Lady Gaga Wants The World To Burn Candles In Honor of "Alejandro"

Lady Gaga is releasing merchandise that goes along with her current radio single "Alejandro." The merchandise will be sold on her website www.ladygaga.com/store  

The items tie in with the Latin theme of the song "Alejandro" as well as its upcoming video, which will premiere in three days, according to Gaga's announcement during the UK leg of her 2010 Monster Ball Tour.

The merchandise consist of four things: an "Alejandro: The Remixes" CD, a Latin Lover T-Shirt, a Lady Gaga prayer candle (like the Guadalupe candles popular in Mexico) and a rose ring. Stuff like this makes me excited. It makes me feel like a kid waiting to open gifts on Christmas morning. This is the genius of Lady Gaga at work. She's an expert at branding. She treats each single she releases as if they're individual popcorn movies that come with their own branding and merchandise, like the Spider-Man movies. Gaga makes her music videos like short films in the vein of Michael Jackson's 1982 spectacle "Thriller." She makes everything she does an event.

The music video is on it's way and should be here Sunday, June 2, since that would be three days from today. The video is directed by Steven Klein who shoots a lot of fashion photography influencd by leather, bondage, S&M in general and vampires. Wow, sounds just like Gaga. Those are all the ingredients for Gaga's current Monster-themed era. One of Gaga's dancers, Mike Silas (the cute Puerto Rican guy with the faux-hawk and the tattoos) said the "Alejandro" video will be seven minutes long. Ooh, the more the merrier. I can't wait.

The song "Alejandro" is currently No. 6 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles Chart. Not too shabby for a song Gaga's label didn't even want to release.

Glee's Lady Gaga Tribute Is Really A Continuation of the Kurt and Finn Show

Last tuesday's episode of Glee, dedicated to Lady Gaga is further proof that Glee is centered around Kurt and Finn. The storylines revolve around Kurt and Finn's relationship with each other and their relationships with other people. Even Lea Michele's main character Rachel Berry (who meets her mother for the first time in the Gaga tribute) seems peripheral when compared to the amount of screen time and character development Kurt and Finn receive.

Tuesday night's episode is titled "Theatricality" and the concept of theatricality applies whole-heartedly to the Glee's female characters, but mostly the show's flamboyant and sassy teenage boy Kurt Hummel. Glee defines theatricality as when a person expresses their true emotions on the outside in the most visceral way, and that applies to Kurt, Mercedes Jones and Rachel Berry because they all have a fashion sense that goes against the grain. They stick out like sore thumbs. Now this is where Lady Gaga fits right in.

For an episode so highly-anticipated, Glee's tribute to Gaga is underwhelming, but only in the context of a Gaga homage. As a story arc, Glee is as strong as it's always been, except it focuses mostly on Kurt. He's the biggest fan of Gaga and gets the most excited about Gaga when the music teacher Mr. Schuester announces that the Glee club assignment is to express themselves through Gaga's music and costumes. The costumes trump the music because only two Gaga songs are featured in Glee's Gaga tribute, but this was a wise choice. If the characters had sung a host of Gaga songs, the episode would be a Lady Gaga karaoke contest, and that would be zero fun. This wasn't like Glee's Madonna tribute episode "The Power of Madonna," and rightfully so since Madonna has been the biggest pop star in the world for almost 3 decades. Gaga has been the biggest pop star for really only a year in a half.

The biggest reasons to watch the "Theatricality" episode is for a pair of pieces de resistance. The first is a scene between Kurt and his crush high school football player Finn Hudson. Kurt somehow arranged for his father to meet Finn's mother and the two single parents become romantically-involved and they decide to move in together. Understandably upset, Finn takes it out on Kurt. The budding fashionista/interior designer decorates the bedroom that he and Finn share. Kurt decorated the room in the style of old Hollywood, replete with a privacy partition, for getting dressed. This sets Finn off.

Anyone who has kept up with Glee for a while knows that Kurt's showdown with Finn was bound to happen. In previous episodes, before Finn's mom decided to move in with Kurt's dad, Kurt was already picking out fabrics for the bedroom he and Finn would soon share. At a Glee club meeting, Kurt asks Finn's opinion on a selection of fabric swatches and Finn shrugs and then walks off with a confused look on his face.

