A week after “the album of the year” has dropped and all I am hearing is how Lady GaGa has ripped Madonna off. I am not surprised. Listening to Born This Way, I will be the first to admit that it does sound Madonna-esque but I also hear Whitney Houston and Pat Benetar (slightly) on the album as well. But this is pop music we are talking about. What did we expect?

In a genre that I can only accurately describe as a snake eating its tail, it seems that there are no “new” ideas out there. It was only a matter of time before an outspoken Italian girl from New York would be thrust upon us, to stir the pot and make us watch her. Again. I will never take away what Madonna has done for the world in terms of her art. She has changed the way we look at things when it comes to sex and power (I mean, I figured out how to give a blow job thanks to her Erotica phase) but it is time we move on with our lives. Gaga may be forging a career path just like hers but we needed it.

There is no other pop tart out there who can do what she does and get away with it and seems as if she is setting the trend instead of following it. I would like to call Born This Way an homage to Madonna, and all the great pop acts before. I would never call it “album of the year”, it’s not that serious. We live in a world that is consistent in building people up and then tearing them down. It is only par for the course that people will sit here and say “Sounds like Madonna. Copycat!!!!”

What we have to understand is that art aside, these women are very gifted in creating and promoting an image. This is why they are such superstars, it’s more than music at this point, it’s a whole concept of reality. As for the music, it is a lot of typical four to the floor beats, this is how disco was created and Madonna and L.G. are basically just disco singers. Who copied who is a null and void point when it comes to that. I think Lady GaGa is brilliant to take a page (or few) from the Madonna playbook. She is only doing what her biggest influence did before her.

And as for Madonna, well, she better step it up if she wants to continue to reign as Queen of Pop.