Pop As Spectacle: Lady Gaga Is Today’s Most Electrifying Star (PHOTOS)
Lady Gaga is the most electrifying, magnetic and gossip worthy pop artist in the industry today, period. Love her or hate her, it is completely impossible to ignore Gaga’s in-your-face theatrics and pervasively catchy music.
Lady Gaga may seem like she’s obsessed with the shock factor. After all, she showed up in an incubated egg carried by scantily clad minions to the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards, causing Justin Bieber to remark, “People say it’s artistic and stuff, I’m just like, ‘You’re an egg.” But Gaga is more than just an egg. In fact, she stole the entire show before it even began. Without her butt padded silicone outfit, egg emergence, Willow Smith kissing and theatrical, hair whipping performance, the most scandalous thing about the Grammys would have been Rihanna and Drake‘s grinding!
WATCH: Lady Gaga’s Grammy Performance
Gaga’s new song ‘Born This Way’ is now the historic 1000th #1 single on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. It sold 448,000 downloads over the course of one weekend. The hype over the track from her upcoming album of the same name was astronomical and largely pushed by Gaga herself, however many people call it a cheap imitation of Madonna‘s ‘Express Yourself.’ Whether this was intentional or not, the song is a direct love letter to Gaga’s gay fans, an inspiring disco pop gem promoting self love and expression.
“There is really no one who is a more adoring and loving Madonna fan than me,” Gaga told Jay Leno. “I am the hugest fan, personally and professionally. Well the good news is I got an email from her people sending me their love and support on behalf of the single. And if the queen says it shall be, then it shall be!”
Lady Gaga is this generation’s Madonna: the scandalous outfits, the danceable hits, the media-making frenzy are all a part of Gaga’s imprint. Yet, she isn’t a carbon copy. Gaga has always been more about theater, fashion and self exploration than sex. While she poses naked and sings about masturbation (‘So Happy I Could Die’) and thinking about a woman while making love to your boyfriend (‘Poker Face’) she’s still the humble theater geek who was made fun of in her rich girl school, lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and played gigs at NYU bars with her black hair and lowly keyboard. Her personality always comes through in her well spoken exclamations, even in spite of the Kermit heads or lace headdresses blocking her eyeline.
PHOTOS: Lady Gaga’s Craziest Costumes
Underneath the outrageous outfits, which continually push the fashion envelope, Gaga writes the pure pop confections found on her Grammy Award winning albums ‘The Fame’ and ‘The Fame Monster’ and has the talent and vocal chops to back up all the rest. Her ‘Monster’s Ball’ tour was a sight to behold—a show of epic proportions. Her ability to cross musical genres is admirable. The ‘Telephone’ duet with R&B Queen Beyonce created one of the best, most visually appealling pop songs and videos in the past 10 years. Gaga’s music has never really been as shocking as her public persona. Sure, she wants her upcoming perfume to smell like ‘blood and semen’ and she told Anderson Cooper she loves to smoke pot when she writes her music, but we’ve all heard far more controversial things.
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