Lady GagaThey say if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I don’t know who “they” are but I’m going to assume they were talking about Lady GaGa. After all, it seems the entire musical universe is clamouring for a piece of her instant stardom.

It started with Kanye, Common and Kid Cudi, or at least that’s where I first caught on. They roughed up her acoustic version of “Poker Face” to the point of making it tolerable, even enjoyable. (I’m not even going to touch the fact that she has gone acoustic, except to say that watching the video is possibly more painful than the hangover of the drugs she has to be on.)

Despite the very obvious gibes at GaGa’s not-so-double entendres, “I Poke Her Face” is actually an incredible step up from anything the songstress has released on her own.

“Just Dance” was nearly my demise last summer as it somehow circulated more frequently than Sarah McLachlan on the soft rock radio station I listened to at my 9-5 desk job. So I made it my mission to publicly rally against her budding career for the rest of 2008, hoping she would have drifted off the airwaves come December. But now it’s June, and she has three more singles revving up for a summer of heavy rotation.

I could feel my protest deteriorating as 2009 wore on. I found myself joylessly bashing the ridiculous rhyming in “Disco Stick” while flinging my hair around to its beat at the club.  Just the other day, someone asked me if I’d heard “Paparazzi”.

“Never!!!” I nearly shouted. Little do they know, I had listened to it on MySpace earlier that day. And now here I was, humming the chorus to a song called “I Poke Her Face.”

It was about this time I officially gave up the ghost. Perhaps not all angles of Lady GaGa are quite as horrible as originally perceived, and there commenced the hunt for more gems. And more. And more. Because my god, it seems that everyone and their dog has taken it upon themselves to spin their own take on GaGa. There are mash-ups and electro-house remixes and syncs with just about every Britney Spears song in recent memory.

It was one day when I wasn’t hunting, though, rather glibly perusing the Interweb for some new gym music, that I came across my old pal Skratch Bastid. I caught him opening for Buck 65 last year and was impressed to the point of paying $10 for his burned CD of remixes. It served me well for a month or so before Mstrkrft and Girl Talk caught my eye. (Sorry, Bastid.)

But the man is back, and guess who he’s back with? GaGa. Yep, right there on his brand new website at the top of the page he has posted a remix of “Chillin” by Wale ft. Lady GaGa. I should have known, but I guess I was in denial that such a stand-up Canadian would stoop to the low of our Southern neighbor’s tasteless ways.

In the name of research, I played the song. And in the name of all things holy, I loved it. This was my first brush with Wale, who also seems to have spread like wildfire. (”Chillin” popped up as a suggested listen when I was YouTubing Eminem’s “3 A.M.”) At this point, though, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Wale has received rave reviews from every hip-hop lover I know, and my relationship with Lady GaGa was now so complicated even Jerry Springer couldn’t sort it out. By default, then, I ended up listening with an open mind.

And to be honest, if I hadn’t seen her heavily-banged blonde head bobbing in the background, I wouldn’t have know it was Lady GaGa. She is all non-chalance, waiting patiently behind Wale - instead of air-humping the camera like usual - allowing him to spit a sick verse about his shoes, his cars, and, somehow, McLovin’.

I could say Lady GaGa has grown on me, after all these months in denial, but I would rather say this was my first crack at her. Either way, I’m officially hooked.

My name is Emma Renda and I listen to Lady GaGa. Whew, that felt good. Thanks for listening.






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