Lady Gaga/Judas

By now Lady Gaga‘s Little Monsters have had their ferocious appetites satisfied with the premiere of the pop star’s new video for “Judas” — whether they caught the leaked “Judas” online or waited for the full seven-minute version that premiered on E! Thursday night (May 5).

Laurieann Gibson

Up until its debut, the clip’s co-director, Laurieann Gibson, has had to remain pretty tight-lipped about the top-secret project. That is, until now. MTV News sat down with the choreographer-turned-director, who was finally able to spill the beans on the highly anticipated video. Check it out now!

Lady Gaga/Born This Way/Now Available

Lady Gaga recently gave Rolling Stone an advance preview of four songs from her upcoming album “Born This Way”.

Here’s a track-by-track rundown of what they heard backstage, as well as what she played from the new record in concert.

“Judas”

Currently scheduled as the second single from the album, “Judas” is a classic Lady Gaga pop banger with three huge hooks, a thumping house music breakdown and a vocal part that borrows a bit of Rihanna’s distinctive cadence. Gaga has written about falling for the wrong guy before in “LoveGame” and “Bad Romance,” but this time around she’s a bit less dark and dramatic. There’s a bubbly sweetness in her voice as she sings “I’m just a horny fool / baby it’s so cool / I’m still in love with Judas, baby.”

“Edge of Glory”

This one sounds crazy in print — it’s a massive power ballad with heavy club beats that features Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band wailing on his saxophone (Clemons also plays on “Hair”) — but somehow it all seems totally natural when you actually hear it. There’s an element of cheesiness to it, but it’s totally captivating and incredibly catchy. If any of these new Gaga tunes demands to be a big fat hit, this is it. The inclusion of Clemons is an inspired touch that amplifies the song’s Eighties stadium rock vibe, but his actual performance is amazing and ranks among the best of his career.

“Scheiße”

A remixed version of this number was used in a recent runway show by fashion designer Thierry Mugler. The album version doesn’t have the same hardcore European house flavor, but it’s definitely the tune most likely to bring back memories of early-Nineties dance crossover hits by C&C Music Factory, Snap and RuPaul. The opening of the song — in which she flatly intones “I don’t speak German, but I can if you like” — is fierce, but the song is saved from being a slight novelty by a soaring chorus that vaguely recalls Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.”

“Hair”

“Hair” is another inspirational song in the mold of “Born This Way,” but it’s a bit weirder, mixing the yearning romantic melodrama of Pat Benetar’s “We Belong” with the hard industrial metal edge of Broken-era Nine Inch Nails. The lyrics are essentially about embracing one’s hairstyle as the ultimate expression of their identity, climaxing with Gaga triumphantly declaring “I am my hair!” in its huge sing along chorus. An anthem for hair salons everywhere.

“You and I”

Gaga didn’t share the studio version of this theatrical rock ballad, but she did perform it in her concert later in the evening. This one has been part of her Monster Ball setlist for months now, and at this point it’s already a crowd-pleasing showstopper. Assuming that the album recording will have more or less the same piano-centric arrangement, “You and I” will provide a necessary break from the high energy beats on the other tracks.

“Born This Way”

This is the Number One single in the country, so you’ve probably heard this one by now. This was the first time Gaga has played the song in concert, but it’s already the ideal conclusion to her show, ending the night with a giddy communal celebration of personal empowerment and self-acceptance.

Grammy 2011: So, After All These Years We Finally Know What Came 1st — an EGG

Lady Gaga accepts the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

After arriving to the Grammy’s in an egg, Lady Gaga took to the stage in a canary yellow ensemble topped off with a hat.

Still wondering what came first — the chicken or an egg?  It was the egg, and after hatching from and being “Born” onstage, Lady Gaga won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album for The Fame Monster. Gaga beat out Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Susan Boyle and John Mayer for the big prize.

Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart to all my fans, all the monsters, watching,” she said, clutching her prize. “Thank you to my father, my mother, my beautiful sister, Natalie, I love you.”

