Lady Gaga’s magnum opus ARTPOP is getting a new physical release.
The brilliant-yet-divisive album, which in retrospect was clearly too ahead of its time for most listeners to appreciate, was originally released six years ago and featured the incredible singles Applause, Do What U Want and G.U.Y.
Unfortunately, the era was mired with controversy, with the biggest being R Kelly’s feature appearance on Do What U Want.
A music video for the song was filmed but quickly scrapped, and after allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct against Kelly gained widespread media attention, the song was removed from streaming platforms completely.
“As a victim of sexual assault myself, I made both the song and video at a dark time in my life,” Gaga wrote at the time.
“I intend to remove this song off of iTunes and other streaming platforms and will not be working with him [Kelly] again. I’m sorry, both for my poor judgement when I was young, and for not speaking out sooner.”
Now, the physical versions of ARTPOP are following suit, as a re-release of the album on CD and vinyl has been listed on HMV – and it doesn’t feature Do What U Want on the tracklist.
While getting rid of the R Kelly-featuring track is obviously the right thing to do, we do wish it had been replaced by the epic Christina Aguilera-featuring version of Do What U Want (which is clearly superior) instead.
The new versions of the album are due out on 11 November, six years after the original release.
Shortly after ARTPOP came out, the singer teased on multiple occasions that a sequel to the album would be coming ‘soon’, although it’s been a good few years since she’s mentioned that idea.
“I wrote a lot of songs when I was creating ARTPOP,” she said while guest-hosting American Top 40 With Ryan Seacrest in April 2014. “There’s a strong possibility I will release another volume of ARTPOP, and I’m really hoping that it’s soon.”
We’re still keeping our fingers crossed ARTPOP: Volume II happens eventually.
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