Lady Gaga And Popular Music

This book is a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary examination of the music and figure of Lady Gaga, combining approaches from scholars in cultural studies, art, fashion, and music. It represents one of the first scholarly volumes devoted to Lady Gaga, who has become, over a few short years, central to both popular (and, indeed, populist) as well as more scholarly thought in these areas and who, the contributors argue, is helping to shape—directly and indirectly—thought and culture both in the fields of the "scholarly" and the "everyday." Lady Gaga's output is firmly embedded in a self-consciously intellectual pop culture tradition, and her music videos are intertextually linked to icons of pop culture intelligentsia like Alfred Hitchcock and open to multiple interpretations. In examining her music and figure, this volume contributes both to debates on the status of intertextuality, held in tension with originality, and to debates on the figuring of the sexualized female body, and representations of disability. There is interest in these issues from a wide range of disciplines: popular musicology, film studies, queer studies, women’s studies, gender studies, disability studies, popular culture studies, and the burgeoning sub-discipline of aesthetics and philosophy of fashion.

This book is a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary examination of the music and figure of Lady Gaga, combining approaches from scholars in cultural studies, art, fashion, and music. It represents one of the first scholarly volumes devoted to Lady Gaga, who has become, over a few short years, central to both popular (and, indeed, populist) as well as more scholarly thought in these areas and who, the contributors argue, is helping to shape—directly and indirectly—thought and culture both in the fields of the "scholarly" and the "everyday." Lady Gaga's output is firmly embedded in a self-consciously intellectual pop culture tradition, and her music videos are intertextually linked to icons of pop culture intelligentsia like Alfred Hitchcock and open to multiple interpretations. In examining her music and figure, this volume contributes both to debates on the status of intertextuality, held in tension with originality, and to debates on the figuring of the sexualized female body, and representations of disability. There is interest in these issues from a wide range of disciplines: popular musicology, film studies, queer studies, women’s studies, gender studies, disability studies, popular culture studies, and the burgeoning sub-discipline of aesthetics and philosophy of fashion.

This title examines the fascinating life of Lady Gaga. Readers will learn about Lady Gaga's childhood, family, education, and rise to fame. Colorful graphics, oversize photos, and informative sidebars accompany easy-to-read, compelling text that explores Lady Gaga's early interest in music that led to the release of her albums The Fame, The Fame Monster, and Born This Way, her Grammy Awards, her philanthropic efforts toward the gay and lesbian community and raising awareness about HIV/AIDS, and her unique style. Features include a table of contents, glossary, selected bibliography, Web links, source notes, and an index, plus a timeline and fun facts. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

Series consultant and author Mark Mussari takes readers on a journey from the beginnings of rock and roll and the nascent youth culture of the 1950s and 1960s through the materialistic years of the 1980s into the still-being-defined early twenty-first century. In this fascinating book, this record of the ever-changing world of American culture is highlighted with a fabulous variety of photographs from the last six decades.

Queen of Pop, superstar, maverick, fashionista, Lady Gaga is one of the most recognisable and sensational pop stars for a generation. A true original, Gaga found fame the hard way, playing the grimy bars and burlesque shows of New York City, before finally relocating to Los Angeles to begin work on what would become her debut album The Fame. Constantly en vogue and always in the public eye, this is the biography of the rise and rise of Gaga, from her early life as a teenage protege, to her life as one of the most respected musicians and most recognised entertainers on the planet.

When Alina Simone agreed to write a book about Madonna, she thought it might provide an interesting excuse to indulge her own eighties nostalgia. Wrong. What Simone discovered instead was a tidal wave of already published information about Madonna—and her own ambivalence about, maybe even jealousy of, the Material Girl’s overwhelming commercial success. With the straight-ahead course stymied, Simone set off on a quirky detour through the backroads of celebrity and fandom and the people who love or loathe Madonna. In this witty, sometimes acerbic, always perceptive chronicle, Simone begins by trying to understand why Madonna’s birthplace, Bay City, Michigan, won’t even put up a sign to celebrate its most famous citizen, and ends by asking why local bands who make music that’s authentic and true can disappear with barely a trace. In between, she ranges from Madonna fans who cover themselves with tattoos of the singer’s face and try to make fortunes off selling her used bustiers and dresses, to Question Mark and the Mysterians—one-hit wonders best known for “96 Tears”—and Flying Wedge, a Detroit band that dropped off an amazing two-track record in the office of CREEM magazine in 1972 and vanished, until Simone tracked it down. Filled with fresh insights about the music business, fandom, and what it takes to become a superstar, Madonnaland is as much a book for people who, like Simone, prefer “dark rooms, coffee, and state-subsidized European films filled with existential despair” as it is for people who can’t get enough of Madonna.

This book investigates the stardom of Lady Gaga within a cultural-sociological framework. Resisting a reductionist perspective of fame as a commodity, Mathieu Deflem offers an empirical examination of the social conditions that informed Lady Gaga’s rise to fame. The book delves into topics such as the marketing of Lady Gaga; the legal issues that have dogged her career; the media; her audience; her activism; issues of sex, gender, and sexuality; and Lady Gaga’s unique artistry. By training a spotlight on this singular pop icon, Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame invites readers to consider the nature of stardom in an age of celebrity.