Spontaneous new album

Lady Gaga: The Joker hasn’t let her go

We'll have to wait even longer for the next proper album - until then, you can enjoy Lady Gaga's "Harlequin".

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Interscope, Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP/Scott A Garfitt)

No, Lady Gaga's next proper studio album won't be released until 2025 - but as an interim snack, you can enjoy "Harlequin", a musical continuation of the film "Joker: Folie à deux". Instead of glittery pop, the menu here includes jazz standards and rock rockiness.

Spontaneous album announcements are by no means a sensation in the modern pop business. The internet and the focus on the streaming market make it possible that it's actually quite unimportant whether you run a month-long advertising campaign or upload brand new songs to Spotify, Tidal and co. overnight. Lady Gaga has found an interesting middle ground for her "6.5 LG" album, as she calls it on her socials. On Tuesday, she announced via Instagram that she would be releasing another album for the musical film "Joker: Folie à deux" would be followed by an album with 13 songs. And not at the same time as the visual treat, but these days. Now. Immanently. After all, there's no time to lose in today's society.

The hurdle-free path has been chosen
But the implied haste has nothing whatsoever to do with the musical content. Anyone hoping for a mainstream pop sequel to the pandemic album "Chromatica" (2020) can save themselves the trouble of reading on at this point. As she announced in the media, Gaga had not yet found enough distance from her embodied character Harley Quinn (album title "Harlequin"... exactly!) due to her method acting after filming was completed and was only able to get rid of it through music. However, the 38-year-old didn't sit down at the piano or notepad to wring dewy songs out of the creative corners of her brain, but instead chose the unencumbered path of interpretation. Film colleague Joaquin Phoenix and the musically rather dark musician Hildur Ingveldardóttir Guðnadóttir were actively involved.

However, "Harlequin" does not leave much room for sinister gloom. Lady Gaga has long had experience with the grand musical gesture. She proved this energetically with a Las Vegas residency series and with two more than first-class jazz/crooner albums that she recorded with Tony Bennett, who died last year. Jazz standards with expansive vocal acrobatics, big band instrumentation and driving, unrestrained instrumentation are the top priority here. There is no trace of modesty, but that would also be presumptuous for the great numbers from days gone by. The mania and perseverance displayed in the film can also be applied to the music, as Gaga throws herself into the action with fervor and zeal and really blossoms.

Moments of starvation
With the classic "Good Morning", founded in 1939 by Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, and a tasty version of "Get Happy", the artist skillfully leads into the action, but then increasingly loses ground because the choice of songs sometimes seems somewhat arbitrary. A delicately breathy version of the overplayed "Oh, When The Saints" is just as annoying as the glittering "That's Entertainment". Gaga's expressive voice alone sometimes saves her from falling asleep in the worse moments, but fortunately the track list is designed in such a way that there is always a sense of awakening in between. This is particularly noticeable when she occasionally hints at rock, as in "I've Got The World On A String" from 1932, which Gaga brings surprisingly powerfully into the present.

The big surprise comes at the beginning of the second third of the album. In "The Joker", Gaga's delicate timbre suddenly transforms into a blues-drenched rock werewolf, which sheds its quiet persistence for almost three minutes and creates sonic danger. The much quieter but perfectly arranged Carpenters track "Close To You" also stands out positively. Speaking of arrangements - they work unparalleled on an A-class production like "Harlequin". Despite the showcased sound opulence, it always seems as if not an ounce too much sugar has been added so as not to take the slight residual gloom of the basic "Joker" theme ad absurdum.

Let's look forward to 2025
"Harlequin" is an entertaining, artistically high-quality album that perfectly showcases Lady Gaga's immense vocal power and can probably also be seen as a distant swan song to her unique artistic liaison with Tony Bennett. As her career continues, the New Yorker is once again paving the way for a glittering artistic future that will one day take her from the big bombastic pop stages to smoky jazz clubs with atmosphere. But there's still plenty of time until then, so an album like this is ideal as an appetizer for what is yet to come. Now it's off to the cinema and then look forward to 2025, when Ms. Germanotta will delight us with the proper studio album. The only new track, "Happy Mistake", presented here as a foretaste, certainly whets the appetite.