Artist:
Lady Gaga
Genre:
Pop
Total Time:
41:00
Record Label:
Interscope
Purchasing Links:
MP3, Apple Music
Release Date
September 27, 2024
"The Entertainment Factor is supported by its audience. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission."
Find out more about this album release after the jump.
Lady Gaga
Genre:
Pop
Total Time:
41:00
Record Label:
Interscope
Purchasing Links:
MP3, Apple Music
Release Date
September 27, 2024
"The Entertainment Factor is supported by its audience. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission."
Find out more about this album release after the jump.
Product Description: In the summer of 2023, Lady Gaga began dropping hints about a mysterious project she’d been working on in secret—new music, so she claimed, that sounded nothing like her past work. Fans wondered whether it could be “LG7,” the long-awaited follow-up to 2020’s Chromatica, until September 2024, when billboards popped up with the message “LG6.5.” The surprise between the pop auteur’s sixth and seventh studio albums turns out to be Harlequin, a concept album delivered from the warped perspective of Lee Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn, her character in Todd Phillips’ Joker-fied jukebox musical Joker: Folie à Deux.
As is often the case for actors who temporarily inhabit Gotham City, Gaga realized shortly after filming wrapped that she hadn’t yet moved on from the character she’d been embodying. She began to conceptualize an album of updated jazz standards sung as the Joker’s main squeeze. Harlequin, recorded at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio in Malibu alongside LG7, works as a companion piece to the film, but it’s also distinctly aligned with Gaga’s singular vision.
First, though, Gaga developed Lee’s singing ability for the role. “I did a lot of different kinds of work to create her,” she tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “One of the things that I did was change my voice in the film. It’s Lee’s voice, and it’s really raw, and it’s really naked. It’s very untrained. Not proper breathing.” How did the superstar with the powerhouse vocals achieve this? “I think that Joaquin [Phoenix] scared the living shit out of me every day until my voice left my body.”
Who else could pull off a reimagining of the 1932 classic “I’ve Got the World on a String” as a gritty surf-rock slow-burner (“What if The Cramps made a French song?”) or deliver a song from an obscure 1964 musical as an ’80s rock ripper? That song, “The Joker,” originates from The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd, though it could have been written exactly for Gaga to sing right now—as could the 1952 standard “That’s Entertainment,” popularized by Judy Garland: “Everything that happens in life can happen in a show/You can make ’em laugh, you can make ’em cry/Anything can go!” But listen closely and you’ll hear Gaga’s subtly twisted tweaks: the cheery lyrics of “Good Morning” by way of Singin’ in the Rain (“Good morning/Rainbows are shining through!”) are replaced with the gleefully sinister “Bang bang, you’re black and blue!”
Considering her professional and personal relationship with the late Tony Bennett and her own jazz residency in Vegas, Gaga is very intimate with the genre. Yet she realizes that Bennett probably would not have approved of her take on the songs this time around: “We did so much that Tony would never have been cool with.” The Oscar winner also delves into the psychology of the album’s original cut “Happy Mistake.” “When women play these broken characters in music or in films or theater, the audience loves it, and they just cheer us on,” she says. “They cheer on the image of pain. It’s super confusing. That song is in a lot of ways about that.”
As is often the case for actors who temporarily inhabit Gotham City, Gaga realized shortly after filming wrapped that she hadn’t yet moved on from the character she’d been embodying. She began to conceptualize an album of updated jazz standards sung as the Joker’s main squeeze. Harlequin, recorded at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio in Malibu alongside LG7, works as a companion piece to the film, but it’s also distinctly aligned with Gaga’s singular vision.
First, though, Gaga developed Lee’s singing ability for the role. “I did a lot of different kinds of work to create her,” she tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “One of the things that I did was change my voice in the film. It’s Lee’s voice, and it’s really raw, and it’s really naked. It’s very untrained. Not proper breathing.” How did the superstar with the powerhouse vocals achieve this? “I think that Joaquin [Phoenix] scared the living shit out of me every day until my voice left my body.”
