Lady Gaga - Born This Way (May 23)

[jazzyskye10²]

Lady Gaga, 'Yoü and I'

There was a lot of speculation about what Lady Gaga might wear to the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. How could she top last year's meat dress? The answer: she doesn't even try. Gaga kicks off the show in an oversized white T-shirt, greaser hairdo and black slacks. That's right, she appears as her male alter ego, Jo Calderone, first seen in Vogue Homme Japan in 2010 and — for those of us who don't buy the Japanese version of Vogue — most recently in the video for her latest single, "Yoü and I." Jo delivers a monologue straight out of a high school theater class, complaining that Lady Gaga is hard to date because she refuses to be real. Wait, let me get this straight: Gaga dressed as a man is pretending to date Gaga as a woman? O.K., fine. At this point in the pop star's career, I'm willing to believe anything.

Gaga then breaks into a stripped-down version of "Yoü and I," one of her weaker songs that sounds like a half-hearted interpretation of a blue-collar anthem she imagines someone might listen to while driving a pickup truck across the American heartland. Tonight's version, however, isn't that bad. It's not Auto-Tuned, it's not computerized and when Gaga sings it live, I actually kind of enjoy it. Wait a second, is that Queen's Brian May on guitar? How many people in the MTV audience actually know who Brian May is? On second thought, let's not think about that.

Side note: Apparently Gaga took a tumble during part of her performance, but MTV cut away too fast for viewers at home to notice.

Grade: A-

www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2090903_2090901_2090895,00.html


"Andrew Dice Clay was awesome! No wait... that's Gaga? As her alter ego Joe Calderone, she looks good in male drag, wearing a white t-shirt and a black blazer, cracking dirty jokes about how Gaga wears her stripper heels in the shower. People have joked forever that the weirdest thing Gaga could possibly do is come to the VMAs wearing normal clothes. And that's exactly what she's done — except that those clothes are normally worn by a dude.

Her Fonzie getup for ''You and I'' was pretty rock 'n' roll, as was her beer-spraying, piano-banging, nearly-falling-off-the-stage performance, and her synchronized dance with what looked like the guys from Grease. And was that the amazing Brian May from Queen playing guitar? What could be better? Only the fact that, judging by their expressions, Britney Spears, Bruno Mars, and Justin Bieber were totally traumatized. B+"

www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20387882_20523784,00.html#21047378


Gaga kicked off the actual festivities with a downright Oscar-worthy performance of "You and I" as her Ralph Macchio-esque alter-ego Jo Calderone. But Calderone wasn't the only surprise guest to the party: Queen guitarist Brian May, who riffs on the song's studio version, crashed the performance mid-way for some super-sized shredding.

Gaga, still in Calderone mode, returned later in the evening to bestow Britney Spears with the Michael Jackson Vanguard award for her contributions to music video and dance. Accepting the moonman, Spears had to fend off the romantic advances of the testosterone-jacked Gagarone. Later still, Calderone accepted the Best Female Video award ("Born This Way") on behalf of Gaga.


www.billboard.com/events/mtv-video-music-awards-katy-perry-adele-1005331372.story#/events/mtv-video-music-awards-katy-perry-adele-1005331372.story

[Black Jesus]

Some of those EW Performance Reviews...I don't even know

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

I love that all the other singers seem to be really into her there. Well, except Katy I think. Unless she was playing around too.

I also LOVE that Dave Grohl seems really into it too. I wonder what he actually thinks of GaGa now? I feel like as far as pop singers go, GaGa is probably the one to actually get the respect of some of the hardcore rockers. You can't buy that sort of appreciation.

Gaga kicked off the actual festivities with a downright Oscar-worthy performance of "You and I" as her Ralph Macchio-esque alter-ego Jo Calderone.

This'll sound crazy but how do the Emmy's work? Do they nominate full shows/specials like this or portions of them? Any chance Gaga might get recognition? :o

[lunaboona]

I think Dave Grohl was more excited to see Brian May than Gaga.

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

Aug 29, 2011 22:35:35 GMT -5 lunaboona said:

I think Dave Grohl was more excited to see Brian May than Gaga.

Well, I know that. But having him come out on stage during a GaGa performance must have made him reconsider his thoughts about her if she's awesome enough to have someone like Brian May (and Clarance before him) perform with her.

[jazzyskye10²]

-heyitsaleviyie.tumblr

[jazzyskye10²]

Rare interviews with Lady Gaga

[Deleted]

Bit extreme.

[Love Plastic Love]

The clips of her with Kanye are so cute from that night I may start shipping them.

[₫anny Jerz ♔]

I'm gonna need a Gaga/Kanye collabo. How they haven't worked together yet is beyond me.

