ARTPOP is actually about identity

[gagzus 26,913]

ARTPOP would have worked better as an exploration of Gaga’s celebrity identity vs. her real self

I’ve been thinking about ARTPOP differently lately, particularly after rewatching the Zane Lowe interview about Mayhem. She talks about previously trying to force her music into a particular “outfit” or sound. I think that explains part of why ARTPOP has always felt a little disjointed to some of us conceptually, despite having some of her most interesting music.

We know the concept for ARTPOP evolved several times throughout its development, and I can’t help wondering whether the music ended up being shaped around the concept rather than the concept emerging organically from the music. Sometimes it feels like the album is trying too hard to make all its different elements fit into one overarching artistic statement.

However, I think there was a much more compelling concept hiding in plain sight: ARTPOP as an exploration of the relationship between Gaga’s public persona and her private self. She already (allegedly) was going to tackle this in the DWUW video too.

Think about it. The ART side represents Gaga as an individual, the artist behind the spectacle, with her own thoughts, feelings, insecurities and desire for genuine connection. The POP side represents Lady Gaga as a celebrity, the public-facing persona, the spectacle, the expectations, the fame and the version of herself that the world consumes.

Rather than being two separate artistic mediums that need to be reconciled, they become two sides of Gaga’s identity. One is the person; the other is the persona.

It isn’t just about bringing art into pop and pop into art. It’s about the tension between the person creating the art and the celebrity who has become the product.

And crucially, neither side has to be entirely false or entirely authentic. Gaga’s public persona is itself a form of artistic expression. The question is whether she controls that persona or whether the expectations attached to it begin to control her.

I also think a different tracklist could have communicated this idea much more effectively. Imagine an album that gradually moves between the celebrity and the vulnerability of the person underneath. Songs like Donatella, Fashion!, Venus, GUY, Sexxx Dreams, MANiCURE those all sort of tackle the “popstar” persona of what people percieved her as at the time. Then Mary Jane Holland is sort of the “mania” of dual identity where she sort of said “ok I give in, you want me to be this person well here she is”, and then Dope, Swine and Gypsy offers a much more intimate perspective.

DWUW and Aura feel like a conversation with the audience about her persona and misconception.

Then you have the title track, where those two identities finally come together. Applause then follows as Gaga acknowledging that the relationship between herself and her audience, between the artist and the celebrity, is inseparable from who she is.

The title track becomes the philosophical resolution, and Applause becomes the emotional one.

I think this would have given the album a much clearer narrative without sacrificing its musical diversity. The songs wouldn’t all need to sound the same or communicate the same message. They would simply need to contribute to a larger exploration of identity.

And this is where I think Mayhem worked so well, it tools us back to The Fame almost in terms of natural diversity rather than diversity for the sake of coherence. Gaga has spoken about moving away from forcing her music into a particular outfit, and I wonder whether ARTPOP is an example of what can happen when the concept becomes too prescriptive. The ambition isn’t the problem. It’s when the music has to justify the concept instead of the concept giving the music room to breathe.

Ultimately, I think if she’d have marketed the album as the two sides of her it was so much more simple to follow.

ARTPOP as the collision between the artist and the celebrity, the private self and the public persona, she even basically started off with this idea when she used to post things like Private in Public on Tumblr and when she started making Princess Die.

To me, that’s a much more compelling way to frame the album, and it makes me wonder how differently we might have understood it if that had been the central narrative from the beginning.

[Starmie25 22,956]

Isn't G.U.Y. mv bout Akon?

[bxr 3,536]

I was JUST thinking about “Private in Public“ earlier today … but/and like on-and-off for the past few days

I absolutely see the core thesis, and there is a lucid clarity (Stache instant callback) to how you explore the process and presentation. Somewhere, I feel like that was the aim, but and sort of in the vein of You Can See Everything (non-spoiler) how the actual project rolled out almost collapsed into its own core concept (but, with different degrees of translated intention, but I don‘t know if that makes any sense how it reads) … quite radically with ARTPOP, of course, but/and that, again, sort of plays into the lived reality of embodied duality—particularly within the lens of (Post-Bush / Post-Britney) Millennial celebrity entertainer in the age of reality theatre, or virtual reality theatre … 

Gaga almost quite literally collapsed into the crucible of that concept … the person vs. the persona … that haus divided could not stand … but/and it can always resurrect

It feels like the sort of campaign that just exists as its own definitive undoing … its unfolding into definition … which, when approached artisitically, I guess, the work itself finds its strength in the artist‘s apparent vulnerability to whatever is the contemporary human condition … so, I guess, in context of Gaga‘s origin frame, The Fame, ARTPOP feels like it is that flipped inside out … building a new blueprint by dismantling its foundation … and building or exhuming the next iteration from said ruin

So, that‘s just more of the overarching vantage on the first blink … not really details or anything, just the first blush … and not sure if any of this made any sense within the OP context … just musing salt grains into the airwaves

 

Edited 2 hours ago by bxr

[gagzus 26,913]

12 minutes ago, Starmie25 said:

Isn't G.U.Y. mv bout Akon?

It’s about music execs in general but Troy Carter, Jimmy Iovine and Vincent Herbert specifically.