Remember that whole debacle with Kelly Clarkson‘s “Already Gone” and Beyonce‘s “Halo” sounding the same, courtesy of producer Ryan Tedder?

Behold–it’s the B-side to Alexandra Burke‘s “Broken Heels,” “Fear of Flying.”

Sound familiar, Utada fans? That’s because the song, which was also produced by Stargate, uses the same sample as “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence – FYI.”

Same sample, same producer. Granted, one’s just a B-side, and the other remains an album track only, but still…what gives?

PS: Just to clarify, Utada’s track is miles better. Just saying.

Along with Vevo‘s grand unveiling last night, a few new major exclusives have cropped up on the site, including the ACTUAL behind-the-scenes video for “Video Phone.” Arguably, it’s even funnier than the parody.

To help my Muusers better understand what’s happening here, I’ve written up a little guide to understanding some of the dialogue and wordplay happening here: Take note.

Beyonce

What we hear: “She came to the video shoot and learned the choreography which I didn’t…even expect her to put so much time into it, but she said ‘I want this to be an event.’ And she worked really hard and learned it so fast.”

What actually is: “This ho got the nerve to show up at my video shoot without permission, but before I could free a hand and side-slap the bitch, she starting whining about her ‘art’….so I let her have some much-needed time with my choreographer while me and Jay went shopping for neon-glow toy guns for her to hold.”

Choreographer

What we hear: “This is what makes Beyonce so amazing at what she does, because she understands that Lady Gaga just learned this yesterday, and you can see her over on the screens just watching and learning, and seeing how she can adjust herself to adjust to Gaga.”

What actually is: “This is only further proof that Beyonce is indeed our Lord and Saviour, because she understands that Lady Gaga is truly a terrible dancer, and you can see her lowering herself to Gaga’s level of mediocrity in order to make sure that crackhead didn’t fuck up the video too much. Praise Beysus.”

Lady Gaga

What you hear: “It’s so funny! I don’t know how to deal with the fan!” *Laughing hard, tearing up.*

What actually is: “It’s so…beautiful! I don’t know how to deal with the beauty!” *Takes off nonexistent over-sized sunglasses, cries tears of Gaga beauty.*

Beyonce

What you hear: (While clapping and laughing) “It’s great!”

What actually is: (While clapping and laughing) “How much can we edit her out before it starts becoming obvious that it’s intentional?”

Lady Gaga

What you hear: “I like when I look like your back-up dancer.”

What actually is: “I like when I look like your back-up dancer.”

And that’s all you need to know.

Photo courtesy of The Grammys.

There are 109 categories of nomination for a Grammy this year. I gave them all a brief looking-over, and these are the few that sparked my interest and are therefore most relevant to MuuMuse:

• BRITNEY SPEARS GETS A NOMINATION FOR DANCE RECORD OF THE YEAR WITH “WOMANIZER”! Congrats, B! But there’s a catch–she’s battling MADONNA with “Celebration”! AND THEN IT GETS WORSE AGAIN…Lady Gaga‘s “Poker Face” and David Guetta‘s When Love Takes Over” featuring Kelly Rowland! Eep.

• Speaking of, Lady Gaga’s pulled in SIX nominations, including Record of the Year (“Poker Face”) and Album of the Year (The Fame). While Beyonce proves a worthy opponent with a score of nominations in all the same categories, it’s dark horse Taylor Swift that may pull away from the two pop titans after a wave of post-Kanye guilt washes over the Grammy committee. Muusers, pray for Godga and Beysus to shine through!

• Imogen Heap scores two nominations for Best Pop Instrumental Record (“The Fire”) and quite ironically, Best Engineered Album (despite Ellipse being one of the worst mastering jobs of 2009).

• Kathy Griffin gets another go for her run at winning a Grammy! Suckin’ It for the Holidays has scored a nomination for Best Comedy Album. Competition’s tight, though: She’s up against Stephen Colbert, Patton Oswalt and George Lopez.

