Lady Gaga “Born This Way” (Grammy Awards Live Performance)

`           Known for her eccentricity, incredible vocal abilities, and eye-popping costumes, Lady Gaga is one of the most popular female pop singers in recent years. She has never failed to amaze the audiences with original and unique costumes and performances; and she has always written songs that are so catchy that they are popular worldwide. Lady Gaga respects her career by being a true artist, whether her sense of artistry is the same or different from ours, she has certainly convinced us about her interpretation of beauty, art, and what it is mean to be the ‘Lady Gaga’.  There is always something interesting about her for people to talk about, because she is always so unpredictable. For example, she always has a different theme in every single one of her concerts. One of her most popular songs “Born this way”, from her second studio album “Born this way”, was the top song on Billboard chart; it was also on the top list of the songs in Japan, South Korea, Australia, Hungary, etc. Therefore, she has performed this song worldwide. Of course, she was also on the 53^rd Grammy Awards for her first performance of the new single “Born this way” in 2011.

        

          “Born this way” was mainly written and produced by Lady Gaga as her freedom song. It was inspired by the 1990s empowering music for women and the gay community. During the performance, she emerged on stage with an illuminated gigantic egg with her dancers pushing it to the center of the stage. She came out from the egg, dressed in a golden hat, long golden jacket, golden bra top, golden semi-transparent long skirt, high pony tail, and heavy golden and black makeup with pointed horns coming out from the sides of her cheeks and forehead. Earlier from the performance that day, Lady Gaga appeared on the red carpet with a giant egg, and the egg has hatched onstage with Lady Gaga “born this way.” It was certainly a very eye-catching and entertaining way of entering the stage as well as making an entrance down the red carpet, considering that no other celebrities has ever done that before. This choreography involving the egg connects with her music video in which she was born as the ‘mother monster’, and gave birth to a new race. In her performance on stage, the illuminated egg represented the most powerful object, and it was pushed by other people that wore the same golden costumes. Perhaps those people were the people that she has ‘given birth to’ in the music video. Lady Gaga also had pointy horns coming out from her shoulder, cheek and forehead in the music video which connects with the live performance. This indicates that she has made an attempt to bring the story from her music video onto the stage. However, I think her live performance was much more powerful compared to her music video. In her music video, Lady Gaga and her dancers were all dressed in black, and the background was black as well. On the stage, however, her and her dancers’ costumes were shiny, golden, and light, which emphasized more on unity, visual entertainment, as well as catching audiences’ attentions. Lady Gaga also changed some of her dance moves from her video to create a fresh experience for the audiences; she included a lot of powerful hair whippings, snake movements, and some dance moves that looked like improvisations. Above that, the powerful dances connected with her lyrics on her belief of being confident as a person; although she seemed different from a lot of artists, she believed that ‘eccentricity’ is who she is, and what her interpretation of beauty is.

             In the middle of the song, Lady Gaga surprised the audiences with an organ that was surrounded by mannequin heads submerged in gel, and sang a portion of the song as a ballad. This portion showed a difference from her music video or her CD, and it also served the purpose of showing off her vocal talents to further persuade the audiences her talent and musical ability as a famous pop singer. At the end of the song, the background dancers all stripped off their golden tops, and danced with even more enthusiasm than before, bringing the song to its end. All those visual components from this performance will never touch the audience if he or she only listens to her song from the CD. It is the overall choreography, costumes, dance, improvisations, and other new elements from the live performance that truly reflects a singer’s ability as an artist. Lady Gaga’s songs are different not because they’re just catchy, but because we have seen her music videos or live performances that have convinced us her uniqueness as an artist. Her performances have shown that she is one of the most powerful, creative, and confident singer which brought her to the status she is in today.  


Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_This_Way