When Finn confronts Kurt by saying "don't play dumb" referring to Kurt's crush on him, it's humorous irony considering Finn goes through his life playing dumb and just recently started waking up and smelling the stink of real life. It's reality that Glee stays away from for the majority of the time, but scenes like this showdown are pure realism. Glee is considered a musical-comedy-drama and the musical aspect of the show, where people break out in song and sing in front of backdrops of their names in bright Vegas lights, makes it clear to the audience that its watching a television show. The audience is not getting lost in the realism of most of Glee's scenes because it's mostly not realistic, but the audience does get lost in scenes like the showdown scene. When Kurt starts raising his voice to a tense shrill and even Finn recoils, it's clear that this scene is where Glee's campy, fantastic style becomes realistic.

There are so many gay men who relate to Kurt's denial that Finn doesn't like him and is probably quite straight. Still, Kurt wants to make his fantasy come true for the sole reason that it drives him and gives him something to focus on so he won't have to face the truth. Ultimately, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because deep down in his heart, Kurt knows his plan will fail, and end in disaster. It's sort of masochistic, although hopeful.

Kurt's dad Burt Hummel hears Finn use the word "faggy" to Kurt and Burt loses it. He gives Finn a verbal smackdown, however the audience doesn't feel angry at Finn because the audience knows Finn is a nice guy and he just started disrespecting Kurt in a fit of anger and frustration. Still, Burt speaks the truth. "When you live a few years you start to see the hate in people's hearts, even the best people," which means Finn.

The ending of Glee's "Theatricality" episode is its second piece de resistance. It's the final tribute to Lady Gaga. The two high school football players who stalk the entire episode playing parodies of all the jock-bullies from high school-themed movies and tv shows, approach Kurt dressed in his silver Gaga costume with a white George Washington wig on and a makeshift pair of the Alexander McQueen-designed lobster claw-shaped "Armadillo" shoes that Gaga made famous in her "Bad Romance" music video. The two football thugs say "Gaga's got to go" and Kurt sort of unintentionally channels Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker saying "Hit me" egging on his two assailants. An unexpected hero shows up in the nick of time.

This hero is dressed in a variation of the blood-red latex 16th Century farthingale dress Lady Gaga wore when she met Queen Elizabeth II last December. The hero has red sequin patches that circle his eyes. It's the Queen...Queen Finn that is. Finn is the hero who saves the queen named Kurt. The two thugs resist and then the rest of Glee club clad in their Gaga costumes stand up as an army of "freaks." Now the thugs back off. This theatrical fable has a happy ending.

The "Theatricality" episode may have been short on Gaga, but it did it so it wouldn't sacrifice the story arc and instead resulted in some thoroughly-satisfying costumes and an heated, but enlightening argument between Glee's two central characters Kurt and Finn. The audience gets the feeling that Kurt and Finn are closer because of their uncomfortable fight. It doesn't seem likely that the writers of Glee will make Kurt and Finn a romantic item, but the writers will probably create some kind of romantic interest for Kurt. It would be a shame if Kurt ended up with some doppleganger of himself because the contrast between Kurt and Finn is what makes their scenes appealing. Mostly all the other character have experienced romance openly, and I get this feeling it will be a while before Kurt finds anyone, ifever. If so, it would be art imitating the life that so many people lead in real life: a life of loneliness without romance. Please let that not be the case for Kurt.

Lady Gaga Channels Elvis And Annie Lennox In First Pic From Her "Alejandro" Video

The first pic from Lady Gaga's highly anticipated "Alejandro" video was leaked two days ago on Tuesday, setting the blogosphere on fire. Everyone is buzzing about it, from MTV to New York Magazine.

New York Magazine blogged about it twice on their website, describing Gaga in one blog as "a Blonde Lady Elvis" and in another comparing her to The Simpson character Mr. Burns when he played a vampire on one episode. They both could be right, but one of them is definitely on the right track.

The blog comparing Gaga to Mr. Burns as a vampire is the most in line with the rumors about the "Alejandro" video having a vampire theme. Gaga's recent live performances of "Alejandro" also suggest vampirism, full of simulated biting into human flesh and fake blood smeared everywhere.

