Lady Gaga Tour

Archive for June, 2011

Rock N Roll Hall of Fame Inducts Gaga’s Meat Dress

Posted by Chase Jackson On June - 14 - 2011

Remember Lady Gaga’s fresh meat ensemble to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards? That brisket and steak of a wardrobe that the queen monster wore on the said event is now on its way to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame exhibit in Cleveland, and it will stay there for a whole day for all the curious – and the flies – to see.

The Franc Fernandez/Nicola Formichetti cold cut masterpiece drew a lot of attention, especially the attention of animal rights group PETA, who thought of the ‘dress’ as a butchered disaster via a released statement that reads:

“Meat is the decomposing flesh of a tormented animal who didn’t want to die, and after a few hours under the TV lights, it would smell like the rotting flesh it is and likely be crawling in maggots — not too attractive, really.”

But The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame thinks otherwise as they are making the ensemble a part of their upcoming exhibit on Thursday entitled, ‘Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power’. The showcase will stress “the flashpoints, the firsts, the best, the celebrated — and sometimes lesser known women — who moved rock and roll music and American culture forward,” as stated in a press release.

Lady Gaga, Kristin Chenoweth to Guest Judge ‘SYTYCD’

Posted by Chase Jackson On June - 14 - 2011

‘So You Think You Can Dance’ returns for its eighth season on June 15th via FOX, and it promises to have a star-studded judge line-up beginning with ‘Will & Grace’ alum Megan Mullally sitting as one of the first round judges for the dance competition.

But it is another guest judge set to appear in the middle of the show’s eighth season that is expected to draw millions of viewers. In a report released by Xfinitytv, SYTYCD head judge and executive producer Nigel Lythgoe asked Lady Gaga to appear as a guest judge in one of the season’s future episodes.

“I asked her when she performed on the ‘American Idol’ finale if she would come on and she said yes. She is on tour so they said it would probably be later in the season. She is an amazing dancer and performer,” Lythgoe said.

Tony and Emmy Award winner Kristin Chenoweth, who gained mainstream popularity via the now defunct TV series ‘Pushing Daisies’ and in FOX’s ‘Glee’ as recurring character April Rhodes, is also slated to join the judging panel while Neil Patrick Harris and Ellen DeGeneres both expressed interest and are still in talks about judging as well.

‘Born This Way’ Sales Drops 84% in Second Week

Posted by Chase Jackson On June - 10 - 2011

What goes up must come down, and it must come down real hard especially when the accompanying big promotional discount has come to a close.

That has been the story behind Lady Gaga’s ‘Born this Way’ plummeting second week sales. From a sky-rocketing and record-breaking 1.1 million copies sold on its first week out, the queen monster’s third studio set plummeted real hard in the sales department, only moving 174,000 copies on its sophomore stay in the shelves and it won’t be soon before other trailing artists, such as British soul sensation Adele, topple over the ‘Judas’ singer from the top of the Billboard 200.

The steep first week sales for ‘Born this Way’ is largely attributed to Amazon’s 99 cent promotional scheme, which they ran twice and even included extra perks such as additional Cloud Player storage space. Cloud Player is Amazon’s answer to Apple’s iTunes. The Amazon sale moved 650,000 to 700,000 copies of the album, which is more than fifty percent of its first week figures.

Adele, who is currently nursing a case of laryngitis (probably because of her throaty and soulful voice in singles like ‘Rolling in the Deep’ and ‘Turning Tables’) making her cancel the rest of the North American leg of her tour, might just reclaim the top spot in the Billboard 200. She sits comfortably right now at second place with 121,000 copies of her debut album, ‘21’, sold this week.

Eminem Knocks Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber in ‘A Kiss’

Posted by Chase Jackson On June - 7 - 2011

Just when we thought he’s reformed and all, Eminem’s back to his old ways again, dissing fellow music acts and also other personalities (i.e Sarah Palin, Kim Kardashian) and notching singles high up in the charts at the expense of singers like Moby, Jessica Simpson, Fred Durst, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey and her husband Nick Cannon, and even the King of Pop Michael Jackson, all of whom he has ridiculed at great length through his music videos or has hurled insults and snide comments, remember what he said about Moby in his 2002 hit ‘Without Me’?

