ARTPOP Analysis And Thoughts

[imogen2133 509]

So ARTPOP was quite a divisive album when it was first released (amongst critics and fans) and still is to a degree, I like it quite a lot personally and think it is quite a great album from her. I think the production, vocals and lyrics are all amazing here (well some songs have better lyrics than others) and I really enjoy the over the top and campy elements quite a lot as well. I think the main ideas and themes Gaga was trying to explore with this album were the idea of putting art culture into pop culture (reversing Andy Warhol's idea) and exploring her life at the time through a pop lens. With all of that said here is my analysis and overview of the songs and how they fit into the albums themes:

Aura: All about how Gaga is the same person under her outfits and visual fashion, about how the media projects their perceptions and ideas onto her due to her visual and Avant guard fashion and how they have a constructed idea of her due to it. Through the song (and especially the chorus) she asks her lover and the listener if they want to see the real her behind their pre conceived notions of her due to her fame and I think this works very well as an opener since it introduces the album as a whole (Dance, Sex, Art, Pop, Tech) and because Gaga reveals more personal details and more about her life through the rest of the songs. She also pulls back the curtain a bit and reveals that her outfits and visual style are mostly inspired by her passion for Avant Guard fashion and inspired from personal and artistic expression and that she enjoys being a bit of an enigma to the public when they constantly question her choices. 

Venus: A song inspired by Botticelli's "Birth Of Venus" painting and the Venus goddess from Greek mythology. Here she constructs her own version for the song who wears seashell bikinis and garden panties and hails from the planet Venus. Through the song she calls upon Venus and embodies her to have amazing "out of this world" mind blowing sex. I think it is also possible that this song was partially inspired by Taylor since in interviews at the time Gaga said it was about how love took her a long time to find and she did say she was having great sex so.....

G.U.Y: A song inspired by third wave feminism and the idea that women can be submissive and feminine in relationships whilst maintaining agency and strength. Clearly about how Gaga is a power bottom and about the role she takes on in her sexual and romantic relationships. 

Sexxx Dreams: All about Gaga's sex dreams and a song where she is alternating between singing to her lover about the dreams she is having and singing to the person in the sex dream about her fantasies. She confesses to her lover that she is having these dreams because she is broken from a past relationship that ended poorly and because her and her current lover are fighting and having issues as well. Very campy and fun song that I like a lot.

Jewels And Drugs: I already discussed this one and it's meaning here:

but basically it is (well mainly Gaga's parts) about how Gaga values love and relationships over wealth and riches.

MANiCURE: A song all about getting dolled up and going out to catch a new lover after a bad breakup and using makeup, outfits and glamour as empowerment as well. It is stylized so it can either be manicure, Man I Cure or Man cure, meaning it can mean manicuring your body to get the new lover, man I cure as in curing a guy from a bad past relationship or other issues by being with him or man cure meaning her new guy will cure her of the past heartbreak and insecurities. Also it is obvious that Gaga here is using glamour, fashion and makeup to deal with insecurities as well.

Do What U Want: All about Gaga fighting back against the media who criticized her for her weight gain in 2012 and her saying that they can write about her body and say what they want because she still has her heart and mind which are sacred to her and she only shares them with her fans and people close to her. Also about how Gaga felt sexually as a woman at the time and about how she felt that giving herself and body to a man (her boyfriend Taylor at the time) was one of the greatest gifts she could give because it was empowering for her to do so. Overall a very empowering song with a great message.

ARTPOP: The thesis for the album and a song all about how when art and pop come together it can create infinite potential and possibilities. In the first verse art invites pop, which is usually seen as glamourous yet cruel or superficial into intimacy, by "undressing" pop, art reveals pops deeper potential beyond surface level appeal and the lyrics "keep it tight, sometimes the simplest move is right" praises pop's direct and catchy melodies as powerful and redemptive, art then offers to embrace and elevate pop as well. In the second verse pop speaks to art, pop acknowledges arts complexity and suggests accessibility and commercial appeal "lovers kites are flown of beaches for public sight, the color palette you choose could profit you". Pop also offers to make art more visible and profitable without losing it's core essence. As a solution to sidestep the pitfalls and negative aspects of both art and pop Gaga proposes the idea of a hybrid and says that if art and pop belong together then her and her fans can as well. Also I think the lyric "My ARTPOP could mean anything" is less so Gaga saying that the song and her music overall is subjective and more so her saying that when people harness their creativity it can create infinite possibilities and also when art and pop come together it can as well.

