Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster
Posted 25th Nov 2009 in Album Reviews, Lady Gaga by Andrzej Lukowski | EMI | 
Lady Gaga (or Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, should you be a stickler for such things) is a somewhat confusing woman, a talented songwriter who has (co-)written some of better mainstream pop songs of the last couple of years, yet finds herself viewed as something of a poor relation to the such atrocious bores as Beyonce or, heaven help us, Cheryl Cole. To be fair, if you will dress as the Village People's PA while singing songs about how brilliant being famous is and then becoming famous and going on a bit of a self-pity trip while shrieking about your bisexuality to anyone who'd listen, then possibly people will not take you entirely seriously. Though the thing about her being a hermaphrodite was a bit excessive.Anyway, to muddy the waters further comes The Fame Monster. As the name suggests, it was originally intended as a horribly cynical pre-Christmas expanded cashcow version of last year's smash debut album The Fame (already rereleased in slightly remixed form earlier this year). It's now anybody's guess as to what level of cynicism the current incarnation hovers at: the eight new songs are being flogged as a standalone record called The Fame Monster, but the deluxe edition includes all 16 tracks of The Fame on a second CD. Probably there's no point in worrying the integrity of the album as artistic statement when dealing with a woman whose songs are all about how awesome being minted is, and who boasts two tracks ('Just Dance' and 'Poker Face') that have legally sold over four million digital singles.
Take it on its own, and The Fame Monster is actually a hoot, a half hour electropop blast short enough to showcase Gaga's more interesting tendencies without becomming unduly clagged in filler or Eurodance homogeneity. Single 'Bad Romance' provides a fist pumping, singalong moment; 'Alehandro' does the whole sounds-a-bit-like-'La Isla Bonita' thing pretty well; 'Monster' is the club ballad; 'Speechless' the Queen-style 'rocker'; 'Dance in the Dark' the 'proper' dance song; the excellent closing 'Teeth' a slice of demonic future doo-wop. Concision of this kind is rare in the political 'how many LA songwriters can we possibly squeeze in?' waters of 21st century pop, so, like, nice one Stef.
On the other hand, listened to as the first act in a 24 track album and all becomes a bit of a wearying mass; there's little sense that this was recorded with the intent of having a different feel or sound to The Fame - she's still yakking on about stardom, and as a whole her more interesting musical quirks get slowly drowned by the default setting of 'uplifting' '90s-style dance production. 'Bad Romance' is a big hitter, 'tis true, but knowing you've got 'Poker Face' et al on the 'second' disc means there's a temptation not to bother with the new material unless you've got a lot of time spare. Ultimately, The Fame Monster has to be accounted a stopgap at best, an elaborate exercise in dead horse flogging at worst. But it's a reminder that Gaga is a prolific, talented songwriter, and thats never a bad thing.
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