It was written by Gaga, Paul "DJ White Shadow" Blair, Madeon, Dino Zisis, Nick Monson, and Sun Ra.

Gaga worked on the song with Madeon and was inspired by a number of things, chief among them were: Venus, the Roman goddess of love, the eponymous planet, and sexual intercourse.

Three accompanying artworks were designed for the single by Steven Klein, including one with a scorpion attached to Gaga's head, a picture of a dead bat, and a third showing her standing naked with an open clam shell superimposed above her shoulder and covering her lower face.

[5] During her interview with SiriusXM radio, Gaga confirmed that "Venus" was the first song developed for Artpop and it set the mood and tone for the rest of the album to follow.

"[7] Gaga did not spare any free time for the song's recording and would usually start the sessions after the Born This Way Ball show performances were over.

"[4] Madeon's production on Artpop was different from his usual endeavours, and he helped take the mood of the track from being a ballad to being an anthem, but still retaining the sentimental and inspirational aspects of it.

[8] "Venus" was written and produced by Gaga, with additional songwriting from DJ White Shadow, Nick Monson and Dino Zisis.

[11] "Venus" is a synth-pop, dance-pop and glam rock song consisting of four hooks, which "swings like a pendulum from one emotional extreme to another, from its deadpan hashtag rap [...] to its glittering dance balladry".

[12][13][14][15] Gaga's vocal delivery is similar to that of David Bowie in his persona Ziggy Stardust, while the song's structure is reminiscent of Bananarama's 1986 single of the same name.

When Bradley Stern from MuuMuse reviewed the single, he described the chorus as "total pop euphoria" with Gaga belting the lyrics, "When you touch me I die just a little inside / I wonder if this could be love!

[17] According to Jon Pareles of The New York Times, it is a "mutating, episodic dance-floor track, [in which] the singer presents herself as the goddess of love in the 'seashell bikini' painted by Botticelli [in The Birth of Venus]".

[13] John Walker from MTV News noted that "During Gaga's futuristic ballroom emcee moment, where she channels something straight out of Paris Is Burning she utters the line 'Uranus!/ Don't you know my ass is famous!?'

[22][23] However, on October 22, 2013, Gaga announced that she would release "Do What U Want" featuring R. Kelly as the second single instead of "Venus", due to the former's overwhelming success on the iTunes Store.

[19] Gaga had announced that the music video for "Venus" would be directed by filmmaker Ruth Hogben, who previously collaborated with the singer on interludes for The Monster Ball Tour, and photographed her for the October 2013 issue of Elle magazine.

This is followed by a shot of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills playing musical instruments while lip-synching the lyrics to "Venus" in matching pink dresses.

[36] Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times expressed that its "throbbing disco-glam" groove "feels like a throwback to her 'Just Dance' days", calling it "fun, kind of, but hardly extraordinary.

[38] Christina Lee of Idolator gave a positive review, saying that "'Venus' doesn't waste a single moment dealing with subtlety or nuances of any kind.

[39] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone gave the song a rating of 3 stars out of 5, and wrote that Gaga's "space-disco ode to the planet of sex sounds even more like Madonna than you'd expect, especially 'Papa Don't Preach'".

"[42] In a separate review, Alexa Camp of the same magazine, called the song a "tongue-in-cheek album filler" with non-sense lyrics, feeling that "it was a solar system away from smashes" like the singer's previous releases "Telephone" and "Bad Romance".

Following the official release of Artpop, "Venus" sold 3,174 digital downloads independent of the album, to debut at number 76 on the UK Singles Chart.

[63] Gaga performed "Venus" for the first time at London's G-A-Y nightclub on the October 26, 2013, stripping naked in the process and provoking a media frenzy.

[64][65] The next day, she performed the song as well as "Do What U Want" on the tenth series of The X Factor (UK), along with a flurry of backup dancers and seashells covering her breasts.

[71][72] "Venus" was next performed at Gaga's ArtRave one-off concert on November 10, 2013, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, on the main stage adjacent to a Jeff Koons sculpture of the singer.

The singer was dressed in nude colored seashell and rhinestone bra and underwear, with her hair coiffed high, and wearing a septum piercing.

[79] According to Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone, "Gaga did 'Venus' in a clamshell bikini and a wig evoking Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C., while her dancers wore sad little white costumes that made them look like Woody Allen and Christopher Guest playing sperm cells in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask).