Textual analysis (Lady GaGa)

Lady Gaga's real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta born on the March 28, 1986.

During 2005, Lady Gaga was signed by Def Jam Records for a short time, but was dropped just months later. Being dropped by the label forced the singer to find venues and perform on her own in clubs and venues in New York City. There, she collaborated with several rock bands, and began her experimentation with fashion.

In 2007, at the age of 20, Gaga began work at Interscope Records as a songwriter for other artists on the label, including Britney Spears, New Kids on the Block, and The Pussycat Dolls. R&B singer Akon discovered Gaga while she was performing a burlesque show that she created, called "Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue." Impressed, Akon signed the performer to his label under the Interscope umbrella, Kon Live. Through 2007 and 2008, Gaga wrote and recorded her debut album, The Fame. The record had positive reviews and popular success in the United States. With the help of her own creative team, "Haus of Gaga," the performer also began to make a name for herself internationally. Now Lady Gaga is known for her eccentric fashion and over the top set for her performances, overall it is clear to say that Lady Gaga follows her own path in terms of music and fashion although this hasn't always been the case, she used to be compared to Madonna a lot when she was fresh on the scene.
Lady Gaga's debut single, "Just Dance," was released to radio in early 2008, and received both popular and commercial acclaim. The song was then nominated for a Grammy Award (for best dance recording) in 2008. The song lost to Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," but this didn't keep Gaga from reaching No. 1 on the mainstream pop charts in January 2009. The second single off of The Fame, "Poker Face," earned Gaga even more success.

The video that I will be analysing is Lady Gaga 'Applause' which has been directed by Inez and Vinoodh. This video in particular strays away from the typical convention that you would normally find in a pop video, but then again that is expected from Lady Gaga, bearing this in mind it does stick to genre in terms of containing dance routines, body exposure as well as close ups of her face, pelvis and mouth (especially her tongue). By having all that I have listed hints to the audience that this song in particular is within the Pop genre.

Throughout the video I feel that there is a strong relationship between the visuals and lyrics. Firstly there is a scene where Gaga is a 'showgirl' which coralates to the song as there is an audience watching her routine, there are elements where the visuals does contradict itself when Gaga is positioned as though she's a work of art this may imply to the audience that in order to 'applaud' something it doesn't necessary have to be a show in order to appreciate it. Through the music video in general there is clear evidence of various interpretations of what an audience sees, what makes this video stand out is that the video exaggerates such scenarios in order to make them comprehendible to the viewer in the few minutes that the song is playing for.

Throughout the video Lady Gaga usually keeps her clothes to a minimum. It could be argued that she doesn't need to do that since she is a well-established artist who can afford to be fully clothed but on the other hand it is not like Gaga to be conservative.

The video is cut to the beat of the music with the added effects of lights which also flicker to the beat. Even when the beat gets faster the videos keeps in time with cutting to the various characters that Lady Gaga portrays during the music video.

This is being sold through Gaga’s looks as well her being well known for her extravagance as she’s known for doing things over the top or doing something one step further. She has kept in with the genre conventions with the dance routines and close ups. She is also very consistent with her videos so they tend to be anticipated upon release.

The video can be perceived to be assume that there are elements of sexuality in it as there is a scene that she only shells covering her modesty which could be mis-understood for exploitation as this is what she feels she has to do in order to sell records. Since the artist is on stage it suggest that we are looking since the audience would the ‘fourth wall’ which is not there since we are occupying it by watching. Sexuality is again represented by mis-en-scene when she wears rather tight fitting clothes.

There are some inter-textual references for example there is a correlation between the video and Madonna when she was going through her ‘sex phase’, Gaga’s interpretation of Marylyn Monroe although in a scary way, strobe lighting implies that she is being watched by an audience following my point being that we are made to believe that we are the audience watching her, the sounds and video have a strong link between each other which is very evident in the way that she takes on all these ‘show characters’.

The video itself is both performance and concept based because there are wider ideas that the audience has to think about in order to search for the deeper meaning that Gaga is trying to let us in on. Gaga is already known for being rather odd in the sense other artists wouldn’t do that e.g. The Saturdays.

The video isn’t too controversial meaning that it’s not the type of video that would have to be shown late at night in order for the public to see, even if that was the case Gaga has enough recognition that it would almost be certain that her fans would try access her videos online which are widely available to the public. Even though the genre that she is in is POP she has her own unique touch to it making her music stand out from all the other POP artists within her genre.