Track-by-Track

Track-by-Track: Lady Gaga’s Joanne – “Million Reasons” (Track 07)

October 25, 2016 by krisis

I’ll be dissecting Joanne song by song every day until November, which will bring a monster month of daily music and comics content with it.

“Million Reasons” isn’t a country song or a pop song. It’s not an anything song. It’s simply a great song. It imagines a world where Lady Gaga could topple Adele from her throne as world’s most-signature balladeer if she choose, not only because she has the pipes for it, but because she’s a damn good songwriter.

Imagine that for a moment. What if, instead of an acoustic, country-tinged pop LP, Gaga released a straight up ballads disc with just one or two upbeat tracks the way that Adele has in 21 and 25. Gaga doesn’t linger on her ballads, but they’ve all been standouts – “Brown Eyes,” “Speechless,” “Dope,” and “Till It Happens to You.”

Until this point “Speechless” was the crown jewel of that collection, a meticulously crafted classic rock song that easily references The Beatles and Elton John. It wasn’t a huge hit. Having played it many times over with Ashley (it was sort of the reason we even got together in the first place), I think that’s because it’s just too complex compared to the ballads of today. People want a simple song with repetitive chords and a simple melody, a la “Hello.”

Welcome to “A Million Reasons,” a ballad so intent on communicating its hook that it repeats it three to five times in each verse, frequently emphasized with a single plain harmony part. I was singing along with the harmony before I even hit the first chorus.

It’s dead-simple I vi IV V chord progression is as common as rain, and inverts itself for the chorus. It’s mostly built on one piano and one acoustic guitar, to the point that I hardly remember if any other instruments enter. It’s relatable – not about dope, but about just wanting to trust.

Head stuck in a cycle I look off and I stare
It’s like that I’ve stopped breathing But completely aware

There’s barely the hint of country here, maybe in Gaga’s inflection on “if I had a highway” on the verse and “try” and “worn out” in the chorus. Mostly she sounds authentically like herself. No put on pop voice, not the monotone of “Dope” or the weird throatiness of “Speechless,” and none of the rasp of “Joanne.”

This is all her, and it’s great. It is, without question, amongst Lady Gaga’s chief achievements in songwriting, if not her best.

Track-by-Track: Lady Gaga’s Joanne – “Perfect Illusion” (Track 06)

October 24, 2016 by krisis

lady-gaga-perfect-illusion-1 I’ll be dissecting Joanne song by song every day until November, when I debut a month of major daily content!

Considering I just wrote about this song six weeks ago and in doing so deconstructed it considerably, what else is there to say?

A lot.

The choice of “Perfect Illusion” as a lead single turned out to be less a canary in a coal mine and more a Trojan Horse. It is by far the most synthy, thrashing, disco-tinged tune on the entire record. Only yesterday’s “Dancin’ In Circles” comes anywhere near it in sound and the chorus of “Diamond Heart” in ferocity.

That begs the question for me – was this a obligation single? You know the kind that I mean. That one song the artist begrudgingly produces to sound a lot like their older work so that their record makes an initial impact on radio, but then quickly ditches and never references again.

We’ll never know Lady Gaga’s true intent. One signal that “Perfect Illusion” was a throwaway is that Gaga hasn’t been performing it visibly past a single pub warmup gig in the UK. It played but not published for her Bud Light sessions on YouTube, not on her release-day Facebook Live concert, and not on Saturday Night Live this weekend. The only full-quality performance we’ve seen is a stripped down version that would have fit in with the ballads on this disc.

Is that in response to tepid radio pickup of the tune, or was it always going to be this way? I’m not sure, and we won’t have more of an indication until we see if it shows up in tour setlists.

What we do have is its context on the record. “Perfect Illusion” acts as a crescendo to the build of energy throughout the first half of this album. The back half is a much more subtle affair. When the vinyl of this record drops I would be surprised if it wasn’t the final song on Side A rather than the start of side B.

There’s also the thematic content of the album to consider. As a lead-off single, “Perfect Illusion” seemed like a standard kiss-off to a past lover – an easy inspiration to assess considering Gaga’s recently-ended engagement. Instead, try reading it as a song that’s about making Artpop.

