Lady Gaga Is Back and Smaller Than Ever

Fame is pain. That’s always been one of Lady Gaga’s messages. Whether via spiked shoulder pads, skyscraper heels, or raw-meat pleats, her early persona read as mad-scientist fashion model: someone shellacking and reshaping herself for the public’s amusement. As she sang assaultively catchy songs about excess and applause while spurting blood or in gilded wheelchairs, she reminded viewers that the destruction of the body has too often been the rite through which human beings have become popular icons. Maybe, it seemed back then, she could circumvent that rite by acknowledging it. Maybe by going meta she could become a true immortal.

Sadly and sure enough, Gaga’s performance art did not. She began speaking of . She gave up on jackhammering dance music and instead took to the of jazz and folk. She , , that depicted the early thrills of fame leading to addiction and doom. She recorded lyrics about healing and cures. All along, many fans wished for her to return to the superhuman persona and aggressive sound of before. But Gaga’s growing interest in displaying human fragility hinted that it could be unsafe to go glam again.