[Love Plastic Love]

29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqpz22Jnod1r1do7jo1_500.png

Adele and Jo enjoying a smoke together LOVE LOVE LOVE. I want to casually have a smoke with Jo or Gaga and Adele even though I haven't smoked in years.

Agree we need a Kanye/Gaga collabo.

[Fat Ass Kelly Price]

Yes. Kanye and Gaga is a must. It's a shame that their tour was cancelled.

[Kishi KCM]

YouTube Views 08/31/2011

* Born This Way - 74.5 million
* Judas - 97.7 million
* The Edge of Glory - 32.2 million
* You and I - 16.4 million

[sbk]

I made a radio edit of Scheiße that cuts down the intro because I thought it was too long and imo it's the only thing that keeps it from being a smash

soundcloud.com/evymmu611/scheisse-short-edit

Do you like it?

[jazzyskye10²]

Lady Gaga Was 'Fearless' As Jo Calderone At VMAs

VMA executive producer says Gaga's commitment to her character raises the bar for future performers.




One of the breakout stars of the 2011 Video Music Awards was Jo Calderone, the smoke-spouting, slightly stained mechanic who stormed the big show to deliver a lengthy monologue about his former love Lady Gaga, and then launched into an epic performance of her current hit, "Yoü and I."

And while you may think that Calderone was just Gaga playing dress up, well, you'd be wrong. Because for all intents and purposes, Gaga became Calderone ... diving deep into the character during, after and, rather surprisingly, before the show.

"We had talked to her about the creative [for the performance] a few weeks before the show. We had a call with her, and it became clear that she's going to be Jo," VMA Executive Producer Dave Sirulnick explained.

"She showed up as Jo, rehearsed as Jo ... if you said 'Gaga,' she wouldn't respond. After rehearsals, she comes over, she says to me, 'It's nice to meet you,' and I say to her, 'I know your friend Gaga,' and she says, 'That Gaga, what a bitch!' " Sirulnick recalled. "She did not break character once. She walks in backstage and, in front of a whole bunch of people, went into the men's room. Later, we had all the Young the Giant fans lined up waiting for the band to rehearse their performance, and Jo was walking out of the building to her dressing room and someone yelled 'It's Gaga!' But she didn't respond, just kept on walking, until finally someone yelled, 'Hey, Jo!' and then she turned and waved."

So given all that, it wasn't exactly shocking that the commitment to character continued long after Gaga — er, Calderone — had finished the show-opening performance of "Yoü and I." Jo, of course, not only returned to the stage to help pay tribute to (and kiss) Britney Spears, she also accepted the Best Female Video Moonman for "Born This Way" with an impassioned speech.

But even when she wasn't in the spotlight, Gaga didn't break ... not even for a second.

"Over the years, lots of people have done lots of things, lots of people have worn lots of things, but no one has been that committed, that in character," Sirulnick laughed. "She's smoking in the building, she was holding court in the crowd, you know, Kanye, Katy, Adele, Tony Bennett, they loved it. They respected her commitment and her level of artistry."

And, of course, they couldn't help but be inspired by it too. Because by never wavering, by putting it all out there as Jo Calderone, Gaga raised the bar for her fellow VMA performers, too, and it was up to them to match the heights she achieved.

"For her to go out there and just be so into this character, it was fearless, and you saw a lot of that at the VMAs,"Sirulnick said. "Chris Brown was fearless in the way he flew across the stage. Beyoncé was fearless in her amazing vocal performance and what she revealed. Jay and Kanye were fearless in saying 'Here we are, watch us.' Adele was fearless in her performance, doing it in one shot, saying 'I'm going to stand here and put it all on display.' "


MTV.com

[jazzyskye10²]

Aug 31, 2011 12:41:13 GMT -5 sbk said:

I made a radio edit of Scheiße that cuts down the intro because I thought it was too long and imo it's the only thing that keeps it from being a smash

soundcloud.com/evymmu611/scheisse-short-edit

Do you like it?

Love it! Scheiße is still my favorite track on BTW, funny enough my only problem with it was how long the intro was. Good Job! :)

[Deleted]

Aug 31, 2011 15:17:42 GMT -5 jazzyskye10² said:

She walks in backstage and, in front of a whole bunch of people, went into the men's room.

Love you, Gaga.

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

I see people saying that Annie Lennox did it back in 1984 but did Annie go to that extent?

[jazzyskye10²]

Aug 31, 2011 17:23:45 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

I see people saying that Annie Lennox did it back in 1984 but did Annie go to that extent?

What Annie did was play upon her androgynous look by dressing as Elvis for the performance of 'Sweet Dreams'.

Kelly Osbourne made yet another ignorant tweet comment by saying that Gaga should give credit where it is due. ???

Annie performed as Elvis for a performance, Gaga was Jo for the entire night. Nobody knew just how far she would take the Jo Calderone persona and I can't help but laugh at Gaga's many detractors claiming how bad the performance was but they search the high heavens to try and dismiss what she has done by screaming bloody copycat. Mess.

