Lollapalooza 2011

Lollapalooza /ˌlɒləpəˈluːzə/ is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups.

Conceived and created in 1991 by Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell as a farewell tour for his band, Lollapalooza ran annually until 1997, and was revived in 2003. From its inception through 1997, and its revival in 2003, the festival toured North America. In 2004, the festival organizers decided to expand the dates to two days per city, but poor ticket sales forced the 2004 tour to be cancelled.^[1] In 2005, Farrell and the William Morris Agency partnered up with Austin, Texas-based company Capital Sports Entertainment (now C3 Presents) and retooled it into its current format as a weekend destination festival in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois. In 2010 it was announced that Lollapalooza would debut overseas, with a branch of the festival staged in Chile's capital Santiago on April 2–3, 2011 where they partnered up with Santiago-based company Lotus. In 2011, the company Geo Events confirmed the Brazilian version of the event, which will be held at the Jockey Club in São Paulo on 7 and 8 April 2012.^[2][3]

The music festival hosts more than 160,000 people over a three day period. Lollapalooza has featured a diverse range of bands and has helped expose and popularize artists such as Atmosphere (music group), Metallica, Coldplay, Eminem, Depeche Mode, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, The Cure, Primus, The Killers, Rage Against the Machine, Arcade Fire, Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction, X Japan, Soundgarden, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Smashing Pumpkins, Muse, Alice in Chains, Björk, MGMT, Foster the People, Tool, Hole, Body Count, Ice-T, 30 Seconds to Mars, The Drums, The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Calvin Harris, Thenewno2, Fishbone and Butthole Surfers.

Etymology[link]

The word—sometimes alternatively spelled and pronounced as lollapalootza or lalapaloosa^[4]—dates from a late 19th/early 20th century American idiomatic phrase meaning "an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance."^[5][6] In time the term also came to refer to a large lollipop.^[7] Farrell, searching for a name for his festival, liked the euphonious quality of the now antiquated term upon hearing it in a Three Stooges short film.^[8] Paying homage to the term's double meaning, a character in the festival's original logo holds one of the lollipops.^[7]

History[link]

Creation[link]

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor during the 1991 Lollapalooza festival.

Inspired by events produced by Bill Graham, Perry Farrell, along with Ted Gardener, Marc Geiger, and Don Muller, conceived of the festival in 1990 as a farewell tour for his band Jane's Addiction.^[9] Unlike previous music festivals such as Woodstock, A Gathering of the Tribes, or the US Festival, which were one-time events held in one venue, Lollapalooza was a touring festival that travelled across the United States and Canada.^[10]

The inaugural 1991 lineup was made up of artists from various genres, drawing in headliners from post-punk such as Siouxsie and the Banshees to rap such as Ice-T as well as industrial music such as Nine Inch Nails. Another key concept behind Lollapalooza was the inclusion of non-musical features.^[11] Performers like the Jim Rose Circus Side Show, an alternative freak show, and the Shaolin monks stretched the boundaries of traditional rock culture. There was a tent for display of art pieces, virtual reality games, and information tables for political and environmental non-profit groups promoting counter-culture and political awareness.^[12]

Success and decline[link]

It was at Lollapalooza where Farrell coined the term "Alternative Nation".^[13] The explosion of alternative rock in the early 1990s propelled Lollapalooza forward; the 1992 and 1993 festivals leaned heavily on grunge and alternative acts, and usually featured an additional rap artist.^[14] Punk rock standbys like mosh pits and crowd surfing became part of the canon of the concerts. These years saw great increases in the participatory nature of the event with the inclusion of booths for open-microphone readings and oratory, television-smashing pits, and tattooing and piercing parlors.^[15][16] After 1991, the festival included a second stage (and, in 1996, a third stage) for up-and-coming bands or local acts.^[17] Attendee complaints of the festival included high ticket prices as well as the high cost for food and water at the shows.^[18] When the festival played at the Alpine Valley festival in East Troy, Wisconsin on August 29, 1992, and also at Pine Knob Music Theater in Clarkston, Michigan (near Detroit) in 1992, concertgoers ripped up chunks of sod and grass and threw them at each other and at the bands, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in damages to the venue.^[8]

