ARTPOPpers, where are you now?

[Gorehound 5,446]

7 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I see what you mean, fs. I feel like @MountainMonstermight’ve been thinking of ARTPOP more as an artistic and aesthetic approach (“my ARTPOP could mean anything,” permission structure to do whatever she wanted, experimental approach to music etc.) as opposed to the performance art of the era itself. Also I think the performance art of the ARTPOP era is the best part of the era (called it the era’s “greatest asset” in my previous comment) so I def agree. 

Ohh I misread you as saying it was not it's greatest asset my bad. Oh ye in terms of musical expression Requiem is definitely superior to ARTPOP, but on the other hand she treated the making of most her albums the same way she did with ARTPOP, and hasn't attempted to fully reimagine them as a full project since (other than the odd song and live performance - and Dawn of Chromatica but I don't think she had much of a hand in that).

Edited 8 hours ago by Gorehound

[MountainMonster 2,115]

4 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I see what you mean, fs. I feel like @MountainMonstermight’ve been thinking of ARTPOP more as an artistic and aesthetic approach (“my ARTPOP could mean anything,” permission structure to do whatever she wanted, experimental approach to music etc.) as opposed to the performance art of the era itself. Also I think the performance art of the ARTPOP era is the best part of the era (called it the era’s “greatest asset” in my previous comment) so I def agree. 

You’re correct. It’s truly her most successful performance art piece; from the procession arrival in real time to the necromancy resurrection of the spirit of MAYHEM through a staged ritual. It’s effective, it’s succinct, and it’s cleanly done. Where ARTPOP attempted to dapple in big ideas to only get bogged down by being so stuck in the superficial. 

[Gorehound 5,446]

19 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I’d say REQUIEM is plenty conceptual, tbh. I honestly feel like the idea of REQUIEM being a “posthumous” reimagining of the album (apparently set in the ruins of the MAYHEM opera house in 2050) evokes the idea of Gaga’s persona in the film as a conduit or a necromancer of sorts, communing with the spirits of past selves, exorcizing them like demons, and then dying unto them as a way of being reborn. Tbh I feel like as a standalone work, I feel like REQUIEM is more conceptually/symbolically fertile than most of the ARTPOP era (although I do think the performance art of the ARTPOP era is probably its greatest asset).

 

I think if 2013s Gaga were to do an ARTPOP requiem, the show would lean heavily into the performance art side and 'message' as well as the reimagining of the music, almost a 50/50 thing - and would probably be more rave and festival centric with DJ's holding a lot of the musics weight. Whereas with Requiem I felt that the music (and music tech) was the most important focus, and Gaga as the true musician - and then the set, costumes, performances and overall concept more of a complimentary dressing.

[Gorehound 5,446]

8 minutes ago, MountainMonster said:

You’re correct. It’s truly her most successful performance art piece; from the procession arrival in real time to the necromancy resurrection of the spirit of MAYHEM through a staged ritual. It’s effective, it’s succinct, and it’s cleanly done. Where ARTPOP attempted to dapple in big ideas to only get bogged down by being so stuck in the superficial. 

well said!

[Ladle Ghoulash 44,526]

35 minutes ago, Gorehound said:

 

I think if 2013s Gaga were to do an ARTPOP requiem, the show would lean heavily into the performance art side and 'message' as well as the reimagining of the music, almost a 50/50 thing - and would probably be more rave and festival centric with DJ's holding a lot of the musics weight. Whereas with Requiem I felt that the music (and music tech) was the most important focus, and Gaga as the true musician - and then the set, costumes, performances and overall concept more of a complimentary dressing.

I could see that, but I also can’t help but feel like the “message” of ARTPOP isn’t really more or less what she ended up doing with MAYHEM (basically doing whatever tf she wanted). I feel like the lofty rhetoric of the ARTPOP era about the tension between art and consumerism and the relationship between pop culture and art was more an externalization of what she felt was restricting her as an artist than I think it was a coherent theory or an overarching concept (the whole thing reads more like an animal gnawing at the bars of its enclosure to me than it does a philosophical thesis on the pop cultural ecosystem and it’s relation to high art).

