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Lady Gaga Chromatica

Lady Gaga Chromatica Review: Dance Pop Genius And Stupid Interludes close next prev info-button A criticism often levelled at is that the fantastical imagery she constructs around her albums eclipses the music itself. But it’s a sliding scale – and one that certainly mattered less when she was knocking out undeniable dance-pop party starters like Poker Face and Just Dance, or cementing her status as pop’s freaky outlier on the twisted Bad Romance. That she appeared in alien-like form in that song’s video made perfect sense: here was a chameleonic pop superstar in the vein of Bowie, Prince and Madonna opening a portal to an escapist dimension. Later, it made sense that she would lean into the imagery of hair metal on 2011’s gloriously OTT, Springsteen-referencing . Yet on 2013’s bloated – billed as an exploration of the “reverse Warholian” phenomenon in pop culture, whatever that may be, and featuring at least one performance in which she employed a “” to puke green paint on her chest – the aesthetic felt more like desperate distraction tactics.

The artwork for Chromatica. Photograph: APSeemingly bruised by that album’s relative commercial failure (2.5m global sales compared with debut album The Fame’s 15m), she disowned dance-pop altogether on 2016’s . Ludicrous lobster hats and sinewy meat dresses were swapped for pink stetsons and denim cut-offs, while early producer RedOne’s churning synthpop was replaced by Mark Ronson’s rustic warmth. Collaborators included Florence Welch, Josh Homme and Father John Misty, while the album’s stripped-back sound pushed the rockist assumption that quieter somehow equals more authentic. Its middling success was quickly superseded by the Oscar-winning, chart-topping movie , in which Gaga’s character Ally was locked in a plastic pop v heartfelt rock authenticity war.

But, as ever, it’s all about packaging, and Joanne was as much of a pose as Artpop. In many ways, the ballad-free, dancefloor-primed Chromatica represents not only Gaga’s most personal record, but her most straightforward. Obviously there’s a conceptual framework – that title, despite sounding like a Mac software update, actually represents a planet anchored by equality and inhabited by “kindness punks” – but it feels much lighter than before. As Gaga said in a recent interview with Zane Lowe, she prioritised “simple messaging”, a phrase that would have been reverse-Warholed up its own backside a few years ago.

Read more Fun and dumb lead single Stupid Love aside, the majority of Chromatica’s 13 short and to the point songs (ignoring three orchestral interludes that feel beamed in from another album) dig into the person behind the facade. On dark centrepiece 911, she details her reliance on antipsychotic medication (“Keep my dolls inside diamond boxes / Save ’em ’til I know I’m gon’ drop this”) over a chugging swirl of industrial synths, while opener Alice dismisses Gaga’s damaging obsession with perfection over a sugary house confection. Babylon, meanwhile, buoyed by classic house piano and a soul-stirring choir, pulls off the very Gaga trick of conflating the big and the small, touching on the Bible, ancient mythology and, as she’s done ever since the start, the complexities of fame.

The healing power of dance, cruelly frustrated by the current lockdown situation, rushes through the album like cheap poppers, with the 90s house pop of the duet Rain on Me acknowledging trauma before dragging it on to a sticky provincial nightclub floor. The ludicrous collaboration Sine From Above – which, with its panpipe-inflected beat and unstoppable euphoric rush, would win Eurovision on any given year – digs deeper into this simple idea that music can soothe even the most damaged soul.

Lady Gaga: Rain On Me ft Ariana Grande – video Read more That song ends with an unexpected shift into cranium-rattling drum’n’bass, a fleeting taste of experimentation that feels oddly missing elsewhere. While some of Gaga’s best work was made quickly, often on the road in tour buses, the songs on Chromatica were passed around from producer to producer apparently to free up the process. (Strangely, this is the first album not to feature Gaga as a listed producer, with the credits naming everyone from BloodPop to EDM producer Axwell to noise merchant Skrillex, while maximalist alt-pop producer Sophie – who confirmed her involvement back in 2018 – is noticeably absent.) At times, as on the generic Eurodance double-whammy of Free Woman and Fun Tonight, it means the songs feel overworked: sometimes their often short running times deny them space to breathe (the claustrophobic Plastic Doll). Sour Candy, a collaboration with girl band Blackpink, falls disappointingly flat: aiming for the sweaty throb of deep house, it ends up sounding like a dashed off, cheaply produced interlude.

