What exactly is ARTPOP and what did Gaga want to achieve?

[V e n u s 299]

People can hate on ARTPOP's sound but no one should ever disparage this representation of Gaga's mind.

 

I've read countless comments disparaging ARTPOP because of it's sound and just it's whole musicality in general. It's anyone's right to dislike something... but to completely trash the entirety of Gaga's creativity for this album is wrong. To be honest, anyone's creativity shouldn't be trashed. Everyone's artistic drive is equal, there's just art that doesn't appeal to different folks, but no creative mind is greater or worse than the other.

 

ARTPOP was an explosion of everything Gaga was inspired with during that time in her life. She practised the most liberating thing an artist can do to oneself. That thing is to be inspired with whatever the **** you want and creatively express it in whatever medium you desire. Gaga completely gave herself to her inspirations and conceptualized a whole era from those inspirations.

 

Gaga also isn't pretentious for being "too artsy". What even is "too artsy"? Is it when you're being yourself truthfully and you are absolutely comfortable with how artistic you are? She has stated in interviews that she doesn't even consider herself the creator of ARTPOP. ARTPOP is a philisophy that exists within culture. Anyone who is situated in pop culture and decides to take full control of their image and self-expression is a propagator of ARTPOP. Gaga merely wanted to contribute her ART into POP culture.

[V e n u s 299]

The goal of this post isn't to convert ARTPOP bashers into ARTPOP stans.

Basically, I just want to point out the philosophy that ANYONE can dislike something but no one should deem someone as uncreative just because they don't like the creation.

Everyone is creative in their own unique way.

[dit 46,317]

The point of ARTPOP was... I- 

[Antoni 5,332]

You know, I hate to be a pessimist, but I think the goal for ARTPOP was to get through it. She had a lot of ideas but no time to weave them together. Think of the number of themes she repeated: 

We could belong together.

The artist is the canvas.

I am every icon.

When art sucks the tits of pop.

And that's just a few from the era. The real theme of ARTPOP is that it could mean anything, because she didn't have the time or energy to think through a whole era the way she did with TFM and BTW. 

[Lighter 15,376]

She’s putting classical art to her pop music and videos. Art in front of pop. ARTPOP.

a reverse Warhol

because he put pop into art(paintings). Pop art

[Bradley 58,648]

Actually the majority of the fanbase remembers ARTPOP rather fondly, some even call it her best and most creative album.

The one that needs more appreciation is Joanne, which turned so many people I know into fans, people who were turned off by her antics prior to Joanne's release.

At least the Grammys recognise Joanne. 

[AlexDelarge 250]

until now i don't know. gaga was a little lost at the time.

[Guest]

i love the ideas that she had for the record, its just a shame the era didn't go as planned.

[MrDarkGa 311]

I dont think we will ever know what it set out to achieve, or what the original concept she had wanted to accomplish. Its always been the "what a sad shame" album for me because she had been planning for it since 2012 and likely had a really good concept she couldnt develop due to the ambitiousness or didnt have time to with the rushed label deadline.

I have always wondered if the concept of ART+POP was simply too difficult to pull off as it was combining a largely visual medium with an audio medium. Technically, all music (inc. Pop) can be ARTPOP as its the musician's artistic creation. But this cant be the theme as its a cop-out. I dont really see what she could have done with it other than go really Björk experimental. What we got simply isnt up to much at all. It isnt the underrated album and it doesnt deserve more as it didnt offer enough in the first place. It underperformed in terms of sales and lost a lot of OG fans because it deserved to. It didnt deliver.

I think that to finish up with, it was a case of getting it out and over with and trying to make passable lemonade with really dated lemons. The common consensus of the theme is "it could mean anything" which to me is a very weak blanket defense for an album that patently didnt have a clear goal. I dont think she intended it to be as limited and immature an album as it was nor for it to have the previous year's sound that pop was moving away from. I reckon she was well and truly over it upon its release.

More things went wrong with it than things that went right, so much so it almost resulted in her quitting the game and then caused an extensive (but incredibly successful) image overhaul. I dont think she was called pretentious for being artsy - I think she was called pretentious simply because she was. She was trying to make the album appear better and more flashy than it was, and I think she knew it was bad herself but her label were likely pressuring her to keep the hype going even though it was thoroughly derailed. She was also borderline insufferable in this era, likely because she just didnt know what she was doing or simply didnt care about it enough to try and figure it out.

[Versace 7,951]

Had she followed her original idea of Visual album, there would be less guess work. Since so much of ART is visual and all the tracks are conceptual so they would have all benefited from music videos.  She would've even done it before Beyonce did, when it comes to the mainstream. 

