Lady Gaga is a once-in-a-decade artist/cultural event, and the rare instant celebrity who deserves and can sustain biographical treatment. No other music star of the last decade combines the talents Lady Gaga possesses: she's a genuine singer, composer, songwriter, designer, and performance artist, who has also used technology and social media to shape her art and career. In just 15 months, she has become a demographic-smashing pop icon with global reach and impact.
Not since Madonna's breakout success in the mid-eighties has the world witnessed the advent of a pop-culture provocateur who mixes high-and-low culture, the avant-garde with the accessible, "downtown" authenticity with the sheen of glamorous artifice. She has quickly engendered such a symbiotic relationship with her rabid fan base that they've taken to dressing as she does, imitating her hair and make-up in tribute. Gaga, too, is a cultural shape-shifter, allowing her fans to project their needs, wants, confusions, and desires onto her.
This is a must-read for Gaga fans, who, devoted as they are, know next to nothing about who she is and how she got that way, as well as for anyone who has heard "Pokerface" and is curious about America's latest over-the-top cultural success story.
