Lady Gaga's video inspired by new race

Lady Gaga's new video is inspired by the birth of a "new race" of unprejudiced people.

The promo to 'Born This Way' sees the 24-year-old pop star give birth while sitting above the earth, and she confesses the idea was inspired by surrealist painters and the idea of creating a new type of human.

She said: "It's very inspired by, especially in the beginning, Salvador Dali and Francis Bacon. The surrealist painters. It's this story about the birth of this new race, a race that bears no prejudice and a race that's primary ambition in life is to inspire unity and togetherness.

"It's very symbolic this video. And the visuals are really stunning and the video is beautiful. It's very meaningful to me. And the song is very meaningful to me."

The track has come under criticism in some quarters for sounding similar to Madonna's early 90s song 'Express Yourself', but Gaga is happy to admit the 52-year-old pop icon is an influence on her music.

When questioned on UK station Radio 1 on whether Madonna is an inspiration, Gaga, 24, said: "Of course she is, and so were so many of the artists from the 90s. That era of music was the transfusion of gospel and pop, R&B and dance music. I wanted to do something that was very risky and that in a lot of ways was extremely modern but in a way puts its middle finger up at modernity and says, 'This is to empowerment.' "