Constructing Production
Lady Gaga’s sonic production also contributes to her unique brand image that sells to a broader consumer demographic. In this section, I will argue that Lady Gaga’s immersive sonic atmospheres vividly distinguish each of her albums, which makes her work more distinguishable, recognizable, and sellable. Production is often overlooked within the recording and music-making process, but as scholar Pat O’Grady claims in his article “Latent Elements in Pop Music Production,” the recording process is deeply intertwined with the social context. This includes how musicians “are valued by consumers” (13). Thus, this section will discuss how Lady Gaga’s production process allows the artist to gain consumer recognition successfully.
This section draws heavily upon the concept of soundscapes in its argument. Defined by R. Murray Schafer in his book The Soundscape: The Tuning of the World, soundscapes include the “acoustic environment as perceived by humans.” Schafer argues that human experience constantly gets shaped by ambient noise that immerses them in every space. For example, noise fills human everyday life, from construction noises on the street to the rhythmic clanking of computer keyboards in a library. Soundscapes, therefore, actively immerse people in a particular space, allowing us to define our location.
Musical recordings often can recreate soundscapes, and listeners can get transported into new realities through the immersion of certain songs.. Lady Gaga relies on the use of soundscapes in each studio album, whether through creating a sense of hyperrealism or fantasy. Click on an exemplary song down below to see how she creates immersive spaces through her albums within the sonic production.
"Bloody Mary," Born This Way (2011)
“Bloody Mary” was released on Lady Gaga’s third studio album titled Born This Way. The song was later released as a single in 2023 when it received viral acclaim on the social media platform TikTok for getting edited alongside clips of the hit Netflix series Wednesday. The song is notable for its haunting production and religious lyrical themes.
“Bloody Mary” starts with pizzicato orchestral music, where orchestral strings are plucked, which continues throughout the rest of the song (i.e. 2:30). This style creates an eerie atmosphere throughout the song from the beginning, considering the pizzicato style feels sharp, jarring, and creates tension. Furthermore, masculine background vocals with heavy reverberation often intervene within the song (1:24, for example), and the background vocal production frequently repeats Gaga (i.e. 1:15). This vocal production further creates a sense of ghostliness, partly contributed to by the reverb. Plus, the inclusion of the vocal backgrounds as an instrument within the sonic production makes the song feel a lot more choral, creating almost a church-like atmosphere. Thus, with both the orchestral frequency and the reverberated vocals, “Bloody Mary” articulates an eerie atmosphere with an additional layer of immersing the listener into a church.
The entirety of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way album seems to utilize the same sonic atmosphere that “Bloody Mary” creates. Songs like “Electric Chapel,” which utilizes an organ within its production, and “Heavy Metal Lover,” which frequently uses reverberted vocal production, both create similar eerie and church-like atmospheres. Thus, in context, “Bloody Mary”’s instrumentation makes sense, considering Lady Gaga seems to be enforcing religious and haunting themes through the production alone. And with the lyricism in mind, these themes become even more obvious; Gaga sings about Mary Magdalene, a religious figure, in “Bloody Mary,” and she sings about other religious figure Judas in “Judas.” Thus, Lady Gaga creates a distinct and cohesive immersive atmosphere in Born This Way, which is achieved partly through songs like “Bloody Mary.”
With “Bloody Mary” and Born This Way in mind, Lady Gaga creates a brand image through her immersive sonic atmospheres and soundscapes. Through immersing listeners in eerie, church–like environments in “Bloody Mary” and other songs on the album, Lady Gaga makes her albums recognizable. After all, after hearing the haunting instrumentation on “Bloody Mary,” listeners would easily be able to recognize that the song fits on Born This Way. Additionally, the creepiness and church-like nature of the songs illustrates the exaggeration and theatrical nature of the camp style. Creating an immersive sonic environment can make listeners feel like they are watching an actual theatrical performance in front of them, making Born This Way’s soundscapes camp. The sonic immersion of “Bloody Mary” thus creates a campy brand image for both Born This Way and Lady Gaga herself, which transforms both the album and artist into consumer products.
"Applause," ARTPOP (2013)
Lady Gaga released “Applause” as the lead single off her fourth studio album titled ARTPOP. The song released on August 12, 2013, and it received massive chart success, peaking at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. The song fits within the electropop and dance-music genre, and it is known for its heavy use of electronic synthesizers and instrumentation.
