[LP Review] As a Female Pop Enthusiast, I was Let Down & Heartbroken by Joanne Tremendously to My Deepest Inner Core
Click above to Listen to Joanne by Lady Gaga/ #ClassicPop #Country #CountryPop #Joanne #LadyGaga #Pop #TraditionalCountry
The fact that Lady Gaga started out the way she did, versus the way this album expresses its connection to that same dance culture. This is not baring all things down to that aspect, but it certainly is a good dynamic to measure the scales of that energy. Lady Gaga use to be so over the top with everything about the music, and Joanne was an album I feel she pretty much let those things go sadly. I do believe the sentiments behind her reasoning considering on a mass level the death of your father's sister can be a bit personal and intimate, for toning things back with all the key elements that made her shoot to the top three way she did. Talent being one of those things most certainly but I'm just not sure it's present on Joanne, musically, lyrically, the aesthetics behind the production. This is sad to write for me but I just feel like this was her worst album, though it wasn't a bad year for Lady Gaga during the time interval of her executing this era it doesn't exempt the turn up elements. I couldn't get hype boasting how I felt about my sexuality, my youthfulness, culture influences or the hype people use to have for her which was pretty powerful before. Everyone uses to go to extremes to show their allegiance from bringing to life the visuals from the album. It would show the power behind the concepts Lady Gaga and her team would create, even her hair would be involved with some of her music giving the music a more prolific visual behind just the songs. For this era, the only thing that really represented her hair was the pink looking cowboy hat and honestly, I can’t think of a singular different hairstyle than that other than straight length blonde and the lengthy ponytail blonde. The letdown that I felt/feel for this album isn’t just the toned back aspect of all her former extreme ways it’s the lack of inspiration in any of this material from the one of the Queens of inspiration.
Joanne’s Only Breath of Real Air for Monsters
I just want to start off with “Perfect Illusion” because it was the only track from Joanne that gave that true essence of Lady Gaga through all the priority of sharing “the real Stephani Germanotta. I love this song basically, and every time I here even the start of it I just get a certain raw emotional stimulation that kind of feels like the way it does when Fall has truly kicked in before Halloween. I know for sure that this is what Lady Gaga wanted to do to her fans, drought us of the good dark, mid/upbeat, classics, in my own head. “Perfect Illusion” was so much more of the Pop appeal that the radio needed during its released. This is a track from Joanne that Lady Gaga really put some good energy into especially with her vocal performance. The following single choices were just the ultimate let down with every song that followed after “Perfect Illusion” considering the fact that there was nothing as close to being as good and as the essential Lady Gaga present on this song.
Sentimentilessly Encapsulating the Deceased
I try and try but I can’t see how Lady Gaga succeeded in making Joanne a commercially successful album, as this was an LP with zero songs to play on any significant occasion, while also making it about her now deceased aunt, Joanne. It doesn’t make sense as to why Lady Gaga took that artistic direction with Joanne as it reaches and reaches to be upbeat in more areas than I’d expect. I just hope this wanna be polished, devastation train wreck is the last time we’re served something of the sort because this was just simply boring, I hate that, but its the truth. The fact that Joanne is packed with ballads like “Angel Down” or “Joanne” that are geared toward her dads now passed sister, isn’t the reason why the album doesn’t bring any excitement for me. Its just that Lady Gaga is capable of so much more than trying to play with a particular crowd with an entire era under the guise of a deceased family member. The almost shaky voice starting this song out was a bit of a cringing moment for me especially on the title track of the album "Joanne”. She sings “Take my hand, stay Joanne. Heaven’s not, ready for you. Every part, of my aching heart, needs you more, than the angels do. Girl, where do you think your going?” The truth is, Lady Gaga is a mega star who has built a reputation of being innovative, forward driven, extremely extra, she always wanted to stand really far out from others in Pop music with so many aspects of her artistry including her amazing lyrics but instead she in stealth slapped a colossal “L” on her forehead symbolic of ‘thank you, next’.
Lady Gaga’s Version of Country
It’s pretty obvious that Lady Gaga was going for a country theme here with Joanne but her infusion of EDM with that sonically just doesn’t resonating into something competent enough to consider anything on this a classic like she may have been reaching for underneath the country exterior. The two styles maybe weren’t visualized tastefully by the engineers or in the booth. It could’ve maybe even made a bigger difference with some more exciting videos than what she released, but unfortunately it just doesn’t come out to that with Lady Gaga’s Joanne. Instead for me what it feels like is a more old-fashioned ride that I wouldn’t want to ride again. Now there were a few fire tracks on Joanne that did make me feel a little hope for the album and thats “John Wayne” and “A-YO” but then again the “John Wayne” track did feel a bit like a joke. Lady Gaga was clearly messing around in a less organic way than her true art form, in the studio with this album. The Rock and Roll vibe she tried to inject in completely found its way to limbo getting lost in all the instruments involved trying to make the songs more than what they are. “Three a.m., Mustang speeding, two lovers, headed for a dead end. Too fast, hold tight, he laughs, running through the red lights. Hollering over, rubber spinning, big swig, toss another beer can too lit, tonight, praying, on the moonlight,” Lady Gaga sings in “John Wayne”. I’m sorry but can someone just tell me how this ties into the bigger picture of Joanne because our girl totally lost me with this kind of shit in this music. It actually kind of makes me a little mad because I feel like I was led on with all this evolutionary b.s. talk, but then to be led to what, this stale bologna called Joanne.
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