Is Lady Gaga’s ‘ARTPOP’ a total flop which will lose her label millions of dollars?

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I don’t consider Lady Gaga an inconsequential artist. Is that shocking? I think she definitely “homages” the hell out of certain artists and I believe Gaga tries way too hard and thinks way too highly of herself as a pop artist, but that being said… I think she’s consequential. I think we’ll still be talking about her first album a decade from now. The problem, of course, is that Born This Way and ARTPOP have not performed as well as The Fame. The problem is that Gaga’s most iconic and successful album was her first, the one she did when she was still having fun, the one she did before she became The Mother Monster whose every fart is High Art. So, is ARTPOP officially a bomb? Not really, it’s just a “bomb” compared to The Fame. But what makes it interesting is that Gaga’s label, Interscope, spent $25 million promoting ARTPOP and they’re going to end up losing a lot of money:

On Saturday, it was revealed that Interscope, Lady Gaga’s label, has spent $25 million dollars to promote her flop album “ARTPOP,” which is set to sell around 250 thousand copies in its first week — that’s a 75 percent drop from the first week album sales of “Born This Way” only two years ago. This weekend, plenty of Lady Gaga’s little monsters prostituted themselves online, offering gay sex for people who buy at least 30 copies of “ARTPOP.”

Some have compared the fate of “ARTPOP” to Michael Jackson’s “Invincible,” where $30 million was spent on the promotion for an album that didn’t even launch one solid hit single. But “ARTPOP” is really Lady Gaga’s “Glitter.”

So, how was the money spent? We talked to a music industry analyst (who wants to be referred to as ‘Jacob’ for this story), who has worked at both Warner Brothers and Arista over the past twenty years. He works closely with people from Interscope and told us that the past year has been a huge nightmare for Lady Gaga and Interscope.

“She originally was going to have the album ready by last Christmas. They made her re-record it. When her tour wasn’t selling, they invented a hip injury and told Gaga to go away for months so the public could be interested in her ‘comeback.’ After the lead single ‘Applause’ didn’t get such a great reception, they made her re-record the album again. I hear that they allegedly paid radio stations in order to put the song at the top of their playlists,” Jacob laughs.

Besides the alleged payola, it is believed that a lot of money could have went to news outlets such as Billboard, Glamour, MTV, ABC and some others. “Cash gifts to news outlets really aren’t unheard of, but Gaga has taken it to new extremes if this happened. Articles by many news sources sound like they were completely written by Gaga’s PR team.” He notes that Rolling Stone, a magazine that had usually praised Lady Gaga in the past, allegedly wouldn’t accept the cash. Gaga’s team was hoping Rolling Stone would put her on the cover and call her “Woman of the Year.” Instead, the “honor” went to Glamour.

“I can’t say for sure what she is doing for Billboard, but they are definitely trying to save her. They let her song ‘Dope’ chart at number 8 this week based on YouTube views that weren’t intended just for her. The magazine also counted thousands of free giveaways of the song for that chart position. They are covering up for her big time. It’s really sad when an industry staple such as Billboard picks favorites and allegedly participates in the payola game,” Jacob says with sadness.

Jacob believes Lady Gaga’s current drug use is destroying her. “She has turned against everybody who has helped her. She claims she has only done Marijuana recently, but that’s far from the truth. She’s dying a slow death every day and nobody is there to help her!” claims Jacob, who has seen drugs destroy family members and all sorts of stars. Let’s hope somebody loves Lady Gaga enough to get her clean.

Updated Information: Lady Gaga and Interscope are bragging about how “ARTPOP” hit number one in the UK. However, we have been told that the numbers are FAR lower than they were for her last album, “Born This Way.” “ARTPOP” is expected to take an amazing tumble from the top next week in both the UK and US. It is already dropping like a brick on iTunes in several countries.

[From Examiner]

Holy crap, this is such a juicy, crazy article. I too believe Gaga’s drug use has gotten out of hand – but I’ve been thinking that since the promotional tour for Born This Way, during which she gave endless coked-up interviews and behaved bizarrely from start to finish. Now, do I believe that everyone is on the take and everything is being manipulated by her label, even Gaga’s hip injury? Eh. I think Interscope is paying people off, for sure, and I think her label did tell her to “go away” for several months. But here’s the thing: did Interscope think this enormous gamble was going to work? That they were somehow going to recreate The Fame? Some people at Interscope should get fired over this mess.

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Photos courtesy of WENN.

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116 Responses to “Is Lady Gaga’s ‘ARTPOP’ a total flop which will lose her label millions of dollars?”

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  1. bns says:

    “Fashion” is a great song.

  2. T.fanty says:

    The problem is that she made herself a gimmick. And while that’s great when she was white hot, it also meant that people were going to tire of her quickly. I think she’s just passed her sell-by date.

