The Real Reason Why Lady Gaga’s ‘Joanne’ Is Amazing
Lady Gaga’s fourth studio album was one of the most anticipated records of the year. Following 2013’s overblown mess Artpop and 2014’s hardly innovative Tony Bennett collaboration Cheek To Cheek, everyone wondered just what Joanne would end up sounding like.
Now that we have the album on our iPods and — if you’re a little old-fashioned — shelves, we know that it incorporates soft-rock, dance-pop, and full-blown country, creating a new sound and image for Stefani Germanotta.
As with every change in musical direction, the release of Joanne was a risky move. Nevertheless, it’s safe to say that Lady Gaga managed to pull it off. Joanne is amazing, and here’s the main reason why.
The Difference Between Good And Amazing
Even if Lady Gaga explores new genres on Joanne, the essence of her music is still there. In other words, there are still irresistable pop hooks that you cannot help but sing along to. The lead single “Perfect Illusion” is a good example for this. So is the funky, celebratory promo single “A-Yo”.
Irrespective of catchiness, Gaga’s voice simply fits rock and country influenced tracks perfectly. We already learned that when she released “Yoü And I”, which — by the way — remains her best song.
Strong hooks, impressive vocals, and the occasional outstanding lyric make Joanne a good album. But there’s a difference between good and amazing. Besides, some tracks do fall flat (“Million Reasons”, “Hey Girl”). Moreover, Gaga has a tendency to try a little too hard to sound very edgy and rock’n’rolly.
So, what is it that transforms Joanne from a good album into an amazing one? The answer is quite simple: Joanne tells stories. And that is precisely why it may be able to bring about a much needed change in the music industry.
How DJs Left The Music Industry In Ruins
In order to explain this statement, it’s necessary to take a closer look at 2016’s music industry.
Pop music generally has a bad reputation when it comes to lyrics and meaningful narratives. It’s a reputation the umbrella-genre doesn’t necessarily deserve, given that rock and pretty much everything that falls under the currently oh-so-popular indie label isn’t much better in this regard.
Too many artists in too many genres rely too heavily on the same old statements. They express the same old feelings using the same old metaphors. And they do that in a scary yet wonderful world where so many things are happening that could be sung about.
Sadly, the music industry ignores them in favour of the unholy trinity: falling in love, being in love, falling out of love.
What do DJs have to do with this? Well, it’s no secret that they left their mixers to conquer the music industry a few years ago. David Guetta was the first, and Calvin Harris and co. followed. By now, an army of indistinguishable Martin Jonas Jaehns dominates the charts.
All these DJs may be talented composers, but hardly any of them are songwriters. Indeed, the kind of club-oriented music they make has no need for thoughtful lyrics. And so its celebrated creators focus on beats, not stories. They either cover or sample the simplest age-old songs they can find or write equally simple lovesongs with one cringeworthy line after another.
Sure, this is a generalisation. In fact, some Avicii songs have fantastic lyrics. And sure, the DJs are not the only culprits. Indeed, the charts had already featured too few lyrical masterpieces before the age of the DJs began. But now that they’ve taken over, they’ve sounded the death knell for storytelling in the charts.
Introducing: Lady Gaga The Storyteller
Back to Lady Gaga, who just dropped Joanne into this DJ-dominated music landscape. Stefani Germanotta has shown flashes of promising storytelling before, for instance on “Yoü And I” and “Dance In The Dark”. But it is with her new album that she shifts her focus from writing catchy dancesongs to sharing compelling tales.
“Perfect Illusion” may be rather simple lyrically, and “Million Reasons” may be one of the repetitive lovesongs we’ve already heard too many of. If you listen to other album tracks, however, you’ll find yourself catapulted into the past and glimpsing into the lives of various characters.
These include Gaga’s deceased aunt Joanne. She is the addressee of the album’s country-influenced title track, which details her death and Gaga’s reaction to it. Meanwhile, the opening track “Diamond Heart” is about the singer’s past as a go-go dancer (“better get a good look baby, ’cause soon I’m breaking out of here.”)
“Come To Mama” features references to the Bible and addresses the waves of hatred and violence that are threatening to drown the world at the moment. “Dude in a labcoat and a man of God fought over prisms and a fourty-day flood,” Gaga sings on the second verse. Then on the chorus she concludes that “there’s gonna be no future if we don’t figure this out.”
The dark ballad “Angel Down” tells the story of Trayvon Martin, the African American high school student that was killed in 2012. “Shots were fired on the street by the church where we used to meet. Angel down — but the people just stood around.”
Finally, there’s “Grigio Girls”, one of the tracks only available on the deluxe version of Joanne. Possibly the best song on the record, the midtempo countrysong is melancholic and empowering at the same time.
‘Joanne’ May Be The Music Industry’s Wake Up Call
Country music has been incredibly unpopular for decades. Yet, it’s the one genre that has always been dominated by gifted storytellers. In fact, country megastar Carrie Underwood even called her latest album Storyteller.
While pop, rock, and indie subgenres mainly make general statements about love that people can easily identify with, country dives deep into personal life stories, tragedies, and triumphs. In this regard, country music is the exact antipole to DJ-created dancepop.
By using country sounds and country songwriting on Joanne, Lady Gaga has now bridged the wide gap between charts and country. She has reintroduced the genre and its storytelling qualities to an audience that hadn’t given it much thought before.
Consequently, Joanne may well represent a big leap upwards in the slow but steady rise of country music. Other pop music acts may follow in Gaga’s massive footsteps and focus a little more on specific storytelling. Then, if we’re lucky, they will ultimately be able to heave the music industry out of the deep hole of lyrical meaninglessness that it has fallen into.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Joanne is amazing.
Make sure you listen to Joanne — and to a few other country songs. You won’t regret it.
