After selling more than four million copies of her first album "The Fame," Lady Gaga will release an additional eight tracks on a re-release of the extremely successful album. The newly expanded album, entitled "The Fame Monster," will be available tomorrow.
Lady Gaga, who received much critical acclaim for her first effort, has quickly become one of the more interesting celebrities to watch. Her outfits range from plastic bubbles to a molecule-like silver gyroscope to a lacy red crown that entirely covers her face to a "dress" made of quite a few Kermit the Frogs sown together. As far as insane (or, perhaps, insanely entertaining) behavior goes, Lady Gaga received some attention for her bloody performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, but Kanye West's interruption of the young Taylor Swift topped the Twitter world.
Lady Gaga claims inspiration from David Bowie, and like Bowie, she has blurred the gender line. Rumors that she is a hermaphrodite abound, although her scantily clad outings seem to prove otherwise. The singer actually takes her name from the song "Radio Ga Ga," by another of her idols, Queen. Beyond her catchy dance music, Lady Gaga has an opportunity to become as big as some of her pop predecessors.
In addition to putting on spectacular live performances, Lady Gaga has moved into crafting amazingly absurd and visually stunning music videos. Each of her videos seems to be deliberately more ridiculous and more impressive than the last. The most recent, "Bad Romance," makes puns out of Hitchcock, sets a gold-chinned man on fire and, on occasion, makes Gaga look normal.
"The Fame Monster" will be an album about Gaga's greatest fears and a depiction of fame from one who has experienced an extreme surge of it. Through all of the craziness, though, Lady Gaga claims that she never forgets her fans. "The Fame Monster" will be affordable, at least according to Gaga, and it should be considered a standalone album. Nevertheless, it will be sold along with the original "The Fame" in order to provide maximum access to Gaga. For those seeking an almost disturbing amount of interaction with the star, the deluxe version will apparently contain a lock of hair from one of her many wigs.
Lady Gaga wrote "The Fame Monster" while watching fashion shows on mute, and she believes that it will be an ideal soundtrack for such events. This, in fact, is one of the greatest things about Gaga: despite all the madness surrounding her and her behavior, she writes her own music. By the age of four, she was playing the piano by ear, and her entire life to this point seems to have been influenced by and lived through music. Working in various burlesque shows after attending both a Catholic school and the Tisch School of Arts, she doggedly pursued a career in music. She ended up writing for many well-known artists, including Fergie, Britney Spears and Akon, who ultimately signed her.
For her entire life, Lady Gaga has pursued this musical career, and now that she has found success her voice will finally be heard. Let's hope she has something worthwhile to say.
