In this video clip from New York University's annual talent show four years ago, Stefani Germanotta — aka Lady Gaga — performs two songs she wrote herself. She came in third place. At the end of her performance, one of the judges says: "Norah Jones, look out!" Little did she know that Lady Gaga would not be making Norah Jones-ish music at all. After the jump, a music video from her new album, The Fame Monster, which comes out Monday.
Video: Lady Gaga before she became famous
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meth, not even once
We need a maker how-to video for that flamethrower bra, stat.
Wow, it's crazy to think how she went from that to the crazy persona she has now. But girl is talented! I thought she was just your run-of-the-mill blonde making weird pop music until I saw her perform at the VMAs this year and realized she was singing live and playing piano. I'm just kind of fascinated by her now.
What smammers said.
I kinda thought she was britney/christina/meh meh meh carbon copy, but its great that she's actually talented! I wonder if Lady GaGa is actually HER or just some record company's collage of past successful images?
That certainly is a striking difference! I also have a newfound appreciation for Lady Gaga now that I've seen her as more than a weird-but-hot blonde singer who dances around in her underwear.
Seeing her as a singer-songwriter-girl-with-piano made me think about Tori Amos, and how much her style (and especially her performance style!) has changed over the years. Not too long ago, I listened to one of her really old albums (Under the Pink, I think) back to back with American Doll Posse. A person could be forgiven for thinking it was two different artists.
Anyone else getting a Mathew Barney vibe from the second video?
yeah, that reminds me of Mathew Barney as well. i really want to know who the wardrobe artist was, that's was an awesome and bizarre collection of clothes and accessories.
@akamarkman
oh yea,
cremaster all the way.
tho lady gaga has TOO MANY LEGS!!!
I think it's the super short roof that gives it that cremaster feel. Figures are disproportionately large relative to the ceilings we're used to.
I didn't have much of an opinion of her and her goings on until I listened to her first album, and found that I like it (I'm a 70's rock'n'roller, mostly, although I tend to like a lot of the girl groups).
Her fashion sense, while not appealing to me, is intriguing. It's like a lot of Paris fashions and haute couture: real people won't ever be seen in it.
Unfortunately, in the second video, the music sounds very reminiscent of a track on the first album. I'd like to hope she's expanding a little, rather than having a recurring theme about brown eyes ('brown eyes' is used in 3 tracks on the 'Fame' album).
If she gets in a rut, she's doomed. If she can keep in fresh, she'll continue to have an audience.
Maybe it's just me.. but I don't understand the idolization of this woman. Sure, she can sing and perform, which is more than I can do.. but something in her presence seems very non-genuine to me. (in both the before and after videos). It's like that person at the party who's trying to hard to get attention. I have yet to see a single performance by her.. where she reveals anything I would call "simplistic-honesty". For comparison, if you look at any video by Ray LaMontagne.. its pretty obvious he's talented and the singing and emotion is coming out of a very personal and genuine place. He's "real". There's no hand flourishes, over-dramatic eye contact or crazy outfits. And all of that stuff is fine, if that's her strategy to get rich.. hey, cant fault someone for playing to her audience. But doing so doesn't give one talent. Come to think of it, she reminds me a little of Captain Kirk (over-acting).
The finished product reeks with the unmistakable stench of an A&R department. She's on a major label and has never not been on a major label as far as her career after being a student. Nothing genuine about it. She's simply the latest successful mouthpiece cast in a mold someone else made for her. The fact that she had potential and talent outside of that makes it even sadder.
Yeah. She became a product, that's all. That's what happens when talented people get into the capitalistic chain. And I'm not judging. It's a fact.
Lady Gaga is very talented and a lot of fun. I would say that the Tori Amos comparison is apt. The 'girl and a piano' thing is a very inexpensive way for someone to express themself. Once you have money then you can afford the art directors, makeup artists, fashion designers, etc you can expand your artistic vision considerably.
Actually, about the only thing I like about Lady Gaga is the full-on fashion magazine haute couture imagery brought into the videos.
