Album Review: Joanne by Lady Gaga

Singer-actress-artist-mimic... Lady Gaga is undeniably an impressive multi-hyphenate. With Joanne, you can now add time traveller to the list.

What’s most surprising about her new album, named after her late aunt (who died of lupus at age 19, before Gaga’s birth), is the speed with which it rockets back through time.

The opener, “Diamond Heart”, recalls the wide-eyed expanse of The Killers’ sandy 2006 album Sam’s Town. Track two, rollicking cowgirl anthem “A-Yo”, sounds torn from the Coyote Ugly soundtrack. Joanne soon abandons the 21st century entirely, passing by late ‘90s space pop before arriving at the soft groove of Hall and Oates and their AM contemporaries on late highlight “Hey Girl” (featuring Florence Welch). Thirty years covered in 39 minutes. Impressive.

As far as her musical timeline is concerned, Gaga (aka Stefani 'Joanne' Germanotta) stops just shy of the throbbing 1970s New York art scene she pulled from on 2013’s ARTPOP. Three years later, that doesn’t look quite like the flop it seemed to be at the time (certainly not with 2.5 million sales), but it still marred her reputation and surely inspired her new country-EDM gybe (which, on paper, reads like an absurd over-correction). Here, we apparently meet the real Gaga. Call her Joanne.

It’s an admirable effort, striving for legitimacy. She even complemented it with a positively respectable black and white photo shoot. Gaga is now a Golden Globe-winning actress and Oscar-nominated writer, after all. Supposedly done with the artifice of her previous pieces, she delivers the long-dreaded “personal” passion project. Sometimes these popstar reinventions deliver (Madonna’s “Ray of Light”). Sometimes they decidedly don’t (Madonna’s “American Life”).

With genuinely weighty personal issues to explore – her sexual assault as a teenager (“some a**hole broke me in” on “Diamond Heart”); the end of her engagement to actor Taylor Kinney; the lingering ghost of aunt Joanne – Gaga’s latest rebirth appears more organic than forced, pink cowboy hat on the cover aside.

Question is, will the fans follow ‘serious Lady Gaga’ to her next destination? ARTPOP at least begat the bustling, Warholian “Applause” and the problematic banger (our favourite kind!) “Do What U Want”. Joanne’s lead-single, the desert-festival anthem “Perfect Illusion”, boasts the combined talents of Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker and Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme - not to mention the considerable Gaga herself and omnipresent producer Mark Ronson - and it’s only memorable for an utterly unconvincing attempt at a late key-change.

The album’s worst song involves another notable contributor: Beck. They share credit for “Dancin’ in Circles”, a Rastafarian-bootscoot that's exactly as bad as that brief description implies. The 'Cotton Eye Joe' funk of “John Wayne” begins the awful trifecta completed by “Circles” and “Illusion”. It’s like someone threw Shania Twain into the Upside Down.

Joanne is elevated immediately afterwards by “Million Reasons”, co-written by country gun-for-hire Hillary Lindsey. It’s an intimate torch-song that shows off Germanotta’s legitimately stunning pipes; her finest vocal turn since the cavernous, acoustic rendition of “Yoü and I” on A Very Gaga Thanksgiving.

“Million Reasons” also reminds us that Gaga knows how to perform. Real or not, she undeniably plays heartbreak convincingly. Same goes on title track “Joanne”, in which her gentle trill endearingly creaks while crying out the hook, “Gi-rl, where do you think you’re goin’?” With a sparse drum beat, producers Ronson and BloodPop cede the floor to Gaga’s voice, her idiosyncratic imperfections on display. On these belters, she can’t deny her ‘theatre geek’ instincts. That's always been her most winning trait.

Confessional “Sinner’s Prayer” (penned partly by Father John Misty), the Phil Spector-ish “Come to Mama” and elegiac Trayvon Martin-tribute (didn’t see that coming) “Angel Down” close the record on a high, even though they mimic the True Detective theme song, Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and Lana del Rey respectively.

Joanne may not be an overwhelming success, but it challenges the myth that bombast is Lady Gaga’s best and only friend. It’s when she turns inwards that Joanne truly works. We’re well past the point of knowing where the woman ends and the character begins. The point is, Joanne often feels authentic. Lesser artists could only dream of touching authenticity.

3.5/5

Photo: Facebook – Lady Gaga.