Lady Gaga's "Artpop" (Or ... won't they revoke our "Audiophile" Membership for this ... ?)

Mass-Market Pop music ... but you know what?  It's pretty good.

With many "refined pleasures" there is often a "High" and "Low" ... and in music there is as well.  It's hard to imagine, I know, that many of the people who put together stereo systems that rival the price of a really nice car, listen to (and develop tastes for!) music that is as far away from Pop as Pat Robertson is from the latest meeting of Pagans United.

But it is true.  In the audiophile world, Jazz is the most "popular" followed by "Blues" and "Classical."  There is special dispensation given for any music that is 20 years old or older.  Which serves a lot of music buffs, since it allows someone license to enjoy the music of their childhood.

So it is a big step for us to admit that we both enjoy pop music.  ("Pop... pop... pop music") We risk having our audiophile card revoked for this admission, but I'm tired of keeping this aspect deep in the closet. (Speak for yourself. I love Pop, and I wear that badge proudly. Besides, closets are dark and scary.)

Most people prefer THEIR
meat dresses, tanned. Just sayin'

So with emrgence to daylight, we'd like to bring attention to a hot-off-the-presses release by none other than Lady Gaga. You know, the star that wore a meat-dress to a major awards show, and is managing to out-Madonna, Madonna (who we did notice was right here in the HDTracks download in high resolution ... I do suppose the majority of her work has crossed the 20 year mark, the amount of time that Pop is required to wait before it can be played on a high end system openly).

(From the Guardian) - Artpop Lady Gaga?
Didn't anyone else "get it?"

Ok ... all joking aside, the new album ArtPop is actually pretty good music, and doesn't sound bad at all.  It has crunchy beats, a lot of electronic processing, and is very enjoyable.  We're not dancing to it, but much of it could easily be played in a club.  Even a Silent  Disco...

We've noticed that the album has had generally positive but mixed reviews.  We actually feel that the Album is greater than the sum of its parts. If taken in parts, most of the songs are derivative, each different enough and showing a great deal of performing breadth, but it seems a rather confused mixture.  But if the songs are taken as a whole, you see Lady Gaga taking on nearly every sub-genre of music and nearly every topic that is warmed and rewarmed in most pop music.  The "tells" that there is more going on than meets the eye is the song "ARTPOP" and the last song "Applause."  Lady Gaga is putting on and taking off these subgenres with performances that vary from competent to excellent like costume changes at one of her concerts. At first with ARTPOP she teases that her artpop could be "anything" ... as if to coyly draw people into the second half of the album, where she slams out more subgenres criticizing fashion, and then ends with introspective, mostly-acoustics songs.  Then all is revealed with "Applause" - it was all a put on.  She is doing everything and anything to get a rise out of the audience - giving it all up - for the "applause."  The album construction is actually very rare these days where it is often all about the "single."  We'd feel neither here nor there about most of the songs individually, but we detect a 1970's era album arc with a wink and tongue firmly in cheek.  After all, that's another thing that is meant to elicit applause in the audience.

We found a link to her Applause video, that I think says it better than we can write it, once you hear the whole album.

Artpop, indeed !