The Fame Monster

In a time when La Roux (despite promising not to) is re-releasing their debut single, Quicksand, the charts are lacking any kind of innovation, and Beyoncé is still managing to destroy any of I Am… Sasha Fierce’s artistic integrity through a combination of re-release after re-release, worsening music videos, and poor single choices, it really strikes me that someone like Lady GaGa has the courage to step up and declare that she thinks re-releases are “unfair”.

And at the same time, announce a re-release. The Fame Monster.

But as ever in the world of GaGa, it’s never that simple. It was kind of acceptable, because The Fame WAS a massive album, and it has been a whole year since it first hit the shelves. It was kind of exciting because she refused the request by her record label to just add 3 new songs, instead coming up with a whole new disc of material. But it was kind of worrying still, that it was, essentially, a re-release.

The worries may have been strengthened by the reaction to the new single, Bad Romance. It certainly looks like the kind of single that has been sneaked in, in order to keep the album relevant, that she supposedly disagrees with. But for a while, even I was too busy marvelling at it, to think about these things.

And then, out of the blue, GaGa announced that in the dead of night, she had realised this work was finished, complete, perfect in every way, and that it didn’t need The Fame to hold its hand. This was no longer a re-release. And it certainly isn’t an EP (as is being assumed by other reviewers). This is GaGa’s sophomore effort. And boy, what an effort it is.

The story behind these 8 new songs is apparently GaGa’s attempts to confront various “monsters” that she encountered whilst she was on tour. She claims that this was written for her fans, and is the stuff they want to hear, about her. Not about money, or fashion, or fame.

Lady GaGa’s music seems to tell a story, The Fame chronicling her obsession with becoming the superstar, and the various chapters in her life that led up to today. So it’s safe to say that, last year we learnt who Lady GaGa was, this year we learn who Lady GaGa is.

The disc kicks off with Bad Romance. Nothing in the GaGa schedule is ever unplanned, and by choosing this as the opening track, and the first single, she’s done more than just prove she’s still got it. When an artist approaches their “difficult second album”, they more often than not take the formula that made them previously successful, and just make it bigger. Naturally the song echoes Poker Face (her biggest hit of course), but the beats are bigger… the lyrics are bigger… the vocals? Well they are something else entirely.

It’s obviously hard to talk about the song without thinking about that video, but even by itself the song is outrageously catchy, dangerously epic, with out-of-this-world production. The lyrics even reference the Hitchcock films Psycho, Vertigo, and Rear Window; with GaGa explaining that this is her way of saying that she wants somebody bad, even the deepest, sickest and darkest parts of them. She’s not going to talk down to us, not when she has references and inspirations so vast and unusual for such a commercial juggernaut, that the only hypothetical example I can think of to prove how unheard of it actually is, is that it would be like imagining Mariah Carey announcing her new concept album about Pythagoras’ Theorem!

The song is almost definitely going to reach the Number One spots after its physical release. Especially accompanied by one of the most breathtaking videos that’s been seen in a long time, which actually causes chills, goosebumps and all sorts of other reactions by the time it reaches the final chorus. And with its gothic influence, and the almost industrial, German, Euro-dance elements that are incorporated into it, its success would speak volumes about the ever widening tastes of the general public. It’s not just a pop song. And it’s not just about pop music anymore.

But enough about that… what’s the rest of the album like?

The next song is the first promotional single (and the second song to leak), Alejandro. It might be a little lazy to jump straight to this, but the first thing I thought of when I heard it, was Madonna’s La Isla Bonita. In all fairness, the only thing the two songs have in common is a Latin-American and Spanish influence, evident in the music and the lyrics. But Alejandro is nowhere near as coolly retro or love-friendly as its counterpart.

The song finds GaGa (or perhaps a Spanish alter-ego) pleading with some past lovers (including “Alejandro”, “Fernando” and “Roberto”) to basically just leave her alone. The lyrics are generic enough, and there are no truly incredible moments during the song, but from the moment you hear the wonderfully cheesy accent during the spoken word opening, you’re hooked. It’s a well crafted, simple pop song. Not the strongest track of the 8, but by no means forgettable.

