I wasn’t interested in the album with Bennett, but if that was what she wanted to do, then I applaud her for that. Dabbling is good. Be creative and all that.
Being able accept the realities of Yin and Yang and accept one’s peak is healthy. Maybe she’s done that. Michael Jackson didn’t and wanted to top “Thriller” with “Bad.” If he’d accepted his peak, then perhaps his life would have gone in a better direction, who knows.
I do get why she’s popular: she’s a good singer, songwriter, and performer. She deserves an audience. What I don’t get is the mega-popularity. She doesn’t really have an appealing personality a la Katy Perry et al.
I agree that songwriting is key. Taylor has hooked up with Max Martin and other qualified tunesmiths to put out some hits. I understand the hits but not the fervor. Actually, it’s a bit weirder than that. No one seems so very crazy about Swift, yet she has sold in such high numbers. She seems strangely mediocrely popular for being so popular.
I think there is always this collective hunger for things to get into as a society, and she was good enough for the time. Hey, some of those songs and videos were great. Masterpieces, even. But few artists can pull off what, say, the Beatles did: keep changing and growing at the right pace to keep people interested while maintaining high quality across the board. So we get these shooting stars like Gaga.
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I do get why she’s popular: she’s a good singer, songwriter, and performer. She deserves an audience. What I don’t get is the mega-popularity. She doesn’t really have an appealing personality a la Katy Perry et al.
I’d argue that Gaga’s hits were far more interesting (as pop music goes) than Katy Perry’s. They were just a slight bit different - maybe more dance music than traditional pop music.
I’d also argue about the “no one seems so very crazy about Swift” - her fans are nuts, which goes a lot way to explaining the amazing sales numbers she pulls down.
I don’t fully understand the question. She needs to be back in order to be considered “back?”
If she changes her style to fit in with what’s current, or does something completely different to put her previous work or newer artists current work to shame. There’s a lot of different factors that go into these things. Controversy, style, marketing, looks, etc go a long way. I was never even checking for Miley Cyrus but because of all the controversy of her MTV Awards performance and the supposed nudity in “Wrecking Ball” I eventually come around to being exposed to her music.
Also, people get tired of artists once they make a big enough splash and want to move onto something new, regardless of whether or not the music is still great. Michael Jackson became a phenomenon with “Thriller” but never neared that high with “Bad” or any other subsequent album. Snoop Doggy Dogg blew up with his first album but never made it back to that initial success. It’s also difficult to repeat that first big success because the fans’ expectations build up so much that it’s almost impossible to live up to them, which I think is what happened with Artpop.
I think us fans worry too much about music artists’ fame and number 1 status. I mean, if Artpop had spawned a bunch of hits and sold more than her previous three albums what effect would it have on your enjoyment of the music? Make it better? Is it because we’re inclined to disassociate ourselves with losers or unsuccessful things, even though the latter can be interpreted in a variety of ways?
Born This Way had some really ugly cover art, and Artpop was kind of generic. Google Lady Gaga Artpop album covers, and the ones fans have made look way better than the official version.
The problem is you’re comparing her work now with what was some of the biggest hits in the world in the past few years. I don’t think she’ll equal that, but I think she’ll make plenty of songs that make money and sell a lot but never reach the heights of when she was brand new and at her apex.
Yeah, that Dylan will never last.
Not so informed about music, let alone pop music, to have much idea about Gaga ever having been gone or not … not one of the ones my thirteen year old listens to much and my older boys are more … divergent … in their tastes. But voice to the last the ages seems a small part of star quality durability.
From the first time I saw her I’ve felt that she enjoys the visual side of it far more than the music side. her videos are like one unending college video major who can’t find the exit door.
Good to see her with Tony Bennett. Maybe she needed to change it up a bit.
My thoughts, too. Used to be she was everywhere. Now, she’s nowhere. She had her time, and now it’s someone else’s time. She doesn’t have the staying power of real stars like the Kardashians.
I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.
Fair enough, although I like Perry too.
I guess I don’t know them. It doesn’t feel like a Michael Jackson type thing in the “Thriller” era, where he seemed widely popular.
Yeah, there is also a Yin and Yang thing at work: you arc up, you arc down. Mathematically, it’s inevitable. The only other choice is to go out on a high, but you’re still out. Or, like Tony Bennett, you can have a peak and then a slow burn for a long time. That’s rare but doable.
In rare cases, comebacks can take you higher than your original point. Which was more popular: Neil Sedaka in the 50s or 70s? Hard to say.
The best thing to do is play the peak intelligently. “Hey, we’re never going to be bigger than this, so how do we integrate that into the chess game of our careers?” But the business interests behind artists don’t really support that.
I see Artpop as Gaga just not having the tunes. This happens to most bands at some point. The question is how often do they realize it? (That is an interesting theoretical question and worthy of a thread of its own: do artists become blind at some point and think dull tunes are “hooky”? Or can they continue to tell the difference? I’m sure it depends on the individual.)
Yeah, it’s amazing the number of horrible album covers that were released over the years from big artists. Sometimes it’s a matter of taste–“What were they thinking?”–but sometimes they just look cheap and half-assed.
I have not listened to Artpop but through sheer cultural osmosis I feel like I know the two songs “Applause” and “Gypsy” fairly well. And I think both songs are quite good.
Looking it up, I see that “Gypsy” wasn’t even released as an official single so I have no idea how I’ve come to know that one so well. “Applause” was released as a single a year and a half ago- before the release of the album- and I still hear it played regularly.
But no one has reached Michael Jackson “Thriller” heights. It’s the #1 selling album of all time. FWIW, I don’t know if it makes any sense to claim someone doesn’t seem all that popular but sells well.
