Lady Gaga - ARTPOP [2012]

"Marry the Night" grew on me, I'd put it in the top quartile, but the video was exhausting if I'm thinking of the right one.

It should have been all cars and fire and none of the other stuff.

SHARTPOP

the one thing i find interesting about BTW is how everyone agrees it's patchy, a mess etc, but everyone's favourites and least favourites are completely different - absolutely no consensus WHICH the stand-out tracks are.

don't think it harmed or diminished her reputation at all - maybe a sense of biting off more than she could chew, but a bloated over-ambitious misstep will actually shore up one's reputation in a way more than a generic playing-it-safe album, and the tropes she played with all pretty much enhanced the "gaga brand". and the music wasn't disastrous enough for it to be seen as an embarrassment at all, apart from arguably the title track. pop fans have a tendency to impart way too much significance to one album's quality or commercial performance. if SHARTPOP is another bloated misstep then we can talk.

it still boggles my mind that people like "Judas"

the one thing i find interesting about BTW is how everyone agrees it's patchy, a mess etc, but everyone's favourites and least favourites are completely different - absolutely no consensus WHICH the stand-out tracks are.

yeah this is definitely its saving grace. we never did poll its tracks after talking about doing so a bunch, did we?

it still boggles my mind that people like "Judas"

― keeping things contextual (DJP), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 10:00 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

ha – I suspect that if we polled BTW all of us who consider the thing a mess and who have different allegiances may still fall behind "The Edge of Glory" or (eek) "Judas."

"The Edge of Glory" is IMO the best-formed, most recognizably consensus-capable song on the album. Most of the others are either too idiosyncratic or too much of a total rip-off of "Express Yourself"

i think there's some really good songs on there that are neither. but yes "Edge" is definitely the easy default.

it still boggles my mind that people like "Judas"

― keeping things contextual (DJP), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 10:00 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

― Clarke B., Wednesday, August 8, 2012 12:12 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i like the way it sounds a bit like uptown girl, the 'like a prayer'esque faux religious iconography and solemnity (feels like going to church when you're four years old and don't understand but enjoy smelling incense and feeling strongly and purposefully spiritual), the contrast between the harsh caterwauling verses and the sticky sweet chorus, and the raptor doin the twist dance routine.

i kind of feel like i can hear exactly how "the edge of glory" could be GREAT but it doesn't quite get there, something a bit too self-conscious about how it goes for the EPIC jugular, so it winds up as a slightly unsatisfying good instead. "judas" isn't my fav but it's fun to listen to when you're drunk

it'd be an interesting poll to do, think i'd go for "scheiße"

yeah it's weird like, i always related Edge Of Glory to Don't Stop Believin, and i think it's really cool that this comparison could even be made, but Edge never reached the same level of impact for me

although intellectually i acknowledge it as a fucking amazing song

don't stop believin' is like the beatles and edge of glory is like rain: a tribute to the beatles

i didn't realize so many others found this album messy! now i feel less bad about not liking anything on it other than "edge"

there's no doubt that BTW diminished her.
from "bad romance" through the release of "judas," ppl were over-the-top evangelists.
after that, the public conversation cooled off even as she was having her big hits from the album.
almost seems like something was supposed to happen, that didn't end up happening... so, everybody adjusted their goalposts.

that said, most artists would kill to be as "diminished" as she's become!

Yeah, I'd co-sign that.

Conversation tends to ebb when it's third or fourth single time anyway. Plus, most critics had already written their 800-word exegeses on the album in May.

Agree that it usually does, but... conversation had only been building through the FM singles before BTW, it seemed to me.

i have a theory that every super popular artist has a "New Jersey" - like Bon Jovi's album New Jersey -- where it's still super popular and even more popular than the albums that preceded it but there's some sense that the gig is up.

^^^
that'd be a nice thread (if it doesn't already exist)!

I remember those 800-word New Yorker think pieces on Slippery When Wet.

you must have been a precocious child.

I think we're talking about a couple different things here though - - - critical "interest" is a different thing than the excitement of the kids in the street, y'know? And generally I've been talking about the latter with regard to a sense of Gaga's star declining. It's totally subjective and impressionistic but it just feels to me like people were less jazzed after the BTW era than before.