• The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been nominated for Best Alternative Album, though they face an equally up-hill battle: Depeche Mode, David Byrne & Brian Eno, Pheonix and Death Cab for Cutie meet them to the challenge.

• Liza Minnelli‘s Liza’s At The Palace got a nod for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album! Bitches ain’t got shit on Liza with a Z.

• Kelly Clarkson and Pink are due to duel it out for Best Pop Vocal Album.

• Pet Shop Boys get a Best Electronic Album nomination with Yes! Yes! But they’re facing Lady Gaga! No!

Let’s face it, though: This is the Grammy Awards, an honor that hasn’t been relevant since The Bodyguard. In the end, all of the awards will probably end up going to the fucking Black Eyed Peas.

MuuMuse Excluusive photo. Please credit for use.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen Madonna do that one.

A projection of Gaga appears on the giant LED screen in front of us, floating slowly across the stage as the Vandalism remix of Ce Ce Peniston‘s “Finally” surges into the speakers. On the right side, a small ticker begins counting down, starting at sixty seconds and counting down.

The timer ticks down to zero. The crowd bursts into a frenzy as purple and green smoke begin wafting from the stage floor. At once, the stage goes dark, only to be re-illuminated by the dull glow of green, cross-hair lasers.

And then, she appears. Performing behind the green laser grid projection, Lady Gaga‘s LED-lit body, frozen in monster vogue, forms a sillouette against the industrial, diamond-shaped stage behind her. “Silicone, saline…” she begins with cold-blooded vitriol, as the Monster Ball takes way and the claws come out from everywhere within the audience.

Video courtesy of YouTube user, TabbyButah.

Filled to the brim with tweens and dads, sloshed twenty-somethings and gaggles of gays, the Gaga concert was pretty much as I expected audience-wise. As I tweeted during the show,  it was  “Roughly the same clientele as the Britney concert, though with better shoes.”

The first opener (and Gaga’s longtime tour-mates), Semi Precious Weapons, were a happy surprise: A cross between Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the better parts of Glambert and a hint of Jeffree Star, the glam-rock outfit thrashed through a set of their finest electro-rock, yelling obscenities at the crowd about showing their tits, performing cunnilingus and encouraging us all to get laid tonight.

It worked, as the crowd cheered and fist-pumped in approval. By the time their set is over, the energy in the theater is electric–so much so that the main act should have come next.

MuuMuse Excluusive photo. Please credit for use.

Instead, it was time for Kid Cudi. Everyone (well, not me…elitist?) was on their feet, swaying to his bass-heavy beats with their cups of brew raised high. As I told my friends during the show, the music was good and all, but I just didn’t care (aside from his brief performance of his David Guetta collaboration, “Memories,” at which point I briefly stood and danced.)

Photo courtesy of Phellipe at GagaDaily.

With the exception of “Telephone” (saving the song for a Beyonce cameo somewhere down the line, perhaps?), Gaga performed the entirety of The Fame Monster, as well as most of The Fame and even, to my greatest of  delights, “Fashion,” a shelved Fame track once covered by the impossibly untalented trash bag, Heidi Montag, spanning nineteen tracks in total.

Video courtesy of YouTube user, TabbyButah.

The concept of the Monster Ball Tour, like the album itself, is a meshing of technology (digital countdowns, scanning lasers) with the macabre (gothic Gaga, guns, and growls). Highlights were beyond frequent, altering between genuine show-shopping entertainment and somewhat unintended hilarity.

The latter applies to instances such as in “Alejandro,” where the singer danced a semi-awkward, interpretive dance with two of her male back-up dancers. As the song began, one of the two dancers knelt down behind Gaga, thrust his fist through her legs and, in one sweeping motion, lifted the singer…FROM HER VAGINA. I can’t say I’ve ever seen Madonna do that one.

