NEW YORK - Sprawled on her bed in an Amsterdam hotel, Lady GaGa is channeling Lady Godiva-sans the horse.
While the 23-year-old has famously worn everything from Kermit the Frog to a hat made to resemble the solar system, today she's rocking the one constant in her ever shifting wardrobe-underpants. And nothing more.
But despite her dominance on the pop charts worldwide and bleached blonde hair, GaGa is not the average pop tart. She's an accomplished songwriter and performer who seems to have come out of nowhere, bursting from the corner of Ludlow and Rivington fully formed and fabulous. In conversation, she's chatty and articulate, but gives off the distinct sense she's 10 steps ahead of everyone else -- while the Internet is still buzzing about the lampshade she wore over her face in a TV interview, she's plotting her next move.
Of course, if she invests wisely, she may never need to work again: Her debut album, "The Fame" has sold nearly 1.3 million copies in the United States since its low-key release last September via Interscope. For the year, it's both the best-selling set for a debut artist, and the fifth-best-selling album overall.
Her digital single, "Just Dance," has sold 4.4 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the No. 2 best-selling digital song of all time. Earlier this week, she snagged nine nominations at the MTV Video Music Awards, sharing the lead with Beyonce.
In addition to co-writing all the tracks on her album, GaGa has previously written for Fergie, the Pussycat Dolls, Britney Spears and New Kids on the Block.
"Getting into writing for others happened naturally, because at the time, I didn't have a record deal," GaGa says. "I don't have an ego about other people singing my songs."
And-as surprising as it may seem amid her outre outfits and the nudge-nudge-wink-wink lyrics-GaGa's path from behind-the-scenes songwriter to cultural phenomenon was a smart, regimented plan. Before she was Lady GaGa, she was Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, an Italian Catholic schoolgirl from Yonkers, N.Y. She played piano and studied music as a child, but it wasn't until she hit her early 20s that her songwriting and performance style clicked.
"She wrote almost all her hits in a week," says Vince Herbert, who signed GaGa to his Streamline Records label, a joint venture with Interscope. "She flew to L.A. and sat in a studio with (producer) RedOne and just cranked it out."
GaGa writes mostly at the piano, and to her, if a song doesn't come easily, it isn't meant to come at all. "A hit record writes itself," she says. "If you have to wait, maybe the song isn't there. Once you tap into the soul, the song begins to write itself. And I usually write the choruses first, because without a good chorus, who really gives a f---?"
But before she had hit records, she was an apprentice songwriter, working with a number of producers and trying to build a name for herself. Jody Gerson, who signed GaGa's publishing deal with Sony/ATV, points out that she was driven to understand the publishing business from a young age.
"She interned at Famous Music Publishing before any of this," Gerson says. "And even back then, she was famous for showing up for work in her undies."
GaGa says she doesn't want to be underestimated or written of as merely a pop songwriter. "I think most music is pop music," she says. "The mark of a great song is how many genres it can embody. It's about honesty and connection-look at a song like 'I Will Always Love You.' Whitney (Houston) killed it as a pop song, but it works as a country song, a gospel song, everything. If I can play a song acoustic, or just on the piano, and it still works, I know it's good."
Gerson says that she and GaGa are both particular about who the artist will work with, especially with her current touring schedule. "She's swamped right now," Gerson says. "There is a lot of interest; we're talking to ("American Idol" runner-up) Adam Lambert right now, for instance. But it has to be a good match for her to spend the time."
Coincidentally, GaGa's crowning TV moment came in April, when she performed "Poker Face" on the "American Idol" results show. While the show helped boost her album sales (according to Nielsen SoundScan, "The Fame" sold 45,000 copies the week before the show aired, 51,000 the week it aired and 56,000 the week after), more important, it showed middle America that she was a bona fide pop star.
GaGa gets plenty of additional screen exposure through the use of her songs in soundtracks and commercials. But deciding whether to align her with big brands has been trickier.
Steve Stoute, head of the branding agency Translation, thinks GaGa herself is a brand. To that end, he has signed a deal with her and says he will treat her just like he does such clients as McDonald's or State Farm. "I don't just want to do deals for a check with her," he says. "She's at the point where she's bigger than life. She's transcended music."
A few months ago, Lady GaGa decided to try a little experiment.
"I was talking to the members of the Haus (her creative team) about the power of image and the camera, and I wanted to say something on a real level about fame," she says.
"I drink a lot of tea, and I decided to take a purple teacup out of my china collection and take it to London and make it famous. I put it in videos and had fans pose with it and put it on TV -- at one point, the teacup had a call time." It became the most famous teacup since Meret Oppenheim covered one in fur.
