Lady Gaga - ARTPOP [2012]

The stuttering thing would make a good thread. I'm curious about the history of that. So many pop songs do it now, but not in that My Generation sense of stuttering the first syllable. There are a couple of threads about that. The thing of repeating an ending syllable seems like something different and newer that's influenced by doing a stutter effect on sampled vocals or on a turntable. Some songs like Umbrella almost remind me of the subtractive/additive trick on Bat Macumba by Os Mutantes, but I'm sure there are other clearer precedents.

BTW was first brought down by "Judas" being the 2nd single. I'm sure if "Edge Of Glory" had been released instead it would have gone to #1 and kept the momentum for the album going. Then she decided to release a really disapointing video for EOG and that pretty much killed the interest and goodwill people had left towards the project. (x-post)

i love "Edge" and i think it was rendered more palatable by following "Judas" but i somehow doubt that releasing it on the heels on "Born" would've really had a substantially different result. i love to play fantasy A&R but i've never been able to think up an alternate Born This Way singles campaign that i can believe would've had a far bigger commercial performance.

I think "Marry The Night" could have been an awesome single. Or maybe "Hair," but "Hair" was probably too close to "Edge."

I still like most of "Born This Way." If anything hurt it it's maybe that it came out right when she came off touring the US behind the last one - "Born This Way" was the final song of the encore when I last saw her - so perhaps people just couldn't or didn't want to keep up with her crazy pace? That hip injury came at just the right time for her to pivot (so to speak).

well, "Marry The Night" WAS a single, just her lowest charting one to date. it was actually going to be the album's lead single before she wrote "Born This Way," and while I'm not crazy about "BTW" I am glad that didn't happen. "Marry" and "Edge" have very similar choruses but i think "Edge" is so much better that it almost renders the other one irrelevant.

Wow, was it? I've literally never heard "Marry the Night" on the radio, whereas I still hear all her initial singles and "Edge." Not "Judas" or "Born This Way," though, come to think of it. But "Edge," yeah, pretty frequently.

yeah "Marry" was the campaign-ending 5th single, complete with boring 13-minute video. i wish she would've used that spot for one of the album's more overtly weird songs, she could've left us with a reminder that she's sometimes interesting instead of a failed last stab at radio.

"Hair" trimmed down a bit (haha) would've made a great single after EOG.
Although I like it, "Judas" is just too similar to "Bad Romance" and a bit too weird it put a lot of people off. It seems like they tried to play it safe by giving people a RedOne production but it failed.

If anything hurt it it's maybe that it came out right when she came off touring the US behind the last one

Her last single before that, "Alejandro", had been out for a long time. Sure she was touring, but radio was really waiting for some new material. I don't think I remember a new single as highly anticipated as "Born This Way" was. Way more than "Applause" or "Roar" were.

In fact I think this time she's been off the radio for too long and it's diminished her "power". Her last single dates back to 2011. That's something she forgot to pick up from Madonna who would always stay in the public eye during a tour or inbetween albums by having a soundtrack or one-off single.

Sure, but there was never a day before the release of "Born This Way" when every single one of her previous singles was not still in heavy rotation.

Bearing in mind how times have changed and the speed of the hypercycle, Madonna took 1988 and the first few months of 1989 off.

Marry The Night is one of my favorite tracks on BTW. I would've been happy with it as the lead single, and the part of the video when she's crawling around on the car at night with fire behind her—or whatever the specific imagery was—was cool.

I learned to enjoy it after my three-year-old niece imitated the dancing and her ground roll.

And it seemed really strange at the time. (x-post)

Yeah the video for "Marry The Night" is cool. Especially when it looks like she's going to get in a car with a 6 ft wide hat. I wish the song sounded more like "Flashdance" though.

Re: BTW singles, I listen to or am just in places to hear a fair amt of pop radio and barely remember hearing BTW itself or Judas

"Judas" had negligible airplay, only got to #15 on the Pop Songs chart (and "Marry The Night" got to #14)

it's interesting that she's expended so much time and energy touring all over the world that it feels like the kind of things that really make someone like her seem like a star, a constant barrage of singles and videos and a general pop culture presence, have been neglected.

Well, you can't do everything at the same time. But I basically agree with all of the above - goes back to my comments way upthread or on BTW thread (leading to New Jersey mania) that BTW despite its vastness left her a smaller star at the end of everything. I think what she needs to do more than anything is just focus on having a really, really good album full of singles that people like, hum, and relate to. A little too much of her output has been premised on assuming that she's the biggest star in the world and that she can trade on that, but I think she's burned through that capital. The last song she put out that I think made her any actual new fans was "Telephone" and that's now a whiiiiiile ago.

I dunno, I didn't really have much time for her until BTW in all its sprawl.

