Was Gaga satisfied with ARTPOP?

[Railing 2,799]

This is something I've been thinking about recently: Was Gaga satisfied with the final product of ARTPOP that came out in 2013?  We know that she nearly scrapped Applause and it wasn't her pick for the lead, Do What U Want wasn't her pick for the second single, many of her plans were lost and the tracklist reveal was delayed because she wasn't allowed to keep the full set of songs & had a hard time choosing between Mary Jane Holland and Brooklyn Nights. I've seen many people speculate that she was forced to make changes to certain songs to appease Interscope, and it's true that the album wasn't "done" until the deadline forced her to turn it in.

More specifically, I've noticed that she heavily favored demo versions for live performances this era, swapping at least 1-2 tracks for the demos in a majority of her concerts. Not to mention her leaking the demo version of Aura, which she would perform several times and use for the initial Dolby Atmos mix years later. Maybe she regrets some of those choices she had to make towards the end of the album's development? Maybe this was a subtle act of rebellion, much like her "**** you pop music, this is ARTPOP" moment?

Here is a list of the various times she favored demos over the finished product...
Note that she has never performed the album version of Jewels N Drugs...

• iTunes Festival – Every new song performed was a demo, a choice made intentionally and revealed beforehand
• An ARTPOP Film – ARTPOP has the spoken intro, albeit sampled from the iTunes Festival
• Graham Norton – Do What U Want has the original second verse
• Alan Carr – Do What U Want has the original second verse
• 2013 ArtRAVE – MANiCURE includes the "heal me/save me" part in a re-arranged final chorus
• Muppets Holiday Spectacular – ARTPOP has the spoken intro, Fashion! has the deleted post-chorus, MANiCURE has the re-arranged final chorus
• Jingle Bell Ball – Aura was sung like the demo
• The Voice – Do What U Want has the original second verse (here sung by Xtina)
• The Tonight Show - ARTPOP has the spoken intro
• SXSW – Aura was sung like the demo, Swine has the soft intro, Jewels N Drugs has the instrumental break
• 2014 ArtRAVE – Brooklyn Nights was set to be performed and was removed for unknown reasons
• Yahoo livestream – ARTPOP has the spoken intro (remixed), Dope/I Wanna Be With U medley, Jewels N Drugs has the instrumental break
• Dolby Atmos – Aura had the demo vocal upon release

What do you all think about this subject?

[androiduser 7,438]

Personally, I think that Gaga was over excited about the whole project, ended up being overwhelmed by her own ideas and plans and when she was faced with reality, the enthusiasm turned into the opposite.

[nATAH 49,836]

i would be too if a bunch of suits tore my art work apart and said "no, this works better, you're going to do this instead, you don't have much choice anyway" plus we know she would often argue with her label since the beginning... god knows how much fighting she had to do to allow Born This Way to be the lead  i imagine by 2013, after a major injury, she was feeling very defeated and sacrificed her vision just so she could get 5 minutes of peace

i think all this conflict between her creativity and the people who allow her to actually release music has caused her to stop being so bold with her projects post 2014 but i think acting has helped rekindle that fire (especially with original characters like the countess and ally). one reason why i want her to go independent is so labels stop watering down her ideas, i'm super desperate to hear Joanne before interscope brought in bloodpop to pop-ify it and chromatica seemed to have intentions to be bold but COVID swiftly ended that

[JoeMo 3,882]

Obviously except for DWUW, I’m pretty sure Gaga stands by that album, as messy an era as it was. It’s probably fairer to say she wasn’t so satisfied with the way the era played out due to difficult management at the time. But in terms of the actual music, I doubt she has any regrets (again, minus DWUW). 

[HotLikeMexico 5,196]

No. 

[sillynate 6,170]

Wow that list really puts things into perspective

[Delulu Rogers 7,300]

Gaga has always maintained from day 1 that her albums have always been the way that she's wanted them. The era didn't play out as planned but I doubt the album was unfinished or that she was unsatisfied with it at the time.

Djws said a couple of years ago at a listening party that the label didn't want J&Ds on the album but gaga did it anyways. I think that shows that the albums are always how gaga wants them to be considering she was the only supporter to release J&Ds. The reason she hasn't performed it is because she knows the fans hate that song. R-Kelly was also 100% her decision. 

Also, the demo versions you're referring to aren't because she didn't like the album versions. Anytime she sang DWUW by herself she did the second verse cause there was so much controversy about RKelly.  At the iTunes festival she purposely sang the demos to not reveal the finished products on the album. The way she adds and subtracts other parts of songs like ARTPOP and fashion! are just her playing around with them for the sake of changing it up. She does this with all of her songs. For example, she hasn't sung the French part of Bad Romance since 2014 but that doesn't mean she isn't happy with the album version.

[nATAH 49,836]

a side note about the itunes festival point: surely she peformed those versions cus they were the final versions at the time? itunes festival was a full 2 months before the album came out

[sucker punch 209]

1 hour ago, NATAH said:

a side note about the itunes festival point: surely she peformed those versions cus they were the final versions at the time? itunes festival was a full 2 months before the album came out

thats what i thought

[ChrissyBot 2,252]

1 hour ago, NATAH said:

a side note about the itunes festival point: surely she peformed those versions cus they were the final versions at the time? itunes festival was a full 2 months before the album came out

I remember she tweeted about the versions she performed at Swinefest and how they’re very different from the final versions. I just can’t find the tweet

[BARKDANGER 855]

I don’t think Gaga was totally happy with the final version of ARTPOP. Applause was the lead single for the album, which was almost on the cutting room floor. She wanted Aura as the lead single, but higher ups chose Applause. So she leaked Aura. 
 

I don’t think until G.U.Y. became a single and a music video that she regained control of her vision of ARTPOP. Before G.U.Y., it was was nearly 5 months from DWUW to G.U.Y. single release. An artist of Gaga’s caliber, would have released singles much closer - internal issues going on  

Look at interviews at the time, I believe it was the SXSW interview where she spilled all the tea, and was about to walk away from music. 
 

In hindsight I believe she is proud of what came to be, but at the time, she wasn’t happy with the final product. I mean look, she never released ARTPOP act II - her label had a huge part in that. 

[Gagaism 11,888]

I know that ARTPOP is very traumatic for her and we understand why, for me is her most emblematic album though and one of my favorites from her.
It was a hard time to be a fan and I believe that everyone who kept standing by her after ARTPOP until this day are definitely real fans.

I can’t say how are her feelings about everything related to ARTPOP nowadays  but I just hope she can be proud about the fashion and her looks during that time because they were everything, a moment. 

[Blackout19 12,038]

Nobody was 

[nATAH 49,836]

8 hours ago, chromaticpop said:

I remember she tweeted about the versions she performed at Swinefest and how they’re very different from the final versions. I just can’t find the tweet

i remember her mentioning that they'll probably change too but the changes weren't major