so immersed in the world of style has not sparked high 거리 trends. It’s easy to get a Lily Allen dress 또는 hints of 마리나, 선착장 & The Diamonds but with Gaga it’s less easy. At the end of the day, you’re either wearing a ham on your head 또는 you’re not. “I don’t see Gaga as having a definable style because being undefinable is her style,” Bradshaw says. “She has an innate sense of what works.”
It would be easy to look at this as simple box ticking, yet Gaga’s passions actually stand up to some scrutiny. Sarah Thornton, cultural sociologist and author of 책 Seven Days In The Art World and Club Cultures: Music, Media And Subcultural Capital, says that the art world likes Lady Gaga, and she’s impressed 의해 the breadth of Gaga’s inspiration. “She does draw inspiration from the art world,” Thornton says. “For instance I saw one video interview with her where she was praising 마리나, 선착장 Abramovi? who’s one of the grand dames of performance art.” That interview is online, as it happens. 검색 ‘gaga marina’ on YouTube and it’ll pop up – Gaga, overwhelmed 의해 her passion for Abramavic’s “limitless” approach to art and life. While studying at New York University’s Tisch School Of The Arts, meanwhile, she wrote an 80-page thesis on Damien Hirst and installation artist Spencer Tunick.
Sarah Thornton adds that, whatever the discipline, Gaga “is good at studying the complexity of different cultures around her. She is a complex cultural phenomenon: interesting from a 음악 point of view, a fashion point of view, a performance point of view. Her cultural identity is interesting – I’d call her multi-subcultural, and there are many subcultures who identify her as a kindred spirit.”
She has, in fact, established a subculture of her own: her beloved Little Monsters, the community of superfans who hang on her every word. Naturally any pop phenomenon to arrive in the last three years would have broken social media boundaries, but Gaga’s engagement with her 팬 and her passion for digital media have nurtured a fascinating 십자가, 크로스 section of obsessives. Go backstage with enough bands and a sad truth tends to emerge: they hate their fans, and take those 팬 for granted. Gifts from 팬 are ridiculed, 팬 letters read out in stupid voices. Sit backstage with Gaga as she breathlessly reads out a 팬 letter and the experience is turned on its head: she has a strange awe of these people.
During her live shows, Gaga pauses to explain to the assembled audience that despite all the exclusion and name-calling they might have to put up with in life, tonight, “the freaks are on the outside”. The crowd tends to go a bit mad at this point. Then Gaga screams “AND I LOCKED THE F***IN’ DOORS!” and the place explodes.
Hers is a mindset that seems to say – so what if people laugh at you? Have the last laugh 의해 having the first laugh. It’s exactly what she does with the press. Nowadays all 유명인사 are at war with the media, but Lady Gaga seems to be the one starting the fights. “She wins battles every day,” says PR expert Mark Borkowski. “Every so often the system produces a story virus, and right now, Lady Gaga is that virus. Through the history of pop culture there are people who get it – in PR we say that people have ‘the stuff’, and Lady Gaga has the stuff. She knows what it’s about. When people try to make sense of Lady Gaga they miss the point – she’s symbiotic with the system. At one level she’s out of control, on another level she’s totally in control and is messing with it.”
“I think she’s perfectly aware, in the same way that Boy George was at his peak, that a lot of people think she’s completely ridiculous,” says British gossip blogger Mr Holy Moly. She seems 더 많이 aware than most of how to control what people are writing. “She avoids the need for celebrity blogs to make stuff up 의해 simply being better than we could ever make up. Who would have dreamt up a meat dress? To be honest, the most annoying thing about being one of the people making a living taking the p*ss out of Lady Gaga is that it’s all pretty irrelevant when 당신 hear the music.”
Well this is the thing. Lady Gaga makes very good pop, from the immaculately constructed hookathon of Poker Face to the 더 많이 sober tones of killer ballad Speechless. And then there is Bad Romance, the single greatest cultural achievement of the 21st century. Between them these songs have helped change the sound of global pop 음악 over the least few years. “When there’s a hit record A&R people are always are going to say, ‘I’d like a song for my artist like that’,” says Geffen A&R Jordan Jay, who’s worked with The Saturdays and The Wanted. “[Moroccan producer/songwriter] RedOne has got a specific sound and after Gaga I’m sure he got offered every act in the world – Gaga’s had a huge impact on current trends in music, particularly in America where she’s helped to bring a predominantly European sound to US radio.”
Gaga is not alone in her efforts. Coming from very different angles will.i.am and David Guetta have both thrown electronic 음악 at the charts and made it work, but not with the panache 또는 passion of Lady Gaga.
