Sancha O’Donnell Summer Homework – Lady Gaga
Genre:
She has made a real impact upon her audience with her chaotic nature and weird twists within her everyday life and this is shown through her videos. Although originally in her first big hit 'Just dance' she had identified herself with her wild sex appeal and signature long blonde hair. In her videos she performs well in front of the camera and they all have little narratives running throughout. However with every music video she appears to become more extreme with how she behaves and looks, like in the more recent video 'Alejandro' she keeps the signature blonde cut but in a bob style and a scarily white complexion to become creepy instead of sexy. Her pop genre is shown through the lyrics or every song but with her bizarre edge upon everything she does, Lady Gaga became a revolution for pop culture and the way being 'different' and 'out there' was no longer frowned upon.
Comparing her to Katy Perry (another famous female singer in the same genre,) Lady Gaga clearly has a quirky edge that can sell just as well as the perfect and pretty singers who like sticking to the conventions of pop music. Whilst Katy Perry’s videos are based upon young love targeting the teenage girl audience, Lady Gaga keeps her audience open to most people and doesn't devote her videos to the classic themes of love. The Alejandro video has a dark sinister twist despite the fact that the lyrics are based solely upon a love between a male and female, she’s purposefully trying to go against the conventions of linking visuals with lyrics to every little detail as other pop artists do.
As an artist over time she has developed to create a character that is so ‘out there’ that the media swan around her every movement. She began as a country singer with a guitar and throughout time she realised that selling her body with the music worked and that wearing peculiar clothes caused an uproar and that the publicity did her music justice and since then her extravagance has blossomed to wearing meat dresses to premiers. The generic conventions of a pop video are selling the female body by displaying it in a sexual manner, that she does stick to and in recent videos adds her own dark edge upon it. Comparing her first video ‘Just dance’ to one of her latest ‘Born this way’ Lady Gaga’s film style has changed to be more dark and mysterious.
Visual style and image:
Comparing Gaga’s video ’Judas’ with ‘Alejandro,’ both visually stimulating with her typical mise-en-scenes that have an industrial feel, like a warehouse or just a grey/black empty space which gives her room for her choreography. It signifies her as an artist as it adds to her mysterious edge, she can pursue her weird happenings in a place that cannot be identified with an everyday scene, like other artists use. Her visual image in ‘Alejandro’ is quite different; she appears to look quite unnatural with her pale ill looking complexion, she remains with a lack of clothes and does provocative dancing. When she does where a costume in the video it consists of a black spider looking headpiece with goggles and dark spider looking clothes. However in ‘Judas’ with her long blonde hair and ‘cool’ but still different clothing, she appeals more to her teenage girls audience as they can look up to and relate to her when she looks normal, like any other pop star. Fast paced editing in both videos keep it interesting and the location changes within every cut, creating meaning through the little clips with some narrative. Within her ‘Judas’ video she relates it to the media text of the Biblical story of ‘Judas’ the traitor of Jesus and her video has her dressed as a pope looking figure, she’s being very controversial by testing political and religious aspects to life by incorporating it within her music video. Similarly in ‘Alejandro’ she dresses as a nun in some scenes and others she has men dancing around her with bowl haircuts and with little on, surrounding her in a robe with crosses on the sleeves. The religious theme appears to be a continual running theme throughout both videos. She probably does this as she likes having a different edge to her music and like her costumes and settings; if she incorporates a big issue then it creates more controversy.
CD Cover Analysis:
Lady Gaga’s album cover does meet the conventions of a female pop star, as her face appears on the front cover, as she has to sell her image. The large sunglasses add the mysterious edge that she likes to convey within her videos, as to see the eyes reveal a lot about someone. Her lips slightly parted reveal the sexual ideas that are linked to her ‘Lady gaga’ character. The title ‘The Fame’ indicates how she knows that she has fame and glory and enjoys it and the way that her name is written is in a ‘classy’ font in white with a black background, which suggests that she isn’t trying to play to the typical pop conventions of ‘fun’ and ‘bright.’
Katy Perry’s album cover again sticks to the conventional female pop idea of having her and in this example a full body shot, to sell her image, style and sex appeal. Within the picture she is surrounded by pretty pink things, in a cute little garden, which are the appropriate logos to her target audience. The bubble pink writing of her name suggests that she’s aiming at a young female audience, of around 9-16 years.
Rihanna another pop artist in her latest album cover appears to have slightly mimicked the ‘Lady Gaga’ weird style, especially with how she covers one side of her face, which is the typical icon sign of Lady Gaga. The album in black and white links with the dark theme, and the lack of her name on the front cover apart from the letter R, we understand that she is trying less to stick to the generic pop conventions. The shaved head, black lipstick, many rings and black leather are all stereotypes of a rock genre not pop so despite the sound of rihanna’s music she is trying to differ from her normal style. Especially if we compare it to one of her first album covers; as you can see the former album cover below fits her music genre. With the light bright colours, the sexy messy hair and lips slightly parted close up of her face and the delicate titles. We see the change within the pop genre and how she is trying to adapt like Lady Gaga to be different.
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