Festival Sees Lady Gaga Play With Styles The Way Only She Can

The iTunes festival performance was a mashup of genres, fashion and, surprisingly, personal revelations.

 

Lady Gaga’s appearance at London’s iTunes festival has been long teased and long awaited, but the Applause singer went beyond any fan expectations, by premiering several new songs from ARTPOP at the festival.

The hour-long gig at Roundhouse Theatre saw Gaga experiment with some new musical directions and, of course, in true Gaga fashion, some... well... outrageous fashion.


According to Rolling Stone, Gaga opened the gig in a cage, sporting a black leather mask a la Hannibal Lecter, but the most interesting part was the dubstep style drop of her opening track.

It seems like everyone is doing something dubstep-esque these days, but this isn’t the only genre Lady Gaga is venturing into with ARTPOP. In a definite style departure for the singer, she came out with the rather direct title Jewels & Drugs.

To the surprise of her fans, it was a rap track, featuring first time collaborators Too Short and Twista. The biggest name on the track (apart from maybe Gaga herself) is rapper T.I. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make it to the London gig, so his recorded voice blared out of the speakers.

One of the other new songs revealed at iTunes, where Gaga alternated her trademark theatricality with a more low-key, intimate vibe, was the defiant rock ballad Swine, which you can check out below.

Of course, she closed the performance with the debut single Applause, which is already making the rounds in both UK and US charts.