Pop At Its Best: ‘Fame Monster’

Atticus Gregory Upton Lewis/Columnist

“The Fame Monster” by Lady Gaga is one of the best pop albums of all time. Lady Gaga brings  dark and gritty tones and lyrics to enthrall us. With this album, she cemented her legacy as one of the greatest pop artists of all time. 

“The Fame Monster” was originally intended to be a deluxe edition to her album “The Fame” but due to expenses and tonal clashes, was made part of a double album deluxe edition that included “The Fame” on a separate disk. 

This album is a huge break from “The Fame” and was darker and more gothic in sound, which matches the nature of the lyrics. “The Fame Monster” was inspired by the many monsters Lady Gaga met on her tour for “The Fame,” with each track representing a monster of sorts, focusing on the pairing of sex and death. 

“Bad Romance” was the lead single for the track and immediately sets the tone. It takes the perspective of a woman desperately demanding love from a man, flaws and all. She wants the drama, the sex, the love, and even the psycho, even coming across as psycho herself. She wants her lover to be as obsessed with her as she is with him. This track represents a fear of loving personified in its most gruesome way. 

The second track, “Alejandro,” is about saying goodbye to the one who gave you such a good time, so to speak. This could also be interpreted as her saying goodbye to a more exotic lifestyle as she describes saying goodbye to several different men. I feel like there’s a great deal of tonal whiplash compared to the first track. This track is playing off of that by representing a fear of being loved. 

The third track, “Monster,” describes a womanizer and playboy who worms his way into the hearts and minds of women. When she speaks to her friend, her friend doesn’t remember if they’ve had sex or even met with the man in question. With the overall theme of the song being a fear of being taken advantage of stemming from a general fear of sex, I see this as an allusion to date-rape. 

The fourth track, “Speechless,” is about Lady Gaga’s fear of death due to her father. She wrote the song after her father called her and told her he was having heart surgery and was at risk of dying. She compares alcohol to an abusive man and her father to an abused woman. How, eventually, it will kill her/him. Seeing her father’s/her friend’s response to her worries makes her, “Speechless.” 

The fifth track, “Dance in the Dark,” is a fear of what Lady Gaga believes to be her own fate. She fears being so endlessly forced to take beauty enhancers like silicone and saline due to the hatred of her own body by others. I say this is a fear of her own fate, because this was the standard for so many female celebrities and it made them miserable. In the cases of the women she mentions in the track by name, they were killed by it. Which is why the woman in the song has sex with the lights off; she hates her own body. Whether this is due to outside beauty standards or how she can no longer recognize it as her own after the modifications, is up to the listener.

The sixth track, “Telephone,” is about a fear of being restrained from doing what you love. In the song, she doesn’t answer her lover’s phone, instead continuing to dance. While the track does describe being restrained by a relationship, the track really represents how Lady Gaga doesn’t do what she loves as much anymore due to how much her work gets in the way. This track also includes a beautiful collaboration with Beyonce. 

The seventh track, “So Happy I Could Die,” is about herself. How much she loves herself, in more ways than one, with self care and sex taking center stage. You could interpret this track as a fear of vanity or of confronting yourself on your issues. Lady Gaga has also said that alcohol is the monster in this song, with how she uses it to avoid dealing with vanity and following her father’s footsteps in alcoholism. She has said the track represents both interpretations. 

The final track, “Teeth,” is this sexual gospel track which is about a fear of truth. Truth being represented by sex in this context, specifically oral. She wants the person she’s having sex with to be honest with her through his actions. Being rough and not afraid to hurt her isn’t just about the sex, it’s about being told the truth, even if it’s painful. 

This album is Lady Gaga at her best. It is one of the best pop albums of all time and is a perfect record in my eyes. She showed with this not just her talent as an artist, but as a diverse lyricist who can cover dense and complex themes in new ways. She innovated not just for herself, but for the entire pop genre. She has permanently cemented her legacy in music history.