[artist id="1098"]Madonna[/artist] got her start in New York City clubs in the early '80s, and last May she paid a visit to one of the city's music venues to check out the young pop sensation who's so often compared to the Queen of Pop: Lady Gaga. After taking in the live show at Terminal 5, Madonna realized that she too recognized similarities with Gaga, from her stripped-down production to that indefinable quality that has made the 23-year-old singer a star.

"I think Lady Gaga is great," Madge says in the new issue of Rolling Stone. "When we saw her, I actually felt a kind of recognition. I thought, 'She's got something.' There's something quirky about her. She's fearless and funny, and when she spoke to the audience, she sounded intelligent and clever. She's unique."

[article id="1610640"]Gaga is an avowed fan of her predecessor[/article] and told MTV News in May, "I was very humbled that Madonna came to the show." [article id="1621452"]Madonna, in turn, admitted to us[/article] that she's "very flattered" by the comparisons to the younger singer.

And Madonna told Rolling Stone that she especially sees the similarities between the two artists when she thinks back to those years when she was first starting out.

"I can see myself in Lady Gaga," Madge continued. "In the early part of my career, for sure. When I saw her, she didn't have a lot of money for her production, she's got holes in her fishnets, and there's mistakes everywhere. It was kind of a mess, but I can see that she's got that "it" factor. It's nice to see that at a raw stage."