After thanking family and friends, as well as her managers and record label team, the singer shared a personal message. “I had this dream when I was really young that I could be whoever I wanted to be … and no matter what I envisioned for myself, that I would do it, no matter who didn’t believe in me,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

Although most of Gaga’s acceptance speech was devoted to the people you would imagine, she also had a thank-you for one unexpected person.

“I need to say thank you tonight to Whitney Houston. I wanted to thank Whitney because when I wrote ‘Born This Way,’ I imagined she was singing it because I wasn’t secure enough in myself to imagine I was a superstar. So Whitney, I imagined you were singing ‘Born This Way’ when I wrote it. Thank you.”

Music’s Biggest Night: The Grammy’s – Why Watch — You ask?

EOTM will be live blogging the 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards on Sunday, Feb. 13. Check in to GRAMMY.com at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET sharp for a running commentary on all the color and excitement from Music’s Biggest Night. Of course, we invite you to follow along and comment on your favorite performers and GRAMMY moments. In the meantime, be sure to watch the GRAMMY Pre-Telecast Ceremony, announcing winners in approximately 100 categories, on GRAMMY Live beginning Sunday at 2 p.m. PT.

So why watch?

There are several reasons, and they probably have much to do with why viewership of last year’s show was its highest in six years.

•Something could happen. During the last telecast, it was Taylor Swift’s duet with Stevie Nicks, which gave 26 million people a glaring earful of what Swift sounds like without Autotune.

•It’s a rare opportunity to engage in an “event,” something that a large — maybe not enormous — audience will watch live, all at the same time. We live in a time where little is done momentously or in vast unison. People DVR their TV shows and watch them on their own schedules; gone are the days when 126 million people would sit down and watch the farewell episode of “M*A*S*H,” as they did in February 1983, and then talk about it all the next day.

Recorded music is released in stages; gone are the “release days,” when fans would pour into record stores and help N’ Sync sell 2.5 million copies of “No Strings Attached” in one week, as they did in March 2000.

We are now a culture niched and Balkanized. The mainstream has been piece-mealed and scattered among the so-many networks and messengers and producers of music and art. By today’s standard, an audience of 26 million is large.

•With social media at our disposal, we can watch and comment on real time, all at once. Last year, Twitter and Facebook were ablaze with Grammy updates, tweets and dialogues, thanks to a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t have watched but who like to engage in the bloodsport of ridiculing celebrities.

Swift was absolutely pilloried on the social networks after her singing debacle. Likewise, Christina Aguilera was savaged for her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl, the last annual big-event standing.

•The better side of the Grammys: Sometimes the performers live up to their reputations. Real singers like Maxwell or real musicians like Jeff Beck were widely lauded for their performances on last year’s show. And during her duet with Elton John, Lady Gaga revealed that behind the garish costumes/wardrobe and within her polythene dance-pop tunes, there resides a trained singer and musician. And the woefully underappreciated Leon Russell got some air time during his performance with the Zac Brown Band.

Another Grammy bonus: These performances typically stimulate album sales, which is good for everybody.

Nominated for Album of the Year

The Grammys have been famous for choreographing controversies, such as Eminem’s duet with Elton John at the 2001 awards show. Gay-rights activists picketed the venue and protested Eminem’s lyrics for being hateful and homophobic.

Nothing like that has been scheduled for tonight’s show, but the academy has conspicuously set itself up for a curious moment. Cee Lo Green is a nominee in two of the big three categories: song of the year (for songwriting) and record of the year (song production) for his hit “(expletive) You.” Green is scheduled to perform during the show. It seems safe to assume he will either alter the song — to “Forget You,” as Gwyneth Paltrow did on “Glee” — or be censored. The more interesting scenarios: who will read the nominations and what happens if he wins.

It may not be a sole, good reason to sit through 3.5 hours of awards, music and schmooze, but if you care about music and its place in our pop culture, you should have an interest in checking out the well-fed and well–funded side of the business — the “know your enemy” theory. An unscheduled Cee Lo f-bomb might just be nothing more than a crass bonus.

For more info on nominees visit http://www.grammy.com/nominees