Lady Gaga

Trivia

• The album's lead single, "Just Dance", was released on April 8, 2008 and had reached number one in five countries.
• She has been influenced by David Bowie, Queen, Madonna, and Michael Jackson.
• At seventeen, she was one of twenty people in the world to have gained early admission to the New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
• Her stage name, Lady GaGa, is a reference to the song "Radio Ga-Ga" by Queen.
• Interscope music executive Vincent Herbert hired her in January 2008 as a music writer.
• She states that she is "very into fashion" and that it is "everything".
• Her song "Boys, Boys, Boys" was inspired by Mötley Crüe's hit "Girls, Girls, Girls".
• She learned how to play the piano at the age of four, wrote her first piano ballad at 13, and began performing at open mic nights by the age of 14.
• Her parents are Joseph, an Internet entrepreneur, and Cynthia, a telecommunications assistant.
• She makes mention of the band, The Killers, in her song "Boys, Boys, Boys".

Quotes

• "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 Fame is about how anyone can feel famous. 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 lifestyle."
• "I'm really free-spirited about love and sexuality, which I think is apparent in my music and even the visuals, which are all very androgynous. But the minute you say something about who you are, people think you're just playing the 'edgy card' and that's not what I want people to think of me as. I want them to think fashion, pop culture, avant-garde, fearless - the girl who brought the straight boys into the gay club."
• "I'm a huge fan of Kanye West's record. When he first came out this year [2008] with Love Lockdown, I wasn't really sure, and I listened to it and said, "Gosh, he's really going in a different direction." But it's very kind of Phil Collins futuristic, and the deeper and deeper I got into the album, the more brilliant I thought it was."
• "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."
• "On first listen, Paparazzi might come off as a love song to cameras, and in all honestly, 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."
• "I absolutely wanted it to be a reflection of my lifestyle - but through a more pop lens. That's sort of my whole idea: I really want to filter all of my ideas through a pop, commercial lens in order to reach more people – and kind of make a contribution, you know? And for this video, I wanted it to be a house party instead of just doing a typical night club video, which is I think what one might expect from hearing the song. So I wanted to give something that was a bit of a contrast and said so
• "My goal as an artist is to funnel a pop record to a world in a very interesting way. 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."
• "In my earlier days of writing for myself, I wanted songs to be more complex. I thought they had to be for me to be taken seriously as an artist. But writing for other people, you get to learn things about yourself and take on their insecurities. Now I can appreciate and incorporate more simplicity in lyrics and melody."
• "That time, and that song, was just me trying to figure things out. Once I grabbed the reigns of my artistry, I fell in love with that more than I did with the party life."