“Her impact has been phenomenal,” adds Richard Park, Executive Director of Programming at Global Radio. Their network includes Capital and 심장 FM, who currently play Gaga’s songs 더 많이 than any other UK stations. He adds: “When Just Dance came along it was an injection of life when I think it’s true to say we were a little thin on the ground for stars. She’s been grappling with 마돈나 for the 퀸 of pop 제목 and I think she’s actually wrestled that 제목 from her.”
So if Gaga’s successful, the natural 다음 step would be for someone to come up with someone just like her, right? We saw it with Amy Winehouse, we see it with 기타 bands. Well, with Gaga it’s not so easy: 당신 can’t just copy her. “You couldn’t even start to manufacture the 다음 Lady Gaga,” 어치, 제이 says. “I’ve seen lots of unsigned acts who have tried to use Gaga’s quirkiness as their own but it’s just not believable. 당신 can’t manufacture that unpredictability.”
Gaga’s relentless drive and apparent immunity to exhaustion takes her into a new phase this year. She’s due to perform brand new song Born This Way at the Grammys on the 13 February. After that there’s a new album in May. And after that?
Borkowski says that the only is her own ability to keep reinventing and developing new relationships. “She understands what her audience wants. Bowie understood it. 마돈나 understood it. They all understand it, in fact, until the point when they’re not in sync any more.” Thornton, meanwhile, is wary of Lady Gaga being too in sync, and is concerned about the Mother Monster routine. “Sometimes 당신 can pull that kind of thing off,” she says. “But I don’t think Michael Jackson ever did that very well – it was actually a sign of mental illness rather than an interesting performative trope. 당신 have to be careful not to believe your own fictions.”
There is the danger that the whole Gaga persona might simply become too unwieldy. Did 당신 see that picture last 년 when she fell off one of her shoes at an airport? Imagine that but on a career level: one too many 10-minute videos, a few too many controversial statements, an outfit that somehow ends everything. At the very least, there will be the need for Gaga to regenerate, as 마돈나 and Michael Jackson and David Bowie once did, to stay ahead.
Some critics will say that it seems odd 또는 misleading for there to be all this fuss about Gaga being an artistic visionary when, at the end of the day, 당신 listen to the songs and they’re just pop music. Apart from the clearly wrong assumption that pop is a) not amazing and b) not capable of depth, the point she has been trying to make is that pop is never ‘just’ pop music.
Because the whole point of all this is that it is pop 음악 at the 심장 of everything Lady Gaga does. It wouldn’t work if the beating 심장 of all this were anything other than pop. Mainstream, big, stupid, stampedetowards- the-dancefloor pop. And pop legends are measured in moments, those flashes of genius that superstars come up with every once in a while. Gaga has already had a 100 such moments. And at the Grammys 다음 Sunday she’ll be up to 101. And if 당신 can work out what number 102 is, 당신 may well be the 다음 Lady Gaga. Good luck!
Peter Robinson for Stylist Magazine
months, Popjustice’s Peter Robinson,
profiles the woman revolutionising music.
Before 당신 get stuck into what will be an extremely illuminating read, take a few 초 to draw up a mental list of every massive popstar of the last 50 years. Now start crossing names off. Start with everyone who couldn’t actually sing live, everyone who doesn’t write their own music. Keep on crossing the names off when the popstar isn’t funny 또는 self-aware, doesn’t care about their fans, has never sported a costume made entirely of dead Kermits, isn’t open about their sexuality, has no political viewpoints and – this is the tricky bit – is simultaneously selling tens of millions of songs. Chances are you’re probably already down to two 또는 three names 의해 now, and the only one whose 음악 you’ll hear on the radio today is 24-year-old, Lady Gaga.
Of course, it doesn’t take a list of crossed-out names to tell 당신 that Gaga defines this era of 인기 music, and the public debut of her phenomenal new single Born This Way ahead of May’s album of the same name, will propel Gaga’s fearless, inventive, sex-charged pop juggernaut through at least another 18 months. Born This Way already sounded like a hit when Stylist first heard it in demo form last spring. Now it’s ready to face daylight – the song is a confident, stylish equality anthem likely to raise a few eyebrows and, most importantly, it’s got a cracking tune.
Most popstars succeed because they make what they do look easy but Lady Gaga makes her job look impossible, and she’s set some impressive targets for anyone looking to take her throne. Kylie Minogue’s take on it is that Gaga “dropped a meteor in the middle of the pop landscape”. In 2010 alone – when she didn’t even have a new album out – Lady Gaga became the first artist in Billboard history to send her first five singles to number one. Gaga became the first living person to reach 10 million 팬 on Facebook, The Fame became the top-selling album in digital history, and Gaga was nominated a record-breaking 13 times at the VMAs. She became the first person to reach six million followers on Twitter, and the first artist in history to reach 1 billion views of her 비디오 on YouTube. Her Monster Ball tour played to over 150 sold out nights and grossed £83m, while Forbes calculated that Gaga herself earned £39m.
