1. Bruce Springsteen – "Thunder Road"
"Springsteen has influenced me my whole career. My album 'Born This Way' was heavily influenced by Bruce Springsteen. Bruce had a very particular grit and soulfulness, and when I was making 'Born This Way' I thought a lot about how to incorporate who I really am into my music, even more than I did during 'The Fame'. 'The Fame' was an album that was more about my dream for myself; 'Born This Way' was more of an album that was looking back on a particular time in my life. I think I fell in love with New York all over again through Bruce's music because of the proximity to New Jersey and that whole area. […] I remember feeling like I was learning about my dad through the song because my dad is from New Jersey, and Bruce is from Jersey."
2. Beck – "Nicotine & Gravy"
"For me, 'Nicotine & Gravy' really spoke to who I was as a 19 year-old living on the Lower East Side and kind of getting my kicks with the locals. I looked back on it, going like, 'Oh [Beck] changed'. I would say the way it affected my life the most is that watching Beck change made me feel like I wanted to change."
3. Carl Bean – "I Was Born This Way"
"I was so inspired by that song. I heard and I was like, 'I wonder if there's a way to flip this into a modern pop record'. […] It's so meaningful to me too because the entire energy around 'Born This Way', my song, entirely depended on that song. The genesis of it gave way to something that I think for me is the most important record of my whole career, not just for me artistically but for what it means. And every night that I play it, I think about Carl Bean and I think about 'I Was Born This Way'."
4. Iron Butterfly – "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"
"I had been writing songs that were kind of fantasy with nonsensical words in it, and my mom was like, 'You have to hear this song'. I think they were really drunk in the studio and trying to sing "in the garden of eden" and then it came out as "in-a-gadda-da-vida", and then they kept it that way. So I always thought it was really cool and I know it stuck in the back of my mind that you could make a hit record with words you make up. That definitely stayed with me with through all my music, and made a comeback for 'Abracadabra'."
5. David Bowie – "Watch That Man"
"I had this conundrum as a young person, where I was a little too, or not enough, something. [Lady Starlight] said to me, 'You know, David Bowie was very theatrical. And he's David Bowie'. I started to try to understand him as an artist and delve into his music. […] I had such a dream of making something of myself, that it became kind of this pump-up song for me. My love of David Bowie just deepened from there, but I would say that this was one of the first songs."
6. Heavy Metal Kids – "Hey Little Girl"
"When you find records that help you understand or see yourself, or they become the soundtrack to you and your friend group, that's pretty powerful. There was this idea that you could be kind of rough around the edges and still glamorous, and at the time that meant a lot to me because I didn't have much to offer other than the music I was making and all the jobs I was working."
7. Stevie Wonder – "Superstition"
"Particularly from 'Superstition', that bass line is one of the most exciting bass lines I had ever heard in my whole life. I started thinking about music differently. Listening to Stevie Wonder helped me think about how I could compose differently. It's like that kind of music you have to let seep into your bones and your soul until it finds its way into something true and authentic to you. I definitely I had my moments on 'MAYHEM' where I was thinking about him."
8. Carole King – "Tapestry"
"When I was really bullied in high school, I listened to Carole King's music and I always felt her voice and her songs are like a warm hug. And I think because I played piano and I wrote songs that I saw a path for myself and I just really looked up to her. […] I would say another thing that Carole King taught me was it can be good to think about another artist when you're writing; imagining a super-star singing the song. Because I'll go, 'Is this good enough for someone else?' What might be good enough for me may not be good enough for someone else."
9. Dinah Washington – "What a Diff'rence a Day Made"
"I sang it a lot in my jazz shows, but I didn't sing it on tour with Tony Bennett. I kind of discovered it later. I think I found a bit of myself as a solo jazz singer, without Tony, with that song, just personally. […] I would say 'What a Diff'rence a Day Made' was extremely important to me because it was Dinah's charts that I sang when I first did it, and it was kind of, what was my voice without Tony, when I was just starting to do that."
10. Miles Davis – "So What"
"This is another great segue into how I learned as a young artist that it's about how you think about music, and everybody can think about music differently. It was the way Miles thought about music that I was really moved by as a young person. His album 'Kind of Blue' was critical, and this was long before I ever met Tony, and it was much earlier in my life."
11. The Rolling Stones – "Sympathy for the Devil"
"To me, 'Sympathy for the Devil' had a speed of rock-and-roll that I hadn't heard before. When I say different speed of rock-and-roll, it was also so different from Led Zeppelin and 'Whole Lotta Love'. 'Thank You' was a softer record, but it didn't have this same kind of coolness that 'Sympathy for the Devil' has; 'Thank You' was more like a sincere love song. Pink Floyd were more hallucinogenic in their music. 'Money' was one of the first records I remember listening to. My dad put it on and I said, 'Dad, is that cash register?' And he said yes, and I was like, 'But why? It's music'."
12. Led Zeppelin – "Thank You"
"I love 'Thank You' by Led Zeppelin because they have this razor-sharp, loud, just kind of epic music. And then 'Thank You' is just like quieter. And it's pretty. And it's so sincere. It was kind of like learning the unobtainable rock-and-roll God could really love you. There was like a human-being underneath the legend of it all. The idea of drama and theatricality in music, and then sincerity, I think those two things kind of yin-yang for me."
13. She Wants Revenge – "Tear You Apart"
"'Tear You Apart' by She Wants Revenge is a song that I just fell in love with when I was like 18 years-old. At that same time, I was really into The Cure. This kind of more electronic thing was starting to percolate for me. I think something about living on Stanton Street and the clubs I was going to. What's funny is that the clubs I was going to, a lot of them were playing metal records, but I would listen to She Wants Revenge and The Cure and Depeche Mode when I was at home. That was kind of my internal soundtrack to what the DJs were playing."
14. The Cure – "Never Enough"
"My favorite The Cure song was 'Never Enough' and I am obsessed with the production on that song. I love the song also, but the production on it is something else. I also think I related it to that time in my life I couldn't stop partying. I mean I was writing songs then partying, like on a loop. So I think that song was kind of like the soundtrack to my routine."
15. Justice – "Stress"
"I put 'Stress' by Justice on here too because French-electronic music was something I discovered more when I moved to California. […] I put that record on here because I can't even actually think of a time in my career that I didn't think about Justice when I was making music. It had to do with that unique specialness; that thing that only they had."
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