“Applause” starts immediately with electronic synthesizers repeating the same 16-bar melody twice. This electronic synth melody continues when Lady Gaga begins singing the lyrics, providing the foundation for the entirety of the song. Furthermore, in the pre-chorus and chorus, claps begin appearing in the instrumentation, mimicking the title of the song (i.e. 1:10). Lady Gaga’s voice is also used as an electronic instrument at certain points throughout the song (i.e. 1:16), with unintelligible words. With the synth, vocal production, and claps, “Applause” almost sounds like it was recorded in a dance club with many people. The claps provide the song with a communal feel, while the electronic synth and vocal production make the song feel like it comes right out of a techno club.
In the context of the rest of the album, ARTPOP, “Applause” and its sonic production makes complete sense. ARTPOP features exclusively dance songs on the album, with the exception of the ballad “Dope,” and they all include some sort of electronic synthesizer within the production. This electronic dance style that covers the entirety of the album, from “Venus” to “Donatella,” highlights how “Applause” complements the rest of the album quite well. In contrast to her other albums, Lady Gaga created an album that focuses solely on dance music, and “Applause” follows suit with that. Thus, Gaga creates an immersive environment that transports listeners to a dance club through “Applause” and ARTPOP.
By creating this immersive environment on ARTPOP, Lady Gaga seems to be constructing brand recognizability in order to appeal to a broad consumer demographic. Through utilizing heavy dance beats and electronic synthesizers on each track, including “Applause,” people can instantly recognize that the song fits on ARTPOP—and may even want to listen to other tracks on the record. And with the hyper-exaggeration of the dance club space through repeatedly using synthesizers and techno instrumentation, Lady Gaga highlights a sense of camp on “Applause” and ARTPOP. Thus, Lady Gaga transforms into a consumer product through strategically constructing an immersive, dancefloor soundscape on “Applause” and ARTPOP.
"Diamond Heart," Joanne (2016)
Lady Gaga released “Diamond Heart” alongside her fifth studio album titled Joanne on October 21, 2016. The song, and album, completely shift Lady Gaga’s usual ‘dark pop’ sound; for the first time in her discography, the artist starts to utilize folk, rock, and country influences in her voice, lyricism, and instrumentation. Although Gaga never released “Diamond Heart” as a standalone single, the song feels representative of the artist’s ability to calculate her production to create a unique brand image.
“Diamond Heart” mainly utilizes natural-sounding instrumentation throughout the song, in comparison to electronic sounds. The track begins with an organ-like synthesizer, a drum beat then follows, and heavy acoustic guitars mark the pre-chorus and chorus at 0:45. The drums throughout the song almost feel like they were recorded directly from the studio, in comparison to being programmed electronically. The kick drum loudly thumps for the duration of the song, providing the song with a heavy folk-rock feel. The same rawness applies to the guitar: the instrumentation feels unfiltered and organic. As a result of this shift to creating seemingly natural sounds with the guitar and drums, Lady Gaga creates an intimate soundscape through “Diamond Heart” that feels like the song is being played right next to the listener.
Most other songs on Joanne similarly create the same sort of intimate soundscape, from “Perfect Illusion” to “Million Reasons.” Most every song on the album uses acoustic guitars as its backbone, heard most notably on the title track “Joanne.” A thumping, folksy beat also progresses each song, such as “Dancin’ in Circles.” Joanne overall marks a departure from Lady Gaga’s traditional electro-pop sound, highlighting the artists’ versatility and ability to consistently shift genres.
By creating an immersive, country-like soundscape on “Diamond Heart” and Joanne, Lady Gaga calculates her brand image specifically to gain a broader consumer base. Not only does the artist utilize the acoustic soundscape to build a sense of intimacy with her fans, but she also uses it to highlight her versatility as a musical artist to impress consumers from all walks of fandom. Perhaps, the drastic shift from electronic music (ala ARTPOP) to country hints that Joanne still has a little bit of camp on the album; its dramatism keeps the artists’ image of being camp. Thus, as a result, with its showcase of versatility and intimacy, “Diamond Heart” and Joanne highlight that Lady Gaga strategically crafts her brand image, which transforms her into a consumer product.