Swine: All about the assault Gaga experienced when she was 19 and Gaga letting out all of her rage and anger towards her abuser. She compares her abuser to a pig and talks about how disgusting he was towards her, discusses how the assault affected her and left lasting trauma leading to her acting out and drinking and in the outro she talks about turning your pain into art (like she did with the song). The lyrics, vocal inflections/squeals and loud instrumental suit the tone she is trying to convey very well and it is one of her most emotional songs in her discography overall and is one of my favs.

Donatella: A song all about Gaga's friend Donatella Versace and Gaga celebrating her and strong women in fashion and the entertainment industry. Also makes fun of and mocks how the media sees her and Donatella in a campy way in the verses as well. 

Fashion!: All about Gaga's love for fashion, how it makes her feel and her love of transformation through fashion as well. 

Mary Jane Holland: A song about Gaga's time partying in clubs in Amsterdam in 2012 when she became her alter ego "Mary Jane Holland" by smoking weed and dyed her hair brown because she felt the world owned her "blondness" at that point. She enjoyed becoming this alter ego because it helped her relax and come down from the pressures of being a famous star and because she could let loose and be more free. Also Gaga defiantly says she will not do what is expected of her as a pop star/ make the kind of music they want her to and she will be free to be herself as she wants.

Dope: A song that is kind of like the opposite of MJH where Gaga shows the other side of what drugs can do and sings about her addiction to marijuana she developed in 2012 after she used it often to cope with her anxiety and to numb the pain in her hip. She says she is sorry to her boyfriend, family and especially her fans for being very withdrawn due to her addictions, says she needs her fans more than the drugs and says she will work hard to get better and be there for them.

 Gypsy: All about how Gaga doesn't have a permanent home and is a wandering gypsy but she does have a home in her fans every night when she sees them on tour. Also about how Gaga is okay with being alone in the moment because she has her fans with her and about how Gaga started her career and left home to make it big on her own (2nd verse). Also shows the development of her relationship with Taylor and how she questioned them being together at first but thought it could work out because he was a bit of a gypsy too and that their relationship works because they let each other be their own person on their own journeys without trying to change one another. 

 Applause: A song all about Gaga's love for being an entertainer that makes her fans happy and how she loves applause and notoriety not because she loves attention for it's own sake or just to be famous but because she loves making people happy and changing peoples lives. Also about Gaga sticking it to the critics and saying she is in it for the love of entertaining people and not in it for the critics approval. She also said that it was the applause from the fans that kept her going while her hip injury got worse in 2012 during the BTWB so the song is specifically connected to them as well. Also the "I've overheard your theory nostalgias for geeks, I guess sir if you say so some of us just like to read" is clearly her pushing back against critics who come after her for using too many older references in her work (Bowie, Madonna, Grace Jones) and owning her references and the "some of us just like to read" part makes it feel more contained between just Gaga and her fans and is her stating commonalities with them. 

Overall I think ARTPOP is a very "Gaga album" that showcases her theatricality, her creative and rebellious spirit, campiness and emotional vulnerability through songwriting very well. The album largely shows Gaga wearing her heart on her sleeve and also has personal ties in the instruments because the loud electronic music was meant to represent her anger and pain she was feeling at the time due to her hip injury and the issues she had with her label. I also love her vocal growls here, the passion in her voice and her angelic vocals as well that are on some songs and I think the album overall is very cohesive (even with Dope) and I love how energetic and fun it is to listen to. 

