Lady Gaga: The Early Years

Before Lady Gaga was a crustacean wearing, Fame Monster warbling, trend-setting, label-defying pop music tour de force, she was just another little girl in Manhattan.

Nowadays, a certain element of mystery is a huge part of Gaga, "the recession-age, downmarket, satirist-wannabe Britney Spears, and who is channeling no less than Madonna, patron saint of glitter, media manipulation, and Britspeak."

The end result "makes even Katy Perry look childish and even Christina Aguilera (with all her writhing and stage wrangling) couldn’t even begin to match Gaga’s ability to eyebrow raise." Back in the day, though, it all began like this:

Vintage Lady Gaga: The Stefani Germanotta days.

When the photo above was taken, she was probably told not to eat candy too close to bedtime. In New York Magazine's feature story on her Gaga, conducted the interview using a “robot voice” while proclaiming singers shouldn’t eat ... at all.

Oh, how times change. One day, you're at a private high school for girls. The next, you're known across the world and Lady Gaga hermaphrodite rumors pop up.

Somehow we think she'll take it.