Lady Gaga responds to fans' petition for an 'Artpop' sequel as the 7-year-old album rockets to No. 2 on iTunes

• Fans petitioned for a sequel to Lady Gaga's "Artpop," which would be titled "Artpop: Act II."
• Lady Gaga responded on Tuesday, saying the support "inspired such tremendous warmth in my heart."
• The album began trending online and even reentered the top three of the US iTunes sales chart.

Lady Gaga shared her thoughts on the growing popularity of her 2013 album "Artpop" on Tuesday after fans petitioned for her to release a follow-up.

"The petition to #buyARTPOPoniTunes for a volume II has inspired such a tremendous warmth in my heart," she tweeted. "Making this album was like heart surgery, I was desperate, in pain, and poured my heart into electronic music that slammed harder than any drug I could find."

Gaga's response comes after more than 40,000 people signed a Change.org petition, which was created "to show the Haus of Gaga that we still care" about an unreleased sequel to the 2013 project, apparently called "Act II."

She also addressed the trending hashtag "#buyARTPOPoniTunes" that was circulating overnight.

As of Tuesday morning, the 7-year-old album had reentered the top two of the US iTunes sales chart. It was still in the No. 2 position at the time of publication, trailing only behind Taylor Swift's first rerecorded album, "Fearless (Taylor's Version)," which was released on Friday.

Gaga went on to describe her experience making "Artpop" and thanked fans for celebrating and supporting her creation.

"I fell apart after I released this album. Thank you for celebrating something that once felt like destruction. We always believed it was ahead of its time. Years later turns out, sometimes, artists know. And so do little monsters. Paws up," she tweeted.

Gaga's producer, DJ White Shadow, also celebrated the album's success on social media.

In an Instagram post on Monday, he said, "At the time of this post this album was #6 on the pop album chart. Almost a decade after its release. What an amazing gift from you all. I am moved. Thank you."

Upon its release in November 2013, "Artpop" was the shape-shifting artist's most divisive album at the time.

But as the singer mentioned in her tweet yesterday, the album has since become a fan-favorite, and today, critics have realized how ahead of its time the album was and how good it actually is.

In October 2013, Gaga seemed to confirm she was working on an "Artpop" sequel during a Twitter Q&A - even before the original dropped.

"Yes, lots of songs for ACT TWO!" she said to a fan who asked if she'd already started planning for a follow-up album.

And Shadow has supposedly played instrumentals from "Artpop: Act II" at concerts at this point, according to Entertainment Weekly.

On Gaga's Joanne World Tour in 2017, he opened up the show with a snippet from a song called "Tea," a potential track on the forthcoming album, EW reported.