A broke artist in the New York underground scene wrote an entire album about the glamorous lifestyle of the rich and famous, then willed it into reality. We explore Lady Gaga’s 2008 debut The Fame and how an album built on the illusion of fame fundamentally rewrote 21st-century pop.

From the concept of shareable fame and the four-minute writing of the disco stick hook to the blood-soaked 2009 VMA performance and the Warhol-inspired Fame Ball Tour, Gaga engineered an entire pop-art movement and forced electronic dance music back onto mainstream radio.

• Her philosophy that pop culture is high art and fame is a mindset
• The 1980s-influenced electropop architecture of Just Dance and LoveGame
• The hidden confession of bisexuality inside Poker Face
• The macabre Paparazzi VMA performance that proved she was a true artist
• How The Fame kicked down the door for the 2010s EDM boom