Drag queens around the globe are rejoicing over the new material, and dance routines.
I am totally dumbstruck. I was sure, with all the heavy makeup, funky eyewear, outlandish clothes and wigs, that there was something horribly wrong with her face that she was trying to hide. This is the first time I saw Lady Gaga's face without obstruction... and she looks just fine.
Also, her voice sounds so much better in the four year old video! I didn't know she could really sing. She is talented and beautiful and why she chooses to dress like a rodeo clown and totally steal Anastacia's (search her on youtube if you don't know who that is) act escapes me.
Maybe I'd be more jaded to this if I watched more music videos, but Oh my Gawd! That is amazingly designed. Costumes, lights, set, camerawork - Wow!
The song itself is completely uninteresting to me, sure, but hey, at least the agonizingly heavy overuse of autotune that absolutely every frigging song on lame pop radio was using last year seems to have fallen out of fashion...
It doesn't work that way. She isn't the one picking the art directors and makeup artists and the fashion designers. It's the label. Besides, she didn't make money doing the "girl and a piano" thing, so I'm sure why you'd think she would have money to make those decisions. Even after she got signed to Interscope or whatever, I'm sure she didn't have money. I recommend reading Steve Albini's article "The Problem with Music," it sounds like you need to be disillusioned a bit.
I kind of love Lady Gaga, actually. She's completely over the top, in a very self-aware way, and there's something I find really fun about that.
jmnugent, "simplistic honesty" isn't what she does. She does showmanship. Putting on a really crazy-good show is something I respect and enjoy. It's a different thing from a highly personal, emotionally vulnerable performance -- but it's still valid.
this woman and her gang of art school friends are one million percent awesome. makes me feel like I am living in the 21st century for real. how can anyone posting not love the wire mesh fingernails, the sparking flamethrower breasts, the whole over the top pop-mockery?
Autotune must die now... obviously she can sing, and sing in tune. Just let her.
The new song is devoid of any real musical talent in terms of hooks or chorus etc... "ohohohohoh" once you've heard 20 seconds that's going the be the rest of it, and that 20 seconds isn't interesting enough to hold it.
Same for the art direction... it's interesting, but I had a laugh watching her climb out of a car roof box laid on the floor. I can picture some poor lackey going to REI or somewhere, "we need 8 white ski-carriers that'll fit a person, can we return these Monday?".
I figure she'll get bored with all this once she has enough money and she'll pull a Bowie and change it up. Since she appears to have actual talent, this may be interesting!
Lisa describes the first performance as "Norah Jones-ish music", as though this was artifice and the Lady Gaga presentation is a true and unique aesthetic.
Perhaps if she had sung her ballads dressed in only underwear.
I see the crowned Moon Creatures from Georges Méliès' Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) are making another cameo here in white vinyl after their successful music video debut in Smashing Pumpkins 'Tonight.'
Adralien: Yes I get a Bowie vibe off Lady Gaga also. This song isn't up to the level of Bowie at his pop best, but as far as commercial pop music goes it isn't bad.
Hopefully this lady can keep her hold on the dragon and make it do her bidding. I'm a bit tired of the "burned out pop star" thing. I'd love to see more intelligent, creative people bending the corporate machine to their whims and vision.
MeFi overthought this already for you, BoingBoing.
http://www.metafilter.com/86769/Norah-Jones-Look-Out#2828979
The whole thread is interesting and worth a read. The feeling in general is there is more to Lady GaGa than a casual glance will reveal.
ZDC: Agreed, I don't hate the song, it just feels like music by committee.
She has to work through "cher" (almost there!) then "kylie" with a stop at "bjork" before she can approach the Bowie.
Anyone else get Google ads for -- no kidding -- pest control services when watching the Lady Gaga video embedded here??
The first video wasn't a complete surprise to me because I saw her on SNL and she was pretty handy with the piano there, too. It would be nice to think that if she had continued on that path she would have just as much chance of being rich and famous as with her current persona, but good marketing has proven itself more valuable than talent many times before.
