Pareles on Gaga

TODAY’S READING ASSIGNMENT: “I’m a show without an intermission,” Lady Gaga tells Jon Pareles in his N.Y. Times profile of the artist on the eve of Interscope’s release of the super-high-profile Born This Way. The gray lady’s lead pop critic has long been among the most insightful and articulate journalists on the beat, and it’s a sheer delight to get his take on this musical and pop-cultural phenomenon. Sample: “She refreshes her image at Internet speed. David Bowie developed a new guise for each album, Madonna for each single; Lady Gaga seems to have one for every news cycle. The cavalcade of outfits churned out by her Haus of Gaga, to be strutted before ever-attentive cameras, splashes across magazine covers, television, YouTube and social media; there’s always a new Gaga look to praise, mock and, above all, repost. Yet onstage, amid all the artifice of costumes, wigs and dance steps, Lady Gaga keeps one important thing natural: she doesn’t lip-sync. Behind the fashion plate is a diligent music wonk.” Nice. (5/18a)