Lady Gaga has been no stranger to our television screens as she’s appeared in season five and six of American Horror Story. However, the singer-turned-actress has been missing in action from the music industry since 2014 with the release of her lesser known jazz album in collaboration with Tony Bennett Cheek to Cheek, but we haven’t really heard her much on pop radio since 2013’s Artpop, which featured “Applause” and “Do What U Want” (ft. R. Kelly). But Lady Gaga is back in a way we’ve never heard her before with the release of Joanne, a soft rock and pop album that features collaborations with Mark Ronson, Florence Welch, Jeff Bhasker, BloodPop and RedOne.
This album, which was released on October 21 and has since reached number one on the Billboard Artist 100 Chart, is a pleasant change from Gaga’s pop style that usually showcases dancey beats over her phenomenal vocals. The lyrics are raw and her voice is on full display. Rolling Stone gives Joanne 3.5 out of 5 stars calling it “an old-school Nineties soft-rock album, heavy on the acoustic guitar.” The album discusses themes such as death, relationships, religion and so much more.
Songs like “Angel Down” and “Million Reasons” are haunting and full of emotions. “Angel Down” is a heartfelt ballad full of musings about faith and death. The song dares to question society about where humanity has escaped to as Gaga asks, “Where are our leaders?” and “Why do people just stand around?” The pop icon lets us into her world and presumably her failed engagement with “Million Reasons,” which moves you to tears with her description of a lost spark in a relationship as she begs the Lord and her lover to give her a reason to stick around. The song that the album is titled after, “Joanne,” is another personal track based on Gaga’s dead aunt Joanne Stefani Germanotta. The tune of this track is more upbeat than the previously mentioned songs, but the lyrics are equally as haunting. The song opens up with “Take my hand, stay Joanne – heaven’s not ready for you. Every part of my aching heart needs you more than the angels do.” Cue the feels.
The dance pop aspect of the album shows itself through songs like “A-YO,” “Dancin’ In Circles” and “Perfect Illusion.” “A-YO” presents a fun, hand-clapping beat with cowboy hoots and hollers and raunchy lyrics like “Get off on me, my body’s got you pleadin’, light me up and breathe in – mirror on the ceilin’.” One of my personal favorite tracks on the album is “Dancin’ In Circles,” which Rolling Stones calls “reggae” saying it sounds like “a No Doubt cover band …” I love it because the lyrics are all about masturbation and girl power, similar to Hailee Steinfeld’s “Love Myself.” Gaga brags about doing just fine on her own claiming it “feels good to be lonely.” The single “Perfect Illusion” sounds a bit more like Gaga’s older hits, such as “Bad Romance,” but it still presents a fresh new spin on what we are used to. The song is another one that seems to be about her failed romance claiming, “It wasn’t love … It was a perfect illusion mistaken for love.”
Overall this album sounds refreshing and modest in comparison to Lady Gaga’s past endeavors. In an interview with The New York Times, she says, “There’s two sides of me: there’s the side of me that is a true rebel and then another side of me that’s my father’s daughter. And so this album – it doesn’t lean necessarily in a particular direction, which is why the album title is Joanne – this is my middle name. This is the middle and the center of me.” Listen for yourself: http://apple.co/2dwUEd7.
Watch Gaga kill it with James Corden below.