For me, the music quality hasn't dropped. She also delivered 3 decent videos. Anyone would think she just dropped an album and walked away from it. The only thing it lacked that other eras had is more TV performances.
ARTPOP is probably what is universally known as her "weakest" album, although I don't agree or think she actually has one. Pretty much everything post-The Fame Monster has split fans and the GP alike for various reasons. Queen of dividing instead of unifying.
Truly she doesn’t have one Bad Album to me. Even the main reason I don’t listen to ARTPOP much these days is because I overplayed the shit out of it when it was released, but that also happened with Born This Way which is now solidly one of my all time favorites and pretty much objectively her magnum opus, so
I refuse to live in a world where ARTPOP is considered weaker than this by anyone. Not at this stage in the game. I don’t understand the question and I won’t respond to it. You’re one of the only Kindness Pönkz left fighting in the California desert Chromatica landscape for this record, even if Googs isn’t. This thread essentially boiled down to a wasteland of those of us that lost the will to decipher whatever is going on here and let cynicism reign, and the rest who are fighting to hold on to their optimism. Ultimately we all still wanted - and want the same thing from her in the end. My optimism in her isn’t completely dead yet - I hope whatever is next musically can knock us all dead again. Come what may, this thread has been the journey we were promised, even if the era wasn’t. She united us in that at least.
I don’t go back to Born This Way much for reasons outside of the music and Gaga, which makes me very sad, but that’s trauma for you!
ARTPOP indeed destroys Chromatica. It's just has so many more interesting ideas and way higher highs. I like Rain On Me (quite alot), Replay, and Babylon, but are they on the same level as the likes of Artpop, Applause, Venus? Nope. Chromatica did finally cement by love for Joanne though. For a long time, I was in like with it. I liked it a lot but didn't love it. But Chromatica put into full relief just how rich, earthy, and lived in it is.
ARTPOP is just brilliant. It’s bombastic and bizarre, and most of all is a fascinating inner working of where she was at the time, for better or worse. She’s in every nook and cranny of it. It’s almost over ambitious, but you just can’t deny that material. I can’t anyways. It holds such a place in my heart, and knowing it’s the de-facto black sheep with fans at large makes me cherish it even more. My thoughts on Chromatica are well known - a handful of songs feel like instant Gaga classics (namely Rain on Me, Babylon, Replay and 911), and there are also good tracks elsewhere amongst some really awful shite. As a diehard 90s house fan, it severely misses the mark for me and just can’t match up to the five before it. But I’ll save my unabridged op-ed about her discography for the general thread and not pull too much focus away from.... sponsored bubbly x
Just had a flashback to the conversations we had thinking this would sound like a lost Cece Peniston by way of Inner City record. @Andy French Pain. We’ll always have Babylon.
Each new day that dawns without the multitracks leaking so I can make some of my ideas a reality is an act of blatant homophobia. *dejected Babylon loon noise*
Any album that has both Dope and Jewels & Drugs is automatically the weakest overall Gaga record even if it paradoxically houses some of the biggest highlights of her career.
