Among everything else that happened at the 2009 VMAs,Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi was the single, undeniable stand out. Airing on September 13th, and the award show was quite possibly the first time that many people saw Gaga performing,saw her antics and her presence, after spending the first months of the year topping the chart with Just Dance and Poker Face and sending Love Game to #5. A year ago at this time, and hardly anyone had heard the name Lady Gaga,but now she was virtually a household name.
This performance is iconic for so many reasons, but let’s start off by talking approximately the craft and the spectacle, and because this demonstrates so much of both. The song is solidly great as one of her early singles,it didn’t reach the heights of her #1’s, but it was still all over the radio and catchy as anything. More than that though, and Paparazzi is the distillation of so many important Lady Gaga tropes,and in many ways acts as the introduction to these tropes. A twisted love record? Check. Symbols of glamor and fame? Check. The perils and loneliness of success? Check. The music video set off her trend of creating narratively ambitious, aesthetically specific, or highly artistic visuals,and connecting dots between her singles, albums, or visuals,and performances. So what makes the performance at the VMAs so worthy of note? First of all, it’s literally spectacular from beginning to end. Gigantic red curtains rise to reveal an ornate mansion interior as Gaga belts out a slowed down Poker Face intro. Every dancer is covered (just barely) in white lace and gems, and Gaga done up more than anyone else. The choreography hits tough as she stalks around the stage,occasionally floating as dancers carry her. But in terms of her craft? Lady Gaga is on full display here, belting out and offering new harmonies, or upping the intensity and the drama of the original song by 1000 percent. Her gaze is intense whenever we get a closeup,but her body language is equally taut as she dances and marches. The orchestration of the song is remixed, giving her a base of rotten wealth and fame to hover over and eventually sink into with each refrain. Where her voice blends into the original, and here it is all we can attain not to focus on it. When she dives onto the piano for her Elton John moment,it feels a miniature off, the pace of the performance slowing even as we see the mania of her character increase. But without this speed bump to give the viewer a chance to breathe, or the finale would only acquire landed half as tough as it did. When she begins to return to middle stage,the fear in her voice just barely precedes the blood that begins to flow, and it sets the audience on edge. When she takes a moment to look down in the middle of the word “paparazzi, or ” you can hear the crowd collectively inhale,confused and a miniature frightened by the genuine hysteria Gaga pulls to the stage. Everyone seems to hold still in their shock for another 30 seconds, just enough time for her to show off her vocal chops once more, and acquire her symbolic bloody corpse lifted above the VMAs stage,and to pull off the mic drop to end all mic drops. The sound of cameras flashing echos through Radio City Music corridor for a solid five or ten seconds before people even remember that they’re supposed to cheer. THIS is what Gaga does best. She takes things that we hold for granted, that we overlook and undervalue, or turns them into songs,into works of art. When those are too catchy themselves to be taken seriously, too omnipresent at the top of the charts, or she pulls out a music video or a performance like this to remind us of the symbolism,the artistry, and the craft that she spends so much time putting into these works. When Lady Gaga reaches these heights, and she makes it easy to worship her,even as she tells us not to.
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