A Star In Every Sense

As the soft, amber stage lights rose on the Radio Music Hall in New York, Stefani Germanotta’s voice rang out in a haunting yet delicate Soprano shrill. A fallen ghost-silver chandelier, teetering on its side behind her, had interrupted her introduction. The shot cuts to Stefani’s face, hidden behind a crystal-sequined mask with white feathers for horns. “Can’t read my, can’t read my,” she sang in perfect acapella, “No he can’t read my poker face”.

For the millions of viewers around the world, watching Lady Gaga’s performance at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, it was as though they had got lost within a Warholian wonderland. Image-heavy with themes of ‘media vultures’ circling, identity and sexual revolution. And then the crescendo—one of the most thought-evoking moments in VMA-history. Thick red syrup dripped down her bare ribcage. As a closing image to this performance, Lady Gaga dangled by one hand above the troupe of male dancers, crimson blood coated on her face and congealed on one eye. This was just how Gaga did it. Art-as-performance. Punchy raucous angst, edgy creativity, intimate and well-polished. She was like a star, in every sense. Correction…this is how Gaga still does it.

“My whole life is a performance…” she told America’s Out Magazine in 2009. “I have to up-the-ante everyday.” Fast-forward 11 years and she’s done just that. A chart-topping singer, relentlessly robust songwriter, creative record producer, award-winning actress and successful businesswoman, Lady Gaga has reinvented herself as one of the most recognisable faces in the world. Just glancing at her CV makes her success so much more impressive. For starters, she’s completely self-made, using raw success and perseverance to get where she is now. She’s won an Academy Award, 11 Grammys, two Golden Globes, three MTV Movie Award, earned a Guinness World Record for the fastest selling single on iTunes (‘Bad Romance’), 13 MTV VMA’s and supports countless charities as a philanthropist on the side.

Born in 1986 Manhattan to a hard-working upper-middle class Italian American family, Stefani Germanotta found music at an early age. Written by Stefani herself on her first self-named website, she explains the process she took to writing her first song. “My dad was listening to what I now know was Pink Floyd’s Money,” she wrote, “and understanding only the sounds of the cash register in the intro, I [then] wrote a song called ‘Dollar Bills’ on my Mickey Mouse staff paper.”

At age 17, Stefani gained early acceptance into the Collaborative Arts Project 21, a music school at New York University, and studied assiduously to improve her creative ability—writing essay after essay on religion, social issues and politics through art. In her early twenties, Germanotta formed the band, SGBand and became a regular fixture in the New York clubbing scene. It was after the 2006 Songwriters Hall of Fame New Songwriters Showcase (in which the band had secured a place) that talent-scout, Wendy Starland, referred her to music producer, Rob Fusari.

It was Rob who, whilst collaborating with her on new material, was the one to mark her with a new, unique name…Lady Gaga. It’s worth noting that the name was inspired by Queen’s hit song, Radio Ga Ga and, with Freddie Mercury being one of Germanotta’s biggest idols, it was a perfect fit. The name thankfully stuck, most likely due to her early, eclectic stage presence being a bit ga-ga, like in 2007 when she performed in a homemade bra at Lollapalooza, performing risque dance moves to heavy-metal instruments with friend and collaborator Lady Starlight.

“I was onstage in a thong,” she recalled in her 2017 doco-film, Gaga: Five Foot Two, directed by Chris Moukarbel, “with a fringe hanging over my ass thinking that had covered it, lighting hairsprays on fire, go-go dancing to Black Sabbath, and singing songs about oral sex. The kids would scream and cheer, and then we’d all go grab a beer. It represented freedom to me. I went to a Catholic school, but it was on the New York underground that I found myself.”

Image credit: Norbert Schoerner

Like most aspiring singers starting off in the business, Gaga was signed and consequently dropped by two record labels by the end of 2007. In a last-ditch attempt at gaining some traction in the music industry, she signed a deal with Sony/ATV where her career began to take shape. She began writing songs for the likes of hit-makers such as The Pussycat Dolls, Fergie and Britney Spears. But she wanted to be making those hits for herself and have that intimate connection to the art she had been studying at NYU.

So, in 2008, Gaga, a determined, fresh songwriter, released her debut album, The Fame to rave reviews. That album completely catapulted Gaga, not just as a national name, but an international icon. It won several top awards in the industry, gained international acclaim, and was nominated for five Grammys, including Album of the Year in 2010. Her sound—world-renown. The industry vultures she warned about in 2009 were circling, but Gaga was doing it her own unique way, identifying her own art and becoming her own, unique pop icon.

With the release of her chart-topping 2011 album, Born This Way, Lady Gaga and her mother, Cynthia, started the Born This Way Foundation with the “goal of creating a kinder and braver world.” With Gaga’s caring and kindness, she continues to support the mental and emotional wellbeing of young people by highlighting their needs, ideas and voices. It is with this sort of empowerment that Gaga was seen not just as a superstar musician, dressing herself in quirky outfits at award ceremonies, but a kind, loving soul too.

