Sometimes it’s hard to believe that chart-Queen Lady GaGa‘s big break only occured in 2008. Indeed, that time to now has seen the Pop force create a lane of her own and become a pioneer – doing in three years what many of her peers have tried their whole careers to achieve. So speedy has her musical and physical evolution been that it genuinely feels like she’s been here forever. As such, her ‘Just Dance’ days now seem many moons old.
This week’s From The Vault takes aim with GaGa of yesteryear and her ‘LoveGame’ – the third single (or fourth depending on your region) to be lifted from her first opus, ‘The Fame’.
The RedOne helmed tune is a gritty number exploring themes such as love, sex and of course fame. While it possesses all the ingredients to a Pop-record, what’s interesting about the cut is how seamlessly it fuses those sensibilities with a particular Urban edge. That Hip-Hop/R&B undercurrent which was ever present throughout the ‘The Fame’ era; an undercurrent which seems to be long gone judging from the ‘Judas’ singer most recent material. Rather unfortunate, we must say.
The accompanying visual is a high-energy dance video and showcases Stefani and her dancers going all out in a subway station and was really the first of many dance-oriented videos she would go on deliver. While GaGa has always cited Michael and Janet Jackson as some of her influences, the LoveGame video demonstrates just how much, for it has a strong air of “Jackson” to it.
With the “Born This Way” singer experiencing critical acclaim and commercial success with her latest Electro-Pop output, we won’t hold our breath waiting for an “Urban-GaGa” resurgence anytime soon.
No matter the kind of music she’s churning out, let’s hope GaGa can continue to raise the bar for artists the world pver and inspire them to push the enveloppe musically and visually… that is of course if her rapid rise to fame doesn’t result in an even quicker fall, because you know what they say: “the brightest stars burn out the fastest”.
Only time will tell…