“You 36 year old bald headed f** bl** me, You don’t know me, you’re too old, Let go, it’s over, nobody listens to techno…”

So after almost a decade of being out of the spotlight and then eventually coming out with a new album that was a product of his sobriety (2010’s ‘Recovery’), and collaborating with other artists (with Rihanna for ‘Love the Way You Lie’) who could’ve just been another unfortunate victim of his sharp words had he been in the mood to do so, you’d think you’ll never see or hear Slim Shady’s rapid fire of offensive remarks again, well, that would’ve been true until today.

Eminem’s side project, Bad Meets Evil, a rap duo featuring him teaming up with hip-hop act Royce da 5’9”, has just dropped their new single, ‘A Kiss’, taken from their upcoming EP ‘Hell: The Sequel’ set to hit shelves next week. The song is reminiscent of the old Marshall Mathers with some new flavor from his new rap partner and some new artists to be inducted in Eminem’s long line of people who simply tick him off.

“Tell Lady Gaga she can quit her job at the post office / She’s still a male lady, raps the ‘Not Afraid’ singer who added more explicit quips about Lady Gaga’s privates aimed to re-fuel the speculation that the ‘Judas’ singer is a hermaphrodite. While that rumor is more than a year old and the queen monster has since then survived this outrageous write-up with a succession of hits that can equal Mathers’ collection, his outrage towards Justin Bieber is more controversial:

“Him don’t give a damn about Bieber, do Him? / What a demon, a behemoth, evil just seems to be seeping through him.”

Eminem’s first rise to chart-topper status was built on controversial singles whose lyrics are too explicit and whose videos are too vulgar, especially for the conservatives. It now remains to be seen if the same bullying treatment to his contemporaries will continue to work as a successful song material or even as an album inspiration, especially now that the music landscape is in a constant state of change.

Little Monsters Attack Black Keys Drummer on Twitter

Posted by Chase Jackson On June - 7 - 2011

The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney is just one of the many music personalities populating Twitterverse, and today, he is also one of the many microblogging junkies bearing the wrath of the little monsters, Lady Gaga’s legion of passionate and loyal followers, and there at least 10 million of them in the popular social networking site.

The wrath, of course, was in the form of sharp, mean tweets bordering on bullying, demanding the drummer to go to hell and leave their queen monster alone.

It all began last month when Carney tweeted about Gaga’s performance at the season finale of Saturday Night Live, where Justin Timberlake appeared as the night’s host. His first tweet about it initially seemed harmless and vague (“Madonna is killing it!”) but when he seconded it with a “I still can’t get over madonna’s performance at the grammy’s this year! She was born that way!” comment directed at Ke$ha’s Twitter handle, @keshasuxx, it wasn’t too long till the little monsters treated that last post as a snide comment to their mother and retaliated with a fury that flooded Carney’s Twitter page with profane and heated comments directed at him, so furious, most comments needed to be spell-checked for grammar and punctuation, but the drummer didn’t mind the incoherent commentary, insults and even grave threats since he retweeted most of it, or at least the ones that were outrageous enough to be re-posted.

“Hey, little monsters! Everyone knows lady gaga sounds nothing at all like Madonna. I was joking! I am so depressed,” tweeted Carney, but apparently, it was too late for that. When that didn’t seem to work, he tweeted Gaga herself: “Your anti bullying message isn’t really translating to your little monsters!”, a post that was reposted by more than a hundred of Carney’s followers.

In the end, he just capped off his day in Twitterverse, a day that continued to be filled with the wrath of the little monsters, with “Today was awesome!” but added that it wasn’t entirely awesome because Bethenny Frankel was a bummer.

