What if ARTPOP didn't 'flop'?

[NotMyFlop 1,979]

Honestly, I think her career would be in a lot worse state than it currently was in. 

The Fame/The Fame Monster/Born This Way's massive sales and success I think gave Gaga the idea she can stuff literally anything into an album and it be successful. ARTPOP, for better and for worse, was an overstuffed album with too many fillers that just weren't that great. While you can argue BTW had that issue too, the success of the album simply didn't allow that narrative to exist. 

ARTPOP's disaster gave Gaga a Tabla Rasa of sorts, a clean slate. 

Since 2014, with Cheek to Cheek, Gaga has almost expertly crafted this comeback narrative. Everything she has done has been constant praise, hype, and love. Although for us fans it may have seemed boring, calculated or redundant, Gaga has played the safe game to claim her throne as a legend. 

ASIB is arguably gonna be the climax of this four-year redemption arc; but if she nails the landing and really earns awards and acclaim for her first movie, there is no doubt that her career is going to be alot more interesting again. 

With Gaga's critical, financial and award success back to where it was, Gaga can do what we know she can do and this time execute it more maturely and properly. (It's why she teased DarkGa again...) 

I think Enigma, and everything beyond Gaga will be very experimental and bold again.

[Othon 32,267]

It didn't. Next.

[River 91,001]

I consider Joanne as a very experimental and bold era, she broke the prejudice that the GP and the media thinks about her and especially what she thinks about herself, she locked a huge door in herself, she was free, she understood that she can do anything she wants.

ARTPOP was less experimental and bold imo, it was a safe zone, there's nothing wow about ARTPOP, apart from Venus, with all it's flaws, ARTPOP is another pop record that any other singer could record, unlike TF/M and BTW..

So I'm glad that ARTPOP flopped, without it flopping, Gaga wouldn't be at the same spot that she's today.

[27monster27 9,482]

2 minutes ago, OG Gaga Stan said:

It didn't. Next.

OP put the word flop in quotes, they know that it didn't flop.

[ThisGuyTony 23,649]

If ARTPOP didn't underperform then she wouldn't have had all those opportunities to show off her vocal talent and ability (C2C, Sound of Music, etc.) and without the praise she would be in a far off worse place tbh. 

[Mulholland 1,052]

If ARTPOP hadn't underperformed, her next era would have. Or the one after that.

People (the media and general public) don't let supernova pop artists (especially females) go unchecked for all that long. Gotta bring 'em back down to earth, put 'em in their place. The tear-down happened to Madonna. It *just* happened to Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. In a way, it happened to Beyonce. One day it will happen to Adele.

So it would have happened eventually, though I agree the fall could have been a lot worse had it come after even more continuous success. 

[actsleazy 6,550]

5 minutes ago, River said:

ARTPOP was less experimental and bold imo, it was a safe zone, there's nothing wow about ARTPOP, apart from Venus, with all it's flaws, ARTPOP is another pop record that any other singer could record, unlike TF/M and BTW..

So I'm glad that ARTPOP flopped, without it flopping, Gaga wouldn't be at the same spot that she's today.

what other artist would belt an edm song about rape while getting puked on and riding a mechanic bull, only to be earlier get barbecued while singing a song like aura.. THINK AGAIN! 

[highlikegaga 7,842]

what are y'all talking about. in my mind ARTPOP went #1 for 30 weeks, spawned 6 #1s, one of which (DWUW ft. Kendrick Lamar) spent 20 weeks at the top of the chart and the album is referenced to this day as the most successful female era of all time. 

[27monster27 9,482]

I mean, C2C was still bound to happen. Tony Bennett came to her in late 2012, and many of the songs were recorded before ARTPOP in 2013. ARTPOP came first probably because Interscope saw it as a priority (At first. ).

[Ziggy 10,359]

24 minutes ago, Mulholland said:

If ARTPOP hadn't underperformed, her next era would have. Or the one after that.