    • GoodNamesAllTaken says:

      Exactly. Shocking, wow, unusual, inventive, mildly shocking, ordinary, more gimmick, same old, I’m bored, move on.

    • LadyMTL says:

      Also, she actually can sing (I heard her sing an a capella version of Edge of Glory that was gorgeous) but nowadays it’s lost amidst all of the weird clothes and “I’m an ARTISTE!” crap and so on. I think if she just pulled back a little and sang – instead of performed – then she could easily get back on track.

      • Jayna says:

        She needs better songs. Her songwriting has suffered this album. The Fame Monster it’s not in songwriting. There’s a few great songs, but not that many.

    • Mata says:

      T. Fanty, you hit the nail on the head. I remember having this conversation with someone a couple of years ago and we predicted what would happen. She actually does have talent, but when you intentially have people focus on your spectacle, rather than your music, this is what’s going to happen. Miley Cyrus, take note.

    • MonicaQ says:

      Dope is a terrible song. She tries that Janis Joplin raw voice and it just doesn’t work.

    • Lucy2 says:

      I agree as well. It’s a shame because she does have some talent, and did have a few fun songs, but let the spectacle overshadow that.

    • Lady Satan says:

      Well said. Gaga needs to get rid of the endless costumes, stop believing her own PR about being an ‘artiste’ and get back to what she can do well – write & sing.

    • Sarah says:

      Very well said. She can sing and I appreciate that she DOES song (unlike so many who do not). However, rather than rely on her talent she had to make herself into this walking, talking “event” which just is exhausting after a while. At first she was just eccentric. Now, she’s batshit crazy.

  3. grayze says:

    The fun, kind of silly Gaga is the Gaga I miss.

    I know that a lot of people found her worthy of eye-rolling from the very beginning, but the appeal with The Fame – at least to me – was that the songs were catchy and danceable. That’s it. I enjoyed hearing them. It was ear candy, and if the lyrics were a little silly or nonsensical (I will ALWAYS LOVE Christopher Walken for straight-reading “Poker Face”) then it was fine.

    Her (and her label) pretending like everything frivolous is So Serious, Really just makes me crazy and it sucks the fun right out of the songs. When you’re too preoccupied with creating Art, sometimes you lose the spark.

    • NerdMomma says:

      Yup. This exactly. She was fun, then she got all Kanye.

    • MollyB says:

      Yes! Her best songs are fun and danceable. Great work out songs. And with her kooky costume, she was a great entertainer. The problem started when she convinced herself that her dance tunes and costumes were some sort of towering works of artistic genius.

      • Hakura says:

        @Grayze – I agree with you, too. I think she’s ‘overplayed her hand’ (yes, totally a reference to ‘Poker’), & lost the fun spark that attracted so many to her when she started taking herself far too seriously. She became pretentious & arrogant, convinced of her ‘artistic genius’ to the point of not even *trying* anymore, because of course, even what she leaves in the toilet is something we should be grateful for.

        Kanye has a God complex, & Gaga does too. (In the court documents, regarding the ex-BFF/assistant that’s suing her for unpaid wages & unacceptable treatment, Gaga made a statement (don’t know if it was just written, or if she said it in front of the court), but she even DECLARED she was ‘Queen of the Universe’ to anyone working for her, that that was just how it was.

        The woman somehow managed to get her overlarge head (ego & all) lodged far enough up her own ass, that she’d have to consult a surgeon to get it out.

        @MollyB – *I* sort of think the problem is that she now considers the ‘dance tunes’ that got her where she is now to be ‘beneath her’, now that she’s a mega-talented-Queen-of-the-universe-artiste. She seems to be under the impression that just because her ‘little monsters’ are insane & will do everything she says, the rest of the world should too. It’s pretty sad for someone to be THIS delusional. (Seems there’s a LOT of that going around lately, first the Kanye posts, now this.)

    • CG says:

      +1. I still love The Fame/The Fame Monster and listen to it at the gym sometimes. I liked her when she still had a sense of humor. And even though I like Applause as a single WAY more than Born This Way, it hasn’t gotten nearly as much play on the radio stations in my area, so maybe Interscope didn’t spread enough money around? :p

    • TheOneandOnlyOnly says:

      Yes Chris Walken’s reading of Poker Face is absolutely hilarious, and punctures that song; part of her problem is that she embodies the narcissism of her generation which has been so much commented upon, which makes a self-critique impossible: she is just a silly pop star, nothing, and will never achieve the legendary status of a Janis Joplin: Janis wasn’t a manufactured pop star and her songs reach into, they aren’t just background music to your zumba workout.