“Paparazzi” was another winning moment, as Gaga slowly marched out from the right side of the stage wearing 40-foot pigtails being carefully held by her flock of dancers. As she sat perched atop the broken-metal light fixture, three dancers came out and snipped at her locks until they fell. Rapunzel no more, as it were.

MuuMuse Excluusive photo. Please credit for use.

Honestly though, there were just too many moments that require full attention attention here: Writhing around the dentist’s chair for “Paper Gangsta;” the shirtless male celebration of “Boys Boys Boys;” her playing the keytar atop a glass cube for “Just Dance.” It was all so juicy!

As for the artist herself, Gaga’s onstage persona is a mixed bag of vulnerability and sado-masochistic delight: She’s weird; she’s broken; she’s entirely dependent on approval and validation. “Do you love me?” she would ask time and time again behind a coquettish smirk. “Do you think I’m sexy? WOULD YOU FUCK ME?” she’d shriek even more urgently, only to be met with wild hooting and cat calls from around the theater.

Photo courtesy of Phellipe at GagaDaily.

The Gaga that saunters to the audience and, using her best baby voice, coos “I love you, my little monsters. When you’re feeling lonely, I’m lonely too…” is not the same Gaga that performs “Teeth” only seconds later, who, upon clawing her way into the front row and pointing her finger menacingly into one monster’s face, shouts: “SHOW ME YOUR FUCKING TEETH!” It’s a terrifying dichotomy, to say the least.

MuuMuse Excluusive photo. Please credit for use.

Yet Lady Gaga proved an adept entertainer throughout the show. When she wasn’t harassing the fans, she was busy barking out choreography for us to emulate: Hands! Teeth! Claws! Guns! Every song had its own designated hand sign that the audience was required to provide. It worked well, making the show feel even more intimate and interactive than it already was.

For an artist so heavily driven by the visual, it was somewhat surprising to see how focused and minimal the visuals actually were: There are no elaborate set designs, less dramatic wardrobe changes than one might have expected, and only a handful of high-contrast interludes. Instead, the show’s energy is carried solely on the (very high) shoulders of the performer.

MuuMuse Excluusive photo. Please credit for use.

Yet even with the lack of narrative in video, the few interludes we did get were sublime: My favorite of course being the brief visual study of the dual Gaga personality: As a blonde-bobbed Gaga poses in a white couture dress, the dark-haired version appears standing next to her suddenly, vomiting what appeared to be neon blue milk all over the dress, repeated and reversed relentlessly time and time again. Mmm…

Later toward the end, Gaga indulged in her inner freak once more, donning absurd, comical reinterpretations of spiked fetish garb, feather and bone pieces, and gas masks featuring a Mickey Mouse print while reciting a passage about perception and art. Is it too soon in her career to declare it ‘Classic Gaga’?

MuuMuse Excluusive video. Please credit if used.

Throughout, Gaga entertained us with a few personal anecdotes regarding her relationship with fame and excess, as with the opening of “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich”: Pacing the stage, the singer reminisced about the days she spent living in New York with her friends, having no money and gallivanting around town with the lead singer of Semi Precious Weapons.

(Funny, as I remember reading about how she used to spend her days doing ‘bags and bags’ of cocaine that were hand-delivered to her Lower East Side apartment but sure Gaga, whatever you say…you were ‘poor.’)

MuuMuse Excluusive Photo. Please credit for use.

Settling down for the ballad portion of the show (can I call her only two slow songs the ‘ballad portion’?), Gaga announced that her mother was in the audience tonight. As she broke into song–which was pitch-perfect faithful to the studio recording–she urged us all to sing along during the chorus so that her mother, scratch that, her father could hear us.

Sitting back and hearing the audience scream the chorus, she was immediately overcome. “You know all the words…” she began incredulously, wiping her eyes for a moment as the crowd exploded with support. Gotta love those Gaga tears!

Photo courtesy of Phellipe at GagaDaily.

