Do you like Chromatica?

[Der Meister 3,000]

It's definitely a grower. I hated it on my first listen, I think the album was not made by her and it was produced entirely by BP and others.  The demos are better and the final songs are remixes from the demos she worked in 2017-2018. But it is what it is, still a great electronic dance album.

[djfreemymind 523]

One of the best albums of all time.

I know I write excessively but I have a lot of feelins lol, and y'all might be the only ones who might understand this! (My friends don't listen to Gaga.) I'll have to respectfully disagree that the songs aren't nuanced like her other albums. It took me months to bop to the bassline of Babylon, I swear I noticed the little "ooooh oohs" in the final chorus of 911 like 2 or 3 months ago, the percussion bit in Sour Candy still throws me off in the best way, and I'll find new interpretations to all the lyrics every now and again. I liTerally just got into Love Me Right yesterday. I'll also never forget on 5/29 at like 12:20 am when I first heard the Chromatica II into 911 transition. Woke me right tf up.

The concept is also incredible. Pop bops with some dark-ass lyrics. A planet that you can escape to through sound and dance. Sines hidden throughout the music, as sine θ is the mathematical symbol for sound. The Fashun! Collabs! Music videos! The short-lived era that maybe was meant to be abridged.

I love that the Chromatica Cinematic Universe (the CCU, if you will) expanded in so many ways with the demos (Babylon HL remakes all over Youtube, Free Woman, ROM ft. Satan, 1000 Doves piano), the remixes (SL Ellis + FW Honey Dijon Realness all the wayyy), and then finally DOC—which features some of my queer faves like Arca, Pabllo, Bree Runway, Rina, Ashnikko. I actually fell out of my seat when I heard the LSDXOXO remix of Alice, and I wept when Babylon Haus Labs came around towards the end because DOC was such a gift to me.

V personal: Don't get me wrong, I am baby. But I have such an emotional connection to it bc when COVID hit, I was living through the beginning of the end of an emotionally, mentally, and financially abusive relationship. We lived in the same house when our stay-at-home order began and I made it 5 months before I left town and never saw them again. They "had the gun" and the monsters that weren't my own were indeed torturous. They're also a Gaga stan, and as I listened to Chromatica over and over again, I began to understand that this record was also helping this person heal through one of their darkest times. They have a lot of mental health issues—and even though they live in a fantasy of lies and make-believe, I knew I had my truth. I took comfort in knowing that I wasn't my biggest enemy (in comparison), even when I'd fall and wonderland felt so far out of reach. Also with their lies and my absence, I still operate under the assumption that the entire town has some twisted version of what had happened between us. It's all good though, I have my truth and my music. Babble on.

This album helped me heal, and still supports me as I learned recently that "healing is not linear." Whenever I'm having a rough time I put on my headphones, escape to Chromatica, and dance through the pain.

[Ronlop 6,786]

12 minutes ago, Der Meister said:

It's definitely a grower. I hated it on my first listen, I think the album was not made by her and it was produced entirely by BP and others.  The demos are better and the final songs are remixes from the demos she worked in 2017-2018. But it is what it is, still a great electronic dance album.

This basically.

I can't say it's a bad album because I do listen to it but it feels the least Gaga album to me, other than Joanne probably. It does very feel like it was more like she gave the control over the album to the producers more than to herself. There is something missing that I don't quite know to point what it is- the melodies don't have the same Gaganess that ARTPOP, BTW and TFM had, the production didn't really feel fresh or innovative and at times quite out-dated imo and the lyrics (on most) didn't hit as hard as in her previous albums.

I also think the visuals were very pretty but in large, they were just pretty much there. Other than this sci-fi futuristic aesthetic that they decided on for the era, there wasn't much to explore imo. While with TFM, Born This Way and ARTPOP- the visuals were accompanying the music in a way that I feel was more interesting. But again, maybe we haven't seen what was supposed to come because of Covid.

The only exceptions are Replay, 911 and ROM which I consider really good but the rest are pretty lackluster imo.

 

[djfreemymind 523]

33 minutes ago, Der Meister said:

It's definitely a grower. 

I'm a grower not a show-er, toooo!

[Cameltoe Chariot 11,825]

It's tied with Born This Way as her greatest album/achievement 

Chromatica is triconic and truly got me through the beginning of the pandemic. I honestly don't know how I'd be now if it hadn't come out when it did 

[HuffsAhoy 7,433]

Yes. Chromatica is her second best after BTW. Immaculate production, iconic looks, and stunning lyrics. People always say BTW saved them, but Chromatica was my saving album. Without it, there is no way I would have ever made it through my mental breakdown in summer 2020. 

