Lord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a prince or a feudal superior (especially a feudal tenant who holds directly from the king, i.e., a baron). The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'by courtesy'. The title may also be used in conjunction with others to denote a superior holder of an otherwise generic title, in such combinations as "Lord Mayor" or "Lord Chief Justice". The title is primarily taken by men, while women will usually take the title 'lady'. However, this is not universal, as the Lord of Mann and female Lord Mayors are examples of women who are styled 'lord'.

In religious contexts Lord can also refer to various different gods or deities. The earliest uses of Lord in the English language in a religious context were by English Bible translators such as Bede. This reflected the Jewish practice of substituting the spoken Hebrew word Adonai (which means 'My Lord') for YHWH when read aloud.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of English, the etymology of the word can be traced back to the Old English word 'hlāford' which originated from 'hlāfweard' meaning 'bread keeper' or 'loaf-ward', reflecting the Germanic tribal custom of a chieftain providing food for his followers. Lady, the female equivalent, originates from a similar structure, believed to have originally meant 'loaf-kneader.'

Title

Peerage

Five ranks of peer exist in the United Kingdom, in descending order, these are: duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron. The title 'Lord' is used most often by barons who are rarely addressed with any other. The style of this address is 'Lord (X)', for example, Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, is commonly known as 'Lord Tennyson'. The ranks of marquess, earl and viscounts commonly use lord as well, with viscounts using the same style as used for baron. However, marquesses and earls have a slightly different form of address where they can be called either the 'Marquess/Earl of (X)' or 'Lord (X)'. Dukes also use the style, 'Duke of (X)', but it is not acceptable to refer to them as 'Lord (X)'. Dukes are formally addressed as 'Your Grace', rather than 'My Lord'. In the Peerage of Scotland, the members of the lowest level of the peerage have the title 'Lord of Parliament' rather than baron.

For senior members of the peerage, the title lord also applies by courtesy to some or all of their children; for example the younger sons of dukes and marquesses can use the style 'Lord (first name) (surname)'. The titles are courtesy titles in that the holder does not hold a peerage, and is, according to British law, a commoner.

House of Lords

In the UK, the House of Lords (known commonly as 'the Lords') forms the upper house of Parliament. Here all peers are treated as lords but there are three different classifications:

Most lords who hold peerages created before the passage of the Life Peerages Act 1958 (and a handful who hold peerages created after then) are hereditary peers, who until 1999 constituted the most numerous category of lords sitting in the House. There are in excess of 700 lords whose titles may be inherited, however since the House of Lords Act 1999, they are no longer guaranteed a seat in the Lords and instead must take part in an election for a total of ninety-two seats. All male peers of England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom were before 1999 entitled to sit in the House of Lords by virtue of their title. Peeresses were granted the right to sit in 1963. Peers of Scotland and Ireland, however, historically had limitations on their right to sit at Westminster. Between 1707 and 1963, Scottish peers participated in elections to determine which of them would take the sixteen seats allocated to them. Elections were abolished in 1963, and from that time until 1999 all Scottish peers and peeresses were entitled to sit. Irish peers participated in similar elections between 1801 and 1922, when the Irish Free State was established. Elections of Irish peers ceased in 1922, however already-elected Irish representative peers remained entitled to sit until their death. The last Irish representative peer to die was Francis Needham, 4th Earl of Kilmorey, who died in 1961. Many Irish peers also hold peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, which entitled them to sit in the House (without the necessity of being elected a representative peer) until 1999.

The importance of hereditary lords has declined steadily following the increase in the appointment of life peers. These peers are entitled to sit in the House of Lords for the duration of their life, but cannot transfer their titles to their heirs. They are rarely above the rank of baron. The first life peers were appointed to assist the House of Lords in exercising its judicial functions under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876. Widespread appointment of life peers was enabled by the passage of the Life Peerages Act 1958. Since that Act was passed, some 1,086 life peers have been created. The only hereditary privilege associated with life peerages is that children of life peers are entitled to style themselves 'The Honourable (firstname) (surname)'.

These first two groups are collectively termed Lords Temporal as opposed to the third type of lord sitting in the House known as Lords Spiritual (or spiritual peers). This group consists of twenty-six Church of England bishops who are appointed in order of superiority. Unlike Lords Temporal, who can be appointed from any of the four nations of the UK, only bishops with English Sees are eligible to sit in the Chamber. Bishops of the Church of Scotland traditionally sat in the Parliament of Scotland but were excluded in 1638 following the Scottish Reformation. There are no longer bishops in the Church of Scotland in the traditional sense of the word, and that Church has never sent members to sit in the Westminster House of Lords. The Church of Ireland ceased to send bishops to sit after disestablishment in 1871. The Church in Wales ceased to be a part of the Church of England in 1920 and was simultaneously disestablished in Wales. Accordingly, bishops of the Church in Wales were no longer eligible to be appointed to the House as bishops of the Church of England.

Judiciary

Until the creation of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the judges of the House of Lords held life peerages, and were addressed accordingly. They were known collectively as the Law Lords. Those Law Lords who became the first justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom have now lost their right to sit and vote in the House of Lords, despite retaining their life peerages. The title 'Lord' is also used to refer to some judges who are not peers in some Commonwealth legal systems. Some such judges, for instance judges of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, are called 'Lords Justices', or 'Ladies Justices', as the case may be. Other such judges, for instance judges of Canadian provincial supreme courts, are known only as 'Justices' but are addressed in court as 'My Lord' or 'My Lady' or 'Your Lordship' or 'Your Ladyship'.

Examples of judges who use the title include: Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, who are addressed as if they were life peers by Royal Warrant, but do not hold peerages (except for those Law Lords who already held peerages when they became the first justices of the Court). Wives of male justices are addressed as if they were wives of peers. These forms of address are applicable both in court and in all other social contexts.

Judges of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, known as 'Lords Justices of Appeal'.

Judges of the Scottish Court of Session, known as 'Lords of Council and Session'.

Judges of the Supreme Court of India and the High Courts of India, who are addressed as 'My Lord' in court. The Bar Council of India however calls upon lawyers to give up this practice of addressing judges as 'lords'.

Lord of the Manor

The title "Lord of the Manor" arose in the English medieval system of manorialism following the Norman Conquest. The title "Lord of the Manor" is a titular feudal dignity which is still recognised today. Their holders are entitled to call themselves "[Personal name], Lord/Lady of the Manor of [Place name]". Whilst Lordships of The Manor are not titles of nobility they are recognised titles. The UK Identity and Passport Service will include them on a British passport as an observation e.g. 'The Holder is the Lord of the Manor of X' provided the holder can provide documentary evidence of ownership.

Laird

The Scottish title Laird is a shortened form of 'laverd' which is an old Scottish word deriving from an Anglo-Saxon term meaning 'Lord' and is also derived from the middle English word 'Lard' also meaning 'Lord'. 'Laird' is a hereditary title for the owner of a landed estate in the United Kingdom and is a title of Gentry. The title of Laird may carry certain local or feudal rights, though unlike a Lordship, a Lairdship has not always carried voting rights, either in the historic Parliament of Scotland or, after unification with the Kingdom of England, in the British House of Lords.

Other

Various other high offices of state may carry the cachet of honorary lords, such as Lord Chancellor, Lord Privy Seal, Lord President of the Council and Lord Mayor. Holders of these offices are not necessarily peers, although the holders of some of the titles were in the past always peers.

Feudalism

In feudalism, a lord (also known as a liege) has aristocratic rank, has control over a portion of land and the produce and labour of the serfs living thereon. Knights or lesser lords would swear the oath of fealty to the lord, and would then become a vassal (also known as a liegeman).

Bishops in the Middle Ages held the feudal rank of lord over their spiritual inferiors, hence today even bishops who do not sit as Lords Spiritual may be addressed as "Lord Bishop". As a reflection of its feudal (and thus territorial) nature, however, the title is generally reserved for diocesan bishops, not assistant or coadjutor bishops.

As part of the heritage of feudalism, lord can generally refer to superiors of many kinds, for example landlord. In many cultures in Europe the equivalent term serves as a general title of address equivalent to the English 'Mister' French Monsieur, Spanish Señor, Portuguese Senhor, Italian Signore, Dutch Meneer/Mijnheer/De Heer (as in: to de heer Joren Jansen), German Herr, Hungarian Úr, Greek Kyrie or to the English formal "you" (Polish Pan). See also gentleman.

==Religion==

People have often used the term 'Lord' in religious contexts, where "The Lord" refers to God in Judaism or Islam, or to Lord Buddha in Buddhism, or to God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit in Christianity. In the Anglican Church there are also Lord Bishops. In many Christian Bibles (such as the King James Version), the Hebrew name YHWH (the Tetragrammaton) is rendered "LORD" (all caps) or "" (small caps). This usage follows the Jewish practice of substituting the spoken Hebrew word "Adonai" for YHWH when read aloud. Following practice in Hebrew, the Septuagint mainly used the Greek word Kyrios (, meaning 'lord') to translate YHWH. As this was the Old Testament of the Early Church, the Christian practice of translating the divine name as 'Lord' derives directly from it.

The English term Lord is often used to translate the Arabic term Rabb.

In Hindu theology, The Lord or Svayam Bhagavan may refer to the concept of The Absolute representation of the monotheistic God. Another name used more commonly used in Hindu theology for The Lord is Ishvara (Ishvara is the Sanskrit word meaning "The Lord"), the personal god consisting of the holy trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.

Other concepts of The Lord:

Baal, or Hadad, among the Caananites and most pre-monotheistic religion Semites was "The Lord" with whom only priests were allowed to speak. References to Baal in the Hebrew Bible, such as the prophet Elijah's confrontation with Baal's priests, usually correspond to local gods rather than to Hadad.

Bel meaning 'Lord' is a common title of the Babylonian deity Marduk.

En meaning 'Lord' as in Sumerian deities Enki and Enlil.

In Buddhism it refers to the Buddha and in Jainism to the Mahavira.

In Nahuatl, the word 'Ahau' is translated as 'Lord' in reference to Aztec deities.

The name of the god Adonis is regarded by many scholars as a cognate of the Hebrew word for "lord", Adonai.

In Neo-Platonism, The Lord is referred to as The One.

In Gnosticism, The Lord is referred to as The All.

In Mormonism, it is believed that Jesus Christ was the YHVH (Jehovah) of the Old Testament in his pre-mortal existence, and since that name is translated "The Lord" in the King James Bible, in Mormonism "The Lord" refers to Jesus Christ, while Elohim, the being that created the cosmos, is referred to as "God". (See Mormon cosmology for references)

In Theosophy, The Lord is called the Universal Logos and is regarded as a pantheistic deity. It is believed the Universal Logos created this cosmos and has created and will create innumerable other cosmoses in the mulitverse.

In the Wiccan religion, the male god Pan or Cernunnos is also sometimes referred to as 'The Lord' and the female goddess Diana as 'The Lady'. Some Wiccans such as Gerald Gardner taught that there is another pantheistic Deity above these two which he called by the Aristotlean name the Prime Mover; Patricia Crowther uses the term "Dryghten", an Old English name for The Lord to refer to this Deity; while Starhawk uses the name Star Goddess to describe the being that created the cosmos. (See Wiccan views of divinity for references)

See also

Forms of address in the United Kingdom

Lord Bishop

Lords Spiritual

Lord Chamberlain

Lord Chancellor

Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales

Lord Commissioner of Justiciary

Lord of Council and Session

Lord High Admiral

Lord High Constable

Lord High Treasurer

Lord of the Treasury

Lord Justice Clerk

Law Lord

Lord President of the Council

Lord President of the Court of Session

Lord Privy Seal

Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty (the Sea Lords)

Lord Rector

Lord Mayor

Peerage

Duke

Marquess

Earl

Viscount

Baron

English Feudal Baronies

Lord of Parliament

Laird

Lord of the Manor

Trịnh Lords

Nguyễn Lords

Milord

My Sweet Lord

References

; Sources consulted

; Endnotes

Category:Titles Category:Men's social titles Category:Noble titles Category:Feudalism Category:Names of God

ar:رب br:Aotrou ca:Lord cs:Lord da:Lord de:Lord es:Lord fa:لرد fr:Seigneurie#Le seigneur he:לורד lt:Lordas mk:Лорд ja:封建領主 no:Lord pl:Lord pt:Lorde ru:Лорд sco:Laird fi:Lordi tl:Panginoon tr:Lort uk:Лорд zh:勳爵

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Gary Valenciano
background	solo_singer
birth name	Edgardo Jose Martin Santiago Valenciano
alias	Gary V.
born	August 06, 1964
origin	Manila, Philippines
instrument	Vocals, Keyboards, Percussions
genre	Gospel, Pinoy pop, Manila Sound
occupation	Singer, Songwriter, Record producer, Actor, Dancer
years active	1983–present
label	Manila Genesis Entertainment & Management, Inc.Universal Records (Philippines)
website	GaryV.com
notable instruments	}}

Edgardo Jose Martin Santiago Valenciano (born August 6, 1964) , better known as Gary Valenciano or Gary V., is a Filipino musician. He is also dubbed as Mr. Pure Energy. He has released 26 albums, and won the Awit Awards for "Best Male Performer" 11 times. In 1998, he became UNICEF Philippines first national Ambassador. His most notable songs include Di Bale Na Lang, Sana Maulit Muli, Natutulog Ba Ang Diyos?, Gaya ng Dati, Pasko na Sinta Ko, Narito.

He is currently part of ABS-CBN contract actors, and is frequently tapped to sing the theme songs for the network's soap operas and Star Cinema movies.

Biography

Gary Valenciano was born in Santa Mesa, Manila on August 6, 1964. He is the sixth of Vicente Valenciano and Grimilda Santiago Ortiz's seven children. His parents met in New York, married, and settled in Manila. His father is from Bicol, Philippines. His mother is a Puerto Rican woman of Italian descent, who sang opera in Manila during the 1960s. Valenciano took his primary and secondary studies in La Salle Green Hills.

Career

Valenciano had already been in early appearance in an on-screen television when he was first discovered in a Philippine soft-drink commercial in the late of 70swhen he was 14 years old at that time. He was started as a choir singer, then performing in 1982 and launched his career in singing and show business on May 13, 1983. He was also first appeared as a solo in a television show called The Pilita and Jackie Show in 1982, and later in Germspesyal and Penthouse Live. He had his first solo concert, in April 1984 at the Araneta Coliseum. That would be followed a number of albums, three of them released internationally, including a Christian inspired album called Out of the Dark.

He is married to Maria Anna Elizabeth "Angeli" Pangilinan, with whom he has three children: Juan Paolo Martin, Jose Angelo Gabriel and Kristiana Maria Mikaela.

Valenciano has released multiple albums. He has won the Awit Award for "Best Male Performer" 11 of the past 21 times. He has been called "Mr. Pure Energy."

In 1998, he became UNICEF Philippines first national Ambassador. In 2008, he marked his tenth year as a UNICEF Ambassador with a visit to Sitio Avocado, a former war zone in Negros Oriental.

In 2008, Valenciano returned to acting by appearing in "Maalaala Mo Kaya" which he plays a prisoner who turns his life to Jesus and becomes a changed man as a Christian. The same year, he was nominated as "Best Single Performance By An Actor" in the 22nd PMPC Star Awards for TV.

In 2009, Valenciano released a collaborative album with Martin Nievera called "As 1", with their carrier single, "As 1".

In 2010, Gary V. returns to acting again via a Holy Week drama special, Gulong, a CBN Asia Production was recently shown on GMA 7, this was his 3rd GMA 7 holy week special since 2006. The same year, Gary V. releases his brand new 25th full-length album and his 4th compilation album, "Replay" was recently released, with his carrier single, "Did It Ever".

He is currently living with diabetes.

Discography

Studio albums

{|class="wikitable" |- ! Year ! Album details ! Certifications(sales thresholds) |- | 1984 | Gary

Released: 1984

Label: Universal

| |- | 1985 | Gary...Next

Released: 1985

Label: Universal

| |- | rowspan="2" | 1986 | Gary...Inside Out

Released: 1986

Label: Universal

| |- | From Gary, Merry Christmas

Released: 1986

Label: Universal

| |- | 1987 | Moving Thoughts

Released: 1987

Label: Warner

| |- | 1989 | Faces of Love

Released: 1989

Label: Warner / Dyna

| |- | 1991 | Shout4Joy

Released: 1991

Label: Universal

| |- | 1992 | Dancing in the Moonlight^[A]

Released: 1992

Label: Universal, Toshiba-EMI

| |- | 1993 | Hataw Na!

Released: 1993

Label: Universal

| |- | rowspan="2" | 1995 | Out of the Dark^[B]

Released: 1995

Label: Universal

| |- | Outside Looking In^[C]

Released: 1995

Label: Universal, Polygram

| |- | 1998 | Interactive

Released: 1998

Label: Universal

| PARI: Gold |- | 2001 | Revive

Released: 2001

Label: Universal

| PARI: 6× Platinum |- | rowspan="2" | 2002 | one2one

Released: 2002

Label: VIVA

| PARI: Platinum |- | I Will Be Here

Released: 2002

Label: Universal

| |- | rowspan="2" | 2003 | Beyond Words

Released: 2003

Label: Universal

| |- | At the Movies

Released: 2003

Label: Universal

| PARI: Platinum |- | rowspan="2" | 2005 | Pure Heart

Released: 2005

Label: Star

| PARI: Platinum |- | Soul Full

Released: 2005

Label: Universal

| PARI: Gold |- | 2006 | Relevance

Released: 2006

Label: Universal

| PARI: Platinum |- | 2008 | Rebirth

Released: April 24, 2008

Label: Universal

| |- | 2009 | As 1 (with Martin Nievera)^[D]

Released: 2009

Label: Universal

| |- |} Notes

^[A] Album was released in Japan under Toshiba-EMI.

^[B] Album was released in the United States.

^[C] Album was released internationally under Polygram Records.

^[D] As 1 is a collaborative album, with Martin Nievera.

