Robert Christgau, still the reigning dean of rock music critics, took sufficient notice of Lady Gaga to reposition her in the context of her obvious precursor, Madonna, noting that both are “gay-friendly Italian-American bottle blondes specializing in dance-derived pop” - but noting that the similarity ends there, especially where their music is concerned. He was also quick to point out the irony of that, given their shared proclivity to put more effort into their celebrity than their craft.6
Madonna had, in the course of her rise to Eighties superstardom, set the bar high; she was garish, outlandish, mildly obscene – and, of course, Marilyn Monroe-beautiful, a new hurdle that hadn’t obstructed predecessors like Cher or Yvonne Elliman or Kiki Dee. Add to the mix MTV, which Madonna milked until it screamed for mercy, and you have a recipe for exclusivity that turned away who-knows-how-many worthy women of pop/rock artistry.
Ironic, then, that Lady Gaga’s own record label initially valued her far more for her songwriting than her façade, once declaring her “not pretty enough to be a pop star,” as Christgau records it. She proceeded, then, not only to rise to absolute pop dominance as the first dancing queen in 30 years to out-Madonna Madonna (in the same sense that Jack Bauer makes Chuck Norris cry), but to present as demonstrably smarter, stronger, and funnier in the process. Madonna took ownership of the pop landscape; Gaga is systematically ripping it out and rebuilding it.
Christgau goes on to size the two up quantitatively, counting for Madonna 15 great songs lifted from six albums across seven years in her career-defining album The Immaculate Collection in 1990, noting that she co-wrote 11 of them (she was 32 at the time). Madonna, he tallies, had managed 43 songs of substance by then. He then credits Gaga with 39 songs of substance in a mere three years, between her 2008 debut and her 25th birthday (the age Madonna was when she got started) - and she has composer credit on every single one.
More than a decade on, it’s now impossible to confuse Gaga with Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera or Katy Perry or anyone else living in the House Madonna Built. She simply defines an altogether superior class of artist - and she has not only the numbers and artifacts to justify it, but the fan base.
It’s not just that this fan base is so vast; it’s that they are so clearly of-a-kind. She calls them her “monsters”, and has bonded with them in a way that defines her as both an artist and a human being. It’s not about her, or her fame, or even her music; it’s about her otherness, which she unapologetically parades, and which she encourages in her monsters. “It’s okay to be abnormal.” That kind of bond commands, especially in the Millennial moment, fanatic loyalty.
As far as the music goes, though, she certainly stands apart from Madonna and her peers in how her own work presents. It is not only more in-your-face, uncensored, shit-storm blunt and disco-demolition-pulsating than anything that ever came before it; it's very deliberately designed to be all those things, as if she is tinkering with the DNA of pop/rock itself. That takes huge balls (tempting us to recall that it was once speculated that she was a for-real hermaphrodite), to say nothing of gargantuan talent. And yet, her agenda – and she certainly has one – is ultimately benign.
That she is celebrated by the LGBTQ community cannot surprise anyone, but her emotional outreach is broader still; she contributes money to the homeless in truckloads, maintains her welcoming façade in public without fail, and is never, ever less than kind and accepting offstage. She has the ego to dare to reinvent music in the 21st century, and the heart to not be an asshole while she’s doing it.
Which brings us back to the celebrity thing. “Poker Face” is one thing; she needed a pass to get through the door, early on. But “Bad Romance”? That’s Joan Jett and Debbie Harry having a baby, and letting Tina Turner dress it. It confirms our suspicion that Gaga is in essence a rock chick masquerading, out of compassionate necessity, as a dance diva.
And if the whole dance diva thing is cultivated celebrity, we have to parse the side of it that exists to create a safe place for her monsters, versus the side of it that opens up her access to the industry she’s not-so-quietly re-engineering. But even this question withers into irrelevance when we consider that Gaga has by this time revealed herself, consciously or not, as ultimately indifferent to fame in the first place. Celebrity is not a pursuit; it’s a means to an end. To contemplate that end, we must really scrutinize the woman herself.
That turns out to not be so hard to do. Gaga’s over-the-top video canon and breathtakingly gaudy stagework may be calculated to make her seem like a party animal, but that’s only so her monsters can feel the intimate connection with her that arrives with the realization that she’s anything but. Anyone paying attention at all can see through the façade and understand what she’s doing: she’s doubling down on the show to call attention to it, not as mere experience, but as backdoor message. Like Bob Dylan before her, she understands that “fame” is a recognition that is most satisfying when it comes from oneself, not the slavering mob; and its ultimate intimacy is truly conveyed to followers as a secret, not a spectacle. In pouring so much money and effort into the spectacle, she’s actually passing along the secret, to anyone who’s really interested. If you can see beyond all this, you’re someone special – let's hang out!
And, wow, does she go for it; her workaholism is enough to make Paul McCartney feel worn out. She is relentless, a force of nature - the greatest artist since perhaps the Beatles to have the raw talent and industry to craft her celebrity into game-changing art in itself, and constructively deploy it, not as drug or superhero cape, but as a lightsaber – and she has both the skill and the brains to bring it down, with undeniable force and authority, on a musical edifice in dire need of renovation.
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