Gaga is on much safer ground gliding around the joyous French house swirl of Replay, which has a startling lyric about burying trauma in graves and scratching at the dirt of her psyche. It’s another example of how, after years of using her music to try to heal other people – be it her gay fanbase on Born This Way, or her family on Joanne, an album named after her dead aunt – Chromatica finally turns that gaze inwards without ending the party. Unsurprisingly Gaga’s truest self was always going to be as loud as possible.

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Chromatica by ReleasedMay 29, 2020Recorded2017–2020StudioLength42:59 chronology (2018)Chromatica (2020)Lady Gaga studio album chronology (2016)Chromatica (2020) from ChromaticaChromatica is the sixth studio album by American singer . It was released on May 29, 2020, by Streamline and . Originally scheduled for April 10, 2020, the album's release was delayed for several weeks, due to the . Chromatica serves as a follow-up to Gaga's fifth studio album, (2016).

The singer intended the album to be a reminder of her "absolute love for electronic music", and features production from various producers, such as , , and . Themes of the album revolve around mental health, healing, and finding happiness through hardship. It also includes collaborations with , and .

"" was released as the album's lead single on February 28, 2020, and reached number five in both the United Kingdom and United States. "" was released as the second single on May 22, 2020. "" was released as a on May 28, 2020 and impacted Australian radio as the third official single the following day.

Contents Background In press interviews after it was announced she would embark on one final performance of her 2016 , Gaga hinted new music would be performed and released during the new leg's stop. However, the Dive Bar Tour performance was later postponed indefinitely due to scheduling conflicts. Later, Gaga hinted the release of new music during the globe-crossing , however, in an AUgust 2017 interview with , the singer revealed that due to the constraints of the tour production, specifically the strictly-scheduled synchronization of its various technologies with the performances, there most likely will not be any new material performed on the Joanne World Tour, let alone any deviation from the structure of the show itself. It was also revealed in the same interview that production had begun on the follow up to , with Gaga offering that the album was still in the initial writing stage.

Talking about previous record Joanne, Gaga admitted that it was an album that she made for his father, trying to heal his and her family’s trauma. She later realized she "can’t fix [her] dad", and called the album a “futile effort” to heal him. Her disappointment drove her into depression and chainsmoking, and writing new music was her way for healing.

Conception and artwork Talking about the album's title, Gaga described Chromatica as a location in her mind where all sounds and colors mix and stated: "I live on Chromatica, that is where I live. I went into my frame. I found Earth, I deleted it. Earth is canceled. I live on Chromatica." The dystopian planet of Chromatica appears in the music video for the song "", where Gaga portrays a warrior leader, and "follows a narrative about tribes battling for dominance in a world riddled with conflict". Gaga also confirmed how the concept of the planet Chromatica came about, saying:

> brought it up, and we talked about how Chromatica was essentially on its own when you first look at it, it seems to be about colors and all the different colors and also music is made of a , you know? So it's all the colors, all the sounds, you know, so we, we're talking about inclusivity and life and also a lot of what we see around us and what we're experiencing is math, which is very much like music and sound is math as well. So we talked about that, and then I sort of went back and I said, 'OK, well, yeah, it's inclusivity but it's really a way of thinking,' you know, it's not just, 'Oh, Chromatica, we're being inclusive with all the colors, all the people,' and when I say, 'All the colors, all the people' I mean way more than we could possibly fathom."

A temporary cover art was released along with the album preorder, showcasing a symbol over a pink background. It received comparison to the symbol. The singer explained that the Chromatica logo "has a in it, which is the mathematical symbol for sound. And, for me, sound is what healed me in my life period, and it healed me again making this record, and that is really what Chromatica is all about."

