Lady Gaga

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American pop singer-songwriter.

Lady Gaga Goes to the Farm

If you’re like us, you’ve been waiting for that new Lady Gaga album for what seems like an eternity. With Born This Way set for its U.S. release on Tuesday, the days get longer, and the struggle gets more maddening with every secondhand tick.

Fortunately, online game developer Zynga has us covered. Yes, the Gaga-ster is heading to the farm…FarmVille to be exact. The newly branded “GagaVille” will be your go-to place for new songs before the album hits stores. And, it features her own bevy of crops including rubies, rhinestones and diamond-encrusted flowers. But wait, there’s “more.” If you listen very carefully to your favorite Clear Channel station this Thursday, you will hear a code for a special limited edition Lady Gaga special item for your farm. If the above spot from EVB and Moxie Pictures director Seth Gordon is any indication, those of you who already feel stupid for playing FarmVille every day can be rest assured that you’ll feel even more so after playing GagaVille.

Read more: Jennifer Hudson says "I do" to Target when Lady Gaga wouldn't

by Ed Stych

Pop star Lady Gaga may not want to form an exclusive arrangement with Target Corp., but other music stars aren't following her lead.

Target announced Monday that Grammy Award-winning singer Jennifer Hudson had signed an exclusive deal with the Minneapolis-based retailer for a deluxe edition of her new album, "I Remember Me."

The deluxe edition, which includes four additional songs and bonus video material, will only be available at Target starting Tuesday, the company said in a news release.

It was widely reported earlier this month that Lady Gaga had ended her deal with Target for exclusively selling a deluxe version of her new album, "Born This Way." Lady Gaga said Target wasn't doing enough to help gay and lesbian causes.

Target was still offering customers the opportunity to pre-order the deluxe version on its website on Monday. But so were other retailers, such as Amazon.com. The album will be available May 23.

Lady Gaga: Tell Target Child Labor Isn't Golden

By Tim Newman

Last month, pop superstar Lady Gaga partnered with Target to offer fans a special edition of her forthcoming album Born This Way. Gaga hoped that the partnership would also offer her the opportunity to work with Target to improve the company's policies toward gay rights, but apparently her hopes did not come to fruition as she has recently decided to sever ties with the company. Before Gaga completely frees herself of this bad romance, she should speak out against forced and child labor by joining almost 22,000 Change.org readers in calling on Target to agree to responsible sourcing policies for its gold.

When Target made large contributions last year to virulently anti-gay politicians in Minnesota, LGBT advocates, includingmany Change.org readers, put pressure on Target to end this support. Despite tepid apologies, Target reportedly has continued to finance anti-gay candidates. A supporter of equal rights, Gaga had stated, "Our relationship is hinged upon their reform in the company to support the gay community and to redeem the mistakes they've made supporting those [antigay] groups." If Gaga is not able to push Target to do more to support gay rights be sitting at the table with the company, she is right to end the partnership. Before she slams the door, there's one more thing she can do to change Target's policies for the better.

As we have written about on the Human Trafficking blog, Target is lagging behind other major retailers and jewelry companies in committing to responsibly sourcing the gold in its products. In many countries, gold mining is tainted by the use of child labor and forced labor, not to mention other human rights and environmental abuses. Over 70 major companies have endorsed the No Dirty Gold campaign's Golden Rules that include protecting internationally recognized labor rights and ensuring safe working conditions in addition to making environmental improvements and respecting human and land rights.

Target has indicated that it is considering endorsing the Golden Rules for its gold sourcing, but until those internal discussions result in concrete improvements for the workers around the world whose rights are being abused to mine gold, advocates will continue to pressure Target to responsibly source its gold. As one of the biggest voices in pop culture, an artist with several certified gold records and someone who has Target's ear, Lady Gaga's support for the campaign to clean up Target's gold would go a long way pushing the company to improve its policies. So, Mother Monster, as parting words to Target, why not mobilize your "Punk Art Pop Revolution" to support workers in the gold industry globally?

In the mean time, you can send an e-mail to Target and recruit your friends to join here. Keep checking Change.org for updates and new ways to take action to support this campaign in the coming days!

I'm Not Perfect; but MORE Perfect Than YOU!!!!

HEREEEEEEEE"S GRACE!!!!

by Leah Greenblatt

Lady Gaga may adore cult pop icon Grace Jones, but Ms. Jones won’t picking up her t-t-telephone calls any time soon.

The 61-year-old Jamaican-born model/actress/fashion radical, best known as a club performer, Warhol muse, Bond girl, hair maverick, and all-around fabu freakshow, was recently asked by London’s Guardian newspaper what she thought of the world’s current preeminent mistress of carcinogenic eyewear. Jones’ reply? “I really don’t think of her at all. I go about my business … I wouldn’t go to see her.”

And would they ever work together? “She did [ask], but I said no. I’d just prefer to work with someone who is more original and someone who is not copying me, actually.”

Mild-ish words, actually, from the woman who gave the world Strangé—and one wonders why she doesn’t call out her other obvious acolyte, Rihanna—but she can hardly be blamed for drawing the comparison.

As stated on The Future on February 5, 2010, Gaga’s genealogy has never been much of a mystery: She is unabashedly built from the DNA of many stars who came before her—including but not limited to Madonna, David Bowie, Roisin Murphy, Prince, Cher, Labelle, Freddie Mercury and of course the original cult-of-personality maestro himself, Mr. Warhol.

Like the recent M.I.A.-chugs-the-Lady-haterade episode, this one will surely be met by Gaga loyalists‘ insistence that the Lady is, like, ten billion times more amazeballs than Jones, who is just too jealous/old/All About Eve-ish to acknowledge her younger and more commercially successful rival.

If they do, they may be touching on some truth (sometimes, Strangé get cranké), but they’re missing the larger point: Gaga, definitively, could not exist without Jones, Madge, and Mercury, and she seems very much aware of that. In fact, she acknowledges them ad nauseum in her album liner notes and interviews and in, basically, the way she lives her outsized life-as-performance-art existence (bedazzled face crustaceans for brunch! Personal head planetarium for Ellen!) every day—if not in the fairly straightforward and markedly commercial (much more, at least, than Grace’s ever were) pop songs that anchor it all. I AGREE and I am the BIGGEST GRACE JONES FAN AROUND!!! Lil Mogul...

If progenitors like Jones are sometimes a little bothered that Gaga sails so easily down the far-out road they paved—and with a much fatter wallet tucked in her triangle pants—is that jealousy, or just humanity? I call it LIFE!!!