Album Discussion #1

The Fame

I listened to “Just Dance” four months before it hit top forty radio. Scrolling through Britney Spears blogs, I read that some new singer wrote a song on the upcoming Circus album. Unlike most people, I bought The Fame its first week and hated it. The Fame seemed like the generic debut album from any other wannabe. Lady Gaga sang about “love games,” “dance,” and “fame,” perhaps the most cliché subjects for a pop songs Only her video looked weird, and by weird, I mean it resembled cheap furry porn.

Not until Gaga revealed herself as a postmodern artist in the “Paparazzi” video did I fall in love with the album. Till then, “Poker Face” sounded like catchy, annoying, nonsense. It took a queen I went on a date with to make me realize that Gaga was “bluffing with her muffin” and that her gender politics bled into her lyrics and her clothes. As I watched interviews with the odd singer, I started thinking about The Fame more. Early in her career, Gaga praised Warhol and explained that The Fame has nothing to do with money, sex, or love. Really? Songs like “Beautiful Dirty RICH” and “LOVEgame” have nothing to do with their titles? They seem like garbage!

But unlike its follow up, The Fame Monster, a great pop album that is literally just about love, fucking, dancing, telephones, and gay men, I didn’t realize that Gaga’s debut discusses something: Warholian philosophy. Her Vanity Fair cover explained how much of Gaga’s fame came from writing songs about fame before she became the biggest pop singer since Britney Spears. She fulfilled her own prophecy by making fame something tangible, something her fans could possess. To Gaga, fame means confidence: having money and love on the inside. Feeling like everyone’s watching you. She made into an emotion.

During the title track, she chases a teenage dream, where she possesses everything she ever wanted. “A life of material” isn’t cash, it’s something “untypical”, a happiness Americans associate with the Hollywood dream. She wants a man who loves her as intensely as the paparazzi follows Britney Spears, not Britney’s creepy paparazzo boyfriend. Gaga sings about fame as a metaphor for everything us Great Recession kids want and need: the ability to feel happy without a penny.