A collection of potentially illusion-shattering early recordings from Lady Gaga—made when she was just a simple Italian girl named Stefani Germanotta—has been pulled from an upcoming auction, after the Gaga camp bought them back for “an undisclosed amount of money.” The Gotta Have It! (exclamation theirs) Rock And Roll Pop Culture Auction issued a press release today saying it was “very happy to be an instrumental part in bringing the music created by Stefanie Germanotta back to its rightful owner,” so you can probably read "an undisclosed amount" as "a whole bunch."
The Lady Gaga lot is said to have included a never-released 2002 demo, two 2005 CDs titled Stefani Germanotta and Stefani Germanotta Band, Words, an untitled “original” Lady Gaga CD and another called Stefani Red And Blue from 2006, and a DVD of Lady Gaga performing at the OSIA showcase from that same year. These mostly unheard artifacts from her Y Kant Tori Read era, made before Lady Gaga exacted such strenuous control over her public image, now belong solely to the performer herself, who—if she's not planning some sort of deluxe reissue—is probably burning them as we speak, and who would probably buy back the below footage of her playing in coffeehouses and that viral video clip of her on The Sopranos if she could.