This article was going to be about how stupid I thought Lady Gaga was, but during the process of research I’ve become completely, utterly and dangerously obsessed with her. Why didn’t anyone tell me she was this good? Her album is like disco smallpox; it might make your skin blister and ultimately kill you, but you’ll want to be thrusting your hips right to the very end. The first few tracks of Fame Monster are some of the catchiest, campest and annoyingly fun songs I’ve heard this year; if you haven’t heard it, look up the song Alejandro. It’s been stuck in my head for days, and I think I’m actually going mad. Alejandro, ale-alejando…
Initially I thought she was rubbish; to me, she looked like the mad woman you see in town centres wearing a plastic bag and rambling incoherently whilst attempting to direct traffic. Just Dance was irritating, and I just couldn’t get into her second single, Pokerface – a song which led to me being repeatedly poked in the face at the Sugarhouse. But having finally got round to listening to the rest of her album, I can quite safely say it’s ridiculous… Ridiculous how much I like it, that is.
I’m not saying I’ve changed my opinion completely though, she still looks like something dreamt up by the writers of Doctor Who – something that could destroy the world whilst looking like a soufflé that could’ve done with another fifteen minutes in the oven. The Daleks are nothing compared to how terrifying she is in the video for Bad Romance, which had me cowering behind the sofa until JLS came back on the telly to calm me down.
And it’s not just in the music videos that she looks wacky, but it seems that any opportunity will have her raid the local bins in order to find something else to wear. When the camera pans round the audience at awards shows, you see Beyoncé wearing a tasteful dress, you see Justin Timberlake wearing a nice suit, then you see Lady Gaga looking like the love child of Elton John and a raspberry pavlova with a telephone cellotaped to her head. It’s not just an accident that she looks like this – she now designs most of her own clothes, which is a bit like saying that accidentally getting a pancake stuck to your ceiling makes you an interior designer.
That said, underneath it all, I’m led to believe she’s human, and her touching tribute to late fashion designer Alexander McQueen lent some credibility to this year’s Brit Awards, which were otherwise almost totally lacking in that particular department. In less than two years she’s risen from almost total obscurity to almost total stardom, which might be thanks to an amazing marketing campaign, her music, or the fact she plays the piano while wearing nothing but a black sparkly leotard. Probably all of the above (but mostly the latter), and I respect her for all her success and can’t stop playing her music, even if I will always think she’s got the look of a horse that’s been told something surprising.
