Saturday 03 November 2012 | QFeatured
Her world tour “The Born This Way Ball”, that began in April in South Korea, arrives to Costa Rica to impose a style of performance where music is linked to high fashion and visual development.
The most exclusive rarity of Lady Gaga is that being beautiful she wants to be seen ugly. She overdoes her makeup and dress to shed her attributes. She achieves it with her costume highlighting her for what she is, a unique piece, unrepeatable, which is part of a genuine mix of musical skills and concerns about her design and fashion, not to mention some great visuals.
The road for the American singer, songwriter and pianist was always paved for success. She did not have to strive to excel and playing with very few musical productions in the market, is a pop music star and according to several international publications, one of the most influential women in the world.
Her real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. Born on March 28, 1986 in Yonkers, New York, descending from Sicilian and more distant French-Canadian roots. She attended New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts but left to find creative expression. She wrote songs for other artists until being discovered by R&B singer Akon. Her debut album, The Fame, was a huge success, and the single “Poker Face” topped charts in almost every category, in almost every country.
Germanotta, now known as Lady Gaga (she has attributed the inspiration for her name to the Queen song “Radio Ga-Ga”), went on to become an international pop star.
Gaga learned to play the piano by the age of 4. At the age of 11, she was accepted to the Juilliard School in Manhattan, but instead attended a private Catholic school in the city. She continued studying music and performing, writing her first piano ballad at the age of 13, and she held her first performance in a New York nightclub at the age of 14.
A few years later, Gaga was granted early admission to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts—she was one of only 20 students in the world to receive the honour of early acceptance. While there, she studied music and worked on her songwriting skills. She later withdrew from school to find creative inspiration. To make ends meet, she took three jobs, including a stint lighting hairsprays on fire, go-go dancing to Black Sabbath and singing songs about oral sex while she honed her performance-art act.
Performing in the rock music scene of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In 2005, Lady Gaga was briefly signed by Def Jam Records, but was dropped just months later. Being dropped by the label propelled the singer to perform on her own in clubs and venues on New York City’s Lower East Side. There, she collaborated with several rock bands, and began her experimentation with fashion.
In 2007, at the age of 20, Gaga began work at Interscope Records as a songwriter for other artists on the label, including Britney Spears, New Kids on the Block, and The Pussycat Dolls. R&B singer Akon discovered Gaga while she was performing a burlesque show that she created, called “Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue.” Impressed, Akon signed the performer to his label under the Interscope umbrella, Kon Live. Through 2007 and 2008, Gaga wrote and recorded her debut album, The Fame. The record was received positive reviews and popular success in the United States. With the help of her own creative team, “Haus of Gaga,” the performer also began to make a name for herself internationally.
Lady Gaga’s debut single, “Just Dance,” was released to radio in early 2008, and received both popular and commercial acclaim. The song was then nominated for a Grammy Award (for best dance recording) in 2008. The song lost to Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” but this didn’t keep Gaga from reaching No. 1 on the mainstream pop charts in January 2009. Gaga achieved unexpected success when “Poker Face”, a sleeper hit, reached number one in most major music markets worldwide in early 2009, selling 9.8 million singles worldwide. The follow-up single won the award for Best Dance Recording at the 52nd Grammy Awards over nominations for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
Poker Face topped singles charts in almost every category, and in almost every country. Both songs were produced by Akon’s affiliate RedOne, who co-wrote most of Lady Gaga’s album.
While she traveled the globe, she wrote The Fame Monster, an Extended Play of eight songs released in November 2009. Each song, dealing with the darker side of fame from personal experience, is expressed through a monster metaphor. Making Gaga the first artist in digital history to have three singles (alongside “Just Dance” and “Poker Face”) to pass the four million mark in digital sales, its lead single “Bad Romance” topped the charts in eighteen countries and reached the top two in the US, Australia and New Zealand while accruing the Grammy Awards for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Short Form Music Video.
Gaga released her second studio album, Born This Way, on May 23, 2011. Described as a marriage of electronic music with metal, rock ‘n’ roll, pop and anthemic style melodies with sledge-hammering dance beats and referred to as an album “about what keeps us up at night and what makes us afraid,”
Gaga characterized it as “something so much deeper than a wig or lipstick or a fucking meat dress”. Upon release, the album received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised its range of different styles and her vocals. Born This Way sold 1.108 million copies in its first week in the US, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and topped the charts in more than 20 other countries. In addition to exceeding 8 million copies in worldwide sales, Born This Way received 3 Grammy Award nominations, including her third consecutive for Album of the Year.[86] In March 2012, Gaga was ranked fourth on Billboard’s list of top moneymakers of 2011, grossing $25,353,039 dollars, which included sales from Born This Way and her Monster Ball Tour.
Influences in Lady Gaga’s life include artists like The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin and Elton John.
Musically, Gaga takes influence from numerous musicians from dance-pop singers like Madonna and Michael Jackson to glam rock artists like David Bowie and Queen whilst employing the theatrics of artists like Andy Warhol and of her musical theatre roots in performance.
The Queen song “Radio Ga Ga” inspired her stage name: “I adored Freddie Mercury and Queen had a hit called ‘Radio Gaga’. That’s why I love the name […] Freddie was unique—one of the biggest personalities in the whole of pop music,” she says.
Gaga receives regular comparisons to recording artist Madonna who admits that she sees herself reflected in Gaga. In response to the comparisons, Gaga stated, “I don’t want to sound presumptuous, but I’ve made it my goal to revolutionize pop music. The last revolution was launched by Madonna 25 years ago” in addition to commenting that “there is really no one that is a more adoring and loving Madonna fan than me. I am the hugest fan personally and professionally.”
While Rolling Stone named Gaga the “Queen of Pop” in 2011, public reception of Gaga’s music, fashion sense and persona are mixed. Her status as a role model, self-esteem booster for her fans, trailblazer and fashion icon who breathes new life into the industry is by turns affirmed and denied.
Contrary to her outré style, the New York Post described her early look as like “a refugee from Jersey Shore” with “big black hair, heavy eye makeup and tight, revealing clothes.” Gaga is a natural brunette; she bleached her hair blonde because she was often mistaken for Amy Winehouse.
She has nine tattoos on the left side of her body (her father banned etchings on her right): a unicorn head with a ribbon wrapped around its horn that says “Born This Way”; a small heart with “dad” written inside it; several white roses; a treble clef; three daises; “Tokyo Love” with a little heart; “Little Monsters” written in cursive; a peace symbol, which was inspired by John Lennon, whom she stated was her hero; and a curling German script on her left arm quoting the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, her favorite writer, commenting that his “philosophy of solitude” spoke to her.
In a question posed about the necessary procedure to attach the prosthetics to give the unconventional appearance of recent horn-like ridges on her cheekbones, temples, and shoulders, Gaga responded, “They’re not prosthetics, they’re my bones.” She also clarified that they were not the result of plastic surgery, believing such surgery to only be the modern byproduct of fame-induced insecurity to which she does not subscribe. The interviewer’s further probing brought Gaga to the conclusion that they are an artistic representation of her inner inspirational light and part of the “performance piece” that is her musical persona: an inevitability of her becoming who she now is.
Lady Gaga will be performing at the Estadio Nacional tonight at staring 8pm. The event is produced by RPMTV, tickets still available at: LaBoleteria.cr
The many faces of Lady Gaga
The Stage is Set