Live albums

{|class="wikitable" |- ! Year ! Album details ! Certifications(sales thresholds) |- | 1988 | Heart and Soul

Released: 1988

Label: Universal

| |- | 1993 | Shout Live

Released: 1993

Label: Universal

| |- | 1995 | Move Live

Released: 1995

Label: Warner

| |- |}

Compilation albums

{|class="wikitable" |- ! Year ! Album details ! Certifications(sales thresholds) |- | 1997 | Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and 2

Released: 1997

Label: Universal

| PARI: 4× Platinum |- | 2004 | Gary V.: The Blackgold Collection

Released: 2004

Label: Universal

| |- | 2008 | The Platinum Ballad Collection: 25th Anniversary Album

Released: 2008

Label: Universal

| |- | 2010 | Replay Released: October 2010

Label: Universal

| |- |}

Collaboration Albums

Salubungin Ang Pasko (Universal Records, 1986)

Ginintuang Diwa ng Pasko (Universal Records, 1989)

18 Classic OPM Love Songs (EMI Music Philippines, 1998)

The Best Of Crossover Presents (Viva Records, 2003)

Only Selfless Love 2 (Universal Records, 2003)

OPM Rewind (Universal Records, 2004)

The Love Song Collection (Universal Records, 2004)

Top Male OPM Hits (Star Records, 2004)

Various Movie Themes (Vicor Music, 2005)

Nagmamahal Kapamilya Songs For Global (Star Records, 2005)

Best Of OPM Inspirational Songs (Universal Records, 2005)

Best Of OPM Love Duets (Universal Records, 2005)

Best Of OPM Love Ballads (Universal Records, 2005)

Best Of OPM Movie & TV Themes (Universal Records, 2005)

Pinoy Biggie Hits (Star Records, 2006)

OPM With Love (Universal Records, 2006)

Lovestruck Vol. 1 (Viva Records, 2006)

OPM Gold (Universal Records, 2006)

OPM Superstars Christmas (Universal Records, 2006)

Hotsilog The ASAP Hotdog Compilation (Star Records, 2006)

Top Male OPM Hits (Star Records, 2007)

Pinoy Biggie Hits Rewind (Star Records, 2007)

Musika At Pelikula: A Star Cinema Music Collection (Star Records, 2008)

No.1 Signature Hits OPM's Best (Vicor Music, 2008)

Kris Aquino: The Greatest Love (Universal Records, 2008)

Wings of the Soul (Star Records, 2008)

OPM No. 1's (Star Records, 2009)

I-Star 15: Best Of TV & Movie Themes (Star Records, 2010)

60 Taon Ng Musika At Soap Opera (Star Records, 2010)

OPM All-Star Christmas (Universal Records, 2010)

Ngayong Pasko Magniningning Ang Pilipino (Star Records, 2010)

OPM Number 1s Vol.2 (Star Records, 2011)

I Love You (Star Records, 2011)

Bida Best Hits Da Best (Star Records, 2011)

Songs

Valenciano's songs include:

'' 1983 – Growing Up (Theme Song of the Philippine Movie "Bagets")

'' 1983 – You Got Me Working

'' 1983 – Hang On

'' 1983 – Betty's in Bed

'' 1984 – Love of Mine

'' 1984 – Reaching Out

'' 1984 – Hotshots

'' 1985 – Move Your Body

'' 1985 – Once Upon a Life

'' 1986 – Paano

'' 1986 – Pasko Na Sinta Ko

'' 1987 – 'Di Bale Na Lang

'' 1987 – 'Wag Mo Na Sanang Isipin

'' 1987 – 'Di Na Natuto

'' 1987 - Sana Maulit Muli

'' 1988 – Take Me Out Of The Dark

'' 1989 – Heto na Naman

'' 1989 – Laughter All The Time

'' 1989 – Each Passing Night (with Regine Velasquez)

'' 1989 – Narito

'' 1989 – Letting Go

'' 1989 – Mahal Na Mahal Ko Siya

'' 1990 – Natutulog Ba Ang Diyos?

'' 1990 – Look In Her Eyes

'' 1991 – Shout For Joy

'' 1991 – Could You be Messiah?

'' 1991 - Sa Tuwing Naaalala Ka (with Sharon Cuneta)

'' 1992 – Gaya ng Dati

'' 1993 – Hataw Na!

'' 1993 - Sa Yahweh!

'' 1993 – Muli (with Regine Velasquez)

'' 1994 – Babalik Ka Rin

'' 1995 – Hele ni Inay

'' 1997 – Until Then (remade from the Side A original)

'' 1998 – (Everybody) Get Down

'' 1998 - Pampanga

'' 1999 – More and More

'' 2000 - Anak

'' 2000 – I Will Be Here

'' 2001 – The Warrior is a Child

'' 2002 – Can't We Just Stop And Talk a While (with Kyla)

'' 2002 – Kung Mawawala Ka (with Zsa Zsa Padilla)

'' 2003 – Kailangan Kita

'' 2004 – How Did You Know

'' 2005 – Ikaw Lamang

'' 2005 – Break Me

'' 2005 – Lipad ng Pangarap

'' 2005 – Break me

'' 2006 – Wait Forever

'' 2007 – You Are (with Joni Villanueva)

'' 2008 – Only Hope

'' 2008 – Ilaan mo (theme from ICare Compassion Ministry)

'' 2009 – Tayong Dalawa

'' 2009 – AYT! (with Sponge Cola)

'' 2009 – And I Love You So

'' 2010 – Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo

'' 2010 – How Can I?

'' 2010 - Did It Ever

'' 2011 - Minsan Lang Kita Iibigin

'' 2011 - Home

Television

CBN Asia Holy Week Special (GMA Network, 1995)

Ikaw Lang Ang Mamahalin (GMA Network, 2002) - cameo appearance

Sa Ngalan Ng Anak: A CBN Asia Holy Week Special (GMA Network, 2006)

ASAP (ABS-CBN, 2006–present)

Maalaala Mo Kaya? (ABS-CBN, 2008)

May Bukas Pa (ABS-CBN, 2009) - guest

Gulong: A CBN Asia Holy Week Special (GMA Network, 2010)

Twist & Shout (ABS-CBN, 2010)

Minsan Lang Kita Iibigin (ABS-CBN, 2011) - guest/himself

Awards

20th Awit Awards (2007) – Best Performance by a Male Recording Artist – "In Another Lifetime"

See also

Kuh Ledesma

George Canseco

Pilita Corrales

Martin Nievera

Amapola (Amapola Cabase)

References

External links

Gary Valenciano's Official Website

Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:Filipino actors Category:Filipino film actors Category:Filipino television actors Category:Filipino television personalities Category:Filipino male singers Category:Filipino musicians Category:Filipino pop singers Category:Filipino Christians Category:Filipino evangelicals Category:Filipino Pentecostals Category:People from Manila Category:Performers of Christian music Category:Filipino film score composers Category:UNICEF people

es:Gary Valenciano tl:Gary Valenciano

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
alt	Black-and-white shot of a mustachioed man in his early thirties with long, dark hair.
background	solo_singer
alias	Carl HarrisonL'Angelo MisteriosoHari GeorgesonNelson/Spike WilburyGeorge HarrysongGeorge O'Hara-Smith
birth date	February 25, 1943
birth place
death date	November 29, 2001
death place
instrument	Guitar, vocals, bass, keyboards, ukulele, mandolin, sitar, tambura, sarod, swarmandal
genre	Rock, pop, psychedelic rock, experimental, world
occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, actor, record and film producer
years active	1958–2001
label	Parlophone, Capitol, Swan, Apple, Vee-Jay, EMI, Dark Horse
associated acts	The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Traveling Wilburys, Dhani Harrison, Ravi Shankar
website	GeorgeHarrison.com
notable instruments	Gretsch Country Gentleman"Rocky""Lucy"Rosewood Telecaster }}

George Harrison, MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English rock musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other Beatles, as well as those of their Western audience. Following the band's break-up, he had a successful career as a solo artist and later as part of the Traveling Wilburys, and also as a film and record producer. Harrison is listed at number 21 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Although most of The Beatles' songs were written by Lennon and McCartney, Beatle albums generally included one or two of Harrison's own songs, from With The Beatles onwards. His later compositions with The Beatles include "Here Comes the Sun", "Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". By the time of the band's break-up, Harrison had accumulated a backlog of material, which he then released as the acclaimed and successful triple album All Things Must Pass in 1970, from which came two singles: a double A-side single, "My Sweet Lord" backed with "Isn't It a Pity", and "What Is Life". In addition to his solo work, Harrison co-wrote two hits for Ringo Starr, another former Beatle, as well as songs for the Traveling Wilburys—the supergroup he formed in 1988 with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison.

Harrison embraced Indian culture and Hinduism in the mid 1960s, and helped expand Western awareness of sitar music and of the Hare Krishna movement. With Ravi Shankar he organised a major charity concert with the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh.

Besides being a musician, he was also a record producer and co-founder of the production company HandMade Films. In his work as a film producer, he collaborated with people as diverse as the members of Monty Python and Madonna.

He was married twice, to model Pattie Boyd from 1966 to 1974, and for 23 years to record company secretary Olivia Trinidad Arias, with whom he had one son, Dhani Harrison. He was a close friend of Eric Clapton. He is the only Beatle to have published an autobiography, with I Me Mine in 1980. Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001.

Early years: 1943–1959

Harrison was born in Liverpool, England, on 25 February 1943, the last of four children to Harold Hargreaves Harrison and his wife Louise, née French. thumb|alt=Exterior of a red brick building. Visible are a black door with a small window just above it, two larger windows to the left of the door, one above the other, and a flowerpot between the door and the lower larger window|Harrison's first home – 12 Arnold Grove He had one sister, Louise, born 16 August 1931, and two brothers, Harry, born 1934, and Peter, born 20 July 1940. His mother was a Liverpool shop assistant, and his father was a bus conductor who had worked as a ship's steward on the White Star Line. The family were Roman Catholic; his maternal grandfather, John French, was born at County Wexford, Ireland, emigrating to Liverpool where he married a local girl, Louise Woollam.

Harrison was born in the house where he lived for his first six years: 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool, which was a small 2 up, 2 down terraced house in a cul-de-sac, with an alley to the rear. The only heating was a single coal fire, and the toilet was outside. In 1950 the family were offered a council house, and moved to 25 Upton Green, Speke.

His first school was Dovedale Primary School, very close to Penny Lane, the same school as John Lennon who was a couple of years ahead of him. He passed his 11-plus examination and achieved a place at the Liverpool Institute for Boys (in the building that now houses the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts), which he attended from 1954 to 1959. George said that, when he was 12 or 13, he had an "epiphany" of sorts – riding a bike around his neighbourhood, he heard Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" playing from a nearby house and was hooked. Even though he had done well enough on his 11-plus examination to get into the city's best high school, from that point on, the former good student lost interest in school. When Harrison was 14 years old, he sat at the back of the class and tried drawing guitars in his schoolbooks: “I was totally into guitars. I heard about this kid at school who had a guitar at £3 10s, it was just a little acoustic round hole. I got the £3 10s from my mother: that was a lot of money for us then.” Harrison bought a Dutch Egmond flat top acoustic guitar. While at the Liverpool Institute, Harrison formed a skiffle group called the Rebels with his brother Peter and a friend, Arthur Kelly. At this school he met Paul McCartney, who was one year older. McCartney later became a member of John Lennon's band called The Quarrymen, which Harrison joined in 1958.

The Beatles: 1960–1970

Harrison became part of The Beatles when they were still a skiffle group called The Quarrymen. McCartney told Lennon about his friend George Harrison, who could play "Raunchy" on his guitar. Although Lennon considered him too young to join the band, Harrison hung out with them and filled in as needed. By the time Harrison was 15, Lennon and the others had accepted him as one of the band. Since Harrison was the youngest member of the group, he was looked upon as a kid by the others for another few years.

Harrison left school at 16 and worked as an apprentice electrician at local department store Blacklers for a while. When The Beatles were offered work in Hamburg in 1960, the musical apprenticeship that Harrison received playing long hours at the Kaiserkeller with the rest of the group, including guitar lessons from Tony Sheridan, laid the foundations of The Beatles' sound, and of Harrison's quiet, professional role within the group; this role would contribute to his reputation as "the quiet Beatle". The first trip to Hamburg was shortened when Harrison was deported for being underage.

When Brian Epstein became The Beatles' manager in December 1961 after seeing them perform at The Cavern Club in November, he changed their image from that of leather-jacketed rock-and-rollers to a more polished look, and secured them a recording contract with EMI. The first single, "Love Me Do", with Harrison playing a Gibson J-160E, reached number 17 in the UK chart in October 1962, and by the time their debut album, Please Please Me, was released in early 1963, The Beatles had become famous and Beatlemania had arrived.

After he revealed in an interview that he liked jelly babies, British fans inundated Harrison and the rest of the band with boxes of the sweets as gifts. A few months later, American audiences showered the band with the much harder jelly beans instead. In a letter to a fan, Harrison mentioned jelly babies, insisting that no one in the band actually liked them and that the press must have made it up.

The popularity of The Beatles led to a successful tour of America, the making of a film, A Hard Day's Night (during which Harrison met his future wife Pattie Boyd), and in the 1965 Queen's Birthday Honours, all four Beatles were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). Harrison, whose role within the group was that of the careful musician who checked that the instruments were tuned, by 1965 and the Rubber Soul album, was developing into a musical director as he led the others into folk-rock, via his interest in The Byrds and Bob Dylan, and into Indian music with his exploration of the sitar. Harrison's musical involvement and cohesion with the group reached its peak on Revolver in 1966 with his contribution of three songs and new musical ideas. By 1967, Harrison's interests appeared to be moving outside the Beatles, and his involvement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band consists mainly of his one song, "Within You Without You", on which no other Beatle plays, and which stands out for its difference from the rest of the album.

During the recording of The Beatles in 1968, tensions were present in the band; these surfaced again during the filming of rehearsal sessions at Twickenham Studios for the album Let It Be in early 1969. Frustrated by ongoing slights, the poor working conditions in the cold and sterile film studio, and Lennon's creative disengagement from the group, Harrison quit the band on 10 January. He returned on 22 January after negotiations with the other Beatles at two business meetings.

Relations among The Beatles were more cordial (though still strained) during recordings for the album Abbey Road. The album included "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something", "Something" was later recorded by Frank Sinatra, who considered it "the greatest love song of the past fifty years". Harrison's increasing productivity, coupled with his difficulties in getting The Beatles to record his music, meant that by the end of the group's career he had amassed a considerable stockpile of unreleased material. Harrison's last recording session with The Beatles was on 4 January 1970. Lennon, who had left the group the previous September, did not attend the session.

Relationships with the other Beatles

For the most part of The Beatles career, the relationships in the group were extremely close and intimate. According to Hunter Davies, "The Beatles spent their lives not living a communal life, but communally living the same life. They were each other's greatest friends." Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd described how The Beatles "all belonged to each other" and admitted, "George has a lot with the others that I can never know about. Nobody, not even the wives, can break through or even comprehend it."

Ringo Starr also stated, "We really looked out for each other and we had so many laughs together. In the old days we'd have the biggest hotel suites, the whole floor of the hotel, and the four of us would end up in the bathroom, just to be with each other." and added "There were some really loving, caring moments between four people: a hotel room here and there – a really amazing closeness. Just four guys who loved each other. It was pretty sensational."

John Lennon stated that his relationship with George was "one of young follower and older guy", and admitted that "[George] was like a disciple of mine when we started." The two would often go on holiday together throughout the 60s. Their relationship took a severe turn for the worse after George published his autobiography, I Me Mine. Lennon felt insulted and hurt that George mentioned him only in passing. Lennon claimed he was hurt by the book and also that he did more for George than any of the other Beatles. As a result, George and John were not on good terms during the last months of Lennon's life. After Lennon's murder, George paid tribute to Lennon with his song "All Those Years Ago" which was released in 1981, six months after Lennon's murder. In it, he admitted "I always look up to you", thereby implicitly agreeing with Lennon's appraisal of their relationship.

Paul McCartney has often referred to Harrison as his "baby brother", and he did the honours as best man at George's wedding in 1966. The two were the first of The Beatles to meet, having shared a school bus, and would often learn and rehearse new guitar chords together. McCartney stated that he and George usually shared a bedroom while touring.

Guitar work

Harrison's guitar work with The Beatles was varied and flexible; although not fast or flashy, his guitar playing was solid and typified the more subdued lead guitar style of the early 1960s. The influence of the plucking guitar style of Chet Atkins and Carl Perkins on Harrison gave a country music feel to The Beatles' early recordings. Harrison explored several guitar instruments, the twelve-string, the sitar and the slide guitar, and developed his playing from tight eight- and twelve-bar solos in such songs as "A Hard Day's Night" and "Can't Buy Me Love", to lyrical slide guitar playing, first recorded during an early session of "If Not for You" for Dylan's New Morning in 1970. The earliest example of notable guitar work from Harrison was the extended acoustic guitar solo of "Till There Was You", for which Harrison purchased a José Ramírez nylon-stringed classical guitar to produce the sensitivity needed.

Harrison's first electric guitar was a Czech built Jolana Futurama/Grazioso, which was a popular guitar among British guitarists in the early 1960s., The guitars Harrison used on early recordings were mainly Gretsch played through a Vox amp. He used a variety of Gretsch guitars, including a Gretsch Duo Jet – his first Gretsch, which he bought in 1961 second hand off a sailor in Liverpool; a Gretsch Tennessean, and his (first out of two) Gretsch Country Gentleman, bought new for £234 in April 1963 at the Sound City store in London, which he used on "She Loves You", and on The Beatles' 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. During The Beatles' trip to the US in 1964, Harrison acquired a Rickenbacker 360/12 guitar. He had tried out the 12-string electric guitar during an interview with a Minneapolis radio station, and was given the guitar either by the Rickenbacker company or the radio station. The 360/12 was an experimental 12-string guitar with the strings reversed so that the lower pitched string was struck first, and with an unusual headstock design that made tuning easier. Harrison used the guitar extensively during the recording of A Hard Day's Night, and the jangly sound became so popular that the Melody Maker termed it "the beat boys' secret weapon". Roger McGuinn liked the effect Harrison achieved so much that it became his signature guitar sound with the Byrds.