Lady Gaga is not just a creative genius and a cyberspace superstar, she also has some good business sense and knows how to turn her stature as a major player in pop culture into treasure gold.

A true internet media savvy herself, Lady Gaga is said to invest – both financially and intellectually – to a new social network that will be tailored to cater the needs of celebrities and performers like her who utilize social networking sites at great lengths to communicate with their fans. The website will be called Backplane and it is getting some serious financial backing not only from the singer but also from Google’s Eric Schmidt.

So what does Backplane have that Twitter and Facebook doesn’t?

Speaking to The New York Times, Troy Carter, Lady Gaga’s business manager explains, “Backplane will provide a platform and tools for communities to socialize and communicate on a more focused level. We needed a more concentrated base.” He also added that the idea for Backplane sprung about after his meeting with Apple’s Steve Jobs, where the CEO of today’s most valuable brand explained the prospects of Ping, Apple’s social networking portal tailored to music lovers, and Lady Gaga teaming up to boost both the site and the artist’s reach among frequently online music junkies. But Carter thought of something much better.

While Gaga is said to own a fifth of the future site, majority of the funding will come from Tomorrow Ventures, a venture firm established and owned by Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google. To date, the firm has already produced more than a million dollars to operate the site.

According to social media strategist and researcher Jake Wengroff from Frost & Sullivan, Gaga’s Backplane has a good chance of not only breaking ground in the already overpopulated social networking marketplace, but it can also survive the virtual industry by virtue of the singer’s constant dynamism, fearless perspective and personality, and innate shrewdness. She knows how to utilize the media’s fascination with her, her music and her personal style as her platform to reach out to the world and even boost her name’s market value.

“Lady Gaga is different, as she is quite aware of the power of technology to drive interest in her music — while simultaneously netting her outsize returns. Not all of her and her business partners’ ventures will make money, but her willingness to lend capital and credibility to even the tiniest of start-ups and concepts can only be a boon to the industry overall,” Wengroff explains.

Indeed, Gaga’s goal of spreading her philosophy through music and fashion via the internet is turning her into an icon, a successful entrepreneur and a highly sought-after brand, as well. Her recent ventures with Zynga, makers of the popular Facebook app FarmVille, and social app creators Tapulous, famous for its Tap Tap game series for the iPhone and iPad, has made her more valuable in the financial market and more popular in the social networking world, which continues to evolve to include several platforms such as music and gaming. And considering she’s got more than 10 million followers on Twitter – and the first person to have done it – and more than 35 million fans on Facebook who ‘like’ her, there is no doubt that the ‘Born this Way’ hit maker’s new venture has a very promising future.

Lady Gaga to join Tony Bennett’s Duets II due out this fall

Posted by Chase Jackson On June - 3 - 2011

Reports are swirling that pop-dance diva Lady Gaga will be joining the likes of Amy Winehouse, Mariah Carey and the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin as the privileged few who will be collaborating with music legend Tony Bennett for his upcoming release aptly entitled ‘Duets II’, his follow-up to his 2006 Grammy winning set, ‘Tony Bennett Duets: An American Classic’ produced by Phil Ramone. Fellow Grammy winners Michael Buble and John Mayer will also be appearing in the new release set to drop on September 16 in Ireland, then on the 20th stateside. The album will take the 85-year old singing veteran from Los Angeles’ Capitol Studios, to Italy, Nashville and his home turf in New York to record the album.

Bennett is the embodiment of a true artist and an icon. For seven decades in the recording industry, he has released more than a hundred albums, has earned 15 Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award, and is Columbia Records’ longest staying signed artist. He has truly earned the respect of the music community and the television industry as well, after his 2007 special ‘Tony Bennett: An American Classic’, bagged 7 Emmys. Apart from being a musical genius, he is also a seasoned visual artist – having three of his pieces housed at the Smithsonian’s Permanent Collection – and a published author as well, where he penned about his passion for both music and the visual arts in ‘Tony Bennett in the Studio; A Life of Art and Music’ and ‘Tony Bennett: What My Heart has Seen’, and his memoir, ‘The Good Life’.

