WILLIAM LOUISON

Lady Gaga’s style is known to be just as over-the-top as her music.

Released on Nov. 11, Lady Gaga’s third studio album ARTPOP had the potential to be unattractively outrageous. Instead, the record sees Gaga approaching her music from a different perspective resulting in an sound that is refreshingly underwhelming.

When Gaga debuted her first single “Just Dance” back in 2008, it was joked that she was an alien visiting from another planet. After five years as pop music’s leading lady and having sold 24 million albums and 125 million singles, Lady Gaga has proven that she is here to stay.

Usually engrossed in controversy, Gaga has often been criticized for being too outrageous — both lyrically and in performance — and obsessed with outdoing herself with each new single. 2011’s Born This Way — her most controversial album yet — was so over-the-top that it was almost overwhelming, and not in a good way.

Artpop’s album opener “Aura” is a full-on energized track that sees the singer affirming that “Lady Gaga” is really just an aura of the real person underneath, Stefani Germanotta.

But ARTPOP really begins with its second offering, the sci-fi infused “Venus.” It shows off everything Gaga is known for: a big voice, catchy melody, strong beat and ridiculous lyrics like “Mercury, Venus, Uranus — don’t you know my ass is famous?”

The album continues with “G.U.Y.,” a song that could’ve been on 2008’s The Fame, and the Prince wannabe “Sexxx Dreams.” The latter takes Gaga into new territory musically, giving listeners a taste of her higher register — a place she doesn’t take her voice very often.

The weakest track on ARTPOP is definitely “Jewels N’ Drugs,” Gaga’s three-way collaboration with T.I., Too Short and Twista, as the hip-hop nature of the track feels out of place with the rest of the record’s offerings.

While the first bit of the album is okay, things really pick up when Gaga shows off her fiercer side on “Manicure,” the first in a string of standouts.

“Do What You Want” is Gaga’s edgy duet with the vocally amazing R. Kelly that will leave you wanting more, while the David Bowie-esque “Fashion” slips by almost without much notice. With extremely polished production, the dance-club ready “Swine” and “Donatella” turn into surprise standouts despite their pretentious lyrics.

“Mary Jane Holland” returns to a theme touched on in “Aura” — the facade of Gaga overtop the true Germanotta — and is one last hurrah before things slow right down.

The piano ballad “Dope” follows and has some of the most personal lyrics on the album as Gaga sings of having to choose between drugs and the people that she loves.

After such heavy material, “Gypsy” is just what the album needed to bring joy back into the music. It’s a celebratory toast to diversity right before the finale, “Applause.”

The best the album has to offer, though, is the most understated song of the bunch. Title track “Artpop” directly addresses the marriage of art and pop culture that is a running motif throughout the album.

The song itself sounds a bit like a classic Blondie track, and the similarities here between Gaga’s voice and Debbie Harry’s show the former in a whole new light. This is Lady Gaga as we’ve never heard her before, and “Artpop” is not only the album’s best but could very well be one of the greatest songs Gaga has recorded.

Title track aside, standouts like “Donatella,” “Do What You Want” and “Gypsy” may not compare to hits like “Poker Face” or “Bad Romance” but they do show that Gaga is taking her music further away from mainstream pop and closer towards this ‘artpop’ genre that she has been crafting over the years.

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Photo: Jason H. Smith/flickr