Edited 8 hours ago by Ladle Ghoulash

[Gorehound 5,446]

7 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I could see that, but I also can’t help but feel like the “message” of ARTPOP isn’t really more or less what she ended up doing with MAYHEM (basically doing whatever tf she wanted). I feel like the lofty rhetoric of the ARTPOP era about the tension between art and consumerism and the relationship between pop culture and art was more an externalization of what she felt was restricting her as an artist more than I think it was a coherent theory or an overarching concept (the whole thing reads more like an animal gnawing at the bars of its enclosure to me than it does a philosophical thesis on the pop cultural ecosystem and it’s relation to high art).

Ye definitely. And to add to that tbh her concept of ARTPOP was pretty much the same thing she's been doing since The Fame. What I meant was that there seemed to be less focus on the actual music during ARTPOP and more on whatever she was trying to express, whereas Requiem is very much a celebration of music and musicianship (with a cool, typical Gaga concept added on). 

[monketsharona 89,842]

3 hours ago, Quartz said:

As we all know, we have such a VOCAL segment of our fandom who claims to bleed and live for ARTPOP. 

HOWEVER, we have Runway, her most ARTPOP-coded release in years and the same people aren't showing up for it.

The explosion of color that is the MV, the Aura synths, the Fashion! and Donatella campiness, they're all there in full display in Runway. Runway could be an ARTPOP track and nobody would bat an eye.

So where are the ARTPOPpers? Are they only there to scream #JusticeForARTPOP every time something remotely Gaga is being discussed then just dissolve away? Runway was made for you guys. Where are you?

The proof anything ARTPOP tied should stay in her vault.

I'm here for her to try new things to be honest. REQUIEM is proving she needs to experiment new sounds, influences, concepts

[27monster27 15,510]

2 hours ago, gagzus said:

I actually have been writing an article about Queer people rejecting Queer culture more now after it became commercialised in the 2010s and use Runway’s reception as an example. 
 

It still baffles me that people call a song that’s made by a bisexual and lesbian, with a House beat (a genre that was made and defined by queer and black people), “corporate” goes to show you just how commercialised it became.

I’m personally a die hard ARTPOP apologist and stand by that it was her most experimental record and this fandom proved they don’t want her to experiment by how they talk about it. They like to “vision” of Gaga being something she’s not. 
 

I’m not saying Runway is some super out there song but it’s EDM (House) which ARTPOP was, it is about self empowerment, which the majority of ARTPOP is and it’s music for queer people by queer people which ARTPOP is. But gay culture was reduced heavily to tropes in media that even the mere semblance of those tropes now feels “cringe” to gay people.

This right here.

[Bronco 21,276]

15 minutes ago, Gorehound said:

 

I think if 2013s Gaga were to do an ARTPOP requiem, the show would lean heavily into the performance art side and 'message' as well as the reimagining of the music, almost a 50/50 thing - and would probably be more rave and festival centric with DJ's holding a lot of the musics weight. Whereas with Requiem I felt that the music (and music tech) was the most important focus, and Gaga as the true musician - and then the set, costumes, performances and overall concept more of a complimentary dressing.

Definitely agree with this.

ARTPOP message/theme wise needed longer to cook. If you have to repeatedly explain it, its not clear/done right. 

I love ARTPOP Gaga, but miss thing was a raging stoner at the time and the concept of ARTPOP is very much "stoner's random thought at the 4am afters" in execution. 

Requiem by comparison, we all understood the concept without it ever actually having a moment where Gaga stops the show/intros the show and explains it. The naming, the styling, the staging tells the viewer everything without ever needing to hold their hand. 

[gagzus 20,149]

34 minutes ago, Bronco said:

Definitely agree with this.

ARTPOP message/theme wise needed longer to cook. If you have to repeatedly explain it, its not clear/done right. 

I love ARTPOP Gaga, but miss thing was a raging stoner at the time and the concept of ARTPOP is very much "stoner's random thought at the 4am afters" in execution. 

Requiem by comparison, we all understood the concept without it ever actually having a moment where Gaga stops the show/intros the show and explains it. The naming, the styling, the staging tells the viewer everything without ever needing to hold their hand. 

I think ARTPOP has become the antithesis of who she is as an artist. She wants the performance, the talent and the vision to come before the Pop music or culture. I think it's taken her till now at 40 to put perspective to her 25 year old selves thinking.

