Meet Gaga minus the gimmicks
LADY GAGA: Joanne (Interscope) Verdict: Gaga grows up ★★★★✩ MICHAEL BUBLÉ: Nobody But Me (Reprise) Verdict: Pop that swings ★★★✩✩
SOMETHING seemed to change in Lady Gaga when she hooked up with crooner Tony Bennett for an improbable album of jazz duets two years ago. A sprightly collection that revisited Gershwin, Cole Porter and others, Cheek To Cheek revealed the world’s most eccentric female pop star in an engaging new light.
Putting the onus on her excellent voice and natural talent, it arrived just as the singer’s fondness for outrageous gimmicks — the fake baby bump, prosthetic horns, dresses made from wood shavings or meat — was getting so tiresome that she was starting to resemble a freak show.
But now, after an enlightening year on the road with the veteran Bennett, she is back with a solo album that reiterates her fresh start.
Gaga’s latest image (cut-off jeans, a T-shirt and a ponytail) is less abrasive, while her music reinforces a decisive move away from the machine-tooled, soulless dance music of 2013’s disappointing Artpop.
Overseen by Mark Ronson, who produces with the same, whip-smart precision he once brought to Amy Winehouse, Joanne gives Gaga, 30, a broad musical platform. Its songs encompass thrusting indie-rock, down-home country and world-beat. There are two big ballads that confirm just how well she can sing.
She is aided, it must be said, by a roll-call of guests that reads like a Who’s Who of rock’s new glitterati, a reminder of Ronson’s status as the most well-connected man in music.
The album is powered by the robust guitars of Josh Homme (of American rock band Queens Of The Stone Age), who plays with the same, no-nonsense edge he displayed on Iggy Pop’s Post Pop Depression earlier this year.
Homme is not the only indie hipster present. There are cameos by Beck, Florence Welch, Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders, singer-songwriter Father John Misty, Kevin Parker of Tame Impala and one of the Haim sisters. A craving for greater authenticity is plain from opening number Diamond Heart, a thrusting rocker. Gaga’s persona here is of tarnished prom queen. ‘I’m not flawless, but I’ve got a diamond heart,’ she sings.
Subsequent songs find her smoking Marlboro and hanging out with cowboys, a far cry from trendy Manhattan clubs that inspired her early hits.
The title track is a lament for the singer’s late aunt Joanne, although it could also refer to Gaga’s real middle name, having been christened Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
For the fans or ‘Little Monsters’ who still hanker after the old Gaga, there are pop hooks aplenty in the glitter rock of Come To Mama and the Latintinged Dancin’ In Circles, although recent single Perfect Illusion, a pounding rock-and-dance fusion, is an awkward bridge to previous work.
Far better are the numbers with genuine emotional reach. The Florence Welch duet Hey Girl, driven by a staccato rhythm, is a soulful plea for women to support one another. Ballads Million Reasons and Angel Down find her channelling her inner Streisand.
Of course, toning down her once outrageous approach could be construed as just another pose. But Joanne feels like more than that. Gaga has always possessed the musical vision to make an album as expansive as this. This time, she hasn’t shied away from actually doing so.
MICHAEL BUBLÉ was sold as ‘the Canadian Sinatra’ when he emerged in 2003, and he has since developed into a consummate entertainer. Deemed enough of an all-rounder to replace Ant and Dec as the presenter of next year’s Brit Awards, he has successfully grafted soulful originals on to his repertoire of Rat Pack covers. This ninth album contains few surprises, but it confirms Mr entertainment’s knack of imposing his personality on a blend of pop and swing.
Some of the newly-penned pop tunes, including the ed Sheeran like I Believe In You are ordinary, but Bublé’s laid-back croon is neatly complemented by rapper Tariq ‘Black Thought’ Trotter on the title track.
The summery pop of Someday, a duet with Meghan Trainor, is aimed at a younger audience, but Bublé’s greatest strength remains a jazz voice that excels on the swing numbers.