CEREMONY | artRATE: the ARTPOP rate

[Auralegends 3,679]

1 minute ago, Donatellah said:

I'm 70% sure Fashion! will be next, but I hope to be proven wrong

I think so too, though the bridge could save it from a low placement

[Ophelia 4,258]

Sexxx Dreams or Donatella's gotta go, sorry and good bye 

[Cruelty 5,887]

STACHE – average 6.95

The highs: 11 x 1 [ @urgirl]

The lows: 1 x 3 [ @Bowman @nodandsmile @Scar97]

As @Born This Way mentions, the Zedd collaboration ‘Stache’ was one of a number of pre-ARTPOP teasers that were thrown out in unconventional ways. This song was released in the form of a ‘sound puzzle’; the instrumental having been released on Zedd’s debut album Clarity in October 2012, Gaga released her pitched acapella along with instructions for how to mate it to the instrumental, encouraging fans to piece together the track.

Truth be told, there’s not a lot of depth to ‘Stache’, & I think we all understand that. Its message is encapsulated in the repeated mantra “let’s get messed up” – that’s all it’s about, and all it needs to be about. There were also several comments about how the song sounds like a typical DJ feature, & I agree that whilst Gaga contributes a clever topline, it isn’t really meaty enough for a standalone Lady Gaga track.

In the end, ‘Stache’ is just an example of Gaga having some off-the-cuff fun in a recording studio, but when you’re working with such a phenomenal instrumental, you can’t go wrong. A kaleidoscope of cascading EDM synths & topsy-turvy electronics, ‘Stache’ eschews a traditional verse-chorus structure in favour of pounding hooks upon hooks upon hooks. An EDM masterclass elevated, as ever, by the presence of Lady Gaga, ‘Stache’ finishes as your second-favourite ARTPOP-era bonus track.

Comments:

Spoiler

@Bronco I wish the Gaga version had been on Zedd’s album, but I can see why it didn’t make the ARTPOP cut. It definitely feels like a Gaga feature rather than a Gaga track. Also Daddy Zedd doesn’t miss

@Poltergeist Ooooh how much I love this one, had it on replay for hours and hours. The instrumental itself was soooo fun already, very good job on this one Zedd, Gaga's touch made it even better!

@Onlygaga So good!!

@allanrocks I hate it. I probably only like the intro.

@Juliandante I loved it so much when it was published. I couldn't stop listening to it and I wish it had been part of the album. 

@Gangie Interesting experience with the puzzle. Ain't listening to it since 2013 though

@huttont This might be one of my most played Gaga songs. I was obsessed when it came out

@Joshua81 Surprisingly not too bad for an EDM hater. Lolz

@Helxig PSYCHOTIC MUSIC HEAD

@dimitristhe A cute song with funny lyrics. I love 2012Ga, she didn’t take herself seriously. 

@Gagaism I live for EDM and I love this one.

[Hyperobject 65,607]

2 minutes ago, Poltergeist said:

Tbh I love it, but I just love other songs more!

totally get it! I just don’t think it deserves a 1… 

[Donatellah 1,572]

Okay I'm glad it wasn't Fashion!

[Poltergeist 3,028]

1 minute ago, Ororo Munroe said:

totally get it! I just don’t think it deserves a 1… 

It surely doesn't!

[Poltergeist 3,028]

1 minute ago, Cruelty said:

STACHE – average 6.95

The highs: 11 x 1 [ @urgirl]

The lows: 1 x 3 [ @Bowman @nodandsmile @Scar97]

As @Born This Way mentions, the Zedd collaboration ‘Stache’ was one of a number of pre-ARTPOP teasers that were thrown out in unconventional ways. This song was released in the form of a ‘sound puzzle’; the instrumental having been released on Zedd’s debut album Clarity in October 2012, Gaga released her pitched acapella along with instructions for how to mate it to the instrumental, encouraging fans to piece together the track.

Truth be told, there’s not a lot of depth to ‘Stache’, & I think we all understand that. Its message is encapsulated in the repeated mantra “let’s get messed up” – that’s all it’s about, and all it needs to be about. There were also several comments about how the song sounds like a typical DJ feature, & I agree that whilst Gaga contributes a clever topline, it isn’t really meaty enough for a standalone Lady Gaga track.

In the end, ‘Stache’ is just an example of Gaga having some off-the-cuff fun in a recording studio, but when you’re working with such a phenomenal instrumental, you can’t go wrong. A kaleidoscope of cascading EDM synths & topsy-turvy electronics, ‘Stache’ eschews a traditional verse-chorus structure in favour of pounding hooks upon hooks upon hooks. An EDM masterclass elevated, as ever, by the presence of Lady Gaga, ‘Stache’ finishes as your second-favourite ARTPOP-era bonus track.

