Page 7 - Pop History: Lady Gaga Pt I

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

Happy birthday Lady Gaga! We celebrate the only way we know how, by kicking off a two-parter all about Mother Monster.We love all our little monsters over on our Patreon page! Join today to get bonus weekly episodes and other goodies. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Gaga. I'm doing ballet. Because I've got a bad romance. I don't. I actually have really delightful. How are you ever going to write a pop song? I guess I have to hurt a little bit more because if there's something we learn from Lady Gaga, you gotta hurt to make art, everybody.

Can I get my gagas out there? Gagas. It's my little monsters. I'm sorry. Red wine. I know, but there's so many ways to say her fans that they could do. be like, they're the giggles. Yes, the googies.

They're the googie gaga. Yeah, I'm into, I'm into the babies. The little ones, the guis. And, uh, no, but they are the little monsters. And I, are you guys? Hi, hi guys. Welcome to Bob Pistry. We're talking about Lady Gaga today.

I don't have you noticed. We're talking about Lady Gaga and I, you're still dancing. Um, yeah. You're doing all your pot moves. I'm still working. My breasts look great today. They do.

And I think it's because they are filled with little monsters. Ah, that means you might have cancer. No, that's horrible. Red wine. Yeah, I definitely was haunted, I wanted to actually say, by her music last night. I think I had every song at one point in time stuck in my head from the first two albums because I've been listening to so much, watching so many music videos. And especially, and I have to highly recommend, I'm going to recommend it probably a few times in this episode.

But definitely check out the, um, Monsters Ball live in Madison Square Garden. It was taped as an HBO special. It's called, yeah, the Lady Gaga presents the Monster Ball Tour at Madison Square Garden is the proper name. It is you can rent it on Amazon Prime last night. Lexi and I sat down and watched it. And I never actually gotten to see.

I mean, I definitely have seen Lady Gaga live performances via award shows and things like that. But getting to see her full force Broadway-esque, like, burlesque like everything, all these things turned into a multi-up giant pop show that was her monster ball show is amazing. No matter what you feel about Lady Gaga's music, you have to at least admit that she is a performer. Oh my God. She is someone that always wanted to be a performer, and she is someone that got her dream by working her ass off, and she's such a wonder. Reading through this, again, she's another one of these

inspa fucking rations to watch. It's like if you just keep going, if you just keep working. She's so tiny and you never know. Five foot two, I remember. I saw the documentary. Really, I, the internet says it's five foot one. Whoa. She lied about her height. What else does she lied about?

We're going to get into that today. Actually, she wasn't a liar. She's been very open about what she's gone through and how she feels. And as someone, I'm going to go ahead and admit it. I love, love, love, Lady Gaga. And when I had watched 5'22 originally, when it first came out, part of me, the envy side of me is like, well, of course she got famous.

She came from a really rich family and a really supportive rich family. And that was something that I held against her for a bit. And that's not fucking fair. Well, it's not. But I also understand the sentiment. I actually had asked you if you knew if she was part of the Lena Dunham crowd because that is also another group of peers that got that same treatment where they're a little annoying because they kind of just were in the epicenter of everything and had everything in front of them and all the tools. But she was an upper west side girl, right? And Lena Dunham's crew was like the Lower East Side.

So two different kinds of rich people. Gaga went to the same all-girls school that Paris Hilton went to. Yes, Paris and Nikki Hilton. It is a different life that any of us grew up in. But similar. And she was bullied. She was not the cool kid. In fact, there's this fascinating part at the very beginning of that concert special

where she's sitting there and she's just like, I just want to give my fans. And then she like breaks up and she starts like crying and she's just like, and by the way, she looks amazing. She's super cool looking in this shot. She's like getting her hair done stuff. And then she just says, I just can't help. but I just I still feel sometimes like that fucking loser yeah gross loser girl in high school and you know that that doesn't go away and I will say of course she still feels that way

because she's 24 in that concert insane obviously her talent is undeniable yes and she worked for because you can have lots and lots of money you can have the money and the support and still do fucking nothing with it because we're going to She would have had lots of money. So also, screw you Jackie Zabrowski for holding that against her as someone that worked her fucking ass off

and created beautiful, cool performance art. Did you just tell yourself to go fucking? I just told, you know what, so you'll have to excuse me because I got to go hit the WC. I got to go make in front because I've got to go fuck myself.

I love Lady Gaga. I've watched all her videos and I what thought what and she even says that every song that she writes she not only thinks about her her song or how

it's going to be but it's also how it's going to be received what she's going to wear immediately thinking of the concept of a video she thinks in large scale and she wants control over all of it and she has it because she's so fucking good at it.

Oh yeah I mean the visual aspect of her to me is the best part. Somebody who wasn't immediately drawn to her music, just watching her live performance at the VMAs in 2009, I was just like, oh, I get it. This is fucking awesome. She's a powerhouse.

For me, I was always fascinated by her music videos and things like that. And at the same time, a little intimidated, like I'm very much not a fashion person. What? No, I'll hold in. I really thought. So it's like, to me it's like, yeah, I'm looking. It's kind of hilarious to me that she makes her music for all the damaged people, for all the put upon, the bullied.

When I'm watching, I'm like, she's like on another planet. I'm like totally intimidated. Then I think it was actually, I saw her on Howard Stern. She gave a really honest interview, but then it was just her and a piano, and she knocked my fucking socks off. Her voice is unreal. It is unbelievable. I believe she did Edge of Glory and you and I. I can't remember exactly what performance that she did.

she was so unbelievable on that. When she did the star spangled banner which normally doesn't really I don't care. Right.

Sorry, Marica. But she did it just you know, a cappella pretty much. And I went down into a worm time of her and Beyonce's friendship because I was really trying to figure out how they immediately,

even on her first album started working together. And I forgot that that was the Super Bowl She did the Star-Spangled Banner and Beyonce did the halftime show so they were there for each other so they've actually been together because

how do you make friends if you are Beyonce? You attach yourself to people that for the most part are on the same level as you because who else would understand, you know? Are you asking how we make friends with Beyonce? I was asking you how will you be friends with me because how do I

ever get to where you are Natalie Jean? Yeah, I know. Guys, is it really hard to be here with me? Holden's so scared. He stayed in New York. I'm so intimidated. That scariest thing happening in the country right now is definitely that. It's me.

Oh, I'm the scariest. This is my goal. You're our little monster. You're monster mommy. Monster mama. Oh, by the way, we need to, can we talk about the telephone video at some point? Oh, yeah. We're going to talk about the telephone video because it is a fire, as the kids say.

Oh. But I think that it's time to jump in. Let's start learning about Lady Gaga where she came from. O-M-G. The story starts with a certain Stephanie Joanne, Angelina, Germanada,

being born in March of 1986 in Manhattan to an Italian Catholic family. Wait, you're telling me that's an Italian family? No way. Stephanie Joanna Joanna Jopinada. Her mother was a philanthropist and a business exec, her father, an internet entrepreneur, but also he was a like a failed musician, right?

but also he's actually the president of guest Wi-Fi. You know guest Wi-Fi you see everywhere? And every establishment you go to, every hotel you go into, he is the one that established wireless internet in hotels and public spaces. Wow. We're talking that money. Jesus fucking Christ.

