CEREMONY | artRATE: the ARTPOP rate

[Cruelty 5,887]

7 SEXXX DREAMS – average 8.06

The highs: 11 x 5 [ @Poltergeist @Kandy life @nodandsmile @FinallyFree @Gagaism]

The lows: 2 x 1 [ @JustTea]

Yeah, this one is just a juggernaut of a pop song. I was going to quote Gaga’s descriptions of what this song’s about, but truly it’s just about sex dreams. & that’s okay! Gaga later retconned the track as being about “the adrenaline of laying in bed next to somebody & having thoughts about someone else”, but truly this doesn’t need to be Poker Face 2.0; it can simply be Erotica 2.0. ‘Sexxx Dreams’ is a musical tour de force from start to finish, the sultry thump of the verses exploding into a robust synth-laden chorus, via the iconic spoken-word confession “when I lay in bed, I touch myself & I think’a you”.

‘Sexxx Dreams’ was one of the final songs written for ARTPOP; DJ White Shadow recalls staying up for 20 hours straight working on the song, & I think it was worth the effort. This is so quintessentially Gaga – because it’s Gaga, there’s something slightly (& characteristically) corny in announcing “last night, damn you were in my sex dreams”, & yet that’s allied to an insanely catchy chorus. With many of you wishing that the song had been released as a single (& it was certainly considered), ‘Sexxx Dreams’ lands as your 7th favourite from ARTPOP. Let’s just celebrate the fact that we escaped a Robin Thicke version of this one.

Comments:

Spoiler

@ALittleMonsta this song is so sexy and its giving the second part of poker face its just nasty and sexy and wrong in such a polished edm way wish it was a single like gaga wanted it to be

@Bronco Should have been a single

@HeavyMetal Halcyon Should have been the lead single…

@Onlygaga Should have been the lead single!!

@Born This Way I prefer the Swinefest version that has a little less going on.

@JazzGa Looooove this song. Bi anthem tbh. Such a unique delivery style, with 2 different voices and 2 perspectives, like Gaga is duetting with herself. It would have been cool to get a seggsy bi female singer or actor to feature on this one. Like imagine K-Stew doing the smoky spoken word parts, that would be so hawt 

@Kandy life Love this one. It's one of the sexiest and dirties songs. It's the "I like you and won't hold back anymore" kind of song. 

@Bowman One of my favourites from ARTPOP, screams pure Gaga to me

@Auralegends Love the singing and spoken word in between. Also the pre-chorus and the choreo for it are fun.

@whoresup Love the 80s vibe especially the chorus. It’s not particularly memorable, fun but not memorable. 

@Scarlet Bitch Dirty Ass Song. Love it

@Ophelia Sexy, but not enough. Could be sleazier, it misses depth in sound. I GAGGED when I heard "I can't believe I'm telling..." for the first time, but who didn't?

[Cello 52,536]

Mjh is too damn high

pun intended 

[KubaM316 13,528]

4 minutes ago, Cruelty said:

8 MARY JANE HOLLAND – average 7.93

The highs: 11 x 13 [ @Rhiannon @Noir @Little Monstera @Onlygaga @GagaSkeletonWay @ImMatt @maymay @jackjackjackjack13 @HausofGabo @bionic @asfittingasmcqueen @Ophelia @radioactive]

The lows: 2 x 5 [ @Lukasson @HIMe @evgenigerm2 @Joshua81 @Agunimon]

Introducing, ladies & gentlemen… Mary Jane Holland! ARTPOP’s unabashed weed anthem finishes in a respectable eighth place. Loud & hedonistic, the song represents a paradigm of the ARTPOP formula. Over a tumult of belching electronica courtesy of French EDM wunderkind Madeon, Gaga plays dress-up as the titular ‘Lady of the ‘Dam’, her incognito weed-smoking alter-ego, confessing “I think that I could be fine, if I could be Mary Jane Holland tonight”. She found immense solace & pleasure in marijuana in 2012, commenting “it really became a source of comfort for me that I could smoke & take something that would… help really bring me down from the pressures of being a star”.

However, there’s something dark & quite uncomfortable beating at the heart of ‘Mary Jane Holland’. Although the song is superficially about cannabis, it’s much more about identity & losing yourself as you’re battered by the pressures of life. Gaga describes this song as being about “dying your hair brown & being able to go out with nobody recognizing you”, but that’s a tragic comment about the claustrophobic, intense life she led – & with Gaga acknowledging that “whenever I smoke, I really forget that I’m famous”, Mary Jane becomes understandable as a kind of psychological crutch, a necessary means of escaping a deleterious & destructive way of life. ARTPOP producer Nick Monson said “Gaga is just like the rest of us. In those darker types of times, you dive into the music, which is totally what she did. & I think it comes across”. As you listen to the thrill-ride of ‘Mary Jane Holland’, there’s an inevitable sense that those ‘darker types of times’ can’t be held at bay forever – but for now, all you can do is ignite the flame & meet Mary Jane in Holland tonight.

Comments:

  Reveal hidden contents

@Poltergeist Poppy and chill at the same time, I really enjoy her vocals here, especially that rockish moment during the bridge!

