A Definitive Gay Ranking of Every Lady Gaga Album, From Worst to Best

When it comes to Lady Gaga's body of work, opinions are extreme. Tweet something shady about Artpop and a cadre of Little Monsters are already on standby, waiting to defend their Mother. Gaga is an icon, an indelible part of contemporary music, and in only 10 years she has changed the landscape of pop with a catalog as polarizing as her style choices. As no one knows and loves Gaga like the gays, we feel especially qualified to give the definitive guide to her albums, from worst to best.

Related | Dear God, Please Let This Be the End of the Joanne Era

6. Joanne (2016)
Joanne isn't bad, it's wrong. It's good music, certainly -- "Million Reasons" is a beautiful song, but did Gaga really need to perform it live a million times? Who knew that Lady Gaga's dead aunt would disrupt the trajectory of pop music, inspiring artists like Miley Cyrus and Kesha to flirt with country and go 'back to their roots.' But Lady Gaga, an Italian girl born and bred in New York City, had no country roots to go back to, making Joanne nothing more than a Mark Ronson-produced fallacy.

5. Cheek to Cheek (2014)
When distracted by the meat dresses and disco sticks, it's easy to forget that Lady Gaga has one of the best voices in pop. Teaming up with Tony Bennet may have come out of left field, but it allowed Gaga to showcase that voice, perfect for jazzy standards and showtune favorites. The one true crime of Cheek to Cheek is that it doesn't feature the best song to come out of that era, the rendition of "New York, New York" that Gaga performed live on Sinatra 100.

4. The Fame (2008)
This was the record that started it all, that beguiled a nation to "Just Dance" and debate what exactly "bluffin' with my muffin" meant. The only reason The Fame isn't ranked higher is because it's an album with a lot of filler -- "Starstruck," "Money Honey," "Paper Gangster." But was there a single song that defined 2009 more than "Poker Face?" Absolutely not.

3. Artpop (2013)
Despite often being referred to as Artflop, the album that derailed Gaga's ascent to pop supremacy, Artpop is a feat of pop ingenuity, and true Gaga stans will literally fight you about that. The album falls almost exactly in the middle when it comes to ranking Gaga's music because it features some very high highs ("G.U.Y.") and some very low lows (we do not speak of "Jewels N' Drugs" in this house). Artpop also features what many Germonatta scholars will cite as the artist's most personal song, "Gypsy." But there is no denying that after talking up Artpop for literally years before releasing it, the album's disappointing commercial and critical reception knocked Lady Gaga's off the top of the pop pyramid until Joanne.

2. The Fame Monster (2009)
While The Fame may have introduced the artist formerly known as Stefani Germonatta to the world, the world wasn't quite sure who this girl with the bow made out of hair was. After the album's last single, "Paparazzi," Gaga could easily have stayed a vaguely weird, glamorous pop star. But The Fame Monster made a definitive statement that Lady Gaga as an artist was, first and foremost, a freak. No song -- or music video -- shifted the landscape of pop music the way "Bad Romance" did, and "Telephone" paired together the women taking pop music in the two directions (Beyonce towards R&B, Gaga towards dance/electronica) that would shape it in the years to come. Quite a feat for an album that was intended as an annex to The Fame and features only eight tracks.

1. Born This Way (2011)
Born This Way is peak Lady Gaga in every way: musically, lyrically, stylistically -- RIP Nicola Formichetti as Gaga's stylist, this was without a doubt Gaga's best era for looks. This was the album where Gaga as a musician crystallized ("The Edge of Glory," arguably her best song), where Gaga as a woman was at her most raw and vulnerable ("You and I") and where Gaga the activist was truly born ("Born This Way," duh).