Monster year for Lady Gaga
Mar 4 2010 by Mark Lindores
AS Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball hits Newcastle, MARK LINDORES charts the rise of the latest pop icon.
Lady Gaga’s bold sense of style and willingness to experiment has ensured she is as revered in the fashion world as she is in music.
Giorgio Armani, Hussein Chalayan, Miuccia Prada and the late Alexander McQueen have all collaborated with the Haus Of Gaga to create one-off pieces for the Monster Ball Tour.
While Madonna has been lauded throughout her career for reinventing herself with each new album, Lady Gaga has emulated this strategy, unveiling a brand new look with every video, photoshoot or TV appearance.
The oversize sunglasses, shoulder pads, hair bow and glittering lightning bolt which she sported whilst launching her career are already light years away from the more avant-garde creations she has been wearing recently – most notably at the Brit Awards, where she appeared in a lace body-stocking, mask and pompadour wig in tribute to her friend, designer Alexander McQueen, who had died days earlier.
As with the fashion world, Lady Gaga’s musical collaborations know no boundaries. Most recently she has worked with Elton John, Wale, Michael Bolton, New Kids On The Block and the Pussycat Dolls. Her new single, Telephone, is a duet with Beyonce.
“It’s refreshing to see someone who has so much guts,” says Beyonce. Gaga, she adds, “has a style all her own.”
Next up, Lady Gaga’s career comes full circle as she duets with rapper Akon on a track for his new album. It was Akon who heard Lady Gaga’s original demos (which included future hits Just Dance and Pokerface) back in 2008 and, realising her potential, signed her to his KonLive imprint at Interscope Records.
As with all great “overnight success” stories, a lot of time and hard work went into transforming Catholic schoolgirl Stefani Germanotta into the obsessively constructed persona we see today.
Along the way, she has been a go-go dancer in New York and a songwriter for acts such as Britney Spears in Los Angeles before embarking on her metamorphosis into Lady Gaga.
Since then, she has been called the hardest-working woman in showbusiness, her life an endless round of shows, interviews and photoshoots. All indicate an unrivalled drive and work ethic.
When the time came to release the now-obligatory “deluxe edition” of her The Fame album, the prolific songwriter recorded an entire new album’s worth of material and repackaged it as The Fame Monster so her fans did not feel cheated. They thanked her by making Bad Romance her biggest hit to date.
Then there are her music videos – all hyper-stylised mini-movies and each a must-see event garnering the kind of attention last lavished on Michael Jackson.
While many lamented that the death of Jackson marked the end of the era of the bona fide pop icon, Lady Gaga has ushered in a new era for pop aesthetics and her fans can’t get enough.
They snapped up all 11,000 tickets for tonight’s Metro Radio Arena concert in minutes and you know that Gaga will do everything in her power to ensure they are going to have a memorable and truly monstrous ball.