Grunge band Nirvana was scheduled to headline at the festival in 1994, but the band officially dropped out of the festival on April 7, 1994.^[8] Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's body was discovered in Seattle, Washington the next day. Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, made guest appearances at several shows, including the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania show at FDR Park (usually taking time given to her by The Smashing Pumpkins vocalist/guitarist Billy Corgan), speaking to the crowds about the loss, then singing a minimum of two songs.^[8] Farrell worked with rock poster artist Jim Evans (T.A.Z.) to create a series of posters and the complete graphic decoration for the 1994 event, including two 70 ft. tall Buddha statues that flanked the main stage. In 1996, Farrell, who had been the soul of the festival, decided to focus his energy to produce his new festival project, ENIT, and did not participate in producing Lollapalooza.^[8] Many fans saw the addition of Metallica in 1996 as going against the practice of featuring "non-mainstream" artists.^[8] Moreover, festival cofounder Farrell felt that the group's macho image violated his peaceful vision for the festival,^[19] for alternative culture of the early 1990s was generally against macho behavior.^[20] Farrell quit the tour in protest.^[21] Efforts were made to keep the festival relevant, including more eclectic acts such as country superstar Waylon Jennings and emphasizing more heavily electronica groups like The Prodigy.^[8] By 1997, however, the Lollapalooza concept had run out of steam, and in 1998 failed efforts to find a suitable headliner resulted in the festival's cancellation.^[22] The cancellation served as a signifier of alternative rock's declining popularity. In light of the festival's troubles that year, Spin said, "Lollapalooza is as comatose as alternative rock right now."^[23]

Revival and rebirth[link]

In 2003, Farrell reconvened Jane's Addiction and scheduled a new Lollapalooza tour. The festival schedule included venues in 30 cities through July and August. The 2003 tour achieved only marginal success with many fans staying away, presumably because of high ticket prices.^[8] Another tour scheduled for 2004 was to consist of a two-day festival taking place in each city. It was cancelled in June due to weak ticket sales across the country.^[1]

Lollapalooza 2006 in Grant Park, Chicago.

Farrell partnered with Capital Sports & Entertainment (now C3 Presents), which co-owns and produces the Austin City Limits Music Festival, to produce Lollapalooza.^[24] CSE, Farrell and the William Morris Agency—along with Charles Attal Presents—resurrected Lollapalooza as a two-day destination festival in 2005 in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois, with an even greater variety of performers (70 acts on five stages) than that of the touring festival.^[8] The festival was generally successful, attracting over 65,000 attendees, despite a 104 degree Fahrenheit Sunday (40 degrees Celsius) heat wave (two people were hospitalized for heat related illness).^[25][26] It returned to Chicago on August 4–6, 2006. On October 25, 2006, the Chicago Park District and Capital Sports & Entertainment agreed to a five-year, $5 million deal, keeping Lollapalooza at Grant Park in Chicago until 2011.^[27] Lollapalooza ran August 3–5 in 2007, August 1–3 in 2008, August 7–9 in 2009, and August 6–8 in 2010.^[28] The dates for 2011 are set for August 5–7.^[28] After a successful 2008 festival, another deal was signed to keep Lollapalooza in Chicago through 2018, guaranteeing the city $13 million.^[29]

International expansion[link]

In 2010, it was announced that Lollapalooza would debut in South America, with a branch of the festival staged in Chile's capital Santiago on April 2–3, 2011. The line up included Kanye West, Jane's Addiction, 30 Seconds to Mars, The National, Manny and Gil The Latin, The Drums, The Killers, Ana Tijoux, Javiera Mena, Fatboy Slim, Deftones, Los Plumabits, Cypress Hill, 311, The Flaming Lips and many others.^[30] A Brazilian version of the event was confirmed in 2011^[31][32], which will be held at the Jockey Club in São Paulo on 7 and 8 April 2012 and will compete with Rock in Rio, the largest festival in the world, which also takes place in Brazil.

