On Lady Gaga, Re-Releases and The Cracking of the Poker Face

Lady Gaga is going on tour.

Those six words are apparently enough to send any (gay) lover of pop music into a tailspin. When do tickets go on sale? Will the show sell out? How much are tickets going to cost? What will I wear? Will she love me? Is she God?

I am a (gay) lover of pop music. I am not, however, convinced that I care a whole lot about Lady Gaga’s tour. While I was once gaga for Gaga, my love affair with this singing art installation has wilted. And I’m rather afraid that it may be wilted beyond the point of no return.

The nail in the coffin that was my love for Lady Gaga is the upcoming release of The Fame Monster. One could call The Fame Monster Lady Gaga’s sophomore effort, the follow-up to her debut album, The Fame.

I call The Fame Monster a joke.

Instead of giving her fans a proper new album, Lady Gaga is simply re-releasing The Fame with eight new songs tacked on to the back of it. Instead of recording two or three more songs and releasing a full album of original material, this artist is choosing to ride on the shirttails of her existing success. She’s choosing to cushion the success of The Fame. She’s choosing to cheat her fans out of their money. She’s being rather unfair.

Lady Gaga would argue with me on those points, however. “I think re-releases are unfair,” she recently went on record as saying. “It’s artists sneaking singles onto an already finished piece of work in an effort to keep the album afloat. Originally [my label] only wanted me to put out three songs and now it’s much more than that. It’s a new album’s worth of material.”

Someone needs to correct her. The Fame Monster is a new album’s worth of material that is being packaged in conjunction with an old album’s worth of material. That, my dear, is a re-release. There’s no talking yourself out of that one. If you truly believe re-releases are unfair, you’d give us an album called Monster and leave The Fame in the past.

Lady Gaga is not the only recording artist who’s gone down this route in recent years. It’s becoming a very common marketing stunt, a way for record labels to capitalize on the success of a certain project. It’s a good plan for the pockets of record executives and their cronies.

For the fans, it sucks. It means shelling out money for a bunch of songs you already own so that you can get your hands on new material. Lady Gaga had it right when she said it’s unfair. And yet, she’s decided to re-release The Fame anyway.

I used to look at Lady Gaga and see a pop artist with promise. She was different. She was severe and exciting and intriguing. I thought she was someone who could really shake things up.

I feel now like I was wrong. Apparently she’s just like everyone else. She’s out for herself. She’s out for the money. She’s afraid of separating herself from the success she’s already found in order to explore the next phase of her career. She’s not nearly as brave as she portrays herself to be. She’s not an artist. She’s a puppet of the music business.

It’s not surprising. Everyone’s a puppet of someone else. Everyone’s in it for the money. It’s all just a little hard to swallow from a woman who tries so hard to convince the world that she’s a real artist who is in it for so much more.

Looks like, at the end of the day, Lady Gaga’s poker face is starting to crack.