[Noir 12,685]

I have a really odd relationship with this record that I don’t really have with other gaga albums. I break the album down into three category’s in my head.

I’m still in love with half of the record:  Alice, 911, Replay, Babylon, Sour Candy and Stupid Love. I play them all daily and they sound just as fresh to me. Love, love, love. I can’t sing their praises enough. 

Secondly I don’t really enjoy a few tracks on the record and never really did tbh. These tracks are Sine From Above, Fun Tonight and 1000 Doves. They became tiresome very quickly for me, probably just a few weeks into the record. Although I will say 1000 Doves (Piano Version) is beautiful and reminded me of something from Joanne. I’d love to see her perform this version on TCB if it happens. Lol. 

The final category contains songs I used to love just as much as songs I’ve put in the first category but due to overplaying them, I’ve become tired of them. I feel this way about Rain On Me, Free Woman, Enigma and Plastic Doll. I think they’re great pop songs but I don’t have the same love I once held for them. Although I did ruin ROM for myself by playing the video 20 times a day for like 3 months so I only have myself to blame. 

So yeah, I have a really weird relationship with this record because it contains some of my favourite songs and some songs which just leave me indifferent and then some songs I used to love and no longer do, which is a shame. I think it doesn’t help that Gaga’s feelings about this album/era aren’t the greatest either. 

[monstertoronto 7,563]

On my Spotify It was my entire top 5 in 2020 and then again in 2021.  I love it. This year I’m taking a bit of a break from it as I feel I played nothing else for 2 years. 

[Yovska 167]

no

[jimmytimestep 2,157]

For a few months after it's release, I thought it was her best ever. Now that time has passed, I won't call it her best ever, but would say it's either second or third in her discography (the other contenders are of course, BTW and TFM).

That said, it's certainly her most personal and most cohesive. Even if "she didn't write" the bangers, they stemmed from anguished ballads that she *did* write. Something about the entire project feels intensely personal, both in how she birthed these songs, and how they were eventually translated to speak to the fans. She spoke of how the album title was originally "Free Woman", but in reality, she never was a free woman during the creation of this. She was just a lonely, broken woman trying to beam a message down from a lonely, desolate planet - one that was both a hopeful one and an SOS at the same time. It's a beautiful piece of work and COVID really did it wrong.

Hoenstly, though; I think her best album is yet to come. That's why we don't have a self-titled yet. 

[Suspiria 10,683]

Her most cohesive album, definitely her best lyrics ever. Fun features, clean production. Not the most ambitious or imaginative, but for me its a close second after BTW.

[Dojo 19,365]

lacked timelessness 

[enissa11 2,984]

i like it a lot, i understand the creative decisions gaga made for this album and i know she's aware it would made many fans disappointed while others would loved it, many people expected hard banging beats, experimentation and the rebel gaga sensibilities in music she had in ARTPOP and BTW, chromatica is not that, and if fans would've erased all their expectations and  preconceived notions about gaga they could've enjoyed much more, that's what happened to me, but with time i came to understand what gaga wanted to make.

She didn't wanted the production and the dance electronic beats to be distracting or to overshadow the message and the lyrics, it's basically a confessional album and a human being visibly bleeding in front of us telling her story. If you really let yourself loose in te music it's a beautiful experience, you can even appreciate the subtlety of Fun Tonight and 1000 doves but also the melancholy and the pain underneath it, and the soft dance house beats match it very well, some people say they would be better as ballads, but it would defeat the purpose of chromatica and the atmosphere she wanted to create. It's not a roller coaster like ARTPOP, but it's a melancholic night in the dancefloor of her mind while she quietly and vividly tell us a story of pain while we gracefully dance through it, that's chromatica for me.
 

[TimisaMonster 31,073]

I listen to a handful of songs but not the whole thing and not any of the remix album...with no performances or many videos it leaves the era feeling very bare and abruptly cycled out into a forgotten waste bucket 

[2School4Cool 5,348]

3 hours ago, PartySick said:

 

It beats out TF and TFM for me but falls short of BTW. ARTPOP and Joanne remain my favorites

 

 

The more of these threads I read the more I see we pretty much have the same taste