The Fame

This one really should have been on the main list as a defining album of the time. I don't want to say "Just" good pop as it's intelligent, retro and also futuristic, with synth sounds and catchy beats, pushing boundaries in the mainstream as good pop should. The first 4 songs are all instant impactful classics, the last half of the album sags and drags a little with an awful lot of autotune, but it was the 2000's. This is an album you can genuinely say helped push social change, even if it is to the mainstream, that's not a bad thing. normalising different mindsets as opposed to a standard blonde teenage which was the late 90s and has come back with Swift/ Carpenter. That first half of the album and the impact of the album at the time pushes it to a 5

Quite a debut! A few songs that I didn’t need to hear again but the highs are high enough to more than make up for those.

I am agog that this is the first Lady Gaga to make the list!!! Most of her albums should be here.

Though it was easy to dunk on her at the time, there's no denying Gaga was visionary and highly influential – she essentially set the stage for pop to come, wrapping her music and public persona in attention-grabbing showmanship that is part and parcel of today's releases. 15+ years on and the songs here still hold up, infectiously catchy and just a tad goofy but still genuine. The LP leans more heavily into four-on-the-floor dance rhythms than I recall, but that explains how it dovetailed so nicely with the EDM boom that was right around the corner. The lyricism can get relatively deep by pop standards (nonsense aside), and Germanotta has the vocals to back up even the silliest of choruses and make them feel dead serious. This is definitely getting a nostalgia boost as it was everywhere during my teens, but even though it's not in my wheelhouse, this album isn't a bad listen at all. Love her or hate her, Gaga knows what she's doing and she does it well.

An absolute essential in history. But to put this on personally I couldn't imagine. 4 Dammit how was she just 21 Album lacks halfway through 3

This debut album of popstar Lady Gaga is heavy loaded with hits at the beginning (Just Dance, LoveGame, Paparazzi, Eh Eh and Poker Face), but it goes downhill after these tracks.

Rating: 9/10 Best songs: Just dance, LoveGame, Paparazzi, Poker face, The fame, Money honey, Starstruck, Disco heaven

Innovative and retro at the same time, this was a big, marvelous breakthrough album.

Not many 21 year olds jump out of the gate this strong for a debut, especially since she was principal songwriter for every song. Always had a soft spot for "Paparazzi" and "Poker Face". It's not my preferred genre, but I recognize talent. She'll be famous for a very long time, thanks primarily to the quick start she got with this album.

Never listened to that much of this artist other than whatever megahit was dominating some channel of pop media I happened to intersect with. Now that she's made the full transition to cultural icon up to and including real deal movie star it's interesting to reflect how much I'd forgotten this early version, more visibly hungry and a little lower rent. I like it, though it still feels very manufactured for the star-maker machine.

I wasn't aware how many absolute bangers were on this album! I had thought that these songs were on several albums.

Oh 2008, take us back

This was a lot of fun. One of the stronger debut albums to come out of the last 20 years. Fave Songs: Paparazzi, Poker Face, Just Dance,

Not my favorite type of music, but I have to respect Lady Gaga, both for her musical talent and as a person. 3 stars.

Lady Gaga’s first album really does have some classics in it. It’s definitely more poppy than I expected as some songs felt very much early 2000s but the club hits were the real decade changers that hold up well as far as pop goes. Her vocal ability has always been quite impressive. Pretty good album overall. 6.4/10

if we're talking the history of pop music this absolutely should have been on the list! I however suspect that personal biases separates certain eras of pop music as "important" and "unimportant" in the minds of the author(s). This isn't a darling to me either, but in terms of presence Gaga is unquestionable. And the hits are the hits

As is almost always the case with these albums, they lull you into thinking it's going to be a banger by putting all the cool songs you know at the beginning. Then you get past that and the other 80% of the album sounds like fake music from a Disney Channel sitcom. Put a gun to my head and ask me to tell you any word sung or any note played in any of the songs after "Poker Face" and I'd tell you to shoot me in the head. Strong 2/5.

It is possibly the most influential album of the ‘00s. I was fascinated to find out that The Fame Monster was the cutting room floor tracks off of this disc. Impressive, indeed. Definitely belongs on the list, no matter what your taste is - it changed modern music.

Loved this album when it came out. Not sure it has the same impact now. I think Lady Gaga is amazing though.

Young Faga was very fresh.

Electropop, synth-pop, dance-pop. Pop comercial. Ni fu ni fa.

Not the biggest fan. Won't follow her until I love her

Obviously I've heard the singles but otherwise I had never listened to this album before. I thought this fell pretty flat. I get this was huge in the 2000s but there wasn't anything exciting in this for me.

I was working in a pub at uni when this album's a singles were hot. It was constant. They're not bad songs tbh. The rest of it isn't too bad. It's a bit inconsistent style-wise song to song, just because there are 3000 different writers on the album, but that's always the case with this music. And lots of it isn't exactly worthy of the "artiste" label she's managed to attract (see: the lyrics to just dance, love game, paparazzi... actually just the whole fucking thing). Even when it's not really cringe disco sex nonsense, the lyrics are still pretty blunt and artless, tbh. Really it's just shit that makes gay guys go "hee hee!!! What a QUEEN!" Which was probably the goal, really. Definitely way worse out there though. Catchy enough for that "modern synthpop" stuff. 3/5.

I couldn’t avoid this album during my 2nd year of uni, constantly played in every club/pub/party we went to. So was big but not really music I care for now.

Maybe I’m a monsterrrrrrrr

Pretty good