From her days as a fashion iconoclast to a jazz-singing duet partner for Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga has been nothing if not unpredictable.
Which makes her coming performance at the Super Bowl LI halftime show on Sunday one of the trickiest in years to anticipate. Will she sing her biggest hits or go left into new material? Will there be guests? And what will she wear?
Here is everything we know about Lady Gaga’s upcoming performance.
Who is Lady Gaga?
The native New Yorker burst onto the scene with 2008’s “The Fame,” an album that rose, almost, to the top of the charts–it peaked at No. 2–and delivered “Just Dance,” “Poker Face,” and other dance-pop hits. In the years since, she’s released No. 1 albums, become a Golden Globe-winning actress on “American Horror Story: Hotel,” and fought for empowerment with her Born This Way Foundation. She was an early social media star, too: in 2011, she became the first person to reach 10 million Twitter followers.
Across her career, Gaga–born Stefani Germanotta–has been a powerful voice, opening up on everything from from a serious hip injury that took her off the road for months to her struggles with an eating disorder to revealing, on a “Howard Stern” appearance, that she was raped at age 19.
“I speak up now,” she told Harpers Bazaar in 2014. “I should be around people who cherish my talents, my health, my time.”
Who else could show up?
Lady Gaga’s musical collaborators have included Beyonce (“Telephone,” “Video Phone”), Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine (“Hey Girl”), crooner legend Tony Bennett, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, producers such as RedOne and Zedd and many more.
Recent Super Bowls have paired artists who didn’t necessarily have connections: like Red Hot Chili Peppers joining Bruno Mars in 2014, or Mars returning for Coldplay’s halftime show in 2016. But reports say so far that Gaga will take on the Super Bowl by herself–well, and her army of dancers.
She could also please fans by bringing on hip-hop trio Migos: a new petition with over 30,000 signatures has called for the Atlanta group to replace Gaga at halftime, with fellow hip-hop acts Future, OutKast, Bun B and Jay Z.
What time will she start?
The big game goes on at 3:30 p.m. PST, so expect halftime to fall around 5 p.m. In 2016, Coldplay went on a few minutes later.
What will she Sultanbet wear?
We can surely expect some costume changes from Gaga’s big show, but lately, the fashion icon has been keeping it simple: for the release of 2016 album “Joanne,” she turned to casual rocker chic, and she’s been sporting a grey NFL shirt on Instagram in the last few weeks as she’s shared images of her preperation. But maybe she has another meat dress waiting in the refrigerator.
Rehearsal #cantstopwontstop dream big and never give up [?] #halftime
What will she sing?
Gaga fans–her Little Monsters–know that the singer has the range, whether she’s delivering dance music, jazz, rock, country or show tunes. We’d guess she’ll turn to some of her biggest hits: “Born This Way,” “Poker Face,” “Just Dance,” “Bad Romance”–her dancers have been spotted working on the choreography–“Edge of Glory,” and “Telephone,” with potential appearances by “Applause” and “Alejandro.” And we’d be shocked if she doesn’t make room for “Paparazzi” and recent single “Perfect Illusion.”
Gaga herself said she’s hoping the NFL audience might be into “Joanne,” her latest album.
“Maybe the dads will really love the music … I think that these songs could reach a lot of people,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “The NFL heard the record before it came out. They gave me that slot, really, off my album.”
Whatever happens, Gaga wants to ensure the songs don’t get lost in the show’s spectacle.
“The thing is, is it’s such a big world stage in terms of how many people see it and it’s been done so many times,” Gaga said recently. “I think the challenge is to look at it and say, ‘What can I do differently, how can I elevate certain little things here and there and also make it about the music?'”
#SB51 10 days
— David Greenwald
dgreenwald@oregonian.com
503-294-7625; @davidegreenwald
Instagram: Oregonianmusic
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