Lady Gaga follows strong with “The Fame Monster”

What is happening to me? I can’t stop listening to Lady Gaga.

She’s obnoxious, strange and increasingly over-the-top, but I can’t fight it any longer. She’s worked her way into my head, pushing aside the space reserved for respectable music like the new Fiery Furnaces or Norah Jones.

Lady Gaga’s second studio album, “The Fame Monster,” was recently released on Interscope Records. The sequel to “The Fame” consists of eight songs and is currently available for $7.99 on iTunes. A deluxe version of both albums will be released in December, completing what Gaga calls a “ying and yang,” embodied by her blonde and brunette roles on the respective album covers.

The problem started with the “Bad Romance” video. Oh how I hate myself for loving you – but I’m sucked into the spectacle.

First, we see our heroine, decked out in razor-blade glasses, lounging with the stylish Haus of Gaga posse. Warhol would be so proud. Next, she stares longingly into a mirror, topped in an exaggerated black crown. Every few seconds, she adapts; she writhes in a white vinyl body suit, is drugged in a bathtub, gives skeletal come-hither fingers inside a metal cage and reveals herself bare-assed in front of a burning bedroom.

The platinum lamb struts through 14 costume changes with confidence. The girl’s got personality and for lack of a better word, cojones.

The result is devilishly bizarre. If anything, she’s got a mastery of fetish aesthetic.

“The Fame Monster” is an overall darker project, though its sinister themes are carefully hidden beneath the shiny disco exterior. On first listen, it feels like someone pumping blood into my limbs – they’re twitching and moving on their own and I can’t help nodding my head to the beat. I don’t even like this kind of music, but I can’t stop.

The first single, “Bad Romance,” with its rolling R’s and sexy demands, has a certain wickedness that I love. And others agree; the single debuted at number nine on the Billboard Top 100 chart.

“Alejandro” channels talents like Shakira and Ace of Base in a Spanish dance-groove – a strong track, though the fake accent irks me. You can sense the influence of quite a few other artists throughout; the screw-you attitude of Pink, Blondie’s soul and the outright silliness of Depeche Mode.

Still, she’s her own artist – not the “new Madonna” or new anyone else.

Ballads like “Speechless” showcase her vocal talent, but remain weak in the overall production, as does the awkward “Dance in the Dark,” which calls out to departed women like Marilyn Monroe, Sylvia Plath, Princess Diana and curiously, Jon Benét Ramsey. Pressing on, “Monster” continues the creepy vibe with lyrics like, “He ate my heart/that boy is a monster,” but remains upbeat with a great background of synthetic beeps and bloops.

“Teeth” brings out the jungle-cat in a low, grinding track. But there’s depth in between brutal bad-girl and fluttering romantic. “Take a bite of my bad girl meat/Show me your teeth” leads into, “Tell me something that’ll save me/I need a man who makes me all right” in just a few lines.

That’s why we’ve grown to love her; one moment she’s hard and fast, spitting a cruel growl and in the next, flashing startlingly vulnerable eyes.

I have already listened to “Telephone,” the pumping, relentlessly bouncy duet with Beyonce, five times in the past few hours. When’s the last time you heard a harp used effectively in an R&B song? Nice to hear Miss Queen B on the chorus, but the effect of her enunciated rapping doesn’t add much.

Let’s be honest, the real star is and always will be Gaga’s special brand of crazy.

‘Cause she’s a freak-b****, baby.’