ARTPOP is actually about identity

[nATAH 59,400]

i wish her idea of placing art in front of commercial pop culture was taken more seriously, instead it all gets overshadowed by the fact marina is "weird", fake spirit cooking stories and the negative media being to obsessed with the idea of star supposedly flopping

she actually wanted to explore a serious artistic concept but ever her own fans were too concerned with the commercial aspect, just like the label

[Starmie25 22,975]

3 hours ago, TimotheeChalamet said:

Huh?

It was a known fact that he tossed Gaga and her brand aside after she had an "underperformance" in the mainstream.

[gagzus 27,056]

8 minutes ago, nATAH said:

i wish her idea of placing art in front of commercial pop culture was taken more seriously, instead it all gets overshadowed by the fact marina is "weird", fake spirit cooking stories and the negative media being to obsessed with the idea of star supposedly flopping

she actually wanted to explore a serious artistic concept but ever her own fans were too concerned with the commercial aspect, just like the label

Funnily enough, all she was trying to say was she wanted her talent to come before money and success. And she FINALLY got that afterwards by (sadly) appealing to the general public, stripping away all her eccentricities and being pretty, kinda bland and not very out the box. And all her successful songs sadly have been her Adult Contemporary ones since . 

But since Chromatica Ball and Mayhem I feel like she’s reclaiming some of that. 

[TheMontebello 1,580]

I think the album is a perfect reflection of the chaos she was living during that time. It sounds manics, angry, euphoric and emotional all mixed up. I love it. I like your ideas but I think the messiness of it all makes it more authentic.

[TimotheeChalamet 7,155]

1 hour ago, Starmie25 said:

It was a known fact that he tossed Gaga and her brand aside after she had an "underperformance" in the mainstream.

Yeah I know but why the video would be about him?

[imogen2133 793]

This is largely how I have always looked at ARTPOP and is how I discussed it in my analysis I wrote a while back. I think that is what it's essential theme is and I think it would have gone over much better with people if she marketed it that way as an album about "her identity as an artist and her relationship with the public/how they see her" instead of her saying it was about "putting art into pop music as a reverse of warhol" because even though I do think ARTPOP is a very artistic album with how it incorporates different genres like funk, RnB, rock, synth pop, spaghetti western and disco into EDM music (not to mention the electronic ballad) and with how often the groove and sound changes in one song but at the same time the only songs that contain classical art references in the lyrics are Venus, G.U.Y and MJH. However if you look at it as an album about her identity well it opens with a song (Aura) about how she is viewed by the public and essentially says she is the same person underneath her outfits/wigs and that she likes being an enigma to the public with the things she does, then she explores it further (and her perspective on art itself) on J&D, DWUW, ARTPOP, Donatella, MJH, Dope and Applause. I think it is one of her most personal albums both in how it was created to express her pain and with the subjects addressed on the album in the lyrics as well. There are also songs about her relationship with love and sex as well and her viewing them in a more positive way than on previous albums and personal admissions like MJH and Dope. 

Edited Thursday at 04:45 PM by imogen2133

[TheARTPOPball 1,766]

5 hours ago, TimotheeChalamet said:

Yeah I know but why the video would be about him?

I don’t think it’s the whole video, just the beginning where she’s a shot down angel with business men fighting over money above her crashed body. Then she gets up and limps away representative of her being wounded yet pushing on anyways despite being at a low point 

[TimotheeChalamet 7,155]

10 minutes ago, TheARTPOPball said:

I don’t think it’s the whole video, just the beginning where she’s a shot down angel with business men fighting over money above her crashed body. Then she gets up and limps away representative of her being wounded yet pushing on anyways despite being at a low point 

I completely forgot about that bit 

[SavetheEarthNow 311]

7 hours ago, gagzus said:

I personally disagree because having a concept that restricts your art and isn’t the best imo. ARTPOP is massively hindered by restricting the music with the concept or sound, whereas The Fame Monster and Born This Way concepts work because they emerged organically as she wrote and experienced things. 

