Unpopular opinion: ARTPOP

[RochesterJoannster 3,654]

I think if ARTPOP had the luxury Joanne had, of coming at a time when she was visibly reinventing herself, it could have had more success. 

[imogen2133 134]

On 1/13/2026 at 2:00 AM, Ladle Ghoulash said:

@imogen2133if you like the pseudo-philosophical, ad hoc gobbledegook that is the supposed “concept” of ARTPOP, that’s your prerogative and I’m sorry if clocking it’s conceptual incoherence and lack of relation to the music triggered you, sister 

Well I'm aware that most of the songs don't fit the concept of putting art culture into pop culture and that the only songs that are really about that are Applause, ARTPOP and Venus. I don't think there is any Gaga album where every song fits the concept honestly but I still really like the songs on ARTPOP for their separate meanings anyway even if most don't fit the concept she was going for. This is one of the biggest flaws with the album and I think her selling it as a triumph for the success of Born This Way/ a gift for the fans and as a party album about sex and drugs with personal meanings attached would have been much better since that's largely what the songs are about. I would say the concept she was going for with taking historical art pieces and injecting them into pop culture was done better through the visuals that were presented during the era also. (Birth of Venus outfit, Koons statue, fashion from the era in general) and you could tell she wanted to go further with it with the plans she had that were cancelled. It is an album that is closer to The Fame in terms of meaning I would say and I mostly love the album due to it's personal songs, her vocals and campy lyrics than the concept for the album overall. 

[Ladle Ghoulash 33,493]

6 minutes ago, imogen2133 said:

Well I'm aware that most of the songs don't fit the concept of putting art culture into pop culture and that the only songs that are really about that are Applause, ARTPOP and Venus. I don't think there is any Gaga album where every song fits the concept honestly but I still really like the songs on ARTPOP for their separate meanings anyway even if most don't fit the concept she was going for. This is one of the biggest flaws with the album and I think her selling it as a triumph for the success of Born This Way/ a gift for the fans and as a party album about sex and drugs with personal meanings attached would have been much better since that's largely what the songs are about. I would say the concept she was going for with taking historical art pieces and injecting them into pop culture was done better through the visuals that were presented during the era also. (Birth of Venus outfit, Koons statue, fashion from the era in general) and you could tell she wanted to go further with it with the plans she had that were cancelled. It is an album that is closer to The Fame in terms of meaning I would say and I mostly love the album due to it's personal songs, her vocals and campy lyrics than the concept for the album overall. 

An intellectually honest ARTPOP stan. I’ll be damned.

[gagzus 16,848]

On 1/11/2026 at 1:57 PM, AVeryGagaHolyDick said:

Do What U Want did better than Venus could’ve ever dreamed of commercially

The 3rd single was gonna flop anyway, so I don’t know why she chose G.U.Y. when nearly everyone was asking for Gypsy

I don’t mind I Wanna Be With You being replaced with Dope lyrically and vocally, but the main problem is how the melody was altered as it’s definitely weaker on the album version. Also, where the hell is the bridge? 

Not really related to the album, but Volantis was a great idea that deserved to be worked on

Gaga Daily is still running, I don’t know how they managed to let LittleMonsters.com flop, it almost had a million users

Do What U Want ft. Xtina is absolutely horrendous, I still wonder why so many people enjoy X’s voice

 

 

We knew her sister’s boyfriend filmed a Gypsy tour video in 2014 but it never got posted anywhere.

Also a big reason LM.com flopped was because some of the rules about negativity were exhausting. But it also became a hub for CP because underage fans were sharing nudes and images like every day at one point. Because the main page posts (after her body positivity post) were all fitter gay men posting shirtless pics. 
 

Plus people ONLY used it back in the day because Gaga was so active on it, people went on and posted specifically for her to reply to questions or to respond to their artwork. Once she stopped doing it because the fans were a MESS nobody bothered with it anymore lmao. Same for twitter, back in 2010 the LM fanbase was the biggest fanbase online. People seem to forget she was legit the biggest and most followed person on twitter for YEARS she literally pioneered fan interaction on social media.

[Diamond Blood 4,296]

Sexxx dreams is my fav Gaga song ever 

[gagzus 16,848]

My unpopular opinion is this fanbase didnt deserve the excellence that ARTPOP was. Gaga literally had made dance music mainstream again and was making dance music but suddenly her going balls to the walls full EDM with actual producers and DJs that she loved the music of was bad? Girl how? 
 

AP is in her holy trinity for me along with Mayhem and Harlequin now. 
 

despite what people say; yes dance pop had become big in 2012/2013 but EDM had not and a lot of ARTPOP did NOT sound like anything on the radio with the exception of  some songs that were clearly from the early sessions where she was trying to be more radio friendly (Gypsy, GUY, Applause)

Nothing on the radio or that was released by anyone remotely sounded like MANiCURE or Mary Jane Holland or not even Sex Dreams at the time. Fans only started hating it BECAUSE the GP was over Gaga by that point. Like people forget it was a #1 album with 2 hit singles lmao

 

Edited January 16 by gagzus

[ThatsGossip111 264]

1. jewles n drugs is actually a BOP! The instrumental goes so hard, and I love her vocal here

2. Fashion! Is one of the more unique tracks on the album, and 100% underrated 

3. The album is WAY more cohesive than people give it credit. Sonically, and even thematically. There’s 100% a theme of not only transformation but numbing by trying on various identities until the come down that is dope. Which beings me to my next point…..

4. Dope plays an extremely integral part of the album. And the album wouldn’t have the same depth without it. Like I said before, it’s like each song represents a different identity, a new space to numb into. Mary Jane Holland to me is the most escapist song on the album, but with time running out. Dope is strategically placed towards the end of the album, especially after MJH as a way of her saying “I can’t live this way anymore”. We end the album with Gypsy and Applause which to me I interpret as her returning to what’s most important after an extremely eclectic journey.

