There's no getting away from it – some people really loathe Lady Gaga. Those that oppose Gaga (not including those who simply reject the notion of her based solely on a hatred of commercial, popular music) see her as a phoney – a loudmouth lifestyle tourist latching onto various sub-cultures, ripping off Madonna's moves and quite tedious in her attempts to shock with her wardrobe. On the flipside, her army of Little Monsters offer up the kind of devotion normally accorded to either cult leaders in bad jumpers or Morrissey, worshipping Gaga as an eccentric, funny, sarcastic icon.
Fact is, as ever, the truth probably lies somewhere between the two. And there's no getting away from the fact that, while other pop stars deal in trying to out-risqué each other, Gaga's weirdness (genuine or otherwise) keeps us transfixed.
In the past, she's surpassed the expectations of a pop singer. 'Poker Face' and 'Just Dance' were dancefloor dynamite and perfect for the radio. Then she blew up with 'Bad Romance' and 'Telephone', both with ridiculous, irresistible choruses and lavish videos. She made events out of each release, teasing with lyrics and online countdowns, premiering new ideas online as she went along… all the while cannily giving the air that everyone was invited to the red carpet. After a delightfully pompous arena tour, complete with the kind of giant rubber monster that would've kept Peter Gabriel in Genesis, she'd gone from no-one to being able to walk on water.
Yet the wheels started to wobble when she told us she was 'Born This Way'. The message, admittedly sound, felt a bit forced and the album artwork that followed – Gaga morphed into a motorbike – wasn't exactly cut with the style we'd become accustomed to. Still, conservatives (both musically and politically) hated her. She, like no other, could get a rise out of dissenting voices and it was still a fabulous spectator sport for all concerned. However, doubt had set in and it looked like Gaga couldn't work out where she was exactly supposed to be, leaving fans slightly apprehensive about new album Artpop. For starters, the name of the project produced a collective squirm. We geddit. You want to meld art with pop. Of course, part of the appeal of Gaga when she first arrived was she wrote songs that treated pop music like it was an artform in itself. All the cod highbrow ephemera that went along with it was good, campy fun.
And now, with Artpop, it seems she's got confused. You can feel the weight of what Gaga thinks her work is, rather than what it actually is. The once wonderful haphazard gesturing has been replaced with the crowbarring of ideas into songs. Musically, in places, this is a tremendous juggernaut of pop. Unfortunately, at times the lyrics can be found wanting. On too many occasions, a line will be so poor that it takes you out of the moment, killing your pop buzz dead. Gaga sings about being "behind the burka" at one moment, before breaking into "walk down the runway but don't puke, it's okay, you just had a salad today, boulangerie."
That said, like other Gaga LPs, this isn't an album to be ruminated over (sadly for her). She wanted Artpop; we wanted Goodpop, and what we actually have is Somepop, with regrettable sags caused by the odd filler track. However, when it is good, it is terrific. 'Sexxx Dreams' has a wonderful energy, while 'Jewels 'n' Drugs' (feat T.I., Twista & Too Short) sees Gaga trying her hand at skittering the hip hop you'd find in Juicy J or buried in trap. 'Applause', we know, is a bit sticky in places but, if you stop expecting too much of Gaga, you'll realise it has a furiously irresistible chorus.
While 'Manicure' is the lousy rock song she's been threatening to make for years and 'Dope' tries too hard to tell everyone she's clean, Gaga may well have made her best song in the gigantic 'Do What U Want' which features R Kelly, a man in the middle of a renaissance. In this song, Gaga and Kels go head-to-head to see how can out-sex the other. Of course, R Kelly has his detractors (he's a genius, but his social life is troubling), but here he teams up with Gaga to take a pop at the detractors: "we're taking these haters and roughin' 'em up and laying a cut like we don't give a ****." It'd be nice to believe that.
Fact is, Artpop seems a little too eager to impress Gaga's critics. If she has tried to make things cerebral, to answer the criticism of 'you're just some dumb pop singer', then it doesn't quite work. This is a shame, for Gaga is always best when she doesn't worry about those people. The simple matter is that Gaga always works best in the language she speaks fluently - heartbreak, partying, ****ing, falling in love and teen melodrama. It's in these moments that Artpop really shines. Yet it's not Gaga's finest hour. There are moments where she reminds us that she can still do wonderful things, but for the most part, Artpop shows us an artist who is trying to do too much all at once. Gaga's head on a swan neck is perfectly hilarious, but rein in the preaching and clanging references to fashion because, basically, all we ever wanted was to dance, for inspiration.
If Gaga learns anything from Artpop, it that she should stop trying to impress the hooting cynics who keep asking her to prove herself and stick to turning basic human emotions into rousing, hair-raising pop because, quite simply, when she's on form, there's no-one quite like her.
Britney fans have the worst taste (well, obvs not as bad as Katy or Gaga fans but still). 'Scream & Shout', 'Work Bitch' and 'Perfume' are all far superior to pretty much anything on Circus or FF.
Britney fans have the worst taste (well, obvs not as bad as Katy or Gaga fans but still). 'Scream & Shout', 'Work Bitch' and 'Perfume' are all far superior to pretty much anything on Circus or FF.
There is indeed plenty of pop to be found on Lady Gaga's third full-length Artpop (out Tuesday but streaming online now).
But art? Aside from the Jeff Koons cover and the Warhol title reference, not so much.