He obtained his first Fender Stratocaster in 1965 and used it for the recording of the Rubber Soul album, most notably on the "Nowhere Man" track, where he played in unison with Lennon who also had a Stratocaster. Lennon and Harrison both had Sonic Blue Stratocasters, which were bought second hand by roadie Mal Evans. Harrison painted his Stratocaster in a psychedelic design that included the word "Bebopalula" painted above the pickguard and the guitar's nickname, "Rocky", painted on the headstock. He played this guitar in the Magical Mystery Tour film and throughout his solo career.

After David Crosby of the Byrds introduced him to the work of sitar master Ravi Shankar in 1965, Harrison—whose interest in Indian music was stirred during the filming of Help!, which used Indian music as part of its soundtrack—played a sitar on the Rubber Soul track "Norwegian Wood", expanding the already nascent Western interest in Indian music. Harrison listed his early influences as Carl Perkins, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers.

Song writing and singing

Harrison wrote his first song published with the Beatles, "Don't Bother Me", while sick in a hotel bed in Bournemouth during August 1963, as "an exercise to see if I could write a song", [emphasis in original] as he remembered. "Don't Bother Me" appeared on the second Beatles album (With the Beatles) later that year, then on Meet the Beatles! in the US in early 1964, and also briefly in the film A Hard Day's Night. The group did not record another Harrison composition until 1965, when he contributed "I Need You" and "You Like Me Too Much" to the album Help!.

Harrison's songwriting improved greatly through the years, but his material did not earn respect from his fellow Beatles until near the group's break-up. McCartney told Lennon in 1969: "Until this year, our songs have been better than George's. Now this year his songs are at least as good as ours". Harrison had difficulty getting the band to record his songs. The group's incorporation of Harrison's material reached a peak of three songs on the 1966 Revolver album and four songs on the 1968 double The Beatles''.

Harrison performed the lead vocal on all Beatles songs that he wrote by himself. He also sang lead vocal on other songs, including "Chains" and "Do You Want to Know a Secret" on Please Please Me, "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Devil in Her Heart" on With The Beatles, "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" on A Hard Day's Night, and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" on Beatles for Sale.

Solo work: 1968–1987

Before The Beatles split up in 1970, Harrison had already recorded and released two solo albums, Wonderwall Music and Electronic Sound. These albums were mainly instrumental. Wonderwall Music was a soundtrack to the Wonderwall film in which Harrison blended Indian and Western sounds; while Electronic Sound was an experiment in using a Moog synthesiser. It was only when Harrison was free from The Beatles that he released what is regarded as his first "real" solo album, the commercially successful and critically acclaimed All Things Must Pass.

All Things Must Pass (1970)

After years of being restricted in his song-writing contributions to the Beatles, All Things Must Pass contained such a large outpouring of Harrison's songs that it was released as a triple album, though only two of the discs contained songs—the third contained recordings of Harrison jamming with friends. The album is regarded as his best work; it was a critical and commercial success, topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and produced the number-one hit single "My Sweet Lord" as well as the top-10 single "What Is Life". The album was co-produced by Phil Spector using his "Wall of Sound" approach, and the musicians included Eric Clapton, Dave Mason, Gary Wright, Billy Preston, and Ringo Starr.

Harrison was later sued for copyright infringement over the song "My Sweet Lord" because of its similarity to the 1963 Chiffons song "He's So Fine", owned by Bright Tunes. Harrison denied deliberately plagiarizing the song, but he lost the resulting court case in 1976 as the judge deemed that Harrison had "subconsciously" plagiarised "He's So Fine". When considering liable earnings, "My Sweet Lord"'s contribution to the sales of All Things Must Pass and The Best of George Harrison were taken into account, and the judge decided a figure of $1,599,987 was owed to Bright Tunes. The dispute over damages became complicated when Harrison's former manager Allen Klein purchased the copyright to "He's So Fine" from Bright Tunes in 1978. In 1981, a district judge decided that Klein had acted improperly, and it was agreed that Harrison should pay Klein $587,000, the amount Klein had paid for "He's So Fine", so he would gain nothing from the deal, and that Harrison would take over ownership of Bright Tunes, making him the owner of the rights to both "My Sweet Lord" and "He's So Fine" and thus ending the copyright infringement claim. Though the dispute dragged on into the 1990s, the district judge's decision was upheld.

The Concert for Bangladesh (1971)

Responding to a request for help by longtime friend Ravi Shankar, Harrison organised a major charity concert, The Concert for Bangladesh, on 1 August 1971, drawing over 40,000 people to two shows in New York's Madison Square Garden. The aim of the event was to raise money to aid the starving refugees during the Bangladesh Liberation War. Ravi Shankar opened the proceedings, which included other popular musicians such as Bob Dylan (who rarely appeared live in the early 1970s), Eric Clapton, who made his first public appearance in months (due to a heroin addiction which began when Derek and the Dominos broke up), Leon Russell, Badfinger, Billy Preston and fellow Beatle Ringo Starr. Tax troubles and questionable expenses tied up many of the concert's proceeds. Apple Corporation released a newly arranged concert DVD and CD in October 2005 (with all artists' sales royalties continuing to go to UNICEF), which contained additional material such as previously unreleased rehearsal footage of "If Not for You", featuring Harrison and Dylan.

Living in the Material World to George Harrison (1972–1979)

Harrison would not again release an album that came close to the critical and commercial achievements of All Things Must Pass. Although 1973's Living in the Material World initially did well, holding number one spot on the US album chart for five weeks and reaching number two in the UK, and the album's single, "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)", was also successful, reaching number one in the US and the top ten in the UK, neither could match the sales of All Things Must Pass and "My Sweet Lord". The album was lavishly produced and packaged, and its dominant message was the power of Harrison's Hindu beliefs. The one fully secular song, "Sue Me, Sue You Blues", expressed Harrison's disgust with the endless legal squabbling that had overtaken all of the former Beatles. The Dark Horse album of 1974 written after Harrison's break-up with his wife Pattie Boyd and when he was suffering from laryngitis received harsh reviews, as did the accompanying tour of North America. Harrison was criticised for poor songwriting and poor vocals on the album, and for over-indulging his love for Indian music during the tour. The album and single "Dark Horse" did briefly make an appearance near the top of the US charts, but both failed to chart in the UK.

His final studio album for EMI (and Apple Records) was Extra Texture (Read All About It), featuring a diecut cover. The album spawned two singles, "You" which reached the Billboard top 20 and "This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying)", which became Apple's final original single release in December 1975. Following the former Beatle's departure from Capitol, the record company was in a position to licence releases featuring Beatles and post-Beatles work on the same album, using Harrison for this experiment. The Best of George Harrison (1976) combined his Beatles songs with a selection of his solo Apple work.

Thirty Three & 1/3 his first Dark Horse release, was his most successful late-1970s album, reaching number 11 on the US charts in 1976, and producing the singles "This Song" (a satire of the "My Sweet Lord"-"He's So Fine" court case ruling) and "Crackerbox Palace", both of which reached the top 25 in the US. With an emphasis on melody, musicianship, and subtler subject matter rather than the heavy orchestration and didactic messaging of earlier works, he received his best critical notices since All Things Must Pass. With its surreal humour, "Crackerbox Palace" also reflected Harrison's association with Monty Python's Eric Idle, who directed a comic music video for the song. After his second marriage and the birth of son Dhani Harrison, Harrison's next released a self-titled album. 1979's George Harrison included the singles "Blow Away", "Love Comes to Everyone" and "Faster". Both the album and "Blow Away" made the Billboard top 20.

In addition to his own works during this time, between 1971 and 1973 Harrison co-wrote or produced three top ten US and UK hits for Ringo Starr ("It Don't Come Easy", "Back Off Boogaloo", and "Photograph"). Harrison played electric, slide and dobro guitars on five songs on John Lennon's 1971 Imagine album ("How Do You Sleep?", "Oh My Love", "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier", "Crippled Inside" and "Gimme Some Truth"), with his stinging slide guitar work on the first of these indicating that he took John's side of the intense Lennon-McCartney feud of the time. Lennon later said of Harrison's work on the album, "That's the best he's ever fucking played in his life!" Harrison also produced and played slide guitar on the Apple band Badfinger's 1971 top ten US and UK hit "Day After Day".

During the decade, Harrison also worked with Harry Nilsson ("You're Breakin' My Heart", 1972), as well as Billy Preston ("That's the Way God Planned It", 1969 and "It's My Pleasure", 1975) and Cheech & Chong ("Basketball Jones", 1973). He also appeared with Paul Simon to perform two acoustic songs on Saturday Night Live.

Somewhere in England to Cloud Nine (1980–1987)

Harrison was deeply shocked by the 8 December 1980 murder of John Lennon. The crime reinforced his decades-long worries about safety from stalkers. It was also a deep personal loss, although unlike former bandmates McCartney and Starr, Harrison had little contact with Lennon in the years before the murder. Their estrangement had been marked by Harrison's longstanding dislike of Yoko Ono, his refusal to allow her participation in the Concert for Bangladesh, and his omission of any mention of Lennon in his autobiography, I Me Mine, published the year of Lennon's murder. The omission had upset Lennon greatly, which Harrison had regretted, leading him to leave a telephone message for Lennon, but Lennon had declined to return the call and they had not spoken again. Following the murder, Harrison said, "After all we went through together I had and still have great love and respect for John Lennon. I am shocked and stunned. To rob life is the ultimate robbery in life."

Harrison modified the lyrics of a song he had written for Starr to make it a tribute song to Lennon. "All Those Years Ago" received substantial radio airplay, reaching number two on the US charts. All three surviving ex-Beatles performed on it, although it was expressly a Harrison single. "Teardrops" was issued as a follow-up single, but was not nearly as successful. Both singles came from the album Somewhere in England, released in 1981. Originally slated for release in late 1980, Warner Bros. rejected the album, ordering Harrison to replace several tracks, and to change the album cover as well. The original album cover that Harrison wanted was used in the 2004 reissue of the album. In 1981, Harrison played guitar on one track of Mick Fleetwood's record The Visitor and Lindsey Buckingham's song "Walk a Thin Line".

Aside from a song on the Porky's Revenge soundtrack in 1985 (his version of a little-known Bob Dylan song "I Don't Want to Do It"), Harrison released no new records for five years after 1982's Gone Troppo received apparent indifference.

In October 1985, Harrison made a rare public appearance on the Cinemax Channel 4 live concert TV special in a tribute to Carl Perkins. He appeared along with Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton among others. The show was called Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session. He performed "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby", "Your True Love", "That's Alright Mama" (including the guitar solo), "Glad All Over" (including the guitar solo), "Gone Gone Gone" and "Blue Suede Shoes". He only agreed to appear because he had been a close admirer and friend of Carl Perkins for over 20 years.

In 1987, Harrison returned with the critically acclaimed platinum album Cloud Nine, co-produced with Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra, and enjoyed a hit (number one in the US; number two in the UK) when his rendition of James Ray's early 1960s number "Got My Mind Set on You" was released as a single; another single, "When We Was Fab", a retrospective of The Beatles' days complete with musical flavours for each bandmate, was also a minor hit. MTV regularly played the two videos, and elevated Harrison's public profile with another generation of music listeners. The album reached number eight and number ten on the US and UK charts, respectively. In the US, several tracks also enjoyed high placement on Billboard's Album Rock chart – "Devil's Radio", "This Is Love" and "Cloud 9" in addition to the aforementioned singles.

Live performances (1971–1992)

On 23 November 1971, Harrison appeared on an episode of The Dick Cavett Show in a band called Wonder Wheel performing a song written by Gary Wright called "Two Faced Man". Harrison played slide guitar in this band as a favour since Wright had played piano on Harrison's album All Things Must Pass. The episode can be viewed on DVD The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons Disc 3.

Harrison launched a major tour of the United States in 1974. Critical and fan reaction panned the tour for its long mid-concert act of Pandit Ravi Shankar & Friends and for Harrison's hoarse voice. Harrison had hired filmmaker David Acomba to accompany the tour and gather footage for a documentary. Due to Harrison's hoarse voice throughout most of this tour, the film was not released, but in 2007 Acomba placed a newly revised director's cut in the Harrison archive. It was the last time he toured in the United States.

In 1986, Harrison made a surprise performance at the Birmingham Heart Beat Charity Concert 1986 a concert event to raise money for the Birmingham Children's Hospital. Harrison played and sang the finale "Johnny B. Goode" along with Robert Plant, The Moody Blues, and Electric Light Orchestra, among others. The following year, Harrison appeared at The Prince's Trust concert in Wembley Arena, performing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Here Comes the Sun" with Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, and others.

In 1991, Harrison staged a tour of Japan along with Eric Clapton. It was his first tour since the 1974 US tour, but no other tours followed. The Live in Japan recording came from these shows.

On 6 April 1992, Harrison held a benefit concert for the Natural Law Party at Royal Albert Hall, his first London performance in 23 years and his last full concert. In October 1992, Harrison performed three songs ("If Not for You", "Absolutely Sweet Marie", and "My Back Pages") at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City. This was released on the album The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration in August 1993.

On 14 December 1992, Harrison took part in a memorial concert at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles for Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro. The concert consisted of an all-star lineup that included Boz Scaggs, Donald Fagen, Don Henley, Michael McDonald, David Crosby, Eddie Van Halen, and the members of Toto. The proceeds of the concert were used to establish an educational trust fund for Porcaro's sons.

Later life: 1988–2001

Early in 1989, Harrison, Lynne and Ringo Starr all appeared in the music video for Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down", although Starr did not actually play on the track; Harrison played acoustic guitar. The same year also saw the release of Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989, a compilation drawn from his later solo work. This album also included two new songs, "Poor Little Girl", and "Cockamamie Business" (which saw him once again looking wryly upon his Beatle past), as well as "Cheer Down", which had first been released earlier in the year on the soundtrack to the film Lethal Weapon 2, which starred Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Unlike his previous greatest hits package, Harrison made sure to oversee this compilation. In 1989 Harrison played slide guitar on the "Leave a Light On" and "Deep Deep Ocean" songs from Belinda Carlisle's third album Runaway Horses. "Leave a Light On" was successful worldwide.

In 1996, Harrison recorded, produced and played on "Distance Makes No Difference With Love" with Carl Perkins for his Go-Cat-Go record.

Harrison's final television appearance was not intended as such; in fact, he was not the featured artist, and the appearance had been intended to promote Chants of India, another collaboration with Ravi Shankar released in 1997, at the height of interest in chant music. John Fugelsang, then of VH1, conducted the interview, and at one point an acoustic guitar was produced and handed to Harrison. When an audience member asked to hear "a Beatles song", Harrison pulled a sheepish look and answered, "I don't think I know any!" Harrison then played "All Things Must Pass" and revealed for the first time "Any Road", which subsequently appeared on the 2002 Brainwashed album.

In January 1998, Harrison attended the funeral of his boyhood idol, Carl Perkins, in Jackson, Tennessee. Harrison played an impromptu version of Perkins' song "Your True Love" during the service. That same year he attended the public memorial service for Linda McCartney. Also that same year, he appeared on Ringo Starr's Vertical Man, where he played both electric and slide guitars on two tracks.

In 2001, Harrison performed as a guest musician on the Electric Light Orchestra album Zoom. He played slide guitar on the song "Love Letters" for Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings, and remastered and restored unreleased tracks from the Traveling Wilburys. He also co-wrote a new song with his son Dhani, "Horse to the Water". The latter song ended up as Harrison's final recording session, on 2 October, just eight weeks before his death. It appeared on Jools Holland's album Small World, Big Band.

Harrison's final album, Brainwashed, was completed by Dhani Harrison and Jeff Lynne and released on 18 November 2002. It received generally positive reviews in the United States, and peaked at number 18 on the Billboard charts. A media-only single, "Stuck Inside a Cloud", was heavily played on UK and US radio to promote the album (number 27 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart), while the official single "Any Road", released in May 2003, reached number 37 on the British chart. The instrumental track, "Marwa Blues" went on to receive the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, while the single "Any Road" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

The Traveling Wilburys: 1988–1990

In 1988, Harrison played an instrumental role in forming the Traveling Wilburys with Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty when they gathered in Dylan's garage to quickly record an additional track for a projected Harrison European single release. The record company realised the track ("Handle With Care") was too good for its original purpose as a B-side and asked for a full, separate album. This had to be completed within two weeks, as Dylan was scheduled to start a tour. The album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, was released in October 1988 and recorded under pseudonyms as half-brothers (supposed sons of Charles Truscott Wilbury, Sr.). Harrison's pseudonym on the first album was "Nelson Wilbury"; he would use the name "Spike Wilbury" for the Traveling Wilburys' second album.

After the death of Roy Orbison in late 1988 the group recorded as a four-piece. Though Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 was their second release, the album was mischievously titled Vol. 3 by Harrison. According to Lynne, "That was George's idea. He said, 'Let's confuse the buggers.'" It was not as well received as the previous album, but did reach number 14 in the UK and number 11 in the US where it went platinum, while the singles "She's My Baby", "Inside Out", and "Wilbury Twist" got decent air play.

The Beatles Anthology: 1994–1996

In 1994–1996, Harrison reunited with the surviving former Beatles, and Traveling Wilburys producer Jeff Lynne for The Beatles Anthology project, which included the recording of two new Beatles songs built around solo vocal and piano tapes recorded by John Lennon in the late 1970s, as well as the lengthy interviews on The Beatles' history. The single "Free as a Bird", was the first Beatles single since "The Long and Winding Road" in 1970.