One of the most exciting things about the "Alejandro" video so far is that celebrated fashion photographer Steven Klein directed it. He's the man who made Brad Pitt a Goth in L'Uomo Vogue magazine and Madonna into a stuttering contortionist. Klein's work is freaky and thought-provoking. He has a fixation with bondage and sexuality. Many of his photographs feature men and women gagged and bound in only underwear or totally nude. The photographs are often sadistic and violent, yet beautiful.

Gaga's latest album The Fame Monster is heavily influenced by bondage. It is the thematic thread that connects the album's songs. From "Telephone" to "Teeth," she talks about being tied up and/or strangled by something, and her goal is to free herself from the bondage. "Alejandro" continues in that theme. Gaga has stated in interviews that "Alejandro" is about letting past loves and partners go. Now what does all that have to do with vampires, you ask? Well, I take it to represent that vampirish hunger people get when they think of their ex-lovers. It's tough when your ex's move on and you feel so hungry for their love that you feel like you could eat them up. You feel like if they would simply take you back and accept you, every problem in your life would be solved. It's why some people are afraid to be single.

Also, the vampire theme can be seen in Gaga's look in this pic from "Alejandro." Her pale skin and the pale skin of her male dancers (who sport bowl haircut wigs in the style of Moe from The Three Stooges and wear nothing but black-colored hot pants ) makes them all look like the same person. As for the Elvis Priestly likeness, Gaga's short platinum blond hair and lemon-yellow jumpsuit (with a cape) and red inverted crosses on it conjure up images of an early '70s Elvis in his trademark sparkly studded Las Vegas jumpsuits, except Gaga's jumpsuit (or rather a robe)has a matching telephone receiver and cradle attached to it. Get it? "don't call my name, don't call my name, Alejandro." At the same time, Gaga's short hair and makeup make her look like a spit-and-image of Annie Lennox.

Save for the pale skin and inverted crosses on her robe, there isn't anything else vampire-related, but then again this is only one image and the only image from the "Alejandro" video. This scene may not even make it into the final edit of the video. We shall all wait and see. One thing is for sure, the leaked photo is intriguing and it has piqued my interest even more.

Katy Perry Welcomes You to Her '90s time warp for "California Gurls"

Katy Perry's "California Gurls" featuring Snoop Dogg may begin with a synth riff very similar to Ke$ha's out-of-nowhere hit "Tik Tok, but the moment the percussion drops in, the song dives into a G-Funk aesthetic straight outta Dr. Dre's The Chronic era. This is a '90s time warp.

Back in April, when Perry dropped names like Ace of Base and said that her next album would be dripping in 1990s culture, she wasn't lying because "California Gurls" is a picturesque thumper tailor-made for playing in those jeeps that defined the '90s.

Lyrically, Perry paints a picture of her home state of California, specificially Southern California. The lyrics inspire a vivid mental picture of Dr. Dre's music video with Snoop Dogg "Ain't Nothing But A G Thang." Imagine beautiful women in bikinis playing volleyball at a barbeque. Imagine beautiful women driving in jeeps on their way to the beach with Snoop Dogg or Snoop Doggy Dogg as Perry refers to him in the second verse. "We freak/in my jeep/Snoop Doggy Dogg on the stereo. It's clever and appropriate since Snoop Dogg went by the longer moniker of Snoop Doggy Dogg during The Chronic era circa 1993. The chorus on "California Gurls" sums up the song in a few lines, that will be repeated countless times this summer of 2010.

"California Gurls, we're unforgettable/daisy dukes, bikinis on top/sun-kissed
skin, so hot we'll melt your popsicle/ah-oh-oh-oh, oh, ah-oh-oh-oh-ah/California
Gurls, we're undeniable/fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock/West Coast
represent/now put your hands up/ah-oh-oh-oh, oh, ah-oh-oh-oh-ah."

The song is also notable for containing Perry's trademark stuttering vocal tics "ah-us" "ah oh-oh-oh-oh." Perry's got a nice lower register voice that has some heft to it, probably due to her childhood training in the Penecostal church. Her vocals have always had that glam-rock vibe to me. Her vocal tics are great hooks by themselves.

Katy Perry's music and fashion sense has always been an homage to the '80s and '90s, but now with "California Gurls" she's made the style more specific. She hinted at an '80s/'90s hybrid sound with her No. 3 Billboard Hot 100 single "Hot & Cold" in 2008. It was a bouncy, pogo stick-paced song that my mom affectionately called her Jazzercise song. So many women in the '80s did exercise routines in Jazzercise, dancing to the most colorful pop music known to man, dressed in colors so loud that they could make they could blow the speakers out.