And heck, a lot of it is just luck... she's basically having Tori Amos's career in reverse (Google "Y Kant Tori Read" if you don't know what I'm talking about).
her nose is different *lol* i just noticed that. i love lady gaga...! i love the design behind her videos and the high fashion thing is kinda cool. but i think she tries too hard. really eccletic people just *are*. like Bjork. ya know? she's trying to be the next madonna/bowie/andy warhol but they all already happened... so nothing is all that shocking.
To all the folks claiming the look is a product of her label or an A&R man, think again. It's all done by Haus of Gaga, as she describes it "They're my best friends. I'm not really sure what the world thinks ... but I do hear things like, 'Who is the Haus of Gaga?' and, 'Are you putting out a fashion line?' And no one gets it. It's not a commodity. It's not something that's meant to be sold."
Get that not about selling out but about expessing the art.
That pink wig made me think of Miss Piggy. once that image was in my head, I couldn't take any of it seriously.
Context is king.
my thought on the new song is this: the sort of thing that Grace Jones night have done when younger. might still do really.
"something in her presence seems very non-genuine to me."
She may not be genuine, but she's "genuinely artificial", if you know what I mean--the weird fake persona she's created is original and imaginative, like early Bowie in his "Ziggy Stardust" phase (or like her friend Marilyn Manson in his 'Mechanical Animals' phase, a resemblance pointed out by Sean Collins), rather than boring and cookie-cutter "sexy". In much the same way that I often prefer fantasy and science fiction to novels more grounded in "real life", I often think that artists who use their imagination to create playful fantasy personas are a lot more interesting than artists who are striving to be "genuine" (boooring...)
Grace Jones, Roxy Music... certainly filling the gap Madonna has opened and left empty. As others have said, there's a huge lot of clever imagery, money and marketing here. I hope she has the talent to sustain it and refresh it, because even as its edgy, it's almost formulaic.
So this was recorded when she was only 18?
To anon #7 and others who wondered about clothes and wardrobe, much of what she wears in the Bad Romance video (the amazing shoes, the gold dress, the mirrored dress and other things) are the work of the British designer Alexander McQueen, an avant garde, but very well known fashion presence. In fact, the official premiere of the Bad Romance was as the accompanying music for last section of McQueen's Spring 2010 show. The ensemble that Gaga wears near the end when she signs "fashion, fashion," was the last outfit down the runway and styled the same with with matching leggings and shoes.
It's a pop music girl group. C'mon guys (and gals), this isn't the Met, and it isn't intended to be such. Have a bit of fun (and walk away).
I remember reading an interview with Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, about 1982.
They had just toured the US and were charting with "Brass in pocket", you know the filmclip where she appears as a waitress in a short skirt.
She talked about being pestered by A&R types in the US, with big bags of cash and cocaine, who wanted her to leave the band and do some more videos wearing knickers, bikinis...etc.
The next year we presented with the woeful Madonna, so someone had taken the bait.
They're basically a bunch of carnies and they know most of you are rubes.
I *hope* she changes it up after this contract runs its course. She's pretty, has actual talent, and can truly sing.
It's a pity she and/or her handlers feel a need to make such a spectacle of the persona known as Lady Gaga.
Last scene of the new video? The unfortunate lovespawn of Amy Winehouse and the Fembots.
Let me cast another vote against the concept that the piano-playing singer-songwriter version is more "genuine."
Silly Boingers, don't you know mind control when you see it? http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=1676
So what if it isn't real music? It is a piece of commercial performance art with background music.
Now is she an artschool kid cynically parodying the fame machine, or does she play an artschool kid cynically parodying the fame machine to sell records to disillusioned hipsters craving safe ironic subversion? Or does she think she's the former while the record company thinks she's the latter?
She's the product of the marketing machine alright, the music is bog-standard formulaic fluff designed for maximum generic appeal - the genius here is that she has such an outré image, distinguishing herself from all the other cookie-cutter wannabes that pollute the charts. I hope she can keep this up while working 'from the inside' with her skill and talent to improve the standard of her music output.
