Lady Gaga makes a last-minute visit
The prospect of Lady Gaga appearing on the show had Scott and Chris trying to work out exactly how a global pop star might arrive at Radio 1. There had even been talk of her walking over from her hotel, which led to Scott imagining himself outside in high-vis gear with a lollipop sign. Security put an end to that idea and Gaga arrived by car instead.
When she came into the studio, Chris was immediately struck by the very white paint on her face. The unusual look fitted an interview in which Gaga was far more interested in discussing the work behind Artpop than simply promoting a record. She said she had been working for roughly two days with theatre director and portrait artist Robert Wilson and performance artist Marina Abramović, recreating and developing images including The Death of Marat.
Artpop, performance and being exposed
Gaga talked about trying to show the artistic process rather than hiding it. She described Artpop as a journey and said she had wanted people to encounter its songs individually instead of reducing the record to a single moment. Brecht, theatre and the idea of exposing the machinery behind a performance all came into the conversation.
Scott also asked about the nudity in her performances and the reaction to her television appearances. Gaga’s answer was that the nudity had an artistic context: she was interested in what the body meant within a performance rather than using it simply to provoke. The same thinking fed into the song “Venus” and the wider visual world around the album.
Despite the scale of her fame, Gaga said small spaces could be more useful creatively. She recalled living and working in a small Chicago apartment rather than surrounding herself with luxury, and talked about breathing and meditation as ways of staying centred when everything around her became loud. Halloween, oddly, could make her anxious: she and Lady Starlight cared so much about the art direction of dressing up that bad costumes bothered them.
By the end, Gaga had slipped into a slightly British-sounding accent after spending the week in London. Chris admitted afterwards that the conversation had genuinely helped him understand her. He had gone into the interview unsure about some of the imagery and came out liking her more.
Christmas starts at Radio 1
Elsewhere, Scott decided the show’s Christmas season was officially under way. He noted that he was actually late by his own standards, having started even earlier in previous years. After #Radio1Christmas began trending worldwide, he reached for Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and declared the festive period open.
The show also found two apps built around public or financial punishment. One alarm clock could post to Facebook if its owner kept pressing snooze, while a fitness app could take money from people who missed a promised workout and redistribute it to users who had kept their commitment. Chris was fascinated by just how far an app could go to shame somebody into behaving.
Gaga on Real or No Real
Danny Howard joined Scott for a Lady Gaga edition of Real or No Real. The claims included Gaga keeping tattoos to one side of her body as part of an agreement with her father, requesting unusually long straws, arranging the boos heard during a performance and keeping the famous meat dress refrigerated. This time the apparently ridiculous Gaga facts kept turning out to be real.
Scott finished on 40 points to Danny’s 30, bringing a day that had begun with speculation about a zebra crossing to an end with rather more insight into the artist they had actually met.
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