Can Lady Gaga become the world’s biggest pop star once more?

After a delay due to the coronavirus crisis, the US musician is releasing her long-awaited sixth album Chromatica. And it is a critical career moment for her, writes Nick Levine.

Lady Gaga’s sixth album Chromatica arrives this Friday following a slight delay – it was originally scheduled for 10 April until the coronavirus intervened – but this hasn’t stopped the pop star from talking a good game in her usual vague but visionary way. “I live on Chromatica, that is where I live,” she said during a recent radio interview. “I went into my frame. I found Earth, I deleted it. Earth is cancelled. I live on Chromatica.” According to the singer, Chromatica is an idyllic-sounding fictional planet named after a 12-tone musical scale where “we’re being inclusive with all the colours [and] all the people”. Even if you find this kind of sales pitch a little hifalutin, there’s no denying Gaga has put in the work: the album’s stunning cover art presents the singer as a kind of a high-fashion sci-fi warrior, and the video for lead single Stupid Love has been likened to a “Mad Max Pride parade”.

When you also take into account the super-poppy sound of its two trailer singles, the gleaming neo-disco hit Stupid Love and catchy, house-flavoured Ariana Grande collaboration Rain on Me, it’s hard not to take the hint. Shapeshifting Gaga has recalibrated again – and this time she definitely won’t be singing country-rock songs with Bradley Cooper. The artist born Stefani Germanotta didn’t invent the concept of pop star reinvention, which was pioneered by David Bowie in the ‘70s and honed most notably by Madonna in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but she’s proved herself a particularly hyperactive chameleon for the fast-paced social media age. Since she broke through in 2008 with the bombastic electro-pop hit Just Dance, this New York City native has morphed from high-concept hitmaker to jazz chanteuse, then from folky balladeer to Oscar-nominated actress. She’s also surely the only singer alive to have duetted with both Tony Bennett and New Kids on the Block.

Interscope

Along the way, she’s demonstrated both an audacious flair for surreal imagery – who else would wear a dress made of raw beef to an awards show, as Gaga did at the 2010 MTV VMAs? – and a timeless musicianship. When she performed as part of last month’s One World: Together at Home virtual concert series, which she also curated, Gaga delivered a gimmick-free piano and vocal rendition of Charlie Chaplin’s Smile. She may have initially captured our attention with a breathtaking succession of pop art-inspired visuals, but 12 years into her career, she’s also proven she can stun without bells and whistles.

Genius or charlatan?

However, as she prepares to drop Chromatica – a record Gaga says will make people “rejoice even in their saddest moments” – it feels like a pivotal moment in her career. More than a decade into her superstardom, will this fifth album confirm her as one of pop’s all-time greats? Or will it provide ammunition for critics who dismiss her as a clever shape-shifter who can’t always transcend her influences? In 2013, Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O said damningly of Gaga’s work: “I feel there’s a core authenticity or originality lacking there. It’s so referential.” Other critics and musicians have been equally scathing over the years. As far back as 2010, social critic Camille Paglia wrote: “Gaga has borrowed so heavily from Madonna that it must be asked, at what point does homage become theft?”

Chromatica feels crucial to Gaga’s legacy because it’s expected to be her first full-on pop opus since 2013’s patchy Artpop – the singles so far certainly signpost a return to dancefloor nirvana, and she’s collaborated with Swedish pop genius Max Martin and EDM star Skrillex. After Artpop failed to live up to expectations, Gaga displayed her versatility by recording an album of jazz standards with Tony Bennett, 2014’s Cheek to Cheek, before exploring folk, rock and country sounds on 2016’s Joanne LP and 2018’s A Star Is Born soundtrack. Long-time fans are hoping Chromatica will return Gaga to the chart-scaling peaks of her early imperial phase when, with 2008 debut album The Fame and 2011 follow-up Born This Way, she racked up 11 US top 10 singles in fewer than four years.

She seems like she wants to regain the title of World’s Biggest Pop Star once again, and why shouldn’t she? It appears to be available – Hugh McIntyre

Hugh McIntyre, a music journalist from Forbes, agrees now is the time for Gaga to stake her claim to greatness. “She seems like she wants to regain the title of ‘World’s Biggest Pop Star’ once again, and why shouldn’t she? It appears to be available,” he says. In this respect, McIntyre suggests that Gaga’s return to glossy dance-pop – a bold volte-face after the more earnest material she’s written in recent years – is a clear statement of intent: she’s ready to give fans what they want again. “It’s what [they] have asked for and what she’s done best,” he says.

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From the beginning, Lady Gaga established herself as someone who could match catchy hits to audacious styling and surreal imagery (Credit: Alamy)

The dazzling catchiness of Gaga’s early run of hits, which included international chart-toppers Poker Face, Bad Romance and Born This Way, has never really been called into question. But Courtney Smith, music critic and author of Record Collecting for Girls, believes Gaga herself doesn’t get enough kudos for crafting her music. “As a lyricist, I think Gaga gets her dues,” Smith says. “But as a producer and songwriter, I think her role is frequently minimised while the men she works with are given an awful lot of credit.” Early on, Moroccan-Swedish producer RedOne was branded the “sonic architect” behind The Fame, even though he only worked on six of its 15 tracks. More recently, her Joanne and A Star Is Born collaborator Mark Ronson has sometimes been cast in a similar role.

“People talk about her albums as if the men who twist the knobs have all the vision and she’s just a conduit,” Smith says. “That couldn’t be further from the truth and misunderstands how much she acts as a producer.”  Smith points out, sadly, that female pop artists who co-write their hits with male collaborators are often underestimated in this way.

