CD Reviews

Lady Gaga | The Fame

Interscope (2008)

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | October 22, 2008

3.0 Stars

It seems so long ago now, that brief time in the late ’90s when virginal Britneys and Xtinas uttered chaste vows to members of high-profile boy bands in a Garden of Eden littered with Catholic school-girl outfits and Grammy nominations. And it’s high time we acknowledged that we are now living after the fall: if the newest crop of aspiring pop divas is any indication, the gloves are off and promiscuity is back. Stefania Gabriella Germanotta a/k/a Lady GaGa (like the Queen ’80s hit “Radio GaGa” — she cites Freddie Mercury as a key influence) has a similar backstory to those Mouseketeers mentioned above: a precocious childhood filled with high-profile gigs and early involvement from major-label heavies. “Let’s have some fun, this beat is sick/I want to take a ride on your disco stick” (from “Love Game”) might be the trashiest-yet-awesomest refrain I’ve heard on a major-label record this year. With production help from DJ Space Cowboy, the mastermind behind Nadia Oh’s criminally ignored smut-diva magnum opus Hot like Wow, GaGa ups the ante in terms of catchy songwriting and sheer high-in-the-club-banging-to-the-beat abandon. “I’m not loose, I like to party/Let’s get lost in your Ferrari” from “Boys Boys Boys” seems like an inversion of Mötley Crüe, and so do the descending pianos of “Brown Eyes,” the song’s “Home Sweet Home” vibe being completed with its glam guitar dénouement.

Related: Into the weird, Review: Lady Gaga at the Wang, Girl gone wild, More

Into the weird
No, it's not your imagination: things are getting smaller. Or at least, it seems that way in the funhouse-mirror world of modern music, where the semi-demise of the major-label factory has colluded with the anti-star obsession of the underground to produce a chasing of microgenres into mazes of musical self-selection.
Review: Lady Gaga at the Wang
Lady Gaga, resplendent, striding onto the stage of the Wang Theatre, has just removed an intricate half-Egyptian/half-Wagnerian headdress from her person, freeing her enormous blonde hairdo from its confinement.
Girl gone wild
"My hair may be blond, but my heart is brunette," announced Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta — a/k/a Lady Gaga.
The Big Hurt: Brand new Dio; same old Yoko; auguries of Creed
In the process of writing last week's column about hidden Satanic messages in pop music, I listened to a bunch of shit backward and discovered that the track "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga is much, much better that way.
The Big Hurt: Taking on pain, cooling on wangs
Weezer's forthcoming album will be titled Raditude . I almost want to pep them up: "Come on, Weezer, you're not that bad." But they are.
The Big Hurt: Dialing up Billboard’s Ringtones Chart
We may scoff at the very idea of Billboard ’s ignominious Ringtones chart, but mobile phones are one of only three viable revenue channels musicians have left these days (the other two being commercial licensing and crooked charities).
Lady Gaga | The Fame Monster
With our world ready to melt into oblivion any day now, pop divas know that even their days are numbered.
Photos: Chillin with Gaga and Wale
Wale and Lady Gaga shoot a music video on the Boston waterfront.
Slideshow: Kelly Clarkson and Lady Gaga
Kelly Clarkson and Lady Gaga, live at House of Blues, May 4, 2009
The Big Hurt: Attention whoring and headline parsing
Slow news week.
Photos: Lady GaGa at House of Blues
Lady GaGa live at the House of Blues with Chester French, March 30, 2009
Less

Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Music, Nadia Oh, More

| More

Friends' Activity

Popular

Most Viewed

Most Emailed

ANARCHISTIC AND SELF-TRAINED, ARE STREET MEDICS THE FUTURE OF FIRST AID?
April 25, 2009: outside of the IMF/World Bank meeting in Washington, DC, police with batons are attacking a group of protesters.

BOSTON BALLET'S 'SIMPLY SUBLIME'
Boston Ballet's "Simply Sublime" (at the Opera House through February 19) traverses 20th-century ballet's arc from Russian romance to a robust and confident neoclassicism.

THE OVERDUB TAMPERING COMMITTEE
Armed with an idea, a hastily written manifesto, a press release, and some software to disguise my computer's IP address, I was able to raise the question, "How do you know that what you're illegally downloading is the actual music it claims to be?" This is a story about how my pop-music infatuation led me to fabricating a web of lies I called the Overdub Tampering Committee.

OUT: PREPARING FOR ONE H.E.L.L. OF A WEEKEND IN CAMBRIDGE
Next weekend at the Democracy Center in Harvard Square, Vermont DIY label Get Stoked! Records and bike safety group Helping Everyone Live Long (H.E.L.L.) will co-host a weekend with a stacked line-up of Northeast punk, hardcore, indie rock, pop-punk, and emo bands.