Good morning readers! Welcome to the final post in the “Lady Gaga: A Reflection” series, todays post will be a discussion of Gaga‘s latest studio album ‘Joanne’.
The highly anticipated fifth album was released on October 21, during the production of the album Gaga worked closely with music producer Mark Ronson and the pair clearly worked well together as they have created something special.
‘Joanne’, which gets it’s name from Gaga‘s deceased aunt, has been described as “her [Gaga] most personal LP to date” and this is clearly reflected in the tracks.
Alike all of Gaga‘s previous releases ‘Joanne’ tackles with a number of themes, these include: grief, acceptance of death, balance, peace, police brutality, love amongst women, broken relationships, family and in true Gaga fashion female masturbation.
When Gaga announced the release of the lead single for the album, ‘Perfect Illusion, I couldn’t contain the excitement. I was delighted that after three years my favourite artist was once again releasing pop music.
Shortly before the release of the track, Gaga released a 30 second snippet of the opening instrumental and I’d be lying if I said I never played it over a hundred times as it was just that good.
When ‘Perfect Illusion’ was finally released (September 9) after my first listen I had to take a moment to assess and reflect upon what I had just heard: to say that I was in love with Gaga‘s new sound would be an understatement, I couldn’t help but think “she’s back…my girl is back”.
When the album as a whole was released I waited until the clock struck midnight and immediately began the story of ‘Joanne’: I ensured there were no distractions, just me and the music.
One thing that immediately hit me where the clear country and funk influences but this new vibe did nothing but compliment Gaga‘s vocals. It’s worth noting that during my first play through of the album I gave into temptation and played ‘Diamond Heart’, ‘John Wayne’, ‘Dancin’ in Circles’ and ‘Grigio Girls’ more than once as they were perfect tracks.
Incase the above paragraph doesn’t make it clear, my favourite songs on the album are:
- Diamond Heart
- A-Yo
- John Wayne
- Dancin’ in Circles
- Perfect Illusion
- Hey Girl (feat. Florence Welch)
- Angel Down
- Grigio Girls
- Angel Down (Work Tape)
This album was my favourite of all the albums released in 2016 and it may definitely be my favourite Gaga album as I feel as listeners we are seeing a fresher, more vulnerable side to Gaga and it truly is beautiful.
Although it began in October, I feel the ‘Joanne’ era is still getting started: we still have lots of singles to look forward to, many videos on the way, a tour and of course the Super Bowl Halftime Show!
Now that we have come to the end of the “Lady Gaga: A Reflection” series, I just want to take the time to thank you for coming on this journey with me.
Before writing these posts I had no idea how much one woman has shaped my life and me as a person, something I didn’t expect is that these posts wouldn’t just have acted as reflection of Gaga and her music but also as a reflection of my own life.
Over the past five days I have returned to places I never thought I’d return, I have rediscovered things about myself that I thought I had lost and I have the music of Lady Gaga to thank for that.
Tomorrow Gaga will take music’s biggest stage and I can’t wait to share this moment with my fellow little monsters all around the world.
If you haven’t read the previous posts from this series I’ll link them here: ‘The Fame’, ‘The Fame Monster’, ‘Born This Way’ and ‘ARTPOP’
I’ll now leave you with one final quote from Gaga when she closed the Roseland Ballroom in New York:
“Let’s celebrate our unity…WE’RE FOREVER, YOU AND ME!”
-Lady Gaga
Until next time…stay safe, be happy and keep on jamming!!
-Mikey
(#MonsterForLife)
MikeyMix 