In the interest of
fairness, I should let you know that a lot of people think Lady Gaga’s new
album, ARTPOP, is really good. Even
if you remove her obviously diehard “little monster” fans and the listeners who
just ride and die for anything with her name on it, there’s an irrefutable appreciation
for this release. Other people however have been absolutely craving and fixated
on the possibility for the all-caps version of ARTPOP to fail miserably. While I’m sure there’s savvy listeners
heavily invested in Gaga’s music and willing to point out some purely fascinating
moments within the album, what I’ve spent my time listening to is an album
pinballing from “alright” to “okay” to “decent.”
This an album again
inspired excessively by her perceptions of fame and if the ambiguity of the
title ARTPOP doesn’t spell that out for you (as it doesn’t for me), Gaga
prefers to say, “My artpop could
mean anything.” Certainly the shifts in tone and perspective across the collection songs
add something to the Gaga experience, but proves to be less of a spell binding
fusion of “art” and “pop” and more of a boring, unnecessary combination.
Such is presented within the hiccuping beats and fake British accent of
“Swine,” whose chorus also falters on both creativity and catchiness with such
lyrics as “You’re just a pig inside a human body. Squealer,
squealer, squeal out, you’re so disgusting!” Put the production of “Swine” and her vocals together and everything
becomes dull, colorless, and lifeless — as if it were a motionless field of grass
photographed in gray-scale — and no amount of vocal acrobatics can combat
that.
Well, maybe a few can: the
belting on “Venus” saves the choppy production techniques from an all out
blunder of a song; perfectly overlapping vocals on “Sexxx Dreams” keep the song
alive, yet still seems more of a tongue-in-cheek album filler; and finally, “Donatella” has its vocal peaks that unfortunately get clouded by scratching
electronic pulses midway through the choruses. Even when Gaga’s voice is at its
best in these songs, they still feel hollow and strained, with all of the lyrics
referencing some sort of sexual experience or fantasy. The lyrical content isn’t
necessarily the bad part of these tracks either; it’s how the expensive
workmanship and fine-tuning were still able to leave distasteful voids within
the songs.
Oddly enough, one of the
strongest tracks on ARTPOP, “Do What
U Want,” has Gaga singing her same old self-dependent messages, however, she
eerily sounds submissive when singing “You can’t have my heart. And you won’t
use my mind but do what you want with my body,” instead of defiant. Unlike some
of the previous songs suffering from a discord between production and vocals,
this one matches harmoniously with the velvety smooth voice of R&B superstar
R. Kelly gracing the track. Another stand out is the club mixed power ballad
“Gypsy,” which shines from Gaga bellowing about standing up for what you want
and trusting your natural instincts.
When I first heard
“Applause,” I was hoping it was just a bad choice for a single. Sure it was
entertaining to a degree and the chorus was completely sing along and
radio-friendly, but it was nowhere close to the standards of her previous songs
“Bad Romance” or “Poker Face.” After listening to the full album, it seems
fitting that this was the lead track as the other ones don’t measure up to
single status, although “Applause” barely manages to grip the title itself.
No matter how many
look-at-me-tactics Lady Gaga implores, sometimes the best way to be cutting edge
is to tone it down and stick to the basics. Many of the songs are a failure by
design, mostly suffering from Gaga’s excessive obsession with out of the box creativity
leading to overwhelmingly complex production techniques that kill any chance
the songs had at being euphonious. But the flamboyancy comes with the territory
and even though ARTPOP is a bit of a flop, Gaga will surely return with another radio hit sometime in
the future.
Grade: C-
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