Mother Monster is back from her four-year hiatus. Following months of rumours and alleged leaks, the pop titan has returned to music with a surprise companion album, Harlequin, filled with covers and some original songs, to her starring role as Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie À Deux. We ask ourselves, what can’t she do?
After weeks of cryptic posts on social media the past few weeks, Lady Gaga has released one of the projects she has secretly been working on alongside her role in Todd Phillip’s film co-starring Joaquin Phoenix. The Oscar and thirteen-time Grammy Award-winner’s surprise album, inspired by her character in the movie, takes listeners on a genre-defying journey in pure Gaga style. Dubbed ‘LG 6.5’ as a midpoint between Chromatica and her next studio album coming out in February, Harlequin adds another layer to her already diverse and versatile discography as well as modern takes on classic standards.
Lady Gaga is back in the spotlight. From topping the charts with Bruno Mars and their Die With a Smile to performing at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, to now surprise releasing Harlequin and gearing up to release the Joker sequel as well as LG7, we are being fed. The new LP is “not beholden to pop music or pop culture in the same ways my other releases might have been, which gave me freedom,” she tells Zane Lowe, reflected by the way it floats effortlessly between music styles ranging from an original waltz to blues to jazz to punk to funk and everything in between. The singer carefully shapes each song in her own way to fit the chaotic musical world of Joker: Folie à Deux, creating an equally Gaga and ‘Lee’ musical soundtrack that hints to her ‘bad romance’ with the Joker.
The truth is, being a little monster, you never know what you’re going to get from Gaga. It can either go from two years of radio silence to ten different projects within a few months—essentially what she’s delivering now. The things that never change, however, are her range and constant reinventions of herself, as well as her ability to surprise you by showcasing her never-ending list of talents while consistently delivering iconic projects. No words could ever be enough to describe this living legend.
If you didn’t enjoy her previous jazz takes, such as Cheek to Cheek and Love for Sale with Tony Bennett, perhaps this project won’t be as high in your Gaga discography ranking; however, her powerful and emotive raw vocals transcend genres and guarantee a worthwhile listen from start to finish; plus, if you aren’t familiar with the covered songs, it’s basically a whole new Gaga album. So, don’t expect to gag over synths and beat drops when LG7 is right around the corner.
The fun and wildly over-the-top Good Morning has an almost maniacal energy to it, contrasted later on by the swampy and dark take on World On A String sounding like a ballad the Cramps would make. The superstar’s full-blooded take on the old-time classic The Joker, accompanied by electric guitars and pounding drums, is nothing short of the pop-rock project fans have been eagerly waiting for her to do. She’s clearly a theatre kid.
Happy Mistake is one of the only original songs on the album and is an immediate stellar standout. Could it be this movie’s Shallow? This heart-wrenching emotional power ballad written by Gaga and Bloodpop explores the deeper part of the character’s, and even Gaga’s, psyche as she sings, “How did I get so addicted / to the love of the whole world?” and “I can try to hide behind the makeup, but the show must go on.” Her cover of Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 Smile, reminiscent of Joker’s painted, psychopathic grin, sees her singing over a cocktail piano in a breathy register accompanied by a brass section, which results in sonic nods to the madness of Harley Quinn.
Leave it to Gaga to blow you away with her original glamorous waltz Folie à Deux, where she manages to use minor details like a haunting choir on the final verse to twist this ballad into something unsettling. Her vocal flairs and bouncing gospel-meets-jazz spirit on Get Happy (2024) mark a beautiful cover where she both keeps the original essence and adds her own style into the mix.
Gaga told Zane Lowe she would label the album ‘vintage pop,’ but it feels too hard to classify this project under one genre with the way it blends and bends different sounds and styles in such a theatrical Gaga manner. In a way, it feels like a bridge into another life chapter similar to Cheek to Cheek. Rather than it feeling like a period of chasing acceptance and acclaim from the public, this album displays her confidence and musical knowledge without Tony Bennett to guide her—not that she needed it in the first place. If you took chaos, camp, American classics, show-stopping vocals, and a clown into a blender, this is more or less what you would get.
In a time where the notion of eras has become watered down and commercialised, she’s come to shatter the concept entirely of having multiple eras at once. It’s impossible to hear Harlequin and have nothing but increased respect for Gaga. This album gives us DRAMA and THEATRE and brings the 360 artist even closer to an EGOT status and Broadway debut. She essentially pulled songs from the great American songbook to make a concept jazz cover album from the perspective of a comic book supervillain; who else could do that? The film comes out on the 4th of October, and Harlequin has already debuted at number 1 on the iTunes charts of almost every major music market, proving that when it comes to Gaga and topping charts, no matter the genre, talent always wins.
Lady Gaga is at a stage in her career where she can literally do anything she wants, just as she has been doing since her breakout into the mainstream back in 2008. Whenever you think she’s going to do something, she runs in the opposite direction and delivers something fresh, and to quote her, “Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before.” Now eagerly awaitng the film and LG7’s first single on October, the sky is the limit for her. Music, movies, Broadway, you name it. She’s not just crossing genres. She’s crossing art forms and we are so here for it.