Like, this is not, it's not just. I didn't know that was a company. I thought that was just a term. I had no idea. So he, that he is the president of that. Well, thank you, sir, for your shitty hotel internet. And she also has younger sister Natalie, who is now a fashion designer, but Natalie is also in the telephone music video that we're going to talk about. Oh, cool.

She's not the one she makes out with, right? No, no, no, no, no. Okay, good. She quickly became obsessed with music listening to Michael Jackson and Cindy Lopper on a mini plastic tape recorder. And she also loved the Rolling Stones and the Beatles by four years old. She taught herself to play piano, which led to taking piano lessons through childhood, which led to her being able to create music by ear. Like I said, I was classically trained as a pianist,

and that innately teaches you how to write a pop song. Because when you learn Bach inversions, it has the same sort of modulations between the chords. It's all about tension and release. And actually at the age of four is when she wrote her first song, called Dollar Bills. She said, I still remember the first song I heard. My dad was listening to what I now know was Pink Floyd's Money,

And understanding only the sounds of the cash register in the intro, I wrote a song called Dollar Bills on my Mickey Mouse staff paper. She's not going to tell us how it went. No, I don't know how it goes, but I imagine if, you know, wouldn't be, you know, the chee-me money. I believe it's, I don't ever run out of them. I have so many. Mommy and Daddy give it to me. Yeah, I think it's one of that. Lady Gaga's mother said she was creative and unequivocally her own person,

but her peers didn't always appreciate the things that made her unique and different. As a result, they would sometimes taunt, humiliate, and exclude her. It was hurtful for her to experience and heartbreaking for me to watch. And this is going to be a thread for the whole thing. She is about her being bullied for being different. Well, you have to remember, too, that as much as you know you want, to be envious of the fact that she went to the same school as Paris and Nikki Hilton. She was made fun for things like having a big nose and having, quote, rabbit teeth because

she didn't look like the Paris Heltons. And as someone that moved from New York to Florida. Paris Hilton kind of has a big nose, though. I mean, not anymore. No, she's fucking, you got to do a clueless on there. Are you forget how big nose jobs were? I thought you were referencing cocaine. Well, she also loved.

I mean, I imagine. I imagine. So, yeah, she ends up going to an all-girls private Roman Catholic school, and the bullying begins there. But still, she's excelling in the school's jazz orchestra, taking on leading roles in the school plays like guys and dolls. And I think it's very important to know that she was always very theatrical. It was never just about the music. There was so much of a performative aspect going on with her from the very beginning. all the way up to the point where she ends up going to NYC's Tisch School of the Arts for Theater.

A little side note you talk about how she looked different, how, you know, people, she, there was a lot in the special because this is really a great part of the special. Liza Minnelli goes to visit her backstage and she calls out Liza Minnelli in her live show in Madison Square Garden and everybody stands for Liza, which is like this amazing moment. And then, and then Lady Gaga talks about it. She was like, I was in school and they said, you'll never be the ingenue, you'll never be the star, because you don't have the look, you don't have the hair, you don't have the thing. And she, and she was like, and you know what I said?

I said, what about Liza? What about Liza? And so Liza was like this huge inspiration to her and getting to tell her that backstage was this like really touching moment in the documentary. And Liza Minna, like, she just gives it all up to Liza Minle. And they're just like hugging each other. They've never met before.

They're just like hugging each other and just like loving on each other. And Liza Minnelli is just like, you're so original, you're so wonderful. I just love what you're doing. It was just such a beautiful thing. So anyways, I thought that was really great. What do these teachers do? What do you do in your life where you become a teacher where your main job is to tell

17-year-olds they're not going to be the star? Have you been to acting school? You're never going to be a star kid. Yeah, it's acting school. That's all that acting school is, that have you any kind of different. I mean, the things that they used to tell us, they really do. It's ridiculous. I'll say acting school and any kind of theater school, at least speaking from experience,

it immediately sets you up for the lifetime of heartache that you are signing yourself up for. They started early. They let you know you are shit and no one will ever like you. Yeah. And then you do have to sort of thank them because at least for me, I've gotten half of the things I've gotten from pure resentment. Right. Just absolute spite. Of course.

And that's definitely a part of where Lady Gaga comes from. is spite, but she, I will say, she has been really good with working with a lot of the same people throughout all of these years, because starting at the age of 14 was when she started working with the vocal coach, Don Lawrence, who she still works with to this day. Oh, wow.

She said at 14, Stephanie, who is Lady Gaga, started to work with voice teacher Don Lawrence. She recalls the person who suggested her to meet him. She said, I was singing, I want it that way to myself in a shop down the street from my house. when the store owner, who happened to also be a musician, pulled me aside and slipped a phone number in my hand. He told me his uncle was a highly respected voice teacher

who he thought would like to work with me. I called him up and remember his words. I work with Grammy Award winning Christina Aguilera, Bono of U2, Mick Jagger, and as the list got larger, I got more excited. So she started working with him as a vocal coach at the age of 14. Again, her parents were very supportive of her dreams. Her mother even was taking her to open mic nights.

My mother would take me along and say, my daughter's very young, but she's very talented. I'll sit with her as she plays. That sounds, it sounds a little bit like a nightmare, mom. My daughter's very young, but she's very talented. Especially because she had said, she'd say to the manager, listen, I know she's too young to be in here, and I'm too old to be in here,

but she's incredibly talented, and she's a singer-songwriter, and because she sign up on your open mic list, and we just sat and waited around for them to call my name, I can't even, as my parents would never in a million years do that. Right. There's a, there's a way to look at that as good and bad. It is good and bad, yes.

Sometimes you don't want to be putting your 14-year-old child in a nightclub. That's the thing. And this is, she also had her first classic rock cover band, which some assume is called Macon Pulsifier because that is what she had thanked in the line notes of her first album. And that was in her freshman year of high school. the banded covers of Led Zeppelin songs along with Pink Floyd and Jefferson Airplane and at 13 she wrote her first piano ballad to love again.

She's been writing music her entire life. Yeah, it's crazy. So now she gets an early admission into NYC's Tisch School for the arts at the age of 17, where she studies music. She writes essays on various subjects, notably photographer Spencer Tunic, a photographer known for organizing large-scale nude shoots,

and Damien Hurst, A sculptor whose work tended to focus on life, death, and money, as seen in his skull made out of diamonds and real human teeth. I actually got to see that sculpture at PS1. It's a dope fucking sculpture. And really does inform me. It's very gaga, I feel like, that diamond skull sculpture. She ends up, though, dropping out of school her sophomore year in 2005 to pursue music full time. And this is when she gets nuts.

Yes. Now, Holden, you had brought up that Howard Stern interview with her. Uh-huh. And that is actually when she had first brought up the fact that she was sexually assaulted at NYU by a man 20 years older than she was. Now, this is a huge part of what, of where that rage and her wanting to own herself again came from because she didn't want to be defined by it. She said, I didn't tell anyone for, I think, seven years.

