Music
Lady Gaga
Howard Hsu (Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies,
September-December 2010, Hong Kong)
Lady Gaga is a revolutionary legend that people have not seen in the pop music industry for years. With her powerful voice and unconventional image, she quickly gained attention from all over the world. In Kyoto, there are posters of Lady Gaga in the subway! Her first studio album, The Fame, was a success internationally and it reached No.1 on record charts in six countries. Within two years of the release of her first album, Lady Gaga had already gained numerous achievements including two Grammy Awards, two Guinness World Records, and an estimated sale of fifteen million albums. However, most people are still unfamiliar with her past. This article will focus on Lady Gaga’s early life and how she became who she is today. Lady Gaga was born as Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta on March 28, 1986 in New York City. She is the eldest child of her father Joseph Germanotta, internet entrepreneur, and her mother Cynthia. Lady Gaga showed her music talent as a young child. She started playing the piano when she was four, wrote her first piano ballad at thirteen, and began performing at an open mike stand by fourteen. Moreover, in her high school musicals, Gaga portrayed leading roles as Adelaide in Guys and Dolls and Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Besides her music achievements, she described her academic life as very dedicated, studious, disciplined and also a bit insecure. “I used to get made fun of for being either too provocative or too eccentric, so I started to tone it down. I didn’t fit in, and I felt like a freak.” One of her classmates shared that Lady Gaga had a core group of friends and singing was her top priority.
At the age of seventeen, Lady Gaga gained early admission to the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and lived in the NYU dorm on 11th Street. At NYU, she majored in music and improved her songwriting skills by writing essays and papers on topics such as art, religion, and politics. Compared to her classmates, Lady Gaga felt that she was more creative. She believed that “Once you learn how to think about art, you can teach yourself.” In her sophomore year, she decided to drop out of college so that she could focus on her music career. Thankfully, her father agreed to support her financially for a year, having her promise that she would re-enroll in NYU if she were to be unsuccessful. “I left my entire family, got the cheapest apartment I could find, and ate shit until somebody would listen,” she said.
Although Lady Gaga appears to be weird at times, her early life was not as different from most people. People might have expected her life to be somehow twisted to make her the way she is today. However, it was her sedulous efforts in music that enabled her to succeed in her career. Furthermore, after knowing her ordinary early life, it gave people a sense of closeness to her. She may appear to be strange from her artistic value or marketing reasons, but behind the cameras, she is probably just like one of us. Lady Gaga is best identified for her revolution on music and fashion but her unique style did not come from nowhere. She was influenced by glam rock artists like David Bowie and Queen and pop music artists like Madonna, Britney Spears, and Michael Jackson. In fact, one of Queen’s song, “Radio Ga Ga”, inspired her stage name, Lady Gaga. “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.” Despite their differences, people tend to compare Lady Gaga with Madonna. In response to their comparisons, Lady Gaga stated, “She doesn’t want to sound presumptuous, but she’s made it her goal to revolutionize pop music.” Madonna may have launched the last revolution 25 years ago, but it’s Lady Gaga time now.
Lady Gaga’s voice is often criticized that it is similar to those of Madonna and Gwen Stefani, while the structure of her music is echo classic 1980s pop and 1990s Europop. From her debut album, The Fame, The Sunday Times, it’s observed that, “In combining music, fashion, art and technology, Lady Gaga evoked Madonna, Gwen Stefani circa ‘Hollaback Girl’.” One critic, Sarah Rodman, commented on The Boston Globe that Lady Gaga drew “obvious inspirations from Madonna to Gwen Stefani. . . in her girlish but sturdy pipes and bubbly beats.” Another critic, Simon Reynolds, wrote that “Everything about Gaga came from electroclash, except the music, which wasn’t particularly 1980s, just ruthlessly catchy naughties pop glazed with Auto-Tune and undergirded with R&B-ish beats.” According to the analysis from various music critics, one can tell that Lady Gaga’s style of music did not come out of the blue. She managed to absorb the essential elements from different artists and styles of music. By combining her experiences with other current pop idols, Lady Gaga succeeded to create a revolutionary icon.
Besides her music, Lady Gaga is also best known for her extravagant outlook. The Global Language Monitor named her as the Top Fashion Buzzword with her trademark “no pants” look, coming in at No.3. Furthermore, Entertainment Weekly put her outfits on its end of the decade “best of list” stating, “Whether it’s a dress made of Muppets or strategically placed bubbles, Gaga’s outre´ ensembles brought performance art into the mainstream.” In order to keep having new costumes, Lady Gaga holds her own creative production team known as the “Haus of Gaga”, which she handles herself. The team creates most of her clothes, stage props, and hair-do’s. Her love for fashion came from her mother, who she stated was “always very well kept and beautiful.” Lady Gaga also stated that whenever she writes music, she thinks about what clothes to wear on stage. She always creates a fresh and mind blowing image for her fans and wants “the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste and lick every part of her production.” Lady Gaga’s strong sense of music and fashion is a product of past music and her neverending and daring efforts. Although some people might consider her as a “weirdo,” the comments might only be specious at best. Her success proves that her uniqueness is “special” and not “strange.” As you can see, her early life was not as different from common people. She is a genius, but not the kind that creates everything out of nothing. She was not born to be Lady Gaga, but she earned her own identity as Lady Gaga, who mesmerizes people in every corner of the world.