By the way, for those who haven't seen Lady Gaga videos before watching the one in the post, I also recommend the full-length video for 'Paparazzi' (slightly better quality version on her site here), if you're not convinced by the first video that she's going for something more interesting and creative than a generic "sexy pop singer" style, maybe this one will change your mind...(check out the bizarro minnie mouse look she sports around 5:56!)
Hrm, I see pastiches of Mirrormask, Fire In The Sky, and 5th Element in that video. Any that I'm missing?
Wormbaby beat me to it: Haus of Gaga--her collective of friends and artists--comes up with a lot of her look and feel. (Although as noted, the shoes in Bad Romance come from Alexander McQueen.)
What's wrong with spectacle? I see this as a David Bowie-esque sort of thing, not something externally imposed by the labels.
she's awesome.
Amid all the spectacle, in that second song on SNL, she threw in a little reference to when she was working as a waitress on Carmine Street. One for us New Yorkers. I really liked that.
It's really only the autotune aesthetic that turns me off to her, and even though that is a small part, it is a deal breaker. Her natural voice is spectacular.
To all the people saying it's all the music labels' A&R , somehow geniusly crafting and styling Gaga's style, music and persona, I have to laugh.
The recording industry has been decimated, they work on skeletal staffs, this old-fashioned idea that they could somehow invent Gaga- who is authentically popular- is just not how it's done today. Artists are on their own.
And Lady Gaga works her ass off. It's not the record company, it's an artist wo really is talented , and she's just getting started. But it really is her coming through, believe me, the record biz is in such bad shape, the Svengali fantasies some people talk about are a thing of the distant past.
So, am I the only one who thought "Show him the battleship, Janet!" when I saw the tattoo on her arm?
And I think the shoes were actually inspired by Him.
Good for her for bringing some of her friends along for the likely short-lived ride on the fame train, but I promise you everything she does is rubber-stamped by the label at some point. If her friends make something that her label likes, that's fantastic, but if it didn't fit the image they wanted her to be I guarantee they'd axe it. She opened for the New Kids on the Block on one of their reunion tours - enough said.
And as far as "not something that's meant to be sold" - yeah, right. Her shoes or her glasses or her flashing walking stick won't be sold, that's true, but the end game of what she wears and does is absolutely tied to trying to move units. If it weren't, she'd be an independent artist.
Anyone else getting a Booshy vibe from that white spiky-headed outfit? Its the White Frost!
Brandon West wrote: "I promise you everything she does is rubber-stamped by the label at some point."
How can you be so sure? Would you say the same about any other major label act like Radiohead, or is there something about Lady Gaga that gives you special confidence?
"She opened for the New Kids on the Block on one of their reunion tours - enough said."
And what does that prove, exactly? She's a pop act, why shouldn't she open for them? Would you feel differently if she had opened for Madonna or Michael Jackson?
Last time I checked, most of Lady Gaga's wardrobe was designed by...Lady Gaga. If you check out her video blog, she regularly shows her sketchbook.
Would you say the same about any other major label act like Radiohead, or is there something about Lady Gaga that gives you special confidence?
Jesse, Radiohead runs their own their own label.
She does seem to be having fun playing Madonna in red.
"Jesse, Radiohead runs their own their own label."
Ah, I didn't know that. But I see they were on EMI up through Hail to the Thief, so my basic point still stands...would Brandon say the same thing about pre 2004 Radiohead that he said about Lady Gaga?
Having seen her live, even if she only did have one album at that point, it was nevertheless an entertaining spectacle of kitsch, fashion, and really great piano playing (she played with her feet at one point...Like Hendrix playing the Strat with his teeth).
Pple might say she sold out or whatever. But so what. It's a fun ride.
Wii nunchuck at 2:44!
thequickbrownfox - so you're saying that Madonna didn't want to do videos in knickers or bikinis, she had to be pressured by her label?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHA please, give us more wisdom about how the entertainment world works...
