The Fame Monster

Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster
Critic Score
Based on 16 reviews
2009 Ratings: #340 / 923
User Score
2009 Rank: #20
Liked by 470 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

90
AllMusic

The Fame Monster builds upon those strengths exhibited on The Fame, offering a credible expansion of the debut and suggesting she’s not just a fleeting pop phenomenon.

83
Pretty Much Amazing

At 32 minutes long, The Fame Monster might be too slim to be considered a full release, but Gaga sends some loud messages nonetheless. With this release she continues to impress herself upon the public conscious, and should have her sights set firmly on becoming a modern pop icon.

82
Beats Per Minute

Yes, Lady Gaga’s music as presented on The Fame Monster is still “unoriginal,” but it’s no longer uninspiring. It is a facsimile of various trends and sounds in popular music, from the ’80s to 2009, sometimes even stretching all the way back to the ’60s. But pop music isn’t about originality.

80
NME
In the same way as Radiohead battle computers and learn new instruments to hew their sculptures while Fuck Buttons and HEALTH discover new sonic languages, she uses pop, its producers and masks and all its artifice, as her tool of self-expression.
80
NOW Magazine

She creates layers of dark, self-indulgent, eye-popping music that holds up against her previous hits and is, in some cases, even more satisfying.

80
The Irish Times

This is top-drawer electro pop with the focus very much on the songs ... and not so much on Gaga's occasionally pretentious approach to her (conceptual) art.

78
Pitchfork

Despite her flitting between personalities and personas, her music feels more like her own here than it did on her debut LP. The songs feel like they were written for Lady Gaga rather than simply for any modern pop star.

70
Rolling Stone
She covers her conceptual bets by rolling out sturdy club-thumpers, and this eight-song EP is largely on point.
70
Slant Magazine

I still think the album is patchy, garish, and grossly materialistic, and I find Gaga herself to be alternately the best thing to grace the late-night circuit since Madonna and insufferably self-important. But there’s no denying her p-p-p-poker face.

60
PopMatters

When all is said and done, The Fame Monster isn’t going to win Lady Gaga any new converts, but it does prove something to her millions of fans: that she’s not complacent with doing the same thing over again.

60
SPIN

It's comforting to learn that Lady Gaga's supposed dark side-The Fame Monster offers a flipside to The Fame's sexy fun-is just as fun-loving and club-rousing as the songs that made her famous, because, really, her playful façade is a huge part of her appeal.

60
Under the Radar

You'd be temped to call The Fame Monster Act II of Lady Gaga's career, but it's really more like Act 1.5. Available as a second disc with The Fame or as a self-contained album, The Fame Monster continues where Gaga's debut left off and features eight new tracks of varying quality.

60
The Telegraph
For all that GaGa’s oeuvre seems prototypically synthetic, she is more DIY than manufactured.
60
Evening Standard
It will continue to dominate well into next year thanks to this repackaging featuring eight new songs. There's Telephone, an exuberant duet with Beyoncé; Alejandro, which mimics the Latin feel of Madonna's La Isla Bonita; and the bonkers marching music of Teeth.
50
Consequence of Sound

The Fame Monster will undoubtedly please Lady GaGa’s army of fans and spawn more lush videos. You have to admire her full-on style and carefully constructed persona but I’m not sure this album is adding anything by way of originality or true invention to the music world.

vivvuk
80

when i was much younger i used to shit all over radio pop music stars like katy perry and lady gaga. now that i'm far more mature and actually checked out the music, i can safely say that katy perry still fucking sucks cock but lady gaga can make quality music like this. digging this record heavy

lukassantiago3
100

"The Fame Monster" shows how Gaga could take the pop music to a unbeatable, iconic and majestly well done level.

schurtt
100

É um grande salto, em termos de qualidade, quando comparado com o The Fame. Ao invocar celebridades como Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland e Sylvia Plath em Dance In The Dark, a cantora reflete sobre seus medos após ter sido catapultada para o status de estrela internacional. Não sei se Gaga conseguiu mais liberdade artística para trabalhar, se a indústria da música deixou seus nervos à flor da pele ou se acabou sendo uma mistura das duas coisas, mas ... read more

souleaterwill
80

A modern classic pop album... if it still counts as modern?

Fav Track: Telephone
Least Fav Track: So Happy I Could Die

PabloBC
91

1. Bad Romance | 10/10 🖤🖤🖤
2. Alejandro | 10/10 🖤🖤🖤
3. Monster | 9.5/10 🖤🖤
4. Speechless | 8/10 🖤
5. Dance In The Dark | 10/10 🖤🖤🖤
6. Telephone (feat. Beyoncé) | 10/10 🖤🖤🖤
7. So Happy I Could Die | 8.5/10 🖤
8. Teeth | 6.5/10

76

The production on this always ranges from solid to stellar, which is especially impressive considering the amount of slop pop music coming out around this time, and Gaga always has a ton of personality that shines through in her lyrics. My main complaint is that some songs have choruses that don’t grab me nearly as much as the verses and buildup to them, like Monster and Dance in the Dark. Still, this is a pretty good pop album, and its classic songs are classics for a reason.

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Track List

1Bad Romance
4:54
95
2Alejandro
4:34
91
3Monster
4:09
86
4Speechless
4:30
86
5Dance In the Dark
4:48
86
6Telephone
3:40
feat. Beyoncé
93
7So Happy I Could Die
3:54
83
8Teeth
3:40
76
Total Length: 34 minutes
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