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On March 11, E! News exclusively premiered the highly anticipated, nine-and-a-half minute long music video for "Telephone," a song recorded by Lady Gaga and Beyonce featured on Gaga’s album "The Fame Monster."
VEVO, the music video extension of YouTube, also premiered the video immediately following its televised premiere.
As expected, the video took the pop music world by storm and proved to be a "true pop event" as Gaga had previously described it.
In Gaga’s previous music video for her hit single "Paparazzi," the singer was arrested for poisoning her boyfriend and taken to jail.
The music video for "Telephone" is a continuation of the "Paparazzi" video.
It starts off set in a female prison, or as the video calls it, a "Prison for Bitches," where Gaga is a cellmate.
For this video as well as her last for "Bad Romance," Gaga is bringing back the art form of what a music video should be.
The last artist to make music videos this epic was the late Michael Jackson.
But for Gaga, it is much more than just a music video.
This is what she likes to call her art, and the deep thought put into her music videos is most evident in "Telephone."
She shows that she knows how to poke fun at herself, especially in the opening prison scene where Gaga is thrown into a cell and stripped of her clothing.
"I told you she didn’t have a d---," one prison guard said, mocking the rumors of Gaga’s gender.
Throughout the video, there is a lot of product placement.
Many believe that the video was used for Gaga and Beyonce to make money from the included advertisements.
However, Gaga’s manager Troy Carter has said that the only paid advertisements were www.PlentyofFish.com and Miracle Whip.
Other products that can be seen include Diet Coke, Wonder Bread, Honey Bun, Virgin Mobile, Coors Light and of course Gaga’s Heartbeats headphones.
In an interview with Carson Daly on Los Angeles’s AMP Radio, Gaga explained the hidden message and underlying theme behind the "Telephone" video and its wide variety of product placement.
"The hallmarking of mayonnaise and Wonder Bread and the American flag is to make a metaphor with the telephone, and how we’re inundated with products and technology," Gaga said. "The whole sentiment of me making a sandwich then having everyone vomit up their food and die, is supposed to be a joke about how we feel with the Internet, movies, advertisements, telephones, cell phones and the media; and how we need to purge ourselves of all of those things, hence the American flag outfits Beyonce and I have on."
Gaga added that the video not only mocks society’s dependency on technology but is meant to inspire her fans to "feel more free."
The pop music video also has heavy film influence from movies like "Thelma & Louise" and director Quentin Tarantino’s "Kill Bill."
Beyonce even drives the infamous "pussy wagon" from the "Kill Bill: Vol. 1" movie in the music video after bailing Gaga out of prison.
Tarantino collaborated with Gaga on the video and insisted she use the truck.
The music video has already become a viral hit by reaching 16 million views on the VEVO.com Web site in less than four days.
These two female pop sensations are breaking the mold of any other "cookie-cutter" pop star out there nowadays.
Gaga and Beyonce have proved with the "Telephone" music video that they are real pop artists who conceptually take their ideas deeper than any other pop singer in the industry today.
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