A little history lesson for those who want to write off Lady Gaga: Having learned piano at the age of four, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was just 11-years-old when she was accepted into Juilliard, the prestigious Manhattan private performing arts school. Instead, she chose to attend an Upper East Side Catholic school and eventually got early admission to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where she spent her free time auditioning for various parts, including an appearance on the short-lived MTV reality show Boiling Points. Even if you don't like her music or her style, you have to admit that Gaga is a highly accomplished musician—who understands theory, can play multiple instruments, and has the training to control her incredible voice. Get the chance to see her live, and it's immediately clear how Gaga became one of the biggest pop stars in the world: Unlike some of her contemporaries, Gaga can really fucking sing.
And she knows it, too. Consider how she handles questions that compare her to Madonna: "I play a lot of instruments. I write all my own music. I spend hours and hours a day in the studio. I'm a producer. I'm a writer. What I do is different," she told Zane Lowe last week. And she's right. Throughout the early years of her professional career, Gaga performed under a number of names and with various bands, one of which was a Led Zeppelin cover band, as she revealed to Howard Stern this week. To prove it, she belted a little bit of 'Black Dog', and it's good enough to rival Robert Plant's voice in his prime.
Equally as impressive, though, is her explanation of how vocal cords work, as she tells Stern why she can sing like that without ruining her voice.
