Lady Gaga Drops New Album, Harlequin: Our Review

September 27, 2024
ALEXANDER

Lady Gaga Drops New Album, Harlequin: Our Review

It's been four years since Gaga dropped a new album. Chromatica, her sixth album, came out in 2020 and gave us the hits "Stupid Love" and the Ariana Grande collab "Rain On Me." Without much preamble, she dropped a new album, Harlequin. Now before everyone freaks out, it is being called a companion album for her upcoming film Joker: Folie à Deux, aka the Joker 2, with Joaquin Phoenix. As one of our gay besties put it, Harlequin is basically her Tony Bennett stuff without Tony Bennett. Social media has already become a buzz with fan reviews. Hardcore Monsters who love the pop-synth version of Gaga are declaring a hard pass. Just calm down, bitches. Gaga will be dropping a new single next month that will be the lead for her next back-to-Gaga album, LG7. As far as Harlequin goes, it's a nice easy listen, and musical theatre gays and jazzheads will get a quick out of it. But basically, it's rehashed standards done in a simple way. There are some great nuggets here, but nothing to freak out about. It just reminds us that Gaga has an incredible voice and can sing pretty much whatever is put in front of her. She does masterfully make each classic hit her own, but ultimately, it is a nice background album to play while doing chores. Here's the thing, we are getting the songs without the interpretation of having seen the film. Joker 2 is being touted as a non-musical musical movie. So with the added story and character pathos, the songs are missing part of the story. We will definitely be giving the album a second listen after seeing the movie.

Harlequin clocks in around 40 minutes, it's a tight album with 13 songs, a lot of big band influence, and a lot of Judy Garland. We know that Judy Garland had an unmistakable voice, and so too does Gaga. The album starts off with a very well-known classic Hollywood song, "Good Morning" first sung by Garland and Mickey Rooney. The song was also a hit as featured in the movie Singin' In the Rain. Other Garland hits include "Get Happy," "Smile," and "That's Entertainment." Showcasing her master skills, Gaga adds some flair to songs like "Oh, When the Saints" and "Gonna Build A Mountain," that's where we get hints of the raucous Gaga that we love and somehow she brings some banger energy to these tracks.

Appropriately enough, one of our favorite tracks is "The Joker." You don't need to be a genius to figure out why she covered the song. Truth be told, many of us gays will register the song as the title theme from the Australian camp show Kath & Kim. The song actually comes from the 1964 musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd. Gaga gets down and dirty with it, and it is a funny anthem and will probably start popping up at your local drag show.