Criticism[link]

Recording engineer, guitarist, and journalist Steve Albini has criticized Lollapalooza for its corporatization of popularized "alternative" music. In a 1993 interview, Albini commented:

Lollapalooza is the worst example of corporate encroachment into what is supposed to be the underground. It is just a large scale marketing of bands that pretend to be alternative but are in reality just another facet of the mass cultural exploitation scheme. I have no appreciation or affection for those bands and I have no interest in that whole circle. If Lollapalooza had Jesus Lizard and the Melvins and Fugazi and Slint then you could make a case that it was actually people on the vanguard of music. What it really is is the most popular bands on MTV that are not heavy metal.^[33]

Lollapalooza lineups by year[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lollapalooza

• Lollapalooza's official website
• Lollapalooza 2010 iPhone app

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Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga performing on The Monster Ball Tour in 2010
Background information
Birth name	Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
Born	(1986-03-28) March 28, 1986 (age 26) New York, New York, U.S.
Genres	Pop, dance, electronic
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, performance artist, record producer, dancer, businesswoman, activist
Instruments	Vocals, piano, keyboards
Years active	2005–present
Labels	Def Jam, Cherrytree, Streamline, Kon Live, Interscope
Website	LadyGaga.com Lady Gaga's signature

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (/ˈstɛfəniː dʒʌrməˈnɑːtə/ STE-fə-nee jurr-mə-NAH-tə; born March 28, 1986), 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 was signed with Streamline Records by the end of 2007. During her employment 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 The Fame Ball Tour, she followed the album with The Fame Monster (2009), which spawned the worldwide hit singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone" and "Alejandro". The album's success 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, including "Born This Way", "Judas" and "The Edge of Glory". Besides her musical career, she involves herself with humanitarian causes and LGBT activism.

Influenced by David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Madonna and Queen, Lady Gaga is recognized for her flamboyant, diverse and outré contributions to the music industry through her fashion, performances 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 are some of the best selling worldwide.^[1] Her achievements include five Grammy Awards and 13 MTV Video Music Awards. Lady Gaga has consecutively appeared on Billboard magazine's Artists of the Year (scoring the definitive title in 2010), ranked fourth in VH1's list of 100 Greatest Women in Music, is regularly placed on lists composed by Forbes magazine and was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine.^[2][3] In 2012, Gaga was ranked at number four on Billboard's list of top moneymakers of 2011, grossing more than $25 million.^[4]

Biography[link]

1986–2004: Early life[link]

Manhattan's Upper West Side, where Gaga grew up, has been an inspiration for many of her songs.

Lady Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta on March 28, 1986 in New York City to parents Cynthia (née Bissett) and Joseph Germanotta, an Internet entrepreneur.^[5][6] Descending from Italian and more distant French-Canadian roots, Gaga is the elder of two children.^[7][8] Her sister, Natali, a fashion student, was born in 1992.^[9][10] Despite her seemingly affluent upbringing in the family home in Manhattan's Upper West Side, Gaga has stressed that she did not come from a wealthy background, stating that her parents "both came from lower-class families, so we've worked for everything—my mother worked eight to eight out of the house, in telecommunications, and so did my father."^[11][12]

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.^[13][14][15] She described her academic life in high school as "very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined" but also "a bit insecure": "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."^[16][17] 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.^[18] Gaga began playing the piano at the age of 4, went on to write her first piano ballad at 13, and started to perform at open mike nights by the age of 14.^[19][20] 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.^[21] 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.^[11][22]

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.^[11] After becoming one of twenty students to gain early admission, she eventually lived in an NYU dorm on 11th Street by the age of 17.^[21] CAP21 prepared her for her future career focus in "music, art, sex and celebrity" where, in addition to sharpening her songwriting skills, she composed essays and analytical papers on art, religion, social issues and politics, including a thesis on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst.^[20][23][24] With CAP21, she also tried out for and won auditions, including the part of an unsuspecting diner customer for MTV's Boiling Points, a prank reality television show.^[11][25] But Gaga felt more creative than some of her classmates. "Once you learn how to think about art, you can teach yourself," she said.

