Welcome to the age of Gaga

Unpredictable, spectacular, bold and contentious — Lady Gaga is the perfect pop star for the 21st century, says Luke Coppen

In 1903, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a letter to a young man who yearned to be a great artist. ‘In the deepest hour of the night,’ the German poet advised, ‘confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself: must I write?’

It’s fair to say that Rilke never imagined his words would end up tattooed on the arm of a pop star with a penchant for porcelain bikinis and flamethrower bras. Lady Gaga, who has sold eight million records in the last 18 months, claims to read Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet every day. And I believe her. But should people who know their Rilke, people who have read The Road and seen all five seasons of The Wire — in other words, serious people — pay her any attention?

For Christopher Walken, the answer is clearly no. On Friday Night with Jonathan Ross the actor read the lyrics of her hit ‘Poker Face’ with a mocking solemnity (‘Oh ee oh! Puh puh puh poker face’) that had the audience in hysterics. And the internet is heaving with Gaga parodies like ‘Butterface’, in which a swarthy man in a blonde wig sings: ‘Before I turned around you were thinking I’m a 10/ But my body’s like a Barbie/ And my face is like a Ken.’

It’s safe to say that, as the greying editor of a conservative Catholic newspaper who dislikes most music composed after 1820, I don’t belong to Lady Gaga’s target demographic. You might expect me to see her as a decadent airhead, a threat to morals or a sign of the End Times.