Aura (song)
"Aura", which explores different facets of the singer, is a mariachi and EDM song with Western guitar and Middle Eastern musical influences and a dance production.
"Aura" was first performed live during Gaga's headlining iTunes Festival, and it was used in the trailer for Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills (in which the singer co-stars).
[4] The song's real name was revealed as "Aura", originating from a demo by the Israeli psychedelic musical duo Infected Mushroom.
[8]To promote the 2013 American action-comedy film Machete Kills (in which Gaga appeared as La Chameleón), its producers used the song in a commercial and created a lyric video which was uploaded on Vevo and YouTube on October 9, 2013.
[13] A mariachi and EDM song,[14] "Aura" begins with Gaga's filtered vocal against a Western-style guitar: "I killed my former and left her in the trunk on highway ten", followed by dissonant laughter.
[17] Described by Michael Cragg of the Guardian as a "slightly muddled insight into gender politics", "Aura" ends abruptly with Gaga uttering the words "Dance.
The beginning of the song, implying that the singer destroyed her old self to become Gaga the artist, examines the loss of a private life and constant media scrutiny (noting that they are by choice).
Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine gave the song a positive review, preferring it to the album's lead single ("Applause"); "Aura" is "everything we've come to expect from Gaga: messy, self-absorbed, overly ambitious, and downright weird—while still being undeniably infectious".
[20] Three years later, in another Billboard article ("Lady Gaga's Top 10 Most Daring Songs"), Dan Weiss called "Aura" the singer's "boldest moment particularly as an album opener ... [It's] a dizzying roller coaster ride of a tune and its presumed intent—to get inside the head of a woman from a completely different walk of life and find a kindred spirit in sexual repression—is not without merit".
[21] Helen Brown of the Daily Telegraph called "Aura" the most interesting track on Artpop, commending its Middle-Eastern production, Gaga's characteristically repeated syllables and the song's "clever sonic shapeshifting".
"Aura", this set's opener, manages to be a multitude of songs at once, jumping from nosebleed bass to (Middle) Eastern-coloured tones, a Spaghetti Western monologue to a stars-bound middle-eight, from quite-deliberately provocative talk of slavery and the meaning of the burqa to mindless cosmic love waffle.
[23]Lansky was disappointed with the track, and wrote in his Idolator article that "Aura" consisted of all "the best and worst things about Lady Gaga amplified"; it was "weird and frustrating and great and terrible and brilliant and a failure all at once".
[24] Mark Hogan of Spin called it "a grasping EDM mess" and "all over the place"; he disliked the burqa lyrics, "along with plenty of moments that bring to mind all the 'blog house' producers following in the path of Crystal Castles or Simian Mobile Disco circa 2007".
"[27] Gaga performed "Aura" next at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City, where she held a fête for V magazine editor Stephen Gan.
She performed a number of songs from the album, opening with "Aura" in a clown-like white mask and white-and-black buoy-like attachments which were described by Andrew Hampp of Billboard as reminiscent of a Jack in the Box mascot.
[30] The singer's dress was compared to the Michelin Man by Marissa G. Muller of Rolling Stone, "complete with white water wings, a mask, and a pointed cap".
[35] The song was regularly performed as part of Gaga's 2014 ArtRave: The Artpop Ball concert tour (after "Judas"), with the singer in a green bob cut wig and leather hot pants.
Brittany Spanos from Rolling Stone wrote that the track "begins a darker, more dangerous chapter of journey" in the narrative of the show, although she thought that the song was "oddly included" on the setlist.