HandMade Films: 1978–1994

HandMade Films was a British film production and distribution company that Harrison formed in 1978 with his business partner, Denis O'Brien. It was created to help out his Monty Python friends by raising £2 million to finish their film Life of Brian after EMI Films, the original financiers, pulled out due to the film's satirical content. Harrison took the name from some handmade paper he had been given on a mill visit. Though the company was formed with the intention of funding just the one film (a scenario which became epitomised as Harrison's "world's most expensive cinema ticket", as the Python's Eric Idle put it), Harrison and O'Brien bought the rights to The Long Good Friday, which had been faced with various cuts, and released it in its original form.

The first film started under the company was Time Bandits, equipped with a soundtrack by Harrison, in 1981, a solo project by Python Terry Gilliam for whom HandMade originally also was to finance The Adventures of Baron Munchausen before several funding parties including HandMade dropped out of the project. Harrison produced twenty three films with HandMade, including Mona Lisa, Shanghai Surprise, and Withnail and I. He made several cameo appearances in these movies, including appearing as a nightclub singer in Shanghai Surprise and as Mr Papadopolous in Life of Brian. Handmade Films became a rarity in the British film industry, a production company that was both consistently successful and internationally known. The company was well regarded both for nurturing British talent and for most of its films having British settings or inspirations.

Harrison was involved in some creative decisions, approving projects such as Withnail and I and visiting sets as executive producer to sort out creative problems. On the whole, though, he preferred to stay out of the way: "[As a musician] I've been the person who's said of the people with the money, 'What do they know?' and now I'm that person. But I know that unless you give an artist as much freedom as possible, there's no point in using that artist."

The bulk of the financial and business decisions were left to O'Brien, who was tasked with making sure that films got made on time and on budget. This eventually resulted in disagreements and lawsuits between the pair as HandMade Films encountered reversals, and Harrison sold the company in 1994.

Interest in Indian culture

Sitar and Indian music

During The Beatles' American tour in August 1965, Harrison's friend David Crosby of the Byrds introduced him to Indian classical music and the work of sitar player Ravi Shankar. Harrison became fascinated with the instrument, immersed himself in Indian music and played a pivotal role in expanding the emerging interest in the sitar in particular and Indian music in general in the West.

Buying his own first sitar from a London shop called India Craft later that year (as he recalled during interviews for "The Beatles Anthology"), he played one on the Rubber Soul track "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", which was influential in the decision to have Ravi Shankar included on the bill at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967. After a few initial lessons with Pandit Ravi Shankar, Harrison was placed under the tutelage of Shambhu Das.

Hinduism

During the filming of the movie Help!, on location in the Bahamas, a Hindu devotee presented each Beatle with a book about reincarnation. Harrison's interest in Indian culture expanded to Hinduism. During a pilgrimage to Bombay with his wife, Harrison studied sitar, met several gurus and visited various holy places, filling the months between the end of the final Beatles tour in 1966 and the commencement of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band recording sessions. In 1968, Harrison travelled to Rishikesh in northern India with the other Beatles to study meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

In the summer of 1969, he produced the single "Hare Krishna Mantra", performed by the devotees of the London Radha Krishna Temple. That same year, he and fellow Beatle John Lennon met A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Soon after, Harrison embraced the Hare Krishna tradition (particularly japa-yoga chanting with beads), became a lifelong devotee, being associated with it until his death.

Harrison was a vegetarian from 1968 until his death.

While during his lifetime, Harrison bequeathed to ISKCON his Letchmore Heath mansion (renamed Bhaktivedanta Manor) north of London, some sources indicate he left nothing to the organisation, others report he did leave a sum of 20 million pounds.

Harrison respected people of other faiths and believed in a united holy cause; he once remarked:

Personal life

Family and friends

Harrison married model Pattie Boyd on 21 January 1966, at the then Epsom Register Office, Upper High Street, Epsom, with McCartney as best man. They had met during the filming for A Hard Day's Night, in which the 19-year-old Boyd was cast as a schoolgirl. After Harrison and Boyd split up in 1974, she moved in with Eric Clapton and they subsequently married.

Harrison married for a second time, to Dark Horse Records secretary Olivia Trinidad Arias on 2 September 1978. They had met at the Dark Horse offices in Los Angeles in 1974. They had one son, Dhani Harrison. After the 1999 stabbing incident in which Olivia subdued Harrison's assailant nearly single-handedly, Harrison received a fax from his close friend Tom Petty that read: "Aren't you glad you married a Mexican girl?"

Harrison formed a close friendship with Clapton in the late 1960s, and they co-wrote the song "Badge", which was released on Cream's Goodbye album in 1969. Harrison also played rhythm guitar on the song. For contractual reasons, Harrison was required to use the pseudonym "L'Angelo Misterioso", meaning "The Mysterious Angel" in Italian. Harrison wrote one of his compositions for The Beatles' Abbey Road album, "Here Comes the Sun", in Clapton's back garden. Clapton also guested on the Harrison-penned Beatles track "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". Through Clapton, Harrison met Delaney Bramlett, who introduced Harrison to slide guitar. They remained close friends after Pattie Boyd split from Harrison and married Clapton, referring to each other as "husbands-in-law".

Through his appreciation of Monty Python, he met Eric Idle. The two became close friends, with Harrison appearing on Idle's Rutland Weekend Television series and in his Beatles spoof, The Rutles' All You Need Is Cash. Harrison was also parodied as a Beatle as "Stig O'Hara", portrayed by Rikki Fataar. Idle also performed the famous Monty Python sketch, "The Lumberjack Song", at the Concert for George, held in 2002 to commemorate Harrison.

Interests

An accomplished gardener, Harrison restored the English manor house and grounds of Friar Park, his home in Henley-on-Thames. The house once belonged to Victorian eccentric Sir Frank Crisp. Purchased in 1970, it is the basis for the song "Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)". Several Harrison videos were also filmed on the grounds, including "Crackerbox Palace"; in addition, the grounds served as the background for the cover of All Things Must Pass. He employed a staff of ten workers to maintain the garden, and both of his older brothers worked on Friar Park as well. Harrison took great solace working in the garden and grew to consider himself more a gardener than a musician; his autobiography is dedicated "to gardeners everywhere".

That autobiography, I Me Mine, published in 1980, is the only full autobiography by an ex-Beatle. Former Beatles' publicist Derek Taylor helped with the book, which was initially released in a high-priced limited edition by Genesis Publications. The book said little about the Beatles, focusing instead on Harrison's hobbies, such as gardening and Formula One automobile racing. It also included the lyrics to his songs and some photographs with humorous captions.

Harrison had an interest in sports cars and motor racing; he was one of the 100 people who purchased the McLaren F1 road car, and would often attend Formula One races. He had collected photos of racing drivers and their cars since he was young; when he was 12 he attended his first race, the 1955 British Grand Prix at Aintree, in which Stirling Moss won his first Grand Prix. He wrote "Faster" as a tribute to the Formula One racing drivers Jackie Stewart and Ronnie Peterson. Proceeds from its release went to the Gunnar Nilsson cancer charity, set up following the Swedish driver's death from the disease in 1978. Harrison's first "important" car was recently sold at auction in Battersea Park, London. The 1964 Aston Martin DB5 was bought new and delivered to Harrison personally in 1965 at his Kinfauns estate in Esher, Surrey, England.

Knife attack

In late 1999, Harrison survived a knife attack by an intruder in his home. At 3:30 am on 30 December 1999, 36-year-old Michael Abram broke into the Harrisons' Friar Park home and began loudly calling to Harrison. Harrison left the bedroom to investigate while his wife, Olivia, phoned the police. Abram attacked Harrison with a kitchen knife, inflicting seven stab wounds, puncturing a lung and causing head injuries before Olivia Harrison incapacitated the assailant by striking him repeatedly with a fireplace poker and a lamp. The attack lasted approximately 15 minutes. Abram, who believed he was being possessed by Harrison and was on a "mission from God" to kill him, was later acquitted of attempted murder on grounds of insanity, but was detained for treatment in a secure hospital. He was released in 2002 after 19 months' detention. Since John Lennon's assassination in 1980, Harrison had rarely made public appearances, except at tightly controlled settings such as Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions.

Illness and death

Cancer diagnosis

Harrison developed throat cancer, which was discovered in the summer of 1997 after a lump on his neck was analysed. He attributed it to smoking heavily from the 1960s until at least the late 1980s. He was successfully treated with radiotherapy. Early in May 2001, it was revealed that he had undergone an operation at the Mayo Clinic to remove a cancerous growth from one of his lungs. In July 2001, it was reported that he was being treated for a brain tumour at a clinic in Switzerland.

On 22 July 2001, media reports claimed that Harrison was close to death as a result of the cancer, but he denied that this was true.

In November 2001, by which time the Daily Mail had reported that Harrison may only have a month to live, Harrison began radiotherapy at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City for lung cancer which had spread to his brain.

On 25 November, it was reported in the Sunday People that Harrison's condition had continued to deteriorate in spite of the treatment, and that he was likely to die within days.

Lederman affair

In a complaint later brought on behalf of Harrison's estate, it was alleged that while under the care of Staten Island University Hospital, Dr Gilbert Lederman, a radiation oncologist, repeatedly revealed Harrison's confidential medical information during television interviews and forced him to autograph a guitar. The complaint alleges that Lederman and his family came to visit Harrison and began singing, and that, in laboured breaths, Harrison said, "Please stop talking." Later, Lederman allegedly had his son play the guitar for Harrison. The complaint alleges that after the performance, Lederman asked Harrison for an autograph on the guitar, and that Harrison responded, "I do not even know if I know how to sign my name any more." Lederman then allegedly took Harrison's hand and guided his hand along to spell his name while encouraging him by saying, "Come on, George. You can do this. G-E-O...". The suit was ultimately settled out of court under the condition that the guitar be "disposed of".

Death

Despite the treatments and operations, Harrison died on 29 November 2001, at a Hollywood Hills mansion that was once leased by McCartney and was previously owned by Courtney Love. The cause of death was listed on his Los Angeles County death certificate as "metastatic non-small cell lung cancer". He was cremated at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and his ashes were scattered in the Ganges River by his close family in a private ceremony according to Hindu tradition. He left almost £100 million in his will.

Tribute concert

In 2002, on the first anniversary of Harrison's death, the Concert for George was held at the Royal Albert Hall; it was organised by Eric Clapton and included performances by many of Harrison's musical friends, including Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. The profits from the concert went to Harrison's charity, the Material World Charitable Foundation, which he established in 1973 “to sponsor diverse forms of artistic expression and to encourage the exploration of alternative life views and philosophies.”

==Honours== Harrison's first official honour was when The Beatles were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1965, and received their insignia from the Queen at an investiture at Buckingham Palace on 26 October. Another award with The Beatles came in 1970 when they won an Academy Award for the best Original Song Score for Let It Be.

A significant music award as a solo artist was in December 1992, when he became the first recipient of the Billboard Century Award – presented to music artists for significant bodies of work. The minor planet 4149, discovered on 9 March 1984 by B. A. Skiff at the Anderson Mesa Station of the Lowell Observatory, was named after Harrison. Harrison is listed at number 21 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Harrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist on 15 March 2004 by his Traveling Wilburys friends Lynne and Petty. He was inducted into the Madison Square Garden Walk of Fame on 1 August 2006 for the Concert for Bangladesh.

Harrison featured twice on the cover of Time magazine, initially with The Beatles in 1967, then on his own, shortly after his death in 2001. In June 2007, portraits of Harrison and John Lennon were unveiled at The Mirage Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, where they will be on permanent display.

American film director Martin Scorsese announced that he will make a documentary titled Living in the Material World: George Harrison.

On 14 April 2009, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce awarded Harrison a star on the Walk of Fame in front of the Capitol Records Building. (The Beatles also have a group star on the Walk of Fame.) Musicians Paul McCartney, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty were among those in attendance when the star was unveiled. Harrison's widow Olivia, actor Tom Hanks and comedian Eric Idle made speeches at the ceremony; Harrison's son Dhani uttered the Hare Krishna mantra. After the ceremony, Capitol/EMI Records announced that a new career-spanning CD entitled Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison would be released in mid-June 2009.

Solo discography

rowspan="2" style="width:33px;"	Year	Album	Label	Notes	Peak chart positions	!colspan="2"
!style="width:3em;font-size:90%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:90%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:90%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:90%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:90%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:90%"	! style="font-size:90%;"	! style="font-size:90%;"
	Wonderwall Music	style="text-align:center;"
	Electronic Sound	style="text-align:center;"
	All Things Must Pass									6x Platinum
		style="text-align:center;"								Gold
	Living in the Material World									Gold
										Gold	Silver
	Extra Texture (Read All About It)									Gold
	Thirty Three & 1/3	style="text-align:center;"								Gold	Silver
	The Best of George Harrison	style="text-align:center;"								Gold
										Gold
	Somewhere in England
	Gone Troppo
										Platinum	Gold
	Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989
	Live in Japan (George Harrison album)>Live in Japan	style="text-align:center;"
										Gold	Gold
	Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison	style="text-align:center;"

Notes

References

External links

GeorgeHarrison.com — Official Site

RollingStone.com – George's Greatest Musical Moments

George Harrison – Daily Telegraph obituary

Genesis Publications – Concert for George: A Celebration of the Life of George Harrison

Interview with Paul Cashmere

BBC news article on Harrison's death

BBC news George Harrison: Life in pictures

George and other Beatles at Tittenhurst Hare Krishna temple

BBC news UK version with different pictures

Category:1943 births Category:2001 deaths Category:Apple Records artists Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:Capitol Records artists Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:English film producers Category:English gardeners Category:English Hindus Category:Converts to Hinduism Category:Krishna Category:English-language singers Category:English male singers Category:English multi-instrumentalists Category:English people of Irish descent Category:English pop singers Category:English record producers Category:English rock guitarists Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English vegetarians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Lead guitarists Category:People educated at Liverpool Institute High School for Boys Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:Musicians from Liverpool Category:Performers of Hindu music Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Slide guitarists Category:Sitar players Category:Survivors of stabbing Category:The Beatles members Category:The Quarrymen members Category:Delaney & Bonnie & Friends members Category:Traveling Wilburys members Category:Plastic Ono Band members Category:Ukulele players Category:Warner Music Group artists Category:Western mystics

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Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Kylie Minogue
background	solo_singer
birth name	Kylie Ann Minogue
birth date	May 28, 1968
birth place	Melbourne, Australia
genre	Pop, synthpop, rock, dance, electronic
occupation	Singer, songwriter, actress, record producer, fashion designer, author, entrepreneur, philanthropist
years active	1979–present
label	PWL, Deconstruction, Parlophone
website	}}

Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE (; born 28 May 1968), is an Australian pop singer, songwriter, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing her career as a recording artist in 1987. Her first single, "Locomotion", spent seven weeks at number one on the Australian singles chart and became the highest selling single of the decade. This led to a contract with songwriters and producers Stock, Aitken & Waterman. Her debut album, Kylie (1988), and the single "I Should Be So Lucky", each reached number one in the United Kingdom, and over the next two years, her first 13 singles reached the British top ten. Her debut film, The Delinquents (1989) was a box-office hit in Australia and the UK despite negative reviews.

Initially presented as a "girl next door", Minogue attempted to convey a more mature style in her music and public image. Her singles were well received, but after four albums her record sales were declining, and she left Stock, Aitken & Waterman in 1992 to establish herself as an independent performer. Her next single, "Confide in Me", reached number one in Australia and was a hit in several European countries in 1994, and a duet with Nick Cave, "Where the Wild Roses Grow", brought Minogue a greater degree of artistic credibility. Drawing inspiration from a range of musical styles and artists, Minogue took creative control over the songwriting for her next album, Impossible Princess (1997). It failed to attract strong reviews or sales in the UK, but was successful in Australia.

Minogue returned to prominence in 2000 with the single "Spinning Around" and the dance-oriented album Light Years, and she performed during the closing ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Her music videos showed a more sexually provocative and flirtatious personality and several hit singles followed. "Can't Get You Out of My Head" reached number one in more than 40 countries, and the album Fever (2001) was a hit in many countries, including the United States, a market in which Minogue had previously received little recognition. Minogue embarked on a concert tour but cancelled it when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2005. After surgery and chemotherapy treatment, she resumed her career in 2006 with Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour. Her tenth studio album X was released in 2007 and was followed by the KylieX2008 tour. In 2009, she embarked upon her For You, For Me Tour, her first concert tour of the United States and Canada, and the following year released her eleventh studio album, Aphrodite.

Minogue has achieved worldwide record sales of more than 68 million, and has received notable music awards, including multiple ARIA and Brit Awards and a Grammy Award. She has mounted several successful concert tours and received a Mo Award for "Australian Entertainer of the Year" for her live performances. She was awarded the Order of the British Empire "for services to music", and an Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2008. In 2011, I Should Be So Lucky was added to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's Sounds of Australia registry.

Life and career

1968–86: Early life and career beginnings

Kylie Ann Minogue was born 28 May 1968 in Melbourne, Australia, the eldest child of Ronald Charles Minogue, an accountant of Irish ancestry and Carol Ann (née Jones), a former dancer from Maesteg, Wales. Her sister, Dannii Minogue, is also a pop singer and is a judge on The X Factor, and her brother, Brendan, works as a news cameraman in Australia. The Minogue children were raised in Surrey Hills, Melbourne, and educated at Camberwell High School.

The Minogue sisters began their careers as children on Australian television. From the age of 11, Kylie appeared in small roles in soap operas such as The Sullivans and Skyways, and in 1985 was cast in one of the lead roles in The Henderson Kids. Interested in following a career in music, she made a demo tape for the producers of the weekly music programme Young Talent Time, which featured Dannii as a regular performer. Kylie gave her first television singing performance on the show in 1985 but was not invited to join the cast. Dannii's success overshadowed Kylie's acting achievements, until Kylie was cast in the soap opera Neighbours in 1986, as Charlene Mitchell, a schoolgirl turned garage mechanic. Neighbours achieved popularity in the UK, and a story arc that created a romance between her character and the character played by Jason Donovan, culminated in a wedding episode in 1987 that attracted an audience of 20 million British viewers.

Her popularity in Australia was demonstrated when she became the first person to win four Logie Awards in one event, and the youngest recipient of the "Gold Logie" as the country's "Most Popular Television Performer", with the result determined by public vote.