      • Apsutter says:

        Word, she’s no Carole King/Joni Mitchell/Stevie Nicks…she’s 100% manufactured pop. The worst part about her is that she thinks she making high art and is setting some benchmark of excellence when really it’s just more bland throwaway pop music.

      • Hakura says:

        It makes me so sad… I grew up mostly listening to the music of my parent’s generation… All the iconic singer/songwriters, many of which played their own instruments or were part of a band… Rolling Stones, The Beatles… The amazing women who changed the game & sang with so much passion. Even during the 80’s, there was still a sense of realness to it (not all of it, obviously, but a lot).

        So all my favorites were from my parent’s radio stations…. Of course as a teen, I liked the usual teenage favorites like Britney, Christina, (& God it’s embarrassing to admit, The Backstreet Boys… I was 14!). But all my truly loved music had actual substance. But as I said before, it makes me so sad that *my* generation of music is so pointless & forgettable. So manufactured. It makes me feel a bit ‘cheated’, honestly.

    • Eleonor says:

      I totally co-sign. I’ve said it sometimes The Fame and the Fame monster were very good dance-pop albums. She was fun, she was fresh, then she has started to think herself too highly, and she is out of control.
      Elton John has said he can’t talk to her because she is sourrounded by yesmen, she had a feud with ex-pal Perez Hilton who probably said something about her issues, so I am totally buiying the drug problem.

      • Apsutter says:

        Speaking of Elton, he performed in my tiny hometown last night to a sellout crowd. 66 years old and he played for almost 3 hours straight! That’s a class act

    • Tiffany :) says:

      I feel like Gaga right now is like Walter White in the Fly episode of Breaking Bad. She has a talent and she can use her skills very well…but she has become so focused on the “integrity” of the product that she has lost all perspective on what made it great in the first place. Driven mad trying to find greater importance in her work than what is really there.

      I really liked “Do What U Want”, but they weren’t even intending for it to be a single. I think they thought it should be a throwaway because it wasn’t serious enough..but I think the lack of being serious is what makes it a fun song.

      • Hakura says:

        @Tiffany 🙂 – I know this is a bit extreme on my part, but …. even though I like the song ‘Do What U Want’, I just can’t support her. There were so many other great R&B artists she could’ve done the song with, & she chose R Kelly, who everyone in the world knows had sex with teenage girls (& even married an incredibly young Aaliyah when he was *well* into adulthood.). The man is a POS first and foremost.

        Gaga ruined my opinion of her as a person when she worked closely with Terry Richardson (on that ‘coffee table book’). She claimed that Terry has ‘the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. A wonderful man full of integrity & artistic talent”. She proves her lack of good judgment again by choosing to work with R Kelly. =/

  4. ANDREA1 says:

    I don’t want to sound mean but am glad this is happening and I hope Miley is noting this down. She needs to go away. Even performing naked at a gay bar hasn’t helped, her fame is going down the drain. This is what happens when you take yourself too seriously and think you are on top of the world and untouchable!

  5. Zbornak Syndrome says:

    I wonder why it’s considered a flop? It gets LOTS of radio play where I live. Marketing manufactured pop stars are passe now?

    • LAK says:

      the article states very clearly that radio stations are being paid by her label to put her at the top of playlists.

      So she’s paying for all that radio play you are hearing and it’s not translating into sales.

      • Bridget says:

        Considering I keep hearing those flaccid Justin Timberlake songs on rotation on my radio, I’m very skeptical about the payola claim. With the way that radio is structured now (hugely corporate, driven almost entirely by ‘names’ regardless of quality) her song Applause was always going to get heavy rotation. And its actually not a terrible song – especially in comparison to that Robin Thicke song ”give it to me” or whatever it is Selena Gomez’s song program is singing about today.

        And note the source – this article is coming from the Examiner. Healthy, healthy dose of skepticism. Not that I’m saying this is the artiatic achievement of the century, or that Gaga doesnt have some serious issues, just that maybe the Examinser doesn’t have the pulse of the inner chambers of Interscope

      • Tiffany :) says:

        lak, I wouldn’t trust this article. They don’t write as if they know how the industry works.

        Paying the radio stations is illegal, and in recent years there has been a BIG crack down on payolla. A label would NEVER be so stupid as to just pay them flat out. Now, they have parties for the radio stations and lavish them with perks there in an attempt to get more play. It is an indirect form of payolla, but indirect is the only way the labels would approach that now. Paying CASH as the Examiner article states makes me not believe the author. There would be a clear money trail and it would be an vast liability for the label. They can accomplish their goals via indirect methods instead of taking such huge risks by paying directly.

  6. Willa says:

    Isn’t the drug use why she and Perez Hilton have beef now?