Pop-idols can’t get to world-wide fame without their legion of fans. Enter the Little Monsters. An army of super-diverse Gaga-crazy millions, a fandom that diversifies nationality, gender, education, and religion. A salient aspect to this fanbase is its connection to LGBTQ rights. Her Monsters are dedicated, alright. And she is equally as dedicated to them.

Being the first major star to do so in a Western context, Gaga got her Monsters writhing, screaming and dancing to her hits across the globe. Call it a stroke of genius by naming her audience, Gaga successfully grouped together ‘misfits’ and gave them each a voice. In an age of the internet and social media, the ‘us’ and ‘them’ of Gaga’s art meant a lot more than just going to her arena tours. It meant unifying her ideals of inclusivity and acceptance, a choir she still sings in today.

“Kindness is the key to ALL things […],” Gaga said in an interview with Japan’s NHK in 2018. “And we want to inspire youth to build a kinder and braver world. And we always say ‘be kind’. And to me what kindness does; it’s like an infection that is good. It’s something that, when you give, it spreads.”

Gaga never forgot her main passion, though, for music. In 2013, big stars around the world, such as Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, even our own Lorde, were on the radar as girl power reigned supreme. It was in this year that Gaga began juggling more roles in her already world-famous career. With her critically acclaimed 2013 album, ARTPOP making sonic wripples through the stratosphere and winning big gongs, Lady Gaga dipped her toes into acting too, a goal she wanted to achieve from a young age when she performed as lead role in Guys & Dolls at high school.
In 2015, Gaga was cast as Elizabeth, a ghoulish vampire hotel owner on the fifth season of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story: Hotel for which she won the Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Drama at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.

“I wanted to create something extremely meaningful by exploring the art of darkness,” Gaga told Billboard in 2015. “The reason I love watching horror films, mysteries and documentaries about crime is that it somehow numbs me from the pain I experience in my own life.” She later joined Murphy again in 2016 in the American Horror Story: Roanoke where she played Scottish witch, Scathach.

But it was her portrayal as Ally in the fourth and most-recent rendition of A Star Is Born in 2018, directed by Bradley Cooper, that she really got fans talking. Ally, introduced as a waitress and struggling with her dreams to become a professional singer, was Gaga as a hybrid talent. The song, Shallows, written by Gaga herself, still sends shivers down our spines whenever we hear it.

“This is a conversation between a man and a woman, and he actually listens to her,” Gaga said about the role. “And I think we live in a time when this is something that’s really important to women. Women want to be heard.” The role earned her Golden Globe nods for Best Actress and Best Original Song (for Shallows), four Grammy selections and two SAG Award nominations.

Whilst juggling her many roles as worldwide popstar diva, Gaga’s talent is undeniably vast as an artist. She’s taken over the music scene with her hits; she’s taken over the Oscar stage with her acting and helped millions with her charity work. As the world hid in lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic recently, big stars like Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney and Billie Eilish, took to social media, performing in One World: Together At Home. Gaga, who had curated the lineup, called the event a “love letter to the world.” The event raised up to USD$127 million for vaccine development and local charities.

Gaga is using her success and love for fashion to tick off another box on her checklist. She has partnered with Swiss watch manufacturer, TUDOR, for their ‘Born to Dare’ campaign, using the new role as a reflection of being daring and risk-taking, and to stand by daring individuals who can achieve the extraordinary.

“When there’s something in me telling me ‘you don’t have it in you, you’re done’ and lots of self-doubt. It’s having that other voice that says ‘you’ve got this, be stronger than all the others’. You’ve got to use that and shout it,” says Gaga about what the campaign means to her.

Alongside this new ‘Born to Dare’ campaign is her latest album, Chromatica, which was released at the end of May this year to world-wide acclaim. Is the music icon returning to old territory? Or maybe new?

With hits like Stupid Love, Rain On Me and Sine From Above, this is Gaga at her best and features guest vocals from the likes of Blackpink, Ariana Grande and Elton John.

“The symbol for Chromatica has a sine wave in it, which is the mathematical symbol for sound,” she said to Apple Music Beats.1 host, Zane Lowe, “and it’s from what all sound is made from, and, for me, sound is what healed me in my life period, and it healed me again making this record, and that is really what Chromatica is all about.”

From performing in dive bars in her teens, to the artsy performance at the 2009 VMA’s, to flaunting along a glitzed-up red carpet in a suit made of meat, Lady Gaga is the type of icon that has evolved leaps-and-bounds in her career. Her successes are many. Her talent is boundless. Yet Mother Monster remains hungry. “I would like to put out music that a big chunk of the world will hear,” Gaga said in an interview about her latest album, “and it will become a part of their daily lives and make them happy every single day.” Whatever is next for the star, the rest of the world— her Little Monsters— are waiting with bated breath for whatever this truly great artist has got planned. She’s a star, in every sense.

“No matter how much success you have — no matter how many opportunities, fame, fortune, no matter how many people accept you to your face — the person that really needs to accept you is you.”

Top Image credit: Norbert Schoerner