Also I know Gaga marketed the album as an album about putting art into pop culture but there are only a few songs that fit that idea on the album, I think of ARTPOP more so as an album where Gaga is pouring all of her pain into it as an exorcism or release and an album where Gaga reveals more of herself to her fans and the public as a snapshot of her life at the time, whilst also returning to her roots as an artist and making the kind of music she had loved from the beginning as a club kid from New York. I also think the idea for the album was better represented through the visuals overall than the music as well. Also Gaga said something she wanted to achieve with the album was for it to inspire her fans to create their own art and to be creative since BTW was meant to make her fans feel empowered to be themselves and love themselves as they were and that they should use that self empowerment and strong sense of self to unleash their creativity, that is what she meant when she said it was made as a celebration of BTW and it's success. Also Gaga said the album was intentionally immature in an opposite way to the maturity that was present on BTW which is very evident throughout the album and I know everyone calls ARTPOP her "EDM album" (which it is) but it also has songs that contain Rnb, funk, disco, trance, synth-pop, mariachi, spaghetti western, industrial and dance elements and a ballad as well (Dope).

Main positives (for me): I know a lot of people criticize this album for being too "messy" or "loud" but that is something I love about it and it is designed to be that way as an adrenaline rush (as per Gaga's words), I think the album is very cohesive, it is probably her most campy album, I love the way Gypsy builds like Hair does where it starts as a ballad and builds with more electronic production and becomes more anthemic and it has storytelling like TFM which I love.

Negatives: Mis-marketing for what the album was sold as vs what it was, Dope vocals could be better, some elements from the demos could have been kept and Jewels And Drugs could have been switched out for a better song.

I also think of this album as an evolution of The Fame in many ways because The Fame was Gaga dreaming about that lifestyle and imagining what that would be like and ARTPOP is her dealing with the realities of fame and her grappling with that whilst stating what kind of artist and figure she is. I think a great way to sum up the album (in a way that is more concise and accurate to how Gaga talked about it) is "an album of the life of the artist's (Gaga) experiences with fame through electronic pop music".

Songs that fit the concept of putting art culture into pop culture and songs that contain artistic references: Venus, G.U.Y, Sexxx Dreams, ARTPOP, Mary Jane Holland, Applause.

Most personal songs: Aura, Sexxx Dreams, Do What U Want, ARTPOP, Swine, Mary Jane Holland, Dope, Gypsy, Applause.

Demos vs album versions: So I know many fans prefer the demos (or the Swinefest versions) to the songs that made it to the album and for me most of the demos are just as good as the album versions so I could take either however the only exceptions where I like the demos better are Aura due to the verse vocals being different/more chaotic and ARTPOP (specifically the iTunes festival version) since I love the loud "hee hees" and how her voice sounds there. 

I would say a video that sums up ARTPOP very well is this one from her VEVO certified series where she discusses her music and videos, since ARTPOP is an album about Gaga caring more about art for arts sake and making good music for her fans over corporate control/making money (a common theme of that era), an album celebrating Gaga sticking to her guns and her artistic merit and an album that celebrates the kind of music Gaga loves:

 

 

So in conclusion if you hate ARTPOP you hate fun

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by imogen2133

[JoeCool 916]

22 minutes ago, imogen2133 said:

So ARTPOP was quite a divisive album when it was first released (amongst critics and fans) and still is to a degree, I like it quite a lot personally and think it is quite a great album from her. I think the production, vocals and lyrics are all amazing here (well some songs have better lyrics than others) and I really enjoy the over the top and campy elements quite a lot as well. I think the main ideas and themes Gaga was trying to explore with this album were the idea of putting art culture into pop culture (reversing Andy Warhol's idea) and exploring her life at the time through a pop lens. With all of that said here is my analysis and overview of the songs and how they fit into the albums themes:

Aura: All about how Gaga is the same person under her outfits and visual fashion, about how the media projects their perceptions and ideas onto her due to her visual and Avant guard fashion and how they have a constructed idea of her due to it. Through the song (and especially the chorus) she asks her lover and the listener if they want to see the real her behind their pre conceived notions of her due to her fame and I think this works very well as an opener since it introduces the album as a whole (Dance, Sex, Art, Pop, Tech) and because Gaga reveals more personal details and more about her life through the rest of the songs. She also pulls back the curtain a bit and reveals that her outfits and visual style are mostly inspired by her passion for Avant Guard fashion and inspired from personal and artistic expression and that she enjoys being a bit of an enigma to the public when they constantly question her choices. 

