Lady Gaga · Third studio album

ARTPOP13th Anniversary

ARTPOP, 2013Released November 6, 2013 by Streamline and Interscope Records
Lady Gaga in a black-and-white tweed jacket and silver spiked boots, sitting on a throne of circuit boards in front of a large blue gazing ball.

How It Came Together

Lady Gaga called ARTPOP “a celebration and a poetic musical journey”: playful and uninhibited where Born This Way had been mature.

2011

The idea

Work on ARTPOP began almost as soon as Born This Way was out. By the end of 2011 its concepts were “beginning to flourish” with producers Fernando Garibay and DJ White Shadow.

2012

On the road

Gaga kept writing on the Born This Way Ball; by December she had around 50 songs. She wanted the album to feel like “a night at the club”, songs flowing into each other, best heard with friends from start to finish. In August she revealed the title, with a matching tattoo.

2013

The gazing process

A hip injury ended the tour and forced a six-month break. Gaga spent it studying literature and music with the Haus of Gaga, reviewing every idea in what she called a “gazing process”: “I have to gaze into the work for long periods of time for it to be good.”

Koons

Pop meets art

Early in 2013 she brought in Jeff Koons, whom she had met at a Metropolitan Museum of Art event. His cover made Gaga a sculpture with his blue gazing ball, set against fragments of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, with the title hand-collaged in hot pink foil.

Illusions

Inside the case

Koons asked the Japanese psychologist and artist Akiyoshi Kitaoka to make optical illusions for the CD inside: black-and-white patterns that seem to move, one of them printed on the disc itself.

App

A reverse Warholian expedition

ARTPOP also came as an app, built by the Haus of Gaga’s TechHaus, to “bring ARTculture into POP in a reverse Warholian expedition”: music, art, fashion and technology in one place.

Sound

Synth-pop and EDM

Made with DJ White Shadow, Zedd and Madeon, plus Infected Mushroom, RedOne, Rick Rubin, will.i.am and David Guetta: EDM and synth-pop with R&B, techno, industrial and dubstep, about fame, sex and self-empowerment, full of Greek and Roman myth.

Jeff Koons's white sculpture of Venus with a blue gazing ball on her shoulder.
Jeff Koons, Gazing BallThe blue mirror sphere that became ARTPOP’s signature
A black-and-white op-art illusion: a striped circle that seems to float over a checkered field.
Inside the caseIllusions that seem to move, made for the CD
A black-and-white op-art illusion of stripes bending into a tunnel.
Inside the caseBlack-and-white stripes bending into a tunnel

The ARTPOP Era

  1. Aug 12, 2013

    Applause

    The lead single arrives a week early after leaks. It reaches the top ten in more than 20 countries and number four in the US.

  2. Aug 25, 2013

    The VMAs

    Gaga opens the MTV Video Music Awards with Applause, racing through her career in a series of wigs and costumes.

  3. Sep 1, 2013

    SwineFest

    She headlines the iTunes Festival in London for 5,000 fans, debuting new songs; the show later becomes the deluxe edition’s second disc.

  4. Oct 7, 2013

    The cover

    Koons’s cover is unveiled on billboards around the world.

  5. Nov 10, 2013

    ArtRave

    The release party in a Brooklyn Navy Yard warehouse: the TechHaus Volantis flying dress, works by Marina Abramović, Robert Wilson, Inez & Vinoodh and Koons, and a nine-song show.

  6. Nov 2013

    Number one

    ARTPOP enters the Billboard 200 at number one with 258,000 copies, and becomes the ninth best-selling album in the world in 2013.

  7. Nov 28, 2013

    The Muppets

    Lady Gaga and the Muppets Holiday Spectacular: ARTPOP with Elton John, Fashion! with RuPaul and Gypsy with Kermit the Frog.

  8. Mar 2014

    G.U.Y.

    An ARTPOP film shot at Hearst Castle and directed by Gaga: a fallen angel revived in a pool, with Artpop, Venus and Manicure woven in.

  9. Mar 28, 2014

    Roseland

    Seven sold-out nights close New York’s Roseland Ballroom, on a stage covered in roses.

  10. May 4, 2014

    The ARTPOP Ball

    ArtRave: The ARTPOP Ball begins: 79 shows across four continents.

Detail of Bernini's marble Apollo and Daphne: the two heads in profile, her hair turning to laurel leaves.
Apollo and Daphne, Venus and the gazing ball

Bernini’s marble and Botticelli’s goddess, collaged behind Gaga on the Koons cover

Tracklist

  1. 01 AuraZedd, Infected Mushroom, Gaga 3:55Lyrics
  2. 02 VenusGaga, Madeon, Nick Monson 3:53Lyrics
  3. 03 G.U.Y.Zedd, Gaga 3:52Lyrics
  4. 04 Sexxx DreamsDJ White Shadow, Gaga 3:34Lyrics
  5. 05 Jewels n’ Drugsfeat. T.I., Too Short & TwistaDJ White Shadow, Gaga 3:48Lyrics
  6. 06 ManicureDJ White Shadow, Gaga 3:19Lyrics
  7. 07 Do What U Wantfeat. R. Kelly; removed from streaming in 2019DJ White Shadow, Gaga 3:47Lyrics
  8. 08 ArtpopDJ White Shadow, Gaga 4:07Lyrics
  9. 09 SwineDJ White Shadow, Gaga 4:28Lyrics
  10. 10 DonatellaZedd, Gaga 4:24Lyrics
  11. 11 Fashion!Giorgio Tuinfort, will.i.am, David Guetta, Gaga 3:59Lyrics
  12. 12 Mary Jane HollandMadeon, Gaga 4:37Lyrics
  13. 13 DopeRick Rubin, Gaga 3:41Lyrics
  14. 14 GypsyMadeon, Gaga 4:08Lyrics
  15. 15 ApplauseDJ White Shadow, Gaga 3:32Lyrics

15 tracks · 59:04

The Inez & Vinoodh Sessions

Outtakes from the album shoot · 2013

A film roll coming out of a yellow ARTPOP 400 canister, with 17 outtakes from Inez & Vinoodh’s ARTPOP photo shoot: wire-frame glasses and wild hair, an ARTPOP T-shirt and scissors, chains and moss, a circuit-board chair, a pig nose with SWINE on her chest, and gold teeth.

The Koons Sessions

Lady Gaga on the studio floor behind a long blue balloon and a blue gazing ball, while Jeff Koons photographs her.
Lady Gaga kneeling with a blue gazing ball and a long blue balloon.
Lady Gaga standing behind a blue balloon as Jeff Koons takes a photo.
Lady Gaga holding a white lyre-shaped stand with a blue gazing ball.
Lady Gaga with yellow and blue balloons and a gazing ball on a column.

Videos

Bonus