1) Bad Romance; 2) Alejandro; 3) Monster; 4) Speechless; 5) Dance in the Dark; 6) Telephone (feat. Beyoncé); 7) So Happy I Could Die; 8) Teeth
A reissue bonus disc so strong it broke free and became its own era. This is where Gaga's journey really starts.
Key tracks: "Bad Romance", "Dance in the Dark", "Telephone"
The Fame Monster was originally intended to be - and in some regions packaged as - just a deluxe re-release bonus disc for The Fame, arriving just a little over a year after its parent album, as was the trend in the late 00s music industry. But think about that, really: this was written and recorded during a really short time period (especially considering how much the promotional circuit for The Fame stretched after its success) and it was originally intended just as some token extras to pursue people to buy the album again. But something massive had happened with Lady Gaga within that year and The Fame Monster is far beyond being just an extension of its parent album and in fact, acts more as a re-establishment of who Gaga was. You could consider The Fame Monster as the real debut album by Lady Gaga as we know her now - and the fact that it’s long since broken away from its associations with The Fame and rebranded itself as an independent album further fuels that.
We can probably thank "Bad Romance" for that, which turned out to be the best possible song to relaunch yourself with. The RedOne production style familiar from The Fame is there bridge the gap, but everything else on "Bad Romance" is far more fearless and ambitious than anything available on the debut, and that applies most of all to Gaga herself. She’s gunning down the song with drama and surreality as she switches between voices, tones and languages on the fly, culminating in the middle eight and final chorus where she moves from obsessed to pleading as she belts out the words until they melt together. Bowie had always been her primary inspiration (check out that lightning facepaint all over The Fame) and while musically the two stars are light years apart, her performance here absolutely channels Bowie in its versatility and its mix of humanity and strangeness. She is the monster and “Bad Romance” is where she breaks out of her cage - and it’s a legitimate anthem as a piece of music as well. It’s a thundering pop song that posits itself on top of the world and has every right to be there, and it’s not just Gaga’s signature song but also a wake-up call to everyone who dismissed her after The Fame - a notification that she’s now taking control of where she’s heading.
The Fame Monster is Gaga's re-invention as a creative force after the tameness of The Fame and the thing is, "Bad Romance" isn't even the best thing on it. The most impressive, bombastic event? Absolutely, without a doubt. But she tops it at least twice afterwards, with "Dance in the Dark" and "Telephone". "Dance in the Dark" was never released as a single but it's hard to believe that was the case, given how absolutely essential to the Lady Gaga experience it sounds and how huge it acts - uniting so many of her common threads within one roof in a way that makes it a cornerstone in her discography. It updates and reinterprets the themes of "Just Dance" from The Fame - dance to distract yourself from your existential crisis, and set it a tightly-wound heavy-hitting beat - but it brings out those darker undertones more obviously to the surface and serves them with more grit and edge in the production and with some brilliant melodic hooks. It is, beyond anything, the superlative secret gem of The Fame Monster. Meanwhile "Telephone" is simply a straight-up banger, relentlessly and ruthlessly riding its dancefloor onslaught of a beat, vocal manipulation hooks and frighteningly effective chorus until it leaves you breathless. Beyoncé features but never overshadows, and unlike many big name star collaborations there's some actual chemistry to their vocal interplay, instead of simply riding on the novelty of celebrity billing. If "Bad Romance" is the reinvention and "Dance in the Dark" is the soul of Gaga's new flair, then "Telephone" is her showing that she can still write a straight-up club jam and make it sound as vital as anything else. And I say "at least twice" because I'm also tempted to include "Alejandro" in that top billing, which reinterprets the tropical twangs of 90s europop in Gaga’s own language, and pulls off a surreal kind of sensuality and lushness while its drums shuffle in almost military-like precision.
The other half of The Fame Monster doesn't bring the party down but it's clear they're playing second fiddle to their forerunners, though I say that with zero derision in mind. In particular, I really enjoy "So Happy I Could Die" and its only sin is how it feels a little safe and tame amidst everything else - it's by and far the most 'normal' song on the record and especially within the second half, though as a song alone it's still charming to the point that other pop musicians would fight to death for to have as a single, let alone a deep cut on their deluxe bonus disc. "Monster" meanwhile is the most obvious The Fame carryover, though still miles beyond the majority of the songs on that album, and while I really do dig its vocal effects and the back-and-forth between Gaga and the backing vocals, it's the sort of thing you would expect from a bonus track.
Meanwhile the closers of the two halves represent the furthest Gaga stretches herself stylistically on The Fame Monster, but it might just be a little too far. “Speechless” isn't actually too surprising - it's a big lighters-in-the-air classic rock anthem that she loves to indulge in, with big revving guitars around her piano and bombastic power ballad choruses that would have been right at home in a stadium in the 1980s. It's fine, but the problem with this particular strain of Gaga is that the she's seemingly able to only write one type of song within this style frame and once you've heard the best of its like (i.e. "Yoü and I" off Born This Way), the rest feel like demos on the way. At five minutes, "Speechless" also runs out of things to say well before it ends and through and through, it's the only real dip on the record. That's also partly because I genuinely have no idea what I think of "Teeth". It's a bizarre, ominously foreboding tribal stomp that's carried by a chant loop that cuts abruptly in a way that sounds downright unnerving, and it's unlike anything else in Gaga’s discography. It's a baffling song, and I absolutely appreciate its inclusion in the sense that if you wanted to show there's more to Gaga than "Poker Face" then this definitely does that, and it takes a certain amount of guts to finish a run of dance pop songs with it. But I'm not sure I actually like it as much as I respect it, as even though it is catchy it's also somewhat aimless. It's like a scare jump - surprising and memorable in its shock value, but doesn't leave a lasting impression beyond that initial surprise. I still forget how it goes after its intro.
The 'problem' with treating The Fame Monster as its own independent beast is how, despite its new ambitions, it does still feel like an assortment of songs rather than a specific entity - experiments for Gaga to carve her own path, under the veil of its parent album. Even that wouldn't necessarily be as noticeable if it wasn't for its length, which is both The Fame Monster's curse and blessing. While it has some chinks in its armour it's still an exhilarating ride of one-ups and twists one after another, but in the small company it keeps, each time it stumbles it has all the more impact. Not to besmirch it too much - The Fame Monster is a great condensed entryway into the Gagaverse and everything she would go on to do has a line leading up to it from somewhere within these eight songs. Keep in mind that this is strong enough to effectively obliterate The Fame in its wake as Gaga's real beginnings - but maybe if it had been built from the ground up as a full album, we could be talking about a true classic.
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