Lady Gaga Debuts Official Music Video for 'Applause'

Lady Gaga debuted the music video for her latest single "Applause" on "Good Morning America" Monday morning -- her first video in about two years.

The video, half in black and white and half in vibrant colors, is a scatterbrained concoction of haute couture mixed with gritty outfits but it's all taken in stride: for one of the first times, Gaga isn't taking herself too seriously.

Though the "Applause" video is Gaga at her Gaga-est, the pop star is having fun while cramming a lot of imagery into the three-and-a-half-minute clip. Mother Monster's head is on a swan, she's popping out of a giant magician's hat and even references Botticelli's "Birth of Venus." At another point she references Illuminati, at another she looks like Barbra Streisand album cover from the 1960s.

Inez & Vinoodh, a Dutch fashion photographer duo, directed the music video. The clip debuted on "Good Morning America" and was broadcast on screen in Times Square.

Before the video debuted, Gaga said on Twitter that it was inspired by her passion for shape shifting, saying "Would you do 'anything' for the Applause? Iconography in motion, as magic."

DJ White Shadow, who produced "Applause," said, "I watched the whole editing process. I went to New York with her and sat in a room for two days while she color corrected and went through the video frame by frame. She is such an intricate part of everything that moves, that it's all a part of the same vision... She's very into making sure that everything has its place. The video is really fun and exciting and she looks awesome in it. ... It's Lady Gaga! It's a Lady Gaga video! It's a good video. It's really fun."

When Gaga debuted the video, she said the looks in the video were representative of different parts of her and her obsession with transforming.

The response, thus far, is mixed. Entertainment Weekly writes: "Not going to lie: This video really makes the song sound infinitely better (as is the case with a lot of Gaga videos). It doesn't quite hit the high notes of 'Paparazzi' or 'Bad Romance' but it's definitely a step up from the middling clips from the Born This Way era."

"Applause" is Gaga's first single off her upcoming record, "ARTPOP" out on Nov. 11. Last week, she dropped the lyric video for the single.

Watch the video below: