Lady Gaga hit #1 with “Poker Face”

Poker Face Lady Gaga

Writer(s):Stefani Germanotta/ Nadir “RedOne” Khayat (see lyrics here) Released: September 23, 2008 First Charted: November 17, 2008 Peak: 11 US, 15 RR, 12 A40, 75 RB, 13 UK, 19 CN, 18 AU, 10 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 10.0 US, 1.8 UK, 28.5 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.5 radio, 1367.70 video, 1216.46 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: As her follow-up single to the #1 “Just Dance,” Lady Gaga had her work cut out for her with “Poker Face.” With lyrics about gambling and her own experiences with bisexuality, she wasn’t exactly going for the most radio-friendly theme either. She told Fashionista 101 that the song was about “playing with guys as if she was a poker player.” SF As she said to an audience at an April 11, 2009, performance in Palm Springs, California, the song was about being “with a man but fantasizing about a woman, hence the man in the song needs to read her ‘Poker Face’ to understand what is going through her mind.” WK No worries, though – the song not only followed “Just Dance” to the top of the U.S. charts, but peaked at #1 in sixteen other countries as well. WK It made Gaga the first artist to top the U.S. charts with her first two entries since Christina Aguilera did it nearly a decade earlier WK with “Genie in a Bottle” and “What a Girl Wants.” It became “the song with which she placed her stamp on the waning months of the decade.” LR Producer RedOne, with whom Gaga wrote “Poker Face” and “Just Dance,” told Billboard magazine how the two clicked immediately. “We’re not overthinking. We just do what we feel right.. Before you know it the song is pretty much done…We wrote ‘Just Dance’ in one hour. Done. ‘Poker Face’? One hour. It just happened. Magic.” SF Both songs sold 4 million downloads in the U.S., making her the first artist in digital history to do so. WK The songs have gone on to sell six million each. Another 900,000 downloads in the U.K. also made “Face” the most downloaded song in Britain since they introduced the download chart in 2004. WK Resources: LR LowResolution.blogspot.com (1/4/2010). “Retrospecticus: 100 Favorite Songs of the Decade” SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 3/15/2020; last updated 4/11/2024.