The Fame is better than ARTPOP

[Genuine Guy 09 13,941]

Of course it didn't need to be threaded. There's 0 filler on the fame. The 15m WW sales speaks for itself 

[Felix Jens 180]

[ChromaticRaccoon 1,761]

3 hours ago, KatieJudasGaga4 said:

What?

 

2 hours ago, ice bear said:

not Katie, you're probably thinking of someone else

Oh god, no! I'm so sorry,  I meant to tag the original creator of the thread! I must have used your post to do it instead. Katie, you're like my favourite member here 

[Doot 2]

I too think The Fame is better than ARTPOP. 

but that's the nice thing. Like ice cream, Gaga has so many different flavors so you can eat whatever you like. 

[Gracious Gaga 17,163]

I agree.

[NFRatwell 23,290]

I’ve always felt some way about The Fame, and even the fame Monster. If anyone else watched AHS this might be easier to explain. TF is like Murder House. And TFM is like Asylum. They’re both classic stories for their genre, and done well enough to be considered great in them. But when you take a look at the whole franchise of AHS, and Gaga’s discography... idk. They almost seem too perfect, like there wasn’t enough camp or risk in them. I kinda like that edge, that camp, the messiness . Even if they aren’t as artistically stable or successful as these seasons/albums, I’ll still lean more towards ARTPOP and Freak Show. So yeah, I think TF/TFM are both great bodies of work, and I think I’d recommend these to the average listener before ARTPOP, but personally, I prefer ARTPOP. 

[AJRocketMan 2,684]

14 hours ago, DiskoBaby said:

The Fame has a very consistent synth pop sound from start to finish. It's a concept album that knows what it is without trying to be anything other than a fun pop album. It's got a better ballad, better collaborations, it has a retro 80s sound that still sounds modern and fresh today. Her hooks and verses are much more quotable, the lyrics had more impact, the dance pop sound was innovative at the time when her singles became hits.

There is nothing "1980's" about The Fame, or any of Gaga's albums for that matter. The sound design, the textures, the presets, and the beats are all very 2000's. A lot of the sounds you hear on The Fame wouldn't have been technologically possible before the mid 2000's because a lot of them weren't even invented yet. Starstruck is the closest the album gets to sounding 1980's. Have you listened to Madonna, Wham, Eurythmics, Animotion, The Gogo's, Afrika Bambaattaa, Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam, Debbie Deb, Giorgio Moroder, New Order, Prince, or The Human League? That's real 1980's music. The Fame sounds nothing like them.

Confessions on a Dancefloor uses most of the same sounds you hear on The Fame, and that album came out in 2005. That album was far more innovative than The Fame was. In fact, I hear a lot of familiar synth textures from Confessions that were used in many late 2000's/early 2010's electropop hits (DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love, Scream, Your Love is My Drug, Telephone, Poker Face, California Gurls, International Love, etc.). Nothing about that electropop sound you're talking about sounds fresh. It sounds elegiac and overplayed.

I find it interesting that you see ARTPOP as overproduced when pretty much all 21st century dance music sounds overproduced, and that includes the rest of Gaga's discography. I blame Digital Audio Workstations for this.

[Elohim 1,721]

I gotta say that I find myself listening to TF much more than ARTPOP...

AP didn't aged well for me, but it does remind me of a good clubbing times when I was younger and naive..

[PinkJelly 1,768]

The Fame > ARTPOP most days for me.

There are only a handful of songs from ARTPOP I still listen to - Aura, Venus, G.U.Y, Swine, occasionally Applause but I can listen to The Fame *almost* uninterrupted (Eh Eh is a skip don’t @ me hoes)

[DiskoBaby 1,929]

37 minutes ago, AJRocketMan said:

There is nothing "1980's" about The Fame, or any of Gaga's albums for that matter. The sound design, the textures, the presets, and the beats are all very 2000's. A lot of the sounds you hear on The Fame wouldn't have been technologically possible before the mid 2000's because a lot of them weren't even invented yet. Starstruck is the closest the album gets to sounding 1980's. Have you listened to Madonna, Wham, Eurythmics, Animotion, The Gogo's, Afrika Bambaattaa, Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam, Debbie Deb, Giorgio Moroder, New Order, Prince, or The Human League? That's real 1980's music. The Fame sounds nothing like them.

