“Paparazzi“ is a song written by Lady Gaga and Rob Fusari who is also the producer of the track for Lady Gaga’s debut album, The Fame.
The song will serve as the album’s third single in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and will be released on July 6, 2009. Initially, “LoveGame” had been planned to be released as the third single in the United Kingdom, but it was decided that “Paparazzi” would be released instead because of the potentially controversial lyrics and video of “LoveGame”.
The song was written by Gaga to portray her struggles and her love for fame. An up-tempo dance song, the lyrics of “Paparazzi” depicts the idea of a stalker following somebody to grab attention and fame.
“Paparazzi” has been critically appreciated for its fun-filled, club-friendly nature and is deemed the most memorable and telling song from the album. The song has already charted in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Gaga performed the song in a number of live appearances including her first headlining Fame Ball tour where she performed it as the opening number of the show, wearing a geometric patterned shaped black dress.
The music video was directed by Jonas Åkerlund, who has previously directed music videos for artists like the Smashing Pumpkins, Madonna, P!nk, Moby and U2. Lady Gaga told MTV that she had finished shooting “[..] my video for ‘Paparazzi,’ which I really am very pleased with the way that turned out. It’s like a short film.” In an interview with The Canadian Press on May 26, 2009, Gaga cited her video as “the most amazing creative work that she’s put together so far.” She went on to describe the idea behind the video and the message it gives. She said,
“It has a real, genuine, powerful message about fame-whoring and death and the demise of the celebrity, and what that does to young people.[…] The video explores ideas about “sort of hyperbolic situations” that people will go to in order to be famous. Most specifically, pornography and murder. These are some of the major themes in the video.”