(Yeah, OK, "Telephone" was pretty great.)

tell me about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vEStDd6HVY

Be still.

I think Born This Way the album was a great follow up to The Fame Monster and should have kept her way up there. But "Judas" was so badly received by radio they had to rush release "Edge Of Glory" like three weeks later and it kind of killed the pacing. The singles campain was over before the tour even started !
We'll see if ARTPOP can turn that around or if she'll become the Cyndi and Katy the Madonna (I hope not).

"marry the night" => => "edge of glory" => "government hooker" => "heavy metal lover" => "scheisse" => "you and I" => "electric chapel" if you need a #7

there is your revised singles cycle.

I still stand by Yoü and I as the monster sing that didn't quite have the support, though I'm sure I heard it more than Judas. The flipside should have been an even more countrified version, see if she could punch into that market (stranger things has happened altho one would have to avoid it being Lady Gaga As Stef Gaines) altho personally I love the weird hybrid that happens between her singing style and Mutt's pastiche of himself.

Er, monster single. Phone eating words.

as a casual listener to pop radio occasionally in the car "you and i" is the only btw single i've heard multiple times. never heard "judas" at all.

"the edge of glory" seemed to have the biggest pop culture/ubiquity impact of all the BTW singles. i think people are overplaying how bad that album was for her though, i don't think it lessened her ~importance~ or completely turned people off her - my impression is that most casual fans accept that she's inconsistent, and when she visibly overreaches it sort of actually tallies with her "weirdo" "artist" shtick.

We'll see if ARTPOP can turn that around or if she'll become the Cyndi and Katy the Madonna (I hope not).

the thing is NO ONE thinks katy perry is a pop star of ~cultural significance~ surely

She's more of her time (as opposed to a thing unto herself) so yeah, kinda. Agree v much w yr first post btw, BTW just kept her on an even keel which felt like a lesser than thing than it ws, given for a little while she seemed like one of the most impt things in the world

Don't know if Born This Way actually hurt her, but it was sort of received similarly to "The Fame Monster," not in terms of success but as sort of another EP. It just felt like it came too quickly, like throwing more kindling on a fire that's already going. Sure, it burns, but it burns fast and doesn't make the fire any hotter.

Beyonce is more mysterious to me, honestly. A tour before an album whose teaser singles/tastes got no traction?

The Fame Monster received better reviews and crowned a great year.

When the dust settles, how many other pop superstars will it be possible to say the absolute zenith of their influence was centered around an EP?

A tour before an album whose teaser singles/tastes got no traction?

we didn't EVEN get teaser singles sfkjak`bjaljfkj; WHY DON'T YOU JUST PUT THEM ON ITUNES BEY

hi i think katy perry is culturally significant btw

Let's go all the way with this. Until we die.

let's go all the way tonight
no regrets
just love

No

*digs out skin-tight jeans*

the skin-tight jeans are culturally significant symbolism, sorry if u disagree

no regrets Gaga
that was just another false alarm

Tough to remain facetious when I actually do think "Teenage Dream" is probably the best pop song of the last half dozen years.

thats the worst thing you could say about pop music in the last 6 years

Did I get your HEART. RAY. SING?

it's a great song, definitely up there

We'll see if ARTPOP can turn that around or if she'll become the Cyndi and Katy the Madonna (I hope not).

the thing is NO ONE thinks katy perry is a pop star of ~cultural significance~ surely

I think they do now, since that five #1 singles from one album thing. But I was talking about longevity rather than cultural significance.

If Katy's career has more legs than Gags', it's only because she's offers no surprises and her focus is on "hits", and not advancing any kind of musical/cultural discourse. That's acceptable to a lot of people. Gags has a habit of pretending to think, which turns a lot of the populace off, but it makes the spectacle that is her fame way more interesting to watch, imo. Gaga has always known she wasn't going to last at the top and the public would cannibalize her, judging from the theme of her albums/songs/performances. I just don't think she was prepared for the reality.

"Gaga has always known she wasn't going to last at the top"

She has been at or very near the top of the charts for five years now - so even if she believed that she would have been wrong. Despite substandard product and what appears like self sabotage with single release decisions on BTW she managed to have four top tens.

Nobody expects Gaga to release a bunch of perfectly primped Katy Perry tracks - but she doesn't need perfect tracks to have prolonged success. They need to be fun, catchy and a little weird.

Yeah she is still a huge star. Her new single just debuted at #6 and she is opening the VMA's this Sunday. Pretty much as big as it gets.

I think she rose to fame so quickly and so high, it was gonna be hard to live up to it no matter what. There used to be this sense of everyone really wanting to know what she was going to do next that seems a bit gone now.

Yeah, let me know when Gaga no longer sells out her huge venues and I'll confirm she's no longer a big star.