[Versace 7,951]

16 minutes ago, MrDarkGa said:

I dont think we will ever know what it set out to achieve, or what the original concept she had wanted to accomplish. Its always been the "what a sad shame" album for me because she had been planning for it since 2012 and likely had a really good concept she couldnt develop due to the ambitiousness or didnt have time to with the rushed label deadline.

I have always wondered if the concept of ART+POP was simply too difficult to pull off as it was combining a largely visual medium with an audio medium. Technically, all music (inc. Pop) can be ARTPOP as its the musician's artistic creation. But this cant be the theme as its a cop-out. I dont really see what she could have done with it other than go really Björk experimental. What we got simply isnt up to much at all. It isnt the underrated album and it doesnt deserve more as it didnt offer enough in the first place. It underperformed in terms of sales and lost a lot of OG fans because it deserved to. It didnt deliver.

I think that to finish up with, it was a case of getting it out and over with and trying to make passable lemonade with really dated lemons. The common consensus of the theme is "it could mean anything" which to me is a very weak blanket defense for an album that patently didnt have a clear goal. I dont think she intended it to be as limited and immature an album as it was nor for it to have the previous year's sound that pop was moving away from. I reckon she was well and truly over it upon its release.

More things went wrong with it than things that went right, so much so it almost resulted in her quitting the game and then caused an extensive (but incredibly successful) image overhaul. I dont think she was called pretentious for being artsy - I think she was called pretentious simply because she was. She was trying to make the album appear better and more flashy than it was, and I think she knew it was bad herself but her label were likely pressuring her to keep the hype going even though it was thoroughly derailed. She was also borderline insufferable in this era, likely because she just didnt know what she was doing or simply didnt care about it enough to try and figure it out.

While I do see your perspective, I genuinely think you were expecting too much. Perhaps TFM and BTW have made it even more so that many expectations were surrounding ARTPOP's release and meaning. However, in the end you can't deny it's sonically great music. If it lost fans or is underrated, I certainly don't blame the music. The album is seriously a joyful collection of uptempo dance-floor anthems. I mean who can resist the melodies of Venus, Applause, and Gypsy. ARTPOP's sound is colorful, brave and bold. In other words its really a have a good time album. Not everything needs to be explained or have a clear ideology for it to be enjoyable or considered "good music". I think were judging ARTPOP harshly because we compare it to Gaga's previous efforts and consider it an underperformance for her. When we look it the facts, I remember ARTPOP outsold many female pop albums. We keep asking too much from ARTPOP (probably cause Gaga overhyped it) but in reality let's not act as if Katy's Prism had any more meaning "I turned my darkness into light, here's an album about it" is just as vague as "ARTPOP could mean anything".  Heck, what was Beyonce's first visual album even about, other than just a collection of videos with no coherent meaning or theme. You also had Britney Jean around that time which is arguably Britney's weakest effort. Even if it was a low point for her, I still think it was the most interesting album out during its time. 

 

 

[Chris Evans 8,917]

ARTPOP:  a reverse warholian experience meaning putting the art (ex: birth of venus) on pop (gaga) rather than the pop on art (andy warhol's pop art movement) 

she thought of the word ARTPOP then gave meaning to it which is why i think people find the idea hard to grasp and why she tried explaining it for fans to understand 

ARTPOP (the song) is lyrically a triumph but people fail to get that because they don't look into the lyrics or just don't understand them

the announcement literally explained everything: what it meant and what she wanted to do with the experience before it came crashing down

[imnotyourbabe10 6,081]

At SXSW, one of my favorite Gaga performances, the line "F**k you pop music, this is ARTPOP!" says it all.  Along with what others have posted (reverse Warhol. every icon, pop sucks the tits of art). 

The song ARTPOP itself details it well, too. 

I realize it was a rough time for her but I also think she did a great job at "queering" pop music, experimenting with different sounds (J&D) and giving "the man"/normative pop a nice big F.U.

[ImTired 3,955]

3 hours ago, Bradley said:

Actually the majority of the fanbase remembers ARTPOP rather fondly, some even call it her best and most creative album.

The one that needs more appreciation is Joanne, which turned so many people I know into fans, people who were turned off by her antics prior to Joanne's release.

At least the Grammys recognise Joanne. 

But did they buy the album on iTunes? 

[sillynate 6,170]

ARTPOP is the coming together of things that one would normally assume do not belong together, but can flourish when together {basically double meanings} This is evident in several songs: Aura, Venus, Girl Under You, MANiCURE, Do What U Want, ARTPOP, Swine, Mary Jane Holland, and Applause. Therefore, the rest of the songs I didn’t list are filler songs because they don’t fit the theme of the album. Wrong. Remember, ARTPOP could mean anything. I could literally go on and on about this. I’m studying the philosophy of ARTPOP {music, videos, lyrics, interviews, performances, etc} so I can apply it to my own music