1987–92: Stock, Aitken and Waterman and Kylie

During a Fitzroy Football Club benefit concert with other Neighbours cast members, Minogue performed "I Got You Babe" as a duet with the actor John Waters, and "The Loco-Motion" as an encore, and was subsequently signed to a recording contract with Mushroom Records in 1987. Her first single, "The Loco-Motion", spent seven weeks at number one on the Australian music charts. It sold 200,000 copies, became the highest selling single of the 1980s, and Minogue received the ARIA Award for the year's highest selling single. Its success resulted in Minogue travelling to England with Mushroom Records executive Gary Ashley to work with Stock, Aitken & Waterman. They knew little of Minogue and had forgotten that she was arriving; as a result, they wrote "I Should Be So Lucky" while she waited outside the studio. The song reached number one in the UK, Australia, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Israel and Hong Kong. Minogue won her second consecutive ARIA Award for the year's highest selling single, and received a "Special Achievement Award". Her debut album, Kylie, a collection of dance-oriented pop tunes spent more than a year on the British album charts, including several weeks at number one. The album went gold in the United States, and the single, "The Loco-Motion", reached number three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number one on the Canadian Singles Chart. "It's No Secret", released only in the U.S., peaked at number 37 in early 1989, and "Turn It Into Love" was released as a single in Japan, where it reached number one.

In July 1988, "Got To Be Certain" became Minogue's third consecutive number one single on the Australian music charts, and later in the year she left Neighbours to focus on her music career. Jason Donovan commented "When viewers watched her on screen they no longer saw Charlene the local mechanic, they saw Kylie the pop star." A duet with Donovan, titled "Especially for You", sold almost one million copies in the UK in early 1989, but critic Kevin Killian wrote that the duet was "majestically awful ...[it] makes the Diana Ross, Lionel Richie 'Endless Love' sound like Mahler." She was sometimes referred to as "the Singing Budgie" by her detractors over the coming years, however Chris True's comment about the album Kylie for Allmusic suggests that Minogue's appeal transcended the limitations of her music, by noting that "her cuteness makes these rather vapid tracks bearable".

Her follow-up album Enjoy Yourself (1989) was a success in the United Kingdom, Europe, New Zealand, Asia and Australia, and contained several successful singles, including the British number one "Hand on Your Heart", but it failed throughout North America, and Minogue was dropped by her American record label Geffen Records. She embarked on her first concert tour, the Enjoy Yourself Tour, in the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia and Australia, where Melbourne's Herald Sun wrote that it was "time to ditch the snobbery and face facts—the kid's a star." In December 1989, Minogue was one of the featured vocalists on the remake of "Do They Know It's Christmas", and her debut film, The Delinquents, premiered in London. It was poorly received by critics, and the Daily Mirror reviewed Minogue's performance with the comment that she "has as much acting charisma as cold porridge", but it proved popular with audiences; in the UK it grossed more than £200,000, and in Australia it was the fourth-highest grossing local film of 1989 and the highest grossing local film of 1990.

Rhythm of Love (1990) presented a more sophisticated and adult style of dance music and also marked the first signs of Minogue's rebellion against her production team and the "girl-next-door" image. Determined to be accepted by a more mature audience, Minogue took control of her music videos, starting with "Better the Devil You Know", and presented herself as a sexually aware adult. Her relationship with Michael Hutchence was also seen as part of Minogue's departure from her earlier persona; Hutchence was quoted as saying that his hobby was "corrupting Kylie", and that the INXS song "Suicide Blonde" had been inspired by her. The singles from Rhythm of Love sold well in Europe and Australia and were popular in British nightclubs. Pete Waterman later reflected that "Better the Devil You Know" was a milestone in her career and said that it made her "the hottest, hippest dance act on the scene and nobody could knock it as it was the best dance record around at the time". "Shocked" became Minogue's thirteenth consecutive British top-10 single.

In May 1990, Minogue performed her band's arrangement of The Beatles's "Help!" before a crowd of 25,000 at the John Lennon: The Tribute Concert on the banks of the River Mersey in Liverpool. Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon offered Minogue their thanks for her support of The John Lennon Fund, while the media commented positively on her performance. The Sun wrote "The soap star wows the Scousers — Kylie Minogue deserved her applause". Her fourth album, Let's Get to It (1991), reached number 15 on the British album charts and was the first of her albums to fail to reach the Top 10; her fourteenth single "Word Is Out" was the first to miss the Top 10 singles chart, though subsequent singles "If You Were with Me Now" and "Give Me Just a Little More Time" reached number four and number two respectively. Minogue had fulfilled the requirements of her contract and elected not to renew it. She later expressed her opinion that she was stifled by Stock, Aitken and Waterman, and said, "I was very much a puppet in the beginning. I was blinkered by my record company. I was unable to look left or right."

A Greatest Hits album was released in 1992. It reached number one in the UK and number three in Australia, and the singles "What Kind of Fool (Heard All That Before)" and her cover version of Kool & The Gang's "Celebration" each reached the UK Top 20.

1993–98: Deconstruction, Kylie Minogue and Impossible Princess

Minogue's subsequent signing with Deconstruction Records was highly touted in the music media as the beginning of a new phase in her career, but the eponymous Kylie Minogue (1994) received mixed reviews. It sold well in Europe and Australia, where the single "Confide in Me" spent four weeks at number one. She performed a striptease in the video for her next single, "Put Yourself in My Place", inspired by Jane Fonda in the film Barbarella. This single and her next, "Where Is the Feeling?" each reached the British top 20, and the album peaked at number four, eventually selling 250,000 copies. During this period she made a guest appearance as herself, in an episode of the comedy The Vicar of Dibley. The director Steven E. de Souza was intrigued by Minogue's cover photo in Australia's Who Magazine as one of "The 30 Most Beautiful People in the World", and offered her a role opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in Street Fighter (1994). The film was a moderate success, earning USD$70 million in the U.S., but received poor reviews with The Washington Post's Richard Harrington calling Minogue "the worst actress in the English-speaking world". She co-starred with Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin in Bio-Dome (1996), but it was a failure, dismissed by Movie Magazine International as the "biggest waste of celluloid space". Minogue returned to Australia where she appeared in the short film, Hayride to Hell (1995), and then to the UK where she filmed a cameo role as herself in the film Diana & Me (1997).

Australian artist Nick Cave had been interested in working with Minogue since hearing "Better the Devil You Know", saying it contained "one of pop music's most violent and distressing lyrics" and "when Kylie Minogue sings these words, there is an innocence to her that makes the horror of this chilling lyric all the more compelling". They collaborated on "Where the Wild Roses Grow" (1995), a brooding ballad whose lyrics narrated a murder from the points of view of both the murderer (Cave), and his victim (Minogue). The video was inspired by John Everett Millais's painting Ophelia (1851–1852), and showed Minogue as the murdered woman, floating in a pond as a serpent swam over her body. The single received widespread attention in Europe, where it reached the top 10 in several countries, and acclaim in Australia where it reached number two on the singles chart, and won ARIA Awards for "Song of the Year" and "Best Pop Release". Following concert appearances with Cave, Minogue recited the lyrics to "I Should Be So Lucky" as poetry in London's Royal Albert Hall "Poetry Jam", at the suggestion of Cave, and later described it as a "most cathartic moment". She credited Cave with giving her the confidence to express herself artistically, saying: "He taught me to never veer too far from who I am, but to go further, try different things, and never lose sight of myself at the core. For me, the hard part was unleashing the core of myself and being totally truthful in my music." By 1997, Minogue was in a relationship with the French photographer Stéphane Sednaoui, who encouraged her to develop her creativity. Inspired by a mutual appreciation of Japanese culture, they created a visual combination of "geisha and manga superheroine" for the photographs taken for the album Impossible Princess and the video for "German Bold Italic", Minogue's collaboration with Towa Tei. Minogue drew inspiration from the music of artists such as Shirley Manson and Garbage, Björk, Tricky and U2, and Japanese pop musicians such as Pizzicato Five and Towa Tei.

Impossible Princess featured collaborations with musicians such as James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore of the Manic Street Preachers. Mostly a dance album, its style was not represented by its first single "Some Kind of Bliss", and Minogue countered suggestions that she was trying to become an indie artist. She told Music Week, "I have to keep telling people that this isn't an indie-guitar album. I'm not about to pick up a guitar and rock." Acknowledging that she had attempted to escape the perceptions of her that had developed during her early career, Minogue commented that she was ready to "forget the painful criticism" and "accept the past, embrace it, use it". Her video for "Did It Again" paid homage to her earlier incarnations, as noted in her biography, La La La, "Dance Kylie, Cute Kylie, Sex Kylie and Indie Kylie all struggled for supremacy as they battled bitchily with each other." Billboard described the album as "stunning" and concluded that "it's a golden commercial opportunity for a major [record company] with vision and energy [to release it in the United States]. A sharp ear will detect a kinship between Impossible Princess and Madonna's hugely successful album, Ray of Light". In the UK, Music Week gave a negative assessment, commenting that "Kylie's vocals take on a stroppy edge ... but not strong enough to do much". Retitled Kylie Minogue in the UK following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, it became the lowest-selling album of her career. At the end of the year a campaign by Virgin Radio stated, "We've done something to improve Kylie's records: we've banned them." A poll conducted by Smash Hits voted her the "worst-dressed person, worst singer and second-most very horrible thing—after spiders".

In Australia, Impossible Princess spent 35 weeks on the album chart and peaked at number four, to become her most successful album since Kylie in 1988, and her Intimate and Live tour was extended due to demand. The Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett, hosted a civic reception for Minogue in Melbourne, and she maintained her high profile in Australia with live performances, including the 1998 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the opening ceremonies of Melbourne's Crown Casino and Sydney's Fox Studios in 1999, where she performed Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", and a Christmas concert in Dili, East Timor in association with the United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces. During this time she filmed a small role for the Australian-made Molly Ringwald film, Cut (2000).

1999–2005: Light Years, Fever and Body Language

Minogue and Deconstruction Records parted company. She performed a duet with the Pet Shop Boys' on their Nightlife album and spent several months in Barbados performing in Shakespeare's The Tempest. Returning to Australia, she appeared in the film Sample People and recorded a cover version of Russell Morris's "The Real Thing" for the soundtrack. She signed with Parlophone Records in April 1999. According to Miles Leonard, her new A&R; at Parlophone, it was the label and not Minogue that was responsible for her career downturn, believing that her talent hadn't been tapped into by Deconstruction. Leonard later told HitQuarters: "I believed that she was still very strong vocally, and still definitely a star ... and I knew that with the right project, the right songwriters, the right producers, the right team, she would still have a fanbase out there." Parlophone wanted to reestablish Minogue as the pop artist they felt she essentially was, but that had been lost. Leonard said: "But I didn't want to make a throwaway pop record, I wanted it to have an edge and some depth."

Her album Light Years (2000) was a collection of dance songs, influenced by disco music. Minogue said that her intention was to present dance-pop music in a "more exaggerated form" and to make it "fun". It generated strong reviews and was successful throughout Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, selling over one million copies in the UK. The single "Spinning Around" became her first British number one in ten years, and its accompanying video featured Minogue in revealing gold hot pants, which came to be regarded as a "trademark". The single was described by a 2009 The Times article as heralding a new era in synthpop that was continuing. Her second single, "On a Night Like This" reached number one in Australia and number two in the UK. "Kids", a duet with Robbie Williams, was also included on Williams's album Sing When You're Winning, and peaked at number two in the UK.

In 2000, Minogue performed ABBA's "Dancing Queen" and her single "On a Night like This" at the 2000 Sydney Olympics closing ceremony. She then embarked upon a concert tour, On A Night like This Tour, which played to sell-out crowds in Australia and the United Kingdom. Minogue was inspired by Madonna's 1993 world tour The Girlie Show which incorporated Burlesque and theatre, William Baker also cited the style of Broadway shows such as 42nd Street, films such as Anchors Aweigh, South Pacific, the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s and the live performances of Bette Midler. Minogue was praised for her new material and her reinterpretations of some of her greatest successes, turning "I Should Be So Lucky" into a torch song and "Better the Devil You Know" into a 1940s big band number. She won a "Mo Award" for Australian live entertainment as "Performer of the Year". Following the tour she was asked by a Seattle Post-Intelligencer journalist what she thought was her greatest strength, and replied, "[That] I am an all-rounder. If I was to choose any one element of what I do, I don't know if I would excel at any one of them. But put all of them together, and I know what I'm doing."

She appeared as "The Green Fairy" in Moulin Rouge! (2001), shortly before the release of Fever, an album containing disco elements combined with 1980s electropop and synthpop. Fever reached number one in Australia, the UK, and throughout Europe, eventually achieving worldwide sales in excess of eight million. Its lead single "Can't Get You Out of My Head" became the biggest success of her career, reaching number one in more than 40 countries. She won four ARIA Awards including a "Most Outstanding Achievement" award, and two Brit Awards, for "Best international female solo artist" and "Best international album". Rolling Stone states that "Can't Get You out of My Head" "was easily the best and most omnipresent dance track of the new century", and following extensive airplay by American radio, Capitol Records released it and the album Fever in the U.S. in 2002. Fever debuted on the Billboard 200 albums chart at number three, and "Can't Get You out of My Head" reached number seven on the Hot 100. The subsequent singles "In Your Eyes", "Love at First Sight" and "Come into My World" were successful throughout the world, and Minogue established a presence in the mainstream North American market, particularly in the club scene. Minogue followed the success of the album by touring the United States with the Jingle Ball festival, visiting Miami, Anaheim, New York City, Philadelphia and Houston. In 2003 she received a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Dance Recording" for "Love at First Sight", and the following year won the same award for "Come into My World".

Minogue's stylist and creative director William Baker explained that the music videos for the Fever album were inspired by science fiction films—specifically those by Stanley Kubrick—and accentuated the electropop elements of the music by using dancers in the style of Kraftwerk. Alan MacDonald, the designer of the 2002 KylieFever tour, brought those elements into the stage show which drew inspiration from Minogue's past incarnations. The show opened with Minogue as a space age vamp, which she described as "Queen of Metropolis with her drones", through to scenes inspired by Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, followed by the various personas of Minogue's career. Minogue said that she was finally able to express herself the way she wanted, and that she had always been "a showgirl at heart". During 2002 she worked on the animated film The Magic Roundabout, released in 2005 in Europe and 2006 in the U.S.; she voiced one of the principal characters, Florence.

Minogue began a relationship with the French actor, Olivier Martinez, after meeting him at the 2002 Grammy Awards ceremony. Her next album, Body Language (2003), was released following an invitation-only concert, titled Money Can't Buy, at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. The event marked the presentation of a new visual style, designed by Minogue and Baker, inspired in part by Brigitte Bardot, about whom Minogue commented: "I just tended to think of BB [Bardot] as, well, she's a sexpot, isn't she? She's one of the greatest pinups. But she was fairly radical in her own way at that time. And we chose to reference the period, which was ... a perfect blend of coquette and rock and roll." The album downplayed the disco style and Minogue said she was inspired by 1980s artists such as Scritti Politti, The Human League, Adam and the Ants and Prince, blending their styles with elements of hip hop. It received positive reviews with Billboard Magazine writing of "Minogue's knack for picking great songs and producers". Allmusic described it as "a near perfect pop record... Body Language is what happens when a dance-pop diva takes the high road and focuses on what's important instead of trying to shock herself into continued relevance". Sales of Body Language were lower than anticipated after the success of Fever, though the first single, "Slow", was a number-one hit in the UK and Australia. After reaching number one on the US club chart, "Slow" received a Grammy Award nomination in the Best Dance Recording category.

Body Language achieved first week sales of 43,000 in the U.S., and declined significantly in the second week. The Wall Street Journal described Minogue as "an international superstar who seems perpetually unable to conquer the U.S. market". Minogue commented that she had told her American record company that she was not willing to invest the time needed to establish herself in the U.S. and that she would rather enhance the success she had already achieved in other parts of the world, an attitude endorsed by Billboard analyst Geoff Mayfield as a "business decision... If I were her accountant, I couldn't blame her for making that call." Minogue later commented that she was not concerned by her limited success in the U.S. and was more frustrated by assumptions that she considered her career incomplete without it.

Minogue played a guest role in the season finale of the comedy series Kath & Kim, in which she referenced her earlier role as Charlene in Neighbours, during a wedding sequence. The episode achieved the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's highest ratings of the year.

She released her second official greatest hits album in November 2004, entitled Ultimate Kylie, along with her music videos on a DVD compilation of the same title. The album introduced her singles "I Believe in You", co-written with Jake Shears and Babydaddy from the Scissor Sisters, and "Giving You Up". "I Believe in You" reached the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play top three, and Minogue was nominated for a Grammy Award for the fourth consecutive year when the song was nominated in the category of "Best Dance Recording".

Early in 2005, Kylie : The Exhibition opened in Melbourne. The free exhibition featured costumes and photographs spanning Minogue's career and went on to tour Australian capital cities receiving over 300,000 visitors, and was exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in February 2007. Minogue commenced her Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour, and after performing in Europe, travelled to Melbourne, where she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

2006–09: Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour, X, KylieX2008 and For You, for Me Tour

In November 2006, Minogue resumed her Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour with a performance in Sydney. She had told journalists before the concert that she would be highly emotional, and she cried before dedicating the song "Especially for You" to her father, a survivor of prostate cancer. Her dance routines had been reworked to accommodate her medical condition, and slower costume changes and longer breaks were introduced between sections of the show to conserve her strength. The media reported that Minogue performed energetically, with the Sydney Morning Herald describing the show as an "extravaganza" and "nothing less than a triumph". The following night, Minogue was joined by Bono, who was in Australia as part of U2's Vertigo tour, for the duet "Kids", but Minogue was forced to cancel a subsequent planned appearance at U2's show, because of exhaustion. Minogue's shows throughout Australia continued to draw positive reviews, and after spending Christmas with her family, she resumed the European leg of her tour with six sold-out shows in Wembley Arena, before taking her tour to Manchester for a further six shows.