Tryin’ to get control
Pressure’s takin’ its toll
Stuck in the middle zone
I just want you alone

My guessing game is strong
Way too real to be wrong
Caught up in your show
Yeah, at least now I know

Gaga fired her longtime manager Troy Carter simultaneous to Artpop‘s 2013 release, when media attention and fan expectations were at their peak. She had promised for months to deliver a stunning work of artistic perfect on par with her highly-regarded Fame Monster EP, but Artpop turned out to be a mirage of synthesizers and drum programming more about The Fame that Gaga had been chasing than about the woman herself. Most critics and fans brushed it off like a gossamer soap bubble. She was truly caught up in her own show on “Applause” and flop “Venus,” which was scrapped for middling performer “Do What U Want.”

Would it have been better off more undressed, with a plainer, Gaga at its center? Did she let producers, managers, and A&R reps second guess her own direction – or perhaps did she second guess herself? Maybe she wasn’t as obsessed or inspired by all of those layers of fabrication as she claimed she was. Maybe it wasn’t love – not for her, or for her fans. It’s evident that the world loves a less-guarded, still-unique Gaga based on the success of her intervening work like Cheek to Cheek, American Horror Story, and “Til It Happens To You.”

In that interpretation, maybe “Perfect Illusion” was the only possible lead single to Joanne – a callback to a less-fussy sound that lays bare all of Gaga’s pent up anxieties about exposing something a little more stripped down and true on this record.

Or maybe that’s all just useless speculation about an inscrutable pop star who is smart enough that she can make us assume anything she wants to about her true motivations.

Either way, the vital, live-rock sound of the song is already aging well even if the brevity of its actual content continues to dissuade repeat listens. It turns out that Joanne would have plenty of live-band sound to share with us, but just not in the same vein as this tune.

Track-by-Track: Lady Gaga’s Joanne – “Dancin’ in Circles” (Track 05)

October 23, 2016 by krisis

Lady Gaga in bed for The New York Times Style Magazine. I’ll be dissecting Joanne song by song every day until November, when I debut a month of major daily content!

Lady Gaga continues her trip back through time with “Dancin’ In Circles,” a song that sounds ripped from The Fame Monster in more ways than one.

As soon as the song begins we hear a familiar sound – what we now know to be Gaga’s fake, swollen-tongued, pop voice, in which she talk-sings, “let’s funk downtown.”

That tiny voice was all over her first two efforts, as on the title hook from “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich” – usually contrasted against full-throated belting (also present here). Yet, it was banished as of Born This Way. It returns here, as if to say, “Do you remember when I was the newbie weirdo in your headphones? I do.”

Maybe it’s just a sign of my age, but any sort of reggae-by-way-of-pop tune like that always seems to be influenced by Ace of Base. Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time Lady Gaga has referenced the early-90s Swedish hitmakers. “Alejandro” on Fame Monster was an obvious sound-alike to their “Don’t Turn Around,” and “Dancin’ In Circles” could easily be Gaga’s version of “All That She Wants” (or the less well-known “Wheel of Fortune”).

If we weren’t already firmly in The Fame Monster zone within the first ten seconds of the song, the lyrics invoke yet another element. Gaga nearly quotes “So Happy I Could Die” with the lyric “[I] touch myself to pass the time” in the first verse.

On the topic of touching oneself, “Dancin’ in Circles” may well be Lady Gaga’s own official ode to female masturbation, a la Cyndi Lauper’s “She-Bop.” Try reading the lyrics to her second verse through that lens:

I fool myself, swirl around as if I’m someone else. Your hands are mine
I do a trick , pretend that I am you until it clicks. I come alive, come alive

In the fire I call your name out
Up full night tryin’ to rub the pain out

I’m singin’, “Baby don’t cry Baby don’t cry”
Dancin’ in circles, feels good to be lonely
Baby don’t cry Baby don’t cry
I’m singin’, “Dancin’ in circles, feels good to be lonely”

Are you with me on this? Between the lyrics and the pelvis-thrusting reggae rhythms of this song, the connection is undeniable.

