ARTPOP Doesn't Have Much To Say

[chuck 465]

You know what, **** your unpopular opinion.

It's subjective. Like art. 

"My ARTPOP can mean anything" says a lot for me.
If you think it doesn't say much, then it reflects on your imagination. Because it's art. And if you can't read it, that's on you.  Now get the **** out.

[skedaddleBItCh 2,521]

I don't have an opinion to it, so I don't care

But the Joanne slander here is very tiring

[AJRocketMan 2,684]

2 hours ago, Dolce Vita said:

And thats why at the beginning (before things got messy), there were a mix of exciting, ACTUALLY groundbreaking moments with GOOD well thought concepts like the Applause video and what not and the live performances, contrasting to the really dark moments like that interview a month or so after the era began when she literally couldn’t think of anymore bullshit to say so she sat in silence so awkwardly. 

What interview are you talking about? I’ve seen virtually every interview from the ARTPOP era and I don’t remember her ever sitting in silence.

[bxr 1,016]

Just for the sake of due diligence; it’s extensive, but tbh, it feels relevant to the topic at hand …

 - - - - -

 

1 hour ago, Edonis said:

Whew. okay.

I mixed opinions about the concept of ARTPOP and how it came to be, its themes, and why it was received the way that it was, but to cut to the chase I think disregarding what LG said, the album is mostly about her very strong experiences with sex and how physical and emotional intimacy affects an individual.

Astute essay  Random, but it also adds a potential layer to the Reverse Warholian Expedition, given Warhol's perspectives on love and sex (particularly the wide divergence between his personal philosophy yielding toward abstinence, versus the raw exposure presented in his work, most notably from his signature voyeur/exhibitionist dynamic) …

“The most exciting thing is not-doing-it. If you fall in love with someone and never do it, it’s much more exciting.” … “Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.” … “People’s fantasies are what give them problems. If you didn’t have fantasies you wouldn’t have problems because you’d just take whatever was there. But then you wouldn’t have romance, because romance is finding your fantasy in people who don’t have it.” … “Love and sex can go together and sex and unlove can go together and love and unsex can go together. But personal love and personal sex is bad.” -- The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

So, maybe, in some realm of an indirect and/or unintentional subplot, where ARTPOP was about “belonging together,” bridging the worlds of subtext and fantasy, converging apparent polarities, and exploring or expressing the spectrum of experiences within the sphere of sex and love … Warhol actively expressed the very opposite in his personal life and professional work (abstinence, and performance void of apparent intimacy)

Again, neither here nor there, just a random conceptual association that crossed the mind … that could make absolutely zero sense.

[Sugar Baby 626]

The songs in ARTPOP is just about Sex, Love fame and Party, it’s just the truth 

she had a very solid concept with the fame, monster, Born This Way and even Joanne all the songs share a similar theme and work perfect together but with ARTPOP it’s like she just didn’t do what to do next so she sang about all king of things, put it in a box and called it ARTPOP saying ART meets POP, with a name like that you would expect a masterpiece of record with deeps lyrics and lots of innovative and weird sounds but instead we got a dated EDM album with songs like Donatello, J&D, Manicure, Swine, Mary Jane, dope and fashion 

Applause, Aura and ARTPOP are probably the only real ARTPOP songs in it, the rest are either unrelated to it or full cringe lyrics like Venus 

with ARTPOP I was expecting songs similar to Tamme Impala’s Same Old mistakes 

no wonder it got panned by critics and it’s still her worst album in Metacritic Score 

[Enigma 7,182]

The whole point of ARTPOP is that "it can mean anything" aka she wanted to do everything she felt like doing. There's a reason the cover art is such a convoluted (and iconic) mess. There's a reason it goes from smoking weed to comparing yourself to an ancient roman goddess to having killed your boyfriend and wearing burqas. The best line of that album that encapsulates it the most is "Enigma popstar is fun she wears burqa for fashion / it's not a statement as much as just a move of passion". 

This album is kind of hedonism as an album. She wanted to paint her face white and rainbow, so she did. She wanted to get puked paint on, so she did. It's all extra and psychedelic.

The point is there's no point, or that there are so many that it ends up being no point. 

Is the music that deep? No. I don't think it was meant to be, cause it being a POP album is literally in capital letters in the title. 

The whole era, (planned) concepts and philosophy of it is fierce as **** though.

