Why all the ARTPOP hate?

[ARTGOD 3,266]

35 minutes ago, Lucas said:

Personally I was still 100% hyped for the album, I didn't think the era was crashing back then because I knew absolutely nothing about eras, I thought things were going as they were supposed to.

Imo the Swinefest version of Manicure is way catchier and I love the raw vocals. On the album version they're way too polished for a pop rock song, and the added lyrics aren't catchy to my ears. ARTPOP had a more magic feeling to it while the studio version sounds robotic, same goes for Sex Dreams.

Eh I think everyone has different reasons to love/dislike ARTPOP. For me it was simply because I didn't enjoy the music, for some it definitely has to do with the fact that the era took a bad turn and all the trashtalking of the album online affected their opinion on the album

But all of the differences you mention are due to them being live. Of course they’re gonna sound more organic and alive. If you listen to the demos the Swinefest versions are based off the quality of the final versions becomes extremely obvious.

MANiCURE (Demo) is so stiff and sanitized, the final version is so punchy and powerful. The Swinefest version is more alike the album version than the original demo it was emulating.

The Sexxx Dreams demo is so robotic and repetitive, the final version with its delicious call and response and added strings makes it so much more engaging.

Anyways, my point isn’t that there aren’t differences or that you can’t like one version over the other, but that I find it really weird that people tend to love one version and hate the other when the differences are so minor.

Like, I think the vocals of the Aura demo are better, but other than that the songs are 95% the same, but I’ve seen people call the demo one of her best songs and the final one of her worst. Like, how can some slightly differently produced vocals do that for you.

There has to be a reason why people feel so strongly about these demos/Swinefest versions, because the actual differences don’t merit such a stark difference in opinions. I’m not crazy right? I just need to get where you’re coming from .

[StressedOut 627]

Aura, Donatella, and MJH diverge enough from what they originally were imo, it's not like she didn't do any writing/tweaks on them. Is it disingenuous based on the way she speaks about how she loves to write? Maybe, but she still made them her own, wrote lyrics and sang.

OT: I think everyone is conditioned to hate it because of the negative attention she received during that era, don't forget for most on here commercial success = quality. I've liked ARTPOP since it came out, and actually find myself liking a handful of the tracks a lot more even now. One of her better produced records imo, probably just behind Chromatica

[tyler k 5,180]

4 hours ago, ThePopDevil said:

I don't think people still understand what Gaga wanted to do with ARTPOP. The whole thing about this album and era was for Gaga to not fit in into one image or perception of who she is as a person but more importantly as an artist. 

A major criticism of the album has always been that it's not cohesive sonically. But that was the whole point of the album - to not conform to one genre or structure, unlike for example Chromatica where it was a homage to 90s house, which is why it is regarded as so "cohesive". Gaga served edm (Aura), edm infused disco (Venus), industrial edm (GUY), synthpop (Sexxx Dreams), trap (Jewels n Drugs), glam pop (Manicure)..and that's just the first 6 tracks. Gaga really wanted to make the music that she wanted to make at that particular point in time without regarding what her management or her fans wanted from her. And I love that. I hate when singers make music to please their fans.

Even with how Gaga presented herself during the era, her wardrobe was club kid-heavy and every time she presented herself to the public, even just going outside of her hotel she looked different every single time, was to never stick to one image or the image of how a pop star should look like. That was the whole "put art in the forefront" thing, for her to be able to express herself in whatever way she wants to, release whatever music she wants to. The problem was that people saw "art" in the title and thought she was gonna sing about art in a philosophical sense. But the weight in the songs on this album is in the spirit that they were made in.

ARTPOP is challenging yes, but that was its whole purpose. 

This!! All of this!!

Also, "my ARTPOP could mean anything" is soooo hard for casual listeners to latch onto. People are dumb and want to be spoon-fed the meaning of everything. This album was purposefully challenging. Everything on it is super intentional, even in the production. 

[Anderson123 36,395]

1 hour ago, Grigio Guy said:

Listen to her “Inside the Outside” MTV interview on how she wrote Marry The Night. She’s capable of it if the thing. So to hear that she chose from a catalogue for an album about ART & POP seems disingenuous.

 

(ARTPOP is my favorite album)

Yes, I know she can do it if she wants to. I said she doesn't do that all the time. Just like how with Chromatica she took a step back from production and they passed around the demos to see which final version fit the album better and it made such a great story.

[LeafBug 7,797]

ARTPOP has some of the best songs she’s ever written. Sadly the production is so polished it completely destroys the experience. I default to listening to live versions and remixes instead. If Venus, Gypsy, MJH and ARTPOP sounded a bit more like their live versions the album would have been legendary. 

[Glamourpuss 29,062]

I couldn't vibe with it and felt disconnected to Gaga throughout that whole era. I can appreciate some things from it because I love Swine and Sexxx Dreams. But I felt like it was lacking that extra special something that is unique to Gaga. 

[Chlorine 47,975]

It's messy 

[Oyster 2,458]

It’s just too much, it can be a really hard listen. Personally gives me anxiety when I listen to it sometimes. The songs are fine but way too overproduced 

[hELXIG 42,029]

For the general public it happened like this:

They were already over her after BTW, then the era started on a really bad foot because Applause was put against Roar and lost out (so everyone was basically saying "Gaga isn't as good as Katy Perry"), Applause was the only radio single so most people didn't know the album even existed or that she had officially come back with a new era, a lot of critics panned it because the songs are all so different and it doesn't have a cohesive sound. Basically lots of unfair negative talk

For the fans:

When the album finally came out everyone was disappointed that the songs had changed since the iTunes Festival (hence the absolute vendetta against Dope), a lot of people though the production was too busy and loud, Venus was supposed to be the next single and everyone was disappointed when it was canned in place of DWUW, then the DWUW single and video were also scrapped, a lot of people then didn't like the G.U.Y. video when we finally got a second single months down the line, because the songs were all so different people constantly argued about which songs were good or bad, the ARTPOP app timers counted down twice but the app was never finished both times (so we never got Gaga live streams or the music composing app with all the stems from the album etc.), she made the mistake of teasing an Act II with all the song titles we know of which never happened, Gaga had other plans like an outfit designing contest on LM.com that never came to fruition, plans seemed to change constantly and people felt 'betrayed' and decided to 'burn their stan cards'. Basically nothing went right along the way and lots of plans were cancelled and people got dramatic and hateful and turned on her and the album/era entirely (half of whom have come crawling back since... )

[Gagas lil monster 2,432]

I think ARTPOP just grows more and more timeless and amazing as time progresses