Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica”: Track-by-Track Review
Two weeks ago today, Lady Gaga dropped her 6th official album, Chromatica. On the surface, it marks a return to her dance floor roots. But underneath the surface, it is a musically complex and psychologically rich masterwork.
Lady Gaga’s Journey to Chromatica
At some point early in Lady Gaga’s meteoric rise to superstardom, I mused about Gaga’s probable career arc. I half-joked that I expected her to gradually amp up the weirdness of her musical stylings, aesthetic, and persona to the point that the most shocking thing she could do was release a stripped-down, soul-bearing rock album and embrace a much more relatable persona. And, well, that’s pretty much how it went down.
After releasing four critically and commercially successful electronica-heavy albums of increasing boldness and strangeness (2008’s The Fame, 2009’s The Fame-augmenting EP Monster, 2011’s Born This Way, and 2013’s ArtPop), we entered a several-year period with a radically different Gaga. She recorded an album of standards with elderly music legend Tony Bennett (2014’s Cheek to Cheek); a stripped down, singer-songwriter album (2016’s Joanne); and a rock-oriented soundtrack album to accompany her big screen debut as a leading lady (2018’s A Star is Born). She performed a medley of The Sound of Music at the Oscars. She released an acclaimed…
