Lady Gaga is using her pipes for pitches

Nothing has been as sticky. No other advert, print or video or Web, no tweet or blog, billboard or word of mouth, has so thoroughly knitted itself into my merchandise-buying neurons. I'm fully bought-in, invested. Ebola isn't as viral. My wallet is open and its tongue is hanging out.

My vote for Advertisement of the Year 2009 is Lady Gaga's video "Bad Romance," a five-minute self-exploitation film that sells booze, high-end audio gear and stiletto heels as hard as it rocks. Canny and cagey and completely engaged in the business of business, brand Gaga is the first white artist I can think of who has embraced aspirational, label materialism with the kind of gusto shown by hip-hop artists such as Kanye West and Jay Z.

Part of me hates to throw nitromethane into the Gaga fire. The 23-year-old dance-pop sibyl is such a work of entertainment engineering, the flywheel in an enormous piece of media-eating machinery, that giving her due as an artist brings with it a certain ruefulness, the sensation of being manipulated. Not that I begrudge her the millions in album sales or the inevitable mantel full of Grammys. The Lady's got pipes, for sure, and she plays a flaming piano in a flesh-colored rhinestone bodysuit as well as anyone since, say, Liberace. I also respect the fact that even though she came up as a piano prodigy, attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she has taught herself to dance like a pro. That can't be easy.

And, obviously, the club singles — "Paparazzi," "Poker Face" and "Just Dance" — are ferocious, brains-on-the-dance-floor Visigoths.

The next Madonna? We'll see. But at the moment it seems that Lady Gaga's innovations reside mostly on the business side of celebrity and that she is a disruptive technology all her own. There was a time, after all, when commercial considerations were regarded as fundamentally inartistic. Remember the fuss over Led Zeppelin's selling out its music to Cadillac, or the Beatles to Nike or U2 to, well, whomever? Only last year, critics wailed about the supposed loss of innocence in Michael Bay's GM-sponsored "Transformers." This month, Nielsen released — with appropriate tongue-clucking — its list of the top 10 shows with the highest number of product placements: No. 1 was "The Jay Leno Show."

Lady Gaga is so beyond any kind of embarrassment that she's made mercantilism its own aesthetic. In her previous video for "Love Game," a street tough swigs from a bottle of Campari as he watches Lady rut and grind (Campari, for when your evening plans call for rough sex on the subway). In the video for mega-hit "Poker Face," the card table is emblazoned with the logo for Bwin.com. She quaffs Neuro sports drink in the "Paparazzi" video; sports a Baby G watch in "Eh Eh (Nothing I Can Say)"; and wears Beat headphones by Dr. Dre (including a version of her own design) in at least a couple of videos.

All was prelude, however, to the "Bad Romance" video, which features placements for no less than 10 products: a black iPod; Philippe Starck Parrot wireless speakers; Nemiroff vodka; Gaga-designed Heartbeats earphones (via Dr. Dre); Carrera sunglasses; Nintendo Wii handsets; Hewlett-Packard Envy computers; a Burberry coat; those crazy, hobbling Alexander McQueen hyper-heels; and enough La Perla lingerie to choke an ox.

This isn't a music video so much as the QVC Channel you can dance to.

The narrative of the video — acknowledging that we kill to dissect — seems to be about the Lady Gaga character (wide-eyed and innocent, in a bathtub, Ivory soap pure and about as white) abducted by slavers, doped with vodka and put on auction in front of a bunch of tattooed, vaguely Russian-looking men, where she dances like a techno Salome. The atmosphere is superheated and oppressive, the barometric pressure looks to be about 1,000 psi. In the end, she's purchased by a man with a brass chin who beds her. But he didn't count on the incandescence of That We Call Gaga, and he spontaneously combusts. Bummer.