The next track is the much anticipated (in the fan community at least), Monster. This track was written back in March and was the first of the new songs to ever be mentioned by GaGa. Reviews of the album that appeared before the song was even listenable placed a lot of praise and emphasis on this track. I must say, I was reasonably disappointed.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the song isn’t bad. In the same vein as Madonna and Britney Spears (with their latest singles, Celebration and 3), GaGa has taken what she does best (infectious pop music of course) and made it a little bit more…well…“ravey”. The lyrics find GaGa infatuated with a boy that she describes as a “wolf in disguise”, and again echoes some of her previous hits. The chorus is suitably Poker Face and towards the end of the song there is even a reference to Just Dance (perhaps a little early for that yet?). After a few listens, the song becomes quite likeable, but it’s easily the weakest song on the album and offers little, if any, evidence of evolution.

Speechless is next up. It’s the “first”, big GaGa ballad. This is one of the songs that show how much she’s evolved and perhaps points at what direction her music may one day take. The song makes use of live drums, piano, strings, and a vocal that’s all clearly inspired by John Lennon/The Beatles etc. Unusual? It will be to casual listeners who are only familiar with the sleazy, fame –obsessed pop music she’s previously produced. This is a side of GaGa that the general public rarely get to see. It serves its purpose well, and is suitably kooky and bombastic enough to still have GaGa written all over it.

But more passionate fans won’t be too blown away by it. Those of have seen videos of GaGa before she rose to fame and have heard songs like Brown Eyes, No Floods, Honest Eyes and Wonderful, will already be familiar with this style, and Speechless is perhaps not raw or stripped down enough to offer more to them. However, the song was written to convince her father to have life-saving heart surgery, and so the story within the lyrics is refreshingly emotional, making the track her most personal to date.

Dance In The Dark happens to be another of those wonderful, new direction moments. The song was produced by Fernando Garibay, who’s worked with everyone from Enrique Iglesias, Beck, Ashley Simpson, and The Corrs, to Sugababes, Pussycat Dolls, Jordin Sparks and will.i.am. He succeeds in creating a very meticulous soundscape on this track, and also continues the industrial influence.

The lyrics are also very telling. A girl is described by her boyfriend as “a mess” and a “tramp” throughout the song, but she “still kills the dance”. She later draws inspiration from some of her heroines (“Marilyn, Judy, Sylvia” and “Dianna”) during the effortlessly cool spoken word section that is not only obviously, but also shamelessly similar to the one in Madonna’s Vogue. Whether or not the song is a reference to GaGa keeping her head high despite any criticism (I may be looking into it too much), the backlash against some of her more controversial outfits and performances, and the endless rumours about her “gender” would be a good place to start to provide evidence.

Either way, the song again takes pop music in a completely different direction and is one of the best tracks on the album.

Beyoncé has jumped on the bandwagon as soon as she possibly could and got GaGa in to add some clumsy verses to the already clumsy Video Phone, creating an odd collaboration and one of the worst music videos of her entire career. But whatever you do think of Beyoncé ’s new single, it’s fair to say that their second collaboration, right here on The Fame Monster, is much, much better.

The story goes that Telephone was originally written as a collaboration with Britney Spears (GaGa previously wrote the song Quicksand, which appears as a pretty cool bonus track on last year’s Circus album, and was also produced by the aforementioned Garibay), but was instead offered to Beyoncé after Spears wanted it to feature exclusively on her upcoming The Singles Collection. The song is produced by Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins (who has previously worked on Britney tracks like I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll and Overprotected) and the Britney intention is easily heard.

Beyoncé ’s verse sounds pretty much like a sample of a Beyoncé song slipped in, but later the track sees them trading lines and being much more involved with each other. It’s definitely more of a “featuring…” than a duet, but it works much better this way. Whereas Video Phone sees the two flirting with the mobile and its owner, Telephone is quite the opposite, with GaGa becoming increasingly annoyed at being harassed on her night out and asking the guy in question to stop calling, pointing out that she “cannot text with a drink” in her hand.

