Lady Gaga Sets Another YouTube Record

Lady Gaga’s video for “Bad Romance” has become the #1 most watched video of all-time on YouTube with 185 million views as of this writing — beating out fierce competition like “Charlie bit my finger,” and the “Evolution of Dance.” This is remarkable for several reasons.

One reason is that it proves that YouTube has become the definitive medium for music videos. Since MTV stopped playing videos and became more concerned with creating reality stars, artists have been searching for a way to release music videos — the one-time sure way to create a buzz for a new band or an already popular band with a new song. Music Videos are coming back with YouTube, which was originally created for uploading videos like babies laughing or finger puppets re-enacting Harry Potter.

Sure, YouTube is still dominated by videos uploaded by amateurs, but YouTube has quickly become the first stop for artists to release big-budget music videos, and the fact that Lady Gaga rules YouTube proves that the site is no longer just for people wanting to watch clips of backyard wrestling and skateboarding dogs.

“Bad Romance” is designed to look like a Russian bathhouse in the future. Lady Gaga has numerous costume changes, sometimes wearing nothing at all, and several dance scenes. She is eventually sold off in a weird mobster auction for sex slavery. Lady Gaga gets her revenge though and burns the whole place down.

The entire video is incredibly shot and produced, and shows off Gaga’s own fashion service Haus of Gaga — a group of creative designers and Gaga-friends who create almost all of the singer’s outrageous outfits.

The combination of the stylistic video and a great song has shot the video to 185 million views in less than six months. Second place “Charlie bit my finger,” with 180 million views, has been in the site since 2007. Bronze medalist “Evolution of Dance,” with 140 million views, has been there more than four years.

Just think about those statistics for a moment.

Bad Romance is getting more than 30 million views per month. Other Gaga videos also have shot up on YouTube, and with enough time all the top spots may be taken by the entertainer. “Just Dance” has 107 million views, “Love Game” follows that with 40 million, “Poker Face” with 29 million, and two different versions of “Telephone” each have roughly 26 million views each. And these are just from the official LadyGagaVEVO channel, which does not include views from unauthorized uploaders.

Some articles like to jokingly state that Lady Gaga is taking over the world. This is obviously an exaggeration, but not too big of a stretch. She is in fact taking over YouTube though, which is one of the most popular sites in the entire world, the first step to world domination. Even if MTV was still creating actual music stars, there is no way they could ever possibly reach the number of worldwide viewers YouTube does on a daily basis. Lady Gaga seems to understand this and other artists are following. YouTube is no longer just for amateurs.

Posted on 04/20/10. Back To Blog - Tags: Charts, Lady Gaga, YouTube

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