The quick “baby don’t cry, baby don’t cry” refrain with its dressing of harmony is another memorable hook, which allows the “let’s funk downtown” refrain to stay quirky and memorable without the burden of acting as a chorus like the “discostick” chant from “Lovegame.”

Just as easily as Gaga let us believe she had made a country record with “A-YO,” “Joanne,” and “John Wayne,” the combination of “John Wayne” and “Dancin’ In Circles” quickly snaps Joanne back to dance-pop territory, making the title track seem like the sonic outlier. Not only that, but they virtually erase the memory of ArtPop by drawing a direct connection to Gaga’s vastly more-popular original trio of releases.

Like I said: she’s smart. It doesn’t hurt that every one of the songs so far has been great, despite my minor songwriter’s quibbles with “Diamond Heart” and “Joanne.” Can Gaga really deliver a full-length effort where every song is distinct and memorable the way she did on The Fame Monster EP?

I’ve got another week of Gaga in store for you to answer that question!

Track-by-Track: Lady Gaga’s Joanne – “John Wayne” (Track 04)

October 22, 2016 by krisis

Lady Gaga's title cards from this week's SNL.

Lady Gaga’s title cards from tonight’s episode of SNL, where she is the musical guest.

I’ll be dissecting Joanne song by song every day until November, when I debut a month of major daily content!

Hearing “John Wayne” tracked after “A-YO” and “Joanne” made me appreciate just how canny Lady Gaga is.

A song title like “John Wayne” seems to clearly confirm the country bent of this album. Doubtlessly, some pop fans will be in a panic after the acoustic “Joanne” and another country-tinged tune could cause them to tune out.

What does Gaga do after the shock to reel us back in? Delivers a track named “John Wayne” with a decidedly country-fried guitar lick that’s more in line with her typical minor-key dance-stomp, so much that it feels ripped right from the back half of Born This Way.

Yes, Born This Way. Listen to Gaga’s vocal tone and intonation here. There are still shades of her country drawl from “A-YO,” but it also has the cooed alto notes of Born. Add the bass groove with minor synth work exploding into a big hook feels like it could be tracked right next to “Highway Unicorn (Road To Love).”

The stomp of the drums during that big hook make even more sense when you know that “John Wayne” is one of two cowrites with Josh Homme, of Queens of the Stone Age and Eagles of Death Metal (the other is “Diamond Heart”). Homme’s guitar work – muscular and sour – is usually his sonic signature (heard clearly on the chorus hook and outro solo), but many listeners don’t know he also plays drums. He’s the one behind the sticks here for the massive wallop of chorus drums with emphasized upbeats, which is another QotSA trademark.

Josh Homme

It’s hard to dissect Homme’s guitars from Gaga’s own wordless chants in the hook of this song, and I suspect they’re each doubling the other. Combined, they’re a sort of slow-mo version of a down-home fiddle riff, as you might be dancing along to in “Cotten-Eyed Joe” at half speed. Gaga can never attack a genre head on, so just as “A-YO” turned radio pop into a line-dance, here she perverts a line-dance into a modern rock song with Homme’s assistance.

On both “Diamond Heart” and “John Wayne” Gaga casts herself in the role of selling her body, there dancing for money and here proclaiming “Every John is just the same” (“John” is the noun that many sex workers use to describe a customer, basically a spin on “John Doe.”). While ArtPop was shameless sexual across its full length, for me the more specific callback is to Born This Way tracks like “Government Hooker,” “Judas,” and “Scheibe.” There, Gaga was toying specifically with the Mary Magdalene aspect of the “virgin/whore” dichotomy, versus the more generally sex positive ArtPop.

Yet, Gaga isn’t offering subservience here – she’s wishing for a better quality of man. “Every John is just the same,” she begins, “I’m sick of their city games. I crave a real wild man. I’m strung out on John Wayne!” Of course, Wayne is noted as a paragon of American masculinity. Yet, is Gaga talking about the literal, historical man here? Or, is John Wayne simply her nickname for any country man with rough hands who can take her on a “three-day bender”?

