Any act as big as Lady GaGa will always generate polarizing views. However, over the course of her meteoric career, the singer has garnered especially intense scrutiny – thanks to her pronounced flare for Pop experiments (see: ‘Born This Way’).
During an interview with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 1 moments ago, the ‘ARTPOP’ maven addressed the seeming desire of the masses to place her in a musical box. One she refuses to enter.
The performer’s interesting response came during an explanation about how she joined forces with R.Kelly for latest single ‘Do What U Want’. In her answer, the singer veered somewhat off-topic, expressing her frustration at the limits critics and even fans place on her on her material.
An insightful read awaits after the jump…
Via Lady GaGa (On BBC Radio 1):
“ARTPOP is about sharing my artistic process.
People think because I showed up with with a blonde wig and a disco ball that there is no artistic process and that I should shut up and sing Pop songs.
Even in (some) music publications, it makes me crazy when I see them really heralding very artificial, factory driven Pop music. (Such music) is fine. But, then, why can’t I be what I want to be? It doesn’t have to be (you’re) either artifice or not. I think the point is to play with what artifice is.
So…on how the R. Kelly collaboration came about…
I have a really small apartment in Chicago where he’s from. I spend a lot of time there. The main producer of the album DJ White Shadow also comes from there.
(So when working on the album), I got a lot of inspiration from being there. A lot of Hip-Hop and R&B elements started to creep into the album, as did French/German Techno. Bits of everything. It was all natural. How it came together.
I said to everyone after ‘Applause’ came out…I’m such a massive upset to people sometimes and I don’t really know why at all (laughs). So, when I went back in to finish the album, I remember saying…I just want the music to be good! I don’t want to hear any more “what’s the ‘Bad Romance’?”, “what’s the ‘Telephone’?”, “what’s the ‘Pokerface’, the ‘Alejandro’, the ‘Just Dance’?” I don’t want to hear that. Get out. I am an artist, it’s time to move on. We are evolving. I am growing. Get on or off the ship. So, I made ‘Do What U Want With My Body’.
I wrote that song with Paul (DJ White Shadow) and when it was done, I said “well, it’s an R&B song and I’m a White chick from New York, so we better call the King of R&B and see if he likes it”. And he did, he loved it. When he sang on it, it was magical. He’s a very talented person and I feel connected to him because he’s also plagued by other people’s projections of what he is. And that’s what’s really exciting to me about this album. In a way, it’s showing my fans how to have a more detailed and critical eye with music and what they’re looking at.”
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For all the theatrics and shock tactics, it’s warming to see how much of an actual “artist” GaGa is. Of course, this very fact brought us the unfortunate mishap that was the ‘Born This Way’ album, single, and everything attached. However, a true artist wants to evolve and bend the rules — even if it means crashing and burning. A stance GaGa clearly seems at one with.
Thankfully, the material this go round sounds like a solid meeting in the middle of what fans, radio, and the general public love paired with GaGa’s desire to embrace the “new”. The first proper sign of whether it’ll pay off, though, arrives November 11th when ‘ARTPOP’ hits stores.