In February 2007, Minogue and Olivier Martinez announced that they had ended their relationship, but remained on friendly terms. Minogue was reported to have been "saddened by false [media] accusations of [Martinez's] disloyalty". She defended Martinez, and acknowledged the support he had given during her treatment for breast cancer, commenting "He was always there, helping with the practical stuff and being protective. He was incredible. He didn't hesitate in cancelling work and putting projects on hold so he could be with me. He's the most honourable man I have ever met."

Minogue released X, her tenth studio album and much-discussed "comeback" album, in November 2007. The electro-styled album included contributions from Guy Chambers, Cathy Dennis, Bloodshy & Avant and Calvin Harris. For the overarching visual look of X, including the music video for first single "2 Hearts", Minogue and William Baker developed a combination of the style of Kabuki theatre and the aesthetics originating from London danceclubs including BoomBox. The album received some criticism for the triviality of its subject matter in light of Minogue's experiences with breast cancer; she responded by explaining the personal nature of some of the album's songs, and said "My conclusion is that if I'd done an album of personal songs it'd be seen as 'Impossible Princess 2' and be equally critiqued." Rolling Stone's reviewer described Minogue as "pop divadom's party planner in chief", and said of her breast cancer, "thankfully, the experience hasn't made her music discernibly deeper". Minogue later said, "In retrospect we could definitely have bettered it [the album], I'll say that straight up. Given the time we had, it is what it is. I had a lot of fun doing it." X and "2 Hearts" entered at number one on the Australian albums and singles charts respectively. In the UK, X initially attracted lukewarm sales, although its commercial performance eventually improved, and Minogue won a Brit Award for "International solo female". X was released in the U.S. in April 2008, and debuted outside the top 100 on the albums chart despite some promotion. Minogue called the U.S. market "notoriously difficult ... [Y]ou have so many denominations with radio. To know where I fit within that market is sometimes difficult." X was nominated for the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album, Minogue's fifth Grammy Award nomination.

In December 2007, Minogue participated in the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, and later performed in the final of the UK talent show The X Factor with the eventual winner, Leon Jackson, whose mentor was Dannii Minogue. From May 2008, Minogue promoted X with a European tour, KylieX2008, which is her most expensive tour to date with production costs of £10 million. Although she described the rehearsals as "grim" and the set list went through several overhauls, the tour was generally acclaimed and sold well.

Minogue was featured in White Diamond, a documentary filmed during 2006 and 2007 as she resumed her Showgirl Homecoming Tour. She appeared in The Kylie Show, which featured highly stylised set-piece song performances from Minogue as well as comedy sketches with Mathew Horne, Dannii Minogue, Jason Donovan and Simon Cowell. She co-starred in the 2007 Doctor Who Christmas special episode, "Voyage of the Damned", as Astrid Peth, a waitress on a spaceship Titanic. The episode aired on 25 December 2007, with 13.31 million viewers, the show's highest viewing figures since 1979.

It was announced in late December 2007 that Minogue was to be among those honoured in Queen Elizabeth II's 2008 New Years Honours list, with an OBE for services to music. Minogue commented "I am almost as surprised as I am honoured. I feel deeply touched to be acknowledged by the UK, my adopted home, in this way." She received the OBE officially from The Prince of Wales in July 2008. In May, 2008 Minogue was awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France's highest cultural honour. Culture Minister Christine Albanel described Minogue as a "midas of the international music scene who turns everything she touches into gold", and saluted her for publicly discussing her breast cancer. In July, Minogue was named the UK's "Best Loved Celebrity" by a tabloid newspaper, who commented that she "won the hearts of the nation as she bravely battled breast cancer", and won the "Best International Female Solo Artist" award at the 2008 BRIT Awards.

In late September 2008, Minogue made her Middle East debut as the headline act at the opening of Atlantis, The Palm, an exclusive hotel resort in Dubai, and from November, she continued with her KylieX2008 tour, taking the show to cities across South America, Asia and Australia. The tour visited 21 countries, and was considered a success, with ticket sales estimated at $70,000,000. She hosted the 2009 BRIT Awards on 18 February 2009 with James Corden and Mathew Horne.

In September and October 2009, Minogue embarked on the For You, For Me Tour, her first North American concert tour, which included shows in the U.S. and Canada. She was also featured in the Bollywood film, Blue, performing an A.R. Rahman song, and had confirmed that she was working on her eleventh studio album, commenting that it would be an album of dance and pop music. On 13 September 2009, Minogue performed "Super Trouper" and "When All Is Said and Done" with Benny Andersson at the ABBA tribute concert "Thank You for the Music... a Celebration of the Music of ABBA" at London's Hyde Park, her only live performance in the UK in 2009. On 14 December 2009, Minogue released a download-only concert album entitled Kylie: Live in New York. The album was recorded at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom and contains 25 live version songs.

2010–present: Aphrodite

Minogue's eleventh studio album, Aphrodite, was released in Japan on 30 June 2010 and worldwide in July 2010. The lead single, "All the Lovers", premiered on radio in May 2010 and was made available for purchase in June 2010. The album debuted at number one in the UK charts, exactly twenty two years after her first UK number one hit. On 3 June 2010, she hosted the inaugural AmfAR "Inspiration Gala" at the New York Public Library honouring Jean Paul Gaultier for his lifelong contribution to men's fashion and the fight against AIDS. Minogue appeared on BBC1's Friday Night With Jonathan Ross on 25 June 2010, during which she confirmed she is a UK resident, and announced that she will tour in 2011.

In July 2010, Minogue filmed a cameo performance as a rock star in the American independent film Jack and Diane. The movie stars Juno Temple, Riley Keough and Jena Malone. She also recorded a duet titled "Devotion" with British synthpop duo Hurts for their debut album Happiness, released on 6 September 2010. The second single from Aphrodite, titled "Get Outta My Way" was released on 27 September 2010. In October 2010, Minogue performed in front of the Sphinx and the Pyramids at Giza, Egypt to celebrate the anniversary of "Enigma" magazine, with profits going to the We Owe It To Egypt Foundation. A third single, "Better Than Today", was released on 6 December 2010.

Minogue's singles, "All the Lovers" and "Get Outta My Way", were popular in U.S. clubs, each reaching number one on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart. On March 5, 2011 "Better Than Today" was at number one on the chart, and her collaboration with Taio Cruz, "Higher", was at number three, making her the first artist in the chart's history to have two singles simultaneously in the top three. On 1 December 2010, Minogue and Parlophone records released the EP A Kylie Christmas on iTunes, which included a cover of the 1945 song "Let It Snow" as well as "Santa Baby" which was previously available as a b-side to her 2000 single "Please Stay". In August 2011, "Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love)", also reached number one on the Billboard dance chart, where Minogue has now achieved five consecutive number one spots on the chart for her last five releases - including her collaboration with Taio Cruz on the track, "Higher".

In 2011, Minogue embarked on the Aphrodite World Tour, travelling to Europe, North America, Canada, Africa, Asia and Australia.

Image and celebrity status

Minogue's efforts to be taken seriously as a recording artist were initially hindered by the perception that she had not "paid her dues" and was no more than a manufactured pop star exploiting the image she had created during her stint on Neighbours. Minogue acknowledged this viewpoint, saying, "if you're part of a record company, I think to a degree it's fair to say that you're a manufactured product. You're a product and you're selling a product. It doesn't mean that you're not talented and that you don't make creative and business decisions about what you will and won't do and where you want to go." In 1993, Baz Luhrmann introduced Minogue to the photographer Bert Stern, notable for his work with Marilyn Monroe. Stern photographed her in Los Angeles and, comparing her to Monroe, commented that Minogue had a similar mix of vulnerability and eroticism. During her career Minogue has chosen photographers who attempt to create a new "look" for her, and the resulting photographs have appeared in a variety of magazines, from the cutting edge The Face to the more traditionally sophisticated Vogue and Vanity Fair, making the Minogue face and name known to a broad group of people. Stylist William Baker has suggested that this is part of the reason she has entered in the mainstream pop culture of Europe more successfully than many other pop singers who concentrate solely on selling records.

By 2000, when Minogue returned to prominence, she was considered to be have achieved a degree of musical credibility for having maintained her career longer than her critics had expected. That same year, Birmingham Post noted "[o]nce upon a time, long before anybody had even heard of Britney, Christina, Jessica or Mandy, Australian singer Kylie Minogue ruled the charts as princess of pop. Back in 1988 her first single, I Should Be So Lucky, spent five weeks at number one, making her the most successful female artist in the UK charts with 13 successive Top 10 entries." Her progression from the wholesome "girl next door" to a more sophisticated performer with a flirtatious and playful persona attracted new fans to her. Her "Spinning Around" video led to some media outlets referring to her as "SexKylie", and sex became a stronger element in her subsequent videos. William Baker described her status as a sex symbol as a "double edged sword" observing that "we always attempted to use her sex appeal as an enhancement of her music and to sell a record. But now it has become in danger of eclipsing what she actually is: a pop singer." After 20 years as a performer, Minogue was described as a fashion "trend-setter" and a "style icon who constantly reinvents herself". She has been acknowledged for mounting successful tours, and for worldwide record sales of more than 60 million.

Minogue is regarded as a gay icon, which she encourages with comments such as "I am not a traditional gay icon. There's been no tragedy in my life, only tragic outfits..." and "My gay audience has been with me from the beginning ... they kind of adopted me." Minogue has explained that she first became aware of her gay audience in 1988, when several drag queens performed to her music at a Sydney pub and she later saw a similar show in Melbourne. She said that she felt "very touched" to have such an "appreciative crowd" and this had encouraged her to perform at gay venues throughout the world, as well as headlining the 1994 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Minogue has been inspired by and compared to Madonna throughout her career. Her producer, Pete Waterman recalled Minogue during the early years of her success, with the observation, "She was setting her sights on becoming the new Prince or Madonna... What I found amazing was that she was outselling Madonna four to one, but still wanted to be her." Minogue received negative comments that her Rhythm of Love tour in 1991 was too similar visually to Madonna's Blond Ambition World Tour of the previous year for which the critics labelled her a Madonna wannabe. Kathy McCabe for The Telegraph notes that Minogue and Madonna follow similar styles in music and fashion, and concludes, "Where they truly diverge on the pop-culture scale is in shock value. Minogue's clips might draw a gasp from some but Madonna's ignite religious and political debate unlike any other artist on the planet... Simply, Madonna is the dark force; Kylie is the light force." Rolling Stone comments that, with the exception of the U.S., Minogue is regarded throughout the world as "an icon to rival Madonna", and says, "Like Madonna, Minogue was not a virtuosic singer but a canny trend spotter." Minogue has said of Madonna, "Her huge influence on the world, in pop and fashion, meant that I wasn't immune to the trends she created. I admire Madonna greatly but in the beginning she made it difficult for artists like me, she had done everything there was to be done...", and "Madonna's the Queen of Pop, I'm the princess. I'm quite happy with that."

In January 2007 Madame Tussauds in London unveiled its fourth waxwork of Minogue; only Queen Elizabeth II has had more models created. During the same week a bronze cast of her hands was added to Wembley Arena's "Square of Fame". On 23 November 2007, a bronze statue of Minogue was unveiled at Melbourne Docklands for permanent display.

In March 2010, Minogue was declared by researchers as the "most powerful celebrity in Britain". The study examined how marketers identify celebrity and brand partnerships. Mark Husak, head of Millward Brown's UK media practice, said: "Kylie is widely accepted as an adopted Brit. People know her, like her and she is surrounded by positive buzz".

Cancer

Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer on 17 May 2005, leading to the postponement of the remainder of her Showgirl – The Greatest Hits Tour and her withdrawal from the Glastonbury Festival. Her hospitalisation and treatment in Melbourne resulted in a brief but intense period of media coverage, particularly in Australia, where Prime Minister John Howard issued a statement supporting Minogue. As media and fans began to congregate outside the Minogue residence in Melbourne, the Victorian Premier Steve Bracks warned the international media that any disruption of the Minogue family's rights under Australian privacy laws would not be tolerated. His comments became part of a wider criticism of the media's overall reaction, with particular criticism directed towards paparazzi. Minogue underwent surgery on 21 May 2005 at Cabrini Hospital in Malvern, and commenced chemotherapy treatment soon after.

On 8 July 2005, she made her first public appearance after her surgery, when she visited a children's cancer ward at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital. She returned to France where she completed her chemotherapy treatment at the Institut Gustave-Roussy in Villejuif, near Paris. In December 2005, Minogue released a digital-only single, "Over the Rainbow", a live recording from her Showgirl tour. Her children's book, The Showgirl Princess, written during her period of convalescence, was published in October 2006, and her perfume, "Darling", was launched in November. This range was later augmented by eau de toilettes such as Pink Sparkle, Couture and Inverse. On her return to Australia for her concert tour, she discussed her illness, and said that her chemotherapy treatment had been like "experiencing a nuclear bomb". While appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2008, Minogue said that her cancer had originally been misdiagnosed. She commented, "Because someone is in a white coat and using big medical instruments doesn't necessarily mean they're right", but she later spoke of her respect for the medical profession.

Minogue was acknowledged for the impact she had made by publicly discussing her cancer diagnosis and treatment; in May 2008, the French Cultural Minister Christine Albanel said, "Doctors now even go as far as saying there is a 'Kylie effect' that encourages young women to have regular checks."

Discography

Kylie (1988)

Enjoy Yourself (1989)

Rhythm of Love (1990)

Let's Get to It (1991)

Kylie Minogue (1994)

Impossible Princess (1997)

Light Years (2000)

Fever (2001)

Body Language (2003)

X (2007)

Aphrodite (2010)

See also

List of awards and nominations received by Kylie Minogue

List of Kylie Minogue concert tours

Kylie Minogue filmography

Honorific nicknames in popular music

List of best-selling music artists

References

;Notes

;Bibliography

External links

 – owned and maintained by EMI and represents Kylie Minogue

Kylie Minogue Collection at the Performing Arts Collection

Category:1968 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from Melbourne Category:ARIA Award winners Category:Australian child actors Category:Australian dance musicians Category:Australian expatriates in the United Kingdom Category:Australian female singers Category:Australian film actors Category:Australian pop singers Category:Australian television actors Category:Australian people of Irish descent Category:Australian people of Welsh descent Category:Breast cancer survivors Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Capitol Records artists Category:Nu-disco musicians Category:Freestyle musicians Category:Gold Logie winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:LGBT rights activists from Australia Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:Parlophone artists Category:Recipients of the Centenary Medal Category:Singers from Melbourne Category:The X Factor judges Category:The X Factor (UK) Category:Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

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Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
Name	Lady Gaga
Alt	Portrait of Lady Gaga
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
Birth date	March 28, 1986
Birth place	New York City, New York, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals, piano, keyboards
Genre	Pop, dance
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, performance artist, record producer, dancer, businesswoman, activist
Years active	2005–present
Label	Def Jam, Cherrytree, Streamline, Kon Live, Interscope
Website	}}

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (; born March 28, 1986), better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to focus on her musical career. She began performing in the rock music scene of Manhattan's Lower East Side, and by the end of 2007, was signed with Streamline Records. Employed as a songwriter for the record company, her vocal abilities captured the attention of recording artist Akon, who signed her to his label Kon Live Distribution.

Lady Gaga came to prominence as a recording artist following the release of her debut album The Fame (2008), which was a critical and commercial success that topped charts around the world and included the international number-one singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". After embarking on the Fame Ball Tour, she followed the album with The Fame Monster (2009), which spawned the worldwide hit singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone" and "Alejandro" and allowed her to embark on the eighteen-month long Monster Ball Tour, which later became one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time. Her most recent album Born This Way (2011) topped the charts of most major markets and generated more international chart-topping singles that include "Born This Way", "Judas" and "The Edge of Glory". Beside her musical career, she involves herself with humanitarian causes and LGBT activism.

Influenced by such acts as David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Madonna and Queen, Lady Gaga is well-recognized for her flamboyant, diverse and outré contributions to the music industry through fashion, performance and music videos. She has sold an estimated 23 million albums and 64 million singles worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time and her singles some of the best-selling worldwide. Her achievements include four Guinness World Records, five Grammy Awards and thirteen MTV Video Music Awards. Lady Gaga has consecutively appeared on Billboard magazine's Artists of the Year (scoring the definitive title in 2010), is regularly placed on lists composed by Forbes magazine, and was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine.

Biography

1986–2004: Early life

Lady Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta on March 28, 1986, in New York City. Brought up in the family home in Manhattan's Upper West Side, Gaga is of Italian and more distant French-Canadian descent, and is the daughter of Cynthia (née Bissett) and Joseph Germanotta, an internet entrepreneur. The elder of two children, Gaga has one sister, Natali, a fashion student, who was born in 1992. Gaga has stressed that – despite her seemingly affluent upbringing – 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."

From the age of 11, Gaga – who was raised Roman Catholic – attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school on Manhattan's Upper East Side. 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." 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.

Left-handed Gaga began playing the piano at the age of four, went on to write her first piano ballad at 13, and started to perform at open mike nights by the age of 14. Her passion for musical theatre brought her lead roles in high school productions, including Adelaide in Guys and Dolls and Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. 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" in addition to unsuccessfully auditioning for parts in New York shows. When her time at the Convent of the Sacred Heart came to an end, her mother encouraged her to apply for the Collaborative Arts Project 21 (CAP21), a musical theatre training conservatory at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. After gaining early admission at 17, she eventually lived in an NYU dorm on 11th Street.

She sharpened her songwriting skills while composing essays and analytical papers on art, religion, social issues and politics including a thesis on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst; such research prepared her for her future career focus in "music, art, sex and celebrity." She also tried out for and won auditions while at CAP21, including the part of an unsuspecting diner customer where MTV's Boiling Points – a prank reality television show – was being filmed. Notwithstanding these achievements, she 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. By the second semester of her sophomore year, she withdrew from the school to focus on her musical career. Her father agreed to pay her rent for a year, on the condition that she re-enroll at Tisch if unsuccessful. "I left my entire family, got the cheapest apartment I could find, and ate shit until somebody would listen," she remembers.

