Lady Gaga: The Extraordinary Lengths She Will Go To Promoting An Album—The Daily Earworm

Lady Gaga released her third studio album, entitled Artpop, in November of 2013. However, as you may already be aware, Gaga is not known for promoting her albums, projects, and political statements in the traditional ways (think meat dress in 2010). So, when it came time to promote Artpop, “Mother Monster” decided to again go down Robert Frost’s proverbial “Road Not Taken.” Today’s Daily Earworm takes a look at Gaga’s Artpop, the two-day ArtRave event she set up to promote it, her promise to perform in space, and her unveiling of Volantis, the flying dress.

Lady Gaga’s Artpop

While Artpop did not have the massive success of Gaga‘s first two albums, it still did well. The album was certified platinum and topped the charts in ten countries, including the United States. It was in the Top 10 of 34 different charts worldwide. Artpop produced the quadruple-platinum Top 5 single “Applause,” and the platinum Top 20 hit “Do What U Want.”

ArtRave

The week after Artpop was released, Gaga hosted a two-day event in a large warehouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard that she called ArtRave. The event served as an album release party. There were a number of art displays, including a giant statue of Gaga designed by Jeff Koons. There were contortionists, a DJ booth, and free food and drink. There was a press conference, and of course, Gaga performed the songs from Artpop live.

If that had been the extent of things, this would not have seemed all that unusual, but of course, there was more. During an interview with Extra (featured above), Gaga, wearing a custom-made space-age-looking 3-D printed dress and headpiece, told a reporter that she was definitely going to perform in outer space in 2015. Then, there was that whole flying dress thing…

Volantis, the Flying Dress

Built by the Haus of Gaga technical division, TechHaus, Volantis is a wearable (sort of) battery-powered, six-rotor hover vehicle. While it was billed as “the world’s first flying dress,” it was more aptly described as an oversized drone with a somewhat dress-shaped plate that Gaga was strapped behind for a brief “flying” session. The “flying” was only a few feet off the floor of the warehouse, so it was more hovering than anything.

The whole “flight” only traversed a short distance, as you can see in the video footage above, and a technician was controlling Volantis during the beta test, not Gaga. The “Born This Way” singer said the prototype was essentially a metaphor for youthful creativity. She also referred to Volantis as being a female womb with six ovaries, so the messaging was not exactly clear.

The Bottom Line

If anything is to be taken from “Mother Monster’s” ArtRave, it is that she will do anything, literally anything, to promote something that she is passionate about. Whether it is flying on an oversized drone, wearing a 3-D printed sci-fi dress, or letting people make giant sculptures of her. Nothing is off limits.

That brings us back to the promised concert in outer space in 2015. Gaga had actually planned to do that. As part of the 3-day Zero G Colony festival at Spaceport America in New Mexico, Gaga had committed to flying on a Virgin Galactic spacecraft into outer space, much like William Shatner did aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. Gaga, however, was going to attempt to sing a single song while the craft was briefly outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

Unfortunately, plans for that were scrapped after the tragic crash of the Virgin Galactic test vehicle SpaceShipTwo in the Mojave Desert in October of 2014. The singer had already begun planning vocal training for the brief space flight, and she had purchased a life insurance policy for the trip. Maybe someday Gaga will get the opportunity to try to sing in space again, but if it never happens, she could always sing while flying in her drone dress…

The Daily Earworm is a daily column that tells the stories, from the historic to the lesser-known, of some of the music industry’s greatest songs, albums, and artists. Here are some other music tales that you may find interesting:

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