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Lady Gaga‘s Artpop might not be her best album but it added a lot of interesting anecdotes to her public persona. The “Poker Face” singer supposedly created a music video for one of the album’s songs but never released it. One of the musicians who worked on Artpop revealed everything he knew about the situation.

Lady Gaga’s ‘Artpop’ saw the star get mythological

DJ White Shadow served as one of the many producers on Gaga’s most divisive album, Artpop. The record includes a tune called “Venus” which is a tribute to both the Roman love goddess Venus and the planet of the same name. According to rumor, Gaga crafted a music video for the song that never saw the light of day.

During a 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly, DJ White Shadow was asked if the video was real. “I don’t know that!” the DJ replied. “Because of the nature of the way of what I’m supposed to do on the chain, my part on the assembly line, I have nothing to do with the video thing. 

“When they shot that video for ‘G.U.Y.’ and everybody from the Real Housewives was on it, I didn’t find out about that until weeks after it was done,” he added. “There’s a super possibility that it did, but I have no idea. I do know that song is one of the songs that, when it’s time to get pumped up, she’s jamming it out.”

Lady Gaga seemed to dismiss the album

DJ White Shadow was asked about the time Gaga said she didn’t “remember Artpop.” “Everybody gets analytical about every syllable!” he replied. “You’re waiting on bated breath for stuff, I get it. Take everything with a grain of salt. 

“People are filled with love and talent over here,” he continued. “She’s smart and awesome about what she does, and cares deeply about everybody that cares about her!”

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‘Venus’ flopped and ‘Artpop’ could have performed a lot better

“Venus” was barely a hit. It reached No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100, charting for a single week. It’s a big deal when an indie band reaches the top 40. In contrast, Gaga had released many songs that performed so much better than this. Four other songs from Artpop charted — “Dope,” “Do What U Want,” “G.U.Y.,” and “Applause” — but only the latter made much of a dent in popular culture.

Artpop performed a lot better than “Venus.” The record reached No. 1 for a single week and stayed on the chart for 29 weeks in total. So far, Artpop is Gaga’s least popular pop album in the United States. Even her album of standards, Cheek to Cheek, was a little more prominent than Artpop.

However, Artpop has many defenders. While it didn’t become a pop juggernaut like The Fame or Born This Way, some fans feel that Artpop presaged the rise of hyper-pop music with its avant-garde sounds and campy lyrics. It’s fascinating that an artist as mainstream as Gaga managed to have a huge impact on a niche genre like hyper-pop.

We might never see the music video for “Venus” (if it even exists), but fans will be dancing the night away to the song for years to come.

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