After joining KonLive Distribution and Cherrytree Records in 2008, Gaga began working on the album with different producers, primarily RedOne, Martin Kierszenbaum, and Rob Fusari.

The album received generally favorable reviews from critics, who commended its lyrical content, Gaga's musicianship and vocal ability.

It was a commercial success, topping the charts in several countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Poland, and Switzerland.

While establishing herself as an artist and working her way up through the New York underground club scene, Lady Gaga released her debut studio album, The Fame.

[5] "LoveGame", the second track, was inspired by Gaga's sexual attraction on a stranger in a night club to whom she said, "I wanna ride on your disco stick".

[3] "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" summed up her time of self-discovery, living in the Lower East Side and dabbling in drugs and the party scene.

The music is intended to inspire people to feel a certain way about themselves, so they'll be able to encompass, in their own lives, a sense of inner fame that they can project to the world, and the carefree nature of the album is a reflection of that aura.

[25] The associated music video for the song was shot as a mini-movie with Gaga starring as a doomed starlet who is almost killed by her boyfriend, but in the end takes her revenge and reclaims her fame and popularity.

[48] She also performed on Michalsky StyleNite at Berlin Fashion Week, So You Think You Can Dance,[49] Jimmy Kimmel Live!,[50] The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,[51] as well as in Vietnam for the 57th Miss Universe beauty pageant during the swimsuit competition.

[53] Three songs from The Fame were used in the second season of The CW's series Gossip Girl: "Paparazzi" in the episode "Summer, Kind of Wonderful",[54] "Poker Face" in "The Serena Also Rises",[55] and "Money Honey" in "Remains of the J".

Gaga described the tour as a traveling museum show incorporating artist Andy Warhol's pop-performance art concept.

Gaga appeared on the stage in new costumes including an innovative dress made entirely of plastic bubbles,[64] and premiered an unreleased song called "Future Love".

[69] AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine called the album "music that sounds thickly sexy with its stainless steel synths and dark disco rhythms", and wrote that it is "glorious pop trash and a wicked parody of it.

"[13] Nicole Powers of URB complimented its "irony-laden lyrics, delivered in a style that owes a little something to Gwen Stefani," as well as the album's "deluxe ditties".

[75] Mikael Wood of Entertainment Weekly called it "remarkably (and exhaustingly) pure in its vision of a world in which nothing trumps being beautiful, dirty, and rich.

"[18] Daniel Brockman from The Boston Phoenix wrote that "Gaga ups the ante in terms of catchy songwriting and sheer high-in-the-club-banging-to-the-beat abandon.

"[70] Ben Hogwood of musicOMH praised Gaga's "blend of sassy attitude, metallic beats and sharp, incisive songwriting", elements which he felt are integral to "creating pop music".

"[19] Joey Guerra from the Houston Chronicle felt that although the songs present in the album are not innovative, Gaga deserved credit for bringing real dance music to the mass.

[23] Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani viewed that Gaga's lyrics veer between "cheap" and "nonsensical drivel", while her singing is "uneven at best".

He added that the highlights such as "Poker Face", "Starstruck", "Paper Gangsta", and "Summerboy" rely "almost solely on their snappy production and sing-along hooks.

[89][90] In March 2020, the album was certified six-times Platinum for shipments of six million copies, by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

[99] Following Gaga's Super Bowl LI halftime show performance, The Fame re-entered the Billboard 200 at number 6, selling 17,000 copies and 38,000 total album-equivalent units.

[107] The album has been certified sextuple platinum in Australia, by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for shipments of 420,000 copies.

[124] It also reached the top 20 in Mexico, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, and Switzerland.

Jonathan Bogart from The Atlantic stated, "EDM came in by no back door but right through the front gate, with Lady Gaga's 'Just Dance' in 2008" and that "the sound didn't take long to spread".

"[127] St. Louis Post-Dispatch's journalist Kevin C. Johnson with his article "Lady Gaga helps bring EDM to the masses", acknowledges the impact.

"[129] In 2020, Stephen Daw from Billboard stated that "The Fame not only changed the course of Gaga's career, but corrected the course of modern pop music for generations to come.

Initially planned solely as a part of the deluxe edition of The Fame, Interscope later decided to release the eight new songs as a standalone EP in select territories.

[131] The album deals with the darker side of fame, as experienced by Gaga over the course of 2008–09 while travelling around the world, and are expressed through a monster metaphor.

[132] Music critics gave mostly positive reviews of the album, with the majority of them complimenting the songs "Bad Romance", "Telephone", "Dance in the Dark", and "Monster".