It’s a step into the more expected area of pop music that other artists usually reside, but with enough off-centre vocal effects and energetic, dancefloor friendly beats to raise the bar a little higher. It’s alleged to be the next single from the album, so expect to hear these two world famous singers all over your radios for the next few months. Which (in the case of this song) isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

So Happy I Could Die is the penultimate track, and after hearing 30 second previews a few weeks ago, was the one I was simultaneously most intrigued and worried by. It sounded (much like Monster does) like just a rehash of her earlier work, with lyrics like “Happy in the club with a bottle of red wine, stars in our eyes ‘cause we’re having a good time”, and featuring the “Eh-eh” hook previously found in Nothing Else I Can Say from The Fame.

However, upon closer inspection, this has quickly become one of my favourite songs from the whole album. GaGa plays again, as she did in Poker Face and the video for LoveGame, with her bisexuality, talking about her crush on a “lavender blonde”. She even provides her most explicit lyrics to date. “And when something falls out of place, I take my time, I put it back. I touch myself ‘til I’m on track”, she reveals, referring to her love of “touching herself” at various other moments of the song.

The song is the darker and more twisted cousin of Nothing Else I Can Say, and isn’t too stylistically different to Monster, with its mellow beat and slight tinges of club-friendly synths creeping in. The lyrics seem to hint back to the stalker style tendencies of Paparazzi, during lines like “Be your best friend, yeah, I’ll love you forever” (but again, this could just be my opinion), and creates an uncomfortable, but enjoyable, undertone that fits in perfectly with the theme of the album.

The album closes with an absolute show stealer. We’re all aware by now that Lady GaGa has an incredible talent at songwriting. She knows exactly how to create the perfect pop song, with all the infectious hooks in exactly the right places. So it turns out to be a breath of fresh air when she unveils Teeth. Again, continuing with the evolving and showcasing of new direction, this track is deliciously abstract and distinctly flavoured with elements of cabaret and old western movie soundtracks. Things that she has previously only flirted with during her spectacular live performances.

The song is set to a marching-style beat (it’s hard not to squeal when thinking about how this will look when she gets around to performing it live) and features chants of “Show me your teeth”, and dark, seductive backing vocals noting things like “It’s not how big, it’s how mean”. The song is by far the most energetic, and after the large amount of pop and dance that comes before it on the album, it re-establishes GaGa as the performance artist she so desperately wants to be recognised as. Just as Bad Romance was a perfect way to open, Teeth is a perfect way to close.

It’s easy to think that Lady GaGa has been around for a lot longer than she really has, and this album may struggle to prove to her critics that she does indeed have any shelf-life or real relevance. The songs are at their best when they showcase the different directions she could potentially harness in the future. However all these different styles of music sometimes make the album a little bit messy, with genres all over the place, and almost plays like a demo begging you to sign GaGa to your label, pretty please.

But, nowadays, there are few artists who write their own songs, never mind understand the composition, performance, choreography and presentation that are needed to push the boundaries and become an icon, whilst simultaneously creating music that is both passionate and able to be enjoyed by a worldwide audience. In the past, artists like Madonna, Elvis, The Beatles and Michael Jackson have achieved that.

Whilst this album only scratches the surface of the kind of things GaGa is capable of, it certainly hints that she has a good chance of one day being recognised as one of these rare breeds of artists. I have a feeling her popularity might drop for a while, and that she may have quite a rough patch (but who doesn’t?), but expect Lady GaGa to be around for years to come.

And despite all that, the album as a whole is a fantastic piece of work, worthy of all the success it is sure to achieve. It doesn’t actually seem to deal with as many of the “monsters” she claimed it would (Bad Romance, Alejandro, Monster, So Happy I Could Die and Teeth all seem to reflect on similar themes), but as far as music goes, it’s certainly refreshing and a joy to listen to.