Gaga is up for five Grammy Awards

DETROIT -- Resplendent in black feathers, Lady Gaga paused mid-concert and proceeded to lie down on her back.

"I'm kind of like Tinker Bell," she declared.

"You know how Tinker Bell will die if you don't clap for her? Do you want me to die? I can't live without you -- SCREAM FOR ME!"

No worries. The audience quickly came to her rescue with an ear-splitting roar.

Clearly, there's something about this petite pop provocateur that makes you want to scream. Whether you're howling because you're goo-goo for Gaga or you can't stand her or you just don't get her is entirely up to you. Regardless, she won't be ignored.

Gaga is up for five Grammy Awards, including three of the most prestigious prizes. Her omnipresent hit "Poker Face" is nominated for record of the year and song of the year, and her platinum-certified 2008 debut "The Fame" earned a nod for album of the year.

She'll perform during tonight's Grammy ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, which ought to be a treat. Gaga, 23, has earned a reputation for scene-stealing turns in the spotlight.

PREVIEW
Grammy Awards

What: The 52nd annual music-industry awards ceremony is broadcast live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, with performances by Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, the Black Eyed Peas and the Dave Matthews Band, among others. Also on the agenda are an all-star Michael Jackson tribute and a Mary J. Blige/Andrea Bocelli duet to aid Haiti relief efforts.

When: 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31.

Where: WOIO Channel 19.

Also: The pre-telecast ceremony will be streamed live at grammy.com, starting at 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31.

MORE GRAMMY COVERAGE:

Meet violinist Caroline Goulding of Cleveland Heights, one of several nominees with local ties

John Soeder's Grammy predictions

Unfortunately, Cleveland isn't on the itinerary for her Monster Ball Tour, which made a stop earlier this month at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

Even before she took the stage in front of 8,000 fans -- "my little monsters," Gaga called them -- for the first of two gigs there, the pre-concert people-watching was monstrously entertaining.

"We're going to get our Gaga before they get their Gaga!" a young female admirer gloated to her friends near the front of a long line outside the venue.

Inside, a never-ending parade of Gaga clones in designer-knockoff sunglasses, pink feather boas and fishnet stockings roamed the arena concourse. The glammed-out coalition's ranks included everyone from giddy teens to drag queens. There were wide-eyed children with parents in tow, too.

The object of their affection opened with "Dance in the Dark," a throbbing club anthem off her latest album, "The Fame Monster." Decked out in twinkling lights, Gaga evoked a Christmas lawn ornament come to life.

A few days later, Gaga postponed two shows and cancelled two others, reportedly because of exhaustion. She was none the worse for wear in Motown, though. Generally out-Madonna-ing Madonna at every turn while cavorting inside a giant hollowed-out television set, Gaga proved to be a triple threat:

Multi-talented musician. Freakazoid fashion plate. And cunning performance artist.

She co-writes and co-produces her own material, with wildly successful results. "The Fame" spawned four No. 1 hits: "Just Dance," "Poker Face," "LoveGame" and "Paparazzi." Gaga was back atop the charts recently with "Bad Romance," the first single off "The Fame Monster," with its distinctive "Gaga-ooh-la-la" hook. Her pop grooves practically exert their own gravitational pull and help themselves to any number of styles, from disco to electronica, while her lyrics explore themes of sexuality and celebrity, belted out with vigor and panache.

On the fashion tip, count on Gaga to looks fabulous -- or at least, uh, interesting -- in just about anything. A coat of plastic bubbles. A mirror-ball bra. Even a wrap made of Kermit the Frog carcasses, intended as an anti-fur statement.

This unique sense of style (developed in conjunction with Haus of Gaga, her personal team of designers) extends to her Monster Ball Tour. It delivers one surreal production number after another.

During "Monster," Gaga (who cites Michael Jackson as a key influence) and her troupe of dancers execute a "Thriller"-style choreography routine. A solo vaudevillian rendition of "Poker Face" finds her perched behind a junkyard piano. And for the grand finale, she emerges from a gyroscope-like contraption dubbed "The Orbit," to the tune of "Bad Romance."

While Gaga changes costumes between songs, arty videos hold your attention. In one clip, a woman in black spews blue vomit all over Her Gaga-ness, who is dressed in white. (Discuss.)

All this razzle-dazzle notwithstanding, Gaga's greatest creation is herself.

Let's review the facts, shall we? Real name is Stefani Germanotta; stage name is a nod to the Queen oldie "Radio Gaga." Born and raised in New York City. Began taking piano lessons at 4 and later attended the Tisch School of the Arts. Before she became a superstar in her own right, wrote songs for other artists, including the Pussycat Dolls.

Then again, when you're talking about the queen of an ever-changing fantasy land of her own devising, facts are more or less beside the point.

