Immoral Manufacture

It has taken me a wee while to properly accept The Fame by Lady Gaga as an actual album, it's like the same engine suddenly using different petrol in parts. A lingering highlight for me is the very sunny Stefani sounding Summer Boy, the swaggering dizziness of Disco Heaven is almost languid nu-wave pop perfection (as is the chugging blissful chorus to Boys Boys Boys which could have featured in Clueless for all it's playfully stuck up campness), I Like It Rough has a middle 8 that rings really true, Poker Face certainly flexes the same muscle as Just Dance but it's more ripped and heavy-duty. Initially I thought a sagging point was Again Again, a familiar-sounding ballad that's a bit of an empty tank, as I believe she will have better (more depressing) melancholy than that in her still to come. Brown Eyes is better; a bit of a waster-ballad, down on your luck and almost enjoying it- a grower now that I am listening to it once again. Too bad Retro, Dance, Freak isn't on the UK edition, 'shut down like software' is a cute lyric. I do prefer Heidi's gatecrashing 'Heidi!' version of Fashion, but Gaga sings it too low that's all - it's a song that actually sounds as if travelling down the conveyor belt of immoral pop song manufacture if there ever was such a thing. The Fame should tag Montag's version on at the end, as for her it's a victory along the lines of asking for a refund without the receit and getting away with it.