Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.
As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatles’ songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.
So with that, let’s get started
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born on March 28, 1986 in Manhattan, New York City. Germanotta began playing the piano at age four when her mother insisted she become “a cultured young woman”. She took piano lessons and practiced through her childhood. The lessons taught her to create music by ear, which she preferred over reading sheet music. Her parents encouraged her to pursue music, and enrolled her in music camp, which is probably nothing like Camp Rock but I’m going to pretend it was Lady Gaga singing with the Jonas Brothers instead of Demi Lovato. In 2003, at age 17, Gaga gained early admission to New York University’s School of the Arts. She studied music there, and improved her songwriting skills by writing essays on art, religion, social issues and politics, including a thesis on pop artists. Which, as someone who has been writing about pop artists for 7 months now, sounds like exactly what I’m doing now. So yes, you’re reading a blog written by the next Lady Gaga, congratulations. She then realized that she learned everything she needed to learned from college and withdrew from the school in 2005 to begin her music career. She performed gigs across NYC and was eventually discovered by a talent scout. She was signed to a record label in 2006 but was dropped 3 months later for failing to stick out in a crowd. Which is the funniest thing I think I ever read, imagine losing LADY GAGA because you thought she was bland. Hilarious. Anyway, she began performing at neo-burlesque shows, which according to her represented freedom, and is where she began to mold her onstage persona. During this time, she met performance artist Lady Starlight, who she began collaborating with. The pair began performing at downtown club venues, adopting the stage name “Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue” and billed as “The Ultimate Pop Burlesque Rockshow”. It was a tribute to 1970s variety acts. They performed at the 2007 Lollapalooza Music Festival. The more they performed, the more Gaga began to incorporate pop melodies and the glam rock style of David Bowie and Queen into her songs. To pay the bills, she also was a song writer, writing songs for Britney Spears, New Kids on the Block, Fergie, and The Pussycat Dolls. (I did not know until now that Lady Gaga had a hand in crafting some of my favorite artists music. There is a new found respect for her. Long live Queen Gaga). It was during this time she got introduced to Akon, who was impressed with her singing ability and he convinced his label boss to sign her to Konvict Music, to be the label’s feature player. In early to 2008 she relocated to LA to work on her debut album. Less than 6 months later, in August 2008, she released The Fame. This album showed the world who Lady Gaga was, she came out swinging. The album sold over 5 million copies but it was the songs that made this album huge. She had two songs go number one (Just Dance, Poker Face), a song go number 5 (LoveGame), and number 6 (Paparazzi). At one point Poker Face was the best digital selling song off all time. (WARNING: I am about to show a little bias here towards one of my favorite acts). Despite this album being a mega success Miss Gaga still wasn’t bigger than the Pussycat Dolls yet and found herself as their opening act on their Doll Domination tour. While traveling the globe, she wrote eight songs for The Fame Monster, an EP but due to its success a lot of people consider it her second album. It was released in September 2009. Much like its predecessor, it had an array of hits, having songs chart at 2 (Bad Romance) , 3 (Telephone), and 5 (Alejandro). Both of these albums lead her to win 3 Grammy Awards. She was finally big enough to stop performing in the Pussycat Dolls shadow and embarked on her first tour. The Monster Ball Tour ran from November 2009 to May 2011 and grossed $227.4 million, making it the highest-grossing concert tour for a debut headlining artist ever. In February 2011, Gaga released Born This Way, the lead single from her studio album of the same name. It debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the 1,000th number-one single in the history of the charts. Born This Way (the album) spawned songs that hit number 3 (Edge of Glory), 6 (You & I), and number 10 (Judas). The success Lady Gaga saw was unprecedented, after 2.5 albums every single single she released was a top 10 hit. She has the record for most consecutive top 10 hits to begin a career with 12 and its fair to say that will never be broken. She embarked on the Born This Way Ball tour in April 2012, which was scheduled to conclude the following March, but ended one month earlier when Gaga canceled the remaining dates due to a labral tear of her right hip that required surgery. While refunds for the cancellations were estimated to be worth $25 million, the tour still grossed a total of $183.9 million globally. Lady Gaga broke off from the Konvict label before she started working on her third album and it suffered as a result. Artpop was released in November 2013 and, despite having a top 5 (Applause) and top 15 hit (Do What U Want), it didn’t come close to any of her prior releases. Maybe it was the untouchable expectations, maybe it was just her experimenting with a new sound, regardless, this album was a step back. In 2014 she worked with Tony Bennett in a joint album but I’m not 90 years old so we’re not gonna talk about it, however it did win her another Grammy and another 100 million in touring revenue. After spending all of 2015 and a majority of 2016 acting, we got her fifth album Joanne in September 2016. Much like Artpop it had songs chart in the top 5 (Million Reasons) and top 15 (Perfect Illusion). She performed at the Super Bowl LI Halftime Show 5 months later and was met with critical acclaim. In 2018 she started alongside Bradley Cooper in A Star is Born. She was nominated for an Oscar for Best Female in a leading role and had a collaborative song with Cooper go number 1 (Shallow). With how acclaimed her acting has been and having numerous movie roles lined up for 2020, I’m not sure the next time we get more music from Lady Gaga. Hopefully the wait isn’t too long, music is a better place when Gaga is on the radio and that’s just a fact.