2005–07: Career beginnings[link]

Gaga (right) performing with Lady Starlight (left) at Lollapalooza 2007

Gaga withdrew from CAP21 at 19, in the second semester of her sophomore year, deciding to focus on her musical career.^[26] 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.^[21] 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.^[11][27] 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.^[11][21] The band played a mixture of songs: some self-penned alongside classic rock numbers like Led Zeppelin's "D'yer Mak'er".^[11] 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.^[11] Soon after arranging time in Vulpis' studio in the months that followed, SGBand were selling their extended plays Words and Red and Blue (both 2005) at gigs around New York while becoming a local fixture of the downtown Lower East Side club scene.^[21]

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 musician, 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.^[11] While in collaboration, Fusari compared some of her vocal harmonies to those of Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen.^[28] 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."^[29] 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."^[29][30] The New York Post, however, has reported that this story is incorrect, and that the name resulted from a marketing meeting.^[18]

Gaga performing in a bar, sporting one of her earlier looks (2008)

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.^[11] 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.^[11] 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".^[31][32] Devastated, Gaga returned to the solace of the family home for Christmas and the nightlife culture of the Lower East Side.^[11]

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.^[11][14] Her father, however, did not understand the reason behind her drug intake and could not look at her for several months.^[14][30] "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."^[23] 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.^[33]

During this time, she met performance artist Lady Starlight, who helped mold her on-stage persona.^[34] 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.^[35][36] Soon after, the two were invited to play at the 2007 Lollapalooza music festival in August that year.^[37] The show was critically acclaimed, and their performance received positive reviews.^[20][35] 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.^[38]

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.^[39] Herbert was quick to sign her to his label Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records, upon its establishment in 2007.^[40] 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."^[39] Having 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.^[41] As a result, she was hired to write songs for Britney Spears and labelmates New Kids on the Block, Fergie, and the Pussycat Dolls.^[41] At Interscope, singer-songwriter Akon recognized her vocal abilities when she sang a reference vocal for one of his tracks in studio.^[42] Akon 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, making her his "franchise player."^[31][43]

As 2007 came to a close, her former management company introduced her to songwriter and producer RedOne, whom they also managed.^[44] 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.".^[30][44] Gaga continued her collaboration with RedOne in the recording studio for a week on her debut album and 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)".^[41] Despite her secure record deal, she admitted that there was fear about her being too "racy", "dance-orientated" and "underground" for the mainstream market. Her response: "My name is Lady Gaga, I've been on the music scene for years, and I'm telling you, this is what's next."^[15]

[edit] 2008–10: The Fame and The Fame Monster

Gaga performing at The Fame Ball Tour in 2009

By 2008, Gaga had relocated to Los Angeles in order to work extensively with her record label to complete her debut album and set up her own creative team Haus of Gaga, modeled on Andy Warhol's Factory.^[30][45] The Fame was first released on August 19, 2008 to slow radio play. Gaga supported it by performing around Europe and in small gay clubs around the US in addition to being billed as a supporting artist on the North American leg of New Kids on the Block's reunion concert tour.^[46][47] A sleeper hit, lead single "Just Dance" had preceded the album's release by four months but only hit the summit of the international charts in January 2009, provoking the instant success of the album, earning her first Grammy Award nomination (for Best Dance Recording) and becoming one of the best-selling singles worldwide.^[46][48] Gaga achieved a greater unexpected success when "Poker Face", another sleeper hit, reached number one in most major music markets worldwide in early 2009, selling 9.8 million singles worldwide.^[49][50] 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.

