HARLEQUIN 70 on MC

[Sneaky Oliver 21,252]

7 hours ago, Reality said:

Gaga’s Metacritic ratings have always been fairly low. Out of her solo albums, Chromatica’s the highest and that’s at 79. TF has a 71, TFM has a 78, BTW has a 71, ARTPOP has a 61, and Joanne has a 67. They’re all too low imo 

Agreed. There are tons of mediocre albums with higher scores. I kinda understand the hesitation to give her high scores at the beginning because she was a very polarizing character and completely unlike any of her peers but Chromatica deserved a 80+, and I’m not even counting her jazz albums

Her discography is very underrated 

[RichAssPiss 4,697]

Honestly, I'm just so happy she's letting herself explore. Chromatica felt like such a nervous record trying to secure a legacy and play down the middle.

Harlequin is a messy fun lark. And critics will always knock that. But it means the artist has the nerve to spread out and take up space. 

Hopeful for LG7 more than ever. 

[HausOfAntonio 7,995]

31 minutes ago, salty like sodium said:

and the fact chromatica has the highest mark is so weird... btw and tfm are both way better albums.

Apparently one critic back in the day thought BTW was so amazing and revolutionary that it shouldn’t be pinned down by a generic rating system so they gave it a 0 in ‘protest’ 

[salty like sodium 1,036]

3 minutes ago, HausOfAntonio said:

Apparently one critic back in the day thought BTW was so amazing and revolutionary that it shouldn’t be pinned down by a generic rating system so they gave it a 0 in ‘protest’ 

now i wanna know if this is even true and what review it was haha

[macca 1,315]

5 hours ago, Julia1987 said:

I like the genres of music that she tried to tap into with Harlequin. It just didn’t scratch the itch that I thought it would. It felt very “safe” which is a crazy thing to say about Gaga and moreso an unsafe and unpredictable character like Harley. 
 

Most of the covers provided nothing extra. Even Happy Mistake is very forgettable. I predict this album will be lost in the abyss along with Love For Sale lol. 
 

going by Gaga’s interviews and referring to it as LG6.5 I think even she wasn’t trying to oversell it as something it’s not. Let’s just take it as it is. 

Happy mistake is godly. 

[HausOfAntonio 7,995]

3 minutes ago, salty like sodium said:

now i wanna know if this is even true and what review it was haha

I think its still up as a 0!

[HausOfAntonio 7,995]

4 minutes ago, salty like sodium said:

now i wanna know if this is even true and what review it was haha

https://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/lady-Gaga-born-way

[salty like sodium 1,036]

13 minutes ago, HausOfAntonio said:

https://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/lady-Gaga-born-way

metacritic should really round this up to 100. the review is really complex,i. think i need to read it in the am haha. thx for sharing !

[Government 71]

56 minutes ago, salty like sodium said:

and the fact chromatica has the highest mark is so weird... btw and tfm are both way better albums.

I think Gaga’s extravagance is not well perceived by critics. Chromatica is more contained. 

[Awrah999 4,012]

8 hours ago, mamo said:

Let's just face it...Gaga's held to a much higher standard than most of her peers and the industry. She just can't seem to win or catch a break with whatever she puts out. It's annoying because Gaga is a once-in-a-lifetime artist and talent like hers is taken too much for granted especially in a time where true artistry is extremely rare. 

Also if Taylor Swift or Beyoncé or literally anyone else dropped this body of work, it would be critically acclaimed and lauded. Personally, I'm just glad Gaga is happy and has found joy in creating music and art again. That's really all that matters to me as a fan. 

 

Taylor releases 30 songs that sound the same and gets high "verified" critic reviews...money talks i guess 

This album was never meant to please critics and Gaga has never made music for critics. It's an amazing album. Gaga is intentionally provocative, boundary-pushing, and risk-taking in a way no one else is. We don't need a high critic score average to tell us information we already know: that she's THE defining artist of this generation with unmatched talent across so many different genres and areas of art. 

[salty like sodium 1,036]

14 minutes ago, Awrah999 said:

Taylor releases 30 songs that sound the same and gets high "verified" critic reviews...money talks i guess 

This album was never meant to please critics and Gaga has never made music for critics. It's an amazing album. Gaga is intentionally provocative, boundary-pushing, and risk-taking in a way no one else is. We don't need a high critic score average to tell us information we already know: that she's THE defining artist of this generation with unmatched talent across so many different genres and areas of art. 

can't find the original comment but @mamo I don't think that's necessarily all true. Gaga is an immense talent for sure but cover albums also don't always score highly. It's hard to really engage your audience (critics) with material they've heard done before usually by the original artist. so that's primarily why it's not performing so well imo.  if cowboy carter had just been covers it would have likely had a lower score as well.

Edited September 28 by salty like sodium

[Glomer 479]

Up to 69!

Edit: just saw someone already updated it, sorry. Nice to see it rising!