People (the media and general public) don't let supernova pop artists (especially females) go unchecked for all that long. Gotta bring 'em back down to earth, put 'em in their place. The tear-down happened to Madonna. It *just* happened to Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. In a way, it happened to Beyonce. One day it will happen to Adele.

So it would have happened eventually, though I agree the fall could have been a lot worse had it come after even more continuous success. 

Tbh I don’t think Adele will get it. She’s not a typical pop star. She’s done her own thing and stuck to a classical style for awhile. She might have less successful eras but duh her 2nd and 3rd were ENORMOUS. Still, I don’t think she’ll get aggressive backlash like Gaga or KP has had. She’s just not in the same space of the zeitgeist as they are. 

[Nuggets 14,136]

42 minutes ago, NotMyFlop said:

ARTPOP, for better and for worse, was an overstuffed album with too many fillers that just weren't that great.

Reported.

[mucinex 4,260]

if ARTPOP didn't flop, Joanne surely would. some people can surpass the third album curse, but not forever  Joanne would be a bigger disappointment to the GP than it already was if ARTPOP did extremely well.

[27monster27 9,482]

14 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

Tbh I don’t think Adele will get it. She’s not a typical pop star. She’s done her own thing and stuck to a classical style for awhile. She might have less successful eras but duh her 2nd and 3rd were ENORMOUS. Still, I don’t think she’ll get aggressive backlash like Gaga or KP has had. She’s just not in the same space of the zeitgeist as they are. 

True. Not to mention that with the next album she is dropping the age based title, which will also help in giving the GP something fresh. However, some of the singles off of 25 were showing some BTW-esque overexposure side effects, meaning that an AC/DC effect might hit her with her fourth album. (Not that I am saying that late BTW singles or ARTPOP were bad performers chart-wise, because we obviously know that they wren't.)

[Mulholland 1,052]

20 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

Tbh I don’t think Adele will get it. She’s not a typical pop star. She’s done her own thing and stuck to a classical style for awhile. She might have less successful eras but duh her 2nd and 3rd were ENORMOUS. Still, I don’t think she’ll get aggressive backlash like Gaga or KP has had. She’s just not in the same space of the zeitgeist as they are. 

I don't think it will be the *exact* same kind of backlash, because you're right, she operates in a different mode. However, there will come a day, perhaps even with her next album, that she fails to live up to hype and sales expectations, and people may well latch onto that. Even coming off 25, which despite selling well, was generally regarded as inferior to 21, and there were some not-that-happy reactions when she won AOTY. That album's run of singles was also less successful than 21's.

I think she's actually in kind of a crap spot, period, because she can't keep making the same album for the rest of her career without people totally checking out, but will people really allow her to experiment?

A more apt comparison would be Mariah Carey. More on the adult-contemporary side, biggest album-seller her first decade out, and then one day, an album underperforms, the wolves have at it...

[BlahForever1 644]

Hmm interesting question! I think there's quite a few things to consider; first off, I'd like to say that in retrospect ARTPOP definitely wasn't a flop, however, because it wasn't an enormous smasher like TF, TFM, and BTW, it was perceived as a flop. If ARTPOP had met the commercial expectations put on Gaga (e.g. a number one hit, a platinum album in pure sales, and a 100 million+ grossing tour), there's a big chance her next album would have flopped (and been an actual flop) especially if Gaga continued wearing crazy outfits and doing stuff like vomiting on someone during a live performance. 

A large part in why ARTPOP didn't reasonate with music consumers in the same way as previous records is because it was just too much; there were too many ideas and too many different images. I know at first I found the concept of ARTPOP hard to understand, especially as Gaga had been doing 'ARTPOP' since the beginning of her career. During this period, there was shift from edm music, weird costumes/outfits and crazy behaviour to more urban orientated and 'organic'/ stripped back music and an emphasis on being 'relatable'. If Gaga had continued on the path she was on with ARTPOP, her next album would have probably been perceived as being more 'tone deaf' and outdated.

With that said, if ARTPOP had been a 'success', and Gaga changed things up and released an album like Joanne, I feel like Gaga would be in a similar position to now, except with a couple of more top ten hits.