Lady Gaga’s back, and she’s more outrageous than ever. Her newest album, “ARTPOP,” which debuted earlier this month, pushes the envelope, integrating thumping bass with guttural chanting and bizarre lyrical analogies.
Gone are the days when simply raising eyebrows satisfied the self-proclaimed “fame monster.” Now, she’s still shooting for the shock factor, but she’s calling it art. Gaga said she wanted the album to fuse artistic culture and pop music, “a reverse of Warhol.”
Whether her vision came to fruition is questionable, but “ARTPOP” is certainly more experimental than Gaga’s previous albums. She explores the lyrical limits of sex and drugs while keeping her listeners engaged with reverberating underlying beats, on which David Guetta and Will.i.am collaborated.
But her quest for ground-breaking unconventionality crosses into the shadows of crudity and tactlessness — 10 out of her 15 tracks bear a red iTunes “explicit” warning. Even the vulgarity isn’t as controversial as the lewd, narcotic-saturated content of the album, however. Sleazy “Sexxx Dreams” and suggestive “Mary Jane Holland” aren’t exactly family-friendly.
Though several of the songs are dissonant and offensive, a few winners hide among the synthesized rhythms and innuendo. “Gypsy” is especially addictive — Gaga masterfully blends fist-pumping beats, explosive vocals and cohesive lyrics in this dance-pop earworm. Furthermore, as opposed to some of the more dramatic tracks on the album, the track’s theme of nomadic wandering is pleasantly relatable. Other high-energy, rhythmically appealing songs on the album are title track “ARTPOP” and hit single “Applause.”
On “ARTPOP,” Gaga is perhaps most successful when she shines the spotlight on outside artists. R. Kelly soulfully croons on “Do What U Want,” nicely complimenting the sultry track’s reverberating background beats. Similarly, “Jewels N’ Drugs,” which features T.I., Too $hort and Twista, juxtaposes energetic rhymes with violin chords for a creative, fast-paced rap. Gaga sings the unflappably catchy hook for “Jewels N’ Drugs,” but leaves the bulk of the track to the rappers, suggesting that maybe, when it comes to artpop, less is more.
Characteristic of her performance-centered persona, Gaga released an “ARTPOP Film” after the album as a promotional effort. Gaga went “Wrecking Ball” in the video, covering herself with nothing but tear-streaked black eyeshadow and strategically placed moss. She opens the bewildering, Dadaistic, two-and-a-half minute clip by rasping, “This album is a celebration, my pain exploding in electronic music. It’s heavy, but after I listen to it, I feel happy again. I feel lighter.” Her claimed emotional connection to the album seems somewhat contrived, seeing as most of the tracks are kept afloat by their theatricality, not their emotional intensity.
Ultimately, it would have been nice to hear more creative disco-pop and less lustful rambling, but the album itself isn’t a failure. Gaga can pull off a catchy dance chorus better than many artists today, and the electric, stuck-in-your-head songs from “ARTPOP” are vaguely reminiscent of the artist’s earlier “Bad Romance” and “Poker Face.”
And if the Little Monsters have stuck with Gaga through the meat dress and onstage hatching, they’re probably in it for the long haul.
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