SOUND OFF: First Listen To Lady Gaga's 'Applause'

The queen has returned! International pop culture icon Lady Gaga unveiled the new lead single from her highly anticipated forthcoming ARTPOP album project - though actually billed as "an experience" by the hit-maker herself, given the interactive companion app - and "Applause" is worthy of a rousing standing ovation.

"I stand here waiting / For you to bang the gong," begins the 80s electronic-tinged tune, referencing what most of her devoted fans - aka Little Monsters - have been saying since 2011's BORN THIS WAY, her last full-length studio album.

Then, all is forgiven and two years thusly forgotten by the giddily grandstanding chorus: "Give me the thing that I love / Put your hands up, make 'em touch / Make it real loud."

Sassy and contemporary in its attitude and stylization with Gaga enunciating each and every syncopated word of the staccato cadences with effortless ease - not unlike David Bowie; with a heavy dose of Grace Jones - "Applause" is an instant earworm and a solid return to breezy, dance floor pop form - lest we forget, she treaded much darker, murkier waters on the majority of respectable hit BORN THIS WAY.

"I live for the applause / Applause, applause, applause," sings Gaga in the infectious chorus - and, with that, surely a classic chorus of summer is born.

Indeed, "Applause" blurs the lines in the all the right ways - and, without resorting to any samples! Yet, will the rest of the album be this light and fun or is this a relative respite from the haute kunst (the German word for art, referenced in the at-times lofty lyrics) of the rest of the ARTPOP experience? We'll have to wait and see (and hear)!

"Applause" by Lady Gaga is available on iTunes now. ARTPOP will be released on November 11. More information is available at Lady Gaga's official site here.

Of note, "Applause" joins another recently leaked ARTPOP track "Burqa", which was also covered in this column here.

Listen to "Applause" by Lady Gaga below.