"I hate the truth," Lady Gaga is fond of saying. "I prefer a giant dose of bullshit."

It could smell like victory tonight at the Grammys -- and beyond -- for one of the most intriguing pop-culture button-pushers in our midst at the moment.

Lady Gaga - a Business Model that works

By Darragh Worland

As fans insist on a National Lady Gaga Day, Gaga herself (and her "360" record contract) defines the new standard for a modern-day music-industry success story.

Fans have been going gaga for her ever since her bloody performance of the hit song "Paparazzi" at MTV's Video Music Awards in September, where she was named Best New Artist.

And now, just days before the Grammy Awards on Sunday night where she is nominated for five awards, dance/pop singer Lady Gaga has been granted her very own national holiday — sort of, anyway. What started as a goofy event page on Facebook marking National Lady Gaga Day now has over 100,000 followers, all of whom are honoring the singer with a day of emulation. According to the page, the "Night of Mayhem" is a day to celebrate your "inner freak."

"Dress like her, sing, dance, have themed parties, wear a Kermit the Frog jacket, ect. (sic) JUST HAVE FUN!" says the event page.

OK, so it isn't really National Lady Gaga Day, but according to the Wall Street Journal, the music industry could stand to learn a thing or two from Lady Gaga's "digital dominance, business savvy, niche-busting sound and 1,001 wardrobe changes" about how to build and maintain a fan base.

"Underneath Gaga's haystack wigs is a case study of what it takes to succeed in the music business today," writes WSJ's John Jurgensen. " [...] She is a product of a new kind of recording contract, which goes beyond just selling records to encompass everything from touring, merchandise — even her make-up deal. Though she writes her own material, she is as focused on visual theatrics, fashion, and global appeal as she is on the music."

Jurgensen goes on to list three major lessons to be learned from Gaga's success:

1. She's a Digital Phenomenon: Her debut album, "The Fame" generated four no. 1 songs, helping her to bring in massive digital sales, but much of her fan base got access her music for free and legally, says Jurgensen thanks to digital streams of her videos and music on sites like YouTube and MySpace, where she's had 321.5 million plays. That access, in Gaga's case, has translated into huge dividends in fan loyalty.

2. She's Got a 360-Degree View: Revenue losses in the digital age means record labels are going after money generated by artists outside of music sales in addition to their music revenues. The new model is what the industry calls the "360 deal" in which labels invest 100 percent up front for a cut of revenues from every aspect of the artist's business, including merchandising, which artists used to keep for themselves. Lady Gaga is one of the first major artists to have been launched under this model. A portion of her income from every concert she performs, to her deals with Polaroid, Estée Lauder's MAC and other corporate partners lands in Universal's Interscope Records' pockets.

3. She Could be the Next Madonna: Like Madonna, Gaga is a lover of the underbelly, making bold use of what Jurgensen calls "dark theatrics." She shape-shifting costumes and her playful use of language, such as referring to her fans as "monsters" have made her a hit in mainstream radio. She's a cross-over star who appeals to misfits in all spectra, including among gays, hipsters and boundary-pushing teens all with easy-to-sing lyrics, like "I want your ugly, I want your disease."

Basically, Gaga's got the full multimedia package, and these days, that's what it takes to get noticed.

Every Show is a Drama for Lady Gaga

The difference between big-budget musicals and blockbuster pop concerts has shrunk over the years, since shows like “Mamma Mia!” can seem like a loosely connected collection of songs, while music tours regularly package carefully constructed star personas inside elaborate stagecraft and a narrative frame. In her slick and seamlessly executed concert, Lady Gaga blurs the line even more, turning the conventions of pop stardom into a fully realized gothic musical that aims for the commercial sweet spot at the intersection of horror and romance. When done well, that mashup can produce blockbusters like “Twilight,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Thriller.”

Melding multimedia images with old-fashioned razzle-dazzle, Lady Gaga’s show (which runs through Sunday) manages to integrate theme, image and even some narrative seamlessly into one of the most engrossing dramatic spectacles in town. As a theater critic who has suffered through too many stale, pop-infused musicals, I suggest that Broadway would be smart to follow her lead.

Lady Gaga, a New York native who attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University before dropping out to pursue music full time, calls her fans her “little monsters.” At first it seems to be a term of affection, especially when she contorts her hand into a claw in a show of solidarity with her army of devotees, decked out in mirror-ball earrings and wielding glowing disco sticks. But when she flirts with her fans, expressing her love for them, the standard pop star clichés clash with the macabre story of the show, which acts out more of a dysfunctional relationship.