Edited September 28 by Glomer

[mamo 17,762]

20 minutes ago, salty like sodium said:

can't find the original comment but @mamo I don't think that's necessarily all true. Gaga is an immense talent for sure but cover albums also don't always score highly. It's hard to really engage your audience (critics) with material they've heard done before usually by the original artist. so that's primarily why it's not performing so well imo.  if cowboy carter had just been covers it would have likely had a lower score as well.

Hello! 

So I just want to establish that my comment has nothing to do with Beyoncé's quality of work per say...I'm truly a fan of hers and I admire how dedicated she is to her craft etc.

My main point really was to state how corrupt and deceiving some of these publications and critic reviews are by constantly praising the same artists over and over again for their work whilst holding others (Gaga in this case) to a much higher and impossible standard even though the quality is clearly there. 

Edited September 28 by mamo

[Babel 41,210]

It is true that Gaga is held to a higher standard, she is always expected to take huge risks, which is flattering but also can be a curse. Some of the choices made for Harlequin felt a bit safe imo, but that is also ok, it is a great album regardless.

If she continues the route she took for The Joker for example I think LG7 will be that record for her.

[salty like sodium 1,036]

38 minutes ago, mamo said:

Hello! 

So I just want to establish that my comment has nothing to do with Beyoncé's quality of work per say...I'm truly a fan of hers and I admire how dedicated she is to her craft etc.

My main point really was to state how corrupt and deceiving some of these publications and critic reviews are by constantly praising the same artists over and over again for their work whilst holding others (Gaga in this case) to a much higher and impossible standard even though the quality is clearly there. 

Hey, no worries, I totally got where you were coming from! And I guess unpopular opinion here but even though I'm a huge Gaga fan (she very clearly saved my life), as a longterm fan I personally don't find her music as exciting as it was back in 2008-2011. Born This Way felt like such a magnum opus to me (both the album and the tour) that it's been really hard for me to truly find anything she's done since absolutely phenomenal. Sure, I've loved tracks every album (I am a fan after all haha). Sinner's Prayer was fantastic, as were Alice and a few other tracks on Chromatica. Shallow was on repeat for a good year (despite not having any real bridge other than aoowooowoww ahah). Her solo songs on C2C were fantastic. But none of her albums since ARTPOP have ever really captivated me to the point of being obsessed with them and wanting to listen to them on repeat. This is just my personal opinion but I don't think she's truly making the best albums in the world anymore. There are some fantastic songs on each album, she's really talented that's not to be disputed. But there's something that's really missing for me, I think, from the albums. The story isn't fully there.

For example, for Joanne, her vocals weren't raw enough for me, a bit too overproduced. (If the entire album had just been the Work Tapes, i'd have been way happier, I think). For C2C and L4S, there were some standout tracks but a lot of them either had vocals that felt like a Christmas commercial or were songs I didn't really enjoy. For Chromatica, there was this hint of a great concept similar to the Born This Way era, with all the tribes etc. but that ended up being barely executed and I'm still confused why so much worldbuilding was put into that era when they barely really used that world both in the MVs and the tour itself. As for the music, I really did enjoy the album actually and listened to it a few times but it still didn't stand out to me both among the other albums that came out that year and within her discography. (I may prefer it to Future Nostalgia but culturally that album was a lot more everywhere and I probably remember those songs better for some reason, just because of Tik Tok etc.) ASIB had some fantastic tracks in it like Shallow and ARUTW but also stuff like Why Did You Do That and Hair Body Face which I've only listened to like twice.

Again, this is just my personal opinion, but I do think that she's done better in the past and is capable of more so maybe I'm part of the problem. But also I don't NEED her to be getting 10/10s on her albums or to change my life with every album she makes. Born This Way was a career changing album and she could never make music again if she wanted to and that would still be a bigger achievement than what most other popstars with more albums will ever achieve in their life imo. So if she just wants to have fun and make music she enjoys without caring too much about reviews and awards, that's more than awesome. (Although I am hopeful for LG7).

For the Harlequin album, it's actually her strongest Jazz album to date imo. Better than C4C and L4S combined, her vocals are incredible, and sound richer and more "real" (less edited) than on Joanne IMO. The production is fun and engaging. But I think by nature of it being Jazz already a lot of people will lose interest easily or not get into it. And add to that these are mainly covers, it doesn't help. I really enjoy the album but will I really be listening to it on repeat for the next year, and beyond that? Unfortunately, probably not. And I think that's going to be the case for a lot of people, at least in the GP.

I think it's not an issue of talent, but an issue of consistency primarily. There is a huge amount of talent and potential but Gaga herself has admitted to not necessarily giving everything 200% anymore because it was unsustainable and made her very unhappy and sick (i think BTW era was her most unhappy time or something like that). So I get that and I respect it, but I think that also needs to be acknowledged.

Going back to Beyoncé, the standard she is held to is even more impossible than the one Gaga is held to imo. But that's a different conversation for a different time haha. Sorry for the long text wall! But like I said, I'm still a fan, I just think being a fan doesn't mean needing to love every single thing she does. Hopefully my comments are useful!