By: Alexander C. Rodriguez, Junior
Ten years ago, on September 26th, 2008, Lady Gaga released her number one hit "Poker Face."
"Poker Face" was released as the second single off of Lady Gaga’s debut album The Fame. Seven months later, the song would go number one on the Billboard Hot 100, thus cementing it as one of the biggest songs of 2009. The song would then go on to become one of the most iconic of the 2000s. Credit for this massive success goes to none other than Lady Gaga and her producers. Her strong promotion skills and hard work helped to push the song all the way to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. This was no easy task, as it was up against other big hits like “Right Round” by Flo Rida.
Lady Gaga worked with producer Red One on “Poker Face” in January of 2008. “Poker Face” would be her second number one and would go on to be one of the biggest hits of her career. The song proved that she wasn’t just a one hit wonder with “Just Dance”, and that she would be here to stay for quite some time. The song following in the success of “Just Dance” furthered her ever-growing power and dominance in the music industry. Even ten years later, pretty much anyone can recognize the “Mum mum mum mah” at the start of the song (Fun fact: “Mum mum mum mah” was sampled from Boney M.s “Ma Baker.”) This song is nothing short of an iconic part of Lady Gaga’s career.
Poker Face influenced the music scene in the form of many samples, covers, and appearances in TV shows as well as movies. A part of Lady Gaga’s acoustic version of Poker Face from the CherryTree Sessions EP was used in Kid Cudi’s single “Make Her Say.” In 2009, Chris Daughtry performed an acoustic version of Poker Face on the radio in Germany while playing a guitar. TV show appearances included the song being featured in acoustic form on Glee, sung by Lea Michele and Idina Menzel. Appearances in movies included Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, and the 2010 version of The Karate Kid, which features Kung Fu instead of Karate. Finally, the song brought back Four-on-the-floor, causing many following songs to hit the radio to do the same. Lastly, as Lady Gaga once remarked, just like “Just Dance” “Poker Face” was very different from many other songs on the radio, causing a spark to ignite more pop songs with more unique sounds.
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