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"LoveGame" is an electropop song recorded by American pop singer-songwriter Lady Gaga taken from her debut album, The Fame. The track was produced by RedOne, who also produced Gaga's previous worldwide hits "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". It is the album's third single in North America and France and the fourth single in Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland after "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)".

The song has been critically appreciated for its catchy tune and the "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick" hook. Gaga has explained that the word 'discostick' was inspired by her association with a stranger at a night club. "LoveGame" has already started charting in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other European countries. The song became another top five hit for Gaga in Australia and Canada.

The New York underground inspired music video for the song portrays Gaga dancing through an underground metro station and in a car park. The music video was a tribute by Gaga to the New York lifestyle including its glamour, fans and fashion. In Australia, the music video faced a ban from being aired at the PG rated timeslots because of its sexual content. "LoveGame" has been performed live a number of times by Gaga, including her first headlining The Fame Ball tour where she performed it while wearing a geometric patterned short skirt and holding her trademark disco-stick in one hand.

Writing and inspiration

"LoveGame" was written by Lady Gaga and RedOne who also produced the track. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Gaga explained the meaning of the song and her inspiration behind it, especially for the line "Let's have some fun this beat is sick / I wanna take a ride on your disco stick". She said,

"It's another of my very thoughtful metaphors for a cock. I was at a nightclub, and I had quite a sexual crush on somebody, and I said to them, 'I wanna ride on your disco stick'. The next day, I was in the studio, and I wrote the song in about four minutes. When I play the song live, I have an actual stick — it looks like a giant rock-candy pleasuring tool — that lights up.

While commenting in regards to the lyrical content of the song "LoveGame," on Australian talk show Rove, Gaga said that she is unrepentant about her "disco stick" metaphor though it lead to a banning of the music video on Network Ten in Australia. She further said,

"I don't think disco stick is subtle. It's very clear what that lyric is all about. If anything, I happen to think people are frivolously hard on me. A lot of youth-oriented pop music is much racier than mine. 'Throw me on the floor, take off my clothes, give it to me, baby, let's dirty dance'. All these records are so provocative, but it's the context of what I'm doing that makes people concerned. It's the music in relation to the visual, in relation to the way I move and the way I articulate the lyrics. But if I wanted to make music to make people sing 'la di da' that would be very boring."

Music and lyrics

Musically "LoveGame" is an up-tempo dance song with a dance-oriented beat. According to Kerri Mason of Billboard, the composition "carry the pleather-and-sequins vibe of the downtown New York scene out of the underground and onto the FM dial without losing its smut and sass." Gaga explained that the lyrics of "LoveGame" is very clear about what the song is all about. She thought that the lyrics portrayed a powerful message about love, fame and sexuality which is the central theme of her album The Fame.

Critical reception

Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine commented that the song has cheap lyrics and it painfully enunciates without any resemblance of actual sex appeal. About.com reviewer Ben Norman said that "LoveGame" continues the siege war tactical beats of previous single "Just Dance" and "assaulting us with clever lyrics like, 'Let's have some fun/This beat is sick/I wanna take a ride on your disco stick.' Interestingly enough, her live performance involves a disco stick. It's her long-handled microphone." The Dave Aude remix of "LoveGame" was also praised. The Boston Phoenix music editor Daniel Brockman said that "With production help from DJ Space Cowboy Gaga ups the ante in terms of catchy song writing and sheer high-in-the-club-banging-to-the-beat abandon." He also commented on the lyrics saying that "'Let’s have some fun, this beat is sick/I want to take a ride on your disco stick' might be the trashiest-yet-awesomest refrain I’ve heard on a major-label record this year." The BBC said in a review for The Fame that the song was robotic with the line "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick" deemed as brilliant as well as utterly cold which "leaves us awarding Gaga the yearbook title of 'pop star most likely to kill'" Ben Hogwood from MusicOMH.com declared the song as "top notch, diamond-encrusted pop" along with other tracks like Starstruck and Paparazzi but commented that the lyrics were sometimes odd especially the statement, "I'm on a mission, and it involves some heavy touchin'". Sarah Rodman of The Boston Globe said that the song has a gutter level quippage with sinuous moves. Priya Elan from The Times was not impressed with the song and called it calculated. Billboard music editor Chris Williams gave the song a positive review, commenting that "It has all the winning ingredients of its predecessors: a radio-friendly, club/electropop feel; a provocative, yet silly enough catchphrase and hook ("Let's have some fun, this beat is sick/I wanna take a ride on your disco stick"); and a dash of '80s synth magic, so the adults can play along. On "LoveGame" GaGa is in it to win it".

