Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP: A First Listen

Lady Gaga’s long-awaited ARTPOP is currently streaming on iTunes ahead of its release later this week, but is it the greatest pop album of its era — as its creator so humbly suggested — or an ignominious flop? Has Gaga’s monstrous ego triumphed over hooks and choruses? What even is art? We got down and dirty in the trenches of ARTPOP to find out…

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‘Aura’

The words ‘subtlety’ and ‘restraint’ don’t exist in Lady Gaga’s vocabulary, so it makes sense that she’d open her new album with this insane clusterfuck of a track. ‘Aura’ sounds like she asked her magic cocaine mirror which two genres she should mash-up, and the mirror responded that ‘90s industrial techno and Middle Eastern music were the way to go.

While other pop stars sing about things like hook-ups, break-ups, fireworks and wrecking balls, Lady Gaga almost exclusively sings songs about Lady Gaga, so naturally, ‘Aura’ is about her, too. The song’s lyrics invite you to take a peek at the real girl behind the layers of fame and artifice. That’s a nice offer and all, but at this point, just a couple of fun pop songs like ‘Poker Face’ and ‘Bad Romance’ would be more than enough.

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‘Venus’

There must be some kind of subliminal, Men In Black-style memory wipe at the end of ‘Venus’, because I’ve listened to it half-a-dozen times and I literally can’t tell you a damn thing about it. Actually, that’s not true. There is one memorable part near the end where Gaga reels off the names of the planets, until she gets to ‘Uranus’, which, of course, she whispers in a really creepy and sexual way. Milk, milk, lemonade, around the corner incredibly generic electro-pop is made.

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‘G.U.Y.’

If Katy Perry’s recent Prism was all over the place, throwing a bunch of styles at the wall hoping that one or two would stick, then ARTPOP is totally homogenous. Three tracks in, it really hasn’t strayed too far from the basic Gaga formula of churning, club-ready synths and icy beats. ‘G.U.Y.’ stands for ‘Girl Under You’, and the ‘G.U.Y.’ of the title wants to be with a ‘G.I.R.L.’, which stands for … ‘Guy I’m Romancing Loves’? I don’t know, I’m starting to think the lyrics for this album were written by Horse_ebooks.

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‘Sexxx Dreams’

ARTPOP has been pretty underwhelming so far, but ‘Sexxx Dreams’ might turn things around. It’s the first song to make me sit up and take notice, and it’s really, really good. It’s lithe and slinky, and sounds like something Prince would have come up with for one of his ‘80s protégés to deliver as she writhed about on a bed with smoke machines and billowing curtains. Also, the lyrics are all about telling a close friend you had a sex dream about them. Usually, Lady Gaga’s music is about as sexy as two Ken dolls mashing their respective bumps together, so it’s a nice change to hear her sing something a little more risqué.

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‘Jewels n’ Drugs’ (feat. T.I., Too $hort & Twista)

Lady Gaga insists that she spends ages fine-tuning every element of her tracks to get them feeling and sounding just right — ‘Jewels ‘n Drugs’, however, sounds like it was thrown together in about five minutes, because Katy and Miley have both done the trap music thing, and Gaga wants to come to the party as well, dammit. I was a bit down on Katy Perry’s ‘Dark Horse’ at first, but dammit if that song doesn’t have a chorus that sticks in your head for days. So far, ARTPOP is severely lacking in that department.

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‘Manicure’

Of all the songs that have subtly or blatantly ripped off Toni Basil’s ‘Mickey’ over the last few years – Avril Lavigne’s ‘Girlfriend’, Madonna’s ‘Gimme All You Luvin’, Katy Perry’s ‘Peacock’, that one Heidi Montag song whose name I can’t recall right now – this is by far the worst. ‘Manicure’ is worse than ‘Peacock’. Just take a moment to let that really sink in.

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‘Do What U Want’ (feat. R Kelly)

The bar is pretty low at this point, but ‘Do What U Want’ has the potential to be one of the best tracks on ARTPOP. The song is built around cold, chugging, Giorgio Moroder-style synths, and its lyrical premise is interesting: “You don’t own me,” says Gaga to a gentleman caller, “but you can do what you want with my body.” It’s a pity that R. Kelly’s presence nullifies all the good. His vocals are fine and stuff, but c’mon, when he says he’s going to do what he wants with your body, you just know he’s rubbing his palms together in glee thinking about how he’s going to pee all over you.

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‘Artpop’

We’re at the halfway point, with another very robotic synth-pop track. There’s nothing wrong with ‘Artpop’ as far as filler tracks go, but the problem is that this album seems to be chock full of those, with no ‘Paparazzi’ or even ‘Edge Of Glory’ in-between. There’s a looooooooooooong way to go from here.

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‘Swine’

I’ve never been to a fetish party, but I imagine they’re probably not as cool as movies make them out to be. You’d get there, but instead of Monica Bellucci, it would be some paunchy, middle-aged branch manager in a French maid’s outfit, begging you to take a dump in his mouth because he’s been a bad boy. When I imagine that scenario, this exact song is playing in the background.

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‘Donatella’

I hit pause on ARTPOP at this point to take a breather and watch some old clips of Maya Rudolph’s Donatella Versace impression on SNL. As I watched her exaggerated and hilarious performance, it hit me: where the Lady Gaga of The Fame Monster had a sense of fun and mischief in her music, the Lady Gaga of ARTPOP takes herself very seriously indeed. On ‘Donatella’, when Gaga sings a line like “She’s so rich, she’s so fab, it’s beyond…”, there’s no playful subtext and there’s nothing tongue-in-cheek in her delivery. It’s straight-faced and sincere and boring as all hell.

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‘Fashion!’

No, I take that back, this is boring as all hell. “Looking good and feeling fine, looking good and feeling fine, looking good and feeling fine,” sings Gaga. This shit is the least inspired or inspiring thing Lady Gaga or anyone else has ever recorded. It makes the Black Eyed Peas sound like visionaries by comparison, and it’s making my head hurt. I’m skipping ahead.

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‘Mary Jane Holland’

How are there still four of these to go? I can’t even tell if this is good or not because at this point ARTPOP has bored me into near total submission.

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‘Dope’

At least this one offers an interesting change of pace. I have a theory that years from now, when Lady Gaga is a washed-up former diva, she’ll make a living singing boozy piano ballads about the good ol’ times in a dive bar somewhere. ‘Dope’ sounds totally raw and bedraggled, like something future Lady Gaga would sing in that situation.

This is the one time when the sincerity of ARTPOP actually works in its favour, because a line like “I need you more than dope” would sound totally stupid unless you were very, very, very serious in your delivery. It may just be the lack of chugging synths, but ‘Dope’ is sounding like a stand-out track.

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‘Gypsy’

“I don’t want to be alone forever!” howls Gaga, before a hi-nrg synth hook punches you in the face. This one is definitely for the last guy on the dance floor at the world’s saddest gay club.

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‘Applause’

You know how bad the rest of the album is when it’s actually a relief to hear ‘Applause’ at the end. This has not been fun.

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The verdict:

If you’re a really committed Lady Gaga fan, then go ahead and disregard the previous 1200 words, because I’m a basic bitch who can’t appreciate the genius of ARTPOP. If you’re not, then for the love of all that’s holy, stay away.

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Lady Gaga’s new album ARTPOP is officially released via Universal Music on November 8.

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Alasdair Duncan is an author, freelance writer and video game-lover who has had work published in Crikey, The Drum, The Brag, Beat, Rip It Up, The Music Network, Rave Magazine, AXN Cult and Star Observer.