From_Radio_Ga Ga_to_Lady_Gaga: performance Vs talent.

In her book, ‘The Clothed Body’ (2004: 117), Patrizia Cafelato defines, accurately the links between fashion and music as 'two intimately connected forms of worldliness, two social practices that go hand in hand, sustaining one another in the medium of mass communication and drawing into a common sensibility which translates into taste.' But what happens when fashion overshadows music? The questions which arise today are: do singers need more than just their talent by which to stand out and be recognized; or has the contemporary music industry laid down a new model of success, based on costumes, spectacle and performance? Looking at the role of the dress, body and gender in relation to the music performer, this post explores whether the use of extravagant clothing and the mobilization of other ‘performative’ practices can outshine talent. A comparative analysis between Queen’s I Want To Break Free (1984) and Lady Gaga’s Yoü And I (2011) music videos, will examine not only the relationship between fashion and music, but also the importance of employing ‘camp’ practices, in order to tell a particular story. This exploration is not intended to be a comparison between artists, but rather an overview on how the standards within the post-modern music industry have evolved towards a particular model of music performance, which undermines talent for the sake of spectacle and entertainment.

As Cafelato (2004:121) has argued ‘Fashion and music have always used citations, experiences, influences and suggestions taken from the past.’ and, in this sense, it would be almost disgraceful to talk about the role of costume in music performance without mentioning Elvis Presley’s stage costumes. Elvis not only wore innovative and provocative outfits, but he also managed to challenge the limits of the typical male suit. As Miller (2011:76) points out: ‘[Elvis’s costumes] represented a certain kind of decadence and a notion of the excessive possibilities of fame.’ The interesting thing with Elvis’s costumes is that, despite their excessive decoration, they ‘provided [him] both a frame on which all his stage costumes were built and a frame of core masculine embodiment.’ (Miller, 2011:76), without raising questions about his sexuality. Without getting overwhelmed by his stylistic choices, Elvis established a certain visual model of male music performance, in combination with an unquestionably talented voice. 

Another male performer who experimented with definitions of masculinity through his image and his fashion taste is David Bowie (Rojek, 2001; Miller, 2011). During the 1970s, Bowie meticulously built his image, not only through his performances, but also with his personal lifestyle. He presented himself as ‘the first bisexual rock star’ (David Bowie, 1972 cited in Watts, 2006), blurring and challenging the notions of gender and, although, wearing a dress on the cover of his album The Man Who Sold The World (1970) he didn’t subordinate his talent as a musician. The continuous experimentation with his personal looks and outfits, combined with his chameleonic scalability managed ‘to utilize [him] as an artwork’ and ‘to set up his commercial image’ (Firth, 1988 in Miller, 2011:138). Throughout the years that followed Bowie’s eccentric appearances, hundreds of young boys and girls emulated and copied his styles and, although, he became the inspiration for a number of fashion editorials and designers, his talent was never questioned. 

On April 02, 1984, the British rock band Queen released the music video for their song I Want To Break Free, which was written by the bassist of the group John Deacon. In the video, the four members of the male band were dressed up as women in a pastiche of the long-running British soap opera ‘Coronation Street’ (Tony Warren, 1960 - ). Playing with the ideas of gender, drag, and camp, the music video casted the bassist John Deacon as a conservative grandmother; the guitarist Brian May wearing hair-rollers and fluffy slippers; the drummer Roger Taylor as a blonde schoolgirl, and the front man of the band, Freddie Mercury, as a typical housewife, loosely based on ‘Coronation Street’s’ character Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear). 

Among the 4 transformations, Mercury’s ‘dragging-up’ (to paraphrase the act of ‘dressing-up as a drag’) is the one worth describing in detail. Mercury wears a black wig, pink earrings, a pink blouse with a pair of profound fake breasts underneath, a black leather miniskirt with suspenders and low-heeled shoes. Although the other three members of the band are costumed in order to impersonate their drag characters in the most accurate way, Mercury kept his thick trademark moustache for the drag act, but shaved it for the later sequence. 

