We live for the fame

Okay, so I've got to talk about Lady GaGa for a while. Now, I don't use the 'F' word easily, but this girl is fierce. All of the gays have been buzzing about her for months, and her album just came out today.

On first pass, I was totally blown away. Now, I've been listening to her singles, so I knew pretty much to expect. What I didn't expect was the total consistency of her album. Most pop albums have at least 40-50% filler which you generally skip to listen to the singles. However, every single track is amazing, which is incredibly rare. I also expected it to be much gayer than it is. However, it turned out to be more straight-up pop than the pure dance music that I expected.

Of course, it is most definitely a pop album. It was clearly carefully crafted to appeal to large numbers of people. You've got the catchy choruses and requisite guest spots by other artists designed to draw in listeners by association. There's a somewhat suspect variety of musical styles, so that they can tailor future singles to audience reactions (or maybe she's just showing her range and I'm being cynical). I mean, it's pretty obvious that Lady GaGa is carefully constructing her own image to sell albums. You've got the contrived name (obviously), plus the ridiculous unitards and shoulder pads and glam makeup that she wears. But somehow the quality of the music shines through all that. And by quality, I mean catchiness and sheer dancibility of it all.

To be honest, I think that this is the best pop album, all around, that I've ever heard. This is the solo album that Gwen Stefani should have come out with. She's amazing. And she's younger than me, which is just frightening.

In costume news, I have now completed my genie costume and now need to do accessories and do my barbarian costume. I've got a Starbucks liqueur bottle that's got a good shape, so I'm thinking of decorating/painting that, and maybe I'll try to make slippers.