Megastar Monday: Lady Gaga
Monday, March 28th, 2016March 28, 2016
Today is the 30th birthday of the American pop singer, songwriter, and musician Lady Gaga. The megastar first became enormously popular eight years ago and continues to reinvent herself creatively today. Lady Gaga is known for her unusual costumes and live performances, and for speaking out on political and social issues.
Lady Gaga is an American pop singer, songwriter, and musician. Credit: © Everett Collection/Shutterstock
Last month, Lady Gaga won acclaim for her patriotic rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Super Bowl XLIX; for her flamboyant tribute at the Grammy Awards to British rock star David Bowie, who died earlier in the year; and for her performance at the Academy Awards of a medley of songs from the 1965 motion picture The Sound of Music that won over even the film’s star, Julie Andrews. Lady Gaga also won hearts on Oscars night with her moving performance of her song “Till It Happens to You.“ United States Vice President Joe Biden introduced the performance, which was dedicated to survivors of sexual assault. As she performed the song, Lady Gaga, who has openly discussed her own alleged assault, was surrounded by other survivors with empowering messages written on their arms. She wrote the song for the 2015 sexual assault documentary The Hunting Ground.
Lady Gaga was born on March 28, 1986, in New York City, New York. Her real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. She began studying piano as a child. At 17, she was admitted to study music at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University (NYU). But she left NYU to pursue a career as a performer. A music producer gave her the name Lady Gaga in 2006. The name was inspired by the song “Radio Ga Ga” (1984) by the British rock band Queen.
In 2008, Lady Gaga’s first single, “Just Dance,” was released. The song became a worldwide hit. Her first album, The Fame (2008), featured the song “Poker Face.” Both the album and the song also became huge worldwide hits. The album also featured the hit “Paparazzi.” The Fame Monster, a reissue EP of The Fame that featured eight new tracks, was released in 2009. EP stands for extended play and is a type of musical recording that includes several songs but is not considered a full-length album. The EP featured the hits “Bad Romance” and “Telephone.”
Lady Gaga’s second studio album, Born This Way, debuted at #1 when it was released in 2011. The album’s title song delivered a record-setting debut on Billboard’s Pop Songs radio airplay chart after just three days of availability. The song had 4,602 plays, the highest total detections by a debuting song in the chart’s 18-year history. “Born This Way” also became the fastest-selling single on Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store. The song went to #1 in 23 countries and sold more than 1 million copies in five days. Lady Gaga’s third album, Artpop, released in 2013, also debuted at #1 and featured the hit “Applause.” In 2014, Lady Gaga and the American singer Tony Bennett had a #1 hit with Cheek to Cheek, a duets album of jazz standards. During the first half of 2015, the pair toured together in support of the album in 36 shows across Europe and North America, many of which were sold out.
Lady Gaga has won a number of awards, including 6 Grammys. She also holds 12 records in the Guinness Book of World Records, including most followers on the social networking website Twitter. In 2011, Lady Gaga had more than 10 million Twitter followers, whom, along with her other fans, she affectionately addresses as “Little Monsters.” In 2015, she began acting in the television series “American Horror Story: Hotel.” In January 2016, Lady Gaga won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the series as the Countess, a bloodsucking fashionista who owns a mysterious hotel in Los Angeles, California.
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