[Edonis 25,942]

1 hour ago, bxr said:

Just for the sake of due diligence; it’s extensive, but tbh, it feels relevant to the topic at hand …

 - - - - -

 

Astute essay  Random, but it also adds a potential layer to the Reverse Warholian Expedition, given Warhol's perspectives on love and sex (particularly the wide divergence between his personal philosophy yielding toward abstinence, versus the raw exposure presented in his work, most notably from his signature voyeur/exhibitionist dynamic) …

“The most exciting thing is not-doing-it. If you fall in love with someone and never do it, it’s much more exciting.” … “Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.” … “People’s fantasies are what give them problems. If you didn’t have fantasies you wouldn’t have problems because you’d just take whatever was there. But then you wouldn’t have romance, because romance is finding your fantasy in people who don’t have it.” … “Love and sex can go together and sex and unlove can go together and love and unsex can go together. But personal love and personal sex is bad.” -- The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

So, maybe, in some realm of an indirect and/or unintentional subplot, where ARTPOP was about “belonging together,” bridging the worlds of subtext and fantasy, converging apparent polarities, and exploring or expressing the spectrum of experiences within the sphere of sex and love … Warhol actively expressed the very opposite in his personal life and professional work (abstinence, and performance void of apparent intimacy)

Again, neither here nor there, just a random conceptual association that crossed the mind … that could make absolutely zero sense.

I agree with the idea that it still follows a form of art-pop in the sense of Warhol, which, following my own little interpretation of the record, would pinpoint how she moved the idea of confessional sexuality and intimacy to a broader topic that she tried to tackle.

I think there was a fear of mortality that kind of inhibited some of the album's potential. I think, to an extent, the early topics became almost too personal for her and she decided to explore the fantasy element of the record later on. You can kind of see this in the actual album era after the DWUW controversy; around that time the outfits became more kitsch in a way and 'out there' I guess compared to the more simplistic and natural-looking images we saw earlier on. It wasn't until later on, after Cheek to Cheek and Bowie's death that we saw her approach mortality in a more uninhibited way like Joanne.

I still contend that ARTPOP and Joanne are both incredibly revealing records, but in a different way. I could never sit and trash either album for those reasons. But I digress...

Truthfully I enjoy these kinds of threads when members actually dive into the discussion. I think, in the end, ARTPOP really could mean anything haha.

[bxr 1,016]

21 minutes ago, Edonis said:

I agree with the idea that it still follows a form of art-pop in the sense of Warhol, which, following my own little interpretation of the record, would pinpoint how she moved the idea of confessional sexuality and intimacy to a broader topic that she tried to tackle.

I think there was a fear of mortality that kind of inhibited some of the album's potential. I think, to an extent, the early topics became almost too personal for her and she decided to explore the fantasy element of the record later on. You can kind of see this in the actual album era after the DWUW controversy; around that time the outfits became more kitsch in a way and 'out there' I guess compared to the more simplistic and natural-looking images we saw earlier on. It wasn't until later on, after Cheek to Cheek and Bowie's death that we saw her approach mortality in a more uninhibited way like Joanne.

I still contend that ARTPOP and Joanne are both incredibly revealing records, but in a different way. I could never sit and trash either album for those reasons. But I digress...

Truthfully I enjoy these kinds of threads when members actually dive into the discussion. I think, in the end, ARTPOP really could mean anything haha.

 

I concur; at the core, tbh, I still just subscribe most to the “Artistic Revolution Through the Potential Of Pop” foundation / conceptual core … if only because of what those words mean, and how ARTPOP (in its admittedly multifarious iterations and projections) expressed … art, revolution, potential, and pop are strong anchors, and in that sequence, definitively encompass much -- if not all -- of what ensued across the album and era itself (including sex, intimacy, and particularly moving those experiences from the confessional to the more open space of pop culture where it becomes open for public critique / consideration, but … digress). I also agree that the album has elements of the traditional Warholian Pop Art form, at the very least from a starting point, where maybe the reverse expedition sets up its own effigy of pop art / celebrity that the future trajectory revolts against or dismantles so to speak … ? But, again, idk remotely whatsoever

The mortality point is really salient … I never really thought about that before, but it does kind of remind me of that quote about stellar genesis: “For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse. So collapse. Crumble. This is not your destruction. This is your birth.” So to your point it was that kind of evolution from inhibition to exhibition to a more unhindered engagement (creatively or artistically at least) with mortality … if any of that makes a modicum of sense, which tbh, probably not so much

Indeed, they’re both specific volumes in a robust anthology of artistic development …

Haha, thoroughly enjoyed the musing as well … ARTPOP, such an enigma, that sphinx of a could-mean-anything

Spoiler

honestly, this is all stream-of-consciousness musing rumination, so if none of this makes sense, just … tl;dr: #ARTPOP

 

[Judas Society 3,584]

5 hours ago, A Hybrid said:

First off, ARTPOP is neither about “an artistic revolution” nor “putting art before pop”. It’s a reverse Warholian experience, like you said, which means using classical art as a part of pop music. This doesn’t apply to more than half of the album, but still.

