Culture

Lady Gaga responds to rumours of an ARTPOP sequel as album soars to number one on iTunes

By Sam Damshenas

13th April 2021

Lady Gaga has responded to the fan campaign pushing for the release of an ARTPOP sequel.

The album, released eight years ago, followed the release of Born This Way and featured the incredible singles Applause, Do What U Want and G.U.Y (Girl Under You).

Although ARTPOP received mixed reviews from critics, it was lauded by Little Monsters as ‘ahead of its time’ and has since become one of Gaga’s most revered collections to date.

Sadly, the era was surrounded in controversy – the biggest being R Kelly’s feature appearance on Do What U Want, leading to a scrapped music video.

After allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct against Kelly gained widespread media attention, the song was removed from streaming platforms.

It did give us one of her greatest visual achievements, though, in the form of her epic ARTPOP Film that featured G.U.Y, Venus and the album’s title track.

Before ARTPOP was even released, Gaga declared that she had a “lots of songs for ACT TWO!” and said there’s a “strong possibility I will release another volume of ARTPOP,” which fans have never quite recovered from (including us).

DJ White Shadow, who produced on the album, breathed new life into the ARTPOP sequel discussion last week when he revealed that he had messaged Gaga about a petition for the follow-up, which currently has over 40,000 signatures.

On April 13 2021, the hashtag #buyARTPOPoniTunes went viral on Twitter. ARTPOP subsequently rose to number one on the iTunes chart in 13 countries.

Gaga reflected on the making of ARTPOP as she responded to the campaign on social media, before praising fans for their commitment to the record.

“Making this album was like heart surgery, I was desperate, in pain, and poured my heart into electronic music that slammed harder than any drug I could find. I fell apart after I released this album,” she wrote.

“Thank you for celebrating something that once felt like destruction.

“We always believed it was ahead of its time. Years later turns out, sometimes, artists know. And so do little monsters. Paws up.”

In our ranking of all seven Gaga albums, we said ARTPOP “proved Gaga’s status as the ultimate chameleon of pop music,” before hailing the album as “one of the most creative, ambitious projects a pop star has ever released.”

See where we placed ARTPOP in our definitive ranking of Gaga’s releases here, and rewatch the iconic G.U.Y music video below.