2005–07: Career beginnings

Settled in a small apartment on Rivington Street towards the summer of 2005, Gaga recorded a couple of songs with hip-hop singer Grandmaster Melle Mel, for an audio book accompanying the children's book The Portal in the Park, by Cricket Casey. She also began a band called the Stefani Germanotta Band (SGBand) with some friends from NYU – guitarist Calvin Pia, bassist Eli Silverman, drummer Alex Beckham and booking manager Frank Fredericks – in September of that year. The band played a mixture of songs: some self-penned alongside classic rock numbers like Led Zeppelin's "D'yer Mak'er". Playing in bars like the Greenwich Village's The Bitter End and the Lower East Side's the Mercury Lounge, the band developed a small fan base and caught the eye of music producer Joe Vulpis. Soon after arranging time in Vulpis' studio in the months that followed, SGBand were selling their extended plays Words and Red and Blue at gigs around New York while becoming a local fixture of the downtown Lower East Side club scene.

SGBand reached their career peak at the 2006 Songwriters Hall of Fame New Songwriters Showcase at The Cutting Room in June where Wendy Starland, a singer and model, appeared as a talent scout for music producer Rob Fusari. Starland informed Fusari – who was searching for a female singer to front a new band – of Gaga's ability and contacted her. With SGBand disbanded, Gaga traveled daily to New Jersey to work on songs she had written and compose new material with the music producer. While in collaboration, Fusari compared some of her vocal harmonies to those of Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen. It was Fusari who helped create the moniker Gaga after the Queen song "Radio Ga Ga". Gaga was in the process of trying to come up with a stage name when she received a text message from Fusari that read "Lady Gaga." He explained, "Every day, when Stef came to the studio, instead of saying hello, I would start singing 'Radio Ga Ga'. That was her entrance song" and that the text message was the result of a predictive text glitch that changed "radio" to "lady". She texted back, "That's it," and declared, "Don't ever call me Stefani again." The New York Post, however, has reported that this story is incorrect, and that the name resulted from a marketing meeting.

Although the musical relationship between Fusari and Gaga was unsuccessful at first, the pair soon set up a company titled Team Lovechild in which they recorded and produced electropop tracks and sent them to music industry bosses. Joshua Sarubin, the head of A&R; at Def Jam Recordings, responded positively and vied for the record company to take a chance on her "unusual and provocative" performance. After having his boss Antonio "L.A." Reid in agreement, Gaga was signed to Def Jam in September 2006 with the intention of having an album ready in nine months. However, she was dropped by the label after only three months – an unfortunate period of her life that would later inspire her treatment for the music video for her 2011 single "Marry the Night". Devastated, Gaga returned to the solace of the family home for Christmas and the nightlife culture of the Lower East Side. She became increasingly experimental: fascinating herself with emerging neo-burlesque shows, go-go dancing at bars dressed in little more than a bikini in addition to experimenting with drugs. Her father, however, did not understand the reason behind her drug intake and could not look at her for several months. "I was onstage in a thong, with a fringe hanging over my ass thinking that had covered it, lighting hairsprays on fire, go-go dancing to Black Sabbath and singing songs about oral sex. The kids would scream and cheer and then we'd all go grab a beer. It represented freedom to me. I went to a Catholic school but it was on the New York underground that I found myself." It was then when she became romantically involved with a heavy metal drummer in a relationship and break-up she likened to the musical film Grease: "I was his Sandy, and he was my Danny, and I just broke." He later became an inspiration behind some of her later songs.

During this time, she met performance artist Lady Starlight, who helped mold her on-stage persona. Starlight explained that, upon their first meeting, Gaga wanted to perform with her to songs she had recorded with Fusari. Like SGBand, the pair soon began performing at many of the downtown club venues like the Mercury Lounge, The Bitter End, and the Rockwood Music Hall. Their live performance art piece was known as "Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue" and, billed as "The Ultimate Pop Burlesque Rockshow", was a low-fi tribute to 1970s variety acts. Soon after, the two were invited to play at the 2007 Lollapalooza music festival in August that year. The show was critically acclaimed, and their performance received positive reviews. Having initially focused on avant-garde electronic dance music, Gaga had found her musical niche when she began to incorporate pop melodies and the glam rock of David Bowie and Queen into her music.

While Gaga and Starlight were busy performing, producer Rob Fusari continued to work on the songs he had created with Gaga. Fusari sent these songs to his friend, producer and record executive Vincent Herbert. Herbert was quick to sign her to his label Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records, upon its establishment in 2007. Gaga later credited Herbert as the man who discovered her, adding "I really feel like we made pop history, and we're gonna keep going." Having already served as an apprentice songwriter under an internship at Famous Music Publishing, which was later acquired by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Gaga subsequently struck a music publishing deal with Sony/ATV. As a result, she was hired to write songs for Britney Spears and labelmates New Kids on the Block, Fergie, and the Pussycat Dolls. While Gaga was writing at Interscope, singer-songwriter Akon recognized her vocal abilities when she sang a reference vocal for one of his tracks in studio. He then convinced Interscope-Geffen-A&M; Chairman and CEO Jimmy Iovine to form a joint deal by having her also sign with his own label Kon Live Distribution, making her his "franchise player." As 2007 came to a close, her former management company introduced her to songwriter and producer RedOne, whom they also managed. The first song she produced with RedOne was "Boys Boys Boys", a mash-up inspired by Mötley Crüe's "Girls, Girls, Girls" and AC/DC's "T.N.T.". Gaga continued her collaboration with RedOne in the recording studio for a week on her debut album; making the chart-topping singles "Just Dance", "Poker Face" and "LoveGame" together. Gaga also joined the roster of Cherrytree Records, an Interscope imprint established by producer and songwriter Martin Kierszenbaum, after co-writing four songs with Kierszenbaum including the singles "Christmas Tree" and "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)". Despite her secure record deal, she admitted that there was fear about her being too "racy", "dance-orientated" and "underground" for the mainstream market. She responded, "My name is Lady Gaga, I've been on the music scene for years, and I'm telling you, this is what's next."

2008–10: The Fame and The Fame Monster

By 2008, Gaga had relocated to Los Angeles, where she worked extensively with her record label to complete her debut album in addition to setting up her own creative team – modeled on Andy Warhol's Factory – Haus of Gaga. Intensive work continued on the album, combining genres "from Def Leppard drums and hand claps to metal drums on urban tracks" while drawing inspiration from 1980s synthpop and incorporating dance music with clear hooks. The Fame, described as an exploration of her obsession with fame and the intricacies of a rich and famous lifestyle, was first released on August 19, 2008, preceded by lead single "Just Dance" four months earlier. Due to radio play being slow, Gaga supported the releases by performing in the backwaters of Malta and Vietnam in addition to small gay clubs around the United States. She was also billed as a supporting artist on the North American leg of New Kids on the Block's reunion concert tour.

A sleeper hit, "Just Dance" hit the summit of the charts in six countries – Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States – in January 2009. The Grammy Award-nominated song provoked the instant success of The Fame. Receiving positive reviews from contemporary critics who commended Gaga's ability to discover a melodious hook and compared her vocal abilities to those of Gwen Stefani, the album went to number-one in countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Ireland while appearing in the top-five in Australia, the United States and fifteen other countries. On Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart, it stayed at the top spot 106 non-consecutive weeks. Since its release, The Fame has sold over 12 million copies worldwide. Gaga achieved an even greater unexpected success when "Poker Face", another sleeper hit, reached number-one in almost all major music markets in the world including the United Kingdom and the United States in early 2009. The follow-up single won the award for Best Dance Recording at the 52nd Grammy Awards over nominations for Song of the Year and Record of the Year, while The Fame was nominated for Album of the Year and won the Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronica Album. Gaga was the recipient of many other honors in 2009 including the accumulation of 3 of 9 MTV Video Music Awards nominations – she won Best New Artist while the video for her single "Paparazzi" gained the awards for Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects – and Billboard magazine's Rising Star award. In addition to being an opening act on the Pussycat Dolls' Doll Domination Tour during the first half of 2009 on their legs in Europe and Oceania, she also embarked on her own six-month critically appreciated worldwide concert tour The Fame Ball Tour which ran from March to September 2009.

While she traveled the world on tour, she wrote The Fame Monster, a collection of eight songs, which was released in November 2009. Each song, dealing with the darker side of fame from personal experience, is expressed through a monster metaphor. Its first single "Bad Romance" topped the charts in eighteen countries, while reaching the top-two in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. It made Gaga the first artist in digital history to have three singles (along with "Just Dance" and "Poker Face") to pass the four million mark in digital sales and accrued the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance while its accompanying music video won the Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video at the 53rd Grammy Awards The album's second single "Telephone", which features singer Beyoncé, was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and became Gaga's fourth UK number-one single while its accompanying music video, although controversial, received a more positive reception from contemporary critics: praising her for "the musicality and showmanship of Michael Jackson and the powerful sexuality and provocative instincts of Madonna." Her following single "Alejandro" paired Gaga with fashion photographer Steven Klein for a music video similarly as controversial – critics complimented its ideas and dark nature but the Catholic League attacked Gaga for her alleged use of blasphemy. Despite the controversy surrounding her music videos, they made Gaga the first artist to gain over one billion viral views on video-sharing website YouTube. Musically, The Fame Monster has also received abundant success. Equating to the amount of Grammy nominations her debut received, The Fame Monster garnered a total of six nominations; the album won for Best Pop Vocal Album and earned her a second-consecutive nomination for Album of the Year at the 53rd annual awards ceremony.

The success of the album allowed Gaga to start her second worldwide concert tour, The Monster Ball Tour, just weeks after the release of The Fame Monster and months after having finished The Fame Ball Tour. Upon finishing in May 2011, the critically acclaimed and commercially accomplished tour ran for over one and a half years and, according to Billboard, grossed $227.4 million, making it one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time and the highest-grossing for a debut headlining artist. Gaga also performed songs from the album at international events such as the 2009 Royal Variety Performance where she sang "Speechless", a power ballad, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II; the 52nd Grammy Awards where her opening performance consisted of the song "Poker Face" and a piano duet of "Speechless" in a medley of "Your Song" with Elton John; and the 2010 BRIT Awards where a performance of an acoustic rendition of "Telephone" followed by "Dance in the Dark" dedicated to the late fashion designer and close friend, Alexander McQueen, supplemented her hat-trick win at the awards ceremony. Other performances may have included her participation in Michael Jackson's This Is It concert series at London's O2 Arena. "I was actually asked to open for Michael on his tour," she stated. "We were going to open for him at the O2 and we were working on making it happen. I believe there was some talk about us, lots of the openers, doing duets with Michael on stage." A realized collaboration with Polaroid started in January 2010. Excited about combining the company with the digital era, Gaga was named Chief Creative Officer for a line of imaging products for the international optic company with the intent of creating fashion, technology and photography products.

Despite a successful debut, Mermaid Music LLC – her production team – was sued in March 2010 by past producer Rob Fusari who claimed that he was entitled to a 20% share of its earnings. Gaga's lawyer, Charles Ortner, described the agreement with Fusari as "unlawful" and declined to comment. Five months later, the New York Supreme Court dismissed both the lawsuit and a countersuit by Gaga. In addition to such strife, Gaga has been tested borderline positive for lupus, but claims not to be affected by the symptoms. The revelations caused considerable dismay amongst her fans, leading to Gaga addressing the matter in an interview with Larry King, saying she hopes to avoid symptoms by maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

2011–present: Born This Way

Gaga's second studio album and third major release Born This Way was released on May 23, 2011. Described as "a marriage of electronic music with major [...] metal or rock 'n' roll, pop, anthemic style melodies with really sledge-hammering dance beats" and referred to as an album "about what what keeps us up at night and what makes us afraid", she stated. Gaga characterized her new music as "something so much deeper than a wig or lipstick or a fucking meat dress" and upon hearing it, Akon remarked that she is taking music to the "next level". Its arrival followed the release of its eponymous lead single "Born This Way" on February 11, 2011, which was performed live for the first time at the 53rd Grammy Awards two days after its release. The song, dealing with self-acceptance regardless of race or sexual orientation, debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the 19th number-one debut and the 1,000th number-one single in the history of the charts, while selling more than 3 million digital copies in the United States by October 2011. A music video was released for the song, showing Gaga giving birth to a new race amidst surrealistic images; critics noted artistic and cultural references and praised its concept. Gaga lent her vocals elsewhere, pairing with Elton John to record an original duet for the animated feature film Gnomeo & Juliet. The song, titled "Hello, Hello", was released on February 11, 2011, without Gaga's vocals. The duet version was only featured in the film. In February, Gaga's concerts of her then-ongoing tour at Madison Square Garden in New York City, were filmed for an HBO special aired in May. The special was nominated for five awards at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards winning one – Outstanding Picture Editing for a Special (Single or Multi-Camera).

Two other singles, "Judas" and "The Edge of Glory", as well as a promotional single, "Hair", were eventually released before the album. The music video for "Judas", in which Gaga portrays Mary Magdalene, and Biblical figures such as Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot are also featured, was criticized for its religious references; the video, nonetheless, received acclaim for its overall delivery and praise from others who claimed that there was nothing offensive about it. "Judas" additionally peaked within the top ten in several major musical markets. "The Edge of Glory" was intended as a promotional single; nevertheless, due to commercial success in digital outlets, the song was released as a single to critical appreciation, accompanied by a music video. Gaga also undertook a job as a fashion columnist for V, where she wrote about her creative process, her studying of the world of pop culture, and her ability to tune into the evolution of pop-culture meme. Upon release, Born This Way sold 1.108 million copies in its first week in the United States, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and topping the charts in more than 20 other countries. The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised its range of different styles as well as her vocals. Later, Lady Gaga went to Sydney to promote Born This Way with a one-of-a-kind concert at the Sydney Town Hall on July 13, 2011.

She continued her musical endeavors, releasing "You and I" and "Marry the Night" as succeeding singles from Born This Way, as well as recording songs with veteran artists like Cher and Tony Bennett. The song recorded with Bennett is a jazz version of "The Lady Is a Tramp", while Gaga described her duet with Cher as a "massive" and "beautiful" track, which she "wrote a long time ago, and I've never put it on one of my own albums for, really, no particular reason." On August 28, at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, Gaga won two awards out of four nominations, and attended the event dressed as Jo Calderone, her male alter-ego. For the 2012 edition of the Guinness World Records, Gaga was listed for Most Followers on Twitter, with over 13 million followers, and "Poker Face" was listed for Most Weeks on US Digital Hot Songs, with 83 weeks. Gaga continued her live appearances, and performed at the celebration of former US president Bill Clinton's 65th Birthday alongside Bono, Stevie Wonder and Usher, among others. She wore a blond wig as a nod to the famous performance of Marilyn Monroe for John F. Kennedy and changed the lyrics to her song "You and I" specifically for the performance. Later on, Gaga won four awards out of six nominations in the main categories at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards in November, for Best Female, Biggest Fans, Best Song and Best Video; the latter two with "Born This Way". On November 14, 2011, Gaga and her choreographer and creative director Laurieann Gibson parted ways, after working together for four years. Gibson's assistant Richard Jackson replaced her as Lady Gaga's choreographer.

Gaga released her fourth extended play A Very Gaga Holiday on November 22, and followed an appearance in her Thanksgiving Day television special entitled A Very Gaga Thanksgiving. The television special was critically acclaimed and attained 5.749 million American viewers upon original airing. The accompanying tour for Born This Way was materializing, and at the same time Gaga started writing songs for a new record. She further explained to MTV News that she and Garibay were working on the follow-up album to Born This Way and stated that it was "beginning to flourish".

Artistry

Influences

Gaga's parents, who exposed her to artists like The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Elton John, had significant influence on her childhood and, presently, still do. "I am a real family girl. When it comes to love and loyalty, I am very old-fashioned. And I am quite down-to-earth for such an eccentric person," she insists. "I'm quite traditional in the family sense. I've always been that way." According to Gaga, Joanne Germanotta – her aunt who died of lupus aged 19 – lives on through her and inspires all of her music and art. Joanne's date of death is tattooed on Gaga's body and, despite dying 12 years before her birth, Gaga commented, "I really believe I have two hearts. I think I actually carry two souls in my body, and that I'm living out the rest of her life and her goodness – she died a virgin, she died never having experienced all these things that we all get to love and experience in our lives." Another spiritual influence on Gaga has been the Indian physician, public speaker and writer Deepak Chopra. Labeling him a "true inspiration", she stated that "he's always reminded me to work in a life of service to my fans and to fulfill my vision and my destiny" in addition to thinking about Chopra when it comes to her work as a musician: "I want so much for it to go beyond the music for my fans."

Musically, Gaga takes influence from numerous musicians from dance-pop singers like Madonna and Michael Jackson to glam rock artists like David Bowie and Queen whilst employing the theatrics of artists like Andy Warhol and of her musical theatre roots in performance. The Queen song "Radio Ga Ga" inspired her stage name, "Lady Gaga": "I adored Freddie Mercury and Queen had a hit called 'Radio Gaga'. That's why I love the name [...] Freddie was unique—one of the biggest personalities in the whole of pop music," she commented. Gaga receives regular comparisons to recording artist Madonna. The 53-year-old singer admits that she sees herself reflected in Gaga. In response to the comparisons, Gaga has stated, "I don't want to sound presumptuous, but I've made it my goal to revolutionize pop music. The last revolution was launched by Madonna 25 years ago" in addition to commenting that "there is really no one that is a more adoring and loving Madonna fan than me. I am the hugest fan personally and professionally." Like Madonna, Gaga has continued to reinvent herself and, over the few years her career has spanned, Gaga has drawn musical inspiration from a diverse mix of musicians including Whitney Houston, Britney Spears, Grace Jones, Cyndi Lauper, Blondie singer Debbie Harry, Scissor Sisters, Prince, Marilyn Manson and Yoko Ono.

