Do you guys agree with this ATRL quote about Interscope?

[RBNLM 1,640]

Gaga wanted aura as first single interscope didn't let her to do it gaga wanted an album with raw vocals and extended instrumentals interascope did not ,gaga wanted venus as second single interscope didn't want it, gaga needed more time to work on her videos and concepts interscope did not let her, interscope did not help her with the promo and production of g.u.y. even if they knew she was without a proper management team gaga worked on the video with her solo efforts and money.Yes I blame interscope if she felt pressed.

[Pain of fame1 226]

No. I disagree. Ultimately she is controlled by the label and they should have had it better planned. And if there were disagreements, then they should have hammered out the era before ARTPOP even came out. Lady Gaga is too huge NOT to have each single planned out with video treatments before the album is released. Interscope and Gaga had MORE than enough to plan ARTPOP out perfectly. So, in the end, I kinda blame them both. 

[aaronyoji 2,007]

Honestly I don't understand people freaking out about Interscope controlling people.

I mean, if I'm correct Lana Del Rey is part of Interscope and she seems to be happy and not controlled.

if it where up to her label, ultraviolence wouldnt have been released to begin with, those are her words. also lana does not have the pressure that someone like gaga has, gaga has more hits under her belt and a larger platform, so her label is gonna pressure her to maintain that. even though lana has a few hits and a large cult fanbase, she doesnt have that amount of pressure. 

 

even indie rapper m.i.a, the most rebellious and bad ass mc, her label, interscope, kept pushing back her release date and kept telling her her album was too happy, and that she needed to go back into the studio and fix that. it wasnt until she threatened to leak it that they finally gave her a release date. 

 

honestly it bugs me when fans give the corporate labels the benfeit of the doubt, thats practically always the wrong way to go about it. that atrl member quoted in the op is just plain wrong and doesnt know ****. 

[Koreku 2,387]

All would've been fine with a manager.

 

So true. She really needed the organization of a manager, as all artists do. If your manager doesn't have faith in you and leaves, then that must be a terrible feeling for the artist I would imagine why gaga just stopped fighting.

[Ronk 14,078]

Nah Ultraviolence was a big departure from Lana's Born To Die sound, as another user pointed out Interscope didn't like it and it almost didn't get released. But Lana isn't really a pop star and there's less at stake in her career, she's still riding high off her 6m selling debut so she can afford to release a more niche record. Gaga on the other hand is a pure pop star who had a pretty fragile relationship with the public after BTW so I can understand why Interscope was feeling pretty risk-averse.

 

I agree that they probably cut a lot of the riskier, stronger material and that the album was probably changed many times. But I think Gaga and her management were complicit in that too. We all know now that Troy wanted to milk her hard and I think Gaga herself was falling into that mindset, with her tweets about "coming for Carly's record" and "snatching weaves and naval rings with ARTPOP". I think everyone from the label to management to Gaga herself was too paranoid about her brand to allow for her creativity to thrive, and that was before the hip injury, you can imagine how much worse it all got afterwards.

I see your point.  I think we just don't know how much each player (label, management, Gaga) had to do with changing things to make ARTPOP less risky.  I think we can only speculate.  I view Gaga as someone always pushing her art hard and wanting everything to be produced to her own vision, with label and management trying to rein her in.  But that's just my thoughts, I could be wrong.  But if her creativity is not being allowed to thrive, that is tragic and needs to change.

[Phlop 4,773]

I'm sure if ARTPOP went Gaga's way, it would've been better. Aura and Venus should've been singles, as well as Gypsy.

[djBuffoon 11,638]

The most interesting part is that we have people who claim that Interscope tampered with the album, watered it down, etc. And then there's another camp who claim that Gaga is totally responsible, and Interscope was left to pick up the pieces. And then there's others who keep flip-flopping their version of the truth.

 

What I think is that the examples the ATRL user pointed out are not really criticisms. These were all things that Gaga felt/feels strongly about, and they are perfectly valid expressions of her art. If we are to believe what she has said throughout the era, Interscope could have done a more thorough job in helping her promote the album and execute her vision after the album was done. She had all of these plans that she seemed excited to show us, none of them materialized, and I don't believe she is to blame for that.

 

Bottom line, I have spoken to many Gaga listeners/fans who either have yet hear ARTPOP (even months after its release) or had no idea it existed in the first place, and that is unacceptable.

 

Also. I have to point out that since the album dropped, we have fans here who say the album is safe and basic, and then others who say it's too unrelatable and not simple/catchy enough. How can it be both?

[Alfonso 1,202]

No. I disagree. Ultimately she is controlled by the label and they should have had it better planned. And if there were disagreements, then they should have hammered out the era before ARTPOP even came out. Lady Gaga is too huge NOT to have each single planned out with video treatments before the album is released. Interscope and Gaga had MORE than enough to plan ARTPOP out perfectly. So, in the end, I kinda blame them both.

This

[Ronk 14,078]

Interscope could have done a more thorough job in helping her promote the album and execute her vision after the album was done. She had all of these plans that she seemed excited to show us, none of them materialized, and I don't believe she is to blame for that.

 

This I believe.

[djBuffoon 11,638]

This I believe.

I mean, at the end of the day, there have been significantly weaker albums just in the past couples of years that were huge because they were promoted like crazy.

[XoXoJoanneGaga 629]

I see your point.  I think we just don't know how much each player (label, management, Gaga) had to do with changing things to make ARTPOP less risky.  I think we can only speculate.  I view Gaga as someone always pushing her art hard and wanting everything to be produced to her own vision, with label and management trying to rein her in.  But that's just my thoughts, I could be wrong.  But if her creativity is not being allowed to thrive, that is tragic and needs to change.

Yea I would love to know more about went on behind the scenes but we can only speculate. But from what I know about how major label albums are put together and what we've learned about the state of Gaga from 2012-2013 I think it's safe to assume it was a big mess on all fronts.

[danwasd 2,444]

Not want to make a third videoclip ... :sweep:

[danwasd 2,444]

Gaga wanted aura as first single interscope didn't let her to do it gaga wanted an album with raw vocals and extended instrumentals interascope did not ,gaga wanted venus as second single interscope didn't want it, gaga needed more time to work on her videos and concepts interscope did not let her, interscope did not help her with the promo and production of g.u.y. even if they knew she was without a proper management team gaga worked on the video with her solo efforts and money.Yes I blame interscope if she felt pressed.

Nothing more to say :sweep:

[LittleBoot 27]

There are two sides to every story and I'm inclined to think that it was a matter of two sides with different agendas being at odds with one another. It happens in business all the time.

 

I can see both sides of it. Interscope had a certain amount of control and formula with Gaga that was very successful, and I can't blame them for wanting to have certain boundaries and feeling the need to stick to things being a certain way. At the end of the day they have a business to run.

 

On the other hand, it sounds like the whole process and atmosphere wasn't sustainable for Gaga and she wasn't happy with the way things were going. I suspect that perhaps the bigger her image became, the more they felt the need to channel and control it, which is in the nature of a business. But on the other side -- the bigger her image became, the more she felt she had earned some freedom and independence, which is the nature of an artist.

 

We may never know the full story and there will always be two sides to it, with the truth probably being somewhere in the middle. Multiple sides are to blame for the album's execution being a mess.

[Cody Draco 2,531]

Thanks!