"but the end game of what she wears and does is absolutely tied to trying to move units. If it weren't, she'd be an independent artist."
Huh? As an independent artist, how many people would see her dress-up creations? She wants exposure and attention, and a major label gives her that.
As for your "promise" that everything is rubber stamped by her label--yeah, I'm sure they wanted to spend the kind of money on this video that they did. They'd much rather she pick one or two outfits I'm sure. They didn't tell her "we've got this idea for you to change costumes 10 times in this video..."
Really, she came in third? I kind of wonder that there were two other acts better than that. If nothing else, the early video shows Gaga has an unusual heaping of raw talent.
I agree the song's kind of a bore, more sub-Fiona Apple than Tori Amos, imo. But that was a pretty spectacular performance for an NYU talent show. I was also impressed by her live, jazzy performance on SNL a while back.
Count me an interested new fan, naysayers be damned.
Is there autotune in that song up there? I don't think I heard any.
Also, it isn't THAT easy to come up with a really killing groove in a song. Humdrum stuff is easy. Getting something where every instrument is sitting in the pocket and contributing to the whole is difficult. Of course...protools exists as well.
While I find it interesting to deconstruct a work of art, I have a personal rule to judge it only as a final product and only as to how it connects with me. I've no doubt that there are layers of [evil, souless, corporate] management pulling the strings...but whatever it is, it works and I like it. So, I kind of don't care.
It is like saying that 1950's studio-system musicals can't be considered as great art because they required the staff of thousands and were created solely for commercial gain.
Looks like she's enjoying a bad romance with corporate sponsors.
Not just Matthew Barney in there, but lots of Leigh Bowery too. That red strappy gartery thing at the end screams "Cher in the 'If I Could Turn Back Time' video".
Truly, I find listening to this "music" almost unbearable. But damn! this vid has some sweet visuals. I'm a suckah for killer costume design.
Jesse, for their first couple albums even Radiohead had to placate the label. I say this as someone who has been a serious Radiohead fan since 1991.
The difference is that when Radiohead was new, they were marketed to the 'alternative' market, but had a top 40 hit. Eventually they (with a few other bands (Smashing P, Nirvana, et al.) brought the mainstream to them. This is why Radiohead gets compared to Pink Floyd. Game changing.
LG is still being marketed to an existing mainstream. I don't see her changing the game just yet. Maybe she will?
If that's how you want to judge it, that's fine by me. But you can't make assumptions about the process (everything you said about expanding your vision once you're on a major label) in order to feel better about how you judge the end result. The big 4 record labels are a cartel that control most of the music distribution channels (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#Statistics), and they employ tons of very nasty tactics to make sure it stays that way - payola and RIAA lawsuits are just the beginning. The end result of this is pretty much the opposite of expanding creative vision, but on a massive scale. If you like the song, that's fine by me. To make a weak analogy, some people shop at Walmart because they like the low prices and don't realize all the things that were sacrificed in order to keep those prices low.
I would say that about every single major label artist, unless it's explicitly stated in their contract (a la Prince) that they get to maintain complete control of the creative process. Even with such a clause, they will be asked to do things by the label -- they can't change their minds and stop after 3 albums of a 5 album deal for creative reasons without suffering huge penalties, so they are still giving up control. And complete creative control would mean control over all the artwork on show posters, all the ad campaigns, which studio/producer/mastering studio to use, etc.
I'm sure she really wanted to have product placements for Philippe Stark, Nemiroff vodka, Heartbeats, HP, Nintendo, Burberry, and Safari in this video. It's part of her creative vision.
Tori Amos, David Bowie, Grace Jones, even the Marilyn Manson comparisons made me wince... she might be a gifted pianist but her music is shallow and lyrics laughable. She's exploiting iconic images from countless 'shocking' performace acts and 'occult' traditons, and marketing them in an 'ironic' way. 'OH HAI look at me I'm an industry slave but I use them they don't use me LOL'.
Yes, if she relies so much on gimmicks and shock, sooner than later she'll run out of gas.
