LADY GAGA’S CAREER IN TROUBLE BECAUSE OF ‘JOE CALDERONE’ COSTUME?

About Lady Gaga's bizarre VMA performance: This finally means she's through, right?
—A4HA, via the inbox

Which Lady Gaga? There are two of them. I'm not referring to Lady Gaga and her unwashed Sicilian lover Jo Calderone, who has been kept in cryogenic stasis since his last gig in the '70s with Sha Na Na. No, I speak of Lady Gaga the music seller vs. Lady Gaga the brand. One of those two people is just fine. The other, well ...

First, the music pusher. Gaga's music is still selling just fine, relatively. Born This Way still sits at a comfortable No. 12 on the Billboard 200 albums chart this week. She also hasn't endured the biggest drop in single sales of late; according to the Billboard Hot 100 chart, that ignominy belongs to Kanye West, Jay-Z, Jason Derulo and Avril Lavigne. If those three artists aren't through—and they clearly are not—than Lady Gaga certainly can't be, either.