Now that Lady Gaga has released the first music video for her third album, we are officially cleared to get nostalgic about early Lady Gaga. Remember The Fame before it was The Fame Monster? Back when every song came with its own little Gaga pesudo rap in the middle for some reason? Man, those were the days.

So today we're watching the very first Lady Gaga video, 2008's "Just Dance", directed by Melina Matsoukas.

The concept of this video is very simple - there's a house party that has ended and everyone has passed out. Then, Lady Gaga arrives in a limo to revive it and things get crazy again for real. The video has a sort of "Criminal"-like look to it, with some scenes filmed with a spotlight and very dark areas. Lady Gaga is performing throughout.

Let's pause for a second here and remember that when Lady Gaga was first introduced to the public it was largely as a crazy club party kid. There was an element of hipster and definitely some glitter, there was nary a mention of dresses made out of meat or ballons. That all came later. Pull out your copy of The Fame and skip to track 5, "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)". Yes, that is Lady Gaga saying "cherry cherry boom boom" at the beginning of a song that sounds like it was pulled out of the filler song bin at Interscope. Although she quickly pivoted, early Lady Gaga was pretty different.

At the point where Melina Matsoukas is making the video for "Just Dance", it's unlikely that anyone knew that tracks 1-4 off of The Fame would basically be four of the biggest singles of 2008-2009, and it's even unliklier that anyone knew what direction Gaga would go in once she was off to the races. So as a Lady Gaga artifact, the video for "Just Dance" is really interesting. In one way, it's a very normal video. Music videos were in a major house party binge in 2008-2010, so the setting or the general concept is very much of its time. What makes "Just Dance" stand out is, of course, Gaga, who is sporting a blue lightning bolt on her cheek and some very straight bangs. She's the vroom vroom party starter in this video, and while we don't really see much of the things that would make her quickly one of the most famous people in the world, you can definitely see the basics of what she'd take to the next level in subsequent videos.

There are, however, some things that I believe were quickly jettisoned as Lady Gaga concepts after the video. One of them is her two henchwomen with boom boxes. The other is having people rap on her songs (sorry, Colby O'Donis). I think humping a Shamu blow up pool toy was also off the table after this video.

On another note, what ever happened to Colby O'Donis?

Adam Fairholm is the co-founder and lead developer of IMVDb. You can find him on twitter at @adamfairholm.