Not only does ARTPOP not have “much” to say, it doesn’t have ANYTHING to say. That’s the thing about postmodernism, also in literature: it doesn’t deal with social commentary, it uses art purely as art. Art doesn’t have to have a point to be good.

I’m not saying ARTPOP is good or bad here, just saying that you’re judging ARTPOP from the only angle where it’s not supposed to be judged. The hypothetical concept of integrating symbols of classical art into pop is not supposed have a social or political purpose.

When her own monsters explained things better than she did. 

[JustJames 669]

I think others have nailed it by pointing to the sporadic moments of brilliance where the era seemed to be somewhat relatable/coherent; but, the final product was ruined by 1) the amount of time it took to create it, 2) an ambitious vision she shared publicly and then kept letting go of/hanging on to, and 3) the total dismantling of the team that was around her when she started the concept and being left almost literally alone on the day of the album drop. 

1. I'm not sure what the literal term ARTPOP meant to Gaga when first decided or what her initial full concept of its expression was, but the fact that MJH battled BN for the last slot on the album sums up my feelings on the evolution of her writing. Applause vs. Venus; DWUW vs. G.U.Y.; Donatella vs. ARTPOP... maybe if she had been able to follow through with her vision for the era - especially since she seemed committed to it through the Applause video - things may have seemed less random. Applause > Aura > Venus > DWUW > Gypsy almost makes sense as she starts with a song deep in lyrical content, about her hanging on for the applause of her fans, covered by a danceable, pop beat was the perfect intro. Aura then told us it really was a mask and asked if we were ready to peak underneath. Venus is an explosion of endorphins that embodies her love of art and pop to the extent that sharing that love is out of this world, galaxy, space, and time. DWUW (solo) takes it back for a moment to reveal the other side of that rush -- this love isn't as natural as it is invasive and predatory. Her love has been exploited by the industry and left a shell that is hurting but willing to be a vehicle for art and pop because she is, still, in love. Finally, Gypsy says that sometimes stories don't have an ending. She has exposed herself, confessed her love, her feelings of rejection and abuse, and she - for now - can get by through the music and ignore the bling.

I think the deeper lyrical content found in Applause, DWUW (solo), ARTPOP, Dope, and Gypsy are the most thematic yet overlooked. She is in it for the music, not the bling. She's in pain, but doesn't let it show on stage and will continue the show whether it is ultimately profitting the industry or giving fans their fix. She still gets her own fix from the applause, which is enough to get through it, but now and then she needs a true hit from elsewhere to deal with it all. She tried to sell her soul, but she just can't, even if it means being alone in the industry now but surrounded by love in the long-run.

[Alvaro Moreno Ullrich 1,535]

We been knew sis

[fishinmyhair 495]

I agree.. songs are great and fun, but only the title track has anything to do with the concept.

[funkmedowntown 1,051]

I never thought about it like that, but I guess you’re right. I love the album but this explains the ‘disconnect’ I feel with how she promoted it and the album itself. The concept did not match the content. Maybe if the app was fully realized we might have gotten a glimpse of that. It’s a real shame, I remember that crazy email I got talking about the app and the whole experience that ARTPOP should have been, and I was excited to connect more deeply with Gaga that way. My parents even bought me an iPad for Christmas 😭 I really listen. 

[ryansamonster 1,396]

I always felt like the ART came from the videos, performances, fashion, etc.

The POP came from the music. Gaga May have said a million things about this album before it was released but never did she say “Oh this music is soo ARTY so it’s ARTPOP!!” 

Gaga views all music as art to begin with. 

In any case, great discussions happening here and I don’t have the time or patience to write a full analysis. 

[ImTired 3,955]

8 hours ago, androiduser said:

basically, it's her "woe is me!" album, something every major star does

That you can dance around to though. I looooove it.