lady gaga The NY Times: ‘Telephone’: 'When Lady Gaga Took Beyoncé Into the Deep End'

[Jordan Miller]

The New York Times wrote an article about how Gaga pushed Beyonce out of her cookie-cutter pop persona with the iconic "Telephone" music video.

"Post-“Single Ladies” but still years away from the avant-garde image reinvention that was her 2013 self-titled visual album, “Telephone” gave Beyoncé one of her earliest opportunities to get weird. Though it’s hard to imagine now, at the turn of the last decade, Beyoncé was still seen as a risk-averse, play-by-the-rules pop perfectionist."

Do you agree? Did Gaga take Beyonce out of her comfort zone artistically for the first time in Bey's career? It does appear Beyonce stepped up her game after this collab. Agree or nah? 

Here's the full excerpt:
 

Quote

“Telephone” is not Lady Gaga’s most iconic music video — that would be “Bad Romance” — but in retrospect it may be the one that best represented a turning point in the form. In a recent interview with Variety, the video’s director Jonas Akerlund recalled Gaga telling him she had become, “right on the edge of getting bored with making music videos.” MTV “didn’t like her,” she claimed, and was always censoring or editing her most ambitious ideas.
 
“Telephone” would not be for them, by design. “Gaga was, like, the first artist that came to me and said, ‘[Expletive] MTV, we can do this, we don’t need them,’” Akerlund said. “We can do this all online, on YouTube.’”
Released seven months before Kanye West’s similarly epic, MTV-agnostic short film for “Runaway,” “Telephone” was somewhere between an old-fashioned pop event and a digital-era phenomenon. It premiered, of all places, on a Friday night broadcast of “E! News” on March 12. But the internet was where most people saw it — a then-record-setting 15 million views in the first five days — and, just as importantly, where they dissected it.
 
In 2010, mainstream media was still attempting to make sense of and monetize the insurgent energy of the blogosphere and its voicy, offhandedly erudite pop cultural analysis. With its feminist-minded film references (“Kill Bill,” “Thelma & Louise”), queer imagery and seemingly Warholian-ironic product placement, “Telephone” proudly announced itself as a Rich Text.
 
Lengthy articles and blog posts analyzing the video proliferated: One ABC News article featured a doctoral student “decoding” the video’s ideas, at one point name-dropping Michel Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish.” Gaga encouraged such readings: “What I really wanted to do with this video is take a decidedly pop song, which on the surface has quite a shallow meaning, and turn it into something deeper.”
 
 Perhaps the bloggers were a little overzealous in their scholarly shot-by-shot breakdowns, but taken on its gloriously shallow surface — smoldering cigarette sunglasses! Diet Coke curlers! an infomercial for poison! — “Telephone” remains one of the wildest and most watchable pop artifacts of its era, a defining moment in the music video’s migration from MTV to the unruly internet.

[Roxxy]

I was ready to say NO because after reading the part that mentioned self titled, I don't think many of the videos from that album are as good and as avant garde as Telephone. But then I remembered she atleast had Run The World (Girls). And now i'm reminded of Superpower, Mine, Ghost, and Haunted so I guess yeah. I agree. 

[Spicechinodiva]

Only telephone we talk about is the original Britney spears version from blackout era..

[PerthBright]

21 minutes ago, Spicechinodiva said:

Only telephone we talk about is the original Britney spears version from blackout era..

yasssss

[Jordan Miller]

24 minutes ago, Spicechinodiva said:

Only telephone we talk about is the original Britney spears version from blackout era..

 Britney's is legendary indeed, but lbr if she made a video for it would it have been as iconic as Gaga's? 

[Illegally EATEN]

Beyonce was never full on pop though 

What are they even talking about 

[Spicechinodiva]

8 minutes ago, JordanMiller said:

 Britney's is legendary indeed, but lbr if she made a video for it would it have been as iconic as Gaga's? 

Probably not. I mean. She said on work B. She can't be seen as a **** ****, got called out by Joseph Khan over the Perfume video fiasco. The list can go on about how she wanted to be edgy. But always backtracked even when she more control. She never wanted to be an artist known for pushing the envelope.

 

Though the two controversial images in Blackout with the **** priest says otherwise. 

 

Someone should make a thread about those images. It did cause an uproar in 2007. Even CNN talked about it..

[Winter _90]

20 minutes ago, JordanMiller said:

 Britney's is legendary indeed, but lbr if she made a video for it would it have been as iconic as Gaga's? 

Under conservatorship and with her current team obviously not, without conservatorship and with a good team obviously yes.

[Itscuzim31]

1 hour ago, Spicechinodiva said:

Probably not. I mean. She said on work B. She can't be seen as a **** ****, got called out by Joseph Khan over the Perfume video fiasco. The list can go on about how she wanted to be edgy. But always backtracked even when she more control. She never wanted to be an artist known for pushing the envelope.

 

Though the two controversial images in Blackout with the **** priest says otherwise. 

 

Someone should make a thread about those images. It did cause an uproar in 2007. Even CNN talked about it..

I disagree. The label are the ones who are really to blame for this. Even back in 2003 with Everytime- HER original idea was that she killed herself in the tub. And that changed to her Kabbalah bracelet and hitting her head. The original Gimme More video where she attends her own funeral and had rose tattoos on her EXPOSED nipples. She filmed the original Purfume and the original Make Me.. you really think she’s gonna waste her time like that if she didn’t have the intention of releasing it ? Britney was never really avant-garde... but “pushing the envelope”  was her middle name. Give credit where it’s due. 

[glorytotheworld]

I completely disagree. There is no doubt Gaga brought spectacle back to pop visuals when she arrived in 2008, but it's completely unfair of anyone to credit Gaga with deepening Beyonce as an artist. She already took risks right from the beginning of her career as an R&B-Pop artist.

Irreplaceable, Work It Out, Sweet Dreams, Halo and various other songs showcased an artist carving out her own path and showed her growth as a true artist.

And in 2020 Gaga's got Stupid Love. Let's Not and say we did, Mmmkay.

 

[Midnight]

I agree I remember Bey wanting to work with Gaga and at the time, she was even embarrassed to say the name Gaga out loud. I think she did take some of that creativity and inspiration and went on to be more artsy herself, at that point Bey was still traditional in her craft. There definitely was a shift and Gaga was the evident cause of all that, no just in Bey in music in general.

[SpearsSpearsBrit]

risks???? Please, in 2010 being extravagant like Gaga ensured success and attention. That project could not be more commercial. 
Do you know it was a risk? album "4" with a completely different sound than what was played on the radio and without even having a support tour. 

 

[SpearsSpearsBrit]

6 hours ago, JordanMiller said:

 Britney's is legendary indeed, but lbr if she made a video for it would it have been as iconic as Gaga's? 

probably would have been very similar to the concept of "3" 

 

[RadicalOptimism]

Not much of a Gaga fan nowadays music wise. As a person I think she’s fantastic and I appreciate all that she does, but after Applause I just lost interest. This was such an iconic era I remember being a freshman in college and everyone no matter what you identified with was such a Gaga stan for her videos. We would make an event out of it just like with Jersey Shore. An iconic time 

[A.a.A]

i LOVED the telephone video. Whether you feel this way or not, Gaga kind of brought diversity to videos at that time. I was heavily invested in music/music videos at this time and music videos tend to get boring over time and have the same aesthetic. 

Gaga brought fresh-ness, and yes beyonce falls into this problem as well, all artists fall into the same loop over and over again and Gaga helped her create something a little deeper at the time.