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Where did Perfect Illusion go wrong?


Nycboy
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Chesescake

She should make a bombastic kick-ass rock epic yet the product was somewhat reserved.

 

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Bolkins
23 minutes ago, Starmie25 said:

But wasn't her cover a literal copy/paste of the original song, cept her vocals on top of Kevin's?

Well yes! But imo that song is a highlight on ANTI and she still made it her own even if it was v similar to the original. If anything, it was a good example of how something doesn't necessarily need to be drastically changed to still be impactful. Also I dont think Kevin's vocals are still on Rihanna's version but maybe im wrong 

Edited by Bolkins
Not the bore worms!
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LateToCult

Listened to the instrumentals again and sorry Gags, the fail is on you. The hollering of it all. :bear:

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Didymus

Entirely misproduced. The potential delivered by Kevin was butchered.

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cELLO

The GP weren’t here for her post ARTPOP and before her ASIB smash, and the song wasn’t that great 

do i need to understand a pineapple to eat a banana
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gagzus

Oh god I remember the time,

VERY LONG POST AHEAD WARNING; on a paper it sounds great;

Lady Gaga making a “comeback”, with a song (and let’s be honest album) about the breakdown of her long term relationship with her fiancé. 
 

But at the time a lot of the songs on radio were chilled out and Gaga’s although good, felt very much like she was throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the song. Trying to show off her new vocal stylings that the public had grown to love her for, trying to appease fans by making the song a pop banger, trying to appease her friends by making music that had “soul”, trying to appease her label by giving them what they wanted. She wanted to promote it her own way, she hadn’t got the streaming credibility yet. Fans expecting a Disco and Dancepop album bc of who she’d been working with since 2015. It was a lot.

In hindsight Joanne is actually so much more of a convoluted album and era, even more than ARTPOP.

Like we know interscope brought in Bloodpop (a JB hit maker at the time) to make the album more commercial. She’s never really hung out with Kevin Parker since that time nor had anything to do with him, the whole album is basically about Taylor Kinney but she didn’t wanna market it as such bc she was trying to be private at the time after they basically recorded her having a breakdown for her documentary suffering health wise and losing her relationship. So she said it was about her dad and Joanne even though there’s legit only 1 song on the album about Joanne at all. The rest of it is about her relationship, the loss of love, her family, her sense of self and her friends. It’s a very introspective album that wasn’t marketed as such.

Also the peak of PI only came AFTER the Super Bowl, like if I remember rightly I think it debuted in like the high 80s on billboard hot 100.

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gemein3

Sorry, still one of my favorite Gaga songs — wildly underrated. Such an amazing workout song. 

Fans whined for it not being Poker Face 2.0, and they still do this today with everything she releases. 

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Economy
17 hours ago, Stamos said:

I adore Perfect Illusion, but given the fact that she was going for a more alternative approach musically I can never forgive her or her label for not releasing Diamond Heart as the lead. It is such a stadium anthem and I feel so bad that it got wasted 

I think both Ayo and Diamond Heart had a better shot at some success. They were solid songs with a genre

 

Perfect illusion was this not quite Pop not quite rock song that to many sounded meh

 

Not sure any song would have been a smash tho considering Gagas popularity was still in recovery and she was not gonna get hits easily at that point but Perfect Illusion definitely did not win her any favours tbh

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Controversiaga

That album just did not have any single potential 

Pronounced like “Balenciaga” . Emphasis on the “Ga”
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old sanuk

I like all of Joanne except Perfect Illusion, because to me she sounds vindictive and angrily yelling her head off against someone who fooled her in love, instead of being kind in quietly chalking up the experience and moving on with her life. She’s expressing triumph when someone else may be destroyed; not cool to me.

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Delulu Rogers

The song is way too loud and her vocals are hard to listen to as she’s screaming.
 

The song was also the opposite of what was trendy at the time and she was coming during a time she had 0 hype around her. 
 

She also didn’t promote the song at all as she has a hard time singing it. 
 

On a side note, I hate how she explained this song as being anti social media when it’s so obvious it’s about her breakup with Taylor. 


 

 

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princedeeblebleble

Okay this is a long one and I promise I can write even longer essays for songs I love :cheeky:

From my point of view act1 of the issues was the whole "I'm a regular girl" look that didn't sit well with most of the fanbase, let alone the GP. For me it seemed quite disingenuous at the time as a bit of a fearful step back from the ARTPOP "backlash". Ofc people change but this change just didn't feel right.  

The second act was the song itself which felt so clumped together, loud and unpleasant (which is coming from a metal fan). It feelt like she was trying so hard to prove her vocals that it drowned out the otherwise cool production.. especially in the bridge where she sings "Dilated, falling free in a modern ecstasy..." Which was such a nice vocal moment but it was ruined with the "IT WAS A PERFECT ILLUSION" shouts. It was a perfect chance to create a bit of balance and buildup in the song before exploding into the last chorus and the final key change.

The third nail in the coffin was  the confusing promo and lack of performance . We all knew what the songs were about but she fabricated this story which added to the previous disengenious feel. She did do some radio interviews but outside the Dive bar tour there wasn't a single iconic performance for PI until MR was a single and she did the SMAP show. Which I think was due to the vocal strain that was so unnecessary for the 3 minutes that she abused her  vocals in the song 🫠 

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