Celebrity Lady Ga Ga loves her legwear. This is one entertainer that has tights as her trademark whether she is performing or running around in town. Lady Ga Ga has helped demonstrate to the younger generation that tights are cool and can be fun to wear on a regular basis.
I think
old school fashion flip flops and bare legs are over, it is time to
start wearing tights as outwear, as a fashion statement like Lady Ga Ga.
When
Lady Ga Ga was a little girl, she would sing along on her mini plastic
tape recorder to Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper hits and get twirled
in the air in daddy’s arms to the sounds of the Rolling Stones and the
Beatles. The precocious child would dance around the table at fancy
Upper West Side restaurants using the breadsticks as a baton. And, she
would innocently greet a new babysitter in nothing but her birthday
suit.
“I always loved rock and pop and theater. When I discovered Queen and David Bowie is when it really came together for me and I realized I could do all three,” says Ga Ga, who nicked her name from Queen’s song “Radio Ga ga” and who cites rock star girlfriends, Peggy Bundy, and Donatella Versace as her fashion icons. “I look at those artists as icons in art. It’s not just about the music. It’s about the performance, the attitude, the look; it’s everything. And, that is where I live as an artist and that is what I want to accomplish.”
The
CD’s opener and first single, “Just Dance,” gets the dance floor
rocking in her shiny tights with it’s “fun, L.A., celebratory vibe.” As
for the equally catchy, “Boys Boys Boys,” Lady Ga Ga doesn’t mind
wearing pantyhose and her influences on her sleeve. “I wanted to write
the female version of Motley Crue’s ‘Girls Girls Girls,’ but with my own
twist. I wanted to write a pop song that rockers would like.”
I
t’s
no wonder that little girl from a good Italian New York family, turned
into the exhibitionist, multi-talented singer-songwriter with a flair
for theatrics that she is today:Lady Ga Ga.
“I
was always an entertainer. I was a ham as a little girl and I’m a ham
today,” saysLady Ga Ga, 22, who made a name for herself on the Lower
East Side club scene with the infectious dance-pop party song “Beautiful
Dirty Rich,” and wild, theatrical, and often tongue-in-cheek “shock
art” performances where Ga Ga – who designs and makes many of her stage
outfits — would strip down to her hand-crafted hot pants and bikini top,
light cans of hairspray on fire, and strike a pose as a disco ball
lowered from the ceiling to the orchestral sounds of A Clockwork Orange.
“I always loved rock and pop and theater. When I discovered Queen and David Bowie is when it really came together for me and I realized I could do all three,” says Ga Ga, who nicked her name from Queen’s song “Radio Ga ga” and who cites rock star girlfriends, Peggy Bundy, and Donatella Versace as her fashion icons. “I look at those artists as icons in art. It’s not just about the music. It’s about the performance, the attitude, the look; it’s everything. And, that is where I live as an artist and that is what I want to accomplish.”
“My
goal as an artist is to funnel a pop record to a world in a very
interesting way,” says Lady Ga Ga, who wrote all of her lyrics, all of
her melodies, and played most of the synth work on her album, The Fame
(Streamline/Interscope/KonLive). “I almost want to trick people into
hanging with something that is really cool with a pop song. It’s almost
like the spoonful of sugar and I’m the medicine.”
On
The Fame, it’s as if Lady Ga Ga took two parts dance-pop, one part
electro-pop, and one part rock with a splash of disco and burlesque and
generously poured it into the figurative martini glasses of the world in
an effort to get everyone drunk with her Famous pantyhose legs. “The
Fame is about how anyone can feel famous,” she explains. “Pop culture is
art. It doesn’t make you cool to hate pop culture, so I embraced it and
you hear it all over The Fame. But, it’s a sharable fame. I want to
invite you all to the party. I want people to feel a part of this
pantyhose lifestyle.”
“Beautiful
Dirty Rich” sums up her time of self-discovery, living in the Lower
East Side and dabbling in drugs and the party scene. “That time, and
that song, was just me trying to figure things out,” says GaGa. “Once I
grabbed the reigns of my artistry, I fell in love with that more than I
did with the party life.” On first listen, “Paparazzi” might come off as
a love song to cameras, and in all honestly, GaGa jokes “on one level
it IS about wooing the paparazzi and wanting fame. But, it’s not to be
taken completely seriously. It’s about everyone’s obsession with that
idea. But, it’s also about wanting a guy to love you and the struggle of
whether you can have success or love or both.”
Lady
Ga Ga shows her passion for pantyhose fashion in public and for love
songs on such softer tracks as the Queen-influenced “Brown Eyes” and the
sweet kiss-off break-up song “Nothing I can Say (eh eh).” “‘Brown Eyes’
is the most vulnerable song on the album,” she explains. “‘Eh Eh’ is my
simple pop song about finding someone new and breaking up with the old
boyfriend.”
For
the new tour for this album, fans will be treated to a more polished
version of what they saw (and loved) at her critically acclaimed
Lollapalooza show in August 2007 and Winter Music Conference performance
in March 2008. “This new show is the couture version of my handmade
downtown performance of the past few years. It’s more fine-tuned, but
some of my favorite elements to my past shows – the disco balls, hot
pants, sequin, and stilettos complimenting my choice of pantyhose for
the evening – will still be there. Just more fierce and more of a
conceptual show with a vision for pop performance art.”
It’s
been a while since a new pop artist has made her way in the music
industry the old-fashioned/grass roots way by paying her dues with seedy
club gigs and self-promotion. This is one rising pop star who hasn’t
been plucked from a model casting call, born into a famous family, won a
reality TV singing contest, or emerged from a teen cable TV sitcom. “I
did this the way you are supposed to. I played every club in New York
City and I bombed in every club and then killed it in every club and I
found myself as an artist. I learned how to survive as an artist, get
real, and how to fail and then figure out who I was as singer and
performer. And, I worked hard.”
Lady Ga Ga adds with a wink in her eye, “And, now, I’m just trying to change the world in my pantyhose one sequin at a time.”