In the photo I used for this blog, Katy Perry is seen on stage on her knees performing at a concert. Dressed in daisy duke shorts, white Keds sneakers and a white and black polka-dot tank top tied to show her midriff, Perry is a dead ringer for the character Kelly Kapowski from '90s sitcom staple Saved By the Bell.

"California Gurls" is already No. 1 on Itunes and is being played on radio stations around the country, even though the song won't be released officially until May 25, 2010. I have no doubts that it will become a hit, maybe even No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. "California Gurls" may have similarities to Ke$ha's No. 1 hit "Tik Tok" in the way that they're both sunny jeep jams reminscient of the '90s, but the major difference is that Katy Perry can actually sing, in a throaty, full-bodied vocal style. And, if the song is good for nothing else, the vocoder-laced melody that closes "California Gurls" is guaranteed to make R&B heads nostalgic, with its nods to '90s G-Funk, Roger Troutman and that 1984 piece of sweetness "I Found Lovin" by Fatback.

Lady Gaga: The Deliciously Metaphorical Writer Beneath the Glam

Her outfits may look like some Tim Burton creation, all grotesque and eye-popping. Her stage shows may seem like variations on The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Her hair and makeup may be garish, hair the color of French's mustard and eyelids painted sea foam green. Her dark eyebrows look stark against her mustard-yellow hair, suggesting the over-the-top style of a drag queen. However, under all of those fabulous visuals is an imaginative songwriter who writes songs that are vivid and deliciously metaphorical. Her name is Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga displays the effortless storytelling skill of a novelist in her songwriting. Her songs always tell stories, no matter how glamourous or grotesque. Most of Gaga's songs, if not all are based on her own experiences, but she filters the nonfiction of her life through a lens of fantasia and fiction. She proves that real-life can be stranger than fiction.

At once, the tone of "Boys, Boys, Boys" is claustrophic. You can imagine the stuffy, sweaty confines of a night club or a concert where there's too much body heat. The smell of cigarettes is in the air. Your ears feel blown out from all the loud bass and you've lost your voice from having to scream over all the background noise of electric guitars, drums and human voices. Imagine you're at a Killers concert. "Boys, Boys, Boys" is one of Gaga's real-life experiences where she went on a date with a guy to a concert by the New Wave/Post-Punk band The Killers.

Hey there sugar baby, saw you twice at the pop
show/you taste just like glitter
mixed with rock n' roll/I like you a lot,
lot/think you're really hot/...baby is
a bad boy with some retro
sneakers/let's go see The Killers and make out on the
bleachers/

Ironically, as dark and murky as the verses are, the chorus explodes like a cannon of glitter. The chorus doesn't even seem to be about Gaga's date to a Killers concert, but instead it functions as a tribute to her gay male fans who she thanks for making her career.

"Boys, boys, boys/we like boys in cars/buy us drinks
in bars/boys,
boys,
boys/with hairspray and denim/and boys, boys,
boys/we love them, we
love
them ."

In this way, "Boys, Boys, Boys" is two subjects wrapped in one '80s glam-rock package.

One of the songs that shows Gaga's best songwriting on multiple levels is her song "Dance in the Dark." Sonically, it's a track very much in the '80s New Wave mold of New Order's 1983 hit "Blue Monday." It's got the same somber synths that almost sound like Bach's harpsichord beauties. It sports a driving chorus that creeps along like death tightening its grip. Gaga
dresses her narrative in B-movie horror
clothes.

The narrative is about a woman bound by her insecurities and her weak self-perception. Gaga uses the first verse to show how paralyzed this woman is. She's afraid to move for fear of how she looks walking ("she won't walk away") and she's afraid to look at anyone for fear of the jeering she might see ("but she won't look back"). Gaga intros the song saying "inject me, baby I'm a free bitch"), and she injects some much-needed confidence and swagger into the meek, shy girl. Basically, the girl is Marilyn
Monroe before she was a blond bombshell, when she was a shy brunette who just wanted to be loved.

