lady gaga

LADY GAGA Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American pop singer-songwriter. After enrolling at 's New York University in 2003 and later performing in the rock music scene of New York City's ,Lower East Side she signed with Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records. During her early time at Interscope, she worked as a songwriter for fellow label artists and captured the attention of recording artist Akon who, recognizing her vocal abilities, signed her to his own label, Kon Live Distribution. Gaga came to prominence following the release of her debut studio album The Fame (2008), which was a critical and commercial success and achieved international popularity with the singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". The album reached number one on the record charts of six countries, topped the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart while simultaneously peaking at number two on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States and accomplished positions within the top ten worldwide. Achieving similar worldwide success, The Fame Monster (2009), its follow-up, produced a further three global chart-topping singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone" and "Alejandro" and allowed her to embark on her second global concert tour, The Monster Ball Tour, just months after having finished her first, The Fame Ball Tour. Her second studio album Born This Way (2011) topped the charts in all major musical markets after the arrival of its singles "Born This Way", "Judas" and "The Edge of Glory"—the first-mentioned achieved the number-one spot in countries worldwide and was the fastest-selling single in the history of iTunes, selling one million copies in five days.[3] Influenced by glam rock singers such as David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, as well as dance-pop artists like Madonna and Michael Jackson, Gaga is well-recognized for her outré and ever-changing sense of style in music, in fashion, in performance and in her music videos. Her contributions to the music industry have accrued her numerous achievements such as five Grammy Awards—among twelve nominations—and four Guinness World Records.[4][5] Gaga has sold an estimated 13 million albums and 51 million singles, making her one of the best-selling music artists worldwide.[6] In the United States, she is among the best-selling digital artists, selling an estimated 29.3 million digital singles over the course of her career.[7] In 2010, Billboard named her the Artist of the Year, and ranked her as the seventy-third best artist of the 2000s decade.[8][9] Gaga has been included in the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world as well as being listed in a number of Forbes' annual lists.[10] Life and career Lady Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta on March 28, 1986, in New York City.[11] The first child of Joseph Germanotta, an internet entrepreneur, and Cynthia (née Bissett),[12] Gaga has one sister, Natali, who was born in 1992.[13] She is of Italian and more distant French-Canadian ancestry.[14][15] Gaga is left-handed[16] and began learning to play piano aged four, went on to write her first piano ballad at 13, and began performing at open mike nights by the age of 14.[17] Raised as a Roman Catholic[18] on Manhattan's Upper West Side after the family moved there in 1993,[19] Gaga attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school on Manhattan's Upper East Side, from the age of 11.[20][21] Despite the affluence of the Upper West Side, Gaga stressed that she did not come from a wealthy background, stating that her parents "both came from lower-class families, so we've worked for everything—my mother worked eight to eight out of the house, in telecommunications, and so did my father."[22] She described her academic life in high school as "very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined" but also "a bit insecure" as she told in an interview, "I used to get made fun of for being either too provocative or too eccentric, so I started to tone it down. I didn't fit in, and I felt like a freak."[23][24] Acquaintances dispute that she did not fit in at school. "She had a core group of friends; she was a good student. She liked boys a lot, but singing was No. 1," recalled a former high school classmate.[25] An avid actor in high school musicals, Gaga portrayed the lead roles of Adelaide in Guys and Dolls and Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.[26] both at Regis High School. She also appeared in a very small role as a mischievous classmate in the television drama series The Sopranos in a 2001 episode titled "The Telltale Moozadell".[27] At 16, she began to sing and play in front of live audiences and unsuccessfully auditioned for parts in New York shows.[19] When her time at the Convent of the Sacred Heart came to an end, her mother encouraged her to apply to New York University to study drama and performance – specifically the Collaborative Arts Project 21 (CAP21), which is a faculty of the Tisch School of the Arts.[19] Aged 17, Gaga gained early admission and lived in a NYU dorm on 11th Street. There, she studied music and sharpened her songwriting skills by composing essays and analytical papers focusing on topics such as art, religion, social issues and politics.[17][28] Gaga wrote a thesis on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst; research that prepared her for her future career focus in "music, art, sex and celebrity."[29] Gaga felt that she was more creative than some of her classmates. "Once you learn how to think about art, you can teach yourself," she said. Being part of such a prestigious performance course, Gaga tried for and passed auditions while at CAP21,[19] including the part of an unsuspecting diner customer where MTV's Boiling Points, a prank reality television show, was being filmed.[30] However, by the second semester of her sophomore year, she withdrew from the school to focus on her musical career.[31] Her father agreed to pay her rent for a year, on the condition that she re-enroll at Tisch if she was unsuccessful. "I left my entire family, got the cheapest apartment I could find, and ate shit until somebody would listen," she said.[26]