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Lady Gaga has Recovered from Surgery and Has Some Huge Announcements

Posted by Kayla Tooma on 07/26 at 04:54 PM

This year has been quite tumultuous for Mother Monster.  Some people have been wondering why they haven’t heard from her or seen her throughout the media lately.  For Gaga, 2013 began with such promise—she was nearing the end of her global Born This Way Ball Tour and was finally back in North America, her third studio album ARTPOP was rumored to be out by spring, and her career was going steady on success.  However, in February of this year, Gaga suffered a labral tear in her right hip, a serious injury that resulted in her having to cancel the rest of her tour, go through surgery, postpone her new album, take a break from all media, and be confined to a wheelchair for some time.  Like most of her fans, and someone who had awesome tickets to two of her shows, I was upset by the news.

But five months later, Gaga is back and ready to take over the world once again!  She made a surprise appearance at New York’s Gay Pride Rally, and spoke and sang the national anthem.  But even more exciting is the news she recently announced regarding her new album and new music.  She has announced that the first single off ARTPOP will be released August 19, 2013, the album itself will be out November 11, 2013 and is available for pre-order on September 1, 2013.  To sweeten the pot even more and make her ‘little monsters’ go wild, she released the first promotional image for the album.  It is a stunning photograph by Inez and Vinoodh, featuring Gaga covering herself with her arms, showcasing her “ARTPOP” tattoo, wearing a designer mask, and letting her new fox brown hair cascade over her shoulder.

So what can we expect from ARTPOP?  Well for one, she is continuing to collaborate with RedOne, Fernando Garibay, and the album is being produced by Zedd (artist who gave us the awesome summer hit “Clairty”).  Gaga, a frequent user of Twitter (@ladygaga), tweeted some hints and sneak peaks with which to tease us music-hungry fans with.  She tweeted that she had written over fifty songs to be considered inclusion into ARTPOP, which suggests Mother Monster has been having a creativity storm and we can expect the best of the best of her work, no filler songs.  She’s also mentioned that ARTPOP will differ extremely from her last mega-hit album Born This Way, which dealt with a lot of self celebration and was pretty mature for a pop album.  While in Australia on her tour, she performed a new song, a piano ballad titled “Princess Die” and has stated that if the song were to be included, it would be transformed into a more up-beat dance track.  The song is clearly a nod to the late Princess Diana and dives into dark areas like suicide and the demand of fame.  She’s also tweeted some lyrics from upcoming songs like “’We could be caught, we’re both convicted criminals of thought’ – Sex Dreams” in February and “’It’s been too long since I’ve had a sip and I get this feeling, I need a green detox the truth will be the winner tonight’ –from TEA on ARTPOP” as recent as July 21.  The only other confirmed track is titled “G.U.Y. (Girl Under You)”.

Another interesting part of the upcoming album is that it is going to be released as an album app.  This confused me when I first heard about it, but apparently Gaga is not the first to do such a thing.  Two other albums have been released as apps: Jay-Z’s Magna Carter Holy Grail and Bjork’s (back in 2011) Biophilia.  While I think the idea of creating a interactive experience with music is innovative, it can also be very dangerous.  I would hope the album would be available on iTunes and in stores, but the app would create inequality to those who do not have smart phones or tablets, and Gaga’s has been stated to be designed specifically for the tablet, although it is also available on smart phones.  Could this be a huge mistake or a huge innovation?  An album app would cost quite a lot of money to make and if it is not as popular as an iTunes download or a physical copy, Mother Monster could have some trouble.

I’m not entirely sure what to expect on ARTPOP.  Gaga is somewhat unpredictable which is both alluring, but sometimes off-putting.  The Fame is undoubtedly her most mainstream-type album, but with a refreshing edge.  With Born This Way, she began to lose some people and it started to seem more gimmicky than artistic.  Her music videos became ten-minutes or longer, contained irrelevant and confusing imagery, and seemed to just be strange with no purpose, message, or real vision.  I hope Gaga regains control over her extreme creativity, so that ARTPOP will be slightly more controlled and not just a mash up of every thought and image that comes to her mind.