I didn't know how to think about it. I didn't know how to accept it. I didn't know how not to blame myself or think it was my. fault. It was something that really changed my life. It changed who I was completely. So this is around the same time that she's dropping out of college. So when she dropped out of a college, she made a deal with her parents. Her parents came to her and they gave her one year to be signed to a record label or she would have to go back to college, which again is something that in reading that part of me gets envious of that there was someone. I mean, you have to. Yeah, I can't

not bringing it up because it's hard that someone's like, I will pay your bills essentially. Go try and be famous. Yeah. But you know, you get through a different journey and sometimes it's better off the other way. But I get why people get mad about that. But she worked a rants off and she totally do it.

It's really looking at it from the sense of somebody in that position who was as talented and didn't have the money would have a harder time. But that doesn't negate her talent. Exactly. She definitely works harder than me. So I'm going to be completely fine with whatever's going on here. Oh, yeah. She definitely works hard of the beat.

But so she's performing in the Lower East Side. With the Stephanie Germanada band, by the way, the SG band. And she's feeling like her peers were all a little just samey. She said everybody did the same shit, super boring. I wanted to do something that was original and fresh. But also, there was the very important night that was a bit of a game changer for her, at least as she describes it. There was this one night where I had had a couple of drinks.

I had new material and I had on this amazing outfit. So I sat down, cleared my throat, and waited for everyone to go quiet. It was a bunch of frat kids from the West Village and I couldn't get them to shut up. I didn't want to start singing while they were talking so I got undressed. There I was sitting at the piano in my underwear. So they shut up. That's when I made a real decision about the kind of pop artist that I wanted to be. Which I thought was kind of fascinating.

Just like, and definitely turning into like, yeah, I'm going to go for it. of you know, I mean, she is, it's so risque. Like her, her outfits and stuff in the live show are like, like half of the time she's just in her underwear, essentially. And she owns the hell out of it. So on January 20th of 2006, the band, the SG band, played at the bitter end and sold out their first demo. So they continued to do concerts and writing music. And by March, the band sold their first official EP, red and blue at the band's home base, the bitter end. So I've been to the bitter end multiple times in New York City. It is a cool underground spot.

I think now it's more of a tourist destination. But even then it was still, it's a great place to go to hear people starting their stuff. We were talked about this. I believe that it was with Joan Rivers and I know that Bet Midler used to perform there back in the day

and I don't know. It's kind of fun that she did start in a dingy space. They talked about their rehearsal space for the SG band. He said, we used to rehearse at this really dingy practice space on the Lower East Side, like under some grocery store, where you'd have to enter through these metal doors on the sidewalk, and she had this huge keyboard that she'd wheeled down the street from her apartment on Rivington and Suffolk,

which just makes me think of all the weird places we have rehearsed in our lives. And also, just those metal doors on the sidewalk are all over New York, and they usually lead to, like, a dungeon. Yeah, yeah. Like a scary, scary place. And that's where they would rehearse. So after performing in a showcase, Talent Scout Wendy Starlin, admins her to producer Rob Fusari, also known as 8bit.

And this might be where the Beyonce connection starts because initially this piano competition-winning child prodigy, Rob Fusari, went on to write Destiny Child's first big hit, No, No, No, which led to writing hits for folks like Will Smith, Kelly Rowland, before he met the soon-to-be-dubbed Lady Gaga. And he had actually mentioned to Wendy Starland that he was interested in finding a female singer under 25 to front a band that was similar to the strokes. He said she didn't have to be good looking or even a great singer, but she had to have something about her you couldn't take your eyes off.

And so that's what which is, Ross Christ. But Wendy Starland found it with Lady Gaga, even though she's an amazing singer and hot as fuck. And she's like, but I think that she's got the it factor that Rob Fusari was looking for and she does. And I do think actually she's not the kind of beautiful that. is thought of in like the Hollywood version of beautiful. And so as we're all heavily criticized,

I think they would have not looked at her as a hot check. Which is ridiculous. I mean, I think it's ridiculous because I think Lady Gaga, and back then as well, to me personally, is very, very attractive. Of course, yeah.

But I understand she's not like the conventional parasol. So Lady Gaga is now traveling to New Jersey to developer songs and material. They began dating in 2006. and this is where she gets her name apparently, which is pulled from Queen's song Radio Gaga. They created a company called Team Love Child LLC and recorded and produced a bunch of electropop tracks

to send off to record execs. Death Jam shows interest at this point. And Lady Gaga is signed to a record deal in 2006, but man, just three months later they drop her. So this is really the part of the story that you have to understand how success just does not happen overnight, even for Lady Gaga. is a constant series of rejections and failures and almost, you know, and halfway

excitements and then failures again. And that's always the way it's going to be for the most part. And I looked into this because it shows how the entertainment business is so fucking fickle. So Ellie Reed was the head of Island Def Jam at the time. And he was the one that chose to give her up after three months. Why did he drop her? Because he was in a bad mood. The quote was, this artist came to my office. She played piano. She had on white go-go boots, like all the way up to here, thigh-high boots. She sat down on that piano. She played and she sang. When she was done, I said, you're an amazing artist, a true star, and you will change music. And I signed her. Her name was Lady Gaga. Then a few months later, I got her demos, and it was a

work in progress, and I was having a bad day. I'm telling you, I was having a bad day. And I said, you know what I really don't like it let her have her freedom let her go find her career it was the worst thing I've ever done you know what are you gonna do so because that shit happens this dude L.A. Reed is such a he's such a grosso gross so because in this same interview he went on to talk about how well two months later I found Bieber so uh I guess I'm I'm half the king of the entertainment business I just wish I was the full king of the entertainment business go I'm unfortunately going to have to tell you that they're all grossos. I know they're all grossos at entertainment, you ficklebees.

But yeah, honestly, I think it was the best thing for her that Def Jam rejected her because it made her hungry for a new evolution, which started not too long after that Def Jam's situation. Because then the real, I think, most important thing for her pre-blowing up pre-the-fame was playing burlesque clubs with her collaborator Lady Starlight. Who is Ursum, sir. referred to as Neo Burlesa Gaga said I was on stage in a thong

with a fringe with a fringe hanging over my ass thinking that had covered it lighting hairspray hairspray cans 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 Now Lady Gaga has actually credited Lady Starlight who was also behind some of the singer's eye-catching outfits as one of her club scene muses and the catalyst for her own interest in performance art. So Lady Starlight is why Lady Gaga is Lady Gaga for the most part. I love Lady Starlight. Did they crown themselves ladies at the same time? I think actually Gaga

got her lady from Lady Starlight. Yes. Her lady part. Yes. The Lady Park. In 2008, Lady Starlight was nominated for Best Go Go Dancer and Burlesque Performer and voted Best Female Hard Rock DJ 2008 by Elle Magazine. And this, I love that lady, this is really the beginning of Lady Gaga deciding that what she is doing is not

just pop music. It's not just singing into a microphone that she wanted to make performance art. Yes. And she had said, I actually never really thought of it like that, performance art until I started working with Lady Starlight. One day Lady Starlight was like,

It's not really a concert, and it's not really a show. It's performance art. What you're doing is not just singing, it's art. And once she pointed that out to me that I was already doing that, I just started analyzing that more and researching to try to take it in a different direction. And that's really what we did when they did that with the Lady Gaga and the Starlight Review. Yeah, at first they were hosting a weekly party called New York Street Revival and Trash Dance. I wish I could go to it.

