In conversations about Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, whoever, it’s important to remember that a lot of these artists aren’t just influenced by each other: they’re working from material created by a number of acknowledged master pop songwriters. And in some cases, they’re working on material created by each other. I keep forgetting that Lady Gaga originally wrote “Telephone” for Britney Spears before recording it herself, and now Perez Hilton has a demo of a very auto-tuned Britney doing the song. I honestly can’t tell if I like Gaga’s version better because I’m used to it, or because it is better, or if both versions heard in conjunction expose the song’s essential mediocrity.
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