    • I'mWithTheBand says:

      Her antics have become so predictable that she no longer shocks anyone. I don’t know what she was on during The Graham Norton Show recently, but I couldn’t stop cringing.

    • MonicaQ says:

      Yes. Supposedly Perez found her passed out back stage after one of her shows. Perez basically told her she needed to maybe take some time and go to rehab and Gaga lost her mind. Then came the stalking allegations and her on Howard Stern talking about how such a “swine” Perez is. Perez wrote a series of tweets to Stern, basically saying, “Hey, if you want to know the *whole* story, you know where I live.” Gaga then tweeted to her little monsters to leave him alone.

      It’s actually kind of hilarious seeing as I have no investment whatsoever in anyone involved. It’s like old school WWF Attitude Era /popcorn.

  7. blue marie says:

    Hmm, well that’s interesting. While I don’t believe everyone is getting paid, I also don’t believe the hip injury. Gaga had become a bit too cliched for me.

    • An says:

      Yeah, the hip injury was a huge scam. So many huge inconsistencies in that story.

      The tour wasn’t selling so they cut their losses.

      • TG says:

        Wonder of she will ever admit to faking an injury. I know I have read gossip for a long time and am jaded but I still get shocked sometimes. I don’t follow Gaga because I don’t find her interesting so these allegations of a fake hip injury are shocking. Wonder if her Little Monsters” believe that she is a fraud? Or do they even exist? One thing about followers of celebs like this has taught me is that we have not made a lot of progress in intelligence since people way back in the past also were dn enough to believe their leaders were deities.

      • Tiffany :) says:

        Canceling a tour isn’t cutting losses. You’d still have to pay crew and rental agreements., etc. paying per diem to people who aren’t working, etc. so many expenses!

        Without a legitimate medical excuse, it would cost a ton to cancel and not postpone. Insurers speak directly with doctors on things like this, the artists have no medical privacy when it comes to canceling shows.

        With the hip, I know a 65 year old woman that had hip replacement surgery with the little instruments (forgetting the name now), and she was taking international flights and riding horses a month and a half later. IMO it’s possible she did have surgery.

    • TheOriginalKitten says:

      Totally fake injury.

      People are just burnt out on the gimmicks. Personally, I think she should stop wearing dead animals and put down the cocaine.

    • Evi says:

      I don’t believe the hip injury either. She was supposed to have an op, and that would have required a bit of rehab, yet there was Gaga prancing around in ridiculously high heels, which wouldn’t be ideal for a hip ligament tear I imagine.

    • littlestar says:

      I never believed she had hip surgery, but I’m actually surprised they came up with it to help her have a “comeback”. I always assumed that they sent her to rehab because her drug use got so bad, and hip surgery was the easiest cover up for it.

    • Devon says:

      I was skeptical of her hip injury as well. A few years ago, I had major reconstructive hip surgery on my right hip that also involved a labral tear, which is basically what Gaga had to go through. Even after a year, I still wasn’t back up to snuff and there was no way I was in heels. Hell, I still, 3 years later, have a hard time being in heels too long because my hips just can’t hack it anymore. Reconstructive surgery on your joints is not something to play around with and if it were a true and serious injury, she wouldn’t still be putting her body through the same things that “caused” the injury.

  8. Neelyo says:

    In mimicking Madonna, she skipped right over all of the fun years and went straight to the pretension of latter day Madame M. Swallowed by her own gimmickry. Too bad too, because she’s actually written some good ballads.

    Oh and if she’s such an ‘artist’, wouldn’t she (and her label) be a lot less concerned with sales?

  9. Jayna says:

    The Fame was released with some great singles and half filler. The singles brought her to the public’s attention. A companion release came rather quickly The Fame Monster, eight songs, which is her best album to date, but both albums are kind of lumped together as one, I think, when talked about. But when talking about her best album, The Fame Monster is universely talked about as her best album, not The Fame, which has some great singles, but not her best complete album because of so much filler.

    • jelynn says:

      THIS. Thank you!

    • Diana says:

      Exactly Jayna, The Fame Monster is her best album. People forget TFM is not the same as The Fame.

    • Apsutter says:

      Yup, Fame was alright but Fame Monster is, far and away, her best album.

    • Kate says:

      This. There were a couple of great songs on The Fame, but Gaga used a lot of songs she’d originally written for other artists, and it shows. Much of the album is filler that could have been sung by anyone, and it’s already quite a dated album. The Fame Monster was great, Born This Way and Artpop less so, mostly because she includes too many tracks, but all three are much more Lady Gaga albums than The Fame was.

    • Alexis says:

      Disagree, actually. I prefer The Fame. Everything that was added in Fame Monster (notably “Bad Romance” “Alejandro” and “Telephone”) was way less good than what was on The Fame. And some of the non-singles on the Fame, like “Boys Boys Boys” were excellent!

