Lady Gaga reflects on her 2016 album, Joanne, and how it’s different from MAYHEM

[bim 406]

4 hours ago, 50 Ft Queenie said:

This 

except the lyrics in disease “there are no more tears to cry” is special its a hug 

Especially when the opening lyric of Chromatica was ‘could you pull me out of this alive’, to have the opening lyric of Mayhem be ‘there are no more tears to cry’ is making this new album feel incredibly inspiring. It’s hard work to get yourself out of those dark spaces and you can really feel how much she has grown over the last few years. I’m grateful she’s still here and there’s no greater gift than seeing her so happy lately. 

[Lextyr97 19,456]

2 hours ago, Donatello said:

Ten years from now we'll be hearing "I let someone else's vision (Michael) make MAYHEM, it wasn't me".

Girl… 

[bim 406]

4 hours ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I’m not discounting that she felt she needed it at the beginning and I understand where you’re coming from, I just think it is kind of ironic that she ultimately did say that she felt that it took her away from herself as well. It’s just interesting that she’s always dealt with the push and pull of competing needs/influences and it seems that Mayhem may be a departure from that all or nothing mindset.

It’s interesting to hear her reflect on Joanne and say she felt most distant from herself. One of the shows I went to she was talking (and teary) about how grateful she was for all she had and at times she wishes she never got famous. While it sounded authentic and is most definitely true to a degree, I feel the most genuine form of her actually does love all she has and this actually was her goal all along and she loves the spotlight and being on stage. Now that she’s finding how to balance this in a healthy way and be her own boss and create what she wants to and is surrounded by people she feels inspired and held by, it’s like she’s realizing this is always who she’s been meant to be. 
 

I could listen to her and all of us talk about her artistry endlessly. She’s such a fascinating human. To be alive to witness all of this is the greatest gift. 

[robotvoiceinalice 1,341]

look what i will say is that i understand why and what made her write it and her place within the Gaga sphere. and honestly sometimes in life you do have those moments where you lose complete sight of who you are, but sometimes those moments are needed in order to reclaim what was once yours and be even stronger, proud and more confident of the person you are today. i still have those moments personally and i wish i had access to therapy to help ngl. 

but yeah you can tell that she was trying to be everything but herself and go back to a "stefani" that wasn't even true to a "Stef" back before she made it. i don't like the fact she made it specifically to heal her dad which ultimately failed and made her fall into a depressing cycle, and ofc the whole 5ft2 doc was ngl awkward. then sonically what we got with the album was a bunch of songs that sounded like they needed to be cooked longer (and ngl she did rush it out after spending like 6-9 months on it). it aged badly and yeah theres a few songs on there that are good but ultimately it just falls short and doesn't stand the test of time like her other albums. ofc she did have those gaga moments that slipped in. 

i love the fact she was regaining herself again with Chromatica and defo reclaimed the dancefloor to the point where she can be fully confident in who and what "Gaga" is, to the point where she can have fun and go back and be herself in a Mayhem world. im proud of her tbqh. on Mayhem she IS the Gaga we all know and she knows, and she IS the Stefani she knows. and im glad to hear she can be confident and proud in that and who she is as a person and the realization that Gaga and Stefani are the same person. shes back to being daring and taking risks, while have fun and going all in on it.

life is truly a journey, and it does continue and with help it gets a little easier and a little bit better.

Edited 20 hours ago by robotvoiceinalice

[Starmie25 16,297]

The 1-2-3 punch of "John Wayne", "Dancin In Circles" and "Perfect Illusion" though 

[elegidadedios 1,008]

I know it was a "hard time" for many fans but definitely not for me. Even though I barely listen to Joanne nowadays (my personal style falls into other genres), I genuinely enjoyed it when it came out and kept enjoying it for a good while. I appreciated her artistry and her focus as a musician, and mostly her new approach on topics she didn't talk about before: death and mourning, grief, world's need of getting together, context of decay (which is still current to this day)... This and the fact she felt like slowing down because she wanted to be respected as what she already was but many failed to see: a legend. Some of you may see that as a reach, but I think Joanne was a new start for her in terms of keeping herself in line and standing up for her previous work in an intelligent and subtle way, paving the way for MAYHEM, for example...

All of this is still compatible with what she said on that interview. She is reflecting on her views from nine years ago, of course she is gonna be critical, mostly because today she finally embraced her unique way of doing pop music. But that doesn't mean she regrets Joanne at all, we may need to understand she feels (today) like she tried too hard to heal her father, thinking it would bring a new chapter for all of them, when the most probably scenario is actually quite didn't... I think that's something we kind of heard during Chromatica (can't remember exactly where she stated something amongst the lines). But that it's up to her personal life, not about the album itself, which is a very good one and a must on her body of work.

