Dope Body

If Born This Way was made for the Little Monsters, its 2013 sequel ARTPOP was made for the world. Lady Gaga has grand designs for her third album, to pull a "reverse Warhol," which presumably means she wants to channel high art into pop instead of pop into high art, but it's a little difficult to discern Gaga's intent, either in this statement or ARTPOP as a whole. Willfully existing simply on the surface, a surface that perhaps (or perhaps not) signifies a greater depth, ARTPOP is teasingly garish, its bright colors and brittle beats attacking with glee, the emphasis always on big, pulsating beats, shattered reflections, and sound cascading over song in every instance. Inevitably, this emphasis on production means the pop in ARTPOP winds up diminished; perhaps it's "pop" in the pop-art sense, as it's shamelessly intentionally populist, but as pop music it's stiff, relying not on hooks in either its melody or rhythm…

If Born This Way was made for the Little Monsters, its 2013 sequel ARTPOP was made for the world. Lady Gaga has grand designs for her third album, to pull a "reverse Warhol," which presumably means she wants to channel high art into pop instead of pop into high art, but it's a little difficult to discern Gaga's intent, either in this statement or ARTPOP as a whole. Willfully existing simply on the surface, a surface that perhaps (or perhaps not) signifies a greater depth, ARTPOP is teasingly garish, its bright colors and brittle beats attacking with glee, the emphasis always on big, pulsating beats, shattered reflections, and sound cascading over song in every instance. Inevitably, this emphasis on production means the pop in ARTPOP winds up diminished; perhaps it's "pop" in the pop-art sense, as it's shamelessly intentionally populist, but as pop music it's stiff, relying not on hooks in either its melody or rhythm…

The resulting 2 box set, unlike any other available today, groups together the main vocalists in the story of jazz from the first half of the 20th century. Each of these 20 CDs offers in more or less the same proportion, the purest of African-American song with gospel and blues singers, from truculent Ma Rainey to majestic Bessie Smith, sophisticated Sarah Vaughan to popular Louis Prima, the folk-related tones of Charlie Patton to the honeyed voice of Frank Sinatra.