On April 5, 2020, the album's official cover was revealed. It shows the singer with "cotton candy pink" hair, wearing a "metallic bodysuit with spikes and studs sticking out of it", "a pair of platform boots with a tusk and a knife for its heels" and a "shoulder-to-fingertip sleeve covered in spikes" on one of her hands. She is attached to a large metal grate illuminated by "hot pink neon" light. It also involves the previously showscased Chromatica symbol. Trey Alston from described the cover art as "part- , , and fantasy", while Hilary Hughes from also found inspiration from the films. The cover photograph was taken by German photographer , with creative direction by ; Gaga's body armor was created by Cecilio Castrillo.

Writing and recording “What I'm making now is a reminder of the freedom that I have as an artist, but also my absolute love for electronic music, my absolute love for ability for a computer to make something that is so visceral and soulful. The bulk of this album was made inside a computer… I played with modular synths, I played with real synth. I gave Bloodpop what I would play on the piano, we input it as midi, and then we would play with inversions and produce the record and make the song…—Gaga on the production of the album

In the first seven months of 2018, Gaga was seen at various recording studios in and around and . The earlier recording sessions have been attributed to work for the to 's , a remake of the in which she has top billing. The later recording sessions have mostly been attributed to further production for Chromatica. Producer , who had co-produced every song on the standard edition of Gaga's previous studio album Joanne (2016), shared on various social media platforms that he and Gaga had been recording at the singer's Malibu estate with German electronic music producer . BloodPop continued to post similar updates through the entirety of 2019 and January 2020, indicating production had continued for nearly three years. In July 2018, experimental electronic music producer confirmed that she had contributed production work for the upcoming project but was unaware if her collaboration would make the final cut.

In an interview with 's , Gaga confirmed the album will be a dance record, saying "We are definitely dancing… I put all my heart, all my pain, all my messages from the other realm that I hear of… what they tell me to tell the world and I put it into music that I believe to be so fun and you know, energetically really pure. I want people to dance and feel happy. I would like to put out music that a big chunk of the world will hear, and it will become a part of their daily lives and make them happy every single day." She divulged how her intuition had evolved since the production of her last album, especially with the "real" and "honest" nature of this record's production virtually halting her inclination to second guess her creative output. Gaga also went into great detail about how the collaborative process of creating the album helped her overcome her internal struggles:

> We made a lot of the record in my studio house. So I have a house where it's 's old , it's a live room, it's a big studio, it's beautiful. And I would be upstairs on the porch, outside the kitchen, and Bloodpop would come up and he'd go, 'Okay, come on, that's enough, off the porch,' and I would cry and I would say, 'I'm miserable, I'm sad, I’m depressed,' and he'd go, 'I know, and we're gonna go make some music now. And then I'd go downstairs and I would write. This album is such a display of not only how you can reframe the way that you view the world, but I promise and I hope, that the love that was around me in the process of making this album is something that other people feel, that they know that artistically, like, you know how producers are, if one guy's working on it, or one girl's working on it, they don't want anyone else to work on it, they don't wanna share, they, everybody gets cocky, there was none of that. These records got passed around to so many different people, there were so many different iterations of these songs because we all wanted it to be perfect and literally nobody cared who put their fingerprints on it, as long as it was the dopest thing that we could give to the world and that it was meaningful, authentic, and completely me.

Gaga collaborated with on the track "".In an interview with Justin Moran of magazine, released in March 2020, Gaga talked at length about numerous topics, including the recording process for Chromatica, and confirmed that BloodPop was the "center" and her "nucleus" of production while creating the album and that he had a hand in the creation of every track. Gaga worked with a wide array of producers, such as , of , , (who had previously worked with Gaga on her third studio album, ), , , , , , Benjamin Rice, and , to create an album described as an " " by Moran. In discussing the large collaborative atmosphere that enveloped the album's production, Gaga said, "It's easy to go into a computer and find a cool loop, but the producers I work with don't work this way. When they're inspired, they embroider things." She later added:

> “I’ve been in this business a long time… I’ve never seen so many producers be willing to pass around music and be like ‘What do you think, man?’, and have it be a conversation. And if we didn’t use somebody’s production, it was no big deal… Everybody was in service of the song, which made me feel so loved, as the writer. Because when I write a song, I want it to sound the best that it could be, I also want it to interpret what I’m saying the best that it can interpret.”