I know. I want to go to it. where they would put on crazy performances of 70s and 80s songs. I mean, I was in New York when this was going on. I'm pissed. I know. We weren't cool enough. And yeah,

then in 2007, it turned into the Lady Gaga and the Starlight review, where Gaga would perform pop songs, and Starlight would spin glam and metal records between Gaga's songs, because Starlight's actually an American DJ. And, yeah, she was like this weird, like, which is great, too, because Gaga represented the pop. Starlight was metal.

Starlight was. a different, you know, a totally different edge. And they ended up actually getting to perform in Lollapalooza Music Festival in 2007. Yeah, it's really interesting. I would love if, Mary, could you actually play a little bit of their earlier stuff, even from Lollapalooza? Because it's really good. You can already kind of get a sense of the talent.

Hell yeah. And also, the 2007 Lollapalooza show, it was actually very important as a barometer for how famous Lady Gaga was about to become. And she wasn't even blonde yet. I read that in like three different articles over there. Lady Gaga, she wasn't even blonde yet. In 2007, she was technically killing. Because brunettes are disgusting.

I can't even believe they are allowed to live. Ouch. She said, because Lady Starlight would eventually go on to be the opening performer for three of Gaga's world tours, including the acclaimed 2014 art rave tour. So this is the beginning of them having a big show to themselves. So you got to remember. So this is 2007. Lady Starlight performed with Lady Gaga,

and they performed at the small stage at Lollapalooza at 3 p.m. for 45 minutes. Lady Gaga wore a black bikini, the top of which was adorned with chains, which she made herself, with high black stockings and heels. Her one costume change consisted of swapping the black bikini top for a mirrored, one that turned her breasts into disco balls. So I watched this performance. It's great.

But then you think about it, just three years later. Lollapalooza founder, Perry Farrell, already admitted that they spent over $150,000 for the production of Lady Gaga's headline two-hour performance. They built her her own stage to essentially do the monster ball at Lollapalooza. So I think the takeaway is always make your breasts disco balls. It's how you get to the bigger state. And she said after the 2007 performance of Lollapalooza, this is really where she sticks the landing with this. She stops acknowledging her real name.

When asked about where Stephanie went, she said she's not here anymore. She's covered in sequence. I kind of love it. I do think you have to. I think also I've heard that. Bet Midler say something similar along those lines. Like you have to just kind of like go insane. You lean in.

And accept that you're this other person now. Yes. Which isn't that awesome? Which in many cases makes people turn into like serial killers, but not if you're an artist. No. And we will, I'll talk about it in a little while. She's so, she dedicates her entire career to David Bowie. And this is the beginning of her.

Obby. Yub, yop, y'y-up, y'all-v. This is the beginning of her really leading into that of like, okay, I'm going to create this persona. I am this persona. And yeah, so she's infusing avant-garde EDM with glam rock and pop. She's performing the lady Starlight while also developing her sound with Fusari, which led her to signing another deal with record execpt Vincent Herbert on his label

streamlined records. Also during this time, through an internship at famous music publishing, she gets a deal with Sony ATV to write songs for Britney Spears, new kids on the block, Fergie, and the Pussycat Dolls. Unfortunately, I have to have a little pause here because I must bring this up. I have to.

As someone that digs conspiracy theories, this is the point in time. This is the point in time. This is exactly where we have to talk about this. I don't know if you guys have heard the Lady Gaga conspiracy theory. This is not true. It's absolutely not true, but it is very interesting. When Lady Gaga was working with Rob Fusari, she's writing music for other people.

This is also around the time that she starts opening for new kids on the block. She's writing songs for them. She was also brought in to write music and also be a backup singer for an artist called Lina Morgana. Lena Morgana was also working under Rob Fusari. Morgana and Lady Gaga wrote and recorded about a dozen songs together. None were released commercially, though the song Wonderland with backup vocals by Gaga has been leaked to YouTube. Mary, can we listen to a clip of Wonderland by Lena Morgana? When you look up the video, so it's not only, she sounds similar to her.

They have a very similar tone in how they created pop music, especially at this time. But also, her style was just, this is before Lady Gaga really felt. into the Lady Gaga role. Her style was very similar as well. Morgana shot videos and began posing for publicity stills wearing lingerie, outlandish wigs, platform shoes, all which would later become Gaga staples.

And I love this in this article. It says, and to be fair, all of which had been staples of the club kids scene for at least a decade. But it was around that time that Lady Gaga started morphing into Lady Gaga, gave up her real name, and recording her debut solo album, which was The Fame.

Morgana's tracks were never released, and at this point in time, Gaga's album, The Fane, dropped, raised up the charts to sell 12 million copies. And while this is happening, right before the album had dropped, Lena Morgana committed suicide.

While at a party, she threw herself off of the top of a building and an NYU party. And people think that Lady Gaga murdered her to take over her persona, because they would have been immediately head-to-head on the pop charts. If they started releasing music at the same time, and she's wearing the same kind of style,

she would have gone head-to-head. And people think she murdered her because Lena Morgana was this massively rising teen star, and since she was working as her backup dancer and backup vocals, that that was a lesser role. So Lena, according to eyewitnesses, was happy in dancing on the roof of a hotel of some sort. Then around lunch, curled herself,

off to her death. And two weeks later is when the Lady Gaga album dropped. Weird. Hold on. Are you telling me that new kids on the block had new songs in 2007? Yeah, they did like a comeback thing. This is definitely not true. They know it is not true.

Lena Morgana seemed to have a lot of issues. However, down the line, Lena Morgana's mother will sue Lady Gaga for copying her style and essentially taking the career life of her daughter. Wait, so who's that? Oh, the mother. Yeah, Lena Morgana's mother. And this did it happen, but it is interesting. So back to reality. Wait a second. This is where a musician Akon comes in. Impressed with Lady Gaga's voice, he gets her on his label, Con Live via Interscope, and makes her his quote, franchise player. Also, she's working with producer Red One on a handful of songs.

Red One is like the dude. They do a bunch of songs for a potential debut album, and together they would end up doing poker face, bad romance, and just dance. And Lady Gaga signs to Cherry Tree Records, which is another Interscope imprint. Still, they're having a hard time getting her music on the radio. And the thing you have to remember,

not only is the radio deem it too racy, quote unquote, which it was pretty racy, especially for the time. To which Lady Gaga, by the way, responded, My name is Lady Gaga. I've been on the music scene for years, and I'm telling you, this is what's next. But also, outside of America, EDM does well. But inside of America, at least on the radio, pop-wise, not a big seller. Like, for sure, and not pushed very well.

And she really did bring EDM into the pop world in a huge way. So Gaga moves from New York City to L.A. to get out of a toxic relationship. And she's also, by the way, she was hit, it fucking hard in New York City. Getting hammered, doing coke. I mean, it's the New York City life. That really is, that is the late night of there.

