When do you know you’ve crossed over the young/old divide vis-à-vis pop music? It’s a gradual process that starts with not knowing who’s at number one, followed by not having heard of who’s at number one, followed by looking at the entire Top 40 like it’s a list of phrases from a foreign language you don’t speak. But the final nail in your youth culture coffin must surely be when you admit you just don’t get Lady Gaga. 

We’ve skirted around this issue ever since all the fuss blew up about Gaga. When The Fame first appeared in the office we found it overlong and filler-full, with the best songs registering no higher than “quite pleasant” on our pop-ometer. 

All the outfits and hoo-ha that went with the Gaga machine were diverting enough, but it all seemed a bit too much like hard work for music that wasn’t all that great.

Others disagreed, of course. Even within our own office there were staff members barely able to go an hour without listening to Bad Romance. The release of a new video would have them frothing with excitement.

But it left us cold.

We wanted to be a Little Monster. It felt like the kind of thing we should be onboard with, only it seemed like a club for those who felt alienated and outcast from the world unless they were in an enormous concert hall watching an odd looking woman singing europop. And we didn’t feel like that. And our watching odd women singing europop requirements were more than adequately fulfilled by Robyn.

The problem is that we don’t hate Lady Gaga. It would be much easier if we did. We’re just not that fussed about her. And so we sat down to watch her latest video for Marry The Night, all 13.51 confusing minutes of it, with the same mild reluctance that we greet Xmas with our relatives. We know we’re not going to hate it (and we don’t) but we know we’re not going to willingly sit through it again until we absolutely have to. It just doesn’t seem like much fun.

And if we’re really honest with ourselves, WE DON’T HAVE A CLUE WHAT’S GOING ON! Why is she having a nervous breakdown in a bath, with some Cheerios? Why!? Quite literally, what is that all about? We fear our time for understanding has passed.