Music : Joanne, Lady Gaga’s New Album
A few days ago Gaga launched Joanne, her latest album produced by Mark Ronson. It is more stripped-down, restrained, and modest compared to her previous albums—not the usual adjectives we associate with the pop singer. Joanne comes after Cheek to Cheek, her duet album with Tony Bennett in 2014 and Art Pop (released 2013) that didn’t get the expected “Applause” except from the hardcore fans. Well, this latest album will probably suffer the same fate and will definitely sell less than the previous ones.
Joanne is an old-school nineties country-esque album, heavy on the acoustic guitar: meet Gaga McLachlan with a touch of Shania and a dash of rock. Raspy voice, cowboy boots, crop top and no makeup, say hi to Gaga’s new personage. We are light years away from the pop diva who created Born This Way or The Fame which gave her instant worldwide success.
Mother Monster muted any traces of glam, disco, and dance throughout the album so if you like a beat for dancing or something to listen to at the gym, this album won’t be the one you’ll play this winter. There are no dance floor beats—the nearest she comes up with is the song A-Yo, a taste of Motown handclaps or Dancin’ in Circles, a reggae ode to she-bopping. There is an interesting duet with Florence Welch titled Hey Girl, a tribute to Prince in a mid-tempo mode. Perfect Illusion is definitely my favorite from the album but I’m not in love with it either.
I give Joanne three stars out of five. I can definitely appreciate that she wants to re-invent herself though, and she is definitely good at creating concept albums. But at this time, country is just not my cup of tea. Hopefully for the next album she will bring back dance music and eccentric costumes, I love her for that.
IT SPINS ME ROUND LIKE A RECORD THAT I’M NOT SEEING A THING ABOUT THE DEATH OF THE GREAT GAY ICON PETE BURNS OF DEAD OR ALIVE? He died 2 days ago of cardiac arrest at age 57. What the fuck!?!
Robert, we post once per day on the blog, it’s a question of timing for us. We can’t post about everything and we’re sorry about it. But we talked about Prince when he died, Whitney too… we’re trying to cover as much as we can. With the redesign of the website (coming soon) we’ll have more place for the blog and more people writing too, I promise we won’t miss things like that
Dave
because a4a can’t get advertising dollars from him
Mike, really? U definitely a funny guy. You think Gaga pays our blog?
I thought after her last album sales debacle she said that she was going to change her style up it feels like if anything she just dug her heels into the ground and went full Throttle into making this music that her fans hate including me
Lady who?
Lol new persona?? No sir. This IS Gaga. The born this way n Fame Gaga were the persona. She is returning to her roots. And ive missed her!!!
My apologies!
Accepted 🙂
Im gonna pass on this crap