via//chicago

np: "Speechless" - Lady GaGa

I was convinced it would never ever happen, but it finally did. It was a slow process, albeit one much less painful than I expected. Yes, I finally gave in to the hype and started kinda-sorta loving Lady GaGa. I was pretty much indifferent to her first single, "Just Dance". Despite its ubiquity I wrote her off as another Cascada, tossing off dance-pop fluff that didn't leave much of an impression. I absolutely hated the next two singles, "Poker Face" and "Lovegame", particularly the latter. The more I had these songs shoved down my throat, the more I wanted to despise this girl and deny the talent. People like stupid things and I hoped the masses would move on to someone else soon enough. Then a funny thing happened. Kid Cudi put "Poker Face" to great use on his single "Make Her Say" and repeated plays of that eventually softened me on GaGa's original. Still wouldn't say I liked it, but was less enraged when it came on the radio. Then "Paparazzi" came out and my resolve weakened. I hated it at first, my kneejerk reaction to GaGa's inexplicable success fully intact. As with many of pop's more notorious earworms, repeated airings allowed me to cozy up to the song's charms, of which it has plenty. Then the lead single for extended EP The Fame Monster, "Bad Romance", dropped. And this one hit me immediately, I was smitten from the start. I felt like all of the buzz around GaGa was suddenly justified by this one track. With a $15 Best Buy gift card burning a hole in my pocket, I decided to take the plunge and picked up the expanded Fame Monster that also contained her debut, The Fame, in whole. While I still haven't grown to love that full-length, I've already grown to love each and every track on the new EP. I love the ABBA biting "Alejandro". I love the track with Beyonce. I love the weirdly absurd "Teeth". I love the bounce and Madonna vibe of "Dance In the Dark". I'm not going to write her off any longer, in fact, I'll be looking forward to see where she goes next. The girl is exactly the kind of versatile hurricane that pop music needs right now, it'll be fun to see where and how she next pops up.