And this is when she's working with Red One. And right before she wrote Just Dance with Red One, they had also written Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys, which comes out on the Fame Monster, and they also wrote that in one day. And yeah, her first visit to a Hollywood studio with Red One, she ends up writing Just Dance in 10 minutes while very hungover. It's great.

said that record saved my life i was in such a dark space in new york i was so depressed always in a bar i got on a plane to l.a 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 and cleared it for me and so a lot of the songs in the album are inspired by a relationship she had with a heavy metal drummer named luke back in n yc during uh including paparazzi. Gaga said, I wouldn't have been

as successful without him. I've never really loved anyone like I love him. Or like loved him or like I love him. That relationship really shaped me. It made me into a fighter. Is a good relationship one

that makes you into a fighter? I don't think so, but really what the problem was that her boyfriend told her repeatedly that she was never going to make it, which is why this was such a big imitist. I mean, I think that it was,

you know, I'm sure it was complicated. Have you seen a picture of him? Have you seen a picture? He looks like the quintessential hairband drummer douche. You mean sexy arms with a bad temper? Me loves me loves. Keep jack you away.

And also at this time, but she had bought a bunch of books on Andy Warhol and she kind of got obsessed with reinventing herself in a Warhol-esque vision. Now, when it initially had come out, her first hit Just Dance was everywhere. And she had told Out Magazine that her goal with the fame was, I very much want to inject gay culture into the mainstream. It's not an underground tool for me.

It's my whole life. I always joke the real motivation is just to turn the world gay. Also inspired by Andy Warhol was the House of Gaga, because it was very much modeled after Warhol's factory. Gaga said, Warhol said art should be meaningful in the most shallow way. He was able to make commercial art that was taken seriously as fine art. That's what I'm doing too. And so she wanted to combine pop culture art, technology, and essentially pitch concepts to a team that they could realize as they are a range of visual artists, fashion people, choreographers, music people, etc.

And she also talks about how when she writes songs, you said this earlier, she immediately is thinking about all that stuff. This was her realizing that. This was her saying, okay, cool, I'm not just going to, you know, write a hip pop song. I'm going to have a team of people who are going to take every aspect of this song and realize it in a visual art sense, in a fashion sense, and every single possible way she could. She definitely was a perfectionist. And I will say stars are just like us. Lady Gaga's favorite song on the album is paparazzi.

And it's actually, you know what, it's a difficult choice, but it's mine too. Wow. I love paparazzi. Paparazzi's great. And I know that it's not a bad romance, but paparazzi's so fucking good. Yeah. It's, oh, by the way, a quick note about the Luke being the fighter thing with boyfriend Luke. By the way, paparazzi, half about him.

After their breakup, she promised herself she'd never love again and that she would, quote, make him rue the day he doubted her. So I think that was big. Yep. And also, this is another part of really the song paparazzi as well as the entire album. She said it's about her struggles. Do I want fame or do I want love? It's also about wooing the paparazzi to fall in love with me.

It's about the media hoaring, if you will, watching Erzatsats. I don't know, is that how you say it? Earthsats. Yeah. Making fools out of themselves to their station. It's a love. song for the cameras, but it's also a love song about fame or love. Can you have both or can you only have one? I think that you could only have one, I guess. Also, but also, paparazzi is a nod to what

she calls performance art and shock art that she saw in Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Nicole Richie in their partying heyday. And she refers to that as a form of performance art as opposed to as celebrity. But it is something that's really beautiful about her performance art is Mod Jam, which is the sort of glamour mixed with the grotesque. And I love that. And it really, it is a lot. Glamour is grotesque a lot of the time. And if you really look at the worst moments in those, you know, Celebutant lives, they're really ugly and bad and dark. But also

they're covered in diamonds. And I'm just like, oh, I love that shit. Me loves, me loves. I don't want to think about all the blisters that are all over their feats. Then, of course, there's so many hits on this, especially with the re-release fame monster. But then there's also poker face, both about gambling ex-boyfriends, as well as how she has secret bisexual fantasies about women while having sex with men. I mean, we've all been there before. Now, Natalie, you wanted to talk about the telephone music video because I love the telephone music video. It tops out at a nice, easy nine and a half minutes.

long. Apparently, Lady Gaga hates the telephone music video. Really? And why is this? She knows that it's amazing and she knows that it's epic and that the song was actually originally written for Britney Spears. So she sees the song as way more of a Britney Spears song especially with how much

voice, what is it? The voice thing. The voice thing over it. But what she had said about it, she said, I hate it so much. The auto tune? Auto tune. Beyonce and I are great together. But there's so many fucking ideas in that video. All I see in that video is my brain throbbing with ideas. And I wish I had edited myself a little bit more. I do understand that. So her sister Natalie is in the scene because they look so similar. The scene where her old self,

her Stephanie Germanata, quote unquote, is in the cell with her and like the leather kind of thing with the sunglasses on. That's her younger sister. Oh, cool. Okay, interesting. Who is a fashion designer and she's also killing it. I mean, that video is fun as shit and it sort of pays homage a little bit

to all the women behind bars movies of the 60s and 70s. The Alma Louise and all that kind of stuff to. And all like the Jack Hill kind of movies where it's like the big bird cage where it's sort of like soft core lesbian porn. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's really fun. And again, like with her grotesque beauty, there's that scene when she comes in where she's wearing the glasses with the burning cigarettes on them and shit like it's so cool and so why is this called the fame why is her first debut album the fame she said what is the fame it's carrying yourself down the street like i'm beautiful and dirty rich but i've got no money she says fame is not pretending to be rich it's carrying yourself in a way that exudes confidence and passion for music or art or fishing or fishing or whatever the hell it is that you're passionate about. Fishing. And projecting yourself in a way that people say, who the fuck is that? It has nothing to do with money.

Who's that fish man? Who's that fish man? He smells like fish. And I want to kiss on him. She says, I can wear a $2 pair of pants and a t-shirt and a pair of sunglasses for two bucks on the street. But I can make it look like I'm Paris Hilton. You got to have the fame.

You got to exude that thing. You got to make people care. You got to know and believe how important. important you are. You gotta have conviction in your ideas. It makes me feel great. You gotta love yourself. Man, Paris Hilton seems to have had a lot of influence on her. I wonder if Peresilton was one of her bullies. I wonder, but I think that they might also enjoy each other now. So I think they may have grown past it because again, well, I like Paracilin. Now, I love Parasilton. I feel like she, I feel like she grew up into kind of understanding her absurdity. And also changed. Because we have to remember

everyone has the ability to change and we have to give them that license that maybe she was not as much fun in the past but you know what? She's working on it. Well, I've been saying bad stuff about her behind her back so whatever. You're mean and I don't like you. She could literally kill you. I wouldn't say that.

