The art was never meant to be in the music, as she said. The music itself was meant to be carefree and fun, while the art was in the execution and what she brought to the music with her imagery. This was something she made very, very clear from the beginning. It was her way of compromising in a way; she tried to give people want they wanted with fun music while doing what she wanted by collaborating with her favorite artists.

And to imply that music in itself needs to be a certain way in order to be art is ridiculous as music in itself is an art form.

Just because she referenced a bunch of different works of art, wore ridiculous outfits, and hung out with other artists doesn't mean that ARTPOP, by proxy, is some innovative piece of art. Sonically, there isn't anything particularly special, the production isn't really interesting and definitely is not innovative, and the lyrics are very superficial and don't really say much, just because they're weird and vague doesn't make them "artsy."

She never said the goal was sonic experiment, ARTPOP is bringing the pretentious and the basic together. It's still pop. What don't you get?

Except, it was never meant to be innovative, and referencing work and collaborating with these artists was the point of ARTPOP. This isn't a very hard concept. Warhol took basic items and made them art. Gaga took renown artists and brought them into pop. It wasn't meant to be innovative, it was meant to be a play on Warhol.

But was she even successful at that? Once again, she didn't do anything new or interesting with the materials she had. Warhol took the banal and ordinary and was able to create fine art by subverting people's expectations and by questioning assumptions about what constitutes art. So by reverse-Warholian, does that mean Gaga took art and instead turned it banal and ordinary? The idea that pop music ought to be respected as art on its own merits isn't necessarily a new idea (look up the school of music criticism referred to as poptimism) and there are artists who are blending the banal and the artistic in far better ways. It doesn't matter what Gaga was trying to do or what her intent was, we can only judge the final product, and the final product just isn't that interesting.

Final tickets selling out NOW.

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Great work TheNight - I'd been keen to see the fruits of your hard work since you first mentioned you were working on this thread! Of course it's been derailed by people trying to be funny, but like it or not ARTPOP's concept was a success - at least at it's very basis, that being having art in pop culture (opposed to pop art which is pop culture in art). Slay.

Thank you! I really appreciate it!

Preach it

I was going to be sarcastic and say in the title. But I see few have pulled the punches.

To you. Which doesn't really matter since you probably haven't listened to it or bought it or liked Gaga to begin with.

She wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel. She did what she did and it's very interesting to me and the millions of others who bought, stream and went to her live shows displaying the music + image.