  10. An says:

    Billboard is definitely on Gaga’s payroll.

    No one really cares about Gaga these days. She went out hard and burnt out, there’s no mystery left. I think she’s having a really hard time accepting it though.

  11. paola says:

    i don’t know why somebody ugly looking like Gaga wants to be even uglier. she could dispose of the best stylists, make up artists, hairdressers but she always puts a lot of effort into looking cheap and ugly. Not in an arty way though, just ugly.

  12. Melissa says:

    When Gaga came out, she was bizarre, creative, funny, and eccentric. It worked for a while, the fans and the media could not get enough, but with the news of heavy drug use, the “hip surgery” everyone is questioning, and ArtPop seemingly bad or at least not as good as her previous LPs, she’s not selling. Too many stunts were pulled, Gaga went too hard, and apparently used all the tricks in the book, and there’s nothing left to keep our attention now.

    The best thing Gaga could do in a few years is to release a minimalist acappella album, creatively different from the Gaga we came to know and love.

    • littlestar says:

      So agree with this. And she finally needs to lose her ridiculous “costumes”. She made fun of herself and her costumes this past weekend on SNL, but I don’t think she actually GETS IT – that we are tired of her costumes. They are no longer shocking or interesting, and they totally distract from her music. Now when I see her promoting ARTPOP in one of her sad getups, I just think, what was once interesting is now tired and foolish.

  13. Lark says:

    Do I think Lady Gaga’s 15 minutes have basically passed? Yes. I think she’ll always have a place but I doubt she’ll ever be as big as she was when FAME came out. That said, The Examiner? That’s the same website that ran crazy ass 9/11 conspiracy theory articles and birther articles. The website is total bullshit. I’m RME at the idea that Billboard is engineering some vast conspiracy on the behest of Lady Gaga’s label.

    • Julie says:

      I normally would agree with you but after seeing that Billboard put her song that I never heard at #8, I believe the Examiner. I checked out the song & while it’s not terrible (although she does sound like a drunk old lady), there’s no way that song would be in the top 10. I now believe 9/11 was an inside job. Great. Thanks, Lady Gaga.

  14. Patricia says:

    She performed Gypsy with just the piano on Howard Stern, it was beautiful and actually brought tears to my eyes. But then on SNL she performed it all “Gaga” and basically ruined the song because it was rushed, overblown, and lost all emotion. She needs to just sit down and sing, because she really can, and let her talent and emotion shine through.

    • Jayna says:

      True. Gypsy was way overdown on SNL but very moving on Howard. The jumping up trying to throw on a guitar is comical.

    • Apsutter says:

      Honestly I wish that she’d realize an album of some of her best songs stripped down. “Speechless” is the same way. I can’t stand the album version, it’s so overproduced and boring but when she sings it with just the piano it’s so beautiful

      • Tiffany :) says:

        I feel that way about You and I as well. I saw a video of her singing at the piano after she wrote it and I loved it. Then she had Mutt Lange produce it and Brian May play guitar on it. May is a amazing musician, but I think the album version sounded waaaay too 80s and had the soul sucked out of it.

  15. Frenchie says:

    The hip injury thing had always sounded fishy. Especially since she was basically naked at the VMAs and there was no visible scar at all…

  16. OrangeBlohan says:

    It’s time to change up her schtick, maybe take a break and regroup. She’s a good singer, but if she’s using drugs, she needs to get it under control and get back to singing!

  17. Ellie66 says:

    She needs to go away (for real) then come back after a couple of years with a album under her real name and a different look more normal and less druggie/artsy.

  18. Renee says:

    She became Lady Gaga to attract the attention she wasn’t getting. She lost it when she took herself too seriously. Sorry to hear about the drug abuse.

    Google Stefani Germanotta NYU if you don’t believe she has immense talent. I’ll try to post the link. It’s amazing.

    http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DNM51qOpwcIM

  19. Jackson says:

    Very interesting Examiner article, glad you covered it. And I completely agree with what others have posted, she needs to lighten up (sometimes a fun song is just that, a fun song – not ART) and also stop with all the gimmicks. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

  20. Jen says:

    Uh FYI, this “Sabrina O’Connor” person is actually a man, and the picture he used is stolen. He writes completely fake anti-Gaga articles almost every day for The Examiner (which is the worst possible source, worse than Radar Online). Check out the author history. NO ONE spends that much money to promote an album. It’s incredibly rare to spend even $10 million on album promotion. It’s unfortunate that you posted it and people will think it has any basis in reality, which it doesn’t.

    And I’m not even a Gaga fan.