The Fame itself was nominated for Album of the Year while winning Best Dance/Electronica Album at the same ceremony.^[51] Contemporary critics lauded the album, describing it as an exploration of her obsession with fame and the intricacies of a rich and famous lifestyle, noting its combination of genres "from Def Leppard drums and hand claps to metal drums on urban tracks", the inspiration drawn from 1980s synthpop and incorporation of dance music with clear hooks.^[31] The Fame went to number one in Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland and the UK and appeared in the top five in Australia, the US and 15 other countries.^[52][53] It also stayed atop the Dance/Electronic Albums chart for 106 non-consecutive weeks and, since its release, has sold over 12 million copies worldwide.^[54] The album's success spawned many 2009 honors including Billboard magazine's Rising Star award and the accumulation of 3 of 9 MTV Video Music Awards nominations, winning Best New Artist with the video for her single "Paparazzi" gaining Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects.^[55][56] In addition to being an opening act on the Pussycat Dolls' Doll Domination Tour during the first half of 2009 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.^[57][58]

While she traveled the globe, she wrote The Fame Monster, an EP of eight songs released in November 2009. Each song, dealing with the darker side of fame from personal experience, is expressed through a monster metaphor. Making Gaga the first artist in digital history to have three singles (alongside "Just Dance" and "Poker Face") to pass the four million mark in digital sales, its lead single "Bad Romance" topped the charts in eighteen countries and reached the top two in the US, Australia and New Zealand while accruing the Grammy Awards for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Short Form Music Video.^[59] The 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; its accompanying music video, although controversial, received positive reception from contemporary critics who praised her for "the musicality and showmanship of Michael Jackson and the powerful sexuality and provocative instincts of Madonna."^[60][61] 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.^[62] 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.^[63] At the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, Gaga won 8 of her 13 nominations, including Video of the Year for "Bad Romance" (with "Telephone" also nominated), which made her the first female artist to be nominated twice for the award.^[64][65] In addition, The Fame Monster garnered a total of six nominations at the 53rd Grammy Awards – equating to the amount of Grammy nominations her debut received – winning Best Pop Vocal Album and earning her a second-consecutive nomination for Album of the Year.^[66][67]

Gaga performing at The Monster Ball Tour in 2010

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.^[68] Upon finishing in May 2011, the critically acclaimed and commercially accomplished tour ran for over one and a half years and 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.^[69] Concerts performed at Madison Square Garden in New York City were filmed for a HBO television special titled Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden. The special accrued one of its five Emmy Award nominations and has since been released on DVD and Blu-ray.^[70] 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.^[71] 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."^[72]

In 2009 she collaborated with consumer electronic company Monster Cable Products to create a pair of in-ear jewel-encrusted headphones titled Heartbeats. "They are designed to be the first ever fashion accessories that double as the absolute best sonically sounding headphones in the world," she commented.^[73] Gaga also partnered with Polaroid in January 2010 as their Creative Director.^[74] Excited about "blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era," Gaga unveiled the first trio of new products called Grey Label: a pair of picture-taking sunglasses, a paperback-sized mobile printing unit and an updated version of the traditional Polaroid camera at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show.^[75] But her collaboration with past producer Rob Fusari led to her production team, Mermaid Music LLC, being sued in March 2010 when he claimed that he was entitled to a 20% share of the company's earnings. Gaga's lawyer, Charles Ortner, described the agreement with Fusari as "unlawful" and declined to comment, but five months later, the New York Supreme Court dismissed both the lawsuit and a countersuit by Gaga.^[76][77] In addition to such strife, Gaga was tested borderline positive for lupus, but claimed not to be affected by the symptoms. The revelations caused considerable dismay among fans, leading to Gaga addressing the matter in an interview with Larry King, saying she hopes to avoid symptoms by maintaining a healthy lifestyle.^[78][79]

[edit] 2011–present: Born This Way

Gaga performing on the 2011 Good Morning America Summer Concert Series

Gaga released her second studio album and third major release, Born This Way, on May 23, 2011. Described as a marriage of electronic music with metal, rock 'n' roll, pop and anthemic style melodies with sledge-hammering dance beats and referred to as an album "about what what keeps us up at night and what makes us afraid," Gaga characterized it 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."^[80][81] Upon release, the album received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised its range of different styles and her vocals.^[82][83] Born This Way sold 1.108 million copies in its first week in the US, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and topped the charts in more than 20 other countries.^[84] In addition to exceeding 8 million copies in worldwide sales, Born This Way received 3 Grammy Award nominations, including her third consecutive for Album of the Year.^[85]

