ARTPOP

Lady Gaga does not merely ‘release an album’. Instead, she creates a pop culture moment on her eternal quest to redefine and push the boundaries of her beloved pop music genre. While this led some listeners to favour Katy Perry’s less pretentious first single this summer (the paint-by-numbers pop song ‘Roar’, released around the same time as Gaga’s ‘Applause’), I am an advocate of Gaga’s ‘reverse Warholian expedition’ in her conceptual new album ARTPOP, a work that successfully fuses artistic nuances into the realm of pop.

Gaga wants to become the canvas, to ignore projections onto her of what she, as an artist, should be and ask whether it in fact matters at all whether she is any good – when everyone’s a critic, who cares what the critics say, right? In this vein, she pumped booing and jeering noises into the opening of her debut performance of ‘Applause’ at this year’s VMAs, with The Mirror then reporting it as genuine and a sign of Gaga’s decline. (Amazing). Admittedly, the song was perhaps not the ground-breaking first single we anticipated after the immense hype, but with time, ‘Applause’ has become an irresistible listen.

At first, ARTPOP seems all over the place – where are the formulaic, on-the-money hits like ‘Poker Face’, ‘Bad Romance’ or ‘Judas’? However, after a few listens, the whirlwind of pulsating, glittery electro space dust soon settles as Gaga delivers what we want, expect and crave. Darker verses roll into galvanising pre-choruses only to blast off into a soaring chorus – all the while rife with shamelessly infectious hooks, layered vocals and that relentless beat. Familiar themes knock around, such as those of fame (which produced two great first albums), fashion, sex and drugs.

The last of those preoccupations is handled by the track ‘Mary Jane Holland’, a bizarre and amazing – if lyrically obvious – personification of marijuana. Prepare to inevitably find yourself exclaiming that odd title, “Word! By! Word!” The track that follows, ‘Dope’, was initially named I Wanna Be With You and checks Gaga’s ‘piano ballad’ box on this album. Though a decent enough ballad, perhaps she should have kept the original version as the chorus culminating in the line “I need you more than dope” cannot help but fall a bit flat.

Gaga could probably take any three syllable word and eventually have vast swathes of the population chanting it back at her.”

When Gaga is on form, we are presented with some perfectly plastic – and often quite retro – pop. ‘MANiCURE’ is a glam-rock cocktail of Joan Jett’s ‘I Hate Myself For Loving You’, that ‘Hey Mickey’ song by Toni Basil, and 3OH!3′s ‘My First Kiss’. This song about Gaga being “cured” by a “man” (get it?) has been improved since she performed it at the iTunes festival earlier this year and proves that she could probably take any three syllable word and eventually have vast swathes of the population chanting it back at her. (For a while my friend thought she was shouting about being a “MAN-A-GER!”. She still loved it.) The same goes for ‘Donatella’, which makes up for some frankly unimaginative lyrics – even given the satirical nature of the song – with invincible hooks that thrust us into the nightmarishly glam world of a “rich bitch”.

Credit must be given to music producer Zedd here, with this young DJ also featuring on the production of the dreamy stomp ‘G.U.Y’ as well as opening track ‘Aura’. The latter is supposedly the long-awaited continuation to the ‘Paparazzi’/’Telephone’ video saga. Its overall sound is hard to categorise, although the starkly intimate chorus sounds positively intergalactic. The drunken ‘Sexxx Dreams’ is definitely a grower and has been described as a song Prince would have released. It features production from old friend DJ White Shadow, as well as a sound uncannily similar to that of someone belching in the chorus. ‘Sexxx Dreams’ can be taken more at face value than songs like ‘Do What U Want’ (ft. R. Kelly), whose chorus Gaga has billed as a metaphor for critics tearing her to shreds (‘write what you want about me’).

Elsewhere, once you get used to the grating hiccup noises and drawn-out instrumentals, ‘Swine’ demands a head bop as Gaga has a right go at someone via pig imagery. More familiar is ‘Gypsy’, in which Gaga describes the loneliness of her travels as a pop star and is an ‘Edge of Glory’ equivalent, escalating unexpectedly into a sledgehammer chorus with a reference to the cry of “Sheiβe” from ‘Born This Way’ thrown in at the end for good measure. (Self-referential Gaga is almost always good Gaga.)

The fractured album cover, designed by artist Jeff Koons, is an apt representation of ARTPOP’s concept and sound; she may create pop music, but Lady Gaga does not want to be put in a box. While such avant-garde digressions like the album’s interactive app can come across as annoying for some, Gaga appears serious about her ARTPOP concept and has recently dropped her long-term manager due to “creative differences”. A generally reductive genre, at least her efforts are refreshing for modern pop. Gaga has previously stated that “pop music will never be low brow”, and perhaps she did not intend to be ironic. Not that it matters anyway – her ARTPOP ‘could mean anything’.

Similar To: Madonna, David Bowie

MP3: ‘Applause’

Photo credit: flickr/Nokia RSA