She's really trying to prove that ARTPOP was an anomaly in her career. The promo for this little "side project" is on par with BTW promo right now. I mean, they are literally pulling every single stop to get this thing to #1. But it definitely seems like she's trying to gather ha fanbase and make us trust her that she's on the right track and we won't see another ARTPOP era from her.
I'm thinking back to the entire era . . . it was a mess. I still honestly believe she gave up on the entire era in September and was half riding it out, half sabotage it. Beyond the multiple black-outs and overall lack of promo, there were some things that just screamed sabotage to me: the DWUW performances, the Venus looks, the iPad dress, no DWUW video, cancelling international promo, not even tweeting a iTunes link until the day after it was released
After seeing all this, I really have faith that her next pop era will be a BTW-sized spectacle.
That statement means she doesn't think about the charts when writing her music, which I think is pretty clear when you listen to some of her latest lyrics. She can still push her album and not contradict that statement.