    • Tiffany :) says:

      I don’t believe this article either. Payola is illegal and highly monitored. Now, artist have “parties” for radio stations and give them gifts that way. They would NEVER do straight up cash, it just just too risky and unnecessary. Also, Billboard has policies on Youtube and how they count streaming. What is the article talking about that views “weren’t meant for her”?

      The article sounds like it was written by someone who knows nothing about the industry.

  21. Evi says:

    I’m so glad that today’s technology enables customers to hear samples of entire CDs before purchase.
    I recently listened to this album. Thought it total crap. Like her last album. This raises questions about how low she will stoop to maintain her public profile.
    What next for Gaga?
    Porn posing as art?
    She has tried every gimmick. I’m sure she has run out of most gimmicks.
    Anyone who spent 25 million promoting this crap album [who made that decision] needs to be sacked from their job.
    I can believe the lie about the hip injury. The type of operation that was described in the media was significant, which would have required quite a bit of rehab. But there was Gaga months later wearing lofty heels.

    • Jayna says:

      I don’t care for the album either, but I definitely believe the hip injury. She was out way more than a few months. She had to cancel the rest of her tour in North America and that is significant losses doing something like that last minute. I believe her when she talks about the pain she had and never having had such pain after surgery and when she started smoking dope even more.

      Insurance has covered much of that, and would never cover that if there wasn’t signifiant proof she could not continue the rest of the tour in North America. She described in detail what happened on Howard Stern and she had been performing in pain and described what they found in surgery.

      Gaga is not that kind a liar, perpetuating such a huge fraud on her Little Monsters and the public. Sorry, conpsiracy theorists. That article saying she did was put out by a hack. And people trying to say her tour was a flop are crazy. She might have had some lower sales in certain areas during her tour, but she carried a huge 2 1/2 hour tour by herself and did great numbers and many stadiums, something Katy Perry nor Rihanna could do of that size, especially Gaga being such a new artist relatively speaking.

      • Tiffany :) says:

        Well said, Jayna. I think if you know about touring and insurance, it’s clear they wouldn’t have cancelled the tour without a legitimate reason.

      • Julia says:

        I don’t know if the hip injury was real or not. The only reason I don’t believe it was real is because of how much Gaga lied about other things before. She lead people to believe she grew up struggling when she grew up wealthy, for one. She STILL says Born this way doesn’t sound like Express Yourself. I know that faking a hip injury sounds ridiculous but she is not credible to me. She seems like someone who will say or do anything for fame and attention.

  22. JLo says:

    IMO, bizarre costumes and derivative music are not art! Stefani Germanotta actually has musical talent, but the ridiculous persona she created to attract attention combined with (what appears to be) excessive drug use has taken over and eclipsed the real person who is hopefully still in there somewhere.

  23. c says:

    don’t really know much about her but she was paaaainfully unfunny on saturday night live.

  24. Garrett says:

    It should be noted that the Examiner is very anti-Gaga. All the articles I’ve read on there about her are nothing but negative. But they praise Katy Perry like she is the best thing since sliced bread.

    With that said, I’m calling BS on their story. Sounds like to me the author has a personal vendetta against her. I mean, who doesn’t?

  25. Grant says:

    I quite like Artpop, actually. And The Fame Monster >>>> The Fame.

    • Ai says:

      I am also enjoying the majority of ARTPOP; I have never taken her seriously but I like her voice and darn it her songs are catchy. gypsy, manicure, Venus. Applause and G.U.Y are fun to sing along to at karaoke.

  26. Connie says:

    I’m chiming in with the posters calling out the source as being fake. The Examiner is rarely, if ever, a reliable source. And this Sabrina O’Connor is a false identity created to write anti-Gaga articles. Also, any article written by Angela Cheng from the Examiner are fabricated as well. It’s sad that these Examiner articles keep getting cited by numerous websites because not only do they paint a false, negative portrait of Gaga but it’s also an indication that people are just sloppy when they “verify” their sources.

  27. Irishserra says:

    I’d never thought I’d come to respect Rolling Stone Magazine. And yet here we are.

    • lavinia says:

      Yeah…except they put Miley Cyrus on the cover.

      • Renee says:

        … and that Boston Marathon murderer. That was disgusting and beneath contempt.

      • MonicaQ says:

        Not so much that they put the Boston Marathon Bomber on the cover but how they presented him. Hitler was Time’s Man of the Year and on the cover in 1934.

    • What? says:

      What do you mean how they presented him? That they labeled him the bomber before he got a chance of a fair trial?

      • MonicaQ says:

        Not that, more like it was a GQ cover shoot. They wanted controversy and they got it. But people tend to be upset when you humanize “the bad guy” and I think that’s what everyone was up in arms about–“Here’s this guy that’s killed 9 people and you’re trying to turn him into a sympathetic figure.”