The temptation to deconstruct should be avoided. This is a video featuring a truly striking and beautiful woman strutting around in her skimpies to an epic club hit, surrounded by the most arresting art-house imagery the director (Francis Lawrence) and Lady Gaga's posse could dream up. The value to the product placers? How about more than 35 million views on YouTube since Nov. 10? If I worked at a Philippe Starck retail outlet I'd be stocking up on canned goods, bomb shelter-style.

In interviews, Lady Gaga (born Stefani Germanotta) wants to compare her Haus of Gaga — comprising her various business and creative interests — to Andy Warhol's art-making Factory, which is a bit of bad faith. Warhol's art reified ordinary, mass-market objects, such as the Campbell's soup can. Lady Gaga is name-checking luxury merchandise and being well paid for it. The only sound more penetrating than the beatbox is the deafening roar of cash registers.

What's so subversive about "Bad Romance" — and perhaps this is a reflection of the compromised times we live in — is that the art doesn't seem at all diminished by the business agenda. It's beautiful, it's dance-able, and it's exquisite advertising. I just wish my Alexander McQueen pumps fit better. The last stone of any church-state, art-commerce, virgin-whore wall has been toppled and — my God! — we don't miss the wall.

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GaGa Wisdom: Words from the Lady

Pop music critic Ann Powers is sharing tidbits from her recent, revealing interview with the primal force known as Lady Gaga leading up to her three sold-out performances at the Nokia Theatre at L.A. Live on Dec. 21-23. Check Pop & Hiss daily for another pearl from the girl. Today, she discusses the emotional evolution that led up to the writing of the eight new songs featured on the reissue of her bestselling album "The Fame" — the repackaged version is known as "The Fame Monster" — and how it influenced her elaborate touring production, the Monster Ball.

Lady Gaga on her emotional evolution: "I'm in a deeper, more compassionate place than where I was when I wrote 'The Fame.' The truth about 'The Fame' is that so much of myself as a woman is hinged on the idea that I can self-empower. I do that with my views and my passions and with the way I choose to carry myself, with the way that I treat other people, with the way that I operate from a place of, I don't care if you love me, I care if you love yourself.

"But it's meant to be this ironic juxtaposition in the Monster Ball. I talk endlessly about my fans and then I writhe around on the floor and say, 'Do you wanna [have sex with] me?' It's asking the question, 'What is it that we really love about stars?' If the beckoning question is always, 'Why don't you love me?,' there's something off about that."

Pop music critic Ann Powers is sharing tidbits from her recent, revealing interview with the primal force known as Lady Gaga leading up to her three sold-out performances at the Nokia Theatre at L.A. Live on Dec. 21-23. Check Pop & Hiss daily for another pearl from the girl.

Today, Gaga sheds light on the true meaning of her excellent new song "Dance in the Dark." Sit back — it's a long explanation.

"The record is about a girl who likes to have sex with the lights off, because she's embarrassed about her body. She doesn't want her man to see her naked. She will be free, and she will let her inner animal out, but only when the lights are out. She doesn't feel free without the moon. These lyrics are a way for me to talk about how I believe women and some men feel innately insecure about themselves all the time. It's not sometimes, it's not in adolescence, it's always.

"Also, I'm working with Viva Glam on MAC AIDS Fund stuff and the more I learn about AIDS and HIV…. most of the new infections are in women my age, and in women ages 53 to 64, older women who haven't had sex in a long time, and in a moment of passion are irresponsible and contract HIV, and women my age who think their boyfriend won't love them if they speak up. Condoms aren't female. They're making female condoms, but right now it's, "buy a Trojan" – it's for men. So everything's in a man's power, and women are taught to be receivers… It's just a very deluded way of looking at sex.

"I guess all of these new things entering my life are changing the way I view my purpose, but that song in particular is about me wanting to live — but also, the song isn't called 'Dance in the Light.' I'm not a gospel singer trying to cross people over. What I'm saying is, 'I get it. I feel you, I feel the same way, and it's OK.'

