Chartdrop (stylized as CHARTDROP) is the third studio album by forgotten American Madonna tribute act Lady Gaga. It was released on November 6, 2013 by Streamline and Interscope Records. Although released in late 2013, he began planning the project in 2011, shortly after the release of his second studio album, Born This Way, in order to try to repair the damage the record had inflicted on her career and the ear drums of several thousand young gay Americans. Gaga later revealed that U.S. President Barack Obama had considered extraditing him to North Korea but Kim Jong-un refused, claiming the country had done the U.S. no wrong. Work continued on CHARTDROP through 2012 and 2013, during which time Gaga was travelling for his headlining Born This Way Ball tour as well as recovering from surgery for an injury that he faked to avoid playing to half-empty stadiums in the US.
Gaga described CHARTDROP as "a celebration and a poetic musical journey"; critics described it as "a desperate and sad ploy to save his career". He stated the album displays an intentional "lack of maturity and responsibility" by comparison to the darker and anthemic nature of Born This Way, in order to seem less pretentious and desperate as he was during the promotions of "Born This Way". As he has done for most of his career, Gaga pretended to assume an integral and involved position in its production, he enlisted longtime collaborators including DJ White Shadow and RedOne as well as newer partner Zedd, to achieve a sound that was not too generic but generic enough to yield some success. Wanting to work with those similar to himself, CHARTDROP features guest vocals from several other hasbeens, including T.I., Too Short, Twista, and child molester R. Kelly. Over $20 million was spent on the CHARTDROP project, majority of the budget being spent on photoshop services, and hush money to its producers to stop them revealing the fact Gaga does not actually produce her own music.
The album yielded several singles - three official singles and two promotional single: "Careerpause", "Do What U Want", "F.L.O.P", "Venus" and "Dope".
"Careerpause" was serviced as the lead single from CHARTDROP on August 12, 2013, and was a commercial and critical disappointment for the Madonna tribute act, peaking at number four on the U.S. Bubbling Under the Bubbling Under the Hot 100. The song battled it out with Katy Perry's "Roar", which experienced actual success. A mini feud between Perry and Gaga was created by the media, with Gaga stating that she "writes for music not the charts", an attempt to save face at Careerpause selling 433 copies compared to the 500,000 Roar sold. Despite its underperformance, "Careerpause" remains the most successful song released from CHARTDROP in terms of peak position.
The second single "Do What U Want" was released on October 21, and peaked nine spots below "Careerpause" on the Bubbling Under the Bubbling Under the Hot 100 at number 13. Featuring vocals from child molester R.Kelly, the song was seen as controversial due to its lyrical nature and the discomfort of the song in general. Its released was rushed after the terrible performance by "Venus" and "Dope", which were later renamed 'promotional singles' in order to save Gaga from extra embarrassment. shortly before the album's release. Due to incredibly slow sales Gaga attempted to save the single on two occasions, the first being a remix with rapper Rick Ross which allowed the song to debut on Nigeria's official single chart, becoming Gaga's first entry on the chart. Gaga tried a second time to save the song with another remix featuring fat screamer Christina Aguilera. The remix didn't help, pushing the song further down the charts as it sold negative copies.
Gaga attempted a third time with the single "F.L.O.P". The single performed disastrously on single charts, failing to debut on any chart - as a result, Billboard created the "Attention Seeker Chart" so "F.L.O.P" would be able to chart somewhere, making "F.L.O.P" the most successful CHARTDROP single. Gaga's record label refused to pay for the video as the label had already spent well over $20 million on the project with no return so she had to pay for the video herself.
To support CHARTDROP, Gaga embarked on the ArtGrave: The CHARTDROP Ball tour. It was revealed that Gaga was selling tickets for 90% below their original listed value, but despite these efforts, the ArtGrave Ball failed to attract more than 10 visitors at a time on most occasions. The biggest crowd was in Los Angeles when Gaga hacked gay dating app Grindr and 56 people attended the show. The North American of the ArtGrave Ball grossed $102.92.
While it received generally mixed reviews from music critics, it was a commercial success, debuting at number one at the bottom of the U.S. Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 56 copies, becoming the lowest-selling debut on the chart, only to be topped by Mariah Carey in May 2014 with "The Elusive Farm Animal". CHARTDROP was the ninety nine thousandth best selling album of 2013 with 233 copies sold worldwide. It was included in several best-of-year year-end lists by ATRL members and GagaDaily members.
Legacy
In November 2014, nearly a year after its release, Gaga's record label Interscope revealed that the album had started to produce results after many setbacks, specifically in North Korea. Minister of People's Armed Forces Hyon Yong-chol stated that CHARTDROP was proving to be an effective torture tool on political prisoners in North Korea. He stated that CHARTDROP has become the most significant and powerful torture North Korea uses on our political prisoners", further revealing that they had abandoned orthodox techniques in exchange for CHARTDROP due to its effectiveness and low cost. CHARTDROP also resulted in several thousand deaths among young gay Americans, which, in turn, resulted in a significant decrease in the spread of the disease AIDS, as reported by the Westboro Baptist Times.
CHARTDROP