Comments:

  Reveal hidden contents

@Bronco I wish the Gaga version had been on Zedd’s album, but I can see why it didn’t make the ARTPOP cut. It definitely feels like a Gaga feature rather than a Gaga track. Also Daddy Zedd doesn’t miss

@Poltergeist Ooooh how much I love this one, had it on replay for hours and hours. The instrumental itself was soooo fun already, very good job on this one Zedd, Gaga's touch made it even better!

@Onlygaga So good!!

@allanrocks I hate it. I probably only like the intro.

@Juliandante I loved it so much when it was published. I couldn't stop listening to it and I wish it had been part of the album. 

@Gangie Interesting experience with the puzzle. Ain't listening to it since 2013 though

@huttont This might be one of my most played Gaga songs. I was obsessed when it came out

@Joshua81 Surprisingly not too bad for an EDM hater. Lolz

@Helxig PSYCHOTIC MUSIC HEAD

@dimitristhe A cute song with funny lyrics. I love 2012Ga, she didn’t take herself seriously. 

@Gagaism I live for EDM and I love this one.

Tbh this one has me a bit shocked, such a bop 

[Ophelia 4,258]

Stache is such a time capsule 

 

[Ivy 11,342]

It's not my favorite but it's sad Dope is so low

[KubaM316 13,528]

4 minutes ago, Cruelty said:

STACHE – average 6.95

The highs: 11 x 1 [ @urgirl]

The lows: 1 x 3 [ @Bowman @nodandsmile @Scar97]

As @Born This Way mentions, the Zedd collaboration ‘Stache’ was one of a number of pre-ARTPOP teasers that were thrown out in unconventional ways. This song was released in the form of a ‘sound puzzle’; the instrumental having been released on Zedd’s debut album Clarity in October 2012, Gaga released her pitched acapella along with instructions for how to mate it to the instrumental, encouraging fans to piece together the track.

Truth be told, there’s not a lot of depth to ‘Stache’, & I think we all understand that. Its message is encapsulated in the repeated mantra “let’s get messed up” – that’s all it’s about, and all it needs to be about. There were also several comments about how the song sounds like a typical DJ feature, & I agree that whilst Gaga contributes a clever topline, it isn’t really meaty enough for a standalone Lady Gaga track.

In the end, ‘Stache’ is just an example of Gaga having some off-the-cuff fun in a recording studio, but when you’re working with such a phenomenal instrumental, you can’t go wrong. A kaleidoscope of cascading EDM synths & topsy-turvy electronics, ‘Stache’ eschews a traditional verse-chorus structure in favour of pounding hooks upon hooks upon hooks. An EDM masterclass elevated, as ever, by the presence of Lady Gaga, ‘Stache’ finishes as your second-favourite ARTPOP-era bonus track.

Comments:

  Reveal hidden contents

@Bronco I wish the Gaga version had been on Zedd’s album, but I can see why it didn’t make the ARTPOP cut. It definitely feels like a Gaga feature rather than a Gaga track. Also Daddy Zedd doesn’t miss

@Poltergeist Ooooh how much I love this one, had it on replay for hours and hours. The instrumental itself was soooo fun already, very good job on this one Zedd, Gaga's touch made it even better!

@Onlygaga So good!!

@allanrocks I hate it. I probably only like the intro.

@Juliandante I loved it so much when it was published. I couldn't stop listening to it and I wish it had been part of the album. 

@Gangie Interesting experience with the puzzle. Ain't listening to it since 2013 though

@huttont This might be one of my most played Gaga songs. I was obsessed when it came out

@Joshua81 Surprisingly not too bad for an EDM hater. Lolz

@Helxig PSYCHOTIC MUSIC HEAD

@dimitristhe A cute song with funny lyrics. I love 2012Ga, she didn’t take herself seriously. 

@Gagaism I live for EDM and I love this one.

what 

[Hyperobject 65,607]

Fashion! deserves to be top 6… 

[Cruelty 5,887]

13 FASHION! – average 7.14

The highs: 11 x 4 [ @Railing @littlepotter @Stephen @sillynate]

The lows: 1 x 3 [ @HIMe @Modern Ecstacy @chromaticathong]

It feels like a mistake eliminating ‘Fashion!’ this early. It’s so fun! Gaga’s vocals glide ethereally over a silky disco backing, as she boasts, “look at me now – I feel on top of the world in my fashion!”. Cleverly sequenced alongside ‘Donatella’, the song celebrates the importance of fashion, written by a woman who’s been lucky enough to wear some of the world’s greatest designers.