@Lukasson It‘s a skip. 

@Werewolves Wanted These abnormalities are corrupting the minds and the hearts of our children…

@Ultimecia The song loses steam (hah!) with its post-choruses.

@27monster27 Not just a song about Mary Jane, Lady Gaga reveals that she enjoyed flying under that radar and avoiding celebrity life while high in Amsterdam. The alter-ego "Mary Jane Holland" sings over aggressive and all-encompassing synths.

@Head Empty I am 100% biased because I'm Dutch, but her bringing this song back for ArtRave in Amsterdam was one of my favorite memories. It's the perfect balance of camp, grit and pop.

@Juliandante This used to be one of my favourites from this album when it was released.

@JazzGa The bridge is so OTT. It's so much fun to belt at the top of your lungs with no one else around lol. Kinda has Heavy Metal Lover energy

@huttont Part of my ARTPOP trifecta. I love the demos and the layered vocals. An instant favorite

@Joshua81 Too psychedelic, kills my brain cells

@Bowman A really unique and cool song but it's kinda aged like milk, as I've got older I kinda cringe when I listen to it, it used to be my fav from ARTPOP

@TwistedTeeth Like a glass of port wine, Mary Jane Holland only gets better year after year.

@dimitristhe I can’t describe how much I love this song. Props to anyone who made that instrumental, cause is one of Gaga’s best. 

@TXNNXTUS I feel the synths, and the vocals give the listener a sense of being under the influence, and makes it feel like your truly getting high with Gaga

@Scarlet Bitch Drug dealer anthem

@Tobcho Ah if only the production wasn't annoying this could be it for me. High concept, executed with imagination and carried with equal parts humor and emotion.

I thought y'all would vote it so high it'd end up in the top 3 for sure

[heygurlhi 3,200]

Just now, KubaM316 said:

I thought y'all would vote it so high it'd end up in the top 3 for sure

like no one thought that 

[KubaM316 13,528]

Just now, Cello said:

Mj is too damn high

How am I supposed to understand it

[PMM 2,309]

2 minutes ago, Donatellah said:

Yes, we do.

 

based on that score i don't think so 

[KubaM316 13,528]

Just now, heygurlhi said:

like no one thought that 

I did

[Hyperobject 65,848]

sexxx dreams’ bridge is kinda tragic tbh… idk if I love the album version or not… it could’ve been better 

[Hyperobject 65,848]

but that pre chorus tho… 🥵

[Cruelty 5,887]

6 AURA – average 8.39

The highs: 11 x 14 [ @Magic Mike @HeavyMetal Halcyon @Quentin @Born This Way @candydarling @Trxstan @The Fame Monster @HookerOnAChurch @Donatellah @Jose Alberto @Stone S @lg5 @jimmytimestep @chromaticathong]

The lows: 3 x 2 [ @JustTea @marrytheminogue]

A frenetic collage of clattering synths and psychotic deadpan vocals, ‘Aura’ is a track that, for better or worse, none of Gaga’s contemporaries could have made. In a career-best chorus, Gaga asks “do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the aura?”. & so begins ARTPOP’s teasing interplay (foreplay, almost) of revealing & withholding. Nothing is straightforward on this album – confessions of love & expressions of hurting are cloaked in metaphors of space, or sex, or else projected through figures such as Aphrodite, Donatella, the ‘enigma popstar’ or Mary Jane Holland.

The issue with ARTPOP is… she did show us what was “behind the aura”, pretty much: just a girl who falls in love & f*cks up & tries to make things better. But, as I discussed when eliminating ‘Fashion!’ & ‘Swine’, she cloaked that simple enough journey in SO MUCH ‘art’, in Aphrodite & Koons & endless, endless outfits that, whilst the ARTPOP campaign was a stimulating feast for the senses, it ultimately distracted from the music itself. Still, maybe that’s the point. As you look into the Koons gazing ball (as depicted on the album cover), you see yourself reflected in the art – you can’t ever fully see within, can’t truly see behind the aura. Maybe the aura is all there is?

The song has a suitably chaotic history. ‘Aura’ was a beat expanded by Zedd then toplined by Gaga. The original producers were Israeli psytrance duo Infected Mushroom, who… were f*cking FURIOUS about the whole situation. They later gave an interview where they explained how they only sold the beat to Gaga for the payout; to be fair, it’s not as snarky a comment as fans make it out to be, & their criticism of the process is rooted in their steadfast refusal to commercialise their music. As for the next piece of chaos… out of the five choices for ARTPOP’s lead single, ‘Aura’ was infamously Gaga’s preferred option, to the point that she created a Gagadaily account & leaked it on here. Cue meltdowns.

& the final part of the chaotic history of ‘Aura’ played a part in this track’s performance tonight. It seems that, 10 years on, Gagadaily is still suffering from an epidemic of demoitis. Through various means, we’ve obtained multiple early versions of quite a lot of ARTPOP, & many fans’ judgments about these songs are clouded by what could have been. Lots of you said you preferred the demo with its harsher vocal performance, & although ‘Aura’ is a perennial fan favourite, it just fell out of the top 5 in the final stages of voting, & finishes the artRATE in 6th place.

