Yees yes yes yes. Lady Gaga is done with being shocking and making big statements and changing pop music forever and also making boring songs. On Joanne all we get is good music.
Joanne leaves me wanting more. Many of its most poppy songs are less than three minutes long - stopping before they get annoying, so that although I may have wanted another chorus then and there, the effect is just that I keep coming back to listen to them again. While Joanne has no hits to join her show-stopping and chart-topping best, it's still easily her best album as far as music's concerned, and hopefully the first in a new exciting era of Gaga's career.
Best tracks: "Hey girl", "Joanne", "John Wayne", "Angel down"
Spotify note: The "Deluxe" edition featured on Spotify contains three bonus tracks, so the record is meant to end after the first "Angel down". (The bonus tracks are all good, but it feels strange with a second version of "Angel down" just after the first one.)
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| Nothing else. Looks good. |
After years where it seemed to Gaga that bigger was the only way to go (not an easy statement when you start your career off with worldwide megahits "Poker Face" and "Just Dance"), she finally kind of imploded on herself with 2013's Artpop. It had a ridiculously extravagant rollout and turned out to be all wrapping and no content. Drenched in glitter and gloss and terrible thumping beats the hour-long album was absolutely inpenetrable and had none of the charm, inspiration or promise visible in Gaga's earlier stuff. And she realized it herself, smart as she is, that she'd got caught up in a pointless pop spiral. She took a hard left turn and stepped out of the toxic spotlight, and all we've heard from her since is Cheek to cheek, an album of jazz standard duets with 89-year-old Tony Bennett, and the very powerful Oscar-nominated piano ballad "'Til it happens to you". Now she's returned with a back-to-basics pop/rock album, and thought it may sound cliché, it's a massive and well-deserved success, since it's just honest, fun, and 100 % her.
This album sounds like Lady Gaga just enjoying her job. She's a singer-songwriter at heart, with an amazing voice and a penchant for theatrics and showmanship. Through the glitzy pop messiness it's always been the singer alone at the piano that's kept me interested in Lady Gaga. Fantastically weird but talented performances of her biggest hits (like this one back at age 23) is what sets her apart from the Taylor Swifts and Rihannas and Katy Perrys and whoever else is competing for her throne as the current queen of pop. Here she shows off her best sides, in a much more likeable way than before - this is an album you should listen to even though you think you don't like Lady Gaga.
Despite its occasional unfashionable dip into bubblegum lyrics and hillbilly twang, this album is firmly rooted in indie rock. Gaga, now 30, has been working with awesome musicians like Josh Homme (QOTSA), Kevin Parker (Tame Impala), Florence Welch (+ the Machine), Josh Tillman (Father John Misty) and Mark Ronson ("Uptown Funk"), and though you can hear them well none of them end up stealing the show, it's always the music that's in focus. There's that studio jam feeling, of people having fun playing music together. There are plenty of great pop songs on here, a few truly beautiful ballads, and only a couple missteps where I hear too much of the annoying diva of Gaga past ("Dancin' in circles" combines the two in not an entirely successful way) or too much pastiche ("Sinner's prayer" has the full country package going, with the cigarette-stained voice, the bassline, the shuffling beat, that archetypical bluegrass backing vocal on the fifth note, the modulation on the last chorus, even the steel guitar... OK I'll let it pass just this once).
This album sounds like Lady Gaga just enjoying her job. She's a singer-songwriter at heart, with an amazing voice and a penchant for theatrics and showmanship. Through the glitzy pop messiness it's always been the singer alone at the piano that's kept me interested in Lady Gaga. Fantastically weird but talented performances of her biggest hits (like this one back at age 23) is what sets her apart from the Taylor Swifts and Rihannas and Katy Perrys and whoever else is competing for her throne as the current queen of pop. Here she shows off her best sides, in a much more likeable way than before - this is an album you should listen to even though you think you don't like Lady Gaga.
Despite its occasional unfashionable dip into bubblegum lyrics and hillbilly twang, this album is firmly rooted in indie rock. Gaga, now 30, has been working with awesome musicians like Josh Homme (QOTSA), Kevin Parker (Tame Impala), Florence Welch (+ the Machine), Josh Tillman (Father John Misty) and Mark Ronson ("Uptown Funk"), and though you can hear them well none of them end up stealing the show, it's always the music that's in focus. There's that studio jam feeling, of people having fun playing music together. There are plenty of great pop songs on here, a few truly beautiful ballads, and only a couple missteps where I hear too much of the annoying diva of Gaga past ("Dancin' in circles" combines the two in not an entirely successful way) or too much pastiche ("Sinner's prayer" has the full country package going, with the cigarette-stained voice, the bassline, the shuffling beat, that archetypical bluegrass backing vocal on the fifth note, the modulation on the last chorus, even the steel guitar... OK I'll let it pass just this once).
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| Gaga is less of this and more actual music these days, thankfully! |
The organic instruments suit Gaga so well. Listen to the drums on "John Wayne". They're uncertain and shaky on the verse, lilting and strange on the chorus. This is where she formerly would have smashed an annoying nightclub n-ts-n-ts all across the song. It's so much more creative and fun here. The intro of the Florence Welch duet "Hey girl" more than nods to "Bennie and the jets", but the song turns into a beautiful ode to friendship and the two singers' voices go great together. Lyrically there's a bit to laugh at on Joanne, but for the most part it's heartfelt, mature lyrics. "Come to Mama" is a lovely big-band-inspired anthem about loving each other in these troubled times. The opener "Diamond heart" sees Gaga acknowledging her alleged missteps with the clever punchline "I'm not flawless but I got a diamond heart", and the title track "Joanne" is a beautiful letter to her deceased aunt, and a stunning vocal performance as well.
Joanne leaves me wanting more. Many of its most poppy songs are less than three minutes long - stopping before they get annoying, so that although I may have wanted another chorus then and there, the effect is just that I keep coming back to listen to them again. While Joanne has no hits to join her show-stopping and chart-topping best, it's still easily her best album as far as music's concerned, and hopefully the first in a new exciting era of Gaga's career.
Best tracks: "Hey girl", "Joanne", "John Wayne", "Angel down"
Spotify note: The "Deluxe" edition featured on Spotify contains three bonus tracks, so the record is meant to end after the first "Angel down". (The bonus tracks are all good, but it feels strange with a second version of "Angel down" just after the first one.)
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