Lady Gaga took to Instagram with a photo that should excite fans, especially those in love with her excellent 2009 EP The Fame Monster. The photos show her in the studio with Nadir "RedOne" Khayat, the producer/songwriter who was almost exclusively responsible for the work on the pop star's earliest output (from Billboard).
The image shows Gaga, dressed as eccentrically as ever, and the producer, who is holding an acoustic guitar (don't expect Gaga Unplugged to be her next album however).
Khayat was involved with the biggest singles off of her debut album The Fame, including "Just Dance," "LoveGame" and "Poker Face." The high point of his work with the performer (and also her high point as a musician) came on The Fame Monster, including the tracks "Bad Romance" and "Alejandro." This is more your correspondent's opinion than the world's, but we feel "Judas," RedOne's contribution to Born This Way, was also that album's best track.
Following that however, he didn't have any role in Gaga's Artpop, which would go on to be her worst-selling and, in many cases, her worst received album critically. Whether RedOne is the quick fix for the problems on that album is debatable but based on his track record, we're not going to complain about him getting back to work with the pop star.
His certainly isn't a name that gets tossed around quite as often as Max Martin or Pharrell Williams, so what's RedOne been doing when he's not working with Gaga? He's been busy, although often he works with less Top 40-prepped performers. That doesn't mean he hasn't had hits: He's the producer behind Nicki Minaj's single "Starships" as well as writing on the single version of Marc Anthony's Latin Radio smash "Viva mir Vida."