I don't I? She literally kill you. She'll have you taken out. Look, I've just been talking bad behind her back. That's all I'm saying. But so Lady Gaga opens for the Pussycat dolls in 2009. The fame is released in 2008. She sets up for her own the fame ball tour that same year. And while on tour, she writes eight more songs for a fame reissue called

the Fame Monster that were inspired by her love of horror films. And this is where she injects this horror thing into her vibe. And I love this. I love the fame monster more than the fame. Bad romance, the video, that is my, I think that the music video for bad romance is her ultimate thesis statement for at least that phase in her career. I was watching it the other day, I just fucking love that video.

And if you watch, so in the Fame Monster Ball tour or whatever it is, you see, like, she goes through, it's great because it's like, it's a New York City story where she's trying to get her and her friends to the Monster Ball, but the car breaks down in Brooklyn, it's very Broadway, it's very theatrical. Is that like the Aerosmith Roller Coaster? Because I'm pretty sure that's the intro to the Aerosmith Roller Coaster. We got to get to the show. Remember?

Does it give you a bad a headache? So, yeah, it's very, it's, but at one point in the show, they go to a tornado, they get lost in Central Park and a tornado hits and they end up in a dark, dark part of Central Park. And that's when the horror stuff happens and they're all covered in fake blood and there's this whole, and they're like writhing around in this, and it's very fun. I love that she had this horror influence. Yes, and it makes so much sense because she was writing the extra. songs for the fame monster while doing the songs and touring with the fame. So NBR described it,

and I really like this description, if the fame is a sun-drenched poppy celebutante, the fame monster is the edgy, fashioned forward, Euro-Gothic version of that musical ingenue, a frame of reference relevant to the growth of Lady Gaga. In the months leading up to the fame monster's release, the singer was dealing with the highs and lows of overnight stardom from her debut, and and the variety of struggles that manifest during relentless tours and travel. And so your mind goes to a dark place. And she was working on this all the time. And this is a,

you see it again and again with all of the people that she has collaborated with and worked with for years. She wants to be able to record and write at the drop of a hat. And because she worked, that's how her brain worked. And if she was thinking something and she was feeling something, She needed to jump into the bus, get on the keyboard, and start writing the music because she didn't want it to leave her head. And from the outside perspective, you would say, like, oh, she's a diva.

That's not being a diva. That's someone that is so in tune with what they need creatively that she has to let that stuff flow out, which is why the fame monster is so fucking good. Thankfully, she's actually good at it because I feel like a lot of people do that and then they just don't make anything good and then everybody. Right. No, it's crazy to see in that concert special. She closes with the song Born This Way. That's like how far ahead of things she is. Like she's like already onto the next album.

Yeah. Yeah, she's like already in her next album while touring her last one, which is a crazy turnaround. And I feel like that that is the difference between when we did all the research on Prince. I was just thinking about Prince. I keep thinking about Prince where he had so much and he just kept putting out, just kept being on out. She was still aware of the fact that you can't put it.

put out three albums in a year. She is on top of it. And what we will, especially as we continue on this journey when we get to the other part of her career next week, it is so cool to watch someone that, as much as she's

on herself about not editing herself, she's also not sucking her own cock either. She is working hard, but also allowing people around her to be like, maybe don't exactly do that. Maybe don't exactly do that. And even though she had control over everything, which she did, she's still allowed outside input of what she should

and how she should be moving. So it's also in the summer of 2009 while touring that she starts calling her audience Little Monsters during her live shows. This proceeds, by the way, Beliebers, Swifties, everything. She was the first person to really start doing that, start giving her fans a name, which created- I don't know. What about the Lamley? The Little Lambs? The Little Lams? Yeah, Mariah Carey. Oh. The Lamp. The Lamp? Did that happen before Lady Gaga? Yeah, the lamely definitely happened before. I don't actually, I didn't even, I forgot that the lamely was a thing.

Oh my God, how could you ever forget? I'm a, I'm a lamb till the day I die. She's brilliant at creating a fan community. She's got, she's also doing the monster claw hand symbol, having fans put the quote, Paul's up at concerts. She even gets the claw tattooed on her back at one point. Lady Gaga said, I love what they stand for. I love who they are.

They inspire me to be more confident every day. When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl. But I say, bitch, you're Lady Gaga. You better fucking get up and walk the walk today because they need that for me. And they inspire me to keep going. I love how she is very tough on herself to the point that when she created this persona, that people that worked with her for years, she doesn't show up to record in sweatpants.

She is always made up. She is always on. I mean, yeah, I don't have workout clothes on right now. I'm in a ball gown for this performance. No, she is, she's full on, I want to say lost her mind, but in the best creative way possible. I want to lose my mind that way. I'm really, I'm at the point where I've been wearing onesies

for so many days in a row. I think I'm going to switch directly over to ball gowns. I think that's great. I'm here for it. I really want to. I'd like to now take a little moment because I was curious about this. I had always known about the importance of the relationship between Lady Gaga and Alexander McQueen.

So it was nice to learn a little bit about him. I think it has something to say about some of just the fashion stuff that incorporates into her music and her sound. Alexander McQueen, British fashion designer. He got his start on Seville Row, a street in London known for its bespoke tailoring for men's clothes

that later gave him the rep for giving out impeccably tailored looks in the fashion world. Sex, sex, sex, sex. He designed the wardrobe for David Bowie's tours in the mid-90s. Especially, I loved learning this. He also designed that famous Union Jack coat that Bowie dons on the cover of his 1997 album Earthling, which led Bjork to seek him out to get her look for homogenic. That is another iconic album cover.

which happened that same year. I think that it makes so much sense that she chose to work so closely with Alexander McQueen, specifically because he worked with David Bowie so closely. Lady Gaga was really trying to draw heavily from the glam rock era of the 1970s.

Which also pulls on grotesque beauty a lot of them. Exactly. And so working with Alexander McQueen and Gaga says that she credits Bowie's music for introducing her to a lifestyle of total immersion in music, fashion, art and technology. You meet or see a musician that is something that is of another planet, of another time, and it changes you forever. I believe everyone has that. Don't you? That one thing

you saw as a kid that made you go, oh, okay, now I know what I am. And that was David Bowie for her. And being able to work with Alexander McQueen, who has such amazing ideas. So I definitely got lost in a worm time because I was not that familiar with Alexander McQueen. Look into his fashion designs. And shows. And the shows he put on. Just crazy shit. Like had like a, um, the, the woman who's like standing there with two, these two robot

arms like spraying her with like ink jets or whatever. There's just all these crazy. He did all these like horror themed fashion shows. That one with like the woman in the glass case with filled with moths. Yeah. Oh, I saw that one. It's so, uh, it's very cool. And as some, I don't know anything about fashion or fashion design.

But really, you can lose yourself for at least an hour worm time on that. And so Gaga debuted her song Bad Romance at the Alexander McQueen Fashion Show, which was live streamed and caused it to crash. It was so popular because people were turning in to just hear the new song. She broke the internet. She did break the internet. She broke it. She dons a full look in the music video for bad romance from that fashion show

during the part where she chants walk, walk, fashion baby. Which put Alexander McQueen into the mainstream. And this includes those wild-looking armadillo heels. Those armadillo heels always made me feel weird. That's exciting that one's opposed to. Your foot doesn't move that way. Have you ever worn a heel like that, Natalie? Not of an armadillo.

