With 'Perfect Illusion' On The Way, Can Lady Gaga Reclaim Her Spot As Pop's Leading Weirdo?

Get excited, Little Monsters! Radio host Chase Murphy recently announced that Lady Gaga will release a new single within the next 30 days. And yesterday Gaga herself confirmed via Instagram, that new single "Perfect Illusion" will come out in September.

It's been three years since her last solo album, the largely panned, ARTPOP, so it's definitely time for Lady Gaga to reemerge on the pop scene. However the music industry is a different beast than it was in 2013. What can we learn from one of pop's biggest flops and how can Gaga recover and come back bigger than ever?




The failings of ARTPOP have more to do with its marketing than its material. The album may be bloated and approaching tedium at some points, but generally speaking the songs are stronger than they're given credit for. The chorus of " Aura" alone ranks among her catchiest tunes. Thematically there are some issues, however, as the album covers familiar territory for Gaga fans. The lyrics take on gender fluidity ( "G.U.Y."), the allure and power of fame ("Applause"), the creative process and artistic interpretation ("ARTPOP") even class satire ("Donatella"). The problem isn't we haven't heard these ideas before, but that we've heard them in more judiciously edited contexts. After all, The Fame Monster is a lean eight tracks long, nearly half the length of ARTPOP, lending it greater focus and cohesion. With her fifth album rumored to have collaborations from Tame Impala, Mark Ronson and Elton John it may be all over the place sonically, but as long as she keeps the run-time tight and the hooks tighter, she could reclaim her rank as pop's top weirdo queen.

The bigger issue isn't how she'll come back from musical perspective, but how she'll do it from a marketing perspective. In 2016 surprise album drops have become so commonplace, they're hardly a surprise. But it wasn't always the norm. New albums, especially from pop stars as big as Lady Gaga used to be majorly promotional affairs. Month-long rollouts with huge advertising budgets and press coverage galore was standard procedure. And here's where ARTPOP made its biggest mistake of all.



The marketing campaign behind ARTPOP was a full-on spectacle, one that was so exhausting and aggressive that it completely eclipsed the music. There were extravagent raves, the world's first flying dress, a promised performance in outer space and an interactive app (the latter two never came to fruition). Gaga's ubiquity spanned all audiences too. From NSFW modern art projects with Marina Abramovic and a Christmas special with the Muppets, no matter what demographic you belonged to, she was simply inescapable.

Given the media over-saturation, backlash almost seems inevitable. While ARTPOP did make it to No. 1 on Billboard and eventually went triple platinum, it only spawned one major hit, paling in shadow of Gaga's past radio dominance. The public was clearly all Gaga-ed out. This period of tumult was also the result of some behind the scenes drama happening within Gaga's management, ending in her split from longtime manager Troy Carter.

With new material on the way Gaga's silence, (minus an Instagram post) on the matter is definitely a strategic tactic, one formed in direct opposition to ARTPOP's floundering hyper-promotion. It's also in line with the now-standard 'surprise' album drop which came into vogue shortly after ARTPOP and perhaps because of it. In fact a month after its disastrous release, Beyoncé dropped her self-titled album with as little fanfare as possible. At the time that seemed like a radical, nearly unprecedented approach. And while less commercially successful than ARTPOP, the lack of marketing allowed the music to stand on its own with nothing to overshadow it, lending Queen Bey a higher level of artistic credibility and critical acclaim. If the release of ARTPOP and Beyoncé represent one thing its the diametric shift in how major pop albums are not just marketed, but ultimately received, regardless of the content they contain.

While she may be savvily lying low, before the release of her looming fifth LP, Gaga hasn't disappeared completely and that's probably the smartest move she's made so far. With the release of a Tony Bennett duet album (and a possible sequel on the way) she's shifted into the role of standard-baring torch singer. Her part-time gig on American Horror Story, the only vestige of her weirdo personae, is relegated to an acting role. It's a shrewd compartmentalization of the Gaga we once publicly knew, and one that's hopefully a tease of re-emergence to come.

Related News

Lady Gaga's "Applause" Out A Week Early: Listen Here

Listen to Gaga's catchy new single a week before its official release. ...More