Album Review: Lady GaGa – The Fame

I first discovered Lady GaGa during “The Hiatus” of 2006 when I would spend my days at home trying to write, when instead I was just browsing the Internet. This review from my now defunct music blog, Audio Intercourse, highlights my first opinion of her. At the time, GaGa had dark brown hair and a more piano-inspired style that reminded me of those old fashioned basement bars in New York. At the time, I spent hours streaming the six or so songs that Lady GaGa had sampled on her Purevolume profile page. Probably the most popular was a track called “Wunderful”, which you can still stream there now.

As time passed, she streamed more tracks, one of which was called “Musicland” that I truly and avidly loved. I’m still searching for a leak of the track, because since it was removed from Purevolume, I haven’t had the chance to hear it again.

Flash forward two years into summer of 2008 where GaGa is now sporting platinum blonde locks and some, uh, awkward fashions, shall I put it? Signed to Interscope Records, she released the single “Just Dance” into the mainstream music scene, and it has picked up like wildfire in the BC wilderness. Her debut album, The Fame, was released on August 19th here in Canada. (Strangely enough, it doesn’t hit stores down south until October, which makes so sense to me, but if us Canadians can be lucky for once, I might as well just go for it.) Nevertheless, “Just Dance” was a track that sort of made me think that Lady GaGa sold out even before she’d even hit the scene. Or rather, maybe she was just making the scene by selling out. I can’t judge, though, because although The Fame doesn’t sound like her unsigned work, it’s still a damn good pop album.

And it was only $7.99 at Future Shop, so bang!

The Fame is a bit of a mix between Gaga’s older songs, “Brown Eyes”, some of her in-between stuff, “Paparazzi”, and her new dance floor tracks, “Poker Face”. Personally, I’m more partial to her older songs, such as “Again, Again”, which was one of my favourite streamed songs back in 2006. “Brown Eyes” was another that I remember listening to in those days as well, however, this was back when the songs were still demos, and it’s nice being able to hear them again with a very refreshed sound. These songs, surprisingly, fit well with the dance floor tracks, such as “Money Honey”, a song about being a rich guys’ mistress. Evidently this track is a Canadian exclusive, as track eight of the yet to be American version is a song called “Starstruck”. The UK version is a track called “Vanity”. Although it kind of sucks that I now have to download these songs, I’m glad that we’ve got “Money Honey”, a song that I can easily picture scoring a party scene of Gossip Girl.

There are few weak spots on this album, partially because it’s all about dance and disco and fame; that’s the kind of shit you can’t exactly ignore. However, “Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)” rings in that that kind of overused Mariah Carey overtone, and although I can tolerate it, I won’t exactly be putting this track on repeat play. And although “Boys Boys Boys” proves to be a worthy mirror to Motley Crue’s “Girls Girls Girls”, it does get a bit repetitive.

I do find, however, that I enjoy the second half of The Fame a lot more than the first. The first half, although very lively, feels too forced in terms to being all glam and pop and dance worthy. The second half just feels effortless; it feels much more classic GaGa. And it’s something that I hope she sticks to, so that she won’t be a complete sell-out to the world of pop music. Granted, she might not be entirely original, but I don’t think that’s what pop is even about anymore.

Like her or not, at least Lady GaGa didn’t throw Timbaland in her album just for extra cred. So maybe you can still be original in pop after all.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 11:03 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.