Lady GaGa — The Fame Monster

It's pretty easy to think Lady GaGa's lyrics are about nothing.

Sure, you could argue she's more about image over actual ideas, a prime example of style over substance, but the fact remains the eight songs on The Fame Monster are great.

Technically, this is a new album, but limited edition versions of it come with an additional disc that includes all of last year's The Fame. The eight new songs are better than anything on that latter disc, with the possible exception of "Poker Face."

The "ra ra" hook in "Bad Romance" obviously cops from Boney M's "Rasputin," and you could probably get away with saying GaGa's just stealing an idea from Madonna (truthfully, she does this a lot — but at least she acknowledges it), who sampled that track on "Hung Up." Still, it's undeniably catchy and you'll probably have it in your head for days after you hear it.

"Alejandro" borrows a thing or two from ABBA's "Fernando" and "Dance In The Dark," with its lyrics about the perils of being a diva, is GaGa at her absolute best. Name-checking the likes of Princess Diana and JonBenet Ramsey might not make sense, but they, just like Marilyn Monroe, died young. It's not exactly a defining statement on the difficulties of being famous and female, but it comes pretty close.

"Speechless," which plays at classic rock, sounds a hell of a lot like The Beatles and it's unfortunately a flop. It's as if GaGa is trying to branch out and prove she's about much more than singing about disco sticks.

It remains to be seen whether GaGa can use her talents to do more than just write straight-ahead disco songs, and it's also possible her image could eventually make her irrelevant. (One day it's not going to become newsworthy anymore to point out that something GaGa is wearing is "weird.")

Whether she'll be able to transcend her image and show us she's a true artist is something that has to be left up to future albums, though. Right now we've got The Fame Monster, and it's great.

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