Lady Gaga producer finally lifts the lid on unreleased Artpop sequel album
Lady Gaga performs onstage during The ARTPOP Ball tour opener. (Kevin Mazur/WireImage)
Lady Gaga’s producer has spilled some serious tea about the long-rumoured ARTPOP: Act II that, to many Little Monsters, is something of almost religious significance.
There have long been rumours of a so-called sequel to 2013’s ARTPOP, which Gaga first teased even before the album itself dropped.
The singer even responded to a fan-fuelled petition to have it finally released earlier this year.
DJ White Shadow, who produced ARTPOP, told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published Monday (7 June) that the sister album would have included some 40 B-sides that he and Gaga ditched while compiling ARTPOP.
Lady Gaga made enough for ‘two records’, says ARTPOP producer
“I think we made enough to do two records,” he said.
“It was probably on an idea list. We probably talked about it. We had enough records to do it.
@chanelfucker yes, lots of songs for ACT TWO!
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) October 14, 2013
“I was happy to get that record out. I couldn’t brush my teeth for a week after it was done, much less was I thinking about other songs.”
The disc jockey, known offstage as Paul Blair, sought to stress, however, that while there was a raft of shelved tracks, “there wasn’t another record ready to release right away”.
“It was either going to be enough records to be two records or enough for one, and it turned out to be one,” he said.
Blair confirmed that “Tea” and “Onion Girl” were ditched tracks, as was “I Wanna Be With You”, which Gaga actually performed at the iTunes Festival in 2015 before it became “Dope” on ARTPOP.
“When we did the iTunes Festival, we hadn’t gotten to the point where we were sitting in the studio finishing things completely,” Blair explained.
“So, she wanted to make changes! At the end of the day, it’s her art.”
On “Tea”, the track he blasted at a gig in Boston for Gaga’s 2017Joanne World Tour, Blair said he asked Gaga for permission to play it.
“Even if I make the instrumental and I play it for her and she thinks it’s cool, out of respect for another human being, I’d always ask,” he said.
“I twisted it a little bit at the end to fit where it was supposed to fit in my personal set. I reproduced part of it.”
After a petition drew with tens of thousands of signatures calling for Gaga to release ARTPOP: Act II, both Blair and Gaga discussed it – yet the pair made no concrete plans to release it.
“I don’t know,” Blair explained on whether the album will ever be dropped.
“I always have an interest in working with her, and I won’t speak for her…. I think there’s an interest in doing stuff. We work well together.
“If we were to work together again, we would go over these old files. Would we call it ARTPOP: Act II? I don’t know.
“Whatever she wants to call it, that’s what we’ll call it. When it comes down to making a record, it’s my job to listen to her and take what’s in her brain and make it into something she wants… if she doesn’t want to do it, I won’t do it.”
He added that the decision to release the album is ultimately up to Gaga – but there’s hope, and it’s all down to the passionate fans to keep the dream going.
“There’s nothing more in the world that I’d like to do than give everybody what they want,” he said, “and I’m sure she feels the same.
“If everybody keeps asking for it, maybe it’ll happen.”