"I hope and pray that I can inspire some sort of change in people subliminally through the show. They're singing 'Dance in the Dark,' but they're dancing and they're free, they're letting it out. But the songs are not about freedom, they're about [the fact that] I get it. I feel the way you feel."

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Lady Gaga “Barbara Walters Interview”

Lady Gaga - Barbara Walters Interview!

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The Fame Monster

Lady Gaga 'The Fame Monster' for sale. Find a wide variety of listings on Lady Gaga's 'The Fame Monster' album. New and used CDs for sale at cheap discounted prices. Our listings are updated daily, check back often for 'The Fame'!

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Lady Gaga - PokerFace Lyrics

Poker Face Lyrics

Mum mum mum mah
Mum mum mum mah

I wanna hold em' like they do in Texas Plays
Fold em' let em' hit me raise it baby stay with me (I love it)
Luck and intuition play the cards with Spades to start
And after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart

Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, ohh-oh-e-ohh-oh-oh
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got
Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, ohh-oh-e-ohh-oh-oh,
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got

Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)
Can't read my
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)

P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)

I wanna roll with him a hard pair we will be
A little gambling is fun when you're with me I love it)
Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun
And baby when it's love if its not rough it isn't fun, fun
[Poker Face Lyrics On http://www.elyricsworld.com/ ]
Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, ohh-oh-e-ohh-oh-oh
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got
Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, ohh-oh-e-ohh-oh-oh,
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got

Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)
Can't read my
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)

P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)

I won't tell you that I love you
Kiss or hug you
Cause I'm bluffin' with my muffin
I'm not lying I'm just stunnin' with my love-glue-gunning
Just like a chick in the casino
Take your bank before I pay you out
I promise this, promise this
Check this hand cause I'm marvelous

Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)
Can't read my
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)

Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)
Can't read my
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)

Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)
Can't read my
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)

P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)

P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)

P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)

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Lady Gaga - Paparazzi Lyrics

lady gaga paparazzi lyrics

We are the crowd
We're c-coming out
Got my flash on it's true
Need that picture of you
It's so magical
We'd be so fantastical

Leather and jeans
Your watch glamorous
Not sure what it means
But this photo of us
It don't have a price
Ready for those flashing lights
'Cause you know that baby I

I'm your biggest fan
I'll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
Baby there's no other superstar
You know that I'll be your
Papa-paparazzi

Promise I'll be kind
But I won't stop until that boy is mine
Baby you'll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi

I'll be your girl
Backstage at your show
Velvet ropes and guitars
Yeah cause you'll know
I'm staring between the sets
Eyeliner and cigarettes

Shadow is burnt
Yellow dance and return
My lashes are dry
But with teardrops I cry
It don't have a price
Loving you is cherry pie
'Cause you know that baby I

I'm your biggest fan
I'll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
Baby there's no other superstar
You know that I'll be your
Papa-paparazzi

Promise I'll be kind
But I won't stop until that boy is mine
Baby you'll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi

Real good
(We dance in the studio)
Snap, snapped
(That shit on the radio)

Don't stop boy, rewind
We'll blast it but we'll still have fun!

I'm your biggest fan
I'll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
Baby there's no other superstar
You know that I'll be your
Papa-paparazzi

Promise I'll be kind
But I won't stop until that boy is mine
Baby you'll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi

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Lady Gaga and her Fashion Sense

Breaking into the music scene in full force, Lady GaGa is now no more a virtually unheard of name. The track ‘Lets Dance’ is played on practically every club in town and clubbers go crazy as the song hits the speakers prompting everyone to get down to the dance floor shake their bodies to the rhythm. And why wouldn’t people like her? Her songs are eclectic and different compared to the same songs that you hear on the radio. Yeah their good, but it don’t stand out that much, or at least be in a class of their own. But of course, this is just my humble opinion.

With the fresh and vibrant sound, comes a unique fashion statement from this lady. Some call it outrageous, some call it crazy, some call if fun and some call it quirky. Whatever it is, Lady GaGa has something to call her own. Not wanting to be labeled as fashion forward with the same styles and sense like other Hollywood A-listers and Grammy crooners, Lady GaGa steps out into the red carpet with her sense of fashion that she calls art.