With “Speechless” over, Gaga began plucking away at the piano, stretching, standing and fussing all over the piano chair like an impatient 12-year-old at her opening recital. At one point, she even began raising one leg high into the air behind her while riffing alo ng with her acoustic version of “Poker Face,” a look that just about resembled this. At that point, Gaga got a bit of Regina Spektor fever in her, pulling at her high heel behind her while singing sweetly: “I hope you enjoy my show…If you don’t like it, you can fucking leave!”

Photo courtesy of Phellipe at GagaDaily.

It wasn’t until the show’s final moment that the crowd truly seemed at its most manic state (and rightfully so!) as Gaga performed her greatest song to date, “Bad Romance.” Clad in a black top and white high-waist pants, Gaga nailed all the moves from the video, causing the entire audience to raucously jump and yelp along, from the song’s first charging chorus until her final bow.

As Gaga returned to the darkness, an outro video blurred the video screens: It’s Gaga, suited in her best “Bad Romance” skull couture, getting an actual tattoo–the word “Dad,” on her upper back. Watching her in slow-motion in those final moments of the process, meshing her personal life with her business, the concert at which we were all watching her being tattooed, solidifies the fact that Gaga truly does live and breathe her art. Lady Gaga really is Gaga, 110% of the time.

Photo courtesy of Phellipe at GagaDaily.

While it’s becomes more difficult to reconcile the sky-high prices of some artists and their arena-wide tours, Lady Gaga has defied the pop landscape once again by staging a show worth the $300 her contemporaries are charging for only a $60 entry fee.

Aside from a few slip-ups during the show (minor trips and falls along the way, some lights and sound cues coming too early), Gaga’s already cleared enough hurdles in her career as a performer to come startlingly close to garnering comparison to the superstar idols who’ve done this for far longer than she has.

MuuMuse Excluusive Photo. Please credit for use.

As an artist, Gaga remains in her own league, strictly of her own kind by being perhaps the most art-minded, intellectual personalities to ever break onto the mainstream pop scene. The Monster Ball Tour is the next step in the natural evolution of Gaga’s artistry; yet another rung in her blood-laden ladder to icon status.

And now, I collapse…This little monster is toasted.

Honestly, would the actual “behind-the-scenes” video be all that dissimilar from this one?

Spot on.

Huzzah! It’s Lady Gaga‘s The Fame Monster television campaign.

I guess we now know what the singles are going to be (and perhaps even their order of release): “Bad Romance,” Telephone,” “Alejandro,” and “Monster.”

Four singles worth, and yet it still feels like they’re missing out on more of the album! Half to be exact. Can’t she just pull a Beysus and keep ‘em coming until we’ve heard the entire album on the radio at some point or another?

Pre-Order The Fame Monster from Lady Gaga’s Official Store | Buy tickets to The Monster Ball Tour | MySpace | Official Website

As Torrance Shipman once said in the 2000 classic, Bring It On, “Missy’s the poo…so take a big whiff.”

While that quote doesn’t really apply here (aside from suggesting that Gaga is indeed ‘the poo’), the point is this: As the driving force behind the writing and recording process of her music, the creative director of her album artwork, music videos, tour visuals, merchandising and just about every other minute facet of her career, Lady Gaga is a very new kind of pop star; one that sings live, writes and records, dances, styles photoshoots, and waxes poetic about the lifestyle of the artiste.

While many have managed to break the market on their own terms, I can’t think of a single mainstream female pop artist in recent times who has exercised nearly as much creative control in both the audio and visual department as Lady Gaga.

In fact, I can’t think of any.

November 23 will see the release of Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster, an 8-track concept album originally intended to be a re-release of her debut, The Fame. Written as a kind of antithesis to the subject matter of The Fame, The Fame Monster centers around horror and fears–from love, to loneliness, to death.

After some squabbles with her label (and a few inspired writing sessions while out on her Fame Ball Tour), Lady Gaga decided that this newly formed collection of tracks was enough of a living creature in its own right to merit release into the wild all on its own, rather than being slapped onto her pre-existing album. Of course, you could opt to purchase the album as a 2-CD bundle, but as a whole, the record is capable of standing on its own feet–however many feet a monster may have.

