Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta better known as Lady Gaga was born in New York in 1986. She began playing the piano at age 4 and instantly became driven to become a star. Surprisingly though not for her amount of raw talent but rather for her insatiable drive towards success, and extreme level of training and practice. Instead of enjoying the bliss of a traditional laid back childhood Gaga when she wasn’t practicing performing spent her time studying fashion design, theatrical staging, visual artists and choreography. She used all she learned and different genres to start crafting her own very unique style.
Her debut album in 2008, climbed the charts and single “Poker Face” spent 83 weeks on the Billboard chart. Gaga is very philanthropic and her second album in 2012 “Born this Way” surrounded youth empowerment and mental health. She even created the Born This Way Foundation to further her mission, to support youth, and equality.
When asked about her creative process Gaga claims it is around fifteen minutes of her just getting out her creative ideas. She does a giant regurgitation of her thoughts and feelings and spends the next years, months, days, fine tuning and reflecting on these ideas. She claims it takes her around 500 hours in total to create a hit song and only about .5% of that time is dedicated to this thought vomit. The most important thing for her is to refine and find a way to turn these messy thoughts and feelings into something rhythmic and beautiful. She also says that she loves working with other people and collaborating. Gaga goes as far to say it’s a “wonderful way to work”. She also is not shy about claiming that to be successful and creative you must be willing to work hard. That if you do things halfway or don’t do your research and really engage with other creative parts of life (films, dance, poems) you will not get very far. When speaking on her campaign with Dom Perignon she says it's okay to have a high bar, and she feels good and empowered when she celebrates people who set the standard and have a high quality of work. That it is okay to have high standards as long as you stay a good person.
This is similar to Fuentes’ The Creative Spark when he talks about Chimpanzee colonies. That one must work hard and play their role in the colony if they expect to reap the benefits of the colony. That you must be willing to work hard in life if you expect to get anything. This plays into Gaga’s mantra on life and the work ethic she displayed from a very young age. That is if you are hardworking you will find success and if you aren’t willing to work hard for what you want, you probably will not get where you want to go. Chimps learn to use rocks as tools to dig out termites, and they help raise each other young when needed, and they put in lots of time doing things necessary to survive. Much like Gaga they hone in on their craft and do the hard work. They watch and practice many times when they are young and put in a lot of work to be able to find the ease they display in adulthood. Just as Gaga spends lots of time reviewing and changing and creating her lyrics from rougher thoughts and experiences. Gaga also doesn't use every thought she jots down as a lyric, chimpanzees don’t use the first rock they pick up. They have been trained and they know how to find certain rocks that they are able to strike to make a tool. Not every rock was built the same just like every thought wasn’t made to be a song lyric.
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Very insightful! I had no idea Lady Gaga was so studious and success driven. It was interesting to see the overlap with chimpanzees and their resourcefulness. Creativity can be derived from our human nature and what we are prone to do as sentient beings. I will say her creative process regarding songwriting is very similar to my focus book "Faith, Hope, and Carnage" by Nick Cave and Seán O'Hagan in the sense of this "regurgitation" of thoughts and feelings. Nick Cave is the exact same way and refines down these ideas as time moves on. I wonder how her creative process translates into her acting career as I have noticed the recent roles she has decided to play.
ReplyDeleteI think it is so interesting that Lady Gaga originally studied fashion design and choreography: it definitely makes sense considering her unique style and stunning looks during concerts and other events. I feel as though she is always trying to stand out against other celebrities, as seen with her unique looks, just like you said that chimps must strive to survive in their colonies and come out on top of their competitors.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really cool chimp connection to make. Lady Gaga definitely puts in work, especially across the multiple mediums. She pulls the other mediums too, which is more than most artists can say. You can see the dedication and effort she puts in, much like the chimp, to achieve her goals.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post! I love Lady Gaga and loved to hear about her creative process. With the personal dimension of her work, the process of throwing out incomplete ideas and later forming them definitely makes sense. One of my professors told me that the best thing you can do when writing a paper is to embrace the bad first draft and move forward from there, and this makes me think of that.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting reference to the Chimp's learning behaviors. I think it's really easy to forget that not every idea that an artist comes up with is a brilliant one. Gaga's creative process seems to rely on this flow between failure and success. I too am reading the creative spark, and just as the chimps seem to learn from their mistakes/shortcomings people in the music industry must as well.
ReplyDeleteThis was a great response! I never knew Lady Gaga's real name was so long! I loved that she was being very real in the fact that great songs do not just happen overnight and that it actually takes here 500 hours to fine tune the song before she is actually able to release it. I also liked your connection to "A Creative Spark" and the fact that the chimp colonies are actually made up of and function off of the individual's role in order to be successful
ReplyDeleteI think it is so interesting how Gaga splits up the process of songwriting. I feel like many artists would call the entire process the "creative" process, but it is fascinating to see that Gaga distinctly separates the two. One piece, the regurgitation is creative, and the fine tuning and fine lining is not- that is simply perfecting. She is so methodical within her creative process. I think your connection to Fuentes is so interesting. While the chimps learning by watching and teamwork, it is almost as if all of the aspects of Gaga's process are a team working together similarly to the chimps.
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