ArtRave deconstructed

When she stops dicking about, Lady Gaga is a fantastic pop star. And I'm not alone in thinking that. Watching Twitter yesterday as her album finally came out, the consensus seemed to be "Amazing, but inconsistent". And there were a lot of tweets like this:

Just took #ArtPop from a 5/10 to a 8/10 by deleting a few songs. Thanks Spotify. pic.twitter.com/O7gREhYfUA

— kiramadeira (@kiramadeira) November 11, 2013

Amongst all the personalised tracklists, there were a few consistencies: Sexxx Dreams and Gypsy were permanent fixtures, while the flimsy Donatella was unceremoniously rejected. And who am I to argue? Gypsy is my personal favourite - a refinement of the country-glam-rock-pop-power-ballad formula that gave Born This Way it's best moments. While Sexxx Dreams sounds like the sort of thing Prince would have dashed off in the 80s to get Sheena Easton under his Paisley sheets.

Those songs were also the highlights of Gaga's ArtRave album launch "event" on Sunday (it was ambitious but flawed, imagine that). The whole performance is a bit tedious to be honest but, luckily, Gaga has chopped it all up into digestible chunks and bunged it on YouTube. Some samples follow...

Lady Gaga - Gypsy


Lady Gaga - Sexxx Dreams


Lady Gaga - Applause

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