Several prominent artists cancelled concerts in Israel this summer, but Lady Gaga stuck it out and gave fans in Tel Aviv an impressive show.
The ARTPOP singer phoned in to speak with Billboard about the event.
"I was very confident based on my relationships with lots of internal, political people," Gaga said. "We're very lucky to have great relationships with the White House. They let us know it would be very safe while we were there, and I hope to share that with the world so that they know it is safe to be in Tel Aviv right now.
"But I have to say, and I don't mean this as a suggestion that anything bad would have happened, but I'm a gypsy and I live around the world, so in my mind when I was staying in Tel Aviv — I say this on my song "Gypsy" on ARTPOP: "Be my home just for the day" — that would have been my home while I was there and it was ... I felt a beautiful energy when I was there."
It's been somewhat of a tumultuous time "off the field," so to speak. Gaga split with longtime manager Troy Carter last year, a breakup that made it tougher to push her new album forward.
"It certainly affected my mind during ARTPOP," she said. "I would have to say that whole situation had less to do with creativity differences and more to do with me really needing some time from myself to be creative. My schedule was way too difficult, I was not able to keep up and my whole business became very focused on making as much money as possible as quickly as possible, which is really not where my heart is. My integrity as a musician is so much more important to me than money."
Lastly, Gaga had some very interesting thoughts on the state of music. When asked about U2's recent cloud release with Apple, she said it's not the right way to go for an industry begging fans to get back into albums.
"I think honestly what we need to be doing, and this is my opinion, is instead of trying to find ways to trick the world into focusing on the album for a brief moment, I think that artists need to speak more about how media treats the artists and making the distinction between the celebrity and the artist, because everything is all in one pool now isn't it?" she said. "We're all the same and they're some pretty terrible celebrities out there, let's be honest, right? People famous for no reason. So, I think the more the media can help us to support the artist and support music in a way that's maybe less critical for journalists that are not as knowledgeable about music and help to just spread the music and see the music as gift to the world."
Read the full interview here.
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