WILLIAM LOUISON

Along with the release of Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP album comes the highly publicized ARTPOP application for iOS and Android devices, a crossover trend that’s been spreading heavily in the music scene.

According to the iTunes page, the app is a “musical and visual engineering system that combines music, art, fashion and technology with a new interactive worldwide community — ‘the auras.’”

The App Store and Google Play listing expands on the details of the app, explaining Gaga’s desire to bring a reverse sort of Warhol expression merged with her album using his brand of popular media manipulation.

The ARTPOP app begins with a virtual host named Petga who introduces you to the app and “scans your aura” while asking a few relatively short questions about the user’s characteristics and preferred artistic expression.

The app allows users to build and share their own projects as well as chat with one another. Although the ARTPOP app is — in typical Gaga fashion — the biggest and most complex app of its kind, it’s only the latest in a growing trend of interactive album apps.

The trend was pushed into the limelight in 2011 with Björk’s Biophilia app. It allowed users to interact with each song on the album in a unique way that involved exploring the themes of each song, playing a game for each song and constructing their own version.

It is only recently, however, that this trend has really started to take off. Jay Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail app is not nearly as interactive or creative as Gaga’s, but it does suggest that big name artists are beginning to see the potential in developing apps for their albums.

Another recent artist to jump on the train is Canadian new wave band Metric. Hoping their newest release Synthetica Reflections can bring them back into the spotlight, this month Metric released an accompanying app for their 2012 album, called Synthetica, which expands on Björk’s original ideas. The Synthetica app lets users create their own versions of songs from the album, encouraging creativity and artistic expression.

There has been much speculation on whether or not these apps will have any lasting effect on the music industry, but expectations for these interactive album apps were certainly blown out of proportion.

Apps like these may be fun for die-hard fans, but their full impact has still not been felt.

Before release, many believed the ARTPOP app would change the future of the music business. But now that it’s gone live, this idea seems a little far-fetched. Some fans may love the opportunity to explore their creative side, but beyond all of that, an application does not seem like a convenient way to listen to music — especially on devices that are already far overcrowded with hundreds of other apps that hardly see any use at all.

Björk, Gaga, Jay Z and Metric’s apps all focus in on one thing: the album as a whole. In reality only the most loyal of fans are likely going to purchase the album in its entirety.

The music world today is one of singles. Music listeners love being able to pick and choose only the songs they wish to buy, having the comfort of accessibility to instantly buy that one song they heard on the radio.

It’s probably safe to say that these album apps will not change the future of music, or even the future of the album. What they will do is be enjoyed by devoted fans — and that has to count for something.

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Graphic: Cody Schumacher/Graphics Editor