Comments:

Spoiler

@Poltergeist An instant favorite. I’m rating the demo version, as I find it superior to the album one. I remember the day it saw the light of day, I was listening to the song non-stop for hours, one of my favorite choruses of all time!

@Lukasson So chaotic and so good

@Born This Way My favorite song on the album. I only wish the situation between Gaga and Infected Mushroom had gone better.

@Daenerys By far the greatest album opener in her entire discography (sorry Bad Romance)

@The Z The vocals in the verse kinda ruin it for me. The demo is worth an 8

@27monster27 A dazzling musical journey from start to finish. The song has such a unique meaning about revealing what exists underneath the veil of fame and a brand. This meaning is communicated through aggressive vocals over an equally aggressive instrumental, and then in the chorus with soaring vocals over entrancing synths.

@Head Empty Ambitious, agressive and powerful, but a little too rough around the edges in places where it doesn't need to be. The instrumental is one of the best in her discography. With the demo vocals, this would've been an easy 9 or 10.

@ImMatt #JusticeForAuraDemo

@huttont When this leaked, I was blown away bc it was so crazy compared to any of her previous releases. Parts of the demo still > album version but such a wild song that encapsulates the album.

@TwistedTeeth A strong start for one of Gaga's most adventurous albums; Aura is a totally infectious song that I play out LOUD. It fit perfectly for the big EDM phase in 2013 and still holds up to today's standards.

@Helxig Would’ve been 10 with the original ‘screamy’ vocals

@ARTGOD One of her hardest and most experimental bangers. The production makes my brain melt. There should be more songs like this in her discography.

@TXNNXTUS Perfectly embodies the energetic, electric and crazy soul of ARTPOP

[KubaM316 13,528]

4 minutes ago, Cruelty said:

7 SEXXX DREAMS – average 8.06

The highs: 11 x 5 [ @Poltergeist @Kandy life @nodandsmile @FinallyFree @Gagaism]

The lows: 2 x 1 [ @JustTea]

Yeah, this one is just a juggernaut of a pop song. I was going to quote Gaga’s descriptions of what this song’s about, but truly it’s just about sex dreams. & that’s okay! Gaga later retconned the track as being about “the adrenaline of laying in bed next to somebody & having thoughts about someone else”, but truly this doesn’t need to be Poker Face 2.0; it can simply be Erotica 2.0. ‘Sexxx Dreams’ is a musical tour de force from start to finish, the sultry thump of the verses exploding into a robust synth-laden chorus, via the iconic spoken-word confession “when I lay in bed, I touch myself & I think’a you”.

‘Sexxx Dreams’ was one of the final songs written for ARTPOP; DJ White Shadow recalls staying up for 20 hours straight working on the song, & I think it was worth the effort. This is so quintessentially Gaga – because it’s Gaga, there’s something slightly (& characteristically) corny in announcing “last night, damn you were in my sex dreams”, & yet that’s allied to an insanely catchy chorus. With many of you wishing that the song had been released as a single (& it was certainly considered), ‘Sexxx Dreams’ lands as your 7th favourite from ARTPOP. Let’s just celebrate the fact that we escaped a Robin Thicke version of this one.

Comments:

  Reveal hidden contents

@ALittleMonsta this song is so sexy and its giving the second part of poker face its just nasty and sexy and wrong in such a polished edm way wish it was a single like gaga wanted it to be

@Bronco Should have been a single

@HeavyMetal Halcyon Should have been the lead single…

@Onlygaga Should have been the lead single!!

@Born This Way I prefer the Swinefest version that has a little less going on.

@JazzGa Looooove this song. Bi anthem tbh. Such a unique delivery style, with 2 different voices and 2 perspectives, like Gaga is duetting with herself. It would have been cool to get a seggsy bi female singer or actor to feature on this one. Like imagine K-Stew doing the smoky spoken word parts, that would be so hawt 

@Kandy life Love this one. It's one of the sexiest and dirties songs. It's the "I like you and won't hold back anymore" kind of song. 

@Bowman One of my favourites from ARTPOP, screams pure Gaga to me

@Auralegends Love the singing and spoken word in between. Also the pre-chorus and the choreo for it are fun.

@whoresup Love the 80s vibe especially the chorus. It’s not particularly memorable, fun but not memorable. 

@Scarlet Bitch Dirty Ass Song. Love it

@Ophelia Sexy, but not enough. Could be sleazier, it misses depth in sound. I GAGGED when I heard "I can't believe I'm telling..." for the first time, but who didn't?

Whenever I listen to it it's making me feel certain things, like...

[Donatellah 1,572]

...

 

[KubaM316 13,528]

Just now, Cruelty said:

although ‘Aura’ is a perennial fan favourite, it just fell out of the top 5

[27monster27 10,457]

Aura not being in the top five shocks me. Another Paparazzi moment indeed.

[Ivy 11,371]

Aura deserves top 5 TRULY