Still gaga for Gaga
After a songwriting drought, Chromatica may be the superstar’s best yet
Chromatica
Lady Gaga Streamline/interscope
LOS ANGELES For all the reinvention and rejuvenation Lady Gaga has shown the past few years — her acclaimed acting debut in A Star Is Born, her duets with Tony Bennett, her show-stopping concerts — it’s hard to escape the fact that her last few albums have been wildly uneven.
Artpop was a musically anemic debacle; Joanne was a hesitant move into singer-songwriter terrain, half of which didn’t even sound like her; and although the A Star Is Born soundtrack and its hit Shallow brought her an Oscar and Grammys and returned her to the charts’ upper reaches, the songs essentially are performed by Ally, her character in the film.
Her status as a world-class singer and Olympic-level performer is beyond question — but can she still make an album filled with songs that measure up to that talent?
Let’s just say that Gaga has doubled down on the answer to that question, returning to the dance floor that spawned her and emerging with her best album since Born This Way — and possibly, song for song, her best yet.
“Take me on a trip, DJ, free my mind,” she sings in the Alice in Wonderland-themed opener, Alice, and follows with punch after punch after punch, packing 13 solid songs into just 43 minutes (along with three orchestral interludes that split the album into loose chapters); it’s compact and concise, with only one song breaking the four-minute mark, seemingly designed to leave the listener wanting more.
But even though nearly every song on Chromatica has a four-on-the-floor, butt-thumping beat, the songs themselves are remarkably varied in many other ways.
It’s pure, joyous dance floor pop — the acoustic instruments and country flourishes of Joanne and A Star Is Born are nowhere in sight; there isn’t even much piano — but with a melodic sophistication and emotional depth that her more recent songs have lacked. And there’s enough musical ear candy to keep fans engaged for months, particularly snapshots from the history of club music: There are flourishes of ’70s disco, house, new wave and electro and vintage Madonna looms large.
The album has consistency and sonic unity, even as the songs wander thematically and melodically all over the map.
And even though Chromatica uniformly feels good, with lyrics about freedom and release and love and self-empowerment, the occasionally dark subject matter is reflected in melancholy melodic and musical touches. Free Woman has a liberating and empowered feel and a rousing chorus, but Gaga said in a recent interview it’s about not letting a past sexual assault define her.