Although I still think TFM’s concept is kind of bogus and doesn’t hold water. Mayhem also happened organically. 

The Fame Monster being called "bogus"? Absolutely not. That album and entire era was about the fears Gaga had of being famous. The Fame was the light, her desire for fame without consequence, the Fame Monster was the darkness, the consequences of desiring fame and becoming famous. Fame that could lead to addiction, sexual assault, toxic relationships, death. 

 

[imogen2133 793]

7 hours ago, GaGaAst said:

Art pop is mostly all about sex directly or indirectly. Most of the songs.

How are ARTPOP, MJH, Donatella, Fashion!, Dope, Applause and Gypsy about sex? 

[SavetheEarthNow 311]

The thing I still don't understand to this day as someone who was absolutely present during the ARTPOP lead up and release is how things switched so suddenly. There was the massive lead up to the release of ARTPOP, the announcement and promo for the ARTPOP app, massive excitement leading up to Applause, Aura leaked creating massive hype, there was the countdown to Applause on Twitter, the debut of the song, the debut of the music video, the debut performance, it was massive excitement, massive popularity. Gaga was at the top of her game, she continued riding a massive wave of success, huge for it being her 4th album. 

Then Do What U Want was previewed, there was enormous hype about how good it was, everyone loved the track, so much so that Venus was shelved as a single to instead push Do What U Want as the second single. Then a few days later, Venus was released as another preview/promo single, again everyone loved it. 

Then Gaga posted lyrics to DOPE, some people expressed concern about the lyrics she posted, because they seemed a bit dark, but the song came out and people loved it. 

The album came out in November, to rather positive reactions from Monsters. We loved the music. We loved the iTunes festival performance. 

We also got new photoshoots for magazines like V, Elle, Glamour. The Glamour cover came out December 2013, things were still going good publicly. 

All of the positivity outweighed the few negative critic reviews of the music up to that point. 

Also in December, Do What U Want was scrapped because Gaga was not happy about only being given a week or so to come up with concept for the video and to film it. 

Then there was a bit of silence, still no release of the Do What U Want video, nothing further about Venus as a single or it's music video. Then in March, the G.U.Y. music video, which again Monsters loved. 

Looking back, I'm really not remembering negative responses about ARTPOP. (I'm also taking into account everything that led up to ARTPOP, what was going on behind the scenes, issues Gaga was going through, etc.) 

Can someone explain when there was the alleged negativity surrounding the album and music? 

 

 

[Lucas 31,913]

My humble opinion is that she just recorded 150+ songs and slapped some of them on an album. ARTPOP the album doesn't have any meaning or concept, it's just a collection of random tracks put together.

[NewEnglandWitch 313]

I thought that was already mostly confirmed during the era? 

[NewEnglandWitch 313]

3 hours ago, SavetheEarthNow said:

Can someone explain when there was the alleged negativity surrounding the album and music?

There really wasn’t any major negativity at the time, not at a large scale. I deleted the rest of my dissertation on this cause I apparently had a lot of thoughts 😂

[nATAH 59,400]

3 hours ago, SavetheEarthNow said:

Can someone explain when there was the alleged negativity surrounding the album and music? 

i mean the tide had absolutely turned on her, it was undeniable

there were news stories of her weight gain, perez hilton was harassing her, angela cheng was feeding the negative media cycle, fan forums were infamously attacking her (look up some of the ARTPOP drama on this website, the atrl members who attacked Emma etc), fans were confused and tired of the stopping and starting, she got in a bunch of twitter "fights", roar vs applause

it was just pockets of negativity that were orbiting her at the time, the aura had gone from "wow she's untouchable" to "what is going on?", the gp were no longer turning up for her or her music which was evident when GUY dramatically flopped

the once most followed person on twitter had been left in the dust by the culture which had affected the album and music

she had secured another number 1 album but all people could focus on was that it sold less than Born This Way. the album had favourable reviews on metacritic but "ARTPOP era" became a term to describe a flop, even by her own fans

that's how the negativity worked

Edited Thursday at 09:33 PM by nATAH