In the months prior to its unveiling, Gaga released the singles "Born This Way", "Judas" and "The Edge of Glory" alongside promotional single "Hair". The eponymous lead single, first sung live at the 53rd Grammy Awards in a performance that saw Gaga emerge from an egg-like vessel, deals with self-acceptance regardless of race or sexual orientation. The single 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.^[86] It sold more than 3 million digital copies in the US by October 2011, becoming her eighth consecutive single to exceed sales of 2 million and, with worldwide sales of 8.2 million copies by November 2011, one of her five best-selling singles worldwide.^[87] Critics noted artistic and cultural references and praised the concept of the song's accompanying music video, in which Gaga gives birth to a new race amidst surrealistic images.^[88][89] The 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 but received acclaim for its overall delivery and praise from others who claimed that there was nothing offensive about it.^[90] "Judas" also peaked within the top ten in several major musical markets, while "The Edge of Glory", first a commercial success in digital outlets, was later released as a single to critical appreciation, accompanied by a video which was notably stripped down from her usually "extravagant" efforts.^[91][92] She released "You and I" and "Marry the Night" as the following singles from Born This Way. Although their "crazy and ambitious" videos were praised for their audacity, both songs failed to match the similar international success that their predecessors achieved.^[93]

Gaga continued her musical endeavors by pairing with veteran artists like Tony Bennett to record a jazz version of "The Lady Is a Tramp".^[94] She also recorded a duet with Cher on a "massive" and "beautiful" track, which Gaga "wrote a long time ago, and I've never put it on one of my own albums for, really, no particular reason."^[95] Gaga also lent her vocals to an original duet with Elton John for the animated feature film Gnomeo & Juliet. The song, "Hello, Hello", was released without Gaga's vocals but the duet version features in the film.^[96][97] She also continued her live appearances throughout 2011, performing a one-of-a-kind concert at the Sydney Town Hall on July 13 in promotion of Born This Way and at the celebration of former US president Bill Clinton's 65th birthday, wearing a blond wig as a nod to the famous performance of Marilyn Monroe for John F. Kennedy and changing the lyrics to "You and I" specifically for the performance.^[98] Televised appearances comprised her own Thanksgiving Day television special entitled A Very Gaga Thanksgiving which was critically lauded, attained 5.749 million American viewers, and spawned the release of her fourth extended play A Very Gaga Holiday.^[99] Her second performance on Saturday Night Live saw her singing a selection of Born This Way songs alongside appearing in number of sketches with Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg.^[100] In March 2012, Gaga was ranked at number four on Billboard's list of top moneymakers of 2011, grossing $25,353,039 dollars, which includes sales from Born This Way and her Monster Ball Tour.^[4]

In early 2012, Gaga stated that songs for a new album were "beginning to flourish" as she worked with producer Fernando Garibay, while the accompanying tour for Born This Way was materializing.^[101][102] Gaga's manager, Vincent Herbert, revealed that Gaga will is working on her upcoming album during the tour, stating that the material is "insane, great records."^[103] The Born This Way Ball Tour began on April 27, 2012, at the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, South Korea.^[104] The tour was met with protests from several religious groups who denounced the tour as satanic and against religious values, resulting in protests mainly from the Islamic Defenders Front, causing a cancellation in the Indonesian city of Jakarta, where Gaga was denied a license to perform. The concert however was still in question as concert promoters were optimistic that the performance will in fact go on. However, due to threats of violence from Muslim hardliners, Gaga decided to cancel the concert although 52,000 tickets have sold out in just a few days.^{[105][106][107]} On May 20, 2012, Gaga guest-starred on the 23rd season finale of The Simpsons entitled "Lisa Goes Gaga".^[108]