Every once in a while a new singing starlet waltzes her way onto the red carpet and is dubbed “the Heiress to the Pop Music Throne” by the media. While Madonna, the true Queen of Pop, would be remiss to ever abdicate her throne, she has definitely found a parallel in Lady Gaga.
Drowsy pop audiences everywhere were shaken awake by the Lady last year when she burst on the scene with Just Dance, her number one single. Since then, Gaga has maintained a stranglehold on pop culture.
To call her sense of fashion outrageous would be a dramatic understatement; some of her costumes belong in the National Space Museum. She’s also been the subject of one of the strangest Internet rumors. Her only (sarcastic) answer on the subject: “Yes, and it’s bigger than yours.”
However, if you look past the unfounded rumors, the swarm of paparazzi that hound her like mosquitoes, or her decadent fashion, you might actually see she is serious about her music. Not only is Lady Gaga a prolific songwriter-having written for singers like Fergie and Gwen Stefani-she is also an extremely talented pianist. Still, that’s not even half of where her talent lies. While most budding young Hollywood singers are unwilling subjects of the scrutiny of tabloid culture (the Miley Cyruses, the Lindsay Lohans), Lady Gaga welcomes the attention. For her, fame is the art.
Now her much-anticipated follow up to her breakthrough album The Fame is set to be unleashed.
At just eight tracks and 35 minutes, The Fame Monster makes for a pretty scrappy album. Its road to fruition has been a bit of a struggle. Originally, it was set to be a double-disc rerelease of the first Fame, but due to apparent production costs, Interscope Records decided it would send the EP out on its own to fend for itself.
It definitely lacks the same variety and glamour that The Fame has. For instance, Fame had more of the guitar-riffs and power-ballads that inspired much of Gaga’s early sound.
Monster is largely an electro-dance album, and lacks the underground rock show vibe. That isn’t to say Monster doesn’t have its high points; the ballad Speechless definitely lives up to Gaga’s glam rock roots.
The album starts off with her current single Bad Romance, which is already making its mark on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video has the fan community in a tizzy. Strange effects like expanded pupils, digitally shrunken waistlines, and Gaga’s chants (“Rah rah roh mah mah”) make the video feel like some kind of electro-Bavarian opera. It’s all good though, because someone gets set on fire in the end.
Despite containing some of Lady Gaga’s most experimental sounds yet, the album still has some mellow grooves in it. A potential club favorite, and personal favorite, is the infectious Latin-tinged track Alejandro. Equally as danceable but substantially more provocative is So Happy I Could Die, in which she uses touching herself as a solution to all her troubles. Which it is.
Likely the next single off Monster, Telephone gets a little help from Beyonce, with whom Gaga not-too-previously collaborated on her single Videophone. I see a pattern here.
To live up to its monster status, The Fame Monster ends on a dark note. Teeth is truly frightening. The song has a thumping, Southern cannibal aesthetic that must be more than disturbing for some. “Take a bite of my bad girl meat / Show me your teeth,” she growls.
All in all, the album certainly serves its purpose, which is to make you want to dance. If her first album was to show her strength in the pop music arena, then The Fame Monster seems to be Lady Gaga’s way of flexing her muscles. Her voice is definitely stronger and her presence in the music industry is taking form. Eight tracks, however, is undeniably too short for Lady Gaga to utilize her entire repertoire of talents. Nevertheless, this for sure won’t be the last we hear from the Lady, and only time can tell what she’ll wear next.
