When rock stars fake it

The real story is the gradual emergence of the computer as pop's main musical instrument, not only in dance music and hip-hop -- forms based around synthesized sound -- but across the spectrum. Using Pro Tools or other digital audio workstations that provide huge libraries of sampled sounds, songwriters can create whole soundscapes without strumming a guitar or hitting a drum. Those who favor more "natural" methods of composition can tweak them in any way they want during the recording process, and they do. Even raggedy-looking neo-hippies like Bon Iver couldn't enact their "rustic" experiments without computers.

The new realities of musical composition mirror the ways we're all baring our carefully constructed souls using social media like Facebook or Twitter. No filtering device exists on the Web to separate a true confession from an artful lie, and virtual connections can feel very real. Reality television has blurred lines too: One of Lady Gaga's key concepts, that anyone can think themselves into the supremely self-confident state she calls "feeling the fame," make sense only in the context of a culture in which actual fame might strike any average Jenny lucky enough to have her closet raided by Quentin and Stacy or be challenged to a throwdown by chef Bobby Flay.

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Beyond fake

In the permanent state of Gaga, old distinctions simply don't hold. This seems like a new moment in the ongoing relationship between pop music and the theater, one more seamlessly constructed than those to which it reaches back. Gaga and the many other dance-pop artists who cultivate a similar style (from Princess Superstar to the Scissor Sisters) constantly reference glam rock and disco, but in some ways, they take theatricality further than their beloved elders did.

In 1971, David Bowie, one of Gaga's idols, said, "I don't want to climb out of my fantasies in order to go up onstage -- I want to take them on stage with me." Bowie pioneered the idea of rock as theater, incorporating influences like mime and Kabuki into an act that stressed the dreamlike quality of his work. But he still made a distinction between that dream life and his real one.

A decade later, genre-crushing New Wave art star Grace Jones reiterated the split. With her signature Flat Top hairstyle and elaborate outfits designed by artists like Jean-Paul Goude and Keith Haring, the statuesque Jones was possibly the most high-concept pop diva ever. But she could step out of her role. "Listen, I'm two people," she told an interviewer in 1980. "Otherwise, I'd be insane!"