Gaga has identified fashion as a major influence and has been stylistically compared to English eccentrics Leigh Bowery and Isabella Blow and to American recording artist Cher. She commented that "as a child, she somehow absorbed Cher's out-there fashion sense and made it her own." She has considered Donatella Versace her muse and the late British fashion designer and close friend Alexander McQueen as an inspiration, admitting that "I miss Lee every time I get dressed" while channeling him in some of her work. Modeled on Andy Warhol's Factory, Gaga has her own creative production team, which she handles personally, called the Haus of Gaga, who create many of her clothes, stage props, and hairdos. Her adoration of fashion came from her mother, who she stated was "always very well kept and beautiful." "When I'm writing music, I'm thinking about the clothes I want to wear on stage. It's all about everything altogether—performance art, pop performance art, fashion. For me, it's everything coming together and being a real story that will bring back the super-fan. I want to bring that back. I want the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste and lick every part of us." The Global Language Monitor named "Lady Gaga" as the Top Fashion Buzzword with her trademark "no pants" a close third. Entertainment Weekly put her outfits on its end of the decade "best-of" list, saying, "Whether it's a dress made of Muppets or strategically placed bubbles, Gaga's outré ensembles brought performance art into the mainstream."

Musical and performance style

Gaga's musical and performance style is the subject of much analysis and scrutiny of critics as her career is a continuous experimentation with new musical ideas and images. She professes that she is "liberating" herself by constantly reinventing her sound and image, insisting that she has been drawn to such a practice since her childhood. Vocally, Gaga has drawn frequent comparison to the ranges of Madonna and Gwen Stefani. Possessing the range of a contralto, Gaga exhibits "overwhelming expression, instinctive vocal phrasing, '80s rock reminiscent chest belts and animalistic vocal ticks" while being able to move through 2.4 octaves. Gaga, who refuses to lip sync, has manipulated her vocal style over the course of her career yet considers Born This Way (2011) "much more vocally up to par with what I've always been capable of." In summation of her voice, Entertainment Weekly wrote, "There's an immense emotional intelligence behind the way she uses her voice. Almost never does she overwhelm a song with her vocal ability, recognizing instead that artistry is to be found in nuance rather than lung power."

Although her early lyrics have been criticized for lacking intellectual stimulation, "[Gaga] does manage to get you moving and grooving at an almost effortless pace." She admits that her songwriting has been misinterpreted; her friend and blogger Perez Hilton articulated her message in a clearer way: "you write really deep intelligent lyrics with shallow concepts." Gaga opined, "Perez is very intelligent and clearly listened to my record from beginning to end, and he is correct." "I love songwriting. It's so funny – I will just jam around in my underwear or I could be washing my dishes. I wrote several songs just at the piano," she confesses. Gaga believes that "all good music can be played at a piano and still sound like a hit." She has covered a wide variety of topics in her songs: while The Fame (2008) meditates on the lust for stardom, The Fame Monster (2009) expresses fame's dark side through monster metaphors. Born This Way (2011) is sung in English, French, German and Spanish and includes common themes in Gaga's controversial songwriting like love, sex, religion, money, drugs, identity, liberation, sexuality, freedom and individualism.

The structure of her music is said to echo classic 1980s pop and 1990s Europop. Her debut album The Fame (2008) provoked The Sunday Times to assert "in combining music, fashion, art and technology, [Gaga] evokes Madonna, Gwen Stefani circa 'Hollaback Girl', Kylie Minogue 2001 or Grace Jones right now" and a critic from The Boston Globe to comment that she draws "obvious inspirations from Madonna to Gwen Stefani... in [her] girlish but sturdy pipes and bubbly beats." Music critic Simon Reynolds wrote that "Everything about Gaga came from electroclash, except the music, which wasn't particularly 1980s, just ruthlessly catchy naughties pop glazed with Auto-Tune and undergirded with R&B;-ish beats." The follow-up The Fame Monster (2009), saw Gaga's taste for pastiche, drawing on "Seventies arena glam, perky ABBA disco and sugary throwbacks like Stacey Q" while Born This Way (2011) also draws on the records of her childhood and still has the "electro-sleaze beats and Eurodisco chorus chants" of its predecessor but includes genres as diverse as opera, heavy metal, disco, and rock and roll. "There isn't a subtle moment on the album, but even at its nuttiest, the music is full of wide-awake emotional details," wrote Rolling Stone, who concluded: "The more excessive Gaga gets, the more honest she sounds."

Her performances are described as "highly entertaining and innovative"; the blood-spurting performance of "Paparazzi" at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards was described as "eye-popping" by MTV. She continued the "blood soaked" theme in The Monster Ball Tour, in which she wore a revealing leather corset and is "attacked" by a performer dressed in black who gnaws on her throat, causing "blood" to spurt down her chest, after which she lies "dying" in a pool of blood. Her performances of that scene on tour in England triggered protests from family groups and fans in the aftermath of a local tragedy, in which a taxi driver had murdered 12 people. "What happened in Bradford is very fresh in people's minds and given all the violence which happened in Cumbria just hours earlier, it was insensitive," said Lynn Costello of Mothers Against Violence. Her unconventionality continued at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards when she performed in drag as her male alter ego, Jo Calderone, and delivered a lovesick monologue before a performance of her song "Yoü and I". Chris Rock has defended her flamboyant and provocative behavior. "Well, she's Lady Gaga," he said. "She's not 'Lady Behave Yourself.' Do you want great behavior from a person named Gaga? Is this what you were expecting?"

Public image

While Rolling Stone named Gaga the "Queen of Pop" in 2011, public reception of Gaga's music, fashion sense and persona are mixed. Her status as a role model, self-esteem booster for her fans, trailblazer and fashion icon who breathes new life into the industry is by turns affirmed and denied. Gaga's albums have received mostly positive reviews and critics have pointed out her unique place in pop music, the need for new movements in popular culture, the attention Gaga brings to modern social issues, and the inherently subjective nature of her art. In view of her influence on modern culture and her rise to global fame, sociologist Mathieu Deflem of the University of South Carolina has organized a course titled "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame" since the spring of 2011 with the objective of unravelling "some of the sociologically relevant dimensions of the fame of Lady Gaga."

Contrary to her outré style, the New York Post described her early look as like "a refugee from Jersey Shore" with "big black hair, heavy eye makeup and tight, revealing clothes." Lady Gaga is a natural brunette; she bleached her hair blonde because she was often mistaken for Amy Winehouse. She has nine tattoos on the left side of her body (her father has banned etchings on her right): a unicorn head with a ribbon wrapped around its horn that says "Born This Way"; a small heart with "dad" written inside it; several white roses; a treble clef; three daises; "Tokyo Love" with a little heart; "Little Monsters" written in cursive; a peace symbol, which was inspired by John Lennon, who she stated was her hero; and a curling German script on her left arm quoting the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, her favorite writer, commenting that his "philosophy of solitude" spoke to her. Towards the end of 2008, comparisons were made between the fashions of Lady Gaga and recording artist Christina Aguilera that noted similarities in their styling, hair, and make-up. Aguilera stated that she was "completely unaware of [Gaga]" and "didn't know if it [was] a man or a woman." Lady Gaga released a statement in which she welcomed the comparisons due to the attention providing useful publicity, saying, "She's such a huge star and if anything I should send her flowers, because a lot of people in America didn't know who I was until that whole thing happened. It really put me on the map in a way."

When interviewed by Barbara Walters for her annual ABC News special 10 Most Fascinating People in 2009, Gaga dismissed the claim that she is intersex as an urban legend. Responding to a question on this issue, she stated, "At first it was very strange and everyone sorta said, 'That's really quite a story!' But in a sense, I portray myself in a very androgynous way, and I love androgyny." In addition to Aguilera's statement, comparisons continued into 2010, when Aguilera released the music video of her single "Not Myself Tonight". Critics noted similarities between the song and its accompanying music video with Lady Gaga's video for "Bad Romance". There have also been similar comparisons made between Lady Gaga's style and that of fashion icon Dale Bozzio from the band Missing Persons. Some have considered their respective images to be strikingly parallel although fans of Missing Persons note that Bozzio had pioneered the look more than thirty years earlier. Nonetheless, Gaga was named one of Vogue.com UK's Best Dressed people of 2010 while her stylist, Dazed & Confused creative director Nicola Formichetti, won the Fashion Creator of the Year Award at the British Fashion Awards.

Part of the reasoning for Gaga's Best Dressed achievement was her attire worn to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards: a dress supplemented by boots, a purse and a hat – each fabricated from the flesh of a dead animal. The dress, named Time magazine's Fashion Statement of 2010 and more widely known as the "meat dress", received divided opinions – evoking the attention of worldwide media but invoking the fury of animal rights organization PETA. Lady Gaga denied any intention of causing disrespect to any person or organization and wished for the dress to be interpreted as a statement of human rights with focus upon those in the LGBT community. In addition to this unconventionality, in a question posed about the necessary procedure to attach the prosthetics to give the appearance of recent horn-like ridges on her cheekbones, temples, and shoulders, Gaga responded, "They're not prosthetics, they're my bones." She also clarified that they were not the result of plastic surgery, believing such surgery to only be the modern byproduct of fame-induced insecurity to which she does not subscribe. The interviewer's further probing brought Gaga to the conclusion that they are an artistic representation of her inner inspirational light and part of the "performance piece" that is her musical persona: an inevitability of her becoming who she now is. When Gaga briefly met with US president Barack Obama at a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser, he described the interaction as "intimidating" as she was dressed in 16-inch heels making her undoubtedly the tallest woman in the room.

Gaga often refers to her fans as "Little Monsters" and in dedication, has had that inscription tattooed on "the arm that holds my mic." Her treatment of her "Little Monsters" has inspired criticism, due to the highly commercial nature of her music and image. To some, this dichotomy contravenes the concept of outsider culture. Camille Paglia in her 2010 cover story "Lady Gaga and the death of sex" in The Sunday Times asserts thatGaga "is more an identity thief than an erotic taboo breaker, a mainstream manufactured product who claims to be singing for the freaks, the rebellious and the dispossessed when she is none of those." Writing for The Guardian, Kitty Empire opined that the dichotomy "...allows the viewer to have a 'transgressive' experience without being required to think. At [her performance's] core, though, is the idea that Gaga is at one with the freaks and outcasts. The Monster Ball is where we can all be free. This is arrant nonsense, as the scads of people buying Gaga's cunningly commercial music are not limited to the niche worlds of drag queens and hip night creatures from which she draws her inspiration. But Gaga seems sincere."

Philanthropy

Besides her career in music, Gaga has also contributed to various charities and humanitarian works. In 2011, she launched her own non-profit organization, the Born This Way Foundation, which focuses on youth empowerment and issues like self-confidence, well-being, anti-bullying, mentoring, and career development. "My mother and I have initiated a passion project. We call it the Born This Way Foundation," Gaga said in a statement about the foundation, which takes its name from the eponymous 2011 single and album. "Together we hope to establish a standard of Bravery and Kindness, as well as a community worldwide that protects and nurtures others in the face of bullying and abandonment." The foundation will work with a number of partners, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The California Endowment and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

For natural disasters, Gaga has also helped various relief efforts. Although declining an invitation to appear on the single "We Are the World 25" to benefit victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, she donated the proceeds of her January 24, 2010 concert at New York's Radio City Music Hall to the country's reconstruction relief fund. All profits from her official online store on that day were also donated. Gaga announced that an estimated total of $500,000 was collected for the fund. Hours after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11, 2011, Gaga tweeted a message and a link to Japan Prayer Bracelets. All revenue from a bracelet she designed in conjunction with the company was donated to relief efforts. As of March 29, 2011, the bracelets raised $1.5 million. However, attorney Alyson Oliver filed a lawsuit against Gaga in Detroit in June 2011, noting that the bracelet was subject to a sales tax and an extra $3.99 shipping charge was added to the price. She also believed that not all proceeds from the bracelets would go to the relief efforts, demanding a public accounting of the campaign and refunds for people who had bought the bracelet. Lady Gaga's spokesperson called the lawsuit "meritless" and "misleading". On June 25, 2011, Gaga performed at MTV Japan's charity show in Makuhari Messe, which benefited the Japanese Red Cross.

Gaga also contributes in the fight against HIV and AIDS with the focus upon educating young women about the risks of the disease. In collaboration with Cyndi Lauper, Gaga joined forces with MAC Cosmetics to launch a line of lipstick under their supplementary cosmetic line, Viva Glam. Titled Viva Glam Gaga and Viva Glam Cyndi for each contributor respectively, all net proceeds of the lipstick line were donated to the cosmetic company's campaign to prevent HIV and AIDS worldwide. In a press release, Gaga declared, "I don't want Viva Glam to be just a lipstick you buy to help a cause. I want it to be a reminder when you go out at night to put a condom in your purse right next to your lipstick." The sales of Gaga-endorsed Viva Glam lipstick and lipgloss have raised more than $202 million to fight HIV and AIDS.

With the performance of the bilingual song "Americano" from her second studio album Born This Way (2011), Gaga jumped into the debate surrounding SB 1070, Arizona's immigration law. She premiered the tune for the first time on the Guadalajara, Mexico stop of her Monster Ball tour telling the local press that she could not "stand by many of the unjust immigration laws" in the United States.

LGBT advocacy

Gaga attributes much of her early success as a mainstream artist to her gay fans and is considered to be a gay icon. Early in her career she had difficulty getting radio airplay, and stated, "The turning point for me was the gay community. I've got so many gay fans and they're so loyal to me and they really lifted me up. They'll always stand by me and I'll always stand by them. It's not an easy thing to create a fanbase." She thanked FlyLife, a Manhattan-based LGBT marketing company with whom her label Interscope works, in the liner notes of The Fame, saying, "I love you so much. You were the first heartbeat in this project, and your support and brilliance means the world to me. I will always fight for the gay community hand in hand with this incredible team." One of her first televised performances was in May 2008 at the NewNowNext Awards, an awards show aired by the LGBT television network Logo, where she sang her song "Just Dance". In June of the same year, she performed the song again at the San Francisco Pride event.

After The Fame was released, she revealed that the song "Poker Face" was about her bisexuality. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she spoke about how her boyfriends tended to react to her bisexuality, saying "The fact that I'm into women, they're all intimidated by it. It makes them uncomfortable. They're like, 'I don't need to have a threesome. I'm happy with just you'." When she appeared as a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in May 2009, she praised DeGeneres for being "an inspiration for women and for the gay community". She proclaimed that the October 11, 2009 National Equality March rally on the National Mall was "the single most important event of her career." As she exited, she left with an exultant "Bless God and bless the gays," similar to her 2009 MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech for Best New Artist a month earlier. At the Human Rights Campaign Dinner, held the same weekend as the rally, she performed a cover of John Lennon's "Imagine" declaring that "I'm not going to [play] one of my songs tonight because tonight is not about me, it's about you." She changed the original lyrics of the song to reflect the death of Matthew Shepard, a college student murdered because of his sexuality.

Gaga attended the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards accompanied by four service members of the United States Armed Forces (Mike Almy, David Hall, Katie Miller and Stacy Vasquez), all of whom, under the United States military's "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy, had been prohibited from serving openly because of their sexuality. In addition, Gaga wore a dress fabricated from the flesh of a dead animal to the awards ceremony. Gaga wished that the dress, more widely known as the "meat dress", was interpreted as a statement of human rights with focus upon those in the LGBT community adding that "If we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones." She later released three videos on YouTube videos urging her fans to contact their Senators in an effort to overturn the policy. In late September 2010 she spoke at the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's "4the14K" Rally in Deering Oaks Park in Portland, Maine. The name of the rally signified the number – an estimated 14,000 – of service members discharged under the DADT policy at the time. During her remarks, she urged members of the U.S. Senate (and in particular, moderate Republican Senators from Maine, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins) to vote in favor of legislation that would repeal the DADT policy. Following this event, editors of The Advocate commented that she had become "the real fierce advocate" for gays and lesbians, one that Barack Obama had promised to be.

Gaga appeared at Europride, a pan-European international event dedicated to LGBT pride, held in Rome in June 2011. In a nearly twenty-minute speech, she criticized the intolerant state of gay rights in many European countries and described homosexuals as "revolutionaries of love" before performing acoustic renderings of "Born This Way" and "The Edge of Glory" in front of thousands at the Circus Maximus. She stated that "Today and every day we fight for freedom. We fight for justice. We beckon for compassion, understanding and above all we want full equality now". Gaga revealed that she is often questioned why she dedicates herself to "gayspeak" and "how gay" she is, to which, she told the audience: "Why is this question, why is this issue so important? My answer is: I am a child of diversity, I am one with my generation, I feel a moral obligation as a woman, or a man, to exercise my revolutionary potential and make the world a better place." She then joked: "On a gay scale from 1 to 10, I'm a Judy Garland fucking 42."

Discography

The Fame (2008)

The Fame Monster (2009)

Born This Way (2011)

Filmography

Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden (2011)

A Very Gaga Thanksgiving (2011)

Concert tours

The Fame Ball Tour (2009)

Fame Kills: Starring Kanye West and Lady Gaga (2009–10) (canceled)

The Monster Ball Tour (2009–11)

See also

List of awards and nominations received by Lady Gaga

Honorific nicknames in popular music

List of best-selling music artists

References

Further reading

Monster Anthems (2011) by Robert Christgau

External links

Slide show Vanity Fair

Category:1986 births Category:American contraltos Category:American dance musicians Category:American electronic musicians Category:American female pop singers Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:American performance artists Category:American pop singer-songwriters Category:American Roman Catholics Category:Androgyny Category:Bisexual musicians Category:Brit Award winners Category:Echo winners Category:English-language singers Category:Feminist musicians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Interscope Records artists Category:Keytarists Category:LGBT Christians Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States Category:LGBT rights activists Category:Living people Category:People from Manhattan Category:Pseudonymous musicians Category:Singers from New York City Category:Sony/ATV Music Publishing artists Category:Synthpop musicians Category:Tisch School of the Arts alumni Category:Wonky Pop acts

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