Her visual vocabulary marries high fashion to a fantasy fan’s aesthetic: Lady Gaga walking like a zombie, wearing scissorhands and even a suit of hair that looks as if it were stolen from the closet of Cousin Itt. In pairing spunky dance music with spooky images, Lady Gaga hints at pop music’s greatest exploitation of scary movies: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” But while the monsters in that classic video are symbols of liberation, Lady Gaga projects something darker than girl power.

She casts fame (and her audience) as the looming threat in this story and herself as the scream queen, the perpetual victim. Her elaborate set pieces make a show of helplessness and vulnerability, boxing her slight, blond figure inside a glass cube in her propulsive hit “Just Dance”; encasing it in a rotating series of orbs during the brooding “Bad Romance”; and in her most twisted image, chaining her hair to a black pole controlled by two men in “Paparazzi.”

Despite a large cast of goth dancers, whose stiff legs and pale visages evoke a flailing army of the undead, Lady Gaga is frequently alone onstage, surrounded by ominous videos of giant red trees or wild animals. Wearing a suit of Christmas lights, her feet jammed into teetering heels, she first appears moving mechanically behind a pulsating green video grid that blankets the front of the stage.

It’s an unusual entrance for a pop star, since Lady Gaga doesn’t show up in a blinding spotlight, but indistinctly and lost in an electric maze. The effect extravagantly juxtaposes the flights of fancy of a wandering mind with the physical limits of the body.

Midway through the show, the emotional narrative shifts when this flamboyant star, alone onstage, pauses to deliver a short monologue. Skillfully transforming into an insecure teenager racked with angst, she bashfully flops on the ground and, in the plaintive voice of a performer hooked on applause, asks the audience if she looks sexy. Quickly shifting back to her superstar persona, she underlines the artifice of this plea, adding self-consciously, “I hate the truth.”

In her next few songs Lady Gaga becomes increasingly aggressive and defiant, illustrating something of a love-hate relationship with her little monsters. Hunched over in an animalistic crouch, surrounded by a predatory-looking pack of dancers, she performs an angry version of her pounding song “Teeth,” as images of a ferocious wolf loom behind her. This driving song leads to a more downbeat, soulful spin on “Poker Face,” while she plays what could be described as a post-apocalyptic piano, a rusty jumble of seemingly collapsing parts that emits a purple fog.

Only a few songs after begging for approval, her mood darkens. The moment has come, as it does at the end of most slasher movies, when the scantily clad victim stops running and takes on the monster, fighting for survival.

Lady Gaga hoists a tommy gun out of the piano and swings it toward the crowd. Smiling maniacally, she sprays her fans with “bullets,” the weapon flashing like a strobe light.

New York Times - Jason Zinoman

Lady Gaga shows off her past in Oprah Show

Lady Gaga with her Dad in her younger days.

Before she became famous....

At Oprah...

Outrageous singer shows off family snaps on Oprah
She is now famous for wearing crazy outfits and performing controversial routines.

But back in the day, Lady Gaga was just a normal little girl with a big dream.

In an interview broadcast on The Oprah Winfrey Show yesterday, Gaga showed off some family snaps which prove she once lived a relatively ordinary existence.
Gaga, born Stefani Germanotta, looks like any other young girl in this family picture

Gaga, born Stefani Germanotta, looks like any other young girl in this family picture

The 23-year-old singer, who shunned her natural brunette hair for platinum locks in a bid to make it in the music business, wore a typically outrageous outfit for her appearance on the U.S. TV show - showing she has no intention of returning to her younger look.

Gaga, who had twisted her hair into pointy spikes, wore a black outfit studded with spikes and, at one point, swung a gold, spiked ball on a chain into the windshield of a taxi on the stage.

The singer brandished a medieval-style mace and chain on the show and was sporting a bizarre porcupine-style hairdo

In one photograph the singer, who has now established herself as a fashion icon, poses with her beloved father Joseph Germanotta.

Gaga said despite her determination to become a successful singer, her dad never understood why she had to cavort on stage in skimpy clothes and change her appearance so dramatically.

Gaga also took the opportunity to publicly pledge her support to the victims of the devastating Haiti earthquake.

She told Oprah: 'Haiti is still suffering,. And I was thinking earlier, because I was in New York during 9/11 and I always felt, the level of disaster isn't in the neighbourhood of what is happening in Haiti, but I just remember feeling nobody really understood.

'And I worry that young people don't know enough about what's going on there. I will say today that on the January 24th, the Monster Ball show in New York City, all of the money that I make in ticket sales and merchandise will go to Haiti.

'And on the 24th you can also go onto LadyGaga.com and any merchandise that you buy, the money will go to Haiti.'

The family album photographs show a drastically different person to the one we are used to seeing today

The ever-busy singer cancelled a show in Indiana on Thursday due to 'exhaustion', and has now cancelled a further three shows.