Well, perhaps if you're talking about the art of provocation. That's always been Gaga's main discipline - using meat dresses and giant eggs and other antics to get attention. And as a way to manipulate fans and the media, it has served her admirably (until she got upstaged by Miley Cyrus 2.0, anyway).
Thing is, as a means of songwriting, outrageousness has a limited shelf life. And seldom translates from the real world to the recording studio.
This has always been a problem with Gaga's albums - Artpop included. Like her others, this disc feels self-indulgent and unfocused, more concerned with style than substance. It flits between genres - the EDM wubba-wubba of Aura, the space-sex disco of Venus, the handclap R&B of Manicure, the hip-hop menace of Jewels n' Drugs, the industrial grind of Swine, the Broadway balladry of Dope, the dance-rock of Mary Jane Holland, the new wave of Applause, even a dash of Born This Way's heartland rock in Gypsy.
But as usual, most of these club anthems seem simultaneously underwritten and overproduced, with verses and choruses and changes and elements hamfistedly mashed together in a way that seems less like creative vision and more like arrogant lack of discipline.
But when you get right down to it, the art Gaga has truly never mastered is that of writing lyrics. And the sex-obsessed, drug-heavy Artpop has some of her lamest clunkers yet. But rather than blather on, let's let her speak for herself. Here are some of the album's most, um, artful couplets:
"Enigma popstar is fun, she wear burqa for fashion / It's not a statement as much as just a move of passion." - Aura
"Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Uranus / Don't you know my ass is famous?" - Venus
"I wanna be the Girl Under You / I wanna be your G.U.Y . Touch me, touch me, don't be sweet / Love me, love me, please retweet." - G.U.Y.
" Touch me, in the dark / Put your hands all over my body parts." - Manicure
"I know, I know, I know, I know you want me / You're just a pig inside a human body." - Swine
"Walk down the runway but don't puke (It's OK) / You just had a salad today (Boulangerie) / Just ask your gay friends their advice before you / Get a spray tan on holiday in Taipei." - Donatella
"I know that Mom and Dad think I'm a mess / But it's all right, because I am rich as piss." - Mary Jane Holland
He caters to a niche audience -the party circuit- and makes music for the clubs, bars, parties (for people with friends) which is quite lucrative in itself. He plays to his strengths and has a successful formula. IMHO, he'll have more of a legacy than all of the pop girls sans Rih/Katy/Bey/Xtina.
Earlier this year, an executive at Lady Gaga's record label Interscope made the bold claim that her new album 'ARTPOP' would 'take music to a whole new level', which I'll readily admit got me very excited indeed because (a) I love Gaga and (b) I'm a tiny bit gullible.
He also said that the new material would have a such an impact on the listener that 'your hearts will race' and 'tears will come out of your eyes'.
Well, after hearing 'ARTPOP' for the first time I can confirm that my heart did indeed race (I listened to it over breakfast, which included a strong cup of coffee), and tears did stream out of my eyes, albeit not for the reason that executive had in mind.
One word: lyrics.
I can't actually ever recall laughing whilst listening to an album before but that's exactly what happened at points as I made my way through the 15 new tracks.
Its big downfall are the lyrics, which often sound rushed and nonsensical - but hilarious? Surely LOLing along to the album wasn't intentional?
On 'Donatella', Gaga sings; "Walk down the runway but don't puke, it's ok. You just had a salad today, boulangerie. Just ask your gay friends their advice before you. Get a spray tan on holiday in Taipei."
Oh dear.
And on 'Mary Jane Holland' Gaga trills; "I know that mom and dad think I'm a mess, but it's alright because I'm as rich as piss."
Eh?
If Gaga wants to be taken seriously as an 'artist' (like all the arty farty posturing and avant garde styling would suggest) then she really needs to spend more than five minutes jotting down the first rhyming couplets that spring to her mind.
Like 'Uranus' and 'famous'.
Some critics are already gleefully predicting that 'ARTPOP' is a disaster of such magnitude that Gaga will be doing a tour of Wetherspoons next year.
He caters to a niche audience -the party circuit- and makes music for the clubs, bars, parties (for people with friends) which is quite lucrative in itself. He plays to his strengths and has a successful formula. IMHO, he'll have more of a legacy than all of the pop girls sans Rih/Katy/Bey/Xtina.
But when you get right down to it, the art Gaga has truly never mastered is that of writing lyrics. And the sex-obsessed, drug-heavy Artpop has some of her lamest clunkers yet. But rather than blather on, let's let her speak for herself. Here are some of the album's most, um, artful couplets:
"Enigma popstar is fun, she wear burqa for fashion / It's not a statement as much as just a move of passion." - Aura
"Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Uranus / Don't you know my ass is famous?" - Venus
"I wanna be the Girl Under You / I wanna be your G.U.Y . Touch me, touch me, don't be sweet / Love me, love me, please retweet." - G.U.Y.
" Touch me, in the dark / Put your hands all over my body parts." - Manicure
"I know, I know, I know, I know you want me / You're just a pig inside a human body." - Swine
"Walk down the runway but don't puke (It's OK) / You just had a salad today (Boulangerie) / Just ask your gay friends their advice before you / Get a spray tan on holiday in Taipei." - Donatella
"I know that Mom and Dad think I'm a mess / But it's all right, because I am rich as piss." - Mary Jane Holland