Now then, let’s run down the tracklisting.

The Fame Monster begins with “Bad Romance,” the current single that continues to power its way up the radio play charts. Better known as the song of 2009, “Bad Romance” is an unstoppable barrage of catchy hooks, hymn-like chants, and soaring crescendos. It’s a raw, raucous affair, best served at max volume in cars and clubs, and arguably the greatest track that Gaga has ever recorded.  Starting off with such a praise-worthy number, it’s fairly easy to forget that “Bad Romance” is just the first song off of the album.

“Alejandro” comes next, an Ace of Base-like mid-tempo, tropical track. While my reaction to the track was initially lukewarm after hearing the song in demo form, the album’s revamp adds a nice punch to the mix, creating a solid introduction and some reworked vocals. Watch out, though–the repetitive melody is addicting, and you may find that the song’s play count racks up faster than you can say “Alejandro,” “Fernando,” or any other man-of-Latin-origin’s nombre.

“Don’t call me Gaga,” Lady G announces as “Monster” begins to play. At this point, there’s really no need to progress any further into the album, as Gaga’s about to nail it: “Monster” is the epitome of the album’s essence, mashing a killer bass line with cheeky, creature feature lyricism: “We french kissed on a subway train / He tore my clothes right off / He ate my heart, and then he ate my brain,” Gaga laments during the song’s massive, glitchy (perhaps even picopop inspired?) breakdown. It’s a major hit, and is pretty much destined to be an upcoming single sometime soon.

“Speechless,” the next song on the album, comes with plenty of baggage in the Gaga Claims Department over the past few months, with “My favorite song of all” and “The greatest song I ever recorded” being just a few of the quotes offered up by the pop star during interviews. As one might imagine, the song has built a substantial amount of hype.

Mercifully it delivers, and the pay off is rich: “Speechless” is the ’70′s power rock ballad that always been hinted at in her earlier work (“Brown Eyes”, “Again Again”), though never fully realized until now. Penned for her father, “Speechless” is the result of Lady Gaga’s appreciation for the arena-rock legends and glam gods of yore (David Bowie, Freddie Mercury) that avoids imitation and plays like the torch ballad Gaga always needed. It may not be the greatest ‘hit’ of the album, but it is the most aurally adventurous (and surely the most personal). “I’ll never talk again / Oh boy, you’ve left me speechless,” Gaga croons with a swagger hitting somewhere between classic Elton John and Liza Minnelli. Concertgoers, be prepared–this one’s made for the lighters-in-the-air moment.

Coming in thereafter is “Dance in the Dark,” the album’s chilliest moment. “Silicone, saline, poison, inject me / Baby, I’m a free bitch,” Gaga scowls at the song’s beginning, which happens to double as the greatest opening line of the year. A hands-in-the-air dance song about a woman being harassed by her boyfriend, Gaga’s “Dance” is a murderous slice of pop complete with industrial whirls, haunted synths and occasional screams of anguish in the distance.

Part of the songs appeal, aside from being as danceable as it is dark (thus, “Dance in the Dark”…get it, eh?), lies in its occasional nods to the classics–from the  pulsating injection of Depeche Mode‘s “Strangelove” into the opening chords to its homage to Madonna‘s “Vogue” throughout the song’s spoken word middle eight:  “Marilyn, Judy, Sylvia…tell ‘em how you feel, girls!”

However unlike Madge’s celebrity roll-call, Gaga limits her subjects according to theme, choosing only those who’ve suffered a tragic end by way of, or indirectly because of, the fame. By the end of it all, you’ll want to know only one thing: Who knew emotional abuse could inspire such happy feet?

The next track, “Telephone,” is a doozy–a duet with Beyonce? Even on print, you’re already asking for trouble. “Telephone” was originally penned and serviced to Britney Spears by Gaga, rejected, and then reclaimed by the writer herself.