But you mean like the kind that where your foot's always? Just where your foot goes all the way. Like it seems like you're on point almost. Just point shoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's like that same kind of thing. I just can't imagine. It was like, how does she?

Not only how does she walk, but how does she dunce in them? I think a lot of padding. I imagine they're padded inside. Ouch, it makes my toes hurt. Ouch! And this is around the time, too, that she had also vowed to Alexander McQueen that she would never be seen wearing sweatpants. Even though later on we do see in 5'2 that she does.

sometimes wear sweatpants. But she had said because you don't want to see David Bowie in a track suit. He never let anyone see him that way. The outlet for my work is not just the music and the videos. It's every breathing moment of my life. I'm always saying something about art and music and fame. That's why you don't ever catch me in sweatpants until the documentary.

I don't really like the way she's being derogatory towards sweatpants. I think sweatpants are great. You get great fluid movement. This other quote, too, I don't want people to see I'm a human being. I don't even drink water on stage in front of anybody because I want them to focus on the fantasy of the music and be transported from where they are to somewhere else.

It's exhausting. It's a little much. If you're just on earth, we need to go to heaven. Oh, that is scary. So later down the line, it's a little scary. It's a little scary. She eventually also wrote a song for him.

Fashion of his love is a song Gaga wrote to him as a tribute. His name McQueen is mentioned in the second verse. The song was one of the first songs written for her third album, Born This Way. And so, yeah, tragically, he hangs himself in 2010 at just the age of just 41. Lady Gaga said upon his passing, I am here today not just because of my talent, but because he believed in me.

I didn't realize he was so young. Yeah. My weird brand of pop art manic expression of my emotions was the part of me. He knew he taught me. I will be grateful long. after I pass and join him. Wherever it is, they put souls like us.

Oh, that's actually really beautiful. Yeah, it is. It really is beautiful. So, yeah, let's talk about that fucking me dress. Oh, yes. But we have to talk about the Monster Ball Tour first because this was something I had actually no idea about. And I was talking with Jeff about it. He's like, yeah, it was going to be the sickest fucking thing in the world. Oh, yeah.

Then it was going to be Kanye and Gaga. Initially, hip-hop artist Kanye West. and Lady Gaga had plans to launch a joint tour together. It was going to be called Fame Kills starring Lady Gaga and Kanye West. It was supposed to start in September 2009 as a concert tour that West and Gaga would co-headline. Why did it get canceled? Because that was the year that Kanye and T-Sway went on the 2009 MTV Music Awards and had their kerfuffle. After that happened, Kanye decided to take a break from music.

and Lee Gaga addressed the situation at Billboard's annual Women in Music Luncheon where she cited creative differences as the reason for the tour is cancellation. In an interview, she stated, Kanye is going to take a break. But the good news is, I'm not. Women and music luncheon. I mean, that does sound, you know what, give me a free lunch? I'll sing for you. Why they make women have the lunchons all the time.

I love a lunch. So, she sets out on the Monster Ball Tour, and that is the special that I saw, the Lady Gaga presents the Monster Ball Tour at Madison Square Garden. It is two hours and ten minutes long. It is fucking incredible. Definitely watch it. It's really, really strong.

And just really nice for someone like me who hasn't seen her in concert to get to see the full, full show. Like, and all, everything it is. At one point, she's on just her and a piano, and she crushes it. It is, like, unbelievable. There's just so many great moments in that show. We were like applauding at the end. Yeah, it's nuts.

It's crazy. That is what they recreated at the 2010 Lollapalooza stage for her. And in reference into how different was from her one costume change in 2007, the Monster Ball Tour featured 15 over-the-top costume designs, plus a giant gyrosphere, a flaming piano, a neon car, a series of skits, and an enormous squid attacking her. on stage. The giant squid monster is awesome. They don't set a piano on fire in the special, but yeah, it is, there's so many, there's this one point where she is wearing this like remote

controlled angel fairy dress that she like is like standing on a platform like high above everybody and the whole dress is just constantly moving and changing and just there's so many insane costume changes. Oh, that was the same year. I think that of, the performance that I mentioned earlier at the VMAs, which was what really struck me originally about her, which is so fantastic. You go watch it now. It still gives me goosebumps to watch it because she's in the whole thing, everybody's in full white. And towards the middle of the music, somewhere she has like a blood pump thing that starts coming out of the front of her costume. And she still perform me. Oh my God, I remember that. And then she at the end, she,

she has like a wrist strap that comes down and she grabs it and it lifts her up in the air and she's covered in blood and she just ends it she has the blood pulling in her eyeball and she doesn't even blink like she's just this dead ass

gaze with this like fake blood pouring into her eye it's awesome it's so crazy okay dude she's dedicated I'll give her that she is dedicated so now can we talk about that fucking meat dress I love that this is a description as an intro to it,

is that what this article loved about Lady Gaga is that she wasn't afraid to turn old school Hollywood glamour into something a bit more vampy and campy. She wasn't just a leading lady. She was a femme fatale in a meat dress. I love that. Yeah, this was in 2010. Gaga was the most nominated artist in that year's VMAs

with a record 13 nominations. She wore three outfits that night. The first two were Alexander McQueen in Armani. And her third was a dress, hat, boots, and purse made of raw meat. I just, the idea of what that smelled like makes me sick. It does. I'm sure that it was a little yuck. Or they must have probably covered it in some sort of enamel or something, right?

I don't know. I don't know. It was designed by Frank Fernandez and styled by Nicola Formchetti. And they went with flank steak as the cut would keep the best. I get it. They had not modeled the dress or anything like that until the day of. And they had to stower into it. And she explained to Ellen in an interview why she chose this.

She said, if we don't stand up for what we believe in, and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones. And that's what an interview had asked her, after the meat dress, did you feel that way? Where do I go from here? She said, well, the meat dress, quite frankly. I didn't think it was going to be as shocking to everyone as it was. But that's just me. I have a sort of eccentric brain. So for me, I was like, of course this makes sense.

I'm showing up to make a statement about don't ask, don't tell. I went to the event with soldiers who were discharged from the army because they were out or they were found out. And to me, if you're willing to give up your life for your country, does it matter what your sexual orientation is or what your gender identity is? For me, it was like, flesh is flesh. So that was the intention of the meat dress. For me, that wasn't shocking. Obviously, it was shocking to the world. And I had to say, it was quite recently,

after doing a Star is born and working with Bradley Cooper, and my experience, even with winning an Oscar, I sort of just went to myself, you have a much greater mission on this earth than to freak the hell out of people. Your mission is to give people a form of love through your art that lifts them up. Can't you do both?

I guess you can't. I mean, she's definitely doing both. She didn't think that the meat dress is going to freak anybody out. She didn't think like all of the animal rights people were going to lose their fucking minds. I have to say personally, I love the meat dress. One of my favorite things is watching the upset looks on all of the stuffy celebrities' faces while Gaga dons her meat dress. It's like one of my favorite things. I just love like upsetting the squares in that way.

