There is an art to fame, Lady Gaga once said. And that art is something this pop sensation has proven to have perfected, even after only a few years in showbiz.
Growing up in an affluent family in New York City, Gaga, born Stefani Germanotta, admits to being fascinated by fame when she was growing up. “I guess you could say that I became fascinated with the space in between people like us and celebrities,” she told Star Tribune in 2009.
It is perhaps from that space that all the craziness comes from — that space that is so scandalously disconcerting yet so endearingly addictive. That space that makes her Lady Gaga.
Before she makes her UAE debut this September 10 in Dubai, tabloid! looks at the life and times of the pop star we now know as Lady Gaga:
In the beginning
Lady Gaga has never pretended to be a struggler, financially at least. Her parents were rich and so were her friends at Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. But she will tell you her upbringing was “very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined”. Very early on, she knew she wanted to be a pop star, so she worked hard for it. “I got very good grades [but]... I was also a bad-***. I was the kind of girl who didn’t have to listen in class, but would always ace the test and get wasted later with friends,” she once said in an interview. “I’m very, very grateful for my education. I think it’s one of the things that makes me different as a pop singer in the way that I approach the work.”
The wonder years
Gaga, or Stef, as she was still called then, wrote her first song at 13. By 14, she started performing at open-mic nights and in school productions. After high school, she enrolled in a musical theatre course at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts only to drop out at 19 when she decided she was going to be rock star. Her dad agreed to pay her rent for a year provided she made it. Otherwise, she was to go back to university.
“I left my entire family, got the cheapest apartment I could find, and ate s*** until somebody would listen,” she told New York Magazine in 2010. She then started the Stefani Germanotta Band with some friends from NYU. It would be a few more years before someone called Wendy Starland came up to her to tell her she was going to make her famous.
The meeting
Starland, also a singer, had heard that Rob Fusari, a New Jersey producer, was looking for a female artist to mentor. One week before Gaga’s year off school was to end, she approached Gaga after she performed with her band at the Cutting Room and introduced her to Fusari. Gaga and he starting writing songs together, mostly with a rock tinge. Although unsuccessful at first, it landed them a contract with Def Jam Recordings in 2006.
The name
Fusari claims to have come up with the name Lady Gaga. “Every day, when Stef came to the studio, instead of saying hello, I would start singing ‘Radio Ga Ga,’ ” he told NJ.com in 2010. “That was her entrance song. [Lady Gaga] was actually a glitch. I typed ‘Radio Ga Ga’ in a text and it did an autocorrect so somehow ‘Radio’ got changed to ‘Lady.’ She texted me back, ‘That’s it.’ After that day, she was Lady Gaga. She’s like. ‘Don’t ever call me Stefani again.’ ”
The struggle
Lady Gaga was dropped from Def Jam after three months. Heartbroken, she returned to her family. But still determined to make it, she decided to refresh, significantly changing her looks and appearance. Around this time, she met performance artist Lady Starlight and began performing a mix of her electropop tunes and go-go dancing with her.
In the spring of 2007, Fusari introduced Gaga to his friend Vincent Herbert, who knew Jimmy Iovine, the head of Interscope and co-founder of Beats headphones company with Dr Dre. Gaga was then introduced to Moroccan-Swedish producer RedOne, with whom she started writing tracks.
The breakthrough
It was around the time Gaga wrote Just Dance with RedOne that she also began building a serious image. Heavily influenced by Andy Warhol, she began reading up on him, turning herself into a blonde space-age chick. It was one of Interscope’s major artists, Akon, who heard Just Dance and really got behind it. The label packed Gaga off to small gay clubs where she put on crazy disco costumes and wigs. The song became a global hit and turned Gaga into a superstar overnight. “That record saved my life. I was in such a dark space in New York. I was so depressed, always in a bar,” she would tell the UK’s Guardian later. “I got on a plane to LA to do my music and was given one shot to write the song that would change my life and I did. I never went back. I left behind my boyfriend, my apartment. I still haven’t been back. My mother went in and cleared it for me.”
The Fame
Although The Fame was released in 2008, it wasn’t until 2009 that Lady Gaga’s fame went global. The album’s songs Love Game, Paparazzi and Poker Face became global hits, their videos turning Gaga into a fashion powerhouse. Right before the release, she established the Haus of Gaga, modelled after Andy Warhol’s studio, consisting of video director Thomas Åkerlund, choreographer Laurriean Gibson, manager Troy Carter, stylist Nicola Formichetti and her primary collaborator, Matt Williams. The Fame was nominated for six Grammy Awards and went on to win Best Electronic/Dance Album and the Best Dance Recording for Poker Face. Rolling Stone called her ‘the defining pop star of 2009’ and a star was born.
The fashion
Gaga’s Warhol obsession pretty much continues today with her latest album, ARTPOP. But one of her first outrageous costumes was a red bridal lace dress she wore to the MTV VMAs in 2009. The next year at the Grammys saw her dressed as a small universe. But it was at the 2010 VMAs, when she came dressed in 22kgs of meat (stylist Formichetti’s brainchild), that will forever put her in the that place in fashion that defined so many things, good or bad. Of course, Gaga topped that the next year at the Grammys when she turned up in a giant egg. And oh she also came as her alter ego, Joe Calderone, a man. By 2011, she landed on the coveted cover of US Vogue, just three years after her breakthrough.
The music
Following The Fame, The Fame Monster was released later in 2009 with new singles, of which Bad Romance, Telephone (feat. Beyonce) and Alejandro became massive hits. She followed it up with Born This Way in 2011, with the lead single, of the same name, becoming a global smash, along with Marry the Night, You and I and The Edge of Glory. Her long-awaited ARTPOP was released last year to disappointing sales, selling just a quarter of the copies of Born This Way in its opening week.
At the South by Southwest (SXSW) Music Festival in March this year, she addressed the supposed failure.
“I’m not from a factory. I’m sorry I didn’t sell a million records the first week. I have before,” she said at a Q & A session.
“When it comes to me, everyone forgets where the music industry is now,” she said. “You come see me and it’s like you’re time-warped to the ‘70s.”