Gaga turns her heroine into a vampire and a werewolf. Gaga uses these two horror archetypes as symbols of her heroine's newfound sex appeal:
vampires are immortal as long as they drink the blood of others. In this way
they have eternal youth. ("Run, Run, her kiss is a vampire grin") Her kiss is like a vampire's grin because her kiss is immortal, much the way so many
of Marilyn's Monroe's images are immortal. Marilyn died young and beautiful, and she never grew old. ("The moon light's her way while she's howlin' at him) The moon light is the spotlight substituting for the flash of the cameras and the paparazzi. Gaga's heroine howls at men like a werewolf because the raw animalistic sexuality within her finally releases. The beast is free. She is free.

"Baby loves to dance in the dark/cuz when he's looking she
falls apart/baby loves to dance, loves to dance in the dark."

The shadows of darkness are off stage, the backstage where the heroine is
allowed to let her hair down, undress and be naked. She's in total comfort.
There are no staring eyes. There are no voyeurs, no paparazzi.

The stanza at the center of "Dance in the Dark" is a tribute to deceased superstars who Gaga dubs as "martyrs of fame." The first one mentioned is none other than Marilyn Monroe, followed by Judy Garland and Sylvia Plath. These first three are essential to Gaga's identity. Marilyn is the inspiration for Gaga's blond hairstyle, as well as the transformative nature of Marilyn's rise to fame. Judy Garland is Judy's vocal inspiration. Both Gaga and Judy have wistful voices with heft to them. Sylvia Plath is Gaga's songwriting inspiration. Judy also was deeply saddened by her misfortune with men. Gay men were Judy's solace. Sylvia was a poet. Sylvia's introspective poems of despair and darkness framed by imaginative symbols are similar to the way Gaga structures her songs.

The synthesized strings that serve as the opening chords of "Monster" are very similar to the synthesized string opening chords on Prince's 1983 hit "Little Red Corvette." On both songs, the tone of the chords is impending doom. Gaga picks up on this ominous tone by spinning her sexual experiences into a Grimm's fairytale in the vein of "Little Red Riding Hood" replete with a wolf and a girl who's good enough to eat.

"I wanna just dance, but he took me home instead/uh-oh, there was a
monster in my bed/we French-kissed on a subway train/he tore my clothes right
off/he ate my heart and then he ate my brain"

"Monster" and "Corvette" share more than synth chords. Gaga and Prince both built their songs around sexual metaphors referring to the genitalia of the opposite sex. A little red corvette is a metaphor for a woman's vagina (hence "red" and another metaphor "cherry pie" which Gaga frequently uses). Gaga uses a monster as a metaphor for a man's large penis, as well as the man himself and the creature he's turned her into. Both songs are also about promiscuity and the dangers of sexual attraction. Sexual attraction can cloud a person's judgment just as badly as alcohol and other drugs, and the consequences could lead to death, whether it's from natural causes or murder. Just think of Brian De Palma's 1980 classic film Dressed to Kill and you'll get the same point.

The one Lady Gaga song that I consider a masterpiece for reasons of melody, song structure and deceptive lyrical content is one of Gaga's definitive songs "Bad Romance." Despite the Satanic imagery and religious elements of her "Bad Romance" video, I think the song itself is a description of Gaga's interior mind.

This fact explains why some of the song's components seem a bit random or impulsive. She compares the dark part of mind to famous Alfred Hitchcock supsense films (I want your Psycho, your Vertigo shtick/Want you in my Rear Window, baby you're sick, I want your love"), she wants a leather-masked S&M guy (I want your leather-studded kiss in the sand) implying that the leather ad studs are located, which only leaves the image of a man in leather mask with a zipper on the mouth. Think like a zipperhead. Gaga then breaks int he middle of the song for a catwalk strut chanting in a trance-like cadence "walk, walk fashion baby, work it, move, that bitch crazy." She also starts speaking French on the song's bridge. These are examples of the randomness of Gaga's mind. It almost resembles a nightmare state or dream state, somewhere in within the symbolic unconscious. Think of Sylvia Plath's writing style.

"Bad Romance" concerns Gaga's urgent need to make her the dark interior of her mind into the light of the exterior world. She fears that she's go insane if she doesn't bring the darkness into the light. She doesn't want to be a vampire forever. By the song's end, Gaga comes alive. There's nothing trance-like about her vocal performance at this point. She explodes into a throaty vamp-out of vocal notes. You just want to pump your fists to the stirring thunderous techno bass and singing the chorus loudly with Gaga from the belly of your stomach and summon the bad romance within yourself. It's punk music with a stylish gloss of glam-rock.

