Yeah nothing says late 2000’s pop like Lady Gaga. I vividly remember riding home from elementary school in my mom’s classic mom minivan to ‘Just Dance’, ‘Love Game’, ‘Paparazzi’, and ‘Poker Face’. It wouldn’t be until a few weeks ago that I would look at this album’s tracklist and realize “Oh my goodness gracious, those songs are all on the same album!” In fact, those are only the first four songs on the album, in the order I listed them earlier. So yeah, if you forgot about Lady Gaga, it’s time to remember.
Say what you will about how over the top, eccentric, out there the woman is, she sure knew how to make some hits and her debut album The Fame was one hell of a way to prove it. 54 minutes of pure, unbridled, 2008 pop, Gaga doesn’t waste a moment or muddy the entertainment with pesky deeper meanings. The Fame is not an album that anyone is going to make a video essay on, breaking down line by line what it all really means, that’s not the point. The Fame is pop in its basest form, purely music for entertainment. Music about fame, sex, dancing, and money, this isn’t an album that I’m going to “get” when I relisten to months later. Its all pretty face value. There isn’t any hurdle in the way of the listener preventing them from enjoying it. There isn’t anything to it that could really put someone over the edge as to whether they like it or dislike it. You’ll know pretty quickly whether or not The Fame is right for you, but at the end of the day, it’s just pop music for the sake of entertaining people. And I think it does a pretty damn good job at it.
Some of you may be wondering, why The Fame instead of her 2009 follow up Fame Monster? Well, I listened to both and just liked this one better, okay? No but seriously, Fame Monster has a very similar feel to The Fame and what The Fame does well Fame Monster does even better, but everything that The Fame does poorly, Fame Monster bonks out on even harder. Namely, a lack of consistency. The Fame starts off with a bang, having absolute hits for its first 4 tracks, but from there it falls off. The thing is, in The Fame I still really enjoy pretty much every other song on the album after the initial 4, otherwise I wouldn’t have picked it to write about. In Fame Monster on the other hand, you have a significantly shorter record that is pretty much all or nothing. Yes it has ‘Bad Romance’, and ‘Telephone’, 2 of Gagas finest songs to date, and a couple more songs on the record are fine, but approximately 4 of the 8 songs on that album aren’t exactly anything to write home about. The first time I listened to Fame Monster I was delighted by the songs I already knew and tolerated the one’s I hadn’t heard of. The first time I listened to The Fame, I had a ton of fun with the songs I already knew and found myself saving a handful of new songs which I’ve since relistened to and enjoyed. That’s my logic, Seth, leave me alone.
Bottom line here, The Fame is one hell of a fun album. Lady Gaga’s incredible confidence and energy that shine through in her recognizable and catchy vocals make the album what it is and established her as an absolute force in the music industry from the jump. I really like this album, and I hope you will too.
You may think you already know what tomorrow’s album is, but you’ll just have to wait to see because you can’t read Boogie’s Poker Face.
Over and Out.
Fatstacks 
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