Allot of the criticism about Lady Gaga being manufactured and synthetic seem true - but what's unique is that these facades are self created. She's beyond frankensteins monster - she's making herself..
Her videos - (paparazzi is amazing) show a postmodern & referential visual style that puts her in league with her idols. Paparazzi shows several Bauhaus/Dada theatrical costume styles - which is a quick way to charm me.
All this design sense doesn't make the music much better then Spears/Agularia - but it's is better from the start and she seems to have allot of talent & smarts to grow into...
Welcome to the 21st century.
Those of you looking for choruses and honesty and I don't know what other nonsense in a modern pop artist are beyond redemption.
And as for self promotion, it has been happening since Mozart, that there are still people out there surprised (or even more stupidly, outraged) about an artist promoting herself is a complete anachronism.
The video I just watched goes beyond post-modern, which is a good thing in my book (and if you think major labels can produce that kind of artistry, clearly you have not been watching videos the last 15 or 20 years).
@Caroline (Comment#20):
I'm not seeing the "self-aware" part. (self-absorbed, maybe). She's definitely completely over the top, ostentatious and overboard, but it feels to me like she's projecting those qualities simply to be projecting that. (not because of any underlying substance). (she may indeed have some underlying substance, but the crazy persona(s) she exudes makes it difficult to ascertain: 1.) which, if any of them, are really "her".. and 2.) which, if any of them, are we to take seriously. I (personally) wouldn't classify what she does as "showmanship". (Yes, she "puts on a show" but that's not "showmanship".)
I'm trying to keep an open mind on her... Are there any interviews with her where she describes exactly what her act is about?... What her message/point/image is supposed to mean? The impression I get is that she's the pop equivalent to all the hipster bands (Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear,etc) who think by avoiding defining themselves, helps them be mysterious and abstract and ----"oh man, only the cool, avant garde people really understand us."
I dont know if this her old photobucket or not but there is some good old stuff here.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/Stefani%20Germanotta/ladygaga/gaga.jpg
mc queen is the outfit/accessories designer
Brandon West wrote:
"I would say that about every single major label artist, unless it's explicitly stated in their contract (a la Prince) that they get to maintain complete control of the creative process."
Fair enough, I wasn't aware that contracts gave labels control over the actual content of the songs the artists produced, as opposed to stuff like number of albums and touring and so forth. But do the labels exercise this control much? Plenty of artists do take major creative risks which could hurt sales--Radiohead's Kid A, for example--and you'd think independent-minded artists would at least complain in interviews if the labels were frequently tampering with the music itself.
"She opened for the New Kids on the Block on one of their reunion tours - enough said."
Jimi Hendrix opened for the Monkees--so what's your point?
21st Century is right.
I don't see what the big deal is Peaches was doing this years ago.
That was the most gimmicky video I have ever seen in my life. Gimmicky, gimmicky, gimmicky!
I didn't pay anything to view it but I still feel somehow robbed.
Except that half of the things she's wearing in the video are designed by Alexander McQueen. Those gorgeous pieces of art shoes in the ending scene and the beaded crazy proportioned dress and heels that looked like hooves are all by him.
I was a big Tori Amos fan back in her earlier days (Boys from Pele era) then just sort of drifted away. I did not really know who Lady Gaga was until the Bad Romance video. So obviously I have not been a fan for long. But I think there is incredible substance here. It's not all about gimmicks. This is someone who can play the piano well, sing well, act well (look at the VMA "bloody" Paparazzi performance). I am looking to Lady Gaga, to some extent anyway, to keep me interested vs. what happened with me & Tori Amos. I'm optimistic. And I love the fact that Lady Gaga has such an enormous European and Latin American following. It's all good. If you don't like her, there are lots of other musicians to watch.
Stefani Germanotta - Lady Ga Ga is the Ultimate artist and entertainer.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish her the greatest success, and longevity in her music career.
lady gaga if u read these i love ur music but u wanna know what i love more... u !!!
I actually prefer her before this strange makeover she went through