Interview: Paul Lester Talks About Lady Gaga Looking for Fame - The Life of a Pop Princess
"She probably achieved, in three to six months, what Madonna took five years to achieve: total media saturation... You can plainly spot the influence in Lady Gaga, that's one of the fun things about her, I think. She's sort of the culmination of forty years of pop history." ~~ Paul Lester 
I recently had the opportunity to talk with Paul Lester, the author of Lady Gaga: Looking for Fame - The Life of a Pop Princess, available from OmnibusPress.com. Paul Lester has been a music journalist for many years, he is the former Features Editor for UK music magazine, Melody Maker, as well as Deputy Editor for Uncut.co.uk. He is currently writing freelance, along with his daily Guardian music feature New band of the day. He is the author of 14 books on pop and rock music and musicians and his last book, Pink: Split Personality, published in 2009 also by OmnibusPress, earned him critical acclaim.
Lady Gaga: Looking for Fame - The Life of a Pop Princess is another tantalizingly provocative biography from a man who has spent a lifetime unraveling the intricate threads of pop music hyperbole that so heavily cloaks many artists, revealing beneath a very real personality. He has covered everyone from Mick Jagger to the Sex Pistols to Snoop Dogg in his musical explorations and has watched the rise and fall of a multitude of pop stars. He has an uncanny ability to see beyond the veil; an excellent judge of where an artist truly ranks in the variegated skein of music history.
However, Lady Gaga's storm-trooper-like ascension to fame took even him by surprise. "The music was catchy and commercial, but I thought the public would think it was slightly too 'arty', in a way. She reminded me of early Grace Jones and I thought it wouldn't catch on in a big way. But of course I was completely wrong. Within three months she was massive. She was everywhere."
Video Interview with Lady Gaga Biographer Paul Lester
Lady Gaga went from complete unknown to overwhelming fame within three months of the release of her debut single, "Just Dance". It's easy to forget that she still has only one album, The Fame, under her belt, her most recent release, The Fame Monster, is merely that same album with a few additional tracks tacked on. Her meteoric rise from nowhere is what first made me want to speak with Paul Lester after reading his recently released book on Lady Gaga.
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