Widely accepted by the UK audience, the I Want To Break Free music video went straight to number 3 in the United Kingdom. As Roger Taylor later explained, ‘We [Queen] wanted people to know that we didn’t take ourselves too seriously’ (cited in Blake, 2010:285). Using the four basic features of camp: ‘irony, aestheticism, theatricality and humor’ (Babuscio, 1984 cited in Kleinhams, 1994:187), Queen managed to deliver their song’s message, by making a statement against the established social values and prejudices, challenging the concept of nature versus nurture and positioning themselves against sexual oppression. Through this particular music video Queen managed to fascinate the UK audience, which was familiar to the ideas of dragging-up and employing camp practices as part of a music performance.  In the United States, the I Want To Break Free music video did not receive the anticipated response. It only peaked at number 45 in the US charts and it was also banned by the MTV. According to May (cited in Blake, 2010:285-286), 'They [The US audience] hated the video, … It was received with horror in most of America. They just couldn’t get it. To them it was boys dressing up as girls and it was unthinkable, especially for a rock band … They were visibly embarrassed. Hence, the US audience failed to understand the video’s typical British humor and to see the soap-opera connections; instead they probably interpreted the drag action as ‘an open declaration of transvestitism and Mercury’s bisexuality’ (May, 2010 in a radio interview with Kerry Ellis in Weekend Wagan). Despite its ambiguity, Queen’s music video neither entrapped the band’s career, nor obliged them to produce only provocative and extreme videos, so as to remain at the forefront of the music industry.

Twenty-five years after Queen’s I Want To Break Free challenging music video, the American singer and songwriter Lady Gaga, released the music video for her song Yoü And I (2011). Since her very first appearance in 2008, Lady Gaga has triggered various reactions both for her songs, but even more for her futuristic outfits and stylistic choices. Every single of her performances has been criticized, either in a positive or negative way, but has never been ignored. Having around her a numerous group of collaborators, consultants and, as Chris Rojek calls them, ‘cultural intermediaries’ (2001:10), she always manages to attract the media and to be ubiquitous. Excess and spectacle are two elements inextricably linked to Lady Gaga’s performances, in a way that, not only her devoted fans, but also a large number of spectators around the world expect, or even demand, to see whenever she appears. 

Lady Gaga’s Yoü And I song was part of her second studio album ‘Born This Way’ (2011) and it had a special sentimental value for her, as it was inspired by one of her former relationships. Influenced by Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ song, featuring also Queen’s guitarist Brian May, Yoü And I music video has a lot in common with Queen’s I Want To Break Free music clip. Departing from her usual pop songs, Lady Gaga used rock and country music influences and produced a song that shocked her fans. The video clip proved even more ambiguous. Probably not so obvious at the first glance, the Yoü And I music video draws a lot of comparisons with the I Want To Break Free video. So thematically, as well as stylistically, both videos are based on the idea of transformation, masquerading and changing genders. In the same way that Queen’s members decided to dress up as women, Lady Gaga, was not only disguised as a man, but she took it even further and, in collaboration with the photographer and director Nick Knight, created her fictional male alter-ego, Jo Calderone. Gaga is not afraid to kiss publicly her male counterpart, in order to prove not only, how gender can be performative, but also how the body can be interpreted in different ways within a wider cultural context. The only difference is that, Mercury used his bisexuality in a creative and humorous way, while Lady Gaga wanted so badly to be, what Sontag calls, ‘campy’ (1964:282), that she overshadowed her song. Furthermore, Lady Gaga’s transformation to Yuji, a mermaid -the mythological aquatic creature of undetermined sex- stretches the boundaries of binary sex even further, in the same way that David Bowie did when he appeared with long hair and wearing a dress on the cover of his album The Man Who Sold the World (1970).

Regarding the acceptance of Lady Gaga’s video by her fans, there were generally positive reactions, but the video also met some negative reviews, in the same way that a part of Queen’s audience criticized their drag act. According to The Guardian ‘there's growing evidence of fans starting to turn on her [Gaga] – many of whom feel she has no right to declare herself as the ambassador of queer culture.’ (Martin, 2011) Additionally, in his article Tim Jonze (2011) also mentioned that ‘…  dissapproving voices in the gay community complained that Gaga had hijacked their sexuality as a marketing tool.’ Even if Gaga does not have to try hard to reach the gay audience, and even if she uses her celebrity status, in order to fight for the gay community’s rights, this does not necessarily means that all of her acts are widely acceptable.