[iAmToton 68]

GAGA+KOONS artRAVE > ARTPOP Ball Tour 

[imogen2133 134]

2 hours ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

An intellectually honest ARTPOP stan. I’ll be damned.

Also I saw your post saying that one of the worst aspects of ARTPOP is the self referential lyrics and I have to disagree, the way she does it in that campy way (Donatella, MANiCURE demo, Cake Like Lady Gaga, Fashion!) and in the more sincere way (Gypsy, Aura, Dope, Applause) are both great and make me feel like I understand her more. I wouldn't say it's very relatable but a song doesn't have to be to be good, I cant relate to plenty of GaGa's songs and I still think they are great. Also even though self referencing and being personal are different I think there is a personal aspect to most of the songs on ARTPOP that makes it feel very connected to her and makes the album feel unabashedly her like her wearing her heart on her sleeve. This is an issue I had with Mayhem outside of a few songs (Blade Of Grass, Vanish Into You, Zombieboy) it's hard to see how the songs connect to Gaga and especially at this point in her life (if they are supposed to).

[Ladle Ghoulash 33,493]

13 minutes ago, imogen2133 said:

Also I saw your post saying that one of the worst aspects of ARTPOP is the self referential lyrics and I have to disagree, the way she does it in that campy way (Donatella, MANiCURE demo, Cake Like Lady Gaga, Fashion!) and in the more sincere way (Gypsy, Aura, Dope, Applause) are both great and make me feel like I understand her more. I wouldn't say it's very relatable but a song doesn't have to be to be good, I cant relate to plenty of GaGa's songs and I still think they are great. Also even though self referencing and being personal are different I think there is a personal aspect to most of the songs on ARTPOP that makes it feel very connected to her and makes the album feel unabashedly her like her wearing her heart on her sleeve. This is an issue I had with Mayhem outside of a few songs (Blade Of Grass, Vanish Into You, Zombieboy) it's hard to see how the songs connect to Gaga and especially at this point in her life (if they are supposed to).

I respect the self-referentiality of tracks like Aura, DWUW, ARTPOP, and (to a lesser extent) Fashion! and Applause. I think that ARTPOP was the point at which the pre-established concept of “Lady Gaga” became too cumbersome and restrictive for her which is part of the reason why the era, imo, was a metadeconstruction of the original iteration of her persona (fame as performance art etc etc) and was intended to give way to her being able to write from a place where not everything had to necessarily build off of pre-existing lore. 
 

Part of what I think is brilliant about the execution of MAYHEM, as I said previously, is that she wrote songs that could both function on their own as camp, pop, theatrical one-off fantasies, but could also be woven into a meta theatrical narrative in The Art of Personal Chaos which I think both functions as a really elevated retelling of the throughline of her artistic journey while not being overwhelmingly self-referential (ie narrowly about the concept of the Lady Gaga persona) that it’s still broadly relatable to a lot of people. 
 

Again, don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate ARTPOP by any means. I saw her live three times during that era and have listened to the album countless times. I just don’t really think the bulk of the album has aged particularly well and I think, if anything, the album and the era served more as the means to the end of Gaga being able to expand her public persona and musical palette. In that vein, MAYHEM actually feels like the full circle culmination of that effort: she deconstructed her persona, re-examined herself through other lenses, and reconstructed her public image and style as an artist capable of containing multitudes in a weight bearing way. 
 

During the ARTPOP era, when Gaga said “I’m not one icon, I am every icon” I can’t help but feel like the period when she was promoting DWAS, Disease, and Harlequin felt like the perfect embodiment of that concept: here she was, traditional pop chanteuse, electropop horror queen, and a deranged clown performing showtunes all at once. I just kind of feel like where she is now feels like the career she always dreamt she would have.

Edited January 16 by Ladle Ghoulash

[Donatellah 2,238]

It's the most impactful album for the fandom. To this very day, it gets talked about and it never dies.

[Ayden 145]

It's one of my favorite albums ever. Best Gaga album for sure! Part of the reason why i love it so much is because i love the EDM of the early 2010s. I loved it back then and i still love it now. Albums like Britney's Femme Fatale, Icona Pop, LMFAO, David Guetta, Zedd, Avicii, Calvin Harris, etc. That genre was everywhere when pop was still dominated by a maximalist approach.

DWUW sounds perfectly fine as a solo version, it just sounds kind of empty for the people who got used first to the other version. But it should've stayed as a solo song imo. 

While i like Dope, i think it kind of breaks the mood of the album for me, so i skip it when listening to the whole thing in full. I do, however, like listening to the song separately sometimes because it's really good. 

Aura definitely should've been the lead single, followed by Venus and MANiCURE. Applause is great, but too safe of a choice, it sounds too mainstream, too polished. The reason i like ARTPOP is because of the chaos, the rawness, that sense of colorful insanity. 

Swine is definitely my favorite song on the album, not necessarily the best, but the most unhinged and raw for sure. 

[Lucas 28,759]

On 1/11/2026 at 2:57 PM, AVeryGagaHolyDick said:

The 3rd single was gonna flop anyway, so I don’t know why she chose G.U.Y. when nearly everyone was asking for Gypsy

Maybe because it's about not being on top but still knowing her worth? 

[Lucas 28,759]

I feel like my only unpopular opinion about this album is that I think Swine is one of the best songs on the album.

Other than that I don't have many good things to say about the album, I just like 4/5 songs from it and the rest should've been scrapped   A lot of tracks are overproduced, messy and soulless