Now granted, Gaga’s “The Fame”/“The Fame Monster” sold 15mil copies, but “Born this Way” sold 6mil, the same as Taylor Swift’s “Red”.
Swift’s “1989” sold more albums in its first week than any album since 2002. That, of course, includes any of Gaga’s.
In this day and age, I don’t think there is a more popular (or bankable) star.
Perhaps the question of a Gaga comeback is, as stated above thread, you are comparing the monster of “The Fame/Monster” against everything else she’s done.
Run your “not serious” meter over the message. It should peg when it hits the word Kardashians.
Yes, I think that’s a recommendable approach to take, at the least, from a financial point of view, as long as you’re not short changing yourself. The label and artist might invest X amount of money in the hopes that the sequel to the diamond selling first album is going to match those sales, only to find it’s not even half as successful.
A few artists approaches spring to mind, Kanye West for example. “My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy” was really successful, and after so many years, maybe he felt he couldn’t top that, at least not immediately after so his next album was completely experimental, which turned off some fans, but I think he was successful, because everything from the cd package design, to the marketing for it was really unique. He chose to something,.
Prior to that he had took a break from the public eye because of his slight towards Taylor Swift, and I think that was good because when “My Beautiful…” came out he felt brand new again.
I’ve wondered that myself. It could be they get too insulated and can’t see the trees for the forest.
I used to be a big fan of hip-hop, and when certain artists would follow up, not only with lackluster follow ups, but even bad music videos, I’d get so frustrated and think, “why didn’t they go with this approach!! It seems so obvious!”
Me personally, I actually like a number of songs from Artpop. I don’t know if it’s the cover that made them somehow sound less special though, or I’m just comparing it songs like Alejandro. The reason why I didn’t buy the album: 1) I’ve begun to stop supporting artists who promote violence, misogyny, and/or the illegal drug trade, specifically cokes sales that fuel the cartel violence in Mexico. There is other subject matter that would make me not support an artist but those subjects that I mentioned seem to be the most prevalent in the music that I either grew up on, or continue to hear played. So when I saw Too $hort and T.I. on the album I didn’t want anything to do with it, especially when it’s called “Jewels, N Drugs.” Probably a metaphor but I think it’s crazy that in a day an age when we have violence against women, and schools getting shot up all the time, you would have one artist on your album who was caught buying guns illegally and who got off light because he was rich, and the other a guy who raps about pimping “bitches.”
Thanks for not disregarding that point. Most people tell me it’s stupid to talk about the cover, it’s only the music that counts, which is true on the last part, but I feel that the cover sets a certain mood for the music and helps, even slightly, to sell the album.
Apparently Artpop’s cover does not feature Lady Gaga but instead, a detailed statue of her constructed by a famous artist. I would never have known. It just looked to me like a generic 90s looking cover. I really liked the covers for “Fame Monster” and “The Remixes” because they were very sleek looking, fashionable, and artistic.
Born This Way looked like a joke album or something you’d see in the CD section at Big Lots or Dollar Tree.
One more thought before I end this lengthy post. As good as an artists music is, I think it’s controversy that keeps many of them relevant. Kanye West’s album cover was banned and censored, he featured a naked Kim Kardashian in his music video.
Miley Cyrus looked like she lost her mind at the MTV awards and because she was twerking and doing all kinds of sexual stuff. Then she was supposedly naked in wrecking ball.
And Madonna is probably the best example. I was a kid when she came out but she was always involved in crazy stunts outside of her music. She put out “Erotica” I think or “Sex” and she made a book where she’s naked and it comes across like soft porn. Then she wore a dress where her breasts were showing. She got into the Kabbalah and converted to another religion.
I had not heard Gypsy until today (listened to it due to your influence!)… I would call it “OK.” How do artists release “singles” these days, anyway–do they just say something is a single? Presumably, every individual song will be available on iTunes, etc.
“Applause”… people were primed for some new Gaga, and I guess that was the best she could do.
Both songs are competent, just not first-tier Gaga IMHO.
Oh, I know that she is popular. Thing is… I don’t know anyone who likes her, and she seems to have a lot of haters. I could “feel” the popularity of a band like One Direction a little more. I actually did not hate Swift’s music or anything. I think “Shake It Off” is a great-sounding track, but the lyrics kinda ruin it for me: narcissistic, plus a straw-man version of what haters would say. (“I stay out too late.” People aren’t concerned about when a 20-something goes home too late. “I got nothing in my brain.” I haven’t heard people accuse Swift of being dumb, at least not IQ-wise. “I go on too many dates.” No, just go through men like socks and then right nasty songs about them, etc.)
That is amazing. I don’t get who is buying that–buncha pre-teen girls? Every pre-teen girl in the country?!
Yeah, I don’t quite get where that mega-popularity is coming from…
No, she just doesn’t seem to be at the center of pop culture as she was not too long ago.
Is this the “Yezus” CD? Good point about Kanye. The man understands style.
You gotta take a stand.
There was never an excuse for a shitty cover, since record companies proved themselves capable of creating beautiful full-color covers from the 1950s onward (the first LPs coming out in 1948). Nevertheless, I can understand some hit-or-miss graphic design until the 90s or so. Now, however, there is no excuse for anything but brilliance. (Sometimes brilliant is simple, however.)
Didn’t know that.
Verily.
Yeah, and the human/motorcycle cross had been done before. It just looked effin’ stupid.
That is hard to say. If it draws attention to product that can be sold, then yes. If the tunes are total crap, that will only go so far (though they could sells themselves like the Kardashians for reality TV, etc.