The 10 Best Lady Gaga Tribute Videos

By JJ on

(Getty Images | Screen Captures from YouTube.com)

Lady Gaga has become a cultural phenomenon in part because her bizarre style, catchy hooks and crazy videos beg for copycats to come along and glom onto her popularity.

While being labeled a Gaga copycat is terrible if you're Christina Aguilera, the Internet is brimming with unabashed Little Monsters dying to go Gaga on sites like YouTube. Here are 10 of the best video tributes to the weirdest pop star ever.

1. The Afghan 'Telephone'

On April 23, soldier/amateur filmmaker Aaron Melcher (that's him in the yellow caution tape) uploaded a video of several soldiers stationed in Afghanistan performing a remake of "Telephone." Within a week the video had gone viral with national media coverage and almost universal praise. While fans of the video were impressed by the soldiers' creativity and dance moves, Melcher immediately made it clear to The Smoking Gun that "nobody in the video would like any further media coverage.” Hopefully those mostly nameless soldiers are proud that the video has surpassed five and a half million views on YouTube.

2. Greyson Michael Chance Does 'Paparazzi'

Greyson Michael Chance, AKA YouTube user Greyson97 (for the year he was born) is a 12-year-old with three years of piano lessons and no vocal experience who would still be an unknown Oklahoma kid if it weren't for his Lady Gaga cover. In April the Web went crazy over a video of Greyson performing "Paparazzi" at a school talent show. He was invited to perform the song on Ellen DeGeneres' show. He revealed on the show that not only could he do a mean "Paparazzi," but his original song, "Broken Hearts," is a hit-in-the-making. If all goes well, Greyson's first album on Ellen's Eleveneleven label will be out sometime in the next year.

3. The 'Bad Romance' Make-Up Tutorial

By the time she posted a tutorial video explaining how to get Lady Gaga's larger-than-life "Bad Romance" eyes, Michelle Phan was already a popular make-up artist on YouTube. Her videos regularly got thousands of views, but nothing compared to the 11 million-plus people who have now seen her "Bad Romance" vid. Michelle soon found herself at the center of a controversy (NYTimes) surrounding the growing popularity of "circle contact lenses" which create the illusion of a larger iris by covering part of the whites of the eye.

4. The Key of Awesome 'Bad Romance' Parody

BarelyDigital.com first had a hit with the Barely Political "Obama Girl," and they've made arguably some of the best Lady Gaga parody material so far under the "Key of Awesome" YouTube channel. Their satire of the forced eccentricity of "Telephone" might be better, but their take on "Bad Romance" came earlier and probably had a much larger impact on the Gaga tributes and parodies that came after it.

5. Christopher Walken Does 'Poker Face'

Sure Christopher Walken wasn't intending to make a viral tribute to Lady Gaga, but the Internet cares little about intentions and a lot about "Poker Face." Walken's spoken word take on Gaga has him dryly reciting the line "I'll get him hot / Show him what I've got," but the bit absolutely kills when he gets to the "oh... oh oh oh." In case you're curious, yes this has been mashed up with the song.

6. What if Liza Minella Was Lady Gaga?

Definitely one of the weirder (and that's saying something!) Gaga tributes out there is the Liza Gaga take on "Telephone." New York comedian and cabaret performer Christine Pedi dressed up as Liza Minelli playing the part of Gaga and switched wigs to play Carol Channing playing Beyonce before changing gears yet again to play the part of Joan Rivers at the end of the video. Calling this video gay is not derisive, it's just accurate. Not only is Liza a gay icon, but the video gives a shout-out to Perez Hilton, and New York City's Big Gay Ice Cream Truck also makes a cameo appearance.

7. Grandpa's 'Poker Face' Routine

Unfortunately there isn't any information as to the origins of this video, but it's become one of the more popular Lady Gaga tributes out there with various edits popping up on LiveLeak and YouTube. One thing is certain. Old dude has some moves.

8. Baby Gaga Does 'Telephone'

When Heidi Ladrow put together a spoof of Lady Gaga's "Telephone" starring her 3-year-old daughter, she had no idea that it would go viral and become a national hot button issue within the week. Heidi has been criticized by television personalities and countless Internet commenters who say she was exploiting her child, but she says it suits her personality and she enjoyed performing. "It's a spoof on Lady Gaga and it has to be a little outrageous because Lady Gaga's videos are outrageous," Ladrow said on the CBS Early Show. "It was perfect because she's so animated and she's a good little dancer so it just seemed like a good fit."

9. The Yoel Brach Band's Gaga Wedding Medley

This Jewish wedding band celebrated the union of two people named Shaya and Perry by performing a medley of "Just Dance," "Paparazzi" and "Bad Romance" and changing the lyrics to fit the situation. Fortunately the band gave the world a peak at its UNorthodox (get it?!) wedding performances by posting this video on YouTube.

10. Chatroulette 'Telephone' Ambush

It's easy to think of reasons not to log in to Chatroulette, but this video made by budding performance artist/filmmaker Steve Kardynal is proof that sometimes Chatroulette can be every bit as entertaining and awesome as Paris Hilton promised us it could be. Word of warning: This video is about as safe for work as Lady Gaga's actual videos, which is to say not very.

Lady Gaga Pictures