        I personally have no connections to anyone at the bombing nor am I from the city of Boston, MA so I’m pretty sure it would’ve been more raw and unsettling to me had I been.

  28. Eleonor says:

    I bet Madonna will have the last laugh, as usual.

  29. wendy says:

    artpop just went platinum in Canada.
    I still love her.
    I think she’s fun.
    I wish she would so an unplugged album.

  30. wendy says:

    As Lemmy would say
    “if you make it to number 1 you’re doing something wrong”

    A ton of music that is good does not get to number one on the charts.

  31. icy-out says:

    This has nothing to do with Gaga herself, but “could have went” in a magazine publication lets you know the level of editorship and writing ability of the writers. Ugh!

    I think she’s forgotten one of the main rules of spectacle–the rule of play. If you are going to play, then you can’t take yourself so seriously.

  32. Kate says:

    She sounded great on SNL. I really wish she wouldn’t mess with her voice so much when she records. She can sing but she ruins it with sound editing. I really enjoyed “gypsy” when she preformed live but on her album it sounds terrible.

  33. Bread and Circuses says:

    I think she is/was a genius (at being a fluffy pop star; I like her music, but I don’t claim it’s deep), but the drugs have eroded her abilities the to point where she’s merely very good.

    The outfits no longer shock us, which is too bad, because they’re still fun, so she has to fall back on talent now. She has that, but she can’t perform to the level she’s capable of with her brains scrambled on chemicals.

  34. Anna says:

    To be Honest that doesn’t surprise me, I brought the album and I thought it was awful! BTW was a brilliant album, but this one sound like a nightmare and poorly put together. There no catchy pop tracks or something that make you want to listen to it times and times again – once was enough.

  35. courtney says:

    don’t forget Canada’s population is 1/12 the size of the US’s hence why platinum there is 80,000 copies and album sales have been declining for years though US UK and Australia haven’t decreased their certification thresholds like most other major markets have. 250k isn’t a flop for a first week most of the sales for Born This Way’s first week were from the .99 cent deal at amazon and since things like that now don’t count towards charts since the rules were changed. “Art-POP” shipped 80k in 3 days in Canada lets wait and see what it actually sold when the charts are released later this week

  36. Sloane W!yatt says:

    Lady Gaga is the Elton John of female entertainers. She can mount a come back if she straightens out and pulls back from her cocaine.

    Pete Townsend of The Who introduces this song in live performances “This song is about what happens when you take too much white powder. It’s called ‘Eminence Front’.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u0GJdNu1Ds

    • Jayna says:

      Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s catalogue of music is unbelievable, classics, a tremendous body of work. She isn’t even in his league that way yet. The problem isn’t even Gaga’s drug use. Elton was high during most of his brilliant songwriting years. I don’t know about Bernie. Probably. The Beatles wrote brilliant music high. Led Zeppelin’s haunting Stairway to Heaven was written very high. David Bowie was on drug’s during his critically acclaimed heyday. In fact, one of his top five albums of all time was written in such a haze of drugs that he has no memory of writing or recording it, like ten, twelve during her surgery recovery, and probably adding on other things also.

      I’m not advocating drug use. As Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode) says, drugs can be fun and work for quite a while and be managable while on the road but that ends one day and it takes over your life and you live for the drugs. I haven’t even heard Gaga say she is back on cocaine heavy. She was smoking tons of joints a day was her main problem, like ten, twelve a day, after surgery.

      Gaga’s problem is I think her songwriting brilliance was overestimated after The Fame Monster. She clearly is talented as a songwriter. And definitely is a great singer. But I think she would be better off to collaborate more because I think she’s not focusing her songwriting in the right way and many of her lyrics have gone cheesy and lazy and no great hooks on a lot of songs and poor melodies. Even her pop songs like Bad Romance, Dance in the Dark, Paparazzi all had something to them, some warmth, and so catchy. I don’t connect with a lot of her music anymore. She may never live up to what she stated and others felt about her ability to put out great albums. But great music will be what propels her to great heights. If not, she has a strong fanbase and will be a niche artist. But it’s all about the songs. Write and record great songs and they will come (the fans). I just think somewhere she thinks being different means a great avant garde song, but if a song isn’t great lyrically and/or melodically catchy, all it is is different. I think her pretentiousness has overtaken her ability to write great songs.

      • Sloane W!yatt says:

        To clarify, Jayna, I meant that Gaga had the ‘outrageous’ costuming a’ la Elton John. I agree with you that her output so far does not even approach Elton’s. Great post, BTW!

