Umi

I'm surprised to see you guys seeming so confident that the fanbase as a whole wants Gaga back with RedOne. I'm pretty sure Gaga has one of the most divided fanbases in terms of what they want their artist to do, and that includes there being a huge contingent of people who think she needs to grow and do different things rather than look backwards to her empirical phase. RedOnexGaga was magic in 2009 and we all love the classics but I feel like people would be a lot less enamoured with the idea of them working together if their collaborations weren't once so successful; I think a lot of Gaga fans want her back with RedOne just because they think it's her best chance of getting the public back on board. Over the years it's been proven quite well that Gaga is really happy to work with RedOne and tries to make it work, primarily because of fan/label demand, but the fact that so little has come of their modern attempts at working together probably suggests that the magic isn't really there anymore. There has to be a reason she makes so little use of what they make together and that's probably something to with the Gaga of 2016 not having a huge amount in common with the Gaga of 2009. RedOne's a very static producer which is why he feels so dated at this point and that's poles apart from Gaga, who is always in a state of evolution. I feel quite bad for her when RedOne discussions come up because it most be so frustrating to have a fanbase who fixates so heavily on one person you've collaborated with and seems to have so little respect for the work you've done with other people. Imagine if Britney fans come Blackout were screaming for her to work with Max Martin and make another BOMT?

Sorry but go away.

I adore this song. I have quite a bit of shame in saying that it took years upon years for it to properly hit me (it was always "Eh I don't wanna listen to this" even though I enjoyed it most of the time) but I really do think it's fantastic now. It's not a full on album highlight because of the overall quality but I would say it slots into the top half of my personal Blackout ranking and that's a real achievement. "Britney, let's go!" is one of the best moments of the album for me because it feels really optimistic and positive which is hugely refreshing given the lyrical content that surrounds it. On top of that, it does feel very personal as Jonjo said and I typically have a problem with Britney ballads in that they feel insincere but that's not at all true for this. This section is just magic: It's time for me to move along (Goodbye) It's time for me to get it on (OK) I'm tired of singing sad songs (All right) It's time for me (Britney, let's go) I couldn't tell you a section of a Britney song I find more emotional barring 'Everytime' at a push. Basically I love 'Why Should I Be Sad'!

The art is pretty good. It's not amazing but while it sounds backwards to say it, for Gaga's standards I think it's great. I realised after looking at this that I haven't liked any of her album art since 2009 barring Born This Way: The Collection (stunning) so I'm happy to appreciate this, as I do usually like her single covers. The album title leaves me a little bit cool but seeing the reasoning for it does make it a lot better and something of a statement. I think this will be a really interesting era.

Oh wow, I'm surprised you were able to cancel it! I have some friends who tried the same thing as you but missed the boat - they were told it was too late to do so because they'd already gone into production. You're very lucky to have dodged that bullet, congrats on that.

'Mmm Papi' is one of my favourite Britney album tracks.

I mean she recorded the performance on the 6th of September and I'm sure iHeart knew about that well in advance, possibly from the second it was booked. This is a revalation to us but not iHeart, so there's probably a good chance they're not pissed off about this. And it's not really a proper festival so it's not really embarrassing in the way pre-recording a performance at an actual festival like Glasto would be.

I've heard Gaga's label are very upset with how this is performing so far?

Depends. The drop is on the most basic level much more extreme but it's a looooot easier to have extreme position changes in the album chart than it was back when Bionic was released. With sales so low, the albums clump together much more closely than they used to, so % drops mean more and more over time. At 2010 sales levels, the same % drop in sales that Glory had this week would have resulted in a much less sharp drop. Take that into account and it's less mortifying. No matter what, the drop for this would never get the same reaction that Bionic's drop did anyway. Britney failures just aren't worth mocking in a post-'Pretty Girls' world.

This is her best lead single since 'Bad Romance' for me but that unfortunately doesn't mean much of anything (which sucks). I really do love the first minute but I don't get why the rest of the song (which is still a solid 2 minutes!) feels like a weirdly extended outro that tries to pretend it isn't one (the key change feels like a somewhat desperate attempt to add variance). It just feels like you listen to a song for a minute and then everything left is a tax of sorts before you can move onto whatever is next in your playlist. I like that it feels quite "her" and I guess it's good that there's a good song in here but I am a little bit concerned by just how glaring the flaws in this song are for me. She can structure songs better than this.

This series is stressing me out more than any I can remember. I keep waiting for Candice to get her shit together but she insists on keeping me in a state of perpetual fear.

Pretty much the same here. A much happier first listen then Matangi was for me. It's not perfect, and I'm not entirely happy with how many duds there are, but there's so much good stuff that I can see past that really easily. I might end up making a custom tracklist but not sure I'm comfortable doing that with M.I.A... I dunno. I think Arular > Kala > AIM > MAYA > Matangi.

You need to step up your bottom game!

So many good videos going out! Super proud that nothing from ITZ has died yet and every reveal that isn't 'My Prerogative' makes me happy. It probably says a lot about the Femme Fatale era that all of its videos are out even though they all obviously had rather big budgets and most of them had pretty complex concepts in comparison to some of her older videos. Such poor execution across the board with that era. Are many of the older videos left? Obviously the first three lead singles, but what else?

I had no idea about the original concept for that video! That's crazy, especially for a European single. I'm not sure I'm sad about it being cancelled honestly, because that is a very risky video for your first album campaign, but it's cool that they were already thinking of pushing boundaries back then.

Sadly I think the days of Sophie appealing to music forum folk are essentially over. The only reason her post-Make A Scene music has gotten any attention from pop fans is because of her past, and I think a lot of us have to come to terms with her not being, well, a popstar anymore. We're not Sophie's target market in 2016.

I find the song endearing but I really found the video for that song really boring. She does look spectacular in it but it really just isn't exciting to watch for an artist who generally throws so much at you in a video. This seems like a fitting placement because IMO only the look is going for her here.

In light of the entire album, 'Come With Us' as the lead single looks kind of cynical.

Here's the interview she did (at least I think this was for Marie Claire? could be wrong): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CrOMgWzXYAAYlnu.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CrOMgW5W8AIhEsq.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CrOMgW_WIAAQ5p4.jpg Really, really interesting and insightful interview, I think everyone here would appreciate reading this.

But today is a mixed update at worst and unlike Gwen's song, people are actually buying and streaming it. There was nothing suggesting that radio should have given Gwen more airplay, but radio have objective measures such as large sales and good streaming indicating that 'Make Me' is a popular song. No matter what is responsible for the song being #2 on iTunes, it is currently there and has been there for several days now (it's been top 5 on iTunes for almost a week!). These are measures that radio typically respond to.

Yes, this is how promotion works.

When I watched the INAGNYAW (Jesus) video I was so surprised by how dull it was. I remembered the beautiful canyon shots and Britney standing in various precarious places but I just assumed there'd be more to it than that. I think it would have been a great video if stuff actually happened in it!

If the audience was negative today I'd have been about ready to give up but negative spins and positive audience suggests small stations dropping it and big stations picking it up so that's not that bad.

Britney's team apparently are trying to get her on both SNL and the AMAs. Both would be amazing.

I don't think there's any chance at all she wouldn't do 'Make Me', she simply doesn't do anything without involving that song right now. Her team aren't letting it die without a fight.