Throwback Thursday: ‘Telephone’ by Lady Gaga feat. Beyonce (2010)

I didn't go too far back for this week's Throwback Thursday song, but this song was the runner up in a poll I did a couple week's ago so I felt I had to give it some love.

"Telephone" is on Lady Gaga's third EP, The Fame Monster. It was originally written for Britney Spears' album, Circus, but when that didn't work out Gaga kept it for herself.

Gaga is quoted saying "Telephone" is about suffocation and never letting go,

"Fear of suffocation—something that I have or fear is never being able to enjoy myself, ... 'Cause I love my work so much, I find it really hard to go out and have a good time. ... I don't go to nightclubs, ... You don't see pictures of me falling out of a club drunk. I don't go—and that's because I usually go and then, you know, a whiskey and a half into it, I got to get back to work.

"Telephone" performed very well on various music charts. According to Wikipedia:

The song became the top debut on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 issue dated December 12, 2009, at number thirty, due to digital sales.^[35] After weeks of fluctuating up the charts, "Telephone" reached a peak of three, becoming Gaga's sixth consecutive top ten hit in the United States.^[36] The song peaked at number one on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart on the issue dated February 27, 2010.^[37] On March 15, 2010, Billboard announced that the song reached number one on the Pop Songschart, thus becoming Gaga's sixth consecutive number-one on the chart, making her the only artist in history to do this. It also became Beyoncé's sixth number-one on Pop Songs. With this, Gaga and Beyoncé tied with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen BDS-based Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992.^[38] As of April 2016, "Telephone" has sold 3,400,000 digital downloads in the United States.^[39]

"Telephone" was also Grammy-nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 2011.

The music video was quite a production. It is supposed to be a sequel to Gaga's song, "Paprazzi." Beyonce bails Gaga out of jail and they go on a crime spree of sorts. Terese Gibson is featured in the video.

The video referenced Quentin Tarantino and his films Pulp Fiction (1994) and Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003).  Tarantino even lent a car from Kill Bill to Gaga for the video.

The video was nominated for three awards at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, including one for Video of the Year.