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ARTPOP is Gaga's Erotica


Bambino

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Bambino

Lead single “Applause” (a grower, in this critic’s opinion) peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100 in September. That’s a perfectly respectable showing, but it was trounced by the fall’s other two big pop-diva releases, Katy Perry’s “Roar” and Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball,” which both hit No. 1. Comparing Gagas to Gagas, “Applause” also saw a lower peak than any of her album-leading singles: The Fame’s “Just Dance” made No. 1, The Fame Monster’s “Bad Romance” reached No. 2, and Born This Way’s title track debuted at No. 1. ARTPOP has spawned a second Top 10 hit, “Dope”; but it made the winner’s circle last week only because of Billboard’s quirky decision to count streams of her crazy-emo YouTube Awards performance of the song for the Hot 100. This week, in the absence of heavy YouTube numbers, “Dope” plummets 63 spots to No. 71.

So that’s it, right? A weak debut by a pretentious, high-art-fetishizingalbum, combined with underperforming singles: surely Lady Gaga is over?

Maybe not. When I think of ARTPOP, I don’t think of career-burying Waterloos like Jackson’s final studio album Invincible. To me—as long as the whole world is going to compare Lady Gaga to Madonna anyway—ARTPOP is her Erotica.

Remember that overlong 1992 Madonna album? Released to coincide with Sex, Madge’s art book/photography happening, Erotica the album was a 75-minute smorgasbord of musings on carnal desire, acclaimed by some at the time but now generally regarded as three-star Madonna at best. It does contain—and is redeemed by—two of her best ’90s singles, “Deeper and Deeper” and “Rain,” both Top 20 hits (the album’s biggest single, the No. 3–peaking title track, is forgettable). Most important, Erotica was only a modest commercial performer, peaking at No. 2 for a single week and thus snapping a streak of No. 1 studio albums (Like a Virgin, True Blue, Like a Prayer). It ended up double-platinum—a fine showing, but the lowest-selling studio album of Madge’s first decade.

The parallels between Madonna’s fifth studio album and Gaga’s fourth are manifold. Pretentions toward high art? Check: Eroticalanded at Madge’s Camille Paglia moment, when—between Sex and the recent hit/video “Justify My Love”—her output felt more like a semiotics thesis than a career. Underperforming singles? Check: There were no No. 1s on Erotica; it would take until her next album, 1994’s Bedtime Stories, for her to top the Hot 100 again (with “Take a Bow”). Catcalls from the peanut gallery? Check: In The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Barry Walters aptly recalls the release of Erotica as the moment when “a media backlash intensified.”

Given what lay ahead for Madonna after Erotica—career triumphs like Ray of Light and Music, a raft of Top 10 hits—Gaga would be well within her rights keeping perspective right now.

Source: Pitchfork

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Bonkers

i don't remember erotica

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Bambino
Just now, Bonkers said:

i don't remember erotica

Inb4 we get called ignorant because I haven't listened to that album either 

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FentyGa

makes sense tbh

and then joanne being her bedtime stories, a comparison i’ve made before, makes sense (forgettable album, had a hit or two but nothing huge, really)

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ssslyboy

Erotica was way more controversial than ARTPOP and had a much bigger backlash. Erotica was released in tandem with The Sex book which turned so many people off.  Gaga was overexposed but she didn’t do anything as extreme as the Sex book.

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Anveeroy
3 minutes ago, FfFfFfFF said:

It's what popheads had been saying for years so I am glad even publications start to give credit to it.

Do you really think ARTPOP is LG’s Erotica? I would like to hear your opinion! 

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I see the comparison but I still disagree in terms of the way the artists interpret each album. Madonna obviously doesn’t regret Erotica, it was an expression that she admits may have pushed too far but otherwise she knows the public didn’t understand it.

Gaga on the other hand is trying to erase ARTPOP from her catalogue, going as far as to remove a song from new editions. She seems ashamed of the album and at this point is pretending it doesn’t exist aside from “Applause” and she only performs “Aura” because it has the name of her residency in the lyrics. She makes the album sound like a big mistake when in actuality she was just in a bad place during the time period. 

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holy scheisse
4 minutes ago, Loeppke said:

I see the comparison but I still disagree in terms of the way the artists interpret each album. Madonna obviously doesn’t regret Erotica, it was an expression that she admits may have pushed too far but otherwise she knows the public didn’t understand it.

Gaga on the other hand is trying to erase ARTPOP from her catalogue, going as far as to remove a song from new editions. She seems ashamed of the album and at this point is pretending it doesn’t exist aside from “Applause” and she only performs “Aura” because it has the name of her residency in the lyrics. She makes the album sound like a big mistake when in actuality she was just in a bad place during the time period. 

I don't think Gaga actually hates ARTPOP. She just doesn't perform it at enigma because just like she claims to not remember it, neither do the GP attending her show lol. 

 

She performed ARTPOP tracks at her Coachella show. She wished it a happy birthday on its last anniversary didn't she? I mean she performs more tracks from ARTPOP than Joanne at enigma lol. 

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Chesescake

So that mean ASIB soundtrack is Gaga's Who's That Girl soundtrack.

(Which mean LG6 will be her Ray of Light!!)

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ARTPOP is Gaga's MDNA. :ohwell:

Don't wanna kiss, don't wanna touch, just drink my ****ing coffee and watch 90's cartoons and hush
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Sanne Godijn
26 minutes ago, holy scheisse said:

I don't think Gaga actually hates ARTPOP. She just doesn't perform it at enigma because just like she claims to not remember it, neither do the GP attending her show lol. 

 

She performed ARTPOP tracks at her Coachella show. She wished it a happy birthday on its last anniversary didn't she? I mean she performs more tracks from ARTPOP than Joanne at enigma lol. 

Actualy she does aura is on the enigma setlist but if you meant ARTPOP the song than oopsie my bad

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