Confessions on a Dancefloor uses most of the same sounds you hear on The Fame, and that album came out in 2005. That album was far more innovative than The Fame was. In fact, I hear a lot of familiar synth textures from Confessions that were used in many late 2000's/early 2010's electropop hits (DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love, Scream, Your Love is My Drug, Telephone, Poker Face, California Gurls, International Love, etc.). Nothing about that electropop sound you're talking about sounds fresh. It sounds elegiac and overplayed.

I find it interesting that you see ARTPOP as overproduced when pretty much all 21st century dance music sounds overproduced, and that includes the rest of Gaga's discography. I blame Digital Audio Workstations for this.

I'm confused how you say there are no 80's influences when every review cites it for it's 80s influences. I even heard it when I heard the album for the first time. It's 80s sounding synthpop mixed with urban and electronic dance beats, but the synth sound is what people recognized immediately. Synthpop was not popular when The Fame came out, and it's the mixture of that with modern dance electro pop beats that put her on the map.

I know all those artists you cited, and The Fame borrows heavily from Blondie, Dale Bozio from Missing Persons, early Madonna, Freddie Mercury on the ballad Brown Eyes, and David Bowie especially on the songs Just Dance and The Fame. Her most modern influence was Gwen Stefani vocally which I compared to her a lot when she first came out. 

This album was very fresh when it came out, being a fan of dance music at the time, It really stood out for bringing that retro sound back but incorporating many modern electro pop sounds of it's time. Confessions on a Dance Floor incorporated more sounds from disco and house music and electronic music, innovative but not really influential, since it would take four more years for dance and electronic music to be dominated on top 40 radio, which had an upstart from Gaga's singles from The Fame album a year prior.

[Alvaro Moreno Ullrich 1,554]

Yes it is

[AJRocketMan 2,684]

52 minutes ago, DiskoBaby said:

I'm confused how you say there are no 80's influences when every review cites it for it's 80s influences. I even heard it when I heard the album for the first time. It's 80s sounding synthpop mixed with urban and electronic dance beats, but the synth sound is what people recognized immediately. Synthpop was not popular when The Fame came out, and it's the mixture of that with modern dance electro pop beats that put her on the map.

I know all those artists you cited, and The Fame borrows heavily from Blondie, Dale Bozio from Missing Persons, early Madonna, Freddie Mercury on the ballad Brown Eyes, and David Bowie especially on the songs Just Dance and The Fame. Her most modern influence was Gwen Stefani vocally which I compared to her a lot when she first came out. 

This album was very fresh when it came out, being a fan of dance music at the time, It really stood out for bringing that retro sound back but incorporating many modern electro pop sounds of it's time. Confessions on a Dance Floor incorporated more sounds from disco and house music and electronic music, innovative but not really influential, since it would take four more years for dance and electronic music to be dominated on top 40 radio, which had an upstart from Gaga's singles from The Fame album a year prior.

Synthpop wasn't popular when Gaga came out? There was definitely more than a few prominent examples of electronic music reaching Top 40 popularity on the American charts. The Killers had three hit singles in the second half of the 2000's (Mr. Brightside, When You Were Young, and Human), all of which hit the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, and the albums that they belonged to were also popular and sold well. Timbaland also had a strong grip on the charts with his production style. Remember "The Way I Are" and "Give It to Me"? Those songs were big dance hits two years before Gaga came around. Remember FutureSex/LoveSounds and Loose? More big dance songs. Kat Deluna's "Whine Up"? Cassie's "Me & U"? Rihanna's "SOS" and her Good Girl Gone Bad album? More big electronic dance music.

Speaking of Gwen Stefani, she did the weird thing before Gaga did. LAMB was weird for the time it came out. Lots of tracks on the album sounded very '80s. I'd argue LAMB sounds more retro than The Fame does. How old are you?