Who else could pull off a reimagining of the 1932 classic “I’ve Got the World on a String” as a gritty surf-rock slow-burner (“What if The Cramps made a French song?”) or deliver a song from an obscure 1964 musical as an ’80s rock ripper? That song, “The Joker,” originates from The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd, though it could have been written exactly for Gaga to sing right now—as could the 1952 standard “That’s Entertainment,” popularized by Judy Garland: “Everything that happens in life can happen in a show/You can make ’em laugh, you can make ’em cry/Anything can go!” But listen closely and you’ll hear Gaga’s subtly twisted tweaks: the cheery lyrics of “Good Morning” by way of Singin’ in the Rain (“Good morning/Rainbows are shining through!”) are replaced with the gleefully sinister “Bang bang, you’re black and blue!”
Considering her professional and personal relationship with the late Tony Bennett and her own jazz residency in Vegas, Gaga is very intimate with the genre. Yet she realizes that Bennett probably would not have approved of her take on the songs this time around: “We did so much that Tony would never have been cool with.” The Oscar winner also delves into the psychology of the album’s original cut “Happy Mistake.” “When women play these broken characters in music or in films or theater, the audience loves it, and they just cheer us on,” she says. “They cheer on the image of pain. It’s super confusing. That song is in a lot of ways about that.”
TRACK LIST:
1 .
Good Morning
(02:46)
2 . Get Happy (2024) (03:12)
3 . Oh, When The Saints (03:43)
4 . World On A String (02:38)
5 . If My Friends Could See Me Now (02:42)
6 . That's Entertainment (04:09)
7 . Smile (03:39)
8 . The Joker (02:55)
9 . Folie à Deux (02:59)
10 . Gonna Build A Mountain (02:52)
11 . Close To You (02:44)
12 . Happy Mistake (04:05)
13 .That's Life (03:05)
2 . Get Happy (2024) (03:12)
3 . Oh, When The Saints (03:43)
4 . World On A String (02:38)
5 . If My Friends Could See Me Now (02:42)
6 . That's Entertainment (04:09)
7 . Smile (03:39)
8 . The Joker (02:55)
9 . Folie à Deux (02:59)
10 . Gonna Build A Mountain (02:52)
11 . Close To You (02:44)
12 . Happy Mistake (04:05)
13 .That's Life (03:05)
OTHER ALBUM RELEASES:
- New Music Albums: SCHOENBERG & FAURE - PELLEAS ET MELISANDE (Paavo Järvi, Frankfurt Radio Symphony)
- New Music Albums: MEMOIR OF A SPARKLEMUFFIN (Suki Waterhouse)
- New Music Albums: SOFT TISSUE (Tindersticks)
- New Music Albums: THE GREATEST LOVE (London Grammar)
- New Music Albums: 143 (Katy Perry)
- New Music Albums: FIVE DICE, ALL THREES (Bright Eyes)
- New Music Albums: SOMEDAY, NOW (Katy J Pearson)
- New Music Albums: FAURE - REQUIEM; GOUNOD: MESSE DE CLOVIS (Emo?ke Baráth, Philippe Estèphe, Hervé Niquet, Le Concert Spirituel Orchestra & Chorus)
- New Music Albums: CITY LIGHTS (The Waeve)
- New Music Albums: IN WAVES (Jamie xx)
- New Music Albums: THIS LAND (Lara Downes)
- New Music Albums: LIKE ALL BEFORE YOU (The Voidz)
- New Music Albums: FLOW CRITICAL LUCIDITY (Thurston Moore)
- New Music Albums: LEARNING TO SWIM ON EMPTY (Wu-Lu)
- New Music Albums: BLISS - MUSIC FOR BRASS BAND (John Wilson, Black Dyke Band)
- New Music Albums: LEMONS, LIMES AND ORCHIDS (Joan As Police Woman)
- New Music Albums: MIRAGE TOUR '82 (Fleetwood Mac)
- New Music Albums: VIVALDI X2² (La Serenissima & Adrian Chandler)
- New Music Albums: PLANET PEARL (Pearl & The Oysters)
- New Music Albums: WISH ON THE BONE (Why Bonnie)
- New Music Albums: WINDSWEPT (Photay)
- New Music Albums: SAFE FLIGHT (Jaz Karis)
- New Music Albums: REAL DEAL (Honeyglaze)
- New Music Albums: MOZART, R. STRAUSS - LIEDER (Sabine Devieilhe, Mathieu Pordoy)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please keep the comments as civilised as possible, and refrain from spamming. All comments will be moderated. Thank you !