Monday, January 10, 2011

Lady Gaga "The Fame Monster & The Fame"

Why look, it's another record picked up just before the a Frank's APA deadline, meaning that I am giving only initial impressions now and maybe will give some more considered thoughts on it in the future. Anyway, unless you have been living under a stone, you are probably aware of Lady Gaga, the saucy art pop sensation. The Fame is her first (and only album), while The Fame Monster is an extra disc tacked onto it in a new version. The combo has finally dropped to a price sufficiently low for Gaga curious people like me to take a punt on it. So take a punt I have.

Initial impressions on this are a bit mixed. The music is all a bit full-on – heavy production, heavily treated voices, etc. It is maybe not the kind of record to listen to in your living room while sipping a nice glass of sherry, but it probably sounds great blasting out of a nightclub sound-system. It is also so robotic and metronomic that I could imagine it being great music for Nazi stormtroopers to march along to, or for people to exercise to in gyms. And it might be good for me to listen to on headphones while walking to work in the morning.

Still, I am open to the proposition that the music is the weak link in Lady Gaga's drive for world cultural hegemony, for all that some of these tunes drill their way into the brain and remain there forever.

What do you think?

An inuit panda production

Lady Panda

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