Original ARTPOP Vision Would Have Ruined Gaga's Career

[Ronnie 6,011]

2 minutes ago, Maxine Puth said:

Were you a Gaga / AHS stan back then? Because you’d know no one gave a **** about The Countess  For better or worse at that time everyone saw that as Gaga on screen, that was her personal image. No one said “wow that character Gaga is playing is crazy” it was always “there goes Gaga again covered in blood and ****ing, doing Gaga things” 

..... you're missing the point. She was acting as the character in a TV show. It was the story line. It was meant to be that way. It had meaning.

Us Gaga fans didn't see much of a difference but the GP who doesn't follow her every move, every look, every music video, every live performance, they look at her with different eyes. 

 

[Maxine Puth 9,053]

9 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

..... you're missing the point. She was acting as the character in a TV show. It was the story line. It was meant to be that way. It had meaning.

Us Gaga fans didn't see much of a difference but the GP who doesn't follow her every move, every look, every music video, every live performance, they look at her with different eyes. 

 

Actually you’re just missing my point lol. Anyway, like I said, Gaga would not be cancelled for releasing a raunch music video just like she hasn’t been cancelled for, well, any of her past antics. Not sure why we had to make a thread about how Gaga could’ve destroyed her career for ****ing someone on screen when we’ve got like an hour worth of Gaga **** footage, multiple Gaga nudes, and of corse that V Magazine cover of her and Taylor… making nude paint art lol. 

[LOVEDRUG 10,734]

15 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Cancel culture is alive and well. That's why she removed DWUW from the album. I can't even imagine the back lash from the video. And as far as the MANiCURE video treatment goes.... Charlie Sheen and Sesame Street characters having sex!? It's just trash. It's controversial just for the sake of it. If she would have survived it at that time then she wouldn't have made it in current times. Cancel culture is VERY unforgiving.

perhaps i've got the controversial opinion in that i think the do what u want video couldn't have made the mess any worse. she was still grinding on and dancing erotically with r kelly on saturday night live whilst singing for him to 'do what he wants with her body', irrespective of if they did it on a music video set or not. the reasons for doing it would've been the same as her reasons for doing the performance, and her response and apology years later would've used the exact same justification/explanation.

the manicure video sounds insane. i'm not for a second denying it. but a lot of what gaga did at that time was perceived as being 'trash' and 'controversial for the sake of it'. why do you think of all things the public latched on to the meat dress to define her for years? because it was something they viewed as 'controversial for the sake of it', and didn't see any artistic merit in it.

my point is that ultimately had all these plans gone ahead, she would've experienced a little more intense backlash at the time, and would've still had a redemption arc where people looked back and recognised the forward-thinking artistry of the time. do i think the manicure video treatment is the most organised or reasonable thing i've ever read? of course i don't, but i'm not sure decrying it as 'trash' is particularly reasonable either, considering "lady gaga fires money from guns whilst wearing mickey mouse ears and using minecraft to resurrect michael jackson" doesn't exactly read as the most coherent plot on paper either.

[Ronnie 6,011]

5 minutes ago, Maxine Puth said:

Actually you’re just missing my point lol. Anyway, like I said, Gaga would not be cancelled for releasing a raunch music video just like she hasn’t been cancelled for, well, any of her past antics. Not sure why we had to make a thread about how Gaga could’ve destroyed her career for ****ing someone on screen when we’ve got like an hour worth of Gaga **** footage, multiple Gaga nudes, and of corse that V Magazine cover of her and Taylor… making nude paint art lol. 

Not about the content but who was/would have been involved. R. Kelly and Charlie Sheen. Where do you think she would be right now if she chose to stand by her collab with R. Kelly and keep DWUW on the album?

[Roughhouse Dandy 11,588]

Yall can miss me with the whole "move on" shtick. It's her best album/era, she moved the music industry forward, and I will absolutely keep hope alive for a revisit if/when she gets tired of the scene and wants to shake things up again. 

[27monster27 13,199]

1 minute ago, Melancholia said:

the manicure video sounds insane. i'm not for a second denying it. but a lot of what gaga did at that time was perceived as being 'trash' and 'controversial for the sake of it'. why do you think of all things the public latched on to the meat dress to define her for years? because it was something they viewed as 'controversial for the sake of it', and didn't see any artistic merit in it.

I wanna highlight this because this is how I view the "2012" ARTPOP concept. I truly think she went into this album at the time with a similar mindset to Madonna with American Life.

Madonna was mad about how tabloid culture was evolving and people wanting "perfectly behaved" celebrities that only released stuff that would please them, so she worked with Mirwais to release an album that was intentionally not "beautiful". This was stated (by both of them in different ways) multiple times. This is why the album is so "left field" and has a lot of weird mixing choices. Even the rap too is meant to be about this.

