In the months that followed, every Gaga video and TV show appearance revealed some wild, theatrical new twist. The music was still pulsing, infernally catchy dance-pop, but the imagery reflected something grander and more ambitious. If Gaga seemed slightly eccentric in the “Just Dance” video, the “Poker Face” clip revealed her to be some kind of sci-fi demon. The opening shots of the “Poker Face” video were disorienting for any music snobs who heard “ Just Dance” and wrote Lady Gaga off as an assembly line club-pop singer.

She’s a dance-music wraith from another dimension, and the world is not ready for her.

Gaga looks like Gozer appearing on the rooftop at the end of Ghostbusters, if Gozer was ready to party. In front of her, two Great Danes sit at attention, like Egyptian statues. There’s a spiky black-metallic shoulderpad on her vinyl bodysuit. Gaga’s face is covered by a mask made from crushed-up disco balls.

Lightning crackles through the clouds as Lady Gaga rises, in slow motion, from a swimming pool. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.

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