“The First Lady of Pop” by Chaz Harris After the stellar first two album releases from Lady Gaga, “The Fame” and “The Fame Monster” I have to admit that this Little Monster was quite disappointed and underwhelmed with a lot of the album tracks that came out on “Born This Way”. To this day, I tend to skip through most of them when I’m playing the CD in my car. On listening to “Artpop” for the first time, imagine my delight to discover that this album appears to be a return to form. Perhaps a forced hiatus due to an injured hip over the past year has allowed Gaga to pause for thought and spend more time working on this album? In any case, this is an album that delivers with catchy fun pop songs that I’ve happily sat through when writing this. “Artpop” feels like a much more coherent piece of storytelling, has a fun and uplifting feel about it more so than Gaga’s previous work and that’s just what I felt like at the moment. In a world full of dark, angsty and brooding content, it’s nice to find something that’s just a good bit of fun. 1. “Aura” This song has a similar feel about it as “Marry the Night” from Gaga’s previous outing, with strong electronic beats its a great opening track. I first heard it live when performed at the iTunes music festival and it didn’t make much of an impression but the produced album version is surprisingly much better. 2. “Venus” This track has the tongue-in-cheek of “Lovegame” and a punishing beat. With relatable lyrics and an insane chorus, even the verses are killer: “When you touch me I die just a little inside, wondering if this could be love, this could be love”. I think we can all relate to that feeling, no? Just me then. 3. “G.U.Y.” An easy to listen to pop track, nothing particularly special to say about this one but a nice bit of fun. It’s a catchy one though! 4. “Sexxx Dreams” This song reminds me a lot of “The Fame” era, great fun to listen to. More explicit than “Just Dance”, it has a similar party vibe about it. 5. “Jewels N’ Drugs” A venture into a more gritty RnB sound, this wasn’t my cup of tea. It seems like something I’d expect to hear Cher Lloyd singing, but interesting to see Gaga playing in this space and giving it a go. 6. “MANiCURE” This is my favourite song from the album, it is full of passionately sung and reaching lyrical moments like “Touch me in the dark, put your hands all over my body parts” and “Heal me, ‘cause I’m addicted to love”. I can see why Adele called it her favourite track at the iTunes Music Festival preview - in fact, I’d love to see Adele cover this one live as it would really suit her voice as well. Maybe there’s a crossover performance collaboration opportunity there? Gaga, I hope you’re listening! 7. “Do What U Want” I bought this as a single, a great catchy pop song collaboration with R. Kelly. Sold! 8. “Artpop” Anthemic in nature and perhaps by design, with its chanting lyrics “We could, we could belong together” and the serene high pitched vocalisms in the background throughout, I suspect this would be the perfect song to smoke some weed or get drunk and prance around one’s living room naked to, if you like that sort of thing. All I’m willing to say is I really like the song ;) 9. “Swine” The live performance of this at the iTunes Music Festival was so raw and exciting to watch and listening to it again reminds me of that. This feels like the “Bad Romance” of the album and has some of the most insane dance breakouts Gaga has achieved thus far. I foresee this coming to a nightclub near you soon! 10. “Donatella” This song seems to essentially be a fun tribute song to Donatella Versace and blonde fabulous women like her, a well put together fun pop song but it seems more an album filler track than an outright single. 11. “Fashion!” Starting with a scattered piano piece that is then blended into the track, “Fashion” is an optimistic tribute to the idea of being on a constant catwalk and transforming into someone else. It’s almost got a “We Are Family” and “Celebration” vibe about it and there’s a distinctly disco sound. Hell, I’d get up and dance to it! 12. “Mary Jane Holland” An enjoyable album track, it’s hard to tell what it’s all about and truth be told I let it just wash over me without much fanfare or even noticing it was over until the song finished. 13. “Dope” A passionate piano piece, this song was much more impressive when performed live without so much production clouding Gaga’s voice. “You