Along with a beat recalling Timbaland‘s “The Way I Are” and a frantic, stuttering electro-bass line, “Telephone” is a mish-mosh of synths, phone sounds and above all, rampant telephone talk. While Beyonce’s vocal runs are a welcome addition to the track, the song functions best as an unapologetic celebration of the vocoder. Just dance, as someone around here might say.

“So Happy I Could Die” seems to pick up where The Fame‘s “Starstruck” left off, borrowing its squeaky synthesizers and urban flavoring to engage in some self-indulgence. “In the silence of the night, through all the tears and all the lies / I touch myself and its alright.” While some reviews have likened the track to Britney Spears‘ “Touch of My Hand,” the music and lyrics seem far too dark to place “Happy” in the same realm as Spears’ ode to self-exploration. As the verses fade, the unusual anti-chorus fills the void: “Happy in the club with a bottle of red wine / Stars in our eyes ’cause we’re having a good time / Yeah, yeah / So happy I could die.”

Minimal and moody, “Happy” provides food for the mind while moving back and forth between Gaga and an unidentified “she.” It could be herself she’s referencing, but I’m still uncertain. Sasha Gaga, perhaps?

“Teeth,” the album’s premature closer, takes a surprising turn in sound: A stomping, hoot-and-holler-worthy chant-along, the final track of The Fame Monster invites listeners to cut loose and…well, sink their teeth into the music. Part musical, part country, and a little bit tribal in spots, Gaga snarls and taunts above an incessant, stomping march: “Take a bite of my bad girl meat / Show me your teeth.”  It’s an odd choice to end the album, though a surefire crowd pleaser for live shows if the addictive backing beat is anything to judge by.

Out of the eight excellent tracks of the album, the greatest part about listening to The Fame Monster is not the catchy beats or silly lyrics (of which there are many), or even the lock of Gaga’s own hair included with the Super Deluxe Fan Edition (with which I still have no idea what to do with)–it’s the fact that the album is history in the making.

For better or worse, Gaga is on the path of legendary status:  With only one album under her belt, Lady Gaga has already broken a world record for most #1 singles from a debut album, written for Britney Spears, Keri Hilson and the Pussycat Dolls, collaborated with high-profile photographers and artists including David LaChapelle, Araki, and Markus Klinko (which is not to forget her sheer influence on the runway, as well as scoring the devotion from runway legends like Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs). Along the way, she’s performed across the world to millions from San Francisco to Jerusalem, including a recent concert in New York where a newfound fan named Madonna watched along with her daughter, Lourdes, in the audience.

While I may be prone to hyperbole, I do believe that The Fame Monster is without a doubt the pop album of the year, if not one of the finest pop records of the decade.

And to think, this was just going to be a re-release.

Pre-Order The Fame Monster from Lady Gaga’s Official Store | Buy tickets to The Monster Ball Tour | MySpace | Official Website

Bitches be crazy.

Right now, there’s just too much juiciness to process: The toy guns, the neon, the camera-head men, the copious Beysus breast jiggling. And then of course there’s Gaga, who, I’m going to call this one like it is, looks like a complete and utter crack whore…IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE.

But honestly, who the fuck gives Lady Gaga a weapon? Fake or otherwise, I’m surprised there were no on-set injuries.

I’m actually surprised by a lot of things in this video: I’m surprised that Kermit the Frog didn’t make an appearance as ‘Sexy Blindfolded Man Dancer Number Five.’ I’m surprised Gaga did not cry Gaga-tears-of-beauty during the dance breakdown. I am also surprised that Jesus did not stop by for a quick cameo in the background.

Above all, I’m surprised and shocked that not only did the two superstars manage to keep their breasticles from exploding out from underneath those white leotards, but their massive egos as well.

God…I love this so hard! Job well done, divas.

NOW SOMEONE MAKE ME SOME .GIFS IMMEDIATELY.