Lady Gaga

How big is Lady Gaga, dance-pop’s hottest new star and the undisputed “It Girl” of the year?

So big that the seating capacity for her concert here Saturday night at the San Diego Sports Arena was nearly doubled — from a half-arena size of 6,000 to 10,800 — and still sold out two weeks in advance.

So big that her debut album, last year’s “The Fame,” is apparently the first debut album by any new artist to yield four consecutive No. 1 singles on the national Billboard charts.

So big that on Dec. 2 “The Fame” earned her five Grammy Award nominations, including in the coveted Album, Song and Record of the Year categories. (Winners will be announced Jan. 31.)

So big that this month she met England’s Queen Elizabeth II after the annual Royal Variety Performance, where she performed alongside Bette Midler, Chaka Khan, Andre Rieu, Miley Cyrus, Michael Buble and Whoopi Goldberg.

And so big that, two months ago, at the black-tie Human Rights Campaign gala in Washington, D.C., President Obama told the audience of 3,000 gay rights activists: “It is a privilege to be here tonight to open for Lady Gaga.”

He was kidding, we think.

But Lady Gaga, who sang an updated version of John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the gala, has clearly had as big a year as any new artist in recent memory.

Her current tour, which replaces an aborted joint fall concert trek with Kanye West, is a nationwide sellout. She was featured last week on “Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People of 2009” TV special.

That’s the good news for this piano-playing New York dance-pop diva, a bisexual ex-stripper who bills herself as both a musician maverick and an edgy performance artist.

It’s also the bad news — or, at least, a major, major challenge in this era of “too-much, too-soon” young celebrity burnouts.

Let’s remember that Lady Gaga’s star has risen so fast that her Sports Arena show here Saturday comes just nine months after her local headlining debut in March at downtown’s House of Blues, which holds less than 1,000.

It’s also worth remembering that, in a pop music world where the shelf-life of new buzz acts can start and end almost as fast as it takes to do a Twitter post, longevity is the exception, not the rule.

That’s why it remains to be seen if Lady Gaga is just a “flavor of the month” sensation (as her biggest role model, Madonna, put it in a hit-and-miss skit the two did together last month on TV’s “Saturday Night Live”) or someone with the vision and ability to build and sustain a long career like the still-reigning Madonna.

There’s no doubt Lady Gaga has confidence and chutzpah to spare. She’s demonstrated as much with statements that are alternately self-congratulatory (“I’m defying all the preconceptions we have of pop artists”) and bewildering (“I feel that if I can show my demise artistically to the public, I can somehow cure my own legend”).

Come again? She’s a legend, just 14 months after her first album dropped, who needs to be cured? If so, does that mean it’s all downhill from here? For the sake of this fledgling pop-culture provocateur, if not ours, let’s hope not.

Either way, Lady Gaga has crafted a batch of very infectious songs — including “Paparazzi,” “Just Dance” and “Bad Romance” — and has connected in an unusually big way with straight and gay listeners alike. That’s undeniable.

So, alas, is her consistently uneven singing and limited vocal range. There’s also her lame, Vocoder-assisted rapping on “Paper Gangsta” and her painfully vapid lyrics on much of “The Fame,” which was recently reissued (with eight new songs) as the two-CD set, “The Fame Monster.”

These artistic shortcomings don’t stop Lady Gaga from boasting: “I’m unconventional. I’m a rebel.” But that description better suits underground cult stars, such as Canada’s Peaches or Ireland’s Roisin Murphy, than a mainstream pop sensation like Lady Gaga, whose résumé includes writing songs for such “rebels” as the Pussycat Dolls and New Kids on the Block.

Still, every new act deserves the opportunity to grow and evolve. So, while Lady Gaga’s success thus far may only represent a glitzy triumph of style over substance, well, almost no one predicted Madonna’s longevity (no one, that is, except Madonna). (George Varga, Union-Tribune)