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ARTPOP is the fourth studio album by Lady Gaga, which was released on November 11, 2013. Gaga first introduced the album as a multimedia project with an application for mobile among other things that would be revealed throughout the album campaign. The album includes production by DJ White Shadow, Madeon, Rick Rubin, Zedd, will.i.am and Gaga herself.

The recording of the album began in 2011 while Gaga was on tour promoting "Born This Way" and after the cancellation in 2013 until the second weeks of October. The album's lead single, "Applause," was scheduled to be released on August 19, 2013, and the album along with the app was set to drop on November 11 of the same year. Due to snippets of "Applause" being leaked online prior to its release, Gaga was forced to release the song a week early. On October 7, 2013, the album cover was unveiled on Clear Channel billboards around the world. On October 9, the tracklist of the album was released.

Background

Shortly after the release of Born This Way in May of 2011, Gaga revealed in interviews that she was ready to make another album.

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Recording a song in her hotel room on August 22, 2012.

During an interview in the press room of the 2011 MuchMusic Video Awards, held on June 19, 2011, Lady Gaga announced that she had already begun writing new songs. Over the course of the year, through various interviews, Gaga talked about continuously writing more and more material for a future album. On March 23rd, Gaga tweeted "#MyFavoriteGagaAlbumIs The next one." 12:34 PM via web Learn more

Inspiration

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Photos posted on Little Monsters in 2012.

In an interview with Access Hollywood in 2012, Gaga describe themes which were being explored for the album:

"I'm fascinated with the decay of the blonde pop icon and how culture loves to build and give birth to fantasies and then destroy them and what that means. It's something I want to explore on my next album.

The theme described match the lyrics of "Princess Die" and apart from that song, the information revealed later in the year indicated a less darker tone. It is unknown if these songs written with that theme are still considered or were discarted. Learn more

Release

Originally scheduled for 2012, Gaga's fourth album was released wordlwide on November 11, 2013. ARTPOP, was revealed on August 3, 2012 by uploading a photo of her new tattoo. The cover was unveiled on October 7, 2013 on giant outdoor billboards belonging to Clear Channel in 18 cities in 12 countries. The track list was unveiled on October 9, 2013. For the occasion, Gaga asked a few fans to do a mural with the song titles on it.

Simultaneously as the album release, an application of the same title was released online for download on mobile stores. The application will allow fans to listen to the album and create their own artworks in the "artHAUS", with new updates to come in the near future. During the creation of the album, Gaga expressed her desire to release the album in two volumes, this plan is still under consideration. Learn more

Title and Artwork

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It was less than a week that she had hit me [after Born This Way]... and she literally sent me [the note] 'The next album's called ARTPOP.' She had the name and the general concept for the record a week after Born This Way came out.

—DJWS to MTV News in 2013

On June 8th, Gaga posted on Twitter that she had played the new record to her record label and will release the title of the album in September. On June 29, 2012, Gaga sent pizza and wine along with a tweet:

Sending down pizzas for Melbourne monsters at the hotel. Eat up, warm up I love u! Keep singing its divine!
3:21 AM via Twitter for iPad

and a handwritten notes:

"Dear Little Monsters, sending you love and pizza. Stay warm and enjoy. Thank you for all your lovely songs and dedication. Love + ARTPOP. Lady Gaga. June 29 2013"

On August 3, 2012, in a Little Monsters chat, she reveals that "ARTPOP" is the new album title and she got a tattoo of the name. On August 5, 2012, she tweeted that she wants the album to have all capitalized letters, so she wants it to be designed as "ARTPOP".

ARTPOP album artwork

Cover art by Jeff Koons (2013)

On August 30, 2012, Gaga explained on a picture comment on Little Monsters that the cover of the album will be colorful. During her interview with Elle (October 2013), Gaga revealed that Jeff Koons is “making a sculpture of me, and it’s going to be my album cover.

The album cover includes a cropped version of the "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli with a black and white series of photographs of "Apollo & Daphne" by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, "Lady Gaga" written in pink and "ARTPOP" written in white sprawled across the cover, with a blue Gazing Ball (one of her props in her VMA performance) and the sculpture of Gaga by Jeff Koons. Learn more

Track list

Prior to the unveiling of the track list, Gaga had revealed nearly all of the songs name randomly through Twitter, Little Monster and Instagram from 2012 to 2013. Except for the song "Fashion!", which was still unknown before the track list was made available.

The track list was revealed later at 9pm PST on October 9th, 2013. For the event, Gaga asked some dedicated fans she nicknamed the "LA Rivington Rebels" to paint a mural in the parking lot of the Record Plant with the track list on it. Learn more

No. Title Length
1. "Aura" (Explicit) 3:55
2. "Venus" (Explicit) 3:53
3. "G.U.Y." (Explicit) 3:52
4. "Sexxx Dreams" (Explicit) 3:34
5. "Jewels N' Drugs" (feat. T.I., Too $hort, and Twista) (Explicit) 3:48
6. "MANiCURE" 3:19
7. "Do What U Want" (feat. R. Kelly) (Explicit) 3:47
8. "ARTPOP" 4:07
9. "Swine" (Explicit) 4:28
10. "Donatella" (Explicit) 4:24
11. "Fashion!" 3:59
12. "Mary Jane Holland" (Explicit) 4:37
13. "Dope" (Explicit) 3:41
14. "Gypsy" 4:08
15. "Applause" 3:32

Singles

  1. "Applause" (August 12, 2013), cover by Inez and Vinoodh.
  2. "Do What U Want" (October 21, 2013), cover by Terry Richardson.
  3. "Venus" (October 27, 2013), sequence of covers by Steven Klein.
  4. "Dope" (November 4, 2013), cover by Inez and Vinoodh.
  5. "G.U.Y." (April 8, 2014), cover by Meeno Peluce.

App

For more, see the ARTPOP app page.
ARTPOP App Icon

ARTPOP app icon

Gaga revealed in September of 2012, her intention to release an application for mobile on Android and iOS compatible devices with ARTPOP. She hired Relative Wave and her newly created company TechHaus for the project. The back end development is handled by Cloud City Development. These teams worked together for 12 months to create the app.

On launch date, Gaga explained that some of the features were not included in order to test the server capacity and that they would be released in the next "few weeks".

Discography
Studio albums
Collaborative albums
Soundtracks
EPs
Compilation
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