An unhelpful comparison

Indeed, it’s a sexist trope that even Gaga herself has unwittingly perpetuated. Asked in a 2016 radio interview about being compared to Madonna, another female pop artist who co-produces her own albums, Gaga replied: “I wouldn’t make that comparison at all. I don’t mean to disrespect Madonna. She’s a nice lady. And she’s had a fantastic, huge career… But I play a lot of instruments, I write all my own music. I spend hours and hours a day in the studio, I’m a producer, I’m a writer. What I do is different.”

Then again, it’s difficult to blame Gaga for wanting to draw a clear line between herself and the Queen of Pop. Ever since she broke through 12 years ago, she’s faced frequent comparisons to Madonna – and in fairness, there are obvious parallels between the two women. Both spent time honing their craft on New York City’s Lower East Side club scene before they became famous – and both have channelled their Catholic upbringings into music that plays provocatively with religious imagery (Madonna scored a career-defining hit with 1989’s Like a Prayer; Gaga cracked the top ten with 2011’s Judas). In addition, both have a special bond with the LGBTQ community and a definite gift for putting on a spectacular pop performance; their respective Super Bowl halftime shows have been ranked among the best ever.

Gaga truly is one of very few stars that speaks to and resonates with the many diverse identities that make up the LGBTQ community – Lewis Corner

However, these comparisons became more damaging to Gaga’s reputation in 2011 when Madonna claimed the single Born This Way was a “reductive” reworking of her own hit Express Yourself. There was never any lawsuit, and Gaga insisted the only similarity between the two songs is that they both use the same chord progression “that’s been in disco music for the last 50 years”, but it’s arguable that Gaga has never quite managed to shake off the copycat tag. When Grace Jones revealed in her no-holds-barred 2015 memoir that she had turned down several offers to collaborate with a contemporary pop star she called “Doris”, many commentators presumed she was referring to Gaga. “I don’t mind her dressing up, but when she started to dance like Madonna, almost immediately, copying someone else, it was like she had forgotten what it was about her that could be unique,” Jones wrote scathingly of “Doris”, whoever she may be.

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When Gaga sang Born This Way during her 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, it was a vital moment of national recognition for queer people in the US (Credit: Getty Images)

McIntyre suggests there’s actually a rather ironic reason for the ‘spot the influence’ accusations that have plagued Gaga’s work. “When Gaga does something over-the-top and eye-catching, it’s easy to pinpoint the one or two other times in history someone has done something similar,” he says. By contrast, when an artist like Ed Sheeran performs a love song on his acoustic guitar, “it’s like so much we’ve heard and seen before, so people are less likely to compare him specifically to one moment or song or person”.

Meanwhile there is no doubt she is now a gay icon, with one song in particular, Born This Way, having been adopted as a modern-day queer anthem. The song’s pro-LGBTQ lyrics have been criticised in the past for being “facile” – “don’t be a drag, just be a queen” goes one repeated line – but Lewis Corner, editorial director of Gay Times magazine, says that their strength lies in precisely how “literal” they are. “There are some brilliant songs that are considered queer classics where the lyrics rely on the audience knowing it’s for them with some wink-wink, nudge-nudge wordplay,” he says. “But Born This Way was one of the first instances where a huge megastar in the imperial phase of her career left no doubt who this song is for and what its message promotes.”

The power of her platform

Indeed, Corner says that when Gaga sang the line “no matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered life” during her Super Bowl halftime show in February 2017, it was a “vital moment” of recognition for queer people who feared being attacked or marginalised by the Trump administration that had been sworn in just a month earlier. “Gaga truly is one of very few stars that speaks to and resonates with the many diverse identities that make up the LGBTQ community,” Corner says. “The work she does with her Born This Way Foundation to help support queer youth only adds to that legacy – and places her as an artist that has the power to instigate real change.”

The clout she has gives her lots of room to be creative and experimental for her next few album cycles – Courtney Smith

Gaga has also used her platform to spotlight mental health issues – she’s spoken movingly about suffering from PTSD after being raped at the age of 19, and co-wrote and recorded the powerful song Til It Happens to You for The Hunting Ground, a 2015 documentary film about campus rape. And by securing performances from bona fide legends including Elton John, Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones for her recent virtual concert series highlighting the importance of social distancing during the coronavirus crisis, she’s demonstrated her high standing among peers. “Every musician has their detractors and, to be frank, their haters, but it’s easy to see that the vast majority of artists and those in the business really do see her as a great artist,” McIntrye says.

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Gaga’s role in 2018’s A Star Is Born, and Oscars win for co-writing the film’s signature song Shallow, has only added to her critical cachet (Credit: Alamy)

Smith points out that following a couple of albums that were “less well embraced”, 2013’s Artpop and 2016’s Joanne, Gaga is now riding high on the enormous box office success of 2018’s A Star Is Born, her first major film role. Her Oscars win for co-writing Shallow, a classic-sounding country-rock ballad, only adds to her critical cachet. “That clout gives her lots of room to be creative and experimental for her next few album cycles,” she says. This dynamism, perhaps, is a key component of Gaga’s own brand of greatness – instead of churning out a safe collection of Shallow soundalikes, she’s come back with Chromatica, an album aimed straight and unashamedly at the global pop jugular. Though in a way it’s a return to her roots, it’s also a brave move from an artist 12 years into her career who could have used Shallow’s huge success to introduce a more middle-of-the-road approach.

For all her success, Gaga clearly remains hungry. “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 said in a recent radio interview. Whatever happens next, it’s hard to deny she’s displaying the ambition and singular vision of a truly great artist.