Lady Gaga finds success

Lady Gaga finds success with Just Dance American singer/songwriter and electronica musician Stefani Joanne Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, has scored a crossover hit with the track Just Dance.

The recording, which scaled the Billboard Dance Music Club Play chart months ago, is currently the number two song on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. It is also number one on three Billboard charts, namely the Billboard Pop 100, Hot Digital Tracks and Hot Digital Songs charts. The track features Colby O'Donis.

Lady Gaga who was once signed to Def Jam for only three months, is a Grammy-nominated artiste. Finding herself surrounded by singers who all wrote the same style of music, she decided to do something fresh and provocative in the rock 'n' roll underground. In 2006, she started working with music producer Rob Fusari with whom she wrote several of her early underground releases including Beautiful Dirty Rich, Dirty Ice Cream and Disco Heaven.

She created the name Lady Gaga which is a reference to the song Radio Ga-Ga by rock group Queen. Lady was later added to give the stage name a bit of feminity.

In early 2007, she was offered a deal with Interscope and hired as a songwriter and partnered with hip hop star, Akon. While working on demo tracks for Konvick recording artiste Tami Chynn, Akon would have GaGa go into the booth to lay down reference vocals. Realising her singing talent and after listening to her demo recordings, Akon later signed her to a joint deal with Kon Live.

It was through her affiliation with Akon that Lady GaGa started to work on her own new material for her debut album with various heavyweight producers.

She later relocated to Los Angeles working closely with her record label to finalise her debut album, The Fame, which was released in August in Canada, Australia and other European countries. It peaked at number five in Canada and seven in Australia. In October 2008, the album was released in stateside and reached number 17 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales burst of 24,000 copies. It also debuted at number one on the Billboard Top Electronic Albums chart and received rave reviews from critics in the New York Post, Billboard magazine and US magazine.

Poker Face, the second single from The Fame, reached number one in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

New rhythms to jumpstart flood of releases for 2009
Dasboard, Old Geezer and Alton rock are three rhythm projects that are waiting to be unleashed in the first quarter of 2009.
Already serviced to radio, the projects are expected to kick off the new year with a bang.

Dashboard is the latest out of the Truck Back Records camp. Erupt, Elephant Man, Ghost, Mad Cobra and Mr Lexx are among the artistes featured.

Old Geezer is the latest out of the Ward 21 camp. The ladies of TNT, Beenie Man, Wasp, Ward 21, Mr Peppa, Chicken, Bibi Gardener and Vybz Kartel, have already jumped on board.

The Fireball label's updating of the foundation rhythm (the soundtrack which accompanied the late Alton Ellis' Rocksteady hit), is called the Alton rock rhythm.

Tifa snags Youth View Award nomination
Dancehall newcomer Tifa has snagged a nomination in the 2009 Youth View Awards. She will compete in the Young, Hot & Hype Female category.

The Youth View Awards is scheduled to take place on February 7 in Kingston. This will be the second staging of the event.
Tifa has been on a roll over the past year. Her single Bottom of the Barrel charted locally and topped a Trinidad and Tobago reggae charts a few months ago.

Did you know?
So Canadian/Jamaican rapper Kardinal Offishall's video for Number One featuring Keri Hilson has been popping up a lot on MTV and BET. But did you know that the song contains a sample from the song The Tide is High?

The Tide is High was first recorded by Jamaican group the Paragons with John Holt and it was a number one hit here in Jamaica in the 1960s. In 1981, UK punk/rock group Blondie with Deborah Harry on lead vocals, took their cover of The Tide is High to number one in the US and in several countries in Europe including the UK.

Music trivia
Another version of The Tide is High recorded by UK star Billie Piper in 2000, got as far as number 25 on the UK singles chart. Two years later, Atomic Kitten took their version to number one in the UK.

Other artistes who have recorded versions of The Tide is High include Sinitta, Papa Dee, Gregory Isaacs and German reggae group Seed.
On January 20, 2002, George Harrison's My Sweet Lord removed Aaliyah's More Than A Woman at the number one spot on the UK singles charts. This marks the only time in UK chart history that one deceased artiste has replaced another at the number one spot.