In 1984, Queen dressed up in one of the most unflattering and anti-fashion ways for the production of their I Want To Break Free video and they efficiently delivered their message against oppression across their audience. Brave enough to produce such a provocative video and having talent as their strongest weapon, Queen managed to keep their identity as a band, without getting trapped by the illusion of spectacle and the use of merely visual props, as a way of surviving within the competitive music industry. On the other hand, employing the same pattern of dragging-up and making extreme stylistic choices, in 2011, Lady Gaga created the clip for her song Yoü And I. The use of extravagant costumes and rambling spectacle was not something new for Gaga; the interesting thing is that in this particular video Gaga went one step further and, not only appeared in outrageous costumes, but switched genders, in order to provoke the anticipated reactions. Put differently, in this video she overdid it; she played her last card by basically reproducing herself and a series of her previous performances, editorials and appearances, in a way that, once again, she got lost into the spectacle that she created. Matthew Perpetua’s comment on Gaga’s video evidently reflects the former suggestion: ‘Yoü and I is a return to form that throws roughly eight million visual ideas at the viewer’ (Rolling Stone, 2011). 

left: Vanity Fair (September 2010) & right: Yoü And I (2011)

left: Vogue Hommes Japan (Autumn/Winter 2010-2011) & right: Yoü And I (2011)

Lady Gaga is not only there; she is almost everywhere, and her presence within the music industry and, more generally, within the visual and popular culture has suggested new rules for the other singers to follow. Lady Gaga, nowadays, directs what consists a successful performer and how the concept of dressing up to an outrageous degree and the use of spectacle ensures the success of a music video performance. She manages to be one step ahead and to impose the pace for the rest of the singers either to imitate, or to challenge her, but not to ignore her. In this point, it would be relevant to mention a few examples among the numerous music artists who employed Lady Gaga’s tactics, in order to reach wider audiences and especially the queer community. One of the most famous singers who follows the Lady Gaga's norm is Kylie Minogue. Not only through her music videos, but especially during her live appearances, Minogue performs wearing elaborate and extravagant costumes, which in combination with the spectacular sets and the dancing routines create a show that demonstrates all of her abilities as a performer, but leaves her talent as a musician and her voice in secondary importance (Aphrodite Les Folies Tour 2011). In the same pattern, Katy Perry’s California Gurls (2010) and E.T. (2011) exaggerated music videos are so captivating in terms of spectacle and costumes, that don’t let the spectator to pay the proper attention to the songs. 

Another example, which epitomized the use of camp aesthetics in a more Gaga-ish way, was Madonna’s impressive performance during the half hour show at the NFL Super Bowl XLVI football game (February, 2011). Dressed up as Cleopatra and accompanied by a huge procession of Egyptian soldiers/dancers, Madonna performed a spectacular act, which draw many parallels to Lady Gaga’s live routine on American Idol (2011), performing the song The Edge of Glory.

left: Lady Gaga, American Idol (2011) & right: Madonna, NFL Super Bowl XLVI (Feb. 2012

On January 26, 2011 London’s Evening Standard newspaper published an article on page 3, revealing that the University of Cambridge had permitted one of its students to write his dissertation on Lady Gaga’s place in the history of pop art. According to the newspaper, the undergraduate student Amrou Al-Kadhi ‘finds parallels with Andy Warhol in Gaga’s shows and videos’ (Herrmann, 2012:3). Put differently, Al-Kadhi acknowledges Gaga as an artist; as a taste maker within 21^st century’s culture; not as a singer, not even as a musician. The question is whether Lady Gaga would like to be remembered as a singer or as an outrageous fashionable artist-performer? It would be premature to evaluate Gaga’s career, since it is only 4 years old, but it is undeniable that the image she has shaped plays a very important role in her success. It is hard to imagine that Lady Gaga continues to act when the spotlights and the cameras are turned off. The persona that she has created offers a degree of mystery, and it would be interesting to speculate what will happen if she decides to change her public profile within the coming years. Will her fans continue to follow and accept her if she abandons her extreme outfits? Or, is her established image inescapable and is she basically trapped by the image she has created?

* The above post is part of my Essay: 'From Radio Ga Ga to Lady Gaga: performance versus talent, under the discourse of 'camp' and other 'performative' practices.', written for my 'Contextual Studies' module. For your information this essay got an A (actually my first A!) and if would like to use any part of it, please do not hesitate to ask me (first!)