The Release

On August 3, 2012 popstar Lady Gaga tweeted a photo that would foreshadow a shift in music history. This simple tweet showed a picture of her arm with a tattoo titled ¨ARTPOP¨. There was a lot of speculation that this would be her next album, but a release date was not given. Late into 2023 Gaga announced on Facebook that her new album would be released on November 11th and that the first lead single would drop on August 12th. The countdown to this day was stressful for all of the ¨Little Monsters¨(Gaga´s fans), but then the day struck.

August 12th, just over a year after the first clue into the album, Applause was released. The song wasn’t Gaga´s biggest hit but the public still ate it up. The mix of dance and electropop gave the song a reminiscent feel of her debut album The Fame. Later into the week, Gaga tweeted that the video would be released on the 19th in Times Square. August 19th hit, and the crowds were lining up to watch her on the big screens. The oddly artistic visuals and just seeing a new version of Gaga led fans to go wild, filling the streets with cheers and ¨applause¨. However, this was just the beginning of this new era. On November 10th, located in the Navy Yard in Brooklyn, Gaga held a release party for the album called the ¨artRave¨. This performance consisted of Gaga performing all of the songs on the album and showing off just how weird this era will be. She wore outfits nothing like anyone had ever seen before and partnered with hit artist Jeff Koons. Koons helped Gaga with the album cover and made a huge sculpture to be displayed at this party.

About The Album

The album ARTPOP, just as the name implies, combines both modern pop music with traditional art. The album is a high-energy, EDM, and synth-pop-influenced piece with a variety of producers and features. The album focuses on how Gaga sees fame, self and sexual empowerment, and includes many references to Greek and Roman mythology. Gaga describes the album as a “celebration and poetic musical journey” displaying an intentional “lack of maturity and responsibility.” During the creation and throughout the “Era” of the album, Gaga was dealing with a harsh drug and alcohol obsession. She brings this up in one of the last tracks titled Dope singing “My heart would break without you, Might not awake without you… I need you more than dope.” Many have described listening to this album as a vacation through music while high on every drug which is very fitting seeming that Gaga herself was high most of the time making it. This album to some fans is a big letdown compared to Gaga´s previous albums, but to others, this album is a handbook for a new genre of music.

Controversies

One of the notable pieces of this album was the controversies that came with it. One of the performances that got people stirred up was the SXSW performance. During this show, Gaga performed one of the album’s tracks called Swine, a heavy EDM, rave track.

Gaga sang/screamed this track while riding a mechanical bull. That however is not what made it ¨Controversial¨. While on the bull, Gaga got an artist known for making paintings by throwing up throw up green and black goo all over her. This goo stayed on her for the rest of the performance leaving a green and black sheen to her hair and skin. Many found this part of the show disgusting and encouraging of eating disorders, but it was a metaphorical take on surviving rape and sexual abuse and how it will last with you forever. This may seem like a lot but this is not the biggest scandal of this album. One thing this album is known for is its ¨Lost Track¨. The original album featured a song called Do What U Want with R Kelly. This song was the second lead single for the album and was a pretty big hit. Little did Gaga or the fans know what R Kelly was going to do. In 2019 the song was removed from all streaming platforms and all physical albums had to be recalled after the documentary ¨Surviving R Kelly¨ came out.

This documentary talked about the rape and sexual abuse that R Kelly has done to many women and teens and this disgusted fans and Gaga. It also didn’t help that in the song Kelly sang ¨Do what I want, what I want with your body¨. Gaga made the correct and swift decision to just remove the song and to not look back.

Fashion

If it isn’t the music itself that makes this album true art, then it is the fashion. A lot of Gaga´s bizarre and weird garments came from this time. There was a common theme of Greek mythology and pop art throughout most of what she wore, but some of her outfits were just wild. For example, while promoting the album in Berlin, Gaga wore a chicken nugget mask made of human hair and solid gold created by Charlie Le Mindhu. While promoting in Brooklyn she wore a flying dress. Yes, a FLYING dress. The dress was basically a big six-propeller drone that lifted Gaga into the air only for a few seconds. Still to this day, a lot of what she wore during this time is remembered and influences fashion today.

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Fans

The feedback for this album at first was filled with mixed reactions. ARTPOP follows after two of Gaga´s biggest albums, The Fame/ The Fame Monster and Born This Way, one being a traditional dance-pop album and the other a rock-inspired album. Switching from guitar solos and heavy drums to electronic synth-pop scared a lot of fans at first. Although some were turned away from these sounds, most found a connection to this side of Gaga. These energy-infested party tracks made clubs and bars everywhere blast her music. Fans couldn´t wait for the tour to come and their hopes came true. Lady Gaga went on the ArtRave: The Artpop Ball from May 4th to November 24th, 2014, doing 72 shows. To this day, some songs from ARTPOP get a little bit of recognition and it fills fans with joy because this album although really good, didn’t do very-well commercially. Fans hope that if the album gets enough popularity by ARTPOP´s 10th anniversary that Gaga will drop ARTPOP ACT: II.

ARTPOP ACT: II

ARTPOP: ACT II was the unreleased sequel to the original album. Gaga let out many clues and hints that part 2 would be released, but it never happened. Gaga used a few of the songs as interludes during the tour for the album. Last year fans put up a petition for Gaga and Interscope Records to release act 2 and to their surprise, it got 30,000 signatures. Gaga and one of the main producers on the original album, DJ White Shadow, both responded to this in a joking manner. Fans still think that later this year on ARTPOP´s 10th anniversary Gaga will release act 2.