Ooh ah Ga Ga, Ooh ah Ga Gaaaa…

I have to put my paws up. I’m a sucker for pop genius. My music collection is filled with an array of eclectic and bizarre guilty pleasures that friends would have me sectioned for if they knew that I owned them.

So when Lady Gaga first appeared on the scene, my initial scepticism was eroded by a succession of great pop moments – Telephone, Bad Romance, Paparazzi… But still, there was something not quite clicking.

The game-changer for me proved to be her performance at the Big Weekend event in Carlisle a couple of weeks ago, where she showed a depth and musicality that I wouldn’t have associated with LG before.

She reminded me of Prince in his mid-Eighties pomp, when everything he recorded was shot through with genius. Like LG, the Purple maestro was also mad as a fish, and his enigmatic presence coloured music at the time with a fresher palette, just at the time when he, Madonna and Michael Jackson changed pop for good.

We’re a good few years on from that, and now it’s time for Lady Gaga to take over that mantle, and the path to the throne starts with her new release, Born This Way.

Taking the next step from The Fame and The Fame Monster, Ms Germanotta has been trailing Born This Way for a long time now, at concerts and in interviews, and has been tantalising fans with snippets of tracks and individual songs appearing in all manner of places, from FarmVille to iTunes, in a masterfully orchestrated marketing campaign.

The record itself is a huge electro-disco burst of energy from start to finish. There is an sense on first listen that you have been subjected to an unremitting mirrorball-covered jack-boot march across your senses. But that is it’s appeal, to be honest: It is great, exhausting fun.

Admittedly, the producers she has brought in to assist in the gestation of these tracks, from Junior/Senior’s Jeppe Laursen to Mutt Lange and RedOne, put their own stamp on proceedings. The record is shot through with steely-edged industrial dance tracks and bombastic rock anthems.

But underlining it all is Lady Gaga’s inimitable, individual presence. Other reviewers and critics are caught up on her similarity to Madonna and, though the title track is unquestionably Express Yourself updated, there is some things that remain unsaid.

Yes, Lady Gaga is ploughing the same furrow as the female icon of the Eighties, but she is appealing to a completely new generation with her take on the same genre, who weren’t there to experience what Madonna meant back then.

There is a whole new generation, then, set to thrill to the same joyful pop rush that Madonna delivered in the Eighties, and who are going to experience the same immense cultural impact she had.

Critics also have to remember, it took Madonna four albums to come up with the definitive statement of her talent to that point, when she released Like A Prayer in 1989. Up to then, releases like Like A Virgin and True Blue were great pop records, but there was a good deal of filler in between the classics.

That is, it has to be said, what it feels is happening on Born This Way. There are songs that will be part of the pop lexicon for years to come, and there are some tracks that won’t be recalled so immediately in there as well.

That said, though, Born This Way is a joyful, ruthless pop-dance record that demands your attention and will make a lot of Little Monsters very happy. Gaga is going to have a very long career, folks, and pop music will be much healthier and interesting for it.