Lady Gaga on fire, but will she survive like Madonna?

Is Lady Gaga the first major pop icon of the Internet age or will she disappear like a bad romance? Here's betting Stefani Germanotta, a 23-year-old New York private school graduate, will become a huge star with the staying power of Madonna. Behind the outlandish outfits – sparkly masks, giant shoulder pads, wigs of all descriptions, torturous shoes – is a talented performance artist, the latest in a long line that includes David Bowie, Cher and Marilyn Manson. It's just that she is doing it at cyber speed. Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres marvelled in November that, in the year since she'd first had Lady Gaga on her show, "You've had a steep climb, very quickly." In recent months, Gaga has crammed in an international concert tour, a hit album, a visit to the Queen, five Grammy Award nominations, numerous television spots including Jay Leno and Gossip Girl, and been named creative director of Polaroid. Lady Gaga watchers, who were treated to a hat that resembled a giant sunburst for Polaroid's announcement, are wondering what on earth she will wear to the Grammy Awards on Jan. 31. As both a nominee and performer, there'll be numerous costume changes during the evening. Fashion is her calling card, a way to stand out as unique in a very crowded field. Hence the exploding bras and studded masks. "She's a chameleon," says Alexandra Palmer, curator of textiles and costumes at the Royal Ontario Museum. "She's using all of the tropes of burlesque, fashion and science fiction." Impossible to pigeonhole, Palmer calls Lady Gaga's style "a couture smorgasbord." Most of what she has done has already been done before, argues Palmer, including setting her piano on fire à la Jerry Lee Lewis, or Jimmy Hendrix, who burned his guitar. Much of her futuristic garb is reminiscent of David Bowie when he invented his Ziggy Stardust character.

There are so many nods to Madonna in Lady Gaga's work that the two performers appeared in a Saturday Night Live skit (as themselves) wearing the same dominatrix outfit, which prompted a girl fight. Watching Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video recently, York University fine arts professor Marlis Schweitzer was struck with the similarities to Madonna's Express Yourself video, including the crawl along the floor. A troll through YouTube shows Lady Gaga never performs a song the same way twice and uses different costumes and props, including a dancer as a piano bench. "What she is promising is that `you will see something completely different if you come to my show,'" says Schweitzer, author of When Broadway was the Runway, a look at fashion and theatre. Like early burlesque performers with their multiple costume changes, Lady Gaga is feeding the audience's appetite for change. "That's smart. If she wears five different outfits in a day, and Jennifer Lopez only wears one, then she has five times more pictures on the Internet that day. It is savvy self-promotion." Other performers may feel the need to step up their game to stay in the public eye, Schweitzer says, such as Rihanna's image makeover after the Chris Brown assault incident. Rihanna has been seen at major fashion shows in the past year and her new wardrobe is making a statement that "she is a powerful woman," says Schweitzer. Backed by an army of stylists in her Haus of Gaga, Lady Gaga has been able to change her look constantly. Feathers, sequins, lace, plastic, bubbles, canes, crutches and especially masks are all thrown into the mix. Her mystery and her daredevil spirit have sparked chat room speculation about her sexuality, including the rumour (which she has denied) that she is a hermaphrodite. How shocking and out there is that? "People are wondering what will she come up with next. She has taken on so many taboos," says Toronto stylist Roslyn Griffith Hall, who worked on Canadian Idol. "She is open to do anything. It's almost as if it's a dare." With Gaga, it's a new show every day. "She is her own person," says Griffith Hall. So far, there have been no drunken hijinks , cancelled concerts or public relations disasters to tarnish her dramatic rise. California public relations executive Mike Nason, who specializes in damage control, says corporate U.S.A. would never have come calling if Lady Gaga was trouble. "Polaroid would have been very careful," Nason says, "particularly in light of the Tiger Woods situation." Nason says she grew up in a stable family and was a well-brought-up young woman before she became Lady Gaga – a name inspired by the Queen song Radio Ga Ga. Yes, she did sport a fire-engine-red plastic dress and red eye sequins to see the Queen, but she curtsied beautifully. On the night her Grammy nominations were announced, she thanked her fans at a concert for their support. She told a talk show audience, "Be good to your parents." She continues to surprise people who are used to machine-produced stars such as those churned out by Disney. Veteran television interviewer Barbara Walters, who picked Lady Gaga as one of her 10 most fascinating people of 2009, sounded surprised at the end of her Dec. 9 interview with the singer. "You're not at all what I expected. You're much more," Walters said. Toronto stylist Marek Matwiejczuk, who saw Lady Gaga two years ago at the Circa Club, says, "We've been fed these pop princesses for so long, that we don't expect her talent." Lady Gaga, the former songwriter for the Pussycat Dolls, writes her own songs, including the Grammy-nominated "Poker Face," and can sing, dance, play instruments and act. "The world is her oyster," Matwiejczuk says. "She has hit people backwards. People do not expect this young lady to be a great talent and she surprises them time and time again. She leaves you in awe." And, at only 23, she is just embarking on her path. "I am already starting to see a change in her style," says Matwiejczuk. "People are expecting her to come out with a fish bowl on her head but she has started to be more feminine, more old Hollywood." TheStar.com