It was not her voice as the stylistic choices she made that sounded similar to Minnelli and had little to do with Bowie, which i found out of place and bordering on mockery.

Here's some good news

Generally anybody, who's first thought after being offered a Bowie tribute, isn't orange hair is an improvement.

leave the bald jokes at the door, pal

wig, orange wig

BMG or Columbia House?

Yep. The medley moved too quickly for any one part to resonate.

I laughed

Barnes and Noble -- $6.99 each!

I have Low on at this moment. One of his best.

Me too but then i saw the replays of Gaga nuts educating him, his father would have been proud of the tribute, and wasn't sure whether i wanted to laugh or cry.

I must admit i was caught off guard by the way some here reacted to me and some others being pessimistic about Lady Gaga doing the tribute. I perfectly understand why my opinions up in the Pearl Jam sub forum can be considered heresy or why i've been called weird for defending them at some point.
But that questioning Gaga's adequacy in this context would be met with that kind of animosity, seems peculiar even to me.

I got the feeling that we all agreed it wasn't that great?

I was talking about after it was announced she was doing the tribute.
Scepticism about the choice was dismissed as bias against her and ignorance of her talents. Ironically it turned out bias was on the other side. I wouldn't have expected Lady Gaga to be such a sacred cow here.

I think the reasons why she was considered a particularly good choice were superficial and didn't make much justice to Bowie nor her. I think the credentials that are supposed to give her artistic substance are vastly overstated and mean less in practice than they are supposed to on paper. Technical skills get overstated because they're measurable but they don't make someone better or worse in practice because other factors tend to be decisive in determining success. Song writing quality isn't defined by it's complexity as singing isn't by how technically polished it is yet when they are discussed it often reverts to just that reasoning. It's kind of how it is with Lady Gaga, she's supposed to have an advantage in theory that isn't there in practice because she's practically just a performer now. Her commercial and critical appeal as a recording artist and songwriter dropped exponentially and as of now never recovered which is common for pop stars that aren't considered nearly as talented as she is.

She is the age Bowie was in 1977 and it's just astonishing what a body of work he created by the time he was 30.

I suggest Aladdin Sane when you're done with those.

Duly noted, thanks!

Her appeal has dropped exponentially? Has she made an album that flopped recently? Is she not a critical darling? Just because you say something doesn't make it true. Her last album was with Tony Bennett and was met with favorable critiques. Granted that was released a year and a half ago, but she toured behind it and has been doing things other than making a new pop album. So maybe she's not on the radio with new music, which is odd for a pop artist, but let her put out her bad album before you decree her appeal to have dropped exponentially.

Also, all her appearances and the golden globe win all point to a lead up to an album release or they sure seem calculated to keep her being talked about

I am genuinely surprised by that response. I was just talking numbers there 15-6-2.5-0.6 million records sold worldwide from 2008 to 2016 is an exponential drop and the critical darling drop status was parallel to that. Yes she got great reviews for the Tony Bennett duet album but as a performer which isn't such an achievement for a 20 something at the relative beginning of her career. The whole Bennett and acting career was something she fell back on because the original career wasn't doing that well. Art pop got mixed reviews - 61/100 according to meta critic and was considered a flop of course relative to the expectations. She currently gets recognition mainly as a performer.

in the span of 8 years people kinda stopped buying albums, unless you consider someone like taylor swift who took their music off streaming sites and wasn't available (prior to apple music) without download. I'm not saying Artpop was actually really good, but she's far from out of favor. I do agree she's more of a performer as a whole, but you seem to imply she lacked the talent as a pop star, which just seems absurd.