Gaga 4 Lady

I'll admit I didn't get her at first. There's poser and poseur and she was the former (with David Bowie at the height of his glam days as the classic latter). I saw her perform "Just Dance" on some show and thought, meh.

The conversion started on an airplane ride, Virgin America, where you can watch a collection of free music videos on the back of the seat in front of you along with all your TV, music and paid movie choices. One after another I started a music video and flipped it off quickly, bored by the song of the imagery. The best of the bunch, the only one I watched to the end, was her "Poker Face."

Then came "Paparazzi" which was fine.

Then came "Bad Romance." The song with the zillion hooks. Just when you think you've got ahold of one of them, she pops in another. In parts it feels like you may have heard this or that melody before, but she's somehow cut them up and put them together with very quick changes so that a chorus feels like a break and a break feels like a verse. And the music video, which she is always the primary visionary on but was done with the collaboration of director Francis Lawrence, is extreme to say the least. This lady is working it out:

There's something womanish, something girlish, something funny and something downright scary about this Lady Gaga, at least how she's portraying herself here. The eyeless masks, the lower face masks, they're straight out of science fiction predictions from the 1950's (see Fritz Leiber's "Coming Attractions") and Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. The commodification of herself is clear with Russian prostitution theme and emphasized by the rows of notebook computers upping her worth. The humor of the wide-iris eye rolls and especially the post-pop art image that ends the video, lover fried to a crisp as her bra shoots sparks, you gotta imagine she's laughing with glee when she watches those parts herself. As with her music awards performances where she stains herself with blood or ashes, she's got that youthful desire to shock...as well as sell.

For a musical artist to become as successful as she has as fast as she has, outrageous was the only way to go. Think Madonna in 1983, now with a three decade-long string of dance floor hits. As with some of the earlier divas, her first fanbase was her gay fanbase, where danceable, flamboyant, tongue-in-cheek suffering can find an early home before spreading to the masses.

There's still something unseemly about her commodification of herself, the very thing that turned me off on that first viewing. While bolstering her fame, and her albums are entitled The Fame and The Fame Monster, it clouds the view of her talent, much as her hair, make-up and costumes make it difficult to get a bead on her looks. I don't doubt that there's a shot at film acting in her future, but no guarantee that it will stick. Except for her own obvious perseverance.

At heart she's a New York City girl, born and raised, did some time at NYU, wrote some songs for others and struggled to get a deal for a few years, but she's just 23 years old and already on top of charts all over the world. Whether she'll be able to keep pounding out the hooks, only the future can tell. But last week I was in a bar in Washington, D.C., and when this song came on the jukebox all the women sang along.

As for me, I always perk up at the Alfred Hitchcock references:

"I want your psycho, your vertigo shtick/ Want you in my rear window, baby you're sick."

All she needs to do is add Notorious and she's got my top four.