Chart performance

The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number ninety-six for the issue dated April 4, 2009 but fell off the chart the following week. On the issue dated May 9, 2009 the song re-entered the chart at number ninety-nine, and after five weeks reached position ten by selling 107,000 digital downloads and becoming the weeks greatest digital gainer. The song debuted at seventy-six on the Pop 100 chart for the issue dated May 2, 2009 and has since moved up to a peak at eight. The song has also peaked on the Hot Dance Club Play chart at number thirty-five for the issue dated June 13, 2009.

In Australia, the song debuted at number ninety-two, and then moved up the charts to forty-one the next week. The following week it again moved up the charts to eighteen. It has so far peaked at number four in Australia. On the issue dated May 18, 2009, the song was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association for sales of 35,000 copies of the single.

In Canada, the song debuted on the Canadian Hot 100 in September 2008 at number sixty-eight before its official release as a single. Its second appearance was on the chart of January 10, 2009 at number sixty-eight again. Subsequently "LoveGame" climbed to a peak of five for the issue dated April 4, 2009, making her third straight top five single there. After fluctuating down the chart for a few weeks "LoveGame" reached a new peak of four for the issue dated May 16, 2009. On the issue dated May 30, 2009, the song again reached a new peak of two on the chart.

On the issue dated March 6, 2009 the song entered the Irish Singles Chart at number forty-nine based on digital download. It also debuted at number nineteen in Finland for the issue dated April 15, 2009 and has since moved to a peak of twelve. In New Zealand, the song debuted at number thirty-six for the issue dated April 13, 2009 and moved up to a peak of twelve.

Despite not being released as an official single, the song charted on the UK Singles Chart, so far peaking at number eighty-nine due to strong downloads of the track from Gaga's debut album, The Fame. In the Netherlands the song debuted at twenty-eight for the issue dated May 23, 2009 and moved upto seventeen the next week. The song also debuted at number six in France for the issue dated May 16, 2009 and moved to five the next week. It debuted at numbers nineteen and thirty-eight on the Belgian Flanders and Wallonia charts respectively. In Flanders it has reached a peak of six. In Wallonia it moved to a peak of five. The song has also reached nineteen on Billboard's Eurochart Hot 100 Singles.

Music video

The music video of "LoveGame" was directed by Joseph Kahn and premiered on February 13, 2009. The video mainly takes place in a subway station. Although the video was shot in Los Angeles in January 2009 alongside with the music video for "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)", it has a New York City setting. The video faced censorship troubles in Australia where it was rated M by Network Ten due to suggestive video footage involving bondage and sexual acts. The channel demanded to be provided with an edited version of the video which would not violate censorship rules. Video Hits refused to air the video in its G and PG rated time slots. They cited "numerous sexual references both visually and lyrically" as the reason they couldnot create a child-friendly edit without bleeping the repeated hook "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick". Australian television will still continue to air the video on music program Rage and cable networks Channel V and MTV. The video also faced a ban from MTV Arabia citing the same reason as Australia. Since it was very rare to ban videos in MTV, Samer al Marzouki, channel head of MTV Arabia, commented,

"We represent the young generation’s mentality and culture so we can’t play something that conflicts with that. If they can’t watch something comfortably with their brother, sisters or friends then we will not play it."

The video starts with the heading "Streamline presents" and three men moving through Times Square. They open a man-hole cover on which is written "Haus of Gaga". Gaga is then shown naked with blue and purple paint and glitter on her body, frolicking with two men who has the words "Love" and "Fame" etched on their hair. The scene shifts to a subway where Gaga starts singing in a grey-white leotard with a hood. She carries her trademark 'disco stick' and wears chain-linked glasses made of barbed wire. The chorus starts with Gaga along with her dancers progressing through the subway and dancing down a staircase. Her trademark dogs, two harlequin Great Danes, are also shown on top of the staircase. The video shifts to a train where the second verse takes place amidst choreographed dance routines and Gaga wearing a black jacket. The group move on to a car-park. Gaga is then shown with the two men again and enters a ticket booth with an inspector. This next scene shows Gaga in make-shift kissing and caressing. As the camera pans from right to left the inspector changes from a man to woman in each frame. Gaga is also shown wearing a yellow watch same to that of the "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)" music video. The final scene incorporates Gaga in a choreographed dance routine with her crew of backup dancers. The video comes to an end as Gaga and her dancers hold their groins as they gesture towards the camera.

