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Lady Gaga - Chromatica (Review)

Lady Gaga finally fails to be bold with her comeback album Chromatica
Lady Gaga - Chromatica Lyrics and Tracklist | Genius
Throughout her career as a popstar, Gaga has been a consistently provocative figure, whether for her striking and strange music videos or for her insanely catchy lyrics. She's also been quite a controversial figure, at least within the music community, where she's often caught between those holding her up as some staple of songwriting genius and those who claim to see through her flashy production and straight through to the hollow shell within. Where do I stand? Well, for me Lady Gaga has been a pretty ubiquitous presence within pop music, someone who's dominated the radio from when I was five and had countless significant hits throughout that time. Lots of these singles stand among my favourites from pop artists over this time period, but I'd be lying if I said there hadn't been a decline in quality over the course of her career as a whole.

Excluding "Shallow", each time a new single of Gaga's has come out it usually feels just a little less special than the one before, and over the decade plus that she's been putting music out it's become quite a disturbing signifier of how much less ambitious her music has got since Artpop. Perhaps this is best exemplified by that little remembered standalone single "The Cure", an embarrassingly boring return to her electropop roots that came right after her singer-songwriter pivot with Joanne. I suppose this new album of hers continues that change pack to her roots, this time ramping things up to produce a record that's at least not dull in the ways that single was. It is just as safe though, and that's perhaps the basis from which all my problems stem from...

Gaga is one of those artists who gets way too much credit for breaking down boundaries within pop music, and when you listen back to her discography there's an awful lot of sounds at play that fail to hold up today and fail to compare with other artists at the time. Now, I want to make it clear that I still enjoy a good proportion of her older material, but a lot of the "ambition" can be attributed to her generally pretty brash and bold production, all of which can be incredibly enjoyable and all of which is missing from most of Chromatica. It doesn't help that Gaga is pulling more than ever from 80s and 90s electropop, a sound that's huge in the mainstream right now. That definitely makes it difficult for Gaga to stand out, especially when artists like The Weeknd and Dua Lipa are dropping albums with more interesting songwriting, catchier hooks and more experimentation in the case of the former.

Now, I wanted to spend some time pointing out aspects of this album which are quite frankly laughable. There are a few. We begin with "Alice", a pretty straightforward house track with some great production and a catchy chorus. The problem here comes in the lyrics themselves, with Gaga insisting "My name isn't Alice / but I'll keep looking for wonderland". It's a little moment of cringe where the phrasing sounds painfully off, but thankfully in this case doesn't sink the whole song. Still, it comes at a cost and my enjoyment of the song is hindered by it, something that comes in a one-two punch as the next song "Stupid Love" has the exact same problem. Unlike "Alice", this track has lyrics that border on the inane, but its saving grace is its killer instrumental boasting some of the most exciting synthwork on the album. 

Next up on the chopping block is "Free Woman", perhaps my least favourite track on the album for its total failure to convey a feminist message. You see, it starts off all dramatic and sparse before building into an engaging bridge that leaves you craving a strong chorus that just doesn't hit. For one, rhyming "man" and "woman" and changing the pronunciation of "woman" in order to rhyme better with "man" has got to be the least feminist way of approaching the lyrics, and it completely kills the empowering vibe. On top of this, a song that's meant to inspire and empower should really have a stronger drop, but here on "Free Woman" the post-chorus we're gifted is the weakest house beat on the entire album paired with a forgettable synth refrain that conveys none of the same passion as Gaga's vocal performance leading up to it. This song trips over its feet and abuses the opportunity it had to be a standout. I'm frustrated.

Moving on and we're soon greeted by some of the album's best tracks, with "911" serving as an excellent callback to her first album with the more bloopy (for lack of a better word) synthwork and the most eccentric vocal performance and processing on the album, the overcompressed feeling not bothering me too much as Gaga delivers a song that's fully realised and ACTUALLY EMOTIONAL! In fact, the next track is much the same but achieves it to a slightly lesser level, "Plastic Doll" landing somewhere between the aforementioned eccentricity of "911" and the poppy conventionality of "Fun Tonight".

Next I want to talk about "Sour Candy", both because of my mixed feelings toward the featured artist Blackpink and also the song's surprising hold over me, at least from an instrumental perspective. I generally enjoy the sound of this thing, from the drippy deep house bassline to the sparkling piano chords and tropical sounding congas that briefly enter the fold during the bridge. What doesn't work is the lyrics and the delivery of said lyrics. Both Gaga and Blackpink are offering some of their absolute worst lyrics. That's it really. Terrible lyrics that try way too hard to stick to the theme of... sour candy? It comes across as one of those times when the artist came up with the song's title before the lyrics and had to really stretch themself to fill up three minutes of candy references. And thus, it fails.

I really don't want to have to mention every track by name here, but I feel somewhat obliged to quickly mention that "Replay" is a song that totally lives up to its title: it's repetitive, catchy and has a pretty quirky post-chorus and some fantastic swirling synths throughout, but perhaps that same repetivity is what holds it off being an absolute favourite. Still, it serves a purpose and does so exceedingly well, and I think Gaga deserves praise for that. Now let's talk about the strangest song on the entire album.

"Sine From Above" is a collaboration between Gaga and Elton John. It feels weird to say that sentence, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense, both artists being particularly camp performers and queer advocates. Unfortunately, no single element of this song fits together, like someone got pieces from several completely separate jigsaw puzzles and rammed them together for the sake of it. Firstly, I think it's important to state that Gaga and Elton have absolutely no vocal chemistry, their voices clashing in the most awkward way and Elton's vocal tone especially not fitting within the context of the track's EDM-centred chorus. Things only get worse when you dive into the confusing lyrics, where random metaphors and narratives float around in a void, not knowing when to make any kind of sense and consequently accentuating the song's messiness and incoherence. Finally, to top it all off, the song concludes with a tacked-on beat switch that was trying so hard to be cool and just added to the clutter, the bombast really not helping give the song the structure it so desperately needs.

Conclusively, this is an album striving to reinstate Gaga as a leader in pop music, but in failing to do that only proves just how behind the curve she currently is. She's not been pushing any boundaries with her music for over half a decade, and calling back to retro sounds that are popular now has got to be the worst way to prove you're on top of things. That said, there's plenty to enjoy from a casual musical standpoint; most of the songs are beautifully produced and sound great, even if there's a severe lack of originality and interesting ideas. The lyrics are some of her most consistent to date, but unfortunately that consistency is born out of the majority of songs here just not standing up to her past work, especially when we've been reminded so recently of her songwriting talents due to "Shallow". In short, it's a mixed bag, and I would proceed with caution.

6/10

Best Moment: When the chugging synth bass comes in on "Stupid Love"
Worst Moment: When she rhymes Babylon with "babble on"

Best Tracks: Rain On Me; 911; Enigma; Replay
Worst Tracks: Free Woman; Sine From Above

Check out the music video for "Rain On Me"


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"Chromatica"
Lady Gaga
29th May 2020
Interscope
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