This really seems like the approach that Lady Gaga initially did for ARTPOP. Many critics and GP members hated how "serious" Born This Way was compared to The Fame and The Fame Monster. They wanted songs like Just Dance, Poker Face, Bad Romance, etc. The only songs that resonated with the GP and critics like this were The Edge of Glory and You & I. A lot of people didn't like Born This Way, Judas, Hair, Marry the Night, etc. because they were too "serious" and not "fun" enough for them.

When she started work on ARTPOP, Lady Gaga mentioned a lot how she wanted to make an album with a "lack of maturity" compared to Born This Way. After hearing leaks like the original MANiCURE and Hallelujah, it's clear that she was going to take an "American Life approach" to the record by doing something that might piss people off more directly.

After her hip broke and she went into a "Gaze" at her music, it's clear that she dropped this concept in favor of the "high art" concept that we got. She didn't necessarily drop the shocking people directly entirely (DWUW music video and something that I literally forgot while typing lol), but it was in a very different vain from the original intention. I don't doubt that maybe her management said something, but I don't doubt that this was her idea too since she was very much so for all of the more mature art ideas that came to her.

[Maxine Puth 9,053]

8 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Not about the content but who was/would have been involved. R. Kelly and Charlie Sheen. Where do you think she would be right now if she chose to stand by her collab with R. Kelly and keep DWUW on the album?

Uh what. This thread is about whether or not she release the video. It literally wouldn’t matter as someone else said. She was already grinding on him in live performances and the song was already on the album. If she released the video and then took it down with the song, she’d be in the same place she is now. 

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

HAHAHAHA girl. That was a character on a show that was already known to be raunchy. Light years difference from someone's own personal image. 

Surely I wasn't the only one who felt like that was less of a character and more of a caricature of Lady Gaga's public persona? It resembled what people thought of Gaga at the time.

[LOVEDRUG 10,734]

1 minute ago, 27monster27 said:

I wanna highlight this because this is how I view the "2012" ARTPOP concept. I truly think she went into this album at the time with a similar mindset to Madonna with American Life.

Madonna was mad about how tabloid culture was evolving and people wanting "perfectly behaved" celebrities that only released stuff that would please them, so she worked with Mirwais to release an album that was intentionally not "beautiful". This was stated (by both of them in different ways) multiple times. This is why the album is so "left field" and has a lot of weird mixing choices. Even the rap too is meant to be about this.

This really seems like the approach that Lady Gaga initially did for ARTPOP. Many critics and GP members hated how "serious" Born This Way was compared to The Fame and The Fame Monster. They wanted songs like Just Dance, Poker Face, Bad Romance, etc. The only songs that resonated with the GP and critics like this were The Edge of Glory and You & I. A lot of people didn't like Born This Way, Judas, Hair, Marry the Night, etc. because they were too "serious" and not "fun" enough for them.

When she started work on ARTPOP, Lady Gaga mentioned a lot how she wanted to make an album with a "lack of maturity" compared to Born This Way. After hearing leaks like the original MANiCURE and Hallelujah, it's clear that she was going to take an "American Life approach" to the record by doing something that might piss people off more directly.

After her hip broke and she went into a "Gaze" at her music, it's clear that she dropped this concept in favor of the "high art" concept that we got. She didn't necessarily drop the shocking people directly entirely (DWUW music video and something that I literally forgot while typing lol), but it was in a very different vain from the original intention. I don't doubt that maybe her management said something, but I don't doubt that this was her idea too since she was very much so for all of the more mature art ideas that came to her.

i agree. i totally think the original ARTPOP concept, and the version of the album that would've featured this hypothetical manicure video, would've been predominantly a critique of celebrity culture, particularly reality television and the 'manufactured popstar'. this feels like a natural progression from the fame too, continuing the ideas about the ways in which people are exploited for and manipulated by fame and money. and as you say, i think it was still at least a little thematically present in the album we got, even just looking at some of the outfits and concept pieces she did (just see that one scene in the g.u.y short film with her seemingly being shot out of the sky for profit). 

even in our timeline, ARTPOP was about doubling down on all the things she was criticised for (make it more sexually explicit, make the outfits more wild and grotesque, make the lyrics more cryptic and absured) and i think the only side to this we never got to encounter was the more overtly conceptual side. when you look at the ARTPOP videos, even considering what we know about the do what u want video, only g.u.y is actually particularly intricate and artistic. applause is great, don't get me wrong, and features some fantastic references, but it's definitely a little more on the 'style over substance' side. moreso than what she had planned for born this way (the whole 10 singles piece of folklore), i think the ARTPOP videos would've been insane, and absolutely fascinating.

[Tyler1992 2,264]

1 hour ago, VOLANTIS said:

This exactly. Bangerz was peak and if Gaga played her cards AP would have been even more successful than the BTW era bc one thing Gaga used to do quite well was play into risks and make it work for her. Instead her and her team decided to tame it down so hard that AP kinda fell into an uncontrollable sinkhole. 