A distinguished humanitarian, Bennett has worked closely with the Department of Education in his native New York to champion his cause of helping high school students appreciate, express and cultivate their artistic inclinations, whether through visual or performing arts, as such, the establishment of the Frank Sinatra School for the Arts in Astoria, Queens. In addition, along with his spouse Susan, he also founded the charity group Exploring the Arts, in an effort to encourage New York City public high schools to improve the quality of arts education in its curricula, particularly in the seven schools that the group is directly supporting at present. The United Nations has awarded him the Humanitarian Award in 2007 in recognition of his efforts.

Lady Gaga goes Bollywood

Posted by Chase Jackson On June - 1 - 2011

Bollywood is a completely different realm of entertainment. The multi-million dollar Hindi film and music industry that is well-loved and patronized by a fifth of the world’s population could be a goldmine for any international artist seeking global recognition and dominance, and Lady Gaga is not going to be left behind in all of this, in fact, she might just break ground in what shapes to be her latest mission.

In a region where Western influence is welcomed, utilized and re-tailored for the unique South Asian entertainment experience and in a world where cultural cross-pollination – whether in heritage or everyday preference – is more mainstream than ever, Lady Gaga saw an opening to spread her own brand of music, but tapping the very distinct Hindi entertainment market can prove to be a real challenge for the multi-awarded singer, which is why she’ll be working closely with Desi Hits!, an NYC-based entertainment company that caters to the South Asian diaspora, or as its official website describes it, “the next generation (and beyond) South Asian experience.”

“She’s not massive in our market yet. I’m talking about India. She has resonance in the market. Would I say she’s huge? No,” says the company’s CEO and co-founder, Anjula Acharia-Bath. The two met and talked substantially about the hit maker’s plans to reach the South Asian market after her show at Madison Square Garden, where the ‘Born this Way’ singer also met Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra. “Much of the international TV content around U.S./U.K. artists in India today is regurgitated from the West. It’s rarely made for [the Indian audience] unless the artist travels to India, which is infrequent. It’s important that any artist who wants to penetrate India or the diaspora speaks to that audience and, at some level, ‘localizes’ their product,” the female exec further explained.

And Gaga understands this. If she is adamant in penetrating the market, it is not enough to have her hits constantly played on radio stations or music video channels, hold concerts or do fan meetings in the sub-continent, or even just in India, it is importantly necessary to embrace their rich and colorful culture and distinct language, and tailor her music according to the region’s taste. And she is doing just that.

“She said, ‘I really want to sing ‘Born This Way’ in Hindi.’ Most people say, ‘I want to sing my track in Indian,’ but she had taken time to learn about the culture and the language. She knows what she wants to do. She just wants to hit every audience with her music, and given that South Asia represents one-fifth of the world’s population, it’s an audience she wants to embrace,” Acharia-Bath concluded.

Gaga impersonator disappoints kids expecting the real deal

Posted by Chase Jackson On June - 1 - 2011

It is probably one of, or the biggest, or even the funniest story to hit a New Jersey elementary school. When one staff developer could not keep her promise – at the last minute – of bringing the ‘Queen Monster’ herself, Lady Gaga, even via Skype at Tenafly Elementary Schools to give an anti-bullying pep talk and Q&A to a bunch of fifth, fourth and third graders, she decides to dish out a faux Lady Gaga instead just to keep the show going, only to have it backfire on her.

Even via video chat, the kids can sense that something is not right. Aside from not using her “disabled” microphone, as one of the students have put it, she typed her replies to all of the questions, which felt weird for most of the students, and to top it all up, the impersonator sported glasses which made it all the more weird. In an effort to cover up her screw-up, the staffer gave away signed photos of the hit singer, which could have been just a fake autograph.

And now, she is on fire for underestimating a bunch of elementary students. Hey, kids might say the darndest things but they do have a keen eye, so maybe it is true that kids these days are smarter than ever.