It’s been fascinating enough to watch Lady Gaga from afar, knocking out Bad Romance in a 20ft bathtub on The X Factor 또는 appearing at a rally to lobby Congress on homophobic laws on gays in the US military. It’s a whole different level of extraordinary to actually meet Gaga, as this Stylist correspondent has on various occasions over the last few years. The first time we spoke was near the end of 2008; she was 22, Just Dance was a few months away from release. The single was about getting drunk in clubs, but it was instantly clear that Gaga was unusually thoughtful. She explained that her Lady Gaga persona was born when she realised that the weird girl named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta from New York who everyone made fun of at school was the most interesting part of her personality. “I’ve always felt famous,” she added. “You can create your own fame if you’re committed to your work”.
Two years on, this commitment is already legendary, and her unique spirit is unwavering. Sometimes when you’re with her she will behave like an excited, wide-eyed kid then, in a 스플릿, 분할 second, will switch personalities and speak with the authority and knowledge of a woman twice her age. One woman twice Gaga’s age is, of course, Madonna, the last singer to have captivated the planet in this way while remaining firmly in the driving seat. But 의해 the end of 2008, pop was crying out for someone who would shove a rocket up it, and as it turned out pop’s saviour came in the form of someone with rockets blasting out of her bra.
“She has a creative aesthetic that stretches beyond songwriting into the fashion and even technology fields,” says Jill Bradshaw, Trend Director at New York fashion-forecasting company Stylesight. “While other musicians may take style direction from others, such as their stylists, Gaga takes direction from herself.” Pop style has always been one of fashion’s main routes from the catwalk to the high 거리 and it seems ironic that an act so immersed in the world of style has not sparked high 거리 trends. It’s easy to get a Lily Allen dress 또는 hints of 마리나, 선착장 & The Diamonds but with Gaga it’s less easy. At the end of the day, you’re either wearing a ham on your head 또는 you’re not. “I don’t see Gaga as having a definable style because being undefinable is her style,” Bradshaw says. “She has an innate sense of what works.”
It would be easy to look at this as simple box ticking, yet Gaga’s passions actually stand up to some scrutiny. Sarah Thornton, cultural sociologist and author of 책 Seven Days In The Art World and Club Cultures: Music, Media And Subcultural Capital, says that the art world likes Lady Gaga, and she’s impressed 의해 the breadth of Gaga’s inspiration. “She does draw inspiration from the art world,” Thornton says. “For instance I saw one video interview with her where she was praising 마리나, 선착장 Abramovi? who’s one of the grand dames of performance art.” That interview is online, as it happens. 검색 ‘gaga marina’ on YouTube and it’ll pop up – Gaga, overwhelmed 의해 her passion for Abramavic’s “limitless” approach to art and life. While studying at New York University’s Tisch School Of The Arts, meanwhile, she wrote an 80-page thesis on Damien Hirst and installation artist Spencer Tunick.
Sarah Thornton adds that, whatever the discipline, Gaga “is good at studying the complexity of different cultures around her. She is a complex cultural phenomenon: interesting from a 음악 point of view, a fashion point of view, a performance point of view. Her cultural identity is interesting – I’d call her multi-subcultural, and there are many subcultures who identify her as a kindred spirit.”
She has, in fact, established a subculture of her own: her beloved Little Monsters, the community of superfans who hang on her every word. Naturally any pop phenomenon to arrive in the last three years would have broken social media boundaries, but Gaga’s engagement with her 팬 and her passion for digital media have nurtured a fascinating 십자가, 크로스 section of obsessives. Go backstage with enough bands and a sad truth tends to emerge: they hate their fans, and take those 팬 for granted. Gifts from 팬 are ridiculed, 팬 letters read out in stupid voices. Sit backstage with Gaga as she breathlessly reads out a 팬 letter and the experience is turned on its head: she has a strange awe of these people.
During her live shows, Gaga pauses to explain to the assembled audience that despite all the exclusion and name-calling they might have to put up with in life, tonight, “the freaks are on the outside”. The crowd tends to go a bit mad at this point. Then Gaga screams “AND I LOCKED THE F***IN’ DOORS!” and the place explodes.
Hers is a mindset that seems to say – so what if people laugh at you? Have the last laugh 의해 having the first laugh. It’s exactly what she does with the press. Nowadays all 유명인사 are at war with the media, but Lady Gaga seems to be the one starting the fights. “She wins battles every day,” says PR expert Mark Borkowski. “Every so often the system produces a story virus, and right now, Lady Gaga is that virus. Through the history of pop culture there are people who get it – in PR we say that people have ‘the stuff’, and Lady Gaga has the stuff. She knows what it’s about. When people try to make sense of Lady Gaga they miss the point – she’s symbiotic with the system. At one level she’s out of control, on another level she’s totally in control and is messing with it.”