Venus: A song inspired by Botticelli's "Birth Of Venus" painting and the Venus goddess from Greek mythology. Here she constructs her own version for the song who wears seashell bikinis and garden panties and hails from the planet Venus. Through the song she calls upon Venus and embodies her to have amazing "out of this world" mind blowing sex. I think it is also possible that this song was partially inspired by Taylor since in interviews at the time Gaga said it was about how love took her a long time to find and she did say she was having great sex so.....

G.U.Y: A song inspired by third wave feminism and the idea that women can be submissive and feminine in relationships whilst maintaining agency and strength. Clearly about how Gaga is a power bottom and about the role she takes on in her sexual and romantic relationships. 

Sexxx Dreams: All about Gaga's sex dreams and a song where she is alternating between singing to her lover about the dreams she is having and singing to the person in the sex dream about her fantasies. She confesses to her lover that she is having these dreams because she is broken from a past relationship that ended poorly and because her and her current lover are fighting and having issues as well. Very campy and fun song that I like a lot.

Jewels And Drugs: I already discussed this one and it's meaning here:

but basically it is (well mainly Gaga's parts) about how Gaga values love and relationships over wealth and riches.

MANiCURE: A song all about getting dolled up and going out to catch a new lover after a bad breakup and using makeup, outfits and glamour as empowerment as well. It is stylized so it can either be manicure, Man I Cure or Man cure, meaning it can mean manicuring your body to get the new lover, man I cure as in curing a guy from a bad past relationship or other issues by being with him or man cure meaning her new guy will cure her of the past heartbreak and insecurities. Also it is obvious that Gaga here is using glamour, fashion and makeup to deal with insecurities as well.

Do What U Want: All about Gaga fighting back against the media who criticized her for her weight gain in 2012 and her saying that they can write about her body and say what they want because she still has her heart and mind which are sacred to her and she only shares them with her fans and people close to her. Also about how Gaga felt sexually as a woman at the time and about how she felt that giving herself and body to a man (her boyfriend Taylor at the time) was one of the greatest gifts she could give because it was empowering for her to do so. Overall a very empowering song with a great message.

ARTPOP: The thesis for the album and a song all about how when art and pop come together it can create infinite potential and possibilities. In the first verse art invites pop, which is usually seen as glamourous yet cruel or superficial into intimacy, by "undressing" pop, art reveals pops deeper potential beyond surface level appeal and the lyrics "keep it tight, sometimes the simplest move is right" praise pop's direct and catchy melodies as powerful and redemptive, art then offers to embrace and elevate pop as well. In the second verse pop speaks to art, pop acknowledges arts complexity and suggests accessibility and commercial appeal "lovers kites are flown of beaches for public sight, the color palate you choose could profit you". Pop also offers to make art more visible and profitable without losing it's core essence. As a solution to sidestep the pitfalls and negative aspects of both art and pop Gaga proposes the idea of a hybrid and says that if art and pop belong together then her and her fans can as well. Also I think the lyric "My ARTPOP could mean anything" is less so Gaga saying that the song and her music overall is subjective and more so her saying that when people harness their creativity it can create infinite possibilities and also when art and pop come together it can as well.

Swine: All about the assault Gaga experienced when she was 19 and Gaga letting out all of her rage and anger towards her abuser. She compares her abuser to a pig and talks about how disgusting he was towards her, discusses how the assault affected her and left lasting trauma leading to her acting out and drinking and in the outro she talks about turning your pain into art (like she did with the song). The lyrics, vocal inflections/squeals and loud instrumental suit the tone she is trying to convey very well and it is one of her most emotional songs in her discography overall and is one of my favs.