Change is often too hard to take especially in the fashion world. If you are not wearing something IT, then you are out. To Lady GaGa, she doesn’t want to attract attention though her sexy clothes, like other starlets do. She wants her fashion to make men think and not drool like the do when watching the Pussycat Dolls.

To Lady GaGa, being sexy isn’t something stated in the books. It’s your own personal style, so love her or hate her- she’s got her own thing going on and not many people can carry the look that she has. Unlike many other artists who get their stylist to do the dressing up and coming up with a certain theme, GaGa has a different approach. Even while writing her music, GaGa already pictures what she wants to wear on stage. To her, it’s the whole package of being an entertainer- the performance, the art, the effort, the song and or course, the fashion. It’s Lady GaGa telling a story to her fans and communicating with them.

Seeking inspiration from Versae, Lady GaGa considers Donatella Versace as her style icon saying that the fashion label’s designer is provocative, iconic and oh so powerful. Now isn’t it about time that we got a fresh dose of music to our years. Whatever people may say, Lady GaGa has my vote!

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Lady Gaga Tickets

Find the latest Lady Gaga Show Tickets here. Browse through various listings of Lady Gaga show tickets to find the nearest Gaga show. These listings are updated daily, check back often.

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The Fame

Lady Gaga 'The Fame' for sale. Find a wide variety of listings on Lady Gaga's 'The Fame' album. New and used CDs for sale at cheap discounted prices. Our listings are updated daily, check back often for 'The Fame'!

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Lady GaGa cavorts to the top and is now #1!

Lady GaGa has come a long way from the seedy Lower East Side days when she was trying to do anything to get noticed. The dance diva busted her way to the top of the 100 odd Billboard Hot singles Thursday with ‘Just Dance.’ Running 22 weeks, this Grammy song brought her within kissing distance of the record set by Creed’s ‘With Arms wide open’ that ran for 27 weeks.

Come February 8, Joanne Stefani Germanotta, better known as Lady GaGa will brace up for the Grammy award for the most outstanding song recording. On the way she pulled down Beyonce Knowles form the coveted No.1 position. Cruising past the likes of Britney Spears and Kanye West, Lady GaGa seemed to be on an overdrive on the road to Grammy.

She works according to a well thought out plan. When she found herself doing the same thing the others were doing, she hit on the idea of some really raunchy rock ‘n’ roll. Rob Fusari was roped in with whom she had worked with to belt out earlier hits like Dirty Ice Cream and Disco Heaven. Taking a cue from rock group Queen and their song Radio Gaga, she decided to take on the name. But the Lady bit was brought in to lend a feminine touch to her shows and numbers.

And oh yeah, she whizzed past the rest in no time. It took a few demos for Akon to realize her full potential after Interscope cut a deal with her to write the songs. She was soon partnered into a Kon Live deal. It was during her work on the demo tracks for Tami Chynn, artiste for Konvick, that Akon gave the diva the break she needed and deserved to make it to the top. Akon was a conduit to top drawer producers in the business.

Moving to LA, Lady GaGa brought out her debut album, ‘The Fame’ that got released all over quickly moving up the charts in Australia and Canada. Sales touched 24000 in the first week of its release in the US in October 2008. New York Times, US magazine and Billboard magazine went gaga over Lady GaGa as the song peaked to number one on debut at Billboard top Electronic Albums chart while Poker Face too climbed up to number one in Canada and far off places like Australia and New Zealand. CD sales have already topped the charts in Canada for ‘The Fame’.

Critics may cavil about her tendency to imitate Christina Aguilera and deck up with weird things like Amy Winehouse but Lady GaGa is proving to be someone who knows how to get her fans all worked up during shows. But that’s not all about Lady GaGa as she has got rhythm releases waiting for early 2009.

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