Sporting a geometric silver-and-black miniskirt that made her look more like a Tetris block than a chart-topping newcomer, the singer came out firing, opening with danceable cuts such as "Paparazzi" and the double-entendre-laden "Love Game." "The Fame," a club banger that doubles as a treatise on celebrity, saw Gaga wielding a lighted-up scepter and dancing like a short-circuiting android. "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich," all pulsating synths and robotic drum claps, reveled even further in luxury. At times the excess was a bit too galling. "Money Honey" found the singer cooing about Jags, jets and mansions ("It's good to live expensive!") -- an off-putting sentiment in these tough economic times.

Gaga also continued to embrace her role as unlikely fashion icon (Christina Aguilera's latest look borrows heavily from the New Yorker's style). She changed outfits no fewer than six times throughout the evening, sporting everything from a hat that looked like a pile of toppled dominoes to an angular jacket that could have been lifted from Judy Jetson's closet.

But perhaps most striking was the flesh-colored suit adorned with plastic "bubbles" that she wore during a stripped-down turn at the piano. Here, alone onstage, an introspective Gaga belted her way through a jaunty "Poker Face." She also debuted a new tune, "Future Man," that was either a sci-fi love story (the lyrics referenced far-off galaxies, mechanical hearts and constellations) or an ode to self-pleasure ("He's so unreal ... a synthetic, plastic man"). Based on her winking delivery and flair for the outrageous, odds are it's the latter.

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