Edited 20 hours ago by elegidadedios

[Lextyr97 19,456]

I won’t say Joanne is her least authentic album. I like it and think it’s a good album. Vocals are very impressive, Dolby Atmos mixing is great, and many songs are just downright great.
What brings it down for meeeeeee is that while I’m sure Gaga wrote a lot of it, it just feels like her touch on production and layering is missing. I think it’s as simple as comparing the reception to Disease with anything from Joanne. The fanbase as a collective and even other standoms said Disease and Abra are GAGAAAA down. All of Mayhem has those isms that Joanne does not. I personally think she didn’t have much of a hand in production and maybe thats the reason it doesn’t feel as Gaga. Just Another Day and Angel Down are the most Gaga songs on the album in my opinion.
Anyways interesting to hear her reflection on it now. Unsolicited, but Chromatica is definitely her most inauthentic lol

[bim 406]

1 hour ago, SHALLOW said:

I feel like Gaga is really trying to distance herself from the album. Like, she definitely got a new appreciation for ARTPOP given how many times she's mentioned it this era, but not once did she mention Joanne, aside from this video. So she definitely feels very different about it now. I just wish she would understand that the sound wasn't bad at all. It's just the concept of the album and her forcing herself to be something else at all costs 

I wonder if Joanne is also not sitting well with her because she tried to heal her dad and possibly strengthen her bond with him, and now he’s using her name to get on Fox News and support Trump. 

[RochestrMonstr 2,589]

“It felt so needed for me” makes a lot of sense. I think when Joanne happened, Gaga thought she was more healed from ARTPOP than she actually was. 
 

I still think it’s one of her best 3 albums with Born This Way and Mayhem! 

[AiDi 74]

7 hours ago, Reid LePage said:

Mayhem is the magnum opus that saved herself 

 

And killed her fans 

[TheMiddleGround 3,136]

8 hours ago, Reid LePage said:

Born this way is the magnum opus that saved her fans 

Mayhem is the magnum opus that saved herself 

Both living in harmony 

The pendulum of joice began its dance

[SHALLOW 16,122]

2 hours ago, bim said:

I wonder if Joanne is also not sitting well with her because she tried to heal her dad and possibly strengthen her bond with him, and now he’s using her name to get on Fox News and support Trump. 

Yeah absolutely 

[Panchecco 17,459]

2014-2018 are pivotal years in Gaga's career. After ARTPOP getting as criticized as it was, Joanne was a desperate plea to be perceived both as an artist and as a human being. At the time this album surprised me a lot but it never disappointed me. The disconnect I felt from her was due to her wanting to hide "Lady Gaga" by stripping herself down to just a singer songwriter as if that was all she was. What she ended up doing was putting on another costume a "non-Gaga" look that eventually didn't bring her as much joy as she would have wanted. What it did instead was help the general public to connect to the human being behind the aura and as she said it was a necessary step in her career. The Halftime Show, Coachella and ASIB all happening during this era is so important as it helped Gaga channel her 'persona' in a totally different way in front of a public that probably for the first time ever was finally seeing her. After this all time high with ASIB and the Ocars she felt so lost and I can see now that the Enigma residency was also a way to try and re-connect with her og fans. She ended up forcing herself to release Chromatica and dancing through the pain but Covid happened right as she started to finally feel like herself again but was still not fully there yet. In a way it was a blessing that the Chromatica Ball got postoponed as she took the time off to fully embrace her as an artist and a unique one at that. 

I am so proud and happy to see her so confident in herself again and bringing with her a new found fire and maturity that is once again inspiring me so much. I love her so much 

[eifulien 2,837]

With the risk of coming across as very rude, I'm afraid that a significant part of our fandom doesn't have very good reading comprehension skills. We as people are complicated and full of contradiction, Gaga isn't an exception to this and she is also very informed in her artistic expression. So she always has multiple layers to her and her music, add the trauma that has been haunting her and it gets difficult but not impossible to see what she means when she looks back on her albums in retrospective.

In this quote she does not dismiss Joanne as bad or inauthentic. She actually reaffirms it as a necessary step on her journey to reclaim her confidence with MAYHEM. Please, stop projecting onto her. It's completely unnecessary to trash talk ANY of her albums. It started in 2019 when she tweeted jokingly that she didn't remember ARTPOP and so many people were like "yeah, we shouldn't either, it sucks", etc. Now Joanne and Chromatica are being targeted the same way. Let's just cut it. We have our preferences but none of her albums are actually bad, nor are they inauthentic. ARTPOP, Joanne and Chromatica come from a very painful experience for her and it's actually fascinating to witness how she worked with it and made sense of it. What we are living through right now is such a lovely full circle moment.

Lady Gaga as an artist that started as this fierce young genius artist and made The Fame, The Fame Monster & Born This Way had to lose herself with ARTPOP, start searching for a new path back to family and her roots with Joanne, come to terms with her imperfections, her trauma, mental health issues and the disadvantages of her own stardom on Chromatica, to end up gathering all of those broken pieces that she had burst into, mend them by truly loving and accepting herself, reclaim her role in her own artistic expression and become proud of herself with MAYHEM. It's amazing. Let's celebrate that instead of tearing it all apart. 

[Nessun Dorma 2,711]

That was really interesting! Only Gaga can talk about her personal feelings and her understanding of the past, but I still consider Joanne her most personal album because of the themes she chose to address. Many of her most personal and intimate lyrics are from Joanne. 

And even though she looks back feeling like she was far from herself, this was her most authentic self at the time. Joanne was made with the resources she had back then, and I’m not talking about sonority. 

I remember her saying that for a very long time she felt like she was playing two different people and now she feels fully integrated with Stefani and Lady Gaga. Trying to interpret what she said, maybe Lady Gaga is the piece she felt was missing on Joanne. The piece that is so important for her artistry and how she chose to convey her artistic vision.

I also feel like some aspects of who we are only become clearer as we mature. It’s nice to know she has come to this understanding now and is embracing all of the inextricable parts that makes her this incredible person