The answer doesn’t matter – it’s the question that defines this record. If ArtPop was a celebration of all things artificial that are crafted to be obsessed over, Joanne is about appreciating things that are authentic and tangible – anything that isn’t a “Perfect Illusion.”

More on that on Monday. Before then, we have another throwback track to discuss tomorrow.

Track-by-Track: Lady Gaga’s Joanne – “Joanne” (Track 03)

October 21, 2016 by krisis

I’ll be dissecting Joanne song by song every day until November, when I debut a month of major daily content!

The title track of Joanne introduces yet another new facet of Lady Gaga – a finger-picked, acoustic folk-rock ballad.

I am one of those music fans who tends to fetishize acoustic instruments as being “real” music. That doesn’t stop me from loving buzzy, synthy music from the likes of Garbage and Gaga, but I’m always a little more excited when I see an artist I love at an acoustic piano or wielding and acoustic guitar. I was excited over the idea of Madonna holding a guitar a a prop when the first images of Music debuted at the very start of this blog, and later lost my mind when she actually played one in concert.

Yet, I don’t have that same thrill with Lady Gaga. Almost the opposite, actually.

I’ve seen her tear things up on piano and dance while playing keytar. I know she writes her own songs. I’m sure she can play guitar, but it’s not going to be her most expert skill, so why waste time there?

“Joanne” answers that question.

Lady Gaga can certainly play these exact arpeggios on piano, but certain songs need the acoustic guitar – belong with it. This song is akin to Paul McCartney’s solo Beatles cut “Blackbird,” with its carefully merged set of picking, tapping, and bass sounding like a single instrument. “Joanne” adds a sheen of shimmery organ behind its choruses to fill out the sound, but that’s no different than McCartney’s simple dressing of bird song.

The verse starts simply enough, picking through a standard I-V-IV progression in G. “Take my hand, stay Joanne, heaven’s not ready for you” is about as treacly simple as any folk song can get – way past “Hey There Delilah” on the treacle scale. On my first listen, I was already girding myself for an awful, earnest tune.

Then I reached the chorus.

The simple “Girl, where do you think you’re going? Where do you think you’re going, girl?” chorus is a hook for the ages. It recalls the sharp knife simplicity of the best Neil Young refrains. (Don’t forget, she name-checks his “Heart of Gold” on “You & I.”)

Lady Gaga's fingers are sore from playing Joanne.

Gaga posted this photo on her Facebook, of newly callused fingers hovering above a lead sheet for “Joanne.”

So many tiny, deliberate choices in the chorus make it a classic. That Gaga starts the first one in a softer, more mixed voice before launching into a full-throated belt. The higher melodic jump on “think” in the second phrase. The surprising dip to the minor-seventh step to resolve on IV on its otherwise verbatim repeat.

The power, sentiment, and performance behind this one vague line makes it one of the most memorable in Lady Gaga’s entire catalog.

When you have a chorus that plain and powerful, you don’t need fancy dressing on the rest of the song. You can afford a plaintive, almost-silly set of lyrics that includes lines like, “I can’t wait to see you soar.” If the verses were too complex, too poetic, they would would disarm the simple power of that chorus.

I sometimes feel this tiny-voiced, swooping, raspy singing from Gaga on the verses is somehow “fake” because I’ve heard her do so much big-throated belting. Who I am to say what Gaga’s “real” voice is? Maybe this is the way she loves to sing? Her ability to occupy a spectrum from her weird melodic mumble on “Poker Face” to her lovely Sound of Music medley on the Oscars to the too-perfect pronunciation on “Perfect Illusion” to this folk Americana vocal sound proves the prowess of her musicianship.

Lady Gaga truly is as much Whitney House as she is Madonna. You can’t do the things they’ve done vocally and sonically, respectively, without being acutely aware of your choices. And, just as Gaga acknowledged and interpolated her Beatles influences on “Speechless,” here she does the same for influences like Neil Young and even Dolly Parton.