Gaga collaborated with on the song "Sine from Above". Talking about their work together, she described him as her “mentor” and explained how he played a significant role in her road to recovery: "Elton’s always really challenged me to take care of my artistry and to really take care of myself. And I really, really honour that about him. He is so, so uniquely special. And I cannot tell you how instrumental in my life he’s been to showing me that you can go all the way in life and… be authentic and be you and do good things in the world and take care of yourself and be there." The album also includes a collaboration with on the track, "", whom Gaga described as an artist "who [had similarly experienced] immense trauma while in the public eye", which brought them together for the creation of the song. Gaga collaborated with on a song titled "". In an interview for Japanese entertainment site TV Groove, Gaga stated that "when [she] called them and asked if they wanted to write a song with [her], they were so happy and motivated" and that she wanted "to celebrate them". The group's members sing in both and on the song.

Music and lyrics Chromatica is a and -influenced , and record a departure from the - music of its predecessor Joanne (2016). The album additionally contains elements of , and music.

A major theme behind Chromatica is being able to feel happiness and dance to it even at the same time when one's experiencing difficulties and sorrow. The album is divided into three unique segments and begins with a , "Chromatica I", which the singer described this way:

> "The beginning of the album symbolizes for me the beginning of my journey to healing. It goes right into this grave string arrangement, where you feel this sort of pending doom that is what happens if I face all the things that scare me. This string arangement is setting the stage for a more cinematic experience with this world that is how I make sense of things."

This theme continues in the song "Alice" with the line "My name isn't but I'll keep looking for ”, meaning that the singer is not giving up, she is "not throwing in the towel". The song includes the line “Could you pull me out of this alive”, and talks about mental illness. "Stupid Love" is a "-infused" and song, which is about the "joyful foolishness of loving someone". Talking about the song, Gaga said the following:

> I’m pretty sure that when we all decide to be vulnerable, it’s really scary, and I think it’s very scary for a lot of people and there’s all kinds of laws and constructs and things that have built all around us and you know what?...I’d love for it to collapse as many of those walls as possible and people to be saying, ‘I want your Stupid Love. I love you.'

"Rain on Me" contains elements of , and features an upbeat production consisting of a synth-disco beat, catchy synth claps, steady bass lines, strums and rolling synths. The song talks about "persevering through hardship" and healing, and uses the metaphor of rain for alcohol used to numb pain. It was described by Gaga as a "celebration of all the tears": "I sat with [Ariana] and we talked about our lives. It's two women having a conversation about how to keep going and how to be grateful for what you do." Vocally, it includes robotic spoken word deliveries by Gaga, Grande's "signature" high note octave, and the two of them "" their lines in the final chorus. The fifth track is titled "Free Woman" and it answers what it means "to be a free woman [in 2020]". Gaga talked about the origin of the song, saying it "came from thinking on some days I was going to die. I was like, 'I'm going to die soon, so I better say something important.' Now I listen to it and know that I'm going to live." The song tackles her need to be with someone "in order to survive" while trying to be a free woman, a topic she discusses in the lyrics "I'm not nothing without a steady hand".

"911" deals with the singer's antipsychotic medication, while "Fun Tonight" is about how there were many nights when people who loved her would try to make her smile or be optimistic, but she had no ability to be happy. "Sine from Above" talks about the healing power of music, and the final song of the album, "Babylon" is about gossip, something that "used to run" the singer's life and made her feel "small and chained".

Release and promotion In response to tabloid reports saying she might be pregnant, Gaga tweeted on March 12, 2019, "Rumors I'm pregnant? Yeah, I'm pregnant with #LG6." Several news outlets speculated the tweet alluded to a release within a nine-month window, the typical span of a human pregnancy, but the anniversary has since come and gone, proving the theory to be false. In October 2019, she jokingly announced via Twitter that the album would be called Adele after the . In January 2020, several news outlets reported that the album's lead single was scheduled to be released in early February, with the album's release following soon afterwards.