Anyway so - - - - do we know anything else about this new album? Some ridiculous-sounding tracklists have come and gone from Wiki, but they all seem fraudulent, which may or may not be a sad thing:

Tracklisting

"ARTPOP (A Really Tasty Plate Of Pasta)"
"Nothin' On But The Radio"
"Italian Girl From New York City"
"Marinara and Diamonds (In my tea cup)"
"Dinner At Joanne's"
"Weave Snatchin'"
"Nutella Queen"
"Sip That Tea (Bitch)"
"Dorothy! Dot! The Decay Is Coming!!!"
"Touchup Time"
"Italian from Italy"
"The 200th Betrayal"
"Changing Skies"
"Apple Pie"
"Medoner"
"Shut Down The Club (ft. Katy Perry, Kanye West, Beyonce and David Guetta)"
"Bye Bye BoomKack"
"Part Of Me in 3D"
"Almond Milk in Oprah's Tea"
"Girl Gone Gaga"
"DOROTHY!! WAKE UP!! DOT! THE DECAY IS ALMOST HERE!"
"Express Yourself"
"Little Medonsters"
"SmartPop"
"DOROTHY OMG! DOT!!! COME ON! Hurry UP! The Decay is ALMOST HERE!!!!!"
"LVU GAGA"
"DOROTHY DOT YOU LITTLE INSIDER, please GET UP! I CAN SEE THE DECAY!"
"Snippet"
"Leaked"
"Where Have You Been (Colby O'Donis)"
"Hot 100"
"Tanisha (Get The F*** Up)"
"Lolga (Laugh A Little)"
"Did You Know? (I'm Italian)"
"Stefani Germanottaphobe"
"Me & T (Private In Public)"
"Dancing With Mommy (ft. Cynthia G)"
"Run The Club (ft. LMFAO, Pitbull, Ryan Tedder and Travie McCoy)"
"Cominq 4 Carly Ray Jeepson"
"Call Me Maybe (ft. Luc Carl & Boomkack)"

"Express Yourself"
"Little Medonsters"
"Run The Club (ft. LMFAO, Pitbull, Ryan Tedder and Travie McCoy)"
"Cominq 4 Carly Ray Jeepson"
"Call Me Maybe (ft. Luc Carl & Boomkack)"

lol yeah no

would give "Nutella Queen" a go though. But "You and I" is my favorite BTW track so I may be out there on the margins.

btw dudes i was like a kid when New Jersey came out...but even me as just a fan, i kinda *wanted* to like New Jersey as much, and there was some sense that it was a "big deal" and i should like it and i bought the cassette but i think we all could sense it just wasn't *as good*...i'm not sure what critics thought but i bet they did, i didn't read reviews or have access to them.

so i wasn't talking critically.

but anyway like as time goes by you'll find that people going to gaga show would be way more jazzed about like "bad romance" than "edge of glory"...

like I'm trying to think of another example....Graduation is Kanye's New Jersey.....that's another example....

You're black, white, beige, POLLa descent: Lady Gaga - Born This Way (poll)

and people get on me about MY poll titles!

(j/k, i am curious to see how this one turns out...)

Graduation is Kanye's New Jersey.....that's another example....

I think it's a stronger case to say 808s was his New Jersey

i think of a band's New Jersey as their bigger but hollower victory lap album so def Graduation not 808s

"bigger" meaning bombast not necessarily sales

NJ had five top tens including two #1's and except for "Bad Medicine" they've all vanished from the face of the earth

fuck that noise "I'll Be There For You" will always be there for me

"Born To Be My Baby" and "Lay Your Hands On Me" are definitely arena filler though

all i remember about "living in sin" is that the video seemed risque when i last saw it in elementary school

omg I had completely blocked "Living In Sin" from my memory

parents got upset when "Living in Sin" showed two mulleted youths defying society and good fashion taste and I think MTV banned it from playing during daylight hours or something

seriously mad at all of you right now, gah

you are ruining my JAMC because all I can hear over "Catchfire" is the chorus to "Living In Sin"

To be a New Jersey:
- follow-up to a huge, (possibly) defining record
- has less and/or smaller hits than prev album - or - hits based more on momentum than appeal
- brings with it the feeling that the NEXT record (if there is one) will see the bottom fall out (relatively speaking)

Sound about right?

I'll go ahead and nominate 'Here's to Future Days.'

then I nominate Huey Lewis and the News' Fore!.

^^ SO otm

Did Around the World in a Day feel that way in '85?

Graduation is Kanye's New Jersey.....that's another example....

I think it's a stronger case to say 808s was his New Jersey

― keeping things contextual (DJP), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:50 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think of a band's New Jersey as their bigger but hollower victory lap album so def Graduation not 808s

― da croupier, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:54 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

NJ had five top tens including two #1's and except for "Bad Medicine" they've all vanished from the face of the earth

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:55 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^yeah da croup gets it, and absolutely alfred's comment is totally what i meant, those songs won't last

i'm going to start a thread.

just so gaga fans don't feel like this thread got hijacked

Every huge artist has their "New Jersey" - a huge event album that ultimately feels a bit hollow & signals a career decline

Did Around the World in a Day feel that way in '85?

not to me; still doesn't

doesn't work for everybody - someone could say Monster or New Adventures for REM - it's actually pretty rare to have a follow-up to a hit album still be a sizable hit and THEN drop a turkey

and "turkey" isn't even necessarily the deal (808s sold fine)

it's just an album that survived mostly on zeitgeist and professionalism that in hindsight served as a stopgap before a major drop or left turn