Totally. I think that if I would have come across it in person immediately, I would have been very upset by it because of. stuff, but I do respect and like appreciate what she was doing and it's cool. And this is coming from an almost lifelong vegetarian so I feel like... It's just it's so rock and roll. It's just so fun.

It's so rock and roll, man. Like, I love that shit. I have she, you know, I wanted to get back to some of that crazy shit. Which I think that she's going to which is why we had started doing this research in the first place that this is leading up to her next album drop, but she just pushed the album

drop. So I think that we're going to have to wait a little bit longer for Gaga to be back to this Gaga because I love this Gaga. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So let's talk about born this way. Lady Gaga said the nexus of born this way and the soul of the record reside in this idea that you were not necessarily born in one moment. You have your entire life to birth yourself into becoming the ultimate potential vision that you see for you. Who you are when you come out of your mother's womb is not necessarily who you will become. Born This Way says your birth is not finite, your birth is infinite. Yeah, bitch.

So yes, Born This Way was the first song written for the album of the same name. Gaga said, I want to write my This Is Who the Fuck I Am Anthem, but I don't want it to be hidden in poetic wizardry and metaphors. I want it to be an attack, an assault on the issue, because I think, especially in today's music, everything gets kind of washy sometimes, and the message gets hidden in the lyrical play. She wanted the song to harken back to 90s pop anthems of InVogue, TLC, and of course, Madonna, she have got a bunch of criticism for Born This Way being like, what song is it very similar? Express yourself. And Madonna also sees it as such an issue as well, even though Lady Gaga's whole thought on the idea was like, I'm just glad that she's listening to my music. So I think that's really fucking rad. because she didn't mean for it to be like express that's not

she definitely of the definitely Madonna is obviously one of her inspirations sure and we know how we feel about it on this show she definitely I think does it a lot better than Madonna see yes

I would I could I could agree with you on that she and she wrote and recorded this album we mentioned it a little bit before but she wrote it all over the world including her own tour bus, Abbey Road Studios in London, recording studios in Australia, Paris, Norway, Nebraska, Vegas, Italy, Miami, and NYC. She worked with artists like queen guitarist Brian May, and you can hear that saxophone on that album.

That is Clarence Clemens from the East Street Band. She's a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. Clarence Clemens said he was putting together an exercise machine at his home in Florida when a call came that Gaga wanted him in her recording studio. studios stat. He dropped what he was doing, flew to New York, met Gaga at midnight, and had a track recorded three hours later. Clemens told Rolling Stone, she said, we'll put the tape on and you just play. Play from your heart. Play what you feel. It was all very pure. Clemens Sachs can also be heard throughout the hair single, including a solo. He says he was a Gaga fan prior to working with her

and as an even bigger supporter now. He says, she's the real deal. All the craziness and stuff, there's a purpose to all of it. She has no boundaries. It's a day I'll never forget. This album is all over the place. Not just EDM. We're talking opera, heavy metal, rock and roll, disco, all of this stuff.

This is a much more thematically, tonally wide-ranging album. And yeah, she's using instruments such as an organ. We talked about the saxophone already. A Gregorian chant-inspired male vocal choir in Bloody Mary. it's just so wide.

Oh, Bloody Mary's a great song. It's such a good song. And what I love, though, according to Fernando Garibet, who is the music producer she'd been working with for four years at this point, and she considered her official music director

on her albums, said that she wrote most of the music herself and that she needs no help writing her music. He says she doesn't need anyone to write a hit song. A lot of times, it's 100% her. But she's generous enough to give the producers who worked on this album a percentage of the songwriting for the production

and whatever contributions we gave an arrangement or a few lyrical suggestions here and there. She's open to collaboration. It's another thing that I think that I keep thinking about Prince and as someone that was very closed off and how he created things, that it's awesome to see someone that is more open even though she is a control freak.

One of my favorite songs in the album is The Edge of Glory. I can do it back. How does she sing like that and dance like that? I want to be her. It's about the death of Lady Gaga's grandfather, and more specifically, quote, about how when my grandma was standing over my grandfather while he was dying,

there was this moment where I felt like he had sort of looked at her and reckoned that he had won in life. Like, I'm a champion, we won. Our love made us a winner. They were married 60 years. I thought about that idea that the glorious moment of your life, life is when you decide that it's okay to go. You don't have any more words to say.

More business, more mountains to climb. You're on the cliff. You tip your hat to yourself and you go, that's what it was for me in that moment when I witnessed it. That is how I'm going to go. I'm going to tip my hat. You're going to be on the edge of glory. And also it was influenced by Lady Gaga's favorite film Rocky.

Your favorite movie is Rocky. Interesting. It's an interesting mashup of two very different ideas, but you know what? We dig it. Yeah, that album's great. I love the cover. I love her head on the motorcycle. I think it's fucking awesome.

Fuck yeah. And Lady Gaga also co-founded the Born This Way Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 2011 with her mother, Cynthia. And it was established at Harvard University, and the foundation aims to create a, quote, braver, kinder world for youths by creating safe spaces, promoting the learning of life skills and providing opportunities to improve local communities, essentially battling bullying while also trying to

work with bullies. Yeah. Making a bunch of snowflakes. Yeah. Way to go. That's a, but another thing I really love about Lady Gaga's, not only is she, her inclusive message, but also that part of the Born This Way Foundation is that it is based on the laurels of positive energy and being good to each other. And that is something that she is a huge proponent of. And every, person that works with her talks about that she is a very she's a good kind person and she tries to be aware of of the other the people that help her the people around her she's very good in making sure like hey are you okay are you doing good and it's not just thinking about herself and you look at a diva and you think she doesn't give a fuck about anyone except for herself and that's not the case and i think

that's what we need in this world that's what we need from our icons to be able to to to put put out a good positive message. We need it. Even if it's not all cutesy and butterflies and rainbows, because that's not what life is. And I do remember it was around this time. It might be a little bit after here. She did a live performance of the song she wrote about her sexual abuse.

And she had all of these abuse survivors just standing behind her. And they kind of walked up at the end. Oh, yeah. We'll talk about that next week with the hunting ground. Okay. Yeah. But I mean, but that's what's so cool is that she's working with people and is trying to help people be open about their past experiences that not only are not good, but shape who we are, unfortunately. And how she had said earlier that she's not defined by it, but it is a part of her and it is something that she has to deal with.

And I just, I'm, I'm very inspired by Lady Gaga. Absolutely, same. All right, I think that's our for part one on Lady Gaga. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been one hell of a run. I'm excited to do part two. There's so many things to talk about.

The where her career goes is so fascinating after this point. It's so cool. Yeah, it's so cool. She makes so many, the most rock and roll thing ever doing a Tony Bennett album. I know, that is so fuck.

That's rad. It's so cool. It's so cool. She will be part of about a thousand memes in the last 10 years of her career he created a lot of them oh yeah baby thank you guys so much

also a very happy birthday to Lady Gaga whose birthday is in March 28th I think yeah it's like a couple days yeah yeah yeah okay so we're doing it for her birthday happy birthday Lady Gaga that's what we're doing we love you guys so much thank you again for joining us you can find me on Instagram

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