On March 2, 2020, Gaga announced that the album is named Chromatica and that it will be released on April 10, 2020. The pre-order for the album was made available with the announcement. On March 24, Gaga announced in a statement on Instagram and other platforms that the release would be postponed until later that year due to the . She later elaborated on the decision: "It's been a very difficult time for a lot of people, and we stopped the drop of the record and everything that we were doing because I really wanted to be more specific at one point. I wanted to do something to help the world, that was very focused. And working with the and (on the virtual concert series, ) was a way for me to talk about kindness, and the things that I believe in, in a very focused way, as opposed to a more abstract way, which for me, is what Chromatica is." The album was released on May 29, 2020.

Singles "Stupid Love" was released as the album's on February 28, 2020. It received positive response from , who compared it favorably to the singer's earlier works. Commercially it had a number five peak position both in the US and the UK. The accompanying music video was directed by and was released on the same day as the single. The Target/deluxe edition bonus track Vitaclub Warehouse remix of the song was released on May 15, 2020.

"Rain on Me" was released as the album's second single on May 22, 2020. It received praise for the vocal skills of both Gaga and Ariana Grande, and for its uplifting nature. The accompanying music video, directed by filmmaker , was released on the afternoon of the same day. One day ahead of the album's release, Gaga released "Sour Candy", without any prior announcement as a . It impacted Australian radio as the third single the following day.

Tour On March 5, 2020, Gaga announced that she would embark on The Chromatica Ball tour to support the album. The six-date long, all-stadium concert series is currently scheduled to begin on July 24, 2020, in , France and end on August 19, 2020, in , United States.

Critical reception Professional ratingsAggregate scoresSourceRating73/10079/100Review scoresSourceRatingB8/10Jason Lipshutz of Billboard dubbed the album a "summer [escape] of the highest quality". gave the album a rating of 8/10 stating, "Across its sixteen tracks, Chromatica is entirely over-the-top, but in the best possible way. Every song is an anthem of defiance and empowerment, turned up to 11 and genetically engineered for maximum danceability." Patrick Gomez of gave the album a "B", writing that although it is "at times frenetic and disjointed", the songs are generally strong and varied.

Track listing Chromatica track listingNo.TitleWriter(s)Producer(s)Length1."Chromatica I"1:002."Alice"2:573.""3:134."" (with )3:025."Free Woman" 3:116."Fun Tonight"2:537."Chromatica II"0:418."911"2:529."Plastic Doll"3:4110."" (with )2:3711."Enigma"2:5912."Replay"3:0613. "Chromatica III"0:2714."Sine from Above" (with )4:0415."1000 Doves"3:3516."Babylon"2:41Total length:42:59/International deluxe edition bonus tracksNo.TitleWriter(s)Producer(s)Length17."Love Me Right"2:5118."1000 Doves" (Piano Demo)2:4919."Stupid Love" (Vitaclub Warehouse Mix)3:41Total length:52:20Japanese standard and deluxe edition bonus trackNo.TitleWriter(s)Producer(s)Length 20."Stupid Love" (Ellis Remix)4:11Total length:56:31Notes Credits and personnel Sources:

Recording locations Vocals Instrumentation Production Technical Design Release history Release dates and formats for ChromaticaRegionDateFormatEditionLabelRef.VariousMay 29, 2020StandardCDTarget/International deluxe JapanJapaneseReferences Studio albumsSoundtracksCompilationsExtended playsConcert toursPromotional eventsResidenciesDocumentariesTelevisionFragrances BibliographyRelated articles[//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAutoLogin/start?type=1x1]Retrieved from "": Hidden categories: Chromatica: a review and analysis of Lady Gaga's new album Sign in Welcome!Log into your account your username your password Password recovery Recover your password your email Trending: More Album six sees the provocateur welcome you to a fictional utopia where anything goes and everyone is accepted. We didn't want to leave

4 4 hours ago Share Credit: PressWe first saw a glimpse of Chromatica – the fictional planet has created with her sixth album of the same name – in the music video for lead single . The video opens with text that explains that while the world “rots in conflict”, many tribes are fighting for dominance, including “the Kindness punks”, a tribe Gaga leads, who fight for peace. Gaga and her gang – a group dancers clad in hot-pink Mad Max costumes – break up fights between with other factions of warriors in an extra-terrestrial desert, eventually restoring order.