Lady Gaga’s peak was one of the largest strings of dominance ever. When Gaga was on top, she was truly untouchable. Very few artists have reached the levels she did. While I’m not a die hard Lady Gaga fan, I have no issues saying that Gaga is the best female artist of the 2010s – she writes her own songs, she has a revolutionary vision for music, she is an outstanding performer, she has style – she’s the full package. Let’s rank her hits.
Toughest Omission: Shallow (with Bradley Cooper): If you include this in your top 5 it is because it is a product of recency bias. It’s good but there are better Lady Gaga songs out there. I contradict myself by then saying that it did win an Academy Award but I am putting this song here because I don’t need people yelling at me telling them I’m not respecting Shallow enough. One song I do want to mention that often gets overlooked due to the massive hits on The Fame is LoveGame – that song is a bop and a half.
5. Paparazzi: Her performance of this song at the 2009 VMAs was a star making performance. This is how you announce your arrival. Honestly its probably one of the best live performances of all time. I’m linking both the performance and the music video.
4. Just Dance (ft Colby O’Donis & Akon): Who can forget the song that started it all. I’ll always fondly remember this song as the one that kickstarted the career of Colby O’Donis.
3. Born This Way: One of the craziest facts I learned while doing my research for this blog is that she wrote this song in 10 minutes. Lady Gaga was so ahead of her time. They don’t make stars like this anyone, she doesn’t nearly get the credit she deserves.
2. Bad Romance: I’ve been a free bitch ever since this song came out . The final chorus is one of THE most explosive moments in pop music. That momentary pause after the second repetition of “Want your bad Romance” before it kicks back in is just fucking amazing.
1. Poker Face: One of the craziest facts I learned while doing my research for this blog is that she ALSO wrote this song in 10 minutes. Legit took Gaga 20 minutes to write two of her biggest hits. This blog has taken me 2 hours, unbelievable. As for the song itself, the intro to it is out of this world, one of the best if you ask me.
This was one of the hardest rankings I’ve done. Lady Gaga has a ton of fucking hits. I almost opened this up to a top 10 but I chose against it. (We hold Britney in the highest regard here). Regardless, during her peak, everything Lady Gaga did was making news. One thing she was especially known for early on were the strange outfits she’d wear. Here are some of the best in no particular order.
This is the GOAT
Your Turn.
If you had a blog and were to rank every Lady Gaga song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Album |
| Just Dance | 2008 | 1 | The Fame |
| Poker Face | 2008 | 1 | The Fame |
| LoveGame | 2009 | 5 | The Fame |
| Paparazzi | 2009 | 6 | The Fame |
| Bad Romance | 2009 | 2 | The Fame Monster |
| Telephone (ft Beyonce) | 2010 | 3 | The Fame Monster |
| Alejandro | 2010 | 5 | The Fame Monster |
| Born This Way | 2011 | 1 | Born This Way |
| Judas | 2011 | 10 | Born This Way |
| Edge of Glory | 2011 | 3 | Born This Way |
| You & I | 2011 | 6 | Born This Way |
| Applause | 2013 | 4 | ArtPop |
| Do What U Want (ft. R. Kelly) | 2013 | 13 | ArtPop |
| Perfect Illusion | 2016 | 15 | Joanne |
| Million Reasons | 2016 | 4 | Joanne |
| Shallow | 2018 | 1 | A Star is Born |
Vin'sane Thoughts 