"This is all part of a movement. My artistry is much deeper than fashion or anything like that. I love pop music, and I want to bring it back. People are truly hungry for this. They generally miss the '90s and the superfans flooding Times Square, crying and wailing and doing anything to see the fingernail of a star. I want that back, and is just another move towards that. 'LoveGame' is a genuine New York lifestyle video. It's got that feeling of 'gay, black New York,' of inclusion and glamour," I wanted to really bring forth the girl that I was four years ago, and I wanted to put it in the setting of the underground subway. I worked with Joseph Kahn, and he did an amazing job. He didn't just capture the fashion; he captured the artist."

Gaga spoke to Entertainment Weekly during the Behind the Scenes of the shoot regarding what she thinks about the video and the development of it including the new creative measures undertaken:

I wanted to have that big giant dance video moment, I wanted it to be plastic, beautiful, gorgeous, sweaty, tar on the floor, bad-ass boys, but when you got close, the look in everybody's eyes was fucking honest and scary. The whole idea behind the subway 'Bad' thing is that me and my friends from New York, we're all, like, the dopiest fucking artists, Best designers, performance artists, dancers. The dancers in the video...those are not hot L.A. people that you see in everybody's video. Those are kids who don't get cast, because they're too fucking real. I love the imagery of a downtown, bad-ass kid walking down the street with his buddies, grabbing a pair of pliers, and making a pair of sunglasses out of a fence on the street, I thought that imagery was so real, and it shows that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or how much money you have in your pocket, you’re nothing without your ideas. Your ideas are all you have. The opening of the video is me with this chain link hood and these intense glasses. They look so hard. It looks like I plied them right out of the fence and put them on my face."

The video debuted on the Australian Digital Track Chart on the issue dated May 11, 2009 at number twenty-nine.

Live performances

Gaga performed "LoveGame" live on the UK programme The Album Chart Show on February 14, 2009 as promotion for The Fame. On March 20, 2009, the song was also performed live at the AOL Sessions along with Gaga's other singles such as "Just Dance", "Paparazzi", "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" and an acoustic version of "Poker Face". An acoustic version was performed at the MTV Sessions in January. The song was a major part of Gaga’s performance in her first headlining Fame Ball tour as the second number of the setlist and was performed alongside "Starstruck". Gaga wore a silver and black short skirt like a tutu shaped like a peplum with a triangular piece set on her right breast and high heeled ultra spike shoes. Gaga's hair was made an austere blond bob and she wore black sunglasses. She was surrounded by her dancers holding plates which were encrusted with crystals and completely hid them. The plates were angled similar to the dress she wore. As the performance of the opening number "Paparazzi" ended, the plates opened up and Gaga started singing the song "Starstruck" while standing on the platform. The stage was surrounded by mechanical fog and heavy lighting was being emitted from the background. The song progressed and after the first line of "Starstruck", Gaga started singing "LoveGame" while moving her hands in choreographed dance moves along with her dancers. Pre-recorded music and mixing were provided in the background by DJ Space Cowboy. Gaga also brought out her "trade-mark" disco-stick for the performance of "LoveGame". It ended with Gaga doing a dance routine for the last chorus and coming down to the front of the stage and saying the line "People say some really terrible things about me, I've thought about it, and they're mostly true". On May 17, 2009, Gaga performed the song live on Australian talk show, Rove while wearing a one-legged black leotard and a blond bob haircut similar to that of her Fame Ball tour performance. She also performed the song at the season finale of the American Dancing with the Stars season eight.

Track listings

1. "LoveGame" (Album version) - 3:33
2. "LoveGame" (Robots to Mars Remix) - 3:13

1. "LoveGame" (Dave Audé Radio Edit) - 3:32
2. "LoveGame" (Space Cowboy Remix) - 3:20
3. "LoveGame" (Robots to Mars Remix) - 3:13

1. "LoveGame" (Album Version) - 3:36
2. "LoveGame" (Dave Aude Radio Edit) - 3:32
3. "LoveGame" (Jody Den Broeder Radio Edit) - 3:53
4. "LoveGame" (Space Cowboy Remix) - 3:20
5. "LoveGame" (Robots To Mars Remix) - 3:13
6. "LoveGame" (Dave Aude Club Mix) - 8:35
7. "LoveGame" (Jody Den Broeder Club Mix) - 6:28

Charts

Release history

References

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External links

• Official website of Lady GaGa

• 2009 singles
• Lady Gaga songs
• Music videos directed by Joseph Kahn
• Songs produced by RedOne