“I think she’s perfectly aware, in the same way that Boy George was at his peak, that a lot of people think she’s completely ridiculous,” says British gossip blogger Mr Holy Moly. She seems 더 많이 aware than most of how to control what people are writing. “She avoids the need for celebrity blogs to make stuff up 의해 simply being better than we could ever make up. Who would have dreamt up a meat dress? To be honest, the most annoying thing about being one of the people making a living taking the p*ss out of Lady Gaga is that it’s all pretty irrelevant when 당신 hear the music.”
Well this is the thing. Lady Gaga makes very good pop, from the immaculately constructed hookathon of Poker Face to the 더 많이 sober tones of killer ballad Speechless. And then there is Bad Romance, the single greatest cultural achievement of the 21st century. Between them these songs have helped change the sound of global pop 음악 over the least few years. “When there’s a hit record A&R people are always are going to say, ‘I’d like a song for my artist like that’,” says Geffen A&R Jordan Jay, who’s worked with The Saturdays and The Wanted. “[Moroccan producer/songwriter] RedOne has got a specific sound and after Gaga I’m sure he got offered every act in the world – Gaga’s had a huge impact on current trends in music, particularly in America where she’s helped to bring a predominantly European sound to US radio.”
Gaga is not alone in her efforts. Coming from very different angles will.i.am and David Guetta have both thrown electronic 음악 at the charts and made it work, but not with the panache 또는 passion of Lady Gaga.
“Her impact has been phenomenal,” adds Richard Park, Executive Director of Programming at Global Radio. Their network includes Capital and 심장 FM, who currently play Gaga’s songs 더 많이 than any other UK stations. He adds: “When Just Dance came along it was an injection of life when I think it’s true to say we were a little thin on the ground for stars. She’s been grappling with 마돈나 for the 퀸 of pop 제목 and I think she’s actually wrestled that 제목 from her.”
So if Gaga’s successful, the natural 다음 step would be for someone to come up with someone just like her, right? We saw it with Amy Winehouse, we see it with 기타 bands. Well, with Gaga it’s not so easy: 당신 can’t just copy her. “You couldn’t even start to manufacture the 다음 Lady Gaga,” 어치, 제이 says. “I’ve seen lots of unsigned acts who have tried to use Gaga’s quirkiness as their own but it’s just not believable. 당신 can’t manufacture that unpredictability.”
Gaga’s relentless drive and apparent immunity to exhaustion takes her into a new phase this year. She’s due to perform brand new song Born This Way at the Grammys on the 13 February. After that there’s a new album in May. And after that?
Borkowski says that the only is her own ability to keep reinventing and developing new relationships. “She understands what her audience wants. Bowie understood it. 마돈나 understood it. They all understand it, in fact, until the point when they’re not in sync any more.” Thornton, meanwhile, is wary of Lady Gaga being too in sync, and is concerned about the Mother Monster routine. “Sometimes 당신 can pull that kind of thing off,” she says. “But I don’t think Michael Jackson ever did that very well – it was actually a sign of mental illness rather than an interesting performative trope. 당신 have to be careful not to believe your own fictions.”
There is the danger that the whole Gaga persona might simply become too unwieldy. Did 당신 see that picture last 년 when she fell off one of her shoes at an airport? Imagine that but on a career level: one too many 10-minute videos, a few too many controversial statements, an outfit that somehow ends everything. At the very least, there will be the need for Gaga to regenerate, as 마돈나 and Michael Jackson and David Bowie once did, to stay ahead.
Some critics will say that it seems odd 또는 misleading for there to be all this fuss about Gaga being an artistic visionary when, at the end of the day, 당신 listen to the songs and they’re just pop music. Apart from the clearly wrong assumption that pop is a) not amazing and b) not capable of depth, the point she has been trying to make is that pop is never ‘just’ pop music.
Because the whole point of all this is that it is pop 음악 at the 심장 of everything Lady Gaga does. It wouldn’t work if the beating 심장 of all this were anything other than pop. Mainstream, big, stupid, stampedetowards- the-dancefloor pop. And pop legends are measured in moments, those flashes of genius that superstars come up with every once in a while. Gaga has already had a 100 such moments. And at the Grammys 다음 Sunday she’ll be up to 101. And if 당신 can work out what number 102 is, 당신 may well be the 다음 Lady Gaga. Good luck!
Peter Robinson for Stylist Magazine