        I still believe she’s fallen under cocaine’s spell to the degree that she’s seemingly believing her own hype. Drug use and creativity certainly has a long and storied history among some of our greatest artists, but the way Gaga treated her personal assistant and the quotes she gave during her deposition really sounded like the full on hubris of the coked up variety.

      • Jayna says:

        @sloanewyatt, I see what you’re saying. She is full of herself and believes her own hype for sure.

  37. Mikunda says:

    She is so not hop or interesting anymore. And her songs are refashioned oldies without flavor. I just don’t care for her anymore.

  38. Sheila says:

    I believe all of it..the fake hip injury to get out of poor ticket sales, the padding of her status on the charts (her songs on this album are barely playing on radio stations in my area) her drug problem (and maybe her “hip” surgery was a dry-out period). ALL of it. I also believe the public finds her persona a yawner now, so try-hard and that is a huge turn off. People barely notice her and her ridiculous costumes now. If she just sat at the piano and sang, that would be better as she can sing. But her bizarre costumes are same ol’e, whatever-who-cares, her songs are lacking catchiness and her “my art is equivalent to saving the world” is a turn off. It’s POP music, she forgot the fun and takes herself way too seriously.

  39. Denise says:

    You look tired, Gaga. Are you tired? How about a long nap?

  40. Ally8 says:

    My tween nieces said they’re not into her anymore, “because she’s a druggie”. The kids are clued in — I hadn’t heard those stories.

  41. boomboom says:

    She had been talking about how artpop will revolutionize the industry but has anyone tried her app? It is so boring that even my 4 year old lost interest and she loves art /music . The links to hear her music didnt work but you were directed to itunes to buy her music . She kept trying to hype this app as innovative , but it’s something that would have been cool ten years ago when there weren’t a million better apps .
    I never liked Gaga , I liked her music but she always seemed full of herself. I think she lost a lot of respect concerning her court room antics . She just comes off as way too self-important.

  42. aaron says:

    She sucks. Period.

  43. Alex says:

    WHY ARE YOU USING THE EXAMINER AS A SOURCE??? That article was written by a troll, you’re so stupid for using a site where almost anyone can write their own articles. So uncredible.

  44. joanne says:

    Sites like Examiner is where journalism goes to die. I can’t believe Celebitchy will risk damaging their own reputation by citing that site as a source, given your seemingly comprehensive knowledge of the credibility of other gossip news sites usually.

  45. Jolene says:

    I have an idea for record companies instead of payola. Have a sweepstakes for an album you really need to promote. Have the artist’s fans call up the radio stations and request songs from the album. Have them post on twitter/facebook what station they called, what song they requested, and what time they called. Also have them hashtag the album name (so it trends). Pick a few people at random and give them some merch. It’d be more moral and cheaper to do.

    Another thing to do is to have a contest for “best youtube cover”. The best ones would be featured on the record company’s channel and put on a tribute album to the artist. You’d have to give these people a cut of the profits for the album, but you’d have a lot of “buzz”.

  46. Deo says:

    Lots of little monsters here. Too funny. I believe all of it, the article has been picked up by Business Week etc. Too much liability for them to reprint defamatory information. Gaga’s over, and was horrible from the beginning. But apparently we are going to watch her embarass herself off the stage. The spastically bad dancing on SNL will be shown in future to make fun of what passed for entertainment in 2013. Lol. Watching this Gong Show act leave the stage over the coming months shall be fun. She should try to save face though and retire immediately. Just Sayin’. BTW, nothing she’s done will be remembered. Truly horrible work.

  47. Kio says:

    This is probably my favorite Lady Gaga album. I am a Gaga fan, and have been since The Fame. While I had several songs I liked on all her CDs, this is the first where I like almost every song. My favorite is probably MANiCURE and G.U.Y. I just like the music and lyrics. I think it’s pretty horrible people are claiming she faked an injury and using explanations like “Oh it takes longer than X amount of time to heal.” For an average citizen with income of less than 100k a year and typical insurance, you’re right. It does take a long time to heal. However, music artists that are this popular, just like pro athletes, aren’t taking the average joe schmo route to healing. These people have lots of money and when their job is to move, a lot, you better believe they are getting the best treatment EVER. Gaga is known for her performance. She can sing LIVE while dancing, changing costumes, and putting on a fantastic show. She KNOWS she is putting on an act for the most part. She has talked about it. As for the drug thing. she has admitted to them before and claimed she stopped. Is that the case? Not sure and none of us will unless she says otherwise. Everyone is saying this CD is a flop but it’s selling more than Katy Perry’s ” praised” album Prism.

    • Kelcine says:

      Not really. Katy Perry has the highest female debut of the year and Gaga did no meet it.

      S/N: This has got to make Sony happy. Beyonce releasing her album in about a month and her label saw Gaga as the only real impediment to her having the best selling album of the year.