Only in the chorus, when she sang, "Can't read my/Can't read my/No, he can't read my poker face," did her voice quicken, sounding anguished or celebratory, depending on your mood. "I love it," she declared in each verse, but she sounded dead. Singing about deception as a means of romantic predation, Gaga stripped every last emotional tell from her voice. The song had almost nothing in common with anything on pop radio, then or ever.
However, Gaga's second single, "Poker Face," was tougher to pin down. Weird as she looked on television, "Just Dance" was a standard-issue paean to clubby drunkenness. And her outfits didn't accentuate her breasts, but her shoulders, which seemed angular and alien. Gaga's blond do was straightened and fell heavily around her shoulders like a metal curtain. Her heels were too high, and tottering around on them looked painful. Was she supposed to be sexy? She had the trappings of sexiness. ("Lady Gaga? What kind of name is that?") There was something uneasy about her, as if a demented record executive had shoved this unwitting girl into the pop star machine and the transformation didn't quite take. Some of them felt bad for the singer, whoever she was. Then Gaga was on television, performing at the NewNowNext Awards, guesting on So You Think You Can Dance, and providing a live soundtrack for the swimsuit competition at the Miss Universe Pageant.Īt this point, some folks liked the songs. That story began making the rounds in Wilton Manors in the summer of 2008, when it seemed like every gym in America had Gaga's debut single, "Just Dance," on a loop.