Review: Lady Gaga's 'Artpop' bursts with disco energy

• USA TODAY%27s review%3A ** %BD %28out of four%29
• Little Monsters will love it live
• But taken as a whole%2C it%27s more exhausting than energizing

Lady Gaga's latest extravagant exploration of her own fame, fabulousness and fearlessness is undeniably relentless, but that doesn't mean it's consistently entertaining.

Artpop (** ½ out of four), the follow-up to 2011's mega-successful Born This Way, establishes a breathless disco pace and a sexy lyrical stance with opener Aura and pursues them with little letup all the way to closer (and first single) Applause, 14 songs and one hour later. One can easily imagine the songs as a sturdy vehicle for her delightfully over-the-top stage shows, and in small doses, they'll fuel the Little Monsters on the dance floor.

But given the scarcity of sing-along choruses, the rhythmic pounding and the absence of nuance in her powerhouse voice, the overall effect is exhausting if you're listening to the album all the way through. Even the lone ballad, Dope, is too much of a slog to provide much relief.

Artpop, set for a Nov. 11 release but streaming now on iTunes Radio (after leaking online), does add some new colors and textures to her repertoire, however. Do What U Want, a duet with R. Kelly, is as soulful as it is sexy; G.U.Y. embraces EDM; and Jewels N' Drugs finds her engaging in verbal hip-hop combat with rappers T.I., Too Short and Twista.

But none of that distracts from the lyrics, which focus on exactly what we've come to expect from her: the exploits of an empowered, sexy siren who wrestles with fame.

This time, the sexuality comes to the fore. At least half of the songs are touching, as in others touching her or Gaga touching herself. "Do you wanna see me naked, lover?'' she asks in Aura. In MANiCURE, she commands: "Put your hands all over my body parts/ Throw me on the bed/ Squeeze, tease and please me, that's what I said!"

But she's no fool: She tells her lover in Do What U Want that he can have her body, but "you can't have my heart/ And you won't use my mind.'' And in Swine, the guy she's encountered is "just a pig inside a human body.''

Gypsy finds her wanting a romantic connection but also embracing the gypsy life of the road. In the end, it appears that her true desire is to be worshipped as an artist by her fans. As she sings on closer Applause, "I live for the applause, applause, applause."

Download:Venus, Do What U Want, Gypsy, Applause