[DiskoBaby 1,929]

20 minutes ago, AJRocketMan said:

Synthpop wasn't popular when Gaga came out? There was definitely more than a few prominent examples of electronic music reaching Top 40 popularity on the American charts. The Killers had three hit singles in the second half of the 2000's (Mr. Brightside, When You Were Young, and Human), all of which hit the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, and the albums that they belonged to were also popular and sold well. Timbaland also had a strong grip on the charts with his production style. Remember "The Way I Are" and "Give It to Me"? Those songs were big dance hits two years before Gaga came around. Remember FutureSex/LoveSounds and Loose? More big dance songs. Kat Deluna's "Whine Up"? Cassie's "Me & U"? Rihanna's "SOS" and her Good Girl Gone Bad album? More big electronic dance music.

Speaking of Gwen Stefani, she did the weird thing before Gaga did. LAMB was weird for the time it came out. Lots of tracks on the album sounded very '80s. I'd argue LAMB sounds more retro than The Fame does. How old are you?

You are definitely right with The Killers, Hot Fuss did incorporate synthpop along with new wave, alternative rock. Timband's music didn't really sound synthpop, it was urban electro music and hip hop beats. Same with Justin Timberlake whose album was more electro-r&b and dance music. I don't see synthpop being a big influence on their sound unlike The killers who definitely incorporated it as a main sound in their music. Kat Deluna's song is dance reggae, Cassie was r&b, Rihanna back in 2006 was also more r&b but yes urban dance pop with SOS. While there were songs you can dance to that was really popular it was mostly urban electro or r&b dance songs that was topping the charts, the dance genre with heavy synths, electronic techno dance beats that you hear on The Fame wouldn't become popular with female pop singers until Just Dance. You can see that then it became more popular with singers like Kesha's hit Tik Tok, but also in the indie scene singers like La Roux, Little Boots would be getting more attention a year later with their music. Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, Christina Aguilera's Bionic, Taylor Swift with 1989 and her next two albums, Chvrches debut, and even Madonna going back to that genre with MDNA all incorporated synthpop when Katy, Christina, and Taylor haven't on their previous albums. 

I'm not saying they're all inspired by Gaga, but she did release Just Dance at the right time for it to become a hit and right before a new wave of pop singers would incorporate more of that genre. Synthpop with pop singers in the 2000's was not what was popular on the radio and it would take four to five more years after The Killers for other male artists like Owl Cities hit Fireflies, LMFAO, Calvin Harris and other indie acts like M83 and dance music like The Black Eyed Peas and David Guetta. Lady Gaga was the reigning queen of the synthpop dance/electropop revival when it became more popular on the charts and with female artists.

With dance pop in general, Kylie Minogue was already doing that music but her biggest hit in the states was Can't Get You Outta My Head, her music was more popular in Europe at the time. Madonna had Confessions on a Dance Floor; an electronic disco and house album and before that her album Music; electronica dance-pop, Britney Spears had Blackout; urban dance and electropop, and Rihanna had two hits from Good Girl Gone Bad with Don't Stop the Music and Disturbia. That's really all I can think of in that genre in 2000's but even then Rihanna was still relying on r&b hits, Britney worked with Timbaland's prodigy which was still more urban eletro like Justin's album with the exception of some tunes from Bloodshy and Avant which was pure electro pop. But r&b still dominated the airwaves.

After Lady Gaga's The Fame/The Fame Monster dominated the charts, her sound just started pouring all over the radio for the next few years and female singers dominated the charts again with dance music. It put four on the floor pop music back on the map (said by Calvin Harris). And now we're seeing 80's theme synthpop making a comeback again with The Weeknd and Dua Lipa's newest albums.

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/dec/17/electro-pop-female-artists

http://www.mtv.com/news/1634676/lady-gaga-has-made-dance-music-mainstream-dj-tommie-sunshine-says/

https://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/music/lady-gaga-helps-bring-edm-to-the-masses/article_6ab888b5-5ef6-5cb1-9946-b70556915a5b.html

https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/jan/22/eighties-revival-decade

 

[JRCF29 8,194]

The Fame is better than ARTPOP, no question there. Not sure what you mean by concept album, because The Fame is not a concept album in the traditionally understood sense. ARTPOP is a mess, but it does have several strong tracks (DWUW, G.U.Y, Applause to name 3). Plus The Fame started it all, we wouldn't be here today on this site if not for the good sis.

[Regina George 59,387]

Ofc it is.. Everyone who thinks otherwise is delusional