Chromatica, she’s since explained, can be thought of both as an inclusive place where all sounds and colours mix. But it’s also an inclusive frame of mind, in a recent interview: “I don’t know that I’ve ever made an album that wasn’t on Chromatica in some type of way, meaning like my frame of mind is always a part of my music, and this is just my way of kind of expressing, even in a both literal and abstract way.”

It’s high concept – albeit a slightly confusing one – but what else would we expect from Lady Gaga? This is the artist who’s consistently reinvented herself over the course of the past decade. Take a genre 180 and drop an album of jazz standards (2014’s ‘Cheek to Cheek’ with Tony Bennett) or country tunes (2016’s )? Sure! Become an Oscar-nominated actress in a smash-hit remake of ? Why not!

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For ‘Chromatica’, though, Gaga has returned to the effervescent dance-pop she first broke the charts with back in 2009 (who could forget her world-changing debut single ‘Just Dance’?). As she explained in an : “I’m making a dance record again, and this dancefloor it’s mine and I earned it, and all that stuff that I went through… I don’t have to feel pain about it anymore. It can just be a part of me and I can keep going.” Writing the album helped Gaga heal her personal pain – and this perseverance permeates ‘Chromatica’.

Take smash hit collaboration ‘Rain on Me’, which may just be Gaga’s best song since 2011’s ‘Born This Way’. Over euphoric synth-pop instrumentals and strutting disco beats, Gaga purrs “I’d rather be dry, but at least I’m alive”in a fist-pumping moment of pure jubilation. There can be 100 songs you’ve written, and 99 don’t leave an impact, but all it takes is one as good as ‘Rain On Me’ to remain a pop icon.

✕Skip in 5House-tinted thumper ‘Enigma’ is a celebration of lust (“We could be lovers, even just tonight”), while electro-pop lead single ‘Stupid Love’ is concerned with the joy of being head-over-heels in love (“You’re the one that I’ve been waiting for / Gotta quit this cryin’”). That isn’t to say that there aren’t heavier moments – the -inspired ‘911’, which is about antipsychotic medication, sees Gaga admit “My biggest enemy is me / pop a 911″ via robotic vocals. But each song is wrapped up in healing and kindness, accompanied by empowering lyrics and triumphant melodies. The shimmering ‘Free Woman’ sees Gaga victoriously move forward after being sexually assaulted by a music producer, preaching: “This is my dancefloor I fought for / A heart, that’s what I’m livin’ for”.

The album is best listened to in full, with the cinematic orchestral passages linking the songs together and acting as a respite between each of the break-neck pop bangers. Occasionally it threatens to become a cliché – ‘Fun Tonight’ threatens to turn into Jess Glynne-radio fodder and inoffensive penultimate tune ‘1000 Doves’ fails to live up to the ecstasy of its predecessors. But for the most part ‘Chromatica’ is pure joy.

There are unexpected moments, though – particularly Gaga’s collaboration with Elton John. The two have been pals for over a decade – she’s even godmother two Elton John’s two sons – and previously teamed up for ceremony performances and the soft-rock Gnomeo & Juliet soundtrack song . Given their past works, would it have been save to assume the two artists would work on a ballad together?

Advertisement Absolutely not: ‘Sine From Above’ is basically what a heady night out at Glastonbury’s Shangri La with Elton and Gagz would sound like. With PC Music-tinted vocals and wild club production that fuses drum-and-bass and Eurodisco with ear-worm hooks, it’s brilliantly bizarre.

If collaborating with Elton John was her way of embracing the pop music’s past, Gaga also looks to the present and future, teaming up with K-pop group on ‘Sour Candy – a ‘90s house smasher filled with slithering vocals (which flit between English and Korean) and a throbbing bassline.

On ‘Chromatica’ Gaga has fully embraced creating a pure pop album. The record is littered with catchy choruses and glossy production – but it goes deeper than that. ‘Chromatica’ is “about healing and it’s about bravery”, she before the album came out, adding: “sound is what healed me in my life period, and it healed me again making this record”. You can certainly hear that. From the exhilarating melodies to the positive, hope-filled lyrics, ‘Chromatica’ is a celebration – and a well-deserved one at that.

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