Does anyone else feel like Joanne is a concept album?

[Beethoven 576]

The only concept was her alter ego Joanne, she never acted like that anymore

[elibats 71]

I was just thinking about this yesterday! I was putting together a playlist of my favorite Gaga songs but songs that would also flow well together and only ended up with John Wayne from that album. And I love all the songs from Joanne, but they really work so well TOGETHER, and moments like that make it obvious that it is a concept album even if that was unintentional.

[March34th 1,973]

1 hour ago, ARTPOPSlays said:

I know Gaga said that it her first album that isn’t a concept album.

How isn't it a concept album though? A concept album is just a record with an overarching theme, storyline, topic, or concept connecting all of the songs.

Joanne highlights a lot about her personal life, views on politics, her family history, and is of course a unique sound compared to her previous endeavors being that its soft rock. Sounds like at least a loose concept to me.

[Gagaism 11,817]

Why is everybody mentioning just TFM as a concept album? What am I missing? 
Is just me thinking that BTW and even ARTPOP are very conceptual too?

[AVeryGagaHolyDick 25,666]

1 minute ago, Santa Stefani said:

Why is everybody mentioning just TFM as a concept album? What am I missing? 
Is just me thinking that BTW and even ARTPOP are very conceptual too?

Because all of TFM songs are about fear

[Didymus 34,379]

Of course it's a concept album. Very clear just thinking about the tracklist. She just said that so people would pay more attention to her real life inspiration for the album (Joanne, her dad, etc.). If she presented it as a concept album people might have assumed she was just inventing these lyrical scenarios and she couldn't play the "I'm a down to earth regular chick" card, which she did plenty during the era.

This was her "let's ditch the crazy costumes and bare my soul" promo era. She knew that was rubbish from the start 'cause, let's face it, the songs don't bare her soul any more than her previous songs, and she still made bold fashion choices. But it was the right thing to do marketing wise and she just did what she had to do to revive her public image. Calling the album a non-concept album is part of that deal.

[Gagaism 11,817]

2 minutes ago, KEVIN STEVE said:

Because all of TFM songs are about fear

For me this is just a part of a concept. I’m talking about the whole story of an album/era, since the release til it’s tour ends.

[Blastertoyo 22,728]

15 minutes ago, Santa Stefani said:

For me this is just a part of a concept. I’m talking about the whole story of an album/era, since the release til it’s tour ends.

Concept Album has to have songs on an album with a concept. 
 

Concept Era is what you are referring to which is not the same 

 

The Monster Ball and it’s storyline barely correlate directly to the concept of TFM it simply reintroduces it and reinterprets it. 
 

TFM and TF even BTW stand alone as concept albums. If she never promoted the albums the messages would still be clear. 

[Chromaticunt 5,529]

58 minutes ago, JustJames said:

I mean, how can she literally define the entire album and era around embodying her deceased aunt, both in terms of the supposed inspiration for its sound and the promotion/aesthetics, and say it wasn't a "concept"? So, like, does she have multiple personalities or is she claiming to be a medium? Because as far as I recall, she referred to herself - and requested others to do the same - as "Joanne," and I thought she wore a pink cowboy hat and cropped shorts repeatedly to drive home this narrative - or, dare I say, concept - but I suppose Interscope just pulled the plug on her wardrobe budget for the era?

/sarcasm I actually find it kind of... anti-Gaga... of her to constantly refer to Joanne as this personal, raw experience for her and her fans when its entire premise was based on her creation of a character that shared nothing in common with who she - Stefani or Lady Gaga - has told us she was/is. Her name, in life or on stage, is NOT Joanne. She is from NYC, not the midwest. Her musical roots are in jazz, not folk. Like, nothing about this album or era was organic or introspective. 

I'm fine with that. I'm fine with not getting to know Stefani Germanotta on a personal level, because she worked her butt off to create and perfect the celebrity of Lady Gaga. She can leverage her personal experiences to whatever degree she wants, so I'm not saying that I don't want her music to not reference jazz or growing up in NYC. I just don't like the disconnect between what Joanne was and what Joanne has been sold to us as. 

Honestly, Joanne seems more disingenuous as a fan than ARTPOP ever did. ARTPOP fits into the persona and character arc of Lady Gaga the artist; an ambitious combination of ideas across multiple artistic media that can be listened to repeatedly and leave you with a new insight into her motivations at the time. It was wonderfully chaotic. Joanne, on the other hand, and its "Bowie died so I scrapped my AHS-inspired masterpiece" narrative was off-putting from the start. I'll blast Diamond Heart, Million Reasons, and a few other songs still, but its sound and story fits far too perfectly between her post-ARTPOP rebuilding phase and ASIB rebirth phase for me to believe it was anything but 100% conceived.

Completely agree. Never have I read a more accurate description of Joanne (the era). To me, it was very clearly conceived to appeal to middle America, i.e. Superbowl fans. It was also a nice segway into ASIB, as you say. Considering this was supposed to be her "stripped back, authentic era", it was anything but.  

[BleepBloop 10,316]

Absolutely. Not buying that "these are my roots" bullsh*t

[Oriane 21,113]

If anything, the most concept album she has is ARTPOP, as the tracklist follows a clear storyline (as most "official" concept albums do). You could pretty much mix up the order of the songs in all the other albums.

[AVeryGagaHolyDick 25,666]

8 minutes ago, Oriane said:

If anything, the most concept album she has is ARTPOP, as the tracklist follows a clear storyline (as most "official" concept albums do). You could pretty much mix up the order of the songs in all the other albums.

Well, I don't really get ARTPOP's storyline

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

She did say that she kept on envisioning a 35 year old woman from Middle America with two kids all the time. 

I think the concept of the album is fractured identity. Who was she? What is America? Where is home? Why do we feel so lost?