Lady Gaga’s music video for her new single “Applause” debuted on Good Morning America today, a show known for its love of cultural subversion and avant-garde art and expression. The video includes a tremendous amount of writhing, Gaga’s head on an awkward CGI fantasy swan body, a brief Gaga-as-glitter-pony interlude, a quirky brassiere that seems to pay homage to Janet Jackson’s 1993 Rolling Stone cover, and that arty face paint you’ve been seeing for a week or so. “Applause” is of course as catchy as can be, and the video does seem like the perfect visual companion to a mainstream dance-pop song about the relationship between art, artist, and audience.
