Lead single 'Bad Romance' nearly equals 'Poker Face' for wow factor, 'Alejandro' channels Ace of Base and 'La Isla Bonita' to deliriously catchy effect, and 'Dance In The Dark' is the sort of song that, well, makes you want to dance with your top off in a grotty German bondage basement. Of course, it helps that every track - half of which are RedOne productions, the other half split evenly between Teddy Riley, Ron Fair, Fernando Garibay and Rodney Jerkins - is a cracker. At just eight tracks and 35 minutes, there's no fat, no chance for GaGa's schtick to grate and, crucially, just the one ballad. The Fame Monster does work as a standalone album and, what's more, it's a far more enjoyable listen than the disc with which it shares its 2CD slipcase. She may have couched her reasoning in typically preposterous and pretentious terms, but there's no quibbling with GaGa's conclusion. 'It's a complete conceptual and musical body of work that can stand on its own two feet.' 'In the midst of my creative journey composing The Fame Monster, there came an exciting revelation that this was in fact my sophomore album,' the Lady herself explains. Here in Blighty it's available as an uncommonly generous bonus disc accompanying a reissue of The Fame, her four million-selling debut album, but across the pond Monster is being released as a record in its own right. This is already the year of Lady GaGa - and she's not ready to pack up her disco stick yet.