Speaking about the decision to pull out of the performance Gaga wrote on Twitter: 'I've been crying for hours, I feel like I let my fans down 2nite.

'An hour before the (Indiana) show, I was feeling dizzy and having trouble breathing. Paramedics came to take care of me, and told me my heart-rate was irregular -- a result of exhaustion and dehydration.

'I am so devastated. I have performed with the flu, a cold, strep throat: I would never cancel a show just based on discomfort.'

Polaroid to ride on Lady Gaga's fame

Polaroid wants to ride on Lady GaGa's coat-tails
ASHER MOSES IN LAS VEGAS

Pop superstar Lady GaGa has become the technology world’s new diva, signing up with Polaroid to reinvent the instant film camera and debuting her own line of headphones.

The Poker Face and Bad Romance chart-topper, who is up for five Grammy awards later this month, placed her stamp all over the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

Geeks went into tizz when Lady GaGa, 23, showed up at Monster’s booth with rap mogul Dr. Dre to show off the “Heartbeats” headphones she designed for the company.

The $US119.95 jewel-shaped earbuds are designed to look more like a fashion accessory than a piece of technology. They are, according to Monster, “tangle free” and come in three colours – red, black and chrome.

Lady GaGa also hit the Polaroid stand to announce her appointment as “creative director” and “inventor of specialty products” with the company.

Wearing a black see-through dress and a blonde sunhat made entirely out of her own hair, she described herself as a “Polaroid girl” and said she was “outraged” when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

She said she would be helping to update the company’s iconic instant film cameras for the digital age. Her new Polaroid products would be available this year but few further details were revealed.

“The Haus of Gaga has been developing prototypes in the vein of fashion/technology/photography innovation - blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era,” she said.

“I am so excited to extend myself behind the scenes as a designer, and to as my father puts it - finally have a real job.”

Lady GaGa insisted her involvement in product design went much further than simply endorsements and marketing campaigns, and posted a picture of herself on Twitter holding up her new Polaroid business card.

The partnership is designed to help Polaroid appeal to a younger demographic after its technology was rendered obsolete by digital cameras offering a more effective form of instant photo gratification.

Lady Gaga wears hat made entirely from her own hair

Talk about a serious case of hat hair.

On Thursday Lady Gaga unveiled one of her most outlandish styles to date: a blonde sunhat made entirely of her own hair, reports the U.K.'s Daily Mail.

The 23-year-old singer appeared in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show where Polaroid announced her as their new Chief Creative Officer. Lady Gaga said she will create fashion, technology and photography products.

The Grammy nominated songstress did not offer any specific products that were in the works, but she did talk about being a "Polaroid girl," reports MTV News.

"I really believe in the lifestyle and injecting the things that I love into [this]. ... For me, what I'm really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid," Lady Gaga told the hundreds of attendees who turned out to catch a glimpse of her.

The "Paparazzi" singer also said she was excited about bringing back Polaroid and "combining it with the digital era," according to USA Today.

Polaroid, the film company that offered instant gratification in a pre-digital age, filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and has since struggled to revitalize their brand. Lady Gaga said her new Polaroid products would be available later this year.

God Hates Lady GaGa?

It's still not 2010 for some of us, so it's not too late to name this as the SONG OF THE DECADE! Shit, this might be the anthem of all our lives! It's the hatetress of hate Megan Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church (those "God Hates Fags" loontardians) and her parody of Lady CaCa's Poker Face. It features such amazing lyrics as, "Lady GayGay," "God hates you," and "your whorish face." Listen to this wreck:

Megan should come write for Dlisted! Yeah, I know I should be cyber fisting this crazy bitch in the mouth, but I can't help but want to party with her.

While we're all doing shots, she'll scream at how our souls will turn to ash in the fiery pits of Hell. And then after catching us sucking dick in the men's bathroom, she'll spit in our ear (foreplay) and tell us that our whore faces are worth a first class ticket to Lucifer's chambers. Keep giving us that dirty filthy talk, Megan!

What's really hilarious is that Megan says "Poker Face" is the devil's music, but she probably listened to that song a million times while working on her parody. That means she'll be making s'mores with us in the giant chiminea known as Hell. Save us a seat, Megan!

And here's the object of Megan's lady erection showing off her tuck game in Miami this morning.

Listen to the song here:

@LadyGaga "Poker Face" parody by WBC is done! Lyrics: http://tiny.cc/LGL2 Music: sound bite

Lady Gaga's New Year Gift to the Paparazzi

Before I leave you staring at Lady GaGa's hairy bush until Monday (You're welcome, by the way.), let's take a look back at the celebrity moments that defined 2009 and weren't just nak-ed pictures. Even though those are the real news and I'll fight to the death anyone who says otherwise.