Lady Gaga’s long-awaited ARTPOP project finally has a release date. Mother Monster’s third studio album is slated to arrive November 11 with pre-order offers beginning September 1. The upcoming record’s lead single, the title of which has yet to be revealed, drops on August 19. And, as SPIN noted way back in 2012, Gaga’s Born This Way follow-up will be a multimedia experience complete with an app for iPad, iPhone, and other mobile devices, as well as computers. But what do we actually know about one of the year’s most anticipated full-lengths? Burning questions below.
What’s featured in the ARTPOP app?
Gaga paired the release date announcement with a mostly helpful (but kind of batshit) explanation of the LP’s interactive element. The excerpted statement (via Facebook) reads:
Built by TechHAUS, the technological branch of HAUS OF GAGA, the app itself is a musical and visual engineering system that combines music, art, fashion, and technology with a new interactive worldwide community — “the auras”. Altering the human experience with social media, we bring ARTculture into POP in a reverse Warholian expedition.
Exploring Gaga’s existence as a cultural interface, the user will share in the ‘adrenaline of fame’ as they build and share their own projects, chat with one another, and watch in real-time on a virtual globe as ARTPOP explodes onto the physical and virtual universe at once on November 11, our “BIG BANG!” On this day HAUS OF GAGA venges with forte to bring the music industry into a new age; an age where art drives pop, and the artist once again is in control of the ‘icon.’
Last year, when Gaga first announced that she’d be taking a cue from Björk’s multimedia Biophilia album, she promised to continually upload new content to the app. “The most major way to fully immerse yourself in ARTPOP is through the app,” Gaga wrote in a statement on her Little Monsters social network. “You inspired me to create something that communicated with images, because YOU do, YOU communicate with me and each other with GIFs and pictures, and artwork, graphics ALL DAY 24/7/ YOU’RE AN ARTPOP GENERATION.”
The technologically challenged can be a part of the ARTPOP generation, too — the album will also be available in traditional physical and digital formats.
Who helped Gaga birth her latest creation?
As SPIN noted last year, ARTPOP once again paired Gaga with longtime collaborator Fernando Garibay. EDM superstar Zedd also worked on the collection, telling MTV back in January that he had been involved in the LP for more than a year. “I did about 10 ideas, and they were all between almost finished songs up to the piano,” he said. And this past May, Gaga posted a photo of herself in the studio with producer and songwriter Dallas Austin (ABC, TLC, Michael Jackson, Madonna), according to Idolator. Here’s the rest of that Facebook statement:
In turn, the album ARTPOP musically mirrors Gaga’s creative process as she passes through the mediums of each artist she collaborates with, scoring a blueprint of her journey. The result, a “rage” of electronic passion and fury, defining each artistic process from beginning to end, ARTPOP could mean anything. But for her, this is a celebration of obsession. And on November 10, she will host an evening of artRave exhibiting Haus of Gaga’s projects as well as collaborations with Inez & Vinoodh, Robert Wilson, Marina Abramovic, Jeff Koons.
Which tracks will appear on it?
Probably not “Princess Die,” the tragic tune Gaga debuted in June of 2012. “I don’t think ‘Princess Die’ will make the cut, but I wrote another version … that is uptempo … totally different song,” she wrote in a Little Monsters post last October. “‘Princess Die’ isn’t as good as all the other songs I wrote.” One song expected to appear is “G.U.Y. (Girl Under You),” a track that Mama Monster casually brought up in an interview with Stylist last fall, but neglected to describe in detail.
A finalized track list for ARTPOP hasn’t been released, but the record will likely feature a ton of material, since Gaga claimed on Twitter to have written about 50 songs for possible inclusion. The chart-topper has also toyed with the idea of splitting the album into two volumes that would be released six months apart, à la Justin Timberlake, with one disc indulging her artier impulses and another for her poppier instincts. “I can’t decide how to tracklist it yet,” she revealed last year (via Gaga Daily). “Sort of thinking that vol. 1 should have all the commercial songs and save all the experimental material for vol. 2.”
How serious is Lady Gaga about the album’s title being capitalized?
Very. After announcing the upcoming record’s title last year via permanent tattoo on her body, Gaga tweeted, “make sure when writing about my new album/project ARTPOP that you CAPITALIZE the title *its all in the details* good morning twitter!”
How has Indonesia influenced it?
Not our first question either, but it’s one Gaga can answer. “I love indonesian monsters, they inspired some songs on ARTPOP,” she explained on Little Monsters back in October (via Pop Crush). “I was really inspired by the conflict we had with indonesia so I wrote some songs about it but their more metaphorical and conceptual about bringing people together, both are dance songs, one song is a complextro masterpiece and the other is a hip-hop/j-pop/pop song.” Mama Monster added, “And it’s not hip-hop in the way you know, it’s more underground chicago gay club trap and it’s very different from Azealia Banks music because she’s more 90’s house.” Thanks for clearing that up.