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

Speaking of copycat, Adele is pretty much doing exactly what Amy Winehouse was doing five years ago. No one is calling her out on that.

(Not that I'm actually serious about this but honestly, that's how ridiculous all of this seems to me. If you're going to make fun of GaGa for copying and then praise Adele to the high heavens, let's be fair here. Adele also is doing nothing that hasn't been done before.)

[Love Plastic Love]

No one is doing anything that hasn't been done before. People have decided to target Gaga non-stop for it and it amuses me because literally every pop star out there is basically releasing remakes of previous hits and wildly copying from various muses. Every. Single. One.

I guess some people would just call for the end of pop music and pop stars altogether though just to end copying!!!!

[Gravity.]

But then they'd all be accused of copying indie music!

[Love Plastic Love]

Ok fine music itself is not allowed to exist anymore because everything has been done before by someone somewhere. So, I hope the internet is happy-no more music or musicians!!!!!!

[Black Jesus]

Aug 31, 2011 21:07:24 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

(Not that I'm actually serious about this but honestly, that's how ridiculous all of this seems to me. If you're going to make fun of GaGa for copying and then praise Adele to the high heavens, let's be fair here. Adele also is doing nothing that hasn't been done before.)

THANK YOU. I do love Adele though :)

[David]

She just announced on twitter she's releasing 5 more videos of You & I.

[Deleted]

Yep, 'fashion films' by Inez Van Lamsweerde and the first one comes in less than 3 hrs.

[jazzyskye10²]

Lady Gaga Makes Vanity Fair’s Influential Business People List



Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z are the only musicians to make Vanity Fair magazine’s new list, which ranks the most influential business people in the world who are “an innovative new breed of buccaneering visionaries, engineering prodigies and entrepreneurs, who quite often sport hoodies, floppy hair and backpacks.”

Gaga came in at No. 9 and is the highest-ranking woman and entertainer, as well as the youngest person on the “New Establishment” list.

1. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
2. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google
3. Jeff Bezos, Amazon
4. Tim Cook and Jonathan Ive, Apple
5. Jack Dorsey, Square, Twitter
6. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz
7. Reed Hastings, Netflix
8. John Lasseter, Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios
9. Lady Gaga, singer
10. Dan Doctoroff, Bloomberg L.P.
11. Dick Costolo, Twitter
12. Mark Pincus, Zynga
13. Jim Breyer, Accel Partners
14. Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Graham King, Movies
15. Michael Moritz, Sequoia Capital


-GGD

[Musiq]

"You And I", is such an artistic step up for her. It's really good that this is a single, it's different and it's different for her in terms of being a commercial single.

[When I Ruled the World]

Gaga has sold 4,292,000 albums worldwide. Here is the breakdown:

Week 1: 1,921,000 (#1)
Week 2: 487,000 (#1)
Week 3: 302,000 (#2) (AKB 48 1)
Week 4: 247,000 (#2) (Adele 1)
Week 5: 221,000 (#2) (Adele 1)
Week 6: 199,000 (#3) (Beyonce 1, Adele 2)
Week 7: 154,000 (#4) (Arashi 1, Beyonce 2, Adele 3)
Week 8: 152,000 (#3) (Adele 1, Beyonce 2)
Week 9: 133,000 (#2) (Adele 1)
Week 10: 113,000 (#5) (B'z C'mon 1, Adele 2, Amy Winehouse 3, Eric Church 4)
Week 11: 106,000 (#4) (Adele 1, Amy Winehouse 2, Miliyah Kato 3)
Week 12: 87,000 (#6) (Jay-Z and Kanye 1, Adele 2, Luke Bryan 3, Winehouse 4, Yamashita 5)
Week 13: 84,000 (#4) (Smap 1, Jay-Z and Kanye 2, Adele 3)
Week 14: 86,000 (#5) (Adele 1, Jay-Z and Kanye 2, The Game 3, Barbra Streisand 4)

Worldwide Total: 4,292,000

Total US sales for Lady Gaga's BTW album

Week 1: 1,108,000 (#1)
Week 2: 174,000 (#1)
Week 3: 100,255 (#2)
Week 4: 67,500 (#4)
Week 5: 49,000 (#8)
Week 6: 38,200 (#12)
Week 7: 30,000 (#8)
Week 8: 25,029 (#13)
Week 9: 26,817 (#12)
Week 10: 25,075 (#11)
Week 11: 25,449 (#11)
Week 12: 18,565 (#18)
Week 13: 20,202 (#12)
Week 14: 19,907 (#13)

Total: 1,731,417 (credit to areyoureadytojump)

I finally got caught up!

[Love Plastic Love]

She will definitely pass 5 by the end of the year!