It really was her playing it safe with something so bold that eventually broke the camel's back. 

Comparing Bangerz and ARTPOP is disingenuous. Miley had two smash hits, and the timing of her going “good girl gone bad” allowed her to express herself, people were infatuated with what she was doing.

Anything Gaga put out post BTW was going to be scrutinized, critics and listeners were more than ready to see her fall from grace. 

It also feels like revisionism that Gaga was playing it safe with ARTPOP. Because she DID in fact double down on a lot of things that critics and listeners no longer wanted. There’s a step to far that Gaga didn’t want to go for. 

[Maxine Puth 9,053]

1 minute ago, Melancholia said:

i agree. i totally think the original ARTPOP concept, and the version of the album that would've featured this hypothetical manicure video, would've been predominantly a critique of celebrity culture, particularly reality television and the 'manufactured popstar'. this feels like a natural progression from the fame too, continuing the ideas about the ways in which people are exploited for and manipulated by fame and money. and as you say, i think it was still at least a little thematically present in the album we got, even just looking at some of the outfits and concept pieces she did (just see that one scene in the g.u.y short film with her seemingly being shot out of the sky for profit). 

even in our timeline, ARTPOP was about doubling down on all the things she was criticised for (make it more sexually explicit, make the outfits more wild and grotesque, make the lyrics more cryptic and absured) and i think the only side to this we never got to encounter was the more overtly conceptual side. when you look at the ARTPOP videos, even considering what we know about the do what u want video, only g.u.y is actually particularly intricate and artistic. applause is great, don't get me wrong, and features some fantastic references, but it's definitely a little more on the 'style over substance' side. moreso than what she had planned for born this way (the whole 10 singles piece of folklore), i think the ARTPOP videos would've been insane, and absolutely fascinating.

Oh wow I love reading y’all write about 2012 ARTPOP, it makes me feel like a nerd lol. She was really brewing up something interesting with the OG concept, and the whole “pop” act then “experimental” act would’ve been metal too. Like imagine her releasing her “MANiCURE -> Red Flame -> Princess Die” line of songs showing the decay and then bam were slapped with a heavy electronic album in line with Aura, Swine, etc. 

[Hectodermo 16]

I think it would’ve been very controversial back then but now It’ll be considered iconic.

[Ronnie 6,011]

1 minute ago, Maxine Puth said:

Uh what. This thread is about whether or not she release the video. It literally wouldn’t matter as someone else said. She was already grinding on him in live performances and the song was already on the album. If she released the video and then took it down with the song, she’d be in the same place she is now. 

It’s not the fact that it involved heavy sexual content. Duh. It’s Gaga. It’s who was involved. And yes, I know they performed it live, but that was tame compared to what the video would have been. She got by with what was released but maybe not so much if the video had been released as well. That would have been a lot to backtrack from now in cancel culture. 

[27monster27 13,199]

2 minutes ago, Melancholia said:

i agree. i totally think the original ARTPOP concept, and the version of the album that would've featured this hypothetical manicure video, would've been predominantly a critique of celebrity culture, particularly reality television and the 'manufactured popstar'. this feels like a natural progression from the fame too, continuing the ideas about the ways in which people are exploited for and manipulated by fame and money. and as you say, i think it was still at least a little thematically present in the album we got, even just looking at some of the outfits and concept pieces she did (just see that one scene in the g.u.y short film with her seemingly being shot out of the sky for profit). 

even in our timeline, ARTPOP was about doubling down on all the things she was criticised for (make it more sexually explicit, make the outfits more wild and grotesque, make the lyrics more cryptic and absured) and i think the only side to this we never got to encounter was the more overtly conceptual side. when you look at the ARTPOP videos, even considering what we know about the do what u want video, only g.u.y is actually particularly intricate and artistic. applause is great, don't get me wrong, and features some fantastic references, but it's definitely a little more on the 'style over substance' side. moreso than what she had planned for born this way (the whole 10 singles piece of folklore), i think the ARTPOP videos would've been insane, and absolutely fascinating.

I agree with everything you said. Though regarding the videos it should be noted that Lady Gaga said that she was only given a week to plan and execute videos prior to G.U.Y. This was later proven by the May 2020 document leak.

[Ronnie 6,011]

5 minutes ago, Agunimon said:

Surely I wasn't the only one who felt like that was less of a character and more of a caricature of Lady Gaga's public persona? It resembled what people thought of Gaga at the time.

You’re absolutely right but it was, at the end of the day, a TV show character. She played a sexy blood thirsty vampire. I wonder what a sexy blood thirsty vampire does? Exactly what we saw. There’s nothing to be shocked by. Completely different from her in her own work, as herself, being violated by someone convicted of sex trafficking, child ****ography, and sexual exploitation of a minor, on a hospital gurney and who knows what else.