& yet things aren’t quite that simple. As I said when we eliminated ‘Dope’, the back half of ARTPOP is all about descending into hedonism to mask your trauma. It’s a horrifying autobiographical tale about a woman falling apart at the seams in the glare of the public eye. If ‘Fashion!’ were just about dressing up and feeling good, it would be in the brighter, falling-in-love first half of the tracklist.

Much like ‘Donatella’ before it & ‘Mary Jane Holland’ after, ‘Fashion!’ is about wilfully losing your identity & becoming someone else. Gaga explained that the track is about “being able to put something on & feel like a totally different person”, with the song celebrating how “I feel alive when I transform”. Because fashion is armour, right? Just as ‘Donatella’ triumphantly chanted “all of the day, I’m gonna wear designer & forget your name”, ‘Fashion!’ captures the feeling of putting a nice dress on & temporarily leaving your pain behind. But what about the rest of the time? What happens when the fashion comes off, & leaves behind Stefani, a confused, lost, hurting woman? There’s a reason this song comes in the downward-spiral half of the album. There’s a reason she’s “looking good” but only “feeling fine”. There’s a reason she’s dressed as a condom in the Muppets performance of this song, you guys – it’s something you wear for protection!

& this is the ARTPOP era in microcosm. Gaga put out a searingly honest record about her unhealed wounds, & was then expected to go all round the world for a whole year singing those songs of pain before she’d even properly healed. So what do you do? You put your armour on. The ARTPOP promo campaign was a dizzying array of sensations, ART ART ART FASHION FASHION FASHION, piling looks upon looks so we’d never the sadness at her core. As we know, in December 2013 this finally broke her. But beneath the bright exterior of ‘Fashion!’, there is the acknowledgment of a woman in an absolute tailspin, putting her armour on without fixing the wound that was already there.

‘Fashion!’ was tested on US radio stations in early 2014 (because almost everything on ARTPOP was considered as a single at one point or another), & I think with an edit or two it would have made a nice choice. The song moved up & down the leaderboard several times as the votes came in, but sadly fell a few places close to the end of voting, & ends up as your 13th favourite from the ARTPOP album. You can now all argue about ‘Fashion’ (Confessions of a Shopaholic) vs. ‘Fashion!’ (ARTPOP) for the next 5 minutes, whilst I format the next elimination post.

Comments:

Spoiler

@Poltergeist I hate myself 10 years ago for hating on this one. A beautiful gem, the bridge is everything, both vocal and instrumental wise.

@Onlygaga Possibly my fave out of all of her discography!

@27monster27 Another underrated song. Fashion! reminds everyone of Lady Gagas (arguably) most well known love, fashion. In the disco-infused song, she views fashion as its own performance and show cases it in an epic way. Rather than just talk about runways, she envisions a world on Mars where all fashion is just as exquisite as what she has to offer.

@allanrocks One of the top songs in the album for me. Very well produced. I wish she would officially release the version featuring RuPaul.

@Juliandante Just like with Sexxx Dreams, I found myself listening to this songs many years after its official release. It's a really fun song, with a trendy instrumental, in a good way, of course. I believe this could be re-released today, and people wouldn't guess it had been released almost 10 years ago. That happens when you release something trendy, but in a timeless way.

@JazzGa One time I heard a reporter describe Gaga's vocals on Fashion! and Applause as "vampire David Bowie vocals" and I feel like that is so accurate and a very flattering comparison! Who wouldn't want to be/be f*cked by a vampire David Bowie, right?

@TwistedTeeth I love how experimental the production is on this song. Everything about it just exudes positivity and elegance. It's empowering and inspires you to feel good about yourself no matter what you're wearing. It's just extravagant!

@jackjackjackjack13 Don't get me wrong, the song is good but I would've expected something HUGE when I heard that will.i.am are one of the collaborators on this track (I mean, Scream & Shout was a hit then and I was expecting something like that) and then I get to hear this track and was like "Whaaaaa..."

@whoresup The sheer campiness of this song makes it enjoyable for me. Will.I.Am with Gaga should have been a nightmare but this is okay. So much more personality and fun compared to Donatella. 

@dimitristhe That’s cute, nothing else. Oh, almost forgot that this song has her longest note ever. Weird right?

@TXNNXTUS Incredible anthem for fashion

@Scarlet Bitch so gay

@Nirvana Looking good and feeling fine... Finding comfort in things like fashion when everything else in life is falling apart. 

[Ophelia 4,258]

NOOOO F! used to be my fav track before I saw the light and turned to MJH 

[Donatellah 1,572]

Deffo not one of the best on this album but I wish it could be a bit more loved

[Auralegends 3,679]

Next up, MJH