Emily Herbert - Lady Gaga: Queen of Pop

N ew York, 1986: the Big Apple was a hive of activity, one of the most exciting, energetic and happening cities in the world. And the Reagan era was in full swing from the drab 1970s had arisen the yuppie-driven 1980s, where nothing succeeded like excess, greed was good, capitalism was king and opportunity abounded. It was the decade that reversed years of economic decline, witnessed the collapse of communism and rewarded success. If you wanted to go places and you worked hard enough, you would get there. In the heyday of the 1980s, before it all came crashing down a few years later, it was a joy to be alive.

One of the individuals looking to take advantage of those fast-moving times was Joseph Germanotta, who, with his wife and business partner Cynthia, was an internet entrepreneur. Back then, the internet was still in its infancy and while it was founded some decades earlier, it was not until the 1990s that the world logged onto the worldwide web and it really took off. But Joe and Cynthia, of Italian immigrant stock, were young and determined to make their mark. They planned on starting a family and were keen to raise their children in an affluent and comfortable atmosphere and they were about to succeed.

But while Stefani, as she was called before she transformed into Lady Gaga, and her younger sister Natali were brought up in cosmopolitan surroundings, their mother came from a far more parochial background: she grew up as the child of Paul and Ronnie Bissett of Glen Dale, Ohio. This was the heart of the American Midwest, where values are very different to those in New York: socially a very conservative environment, reliant on the old-fashioned American values of Mom and apple pie, Cynthias own childhood could not have provided a greater contrast to the extraordinary life that her daughter was to lead. But she had escaped to the big city, met Joe and was building a life for herself. Life was good and the couple began to reap the rewards of success.

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta appeared on 28 March 1986, followed a few years later by her sister Natali. She was an exuberant, energetic child, and the bug to entertain bit young. I was in the Three Billy Goats Gruff when I was in kindergarten, she told one interview. I was the big Billy goat I decided to make my Billy-goat horns out of tinfoil and a hanger. Even then, it seemed she had a flair for standing out from the crowd.

Clothes were very important to the young Stefani, just as they are now. Her love of fashion came from her mother, and by now the family was sufficiently well-off that Cynthia could have an outstanding wardrobe, full of designer names, with extravagant designs, colours and opulent elegance, which played a huge part in Stefanis life.

She was always very well-kept and beautiful, her daughter later recalled. She wore Ferragamo, Valentino, Paloma Picasso Her taste is absolutely classic Italian. Stefanis own taste was to prove anything but classic her mothers early influence was, however, to stay with her into adulthood. There can be few performers who attract such attention for their unorthodox performance and her awareness of the power of clothes dates back to those days.

Indeed, one of Stefanis earliest memories was watching her mother dress and this inspired an interest that remained with her through childhood and teenage years. It was a marvelling experience, watching her get ready for the day, she remembered on another occasion. She always looked so much more pristine than all the other mothers. I have a lot of her in me: I went through periods where I was very sexy, then I became a hippie girl with ripped jeans, and then went into a leopard-tights-and-leotards phase, which Im still in. Fashion saved my life! When I was young, I was laughed at in school because I dressed dramatically. But it was all preparation for what was to come. As an adult, Stefani would turn her whole life into a dramatic statement and that included her clothes as much as anything else. Indeed, she has said that the dress or rather, costume she wears when performing is often as important as the song itself. All those influences, all of that knowledge about the power of appearance, dates back to when she was still very young.

In fact, both parents had a strong influence on the young Stefani. Before he went on to earn serious money as an internet entrepreneur, Joseph himself had once played in a band and was eager to pass his love of music on to his little girl, paying for her to have piano lessons when she was still very young. Indeed, Stefani was to prove something of a child prodigy. By the age of four she had mastered the piano by ear, thus establishing very early on that music and fashion were to be her two defining features. The Stefani of four years old was already becoming Lady Gaga albeit not quite so extreme in her tastes as the one that exists today.

Her musical education, however, was a serious one. While she might have chosen to listen to popular entertainers, she studied the works of the great composers of the past. Her early education was, in fact, as a classically trained musician although this too went on to have great influence on her later output. Asked about the extent of that influence, she replied, A lot! Bach and most of the classical stuff that I played when I was younger the chord progression is the same as in pop music. Its ingrained in your sensibility about structure and discipline. This was a considerably more analytic approach to music than many of her contemporaries possessed, and one that marked her out as an entertainer for the longer term rather than just a flash in the pan.

Stefani was also a born entertainer. On her website she recalls that as a child, she sang along to songs by Michael Jackson then at the height of his powers and Cyndi Lauper, which she played on her mini plastic tape recorder. Nor was that all: when her parents took her out to restaurants, she would use the breadsticks as drum batons music was clearly in the blood. She also displayed markedly exhibitionist tendencies from very early on: at home she would often greet a new babysitter stark naked. I was always an entertainer, she said. I was a ham as a little girl, and Im a ham today.

As Stefani grew up, her parents really began to reap the rewards of their success. When she was seven, the family moved to an apartment in the Pythian Condominiums. Built in 1927, and converted into apartments in the 1980s, the Pythian boasts an Egyptian-themed faade and is a very upmarket residence for the citys successful business elite.

Stefani had initially been marked down to attend the prestigious Juilliard School in Manhattan. This would have been a fairly obvious choice. The Juilliard, located in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, is one of the worlds best-known academies for dance, drama and music. Alumni include Kevin Spacey, Robin Williams, Val Kilmer and William Hurt, among others too numerous to mention. At the last minute, however, Joe and Cynthia had a change of heart, and decided to send Stefani, aged eleven, to the Convent of the Sacred Heart. (This was the alma mater of another famous blonde, Paris Hilton.) While performance-related subjects were certainly taught there, the Convent of the Sacred Heart was another matter altogether: a very traditional and cultured institution, it was the place where the wealthy and successful of New York sent their offspring in preparation for the corridors of power in later life. It was also a sign that the Germanottas had arrived.

In later years, when Stefani burst into the limelight, a great deal was made of the fact that she attended the same school as the Hilton sisters (and it should be said that, ditzy as she might look, Paris has been pretty sharp about building up a career of her own).