A Love Letter to ARTPOP
I’m writing this months in advance because at the rate I’m uploading these posts, another decade will have gone by since the release of this album. At that point I’ll be raising children (probably not), civilization will have cars fist pumping above the ground, and Mexico will have won its first world cup (also unlikely but we can woefully hope).
ARTPOP is remembered by the chaos found in the material, pop-culture, and Gaga’s drive to maintain her position at the center of pop-music — as its reflected through the albums rollout deemed by many at the time as ostentatious. Being weird for the sake of being weird rather than embracing the self-idiosyncratic proclivities that made Gaga and her music an endearing pop-figure to root for.
At the time, it was touted as Gaga’s worst album by critics and fans alike. It’s commercial success would be impressive for any breakout artist, but for an artist of Gaga’s cultural magnitude, it underperformed. Away from the 2013 context, its reflected as an album “ahead of its time”. The digestible yet ecentric sounds found in a traditional Gaga album were challenged by the ambitious avant garde, opulent, and deranged electro sounds to drive the album into a new frontier of maximalist pop. Its peaks are cathartic and its lows are memorable as the albums rollout. The sincerity, pain, and enigmatic abstracted lyrics are the prototype that would later trickle into 2020’s return-to-form Chromatica. Yet for me, it contends as one of Gaga’s better projects. I rejoice in its ambition to “put the art onto the soup can,” so as to revell in all the aspects of art: dance, visual presentation, and of course, sound. It’s this quality to meticulous engineer oneself into pop-culture that I admire yet contend with in my favorite pop stars — such as Madonna who trademarked reinventing oneself for each pop-album rollout. This same quality extends most recently to Taylor Swift who will stop at nothing to be the biggest figure on the planet yet never transcend past her skill to craft, sharp songs.
However none of the engaging conversations about the project as a whole were translated in sales. Gaga’s investment to diligently construct herself as a revered pop-figure had experienced its height during Born This Way. The consistency of quality material from the Fame and Fame Monster culminated in that era of 2011 which reaped the biggest opening sales of Gaga’s career and that year. She was mother monster to her fans, but also mother to the music industry for popularizing the electro-dance pop trend that started in the late 2000’s and carried into the early 2010’s. It was she who recognized amid a recession, the need for maximalist uptempo pop music to distract us from the dire economic circumstances being experienced in the United States.
For Gaga to sustastain her position as the center of popculture in 2013, was going to be a difficult feat for her to accomplish due to the growing fatigue of the sound she mainstreamed. pop-culture was changing in part due to the introduction of artists like Lana Del Rey and Lorde who rebelled against the conventions of pop-music that were focused on dance, uptempo electronic sounds and favored a more sparse, tranquil, low-tempo mood keen on exploring dour subjects related to the “everyday woman” rather than optimistic bombastics electro pop anthems that marred our ability to think of our collapsing society. And Miley Cyrus had a finger on the pulse of recognizing trap-beats as a style of music that would define the second half of the 2010’s, exemplified in Bangerz. On one hand the gluttonous eccentricities earned it of the label “ahead of its time” yet on the other it subscribed to the conventions of electro/dance pop music of the late 2000s/ early 2010. In hindsight the dance floor gaga was unwilling to escape, the same one she crafted worked as its albums detriment to success in the context of where culture stood, as much as it did to nurture a growing cult following for years to follow. Regardless of direction, sound, and presentation, Gaga would have to bargain with her position as definer of a declining genre, monopolizing itself to a generation.
Applause, rollout, and outfits
“Applause” was favored over the less digestible “Aura” as the lead single by label execs, not Gaga herself who later revealed she leaked an early version of the song to soundcloud. Nonetheless, the video spawned some of my favorite Gaga visual outfits:
When Mother Monster stepped onto the red carpet of the VMA’s in a black dress aided by a black wig, it revealed to me this woman can oscillate between different vessels of cartoonish art to sex-oozing hollywood icon; Venus Aphrodite (above) embodying best both sides of the spectrum.
The VMA’s performance, exquisite. My preference for performers are people who extend the life of a song onto dance, to contort themselves into a visionary orgasm. The performance was just that.
The outfits adorned by Gaga during the ARTPOP era are a thoughtful, committed execution to a vision.
Social Media
The album fell short of producing a number one hit single which most pop fans can recall due to the infamous online playful/yet somewhat serious discourse amongst Gaga and Katy Perry (who were contendending to sustain their imperial phase) and their respective fanbases. A homosexuals roman empire.
Gaga who was one of the earliest to cultivate building a parasocial relationship with fans via social media, was at her most unhinged in 2013. Her earnestness earned her a fortified fanbase. One of my favorite moments is the subtweet she made to Adam Levine.
Abolish the police!
Also, does anyone ever talk about the music Adam Levine has created with as much reverence. Do these conversations ever go beyond acknowledging Maroon 5 as creating earworm songs in tangent to the trends of its time.
Album Promo
The memorable first ever flying dress, hovering 5 centimeters above the ground. Queen shit behaviour.
Album Highlights
Within the actual material, Gaga has never slayed harder than when she beckons for the planets to vogue on the bridge for “Venus”:
Including the clever tongue and cheek lyric:
Arguably my favorite Gaga song is Aura who’s rambunctiousness and squeals are woven-in enough to never perceive the song as callous. Zedd’s production is crisp and pristine — Gaga’s vocals soar. A highlight on the album consistent with Gaga’s tradition of strong opening tracks.
At the time ARTPOP was clouded by the controversies associated with the album’s rollout. Deservedly so, was the criticism to include the r-word, R. kelly on “Do what u Want” who was facing a public reckoning for his wicked acts of sexual assault and pedophilia; harrowingly, a song about sexually relinquishing control over to another person… Gaga’s decision to double down on defending him will be reflected as the artists lowest moment in her career. She since has disavowed her decision to include the abuser so much so that she removed the track from all streaming platforms and future copies of the disk.
Titillating are the lyrics found in Sexxx dreams and G.U.Y. Both songs concede to the euphoric theme established by the previous two songs on the tracklist. What we understand now about the catchy rave element woven in the fabric of the album is it being a response to the anguish Gaga was experiencing in that moment of her life — not simply from just a hip injury (which made her cancel the rest of her Born This Way Ball) but also the sense of betrayal from her manager and the label suits who get critiqued in the ARTPOP film. Gaga explains on twitter:
The album is simply not just interested in exploring Gaga as a figure, it grapples with her own personhood. The limits don’t end with the subject of a successful musician, our pop-goddess encourages us to make the music our own:
“My ARTPOP could mean anything”
Side
It wouldn’t be right to write about ARTPOP without including perhaps one of the albums biggest spokesperson, internet savant Mike’s Mic. Research for this post was aided by Mike’s own Love Letter to the album via a youtube video. He delineates his love for the album through an intelligent and amusing internet wit. Some would call his videos simply fleeting fingerprints on the internet but I opt on referring to their thorough stupidity as art — or rather
“Pop culture was in art, now art's in pop culture, in me”.