Toronto Star artRAVE Review: "Lady Gaga dazzles with glitzy spectacle"

[heavyMetalGAGA 65]

 

"ARTPOP, as it turns out, isn’t as devoid of hooks as its detractors claim.

 

At the Air Canada Centre, July 9

 

Contemporary pop celebrity is a 24/7 commitment that demands a running narrative to keep it interesting, and in Lady Gaga’s case that narrative has taken on a specious theme of failure since the release of her third album, ARTPOP, late last year.

 

One could sense a media backlash coming even before the iffy reviews of ARTPOP started trickling in. Gaga enjoyed an uncommonly good, out-of-the-gate run as a rare critical and commercial darling pretty much from the moment The Fame dropped in 2008, so it was almost preordained that the same chattering machine that so quickly elevated her to superstar status would eventually turn against her. Pop will always eat itself.

 

“Lady Gaga doing just fine†makes for a boring headline, after all; it’s much more titillating to, say, pit her latest album against Katy Perry’s in a nonsense competition for higher first-week sales or to complain that ARTPOP lacks obvious singles  two recurring narrative strands that have nothing to do with “art†at all in the first place and that also fail to recognize that Gaga might be aiming for something a little more durable with her music these days than a passing acquaintance with the top of the pop charts.

 

Which she topped, anyway. An album that sells 2.5 million copies, as the brazenly difficult-in-mainstream-context ARTPOP has done since November of last year, should not be considered a “disappointment†at a time when one – and only one – album (the soundtrack to Disney’s animated film Frozen) has passed the platinum gatepost of one million in sales at the halfway point of 2014.

 

Enough about that stuff, though. Lady Gaga is selling ARTPOP, an underrated record that will undoubtedly experience a popular reappraisal in the not-to-distant future, fairly well from the stage these days, as evidenced by the ripping stop on her current “artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ballâ€tour she made at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre on Wednesday night.

 

Her production ambitions seemed a tad diminished after the post-apocalyptic replica-subway backdrops and mechanical unicorns of previous road shows, although one could hardly call the set-up barebones. Gaga and her band were joined by a full complement of 15 dancers on a trapdoor-bedecked stage that resembled a leftover Tatooine set from the first Star Wars movie at the back and reached three-quarters of the way out into the arena bowl from the front on a transparent, Y-shaped proscenium surrounded by giddy Little Monsters who’d been lining up outside since the late morning to make the most of their general-admission tickets.

 

The rest of the budget appears to have been spent on multicoloured wigs, elaborate costumes  a winged, silver-sequined bodysuit thing to open the night, an H.R. Giger vision of an evening gown fashioned from balloon animals at the mid-point and a Day-Glo candy-raver Goldilocks get-up donned in full, briefly topless view of the crowd to usher us out towards the encore with “Applause†among them  and a landfill’s worth of confetti that kept relentlessly blasting forth from multiple cannons for the duration of the performance, with a few bucks set aside for some inflatable cartoon plants during “Venus†and the giant, silver, clawed hand on a pedestal upon which Gaga sat while singing “Do What U Want.â€

 

The sawing, big-‘n’-dirty dancefloor fare from ARTPOP received a thorough airing, although Gaga’s early pronouncement that she would be playing the new album “back to front†in a show “not for the artistically faint-of-heart†proved less uncompromising than advertised when it was quickly followed up by The Fame’s calling-card hits “Just Dance†and “Poker Face.†And indeed, there were many more hits  “Judas,†“Bad Romance,†“Alejandro,†an a cappella snippet of “Edge of Glory†and a torchy ballad version of “Born This Way†delivered while a fan pulled from the audience shared the piano bench  to come in a fast-paced program that otherwise made a very, very strong case for the addition of newer tunes such as “G.U.Y.,†“Sexxx Dreams,†the ass-whuppin’ “Swine†and the long-fused anthem “Gypsy†to the lasting Lady Gaga canon.

 

ARTPOP, as it turns out, isn’t as devoid of hooks as its detractors claim. Even its weaker moments get the body-moving job done when their basslines and kick-drum tracks are accorded the full might of an arena P.A. and the charismatic presence of a creator clearly committed to flying her freak flag, come what may, for the long haul. Pity no one lured Beyoncé over from her nearby date with hubby Jay Z at the Rogers Centre for five minutes to take up her part on “Telephone†and put the gig properly over the top, but Lady Gaga is still doing singularly fine on her own. She’ll be around for a while yet, and applause will follow."

 

Pretty awesome review that's positive! :) The tour is great! I miss it so much 

[Dodo 313]

Enough about that stuff, though. Lady Gaga is selling ARTPOP, an underrated record that will undoubtedly experience a popular reappraisal in the not-to-distant future

 

WHERE ARE THE FOCKING LIES ??

[Prometheus 1,494]

 

 

"ARTPOP, as it turns out, isn’t as devoid of hooks as its detractors claim.

 

[Maxi 0]

I red it already

getting the fücking good promo I see

 

finally getting the attention she deserves 

[Miky 9,407]

Canada :emo: stan

[Navy 495]

Yas Toronto star stan for the touring queen

[GreenEyes 366]

Is that how all of her records are going to be now? Not appreciated in the moment but will be more appreciated in the future? 

[Chromatislaps 34,625]

Pity no one lured Beyoncé over from her nearby date with hubby Jay Z at the Rogers Centre for five minutes to take up her part on “Telephone†and put the gig properly over the top, but Lady Gaga is still doing singularly fine on her own. She’ll be around for a while yet, and applause will follow."

This needs to happen tbh, if it ever happens, I'll come running

[Jjang 2,262]

*At least she still has Canada and Japan.

[Cocaine Heart 4,768]

   

[Arturo 40,746]

 

“Lady Gaga doing just fine†makes for a boring headline, after all; it’s much more titillating to, say, pit her latest album against Katy Perry’s in a nonsense competition for higher first-week sales or to complain that ARTPOP lacks obvious singles  two recurring narrative strands that have nothing to do with “art†at all in the first place and that also fail to recognize that Gaga might be aiming for something a little more durable with her music these days than a passing acquaintance with the top of the pop charts.

The flawless media drag

 

At least she still has Canada and Japan.

 

She's been getting pretty good reviews in the U.S too thnx

[heavyMetalGAGA 65]

Is that how all of her records are going to be now? Not appreciated in the moment but will be more appreciated in the future? 

 

I think this will be how it goes until the media decides she has survived long enough and starts appreciating her work again. Doesn't mean her fans can't enjoy it, though :) 

 

The media likes to paint a picture that isn't entirely true. After all, they need to make money too. ARTPOP was still one of the best selling female records of the year, along with its tour.

[LaXian 25]

Yes stan for the f*cking kweeen ... All shall bow one day ... LOL

I see no lies ... AT ALL

[djBuffoon 11,825]

There isn't enough room to quote all of the tea that was spilled.

[Jester 6,209]