Donatella: A song all about Gaga's friend Donatella Versace and Gaga celebrating her and strong women in fashion and the entertainment industry. Also makes fun of and mocks how the media sees her and Donatella in a campy way in the verses as well. 

Fashion!: All about Gaga's love for fashion, how it makes her feel and her love of transformation through fashion as well. 

Mary Jane Holland: A song about Gaga's time partying in clubs in Amsterdam in 2012 when she became her alter ego "Mary Jane Holland" by smoking weed and died her hair brown because she felt the world owned her "blondness" at that point. She enjoyed becoming this alter ego because it helped her relax and come down from the pressures of being a famous star and because she could let loose and be more free. Also Gaga defiantly say she will not do what is expected of her as a pop star/ make the kind of music they want her to and she will be free to be herself as she wants.

Dope: A song that is kind of like the opposite to MJH where Gaga shows the other side of what drugs can do and sings about her addiction to marijuana she developed in 2012 after she used it often to cope with her anxiety and to numb the pain in her hip. She says she is sorry to her boyfriend, family and especially her fans for being very withdrawn due to her addictions, says she needs her fans more than the drugs and says she will work hard to get better and be there for them.

 Gypsy: All about how Gaga doesn't have a permanent home and is a wandering gypsy but she does has a home in her fans every night when she sees them on tour. Also about how Gaga is okay with being alone in the moment because she has her fans with her and about how Gaga started her career and left home to make it big on her own (2nd verse). Also shows the development of her relationship with Taylor and how she questioned them being together at first but thought it could work out because he was a bit of a gypsy too and that their relationship works because they let each other be their own person on their own journeys without trying to change one another. 

 Applause: A song all about Gaga's love for being an entertainer that makes her fans happy and how she loves applause and notoriety not because she loves attention for it's own sake or just to be famous but because she loves making people happy and changing peoples lives. Also about Gaga sticking it to the critics and saying she is in it for the love of entertaining people and not in it for the critics approval. She also said that it was the applause from the fans that kept her going while her hip injury got worse in 2012 during the BTWB so the song is specifically connected to them as well. Also the "I've overheard your theory nostalgias for geeks, I guess so if you say so some of us just like to read" is clearly her pushing back against critics who come after her for using too many older references in her work (Bowie, Madonna, Grace Jones) and owning her references and the "some of us just like to read" part makes it feel more contained between just Gaga and her fans and is her stating commonalities with them. 

Overall I think ARTPOP is a very "Gaga album" that showcases her theatricality, her creative and rebellious spirit, campiness and emotional vulnerability through songwriting very well. The album largely shows Gaga wearing her heart on her sleeve and also has personal ties in the instruments because the loud electronic music was meant to represent her anger and pain she was feeling at the time due to her hip injury and the issues she had with her label. I also love her vocal growls here, the passion in her voice and her angelic vocals as well that are on some songs and I think the album overall is very cohesive (even with Dope) and I love how energetic and fun it is to listen to.

Also I know Gaga marketed the album as an album about putting art into pop culture but there are only a few songs that fit that idea on the album, I think of ARTPOP more so as an album where Gaga is pouring all of her pain into it as an exorcism or release and an album where Gaga reveals more of herself to her fans and the public as a snapshot of her life at the time, whilst also returning to her roots as an artist and making the kind of music she had loved from the beginning as a club kid from New York. I also think the idea for the album was better represented through the visuals overall than the music as well. Also Gaga said something she wanted to achieve with the album was for it to inspire her fans to create their own art and to be creative since BTW was meant to make her fans feel empowered to be themselves and love themselves as they were and that they should use that self empowerment and strong sense of self to unleash their creativity, that is what she meant when she said it was made as a celebration of BTW and it's success.

Main positives (for me): I know a lot of people criticize this album for being too "messy" or "loud" but that is something I love about it and it is designed to be that way as an adrenaline rush (as per Gaga's words), I think the album is very cohesive, it is probably her most campy album, I love the way Gypsy build like Hair does where it starts as a ballad and builds with more electronic production and becomes more anthemic and it has storytelling like TFM which I love.