She had the ideas but never understood how to present them, probably because, her A&R side of everything was more focused on the public facade. It's all over everything we've seen and heard about the era as a whole. Aura being originally Burqa, Sex Dreams was supposed to be a considered lead single with Robin Thicke as a feature, MANiCURE's excessive music video that was clearly the Telephone continuation. The 'need' for a rapper collaboration (she tried 3 times in the creative process and tried to make it her own) that the label clearly pushed for because it was trendy, the singles manically changing. The album art being fully shot and edited by Inez & Vinoodh with the white minalism and technology influence- then it being dumped because she managed to get Jeff Koons to make her a sculpture one day. There was so much happening.

She changed the concept so many times over the 2 years she was working on it- first it was about a darker side of her fame "Princess Die", then it became a Disney Princess in a rave on drugs, which is where the majority of her writing seems to have happened during, then it was a "not serious and fun celebration of Born This Way's impact on her fans and culture" which is a contradiction, and then finally she came to the injecting Art culture into Pop thesis. She started out with the word and worked backwards from there. She even admitted that years ago, that as soon as Born This Way was sent off for pressing the word "ARTPOP" was already in her head. DJWS even said she told him that in 2011.

The work should inform the title not the other way around. If anything in hindsight Mayhem or even Aura would've been an excellent title for ARTPOP.

She's became more concise with age creatively, she knows what she's good at, she knows what fans like and she knows how to balance the 2. 

Edited 7 hours ago by gagzus

[imogen2133 317]

Oh absolutely not, Runway is trash compared to anything on ARTPOP and way too basic, it is a pandering song and has much more simplistic production then anything on ARTPOP also. It would stick out like a sore thumb on that album and it is much poorer in quality than anything on AP.

Edited 6 hours ago by imogen2133

[Electric Venom 254]

The last part / outro is the only thing that reminds me of ARTPOP but other than that.. BEEEEEEEWWWTCHHHHH will always annoy me in a fun and positive way(only when i feel like it) 

[imogen2133 317]

3 hours ago, Gorehound said:

Very true, but the reason people are calling Runway corporate is because it does sound corporate. Almost stock music level for a typical TV fashion or perfume ad - it's very mainstream and cliché - and that's absolutely fine cuz it's for a high-profile movie typically directed towards boomer women and gays - but it does turn a lot of fans off considering how unique and Gaga-coded Gaga's music normally is. The music video is still very Gaga and that's great.

That is my issue with a lot of Gaga's recent music I feel like her music identity and uniqueness has dampened over the years. Certain things that were unique to Gaga have not been in her recent musical output and I have seen people say that Gaga has stagnated or is just doing "her thing" over and over with nothing new but I feel the opposite is true and is the problem. I felt like Chromatica was an album that anyone could have made and was not a unique "Gaga" project and with Mayhem I feel like she took too much from the 80s time period and didn't transform it enough to do something unique or transformative with it, it as more like a pastiche of 80s sounds with funk/disco elements then something truly original. (There are exceptions like GOE and Disease though) It is the same with Hold My Hand, Runway and The Cure they are too GP friendly and have no unique musical identity or experimentation, it feels like Gaga has lost her musical identity over the years and yes I think Mayhem counts too with that. Also it feels like ARTPOP was the last time Gaga was willing to take risks musically and make something truly experimental and without caring about peoples approval and making something SHE wanted to.

Edited 6 hours ago by imogen2133

[nATAH 55,065]

23 minutes ago, imogen2133 said:

Oh absolutely not, Runway is trash compared to anything on ARTPOP and way too basic, it is a pandering song and has much more simplistic production then anything on ARTPOP also. It would stick out like a sore thumb on that album and it is much poorer in quality than anything on AP.

when are you going to learn that it's objectively impossible for Runway to be pandering? a bisexual and lesbian woman cannot pander, this is THEIR culture too

your bias against the song is preventing you from being factual in your criticisms

[imogen2133 317]

9 minutes ago, nATAH said:

when are you going to learn that it's objectively impossible for Runway to be pandering? a bisexual and lesbian woman cannot pander, this is THEIR culture too

your bias against the song is preventing you from being factual in your criticisms

Ok bestie, song is still bad though.