Like Her or Not, Lady Gaga Wins the Magazine Wars

Even we, Gaga fans through and through, can find her endless tweeting, Facebooking, ubiquitous paparazzi coverage, inexhaustible outpouring to media outlets and a severe touring schedule a bit much. If we could give her some advice, it would be to, while without watering down her meticulously splendid image and manifesto, be wary of overexposure (if that ship hasn't passed already).

But WWD is reporting that while Gaga may be everywhere, topping the music charts, hiding in your closet, flipping you off at a Yankees game, wearing Victorian garb in London for a sensible dinner, dressing in flanks of steak and fighting for your DADT rights, it's her magazine covers that are where her influence reigns supreme. Her Rolling Stone cover was the mag's highest sold issue (almost three times more than any other that year). Her Cosmopolitan cover was also a best-seller for the rag. Her September Vanity Fair came in at second (Angelina Jolie, who can somehow be both simultaneously boring and interesting beat her on that one) and her covering January issue of Elle came in third, which is strange, but Gaga isn't necessarily the Elle girl's role model. We have a feeling that W's Stefano Tonchi is crying silently in the Conde Nast bathrooms right now thinking, how could a naked Kim Kardashian not beat Gaga in a gun bra?

What we're getting to is that Ms. Gaga is still a powerful force to be reckoned with, and though it may seem far-fetched, her storm may just be gathering. On New Year's Eve, she released that her next album Born This Way will be released on May 23rd, 2011 and the release of the single "Born This Way" will hit the airwaves on February 13th -- her Valentines day gift to you. Perhaps she's not overexposed. People chattered about the same issue with Madonna twenty years ago, and look at her now, omnipresent and powerful, but lacking her cloying "look at me, look at me" desperation. Seems like Vogue, who is rumored to have Gaga grace their March cover, should expect some exceptional numbers from their annual fashion issue.

photo courtesy of Rolling Stone