She's a wig-wearing, glam queen with a Sylvia Plath-like obsession with introspection and various levels of mela. Often her vocals are a feminized version of David Bowie's smoky soulfulness. She writes her songs with texture, meticulous structure, intelligence and passionate histrionics of a glam-rocker. She's Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga Paints it Black on American Idol

Despite its Latin theme and title, Lady Gaga's latest single "Alejandro" has its roots more in Central and Eastern Europe than South America. The song's subtext is closely connected to the vampires of Romania and Hungary. The Gothic Romanticism of "Alejandro" is present everywhere in Gaga's performance of "Alejandro" on last night's episode of American Idol.

The moment Gaga starts playing those minor chords of "Bad Romance" on her raven-black grand piano covered with roses and thorns coated in black, it's clear that death is in the air. It's as if the roses and thorns are flowers on a grave or a coffin. Fog mists around transforming the American Idol stage into a mock cemetary with a statue of an angel in the center of the stage. Gaga turns her beautiful techno hit "Bad Romance" into a gothic piano ballad, given added intensity by the surges of an electric guitar. She's wearing a black veil, with her face barely visible. Her powerful, melancholic vocals sound as if they're emanating from darkness.

As the piano stops and a mournful violin plays the opening melody of Gaga's song "Alejandro," (which is also the opening violin melody on Vittorio Monti's 1904 composition "Czardas," which "Alejandro" interpolates) the camera pans revealing the black-coated vinery hanging from a vine-covered tree. This scene is definitely supposed to be of a cemetary. The towering angel statue is in closer view and it's propped up by a fountain, possibly the Fountain of Youth. The male dancers rise from the cemetary's fog dressed in nothing but black spandex hot pants (short-shorts) and black tuxedo cummerbunds (around their waists).

Gaga rises from her piano and one of her main dancers Jeremy Hudson holds her floor-length cape and guides it as she walks out towards the foggy cemetary revealing herself to be wearing a silk mesh bodysuit with embroidered Chantilly lace and crystal and jet beading with organza cape, designed by Giorgio Armani. She looks like a gothic version of Poison Ivy from the Batman comics. Even when one of her dancers removes her veil, her face is still covered in a black lace matching the black lace design on the rest of her body. The removal of her veil reveals Gaga to be wearing a shoulder-length blond wig on her head reminiscent of '60s actress Brigitte Bardot's blond hairstyle.

The Vittorio Monti-composed Romantic Period song "Czardas" that Gaga samples for "Alejandro" is based on the Hungarian dance that is called Czardas. The dance of Czardas has been called "the tango of the East." That statement points to the romantic nature of the Czardas dance because the tango of South America is quite romantic and quite sexual. So is the vampire. Hungary is associated with vampires, as is Romania where its region of Transylvania is forever attached to vampires. Gaga plays on these connections between sampled song and vampires and all things romantic, like South America and its Latin lovers. What better way to keep with the horror/monster motif on her album The Fame Monster.

Gaga's second album The Fame Monster, which "Alejandro" comes from, is driven by Gaga's overwhelming need to be liberated. As a woman dealing with the strange, complicated thing that is human existence, Gaga fashions herself as someone undead who's on a search to find the answers that will bring her back to life.

On the surface, "Alejandro" is a song about a woman who's reminiscing about a passionate love affair she had with a man in the exotic land of Mexico that had to come to an end. The song sounds like a romance novel set to music, but the subtext of "Alejandro" is far darker than a standard romance. Gaga's deeper meaning involves the taste and consumption of blood and the connections blood as a life force or to eternal life. She uses the mythical figures of vampires as metaphors for her unrest, her unfinished business.

The names of men that she sings during 'Alejandro's' chorus, Alejandro, Fernando and Roberto, are Gaga's past lovers. Fernando and Roberto died and Gaga grieves them deeply. It's not until Alejandro comes along that she finally finds enlightment. Alejandro is a vampire and transforms Gaga into a vampire. Together as the undead, they share a sort of "bad romance." The underlying message to take from that is that Gaga had to become something else in order to realize her destiny.

