I'm ga-ga for Gaga

I have many a celebrity crush, but none quite as strange or unique as Stefani Germanotta.

Typically, I fall for uber-classy actresses: Amy Adams, Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, Zooey Deschanel and, I must confess, even Meryl Streep, who seems so funny and down-to-earth despite the fact that everyone in Hollywood treats her like she's Acting Jesus. (No, I didn't think she was hawt in the habit in "Doubt." But I defy you to not be delighted by her in the otherwise terrible "Mamma Mia!")

But then there's Miss Germanotta, whom the world knows better as Lady Gaga. She's not very classy, she's not an actress, and she's not even pretty. But that's why I like her.

Lady Gaga rules because she's totally unremarkable in the looks department (despite her ridiculous body) but acts as if she's God's gift to men, strutting around with crazy outfits, crazy makeup and crazy dance moves. She's like some unholy combination of Madonna and Grace Jones, rocking our world with perfect pop songs and letting her freak flag fly.

Her interview in the July issue of Maxim (I only get it cuz another mag I subscribed to folded, I swear!) reveals I'm on the right track: "I love Grace Jones and David Bowie because they played with gender, with what 'sexy' means," she says. She's also very blunt about the kind of music she makes: "When you listen to a song like 'LoveGame' is it communicating my soul to you? No. ... I make soulless electronic pop."

But what glorious electronic pop it is. The four ubiquitous songs that begin her album, "The Fame," are guilty-pleasure classics, and "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" isn't far behind. If an artist with one album can have a masterpiece, Lady Gaga's must be "Poker Face," which hasn't left my head for the better part of 2009, and has been covered by both Chris Daughtry and Weezer. I knew that song had conquered pop culture when my mother started singing it. There's something both invigorating and disturbing about "Poker Face"; does the "ma-ma-ma-my" part sound like the creepy chanting from the "Eyes Wide Shut" orgy to anyone else? I wouldn't be surprised if it's a sample from that. And Gaga wouldn't look out of place in that scene, would she?

I wonder where Lady Gaga's second album will take her. Will her career be as varied and interesting as Madonna's, or will she simply remake "The Fame" over and over again? I certainly hope for the former, because it would make the pop landscape so much more interesting.