Negatives: Mis-marketing for what the album was sold as vs what it was, Dope vocals could be better, some elements from the demos could have been kept and Jewels And Drugs could have been switched out for a better song.

I also think of this album as an evolution of The Fame in many ways because The Fame was Gaga dreaming about that lifestyle and imagining what that would be like and ARTPOP is her dealing with the realities of fame and her grappling with that whilst stating what kind of artist and figure she is. I think a great way to sum up the album (in a way that is more concise and accurate to how Gaga talked about it) is "an album of the life of the artist's (Gaga) experiences with fame through electronic pop music".

Songs that fit the concept of putting art culture into pop culture and songs that contain artistic references: Venus, G.U.Y, Sexxx Dreams, ARTPOP, Mary Jane Holland, Applause.

Most personal songs: Aura, Sexxx Dreams, Do What U Want, ARTPOP, Swine, Mary Jane Holland, Dope, Gypsy, Applause.

Demos vs album versions: So I know many fans prefer the demos (or the Swinefest versions) to the songs that made it to the albums and for me most of the demos are just as good as the album versions so I could take either however the only exceptions where I like the demos better are Aura due to the verse vocals being different/more chaotic and ARTPOP (specifically the iTunes festival version) since I love the loud "hee hees" and how her voice sounds there. 

I would say a video that sums up ARTPOP very well is this one from her VEVO certified series where she discusses her music and videos since ARTPOP is an album about Gaga caring more about art for arts sake and making good music for her fans over corporate control/making money (a common theme of that era), an album celebrating Gaga sticking to her guns and her artistic merit and an album that celebrates the kind of music Gaga loves:

 

 

So in conclusion if you hate ARTPOP you hate fun

 

 

Wow.  Great write up

 

I personally love it.  And the Doritos performance as well 

[Donatellah 2,305]

oh godpop the alboom that u are

[RochesterJoannster 4,027]

The only Gaga album that ever had its reputation improve!

Joanne has always been divisive

Chromatica did the opposite of ARTPOP and became more divisive.

The rest have all held up strong all along.

[Ultimecia 6,792]

ARTPOP was the last time Gaga was fully and unabashedly invested in a project.

ARTPOP is the fruit of her creativity in all its breadth and chaos without any filters.

ARTPOP is fun and rebellious in its messiness, a bold contrarian statement that showcased Gaga's punk spirit at its fullest.

ARTPOP is everything I loved about Gaga.

I am forever an ARTPOP stan, and I'm not sorry about it. 

[imogen2133 509]

1 hour ago, Ultimecia said:

ARTPOP was the last time Gaga was fully and unabashedly invested in a project.

ARTPOP is the fruit of her creativity in all its breadth and chaos without any filters.

ARTPOP is fun and rebellious in its messiness, a bold contrarian statement that showcased Gaga's punk spirit at its fullest.

ARTPOP is everything I loved about Gaga.

I am forever an ARTPOP stan, and I'm not sorry about it. 

Fully agree I have a lot of love for ARTPOP it was my first full Gaga era where I was there for the whole thing, it was the first album I bought on iTunes (which I listened to constantly), it was the era when I saw her live for the first time at the ARTrave and I will never forget watching the iTunes festival where she premiered the 7 new songs for the first time and just being mesmerized (especially the ARTPOP performance). ARTPOP is an album that holds a lot of core memories for me and it holds a very special place in my heart.  

Edited 1 hour ago by imogen2133

[NemoMyName 2,099]

ARTPOP Thoughts and Prayers

[nATAH 56,254]

1 hour ago, Ultimecia said:

ARTPOP was the last time Gaga was fully and unabashedly invested in a project.

 

you may not like Mayhem but she was fully invested in that too, lbr

and ARTPOP was very filtered by the label

Edited 57 minutes ago by nATAH

[Ladle Ghoulash 50,903]

1 hour ago, Ultimecia said:

without any filters

See, I think a lot of the vision and the sound were largely neutered, which is why I think it’s kind of underwhelming