The male dancers represent Gaga's past loves come back to life in zombie forms, but her main loves Alejandro, Fernando and Roberto are undeniably vampires connected to her sexually and spiritually. Gaga is constantly dancing with the dead. She did it on "Bad Romance" and on "Telephone." She mock-killed herself at the 2009 Video Music Awards. Gaga's simulated hanging was symbolic of the death of the old Lady Gaga and the rebirth of the new Lady Gaga premiered on "Bad Romance" and its music video. Gaga is constantly trying to proceed with her new life as a new person, but she still struggles to make peace with the past and her old self.

One of the beautiful things that Gaga includes in this American Idol performance is the tango-like dancing. I doubt it's Czardas. It doesn't really look anything like the Hungarian dance, but one never knows. I think Gaga built more upon the Latin theme. All of the dancers on stage are male and she dances with Mark Kanemura (one of her other main dancers), but you know what that means. The other male dancers simply dance with each other and it's beautiful. There's something about the mirrored image of one male moving in space with another male. The symmetry of their bodies in space is sublime. At one point during the chorus, each dancer drives an imaginary stake through the heart of his partner. The vampire subtext never seemed more apparent.

Once again, Lady Gaga has worked her performance art magic. Her art seems strangely out of place on American Idol since none of the singers on Idol (even the professional guest artists who perform) come close to her artistry. Gaga's classical background in piano and knowledge of art history shows in this performance. Never have I seen the undead look so lovely.

Britney's early version of Lady Gaga's "Telephone" is hard to resist

Now that Rodney Jerkins confirmed that the version of Lady Gaga's hit "Telephone" believed to be sung by Britney Spears really is legit, I felt it was okay to write a blog about the song.

First I'll give some brief history. Pop superstar Lady Gaga wrote and recorded "Telephone" with Rodney Jerkins for Britney Spears' 2008 album Circus. Britney declined to use the song for her album and Gaga decided to keep the song for herself and she put it on her 2009 album The Fame Monster and it became a hit.

I'm a huge fan of Gaga and her music, from her intriguing songwriting to her robust vocals, but I'm not ashamed to say I'm a fan of Britney's music. Regardless of Britney's limited singing ability, her voice works well as an instrument or sound effect that is meant to be manipulated.

Britney's voice on her version of "Telephone" (said to be an early unmixed demo, according to Rodney Jerkins) has the same processed brilliance that it had on her masterpiece "Piece of Me." Her voice goes from high to low, through so many different pitches. It's like a rainbow of different shifts in pitch. There's obviously a computer effect on Britney's vocals, but it's not Auto-Tune, it's something else. Maybe it's a combination of compression, filtered through Pro-Tools. I don't know. I'm not a recording engineer.

The major difference between Britney's version and Gaga's version is that Gaga actually sounds like a human and Britney sounds like a disembodied spirit or a computer malfunctioning. "Telephone" is probably the least vocally-complex on The Fame Monster, but Gaga still manages to sound dramatic delivering her vocals with gusto, especially on the big chorus.

Still, I just can't help but like Britney's version of "Telephone." I've had it on repeat for a while since it leaked. (Thank you to whoever leaked it. There was no point in keeping the song locked away). Besides it's catchiness (most of the credit goes to Gaga for writing such a great song), maybe I can't resist Britney's version because despite her limited voice, she always sings with poise or swagger. For instance, when she talk-sings and/or breathe-sings, she's still a master at rhythm and cadence on the vocals, mainly on fast-paced songs.

In the end, I'm very glad Gaga released it for herself, but as revered a dancer as Britney is, her dance moves just wouldn't have had the benefit of Gaga's input. Gaga's choreographer Laurie Ann Gibson is a dance genius and she is responsible for most of the choreography, but I think Gaga has a lot of input on the dance moves. For instance, I'm sure the monster claw is all Gaga's idea, as well as other elements. Bottom-line, Gaga's choreography is a collaborative effort.

Rodney Jerkins promised that he's writing "international hits" for Britney's upcoming album. Hmm.. we'll see about that. However, the prospect of Britney's new album is exciting because sources say that Britney will have a Glee episode dedicated to her where the cast sings all of her songs, that will film some time in late 2010 or early 2011. That kind of positive PR and press can only amount to good things and maybe Britney's biggest selling album in a while.