I adore real strings on pop records. You can tell this is a blockbuster record because the album opens with an orchestra setting the scene. Budget!
The album, Gaga’s first since Joanne in 2016, is split into three acts. Act One has the big hits Stupid Love and Rain On Me, which have been Gaga’s biggest solo smashes since 2011’s Born This Way. The former has been concocted by Max Martin and layers hook (‘freak out’) upon hook (‘look at me’) upon hook (‘higher higher!’) upon hook (the chorus). It wasn’t a number one but Rain On Me was, probably because Ari is on it but also because it’s a camp, kitsch bop which will do very well in Asia and mainland Europe.
Alice is the name of my brother’s girlfriend. Here, Alice is a dance-pop tune which sounds like catwalk muzak. We’re in Lewis Carroll territory in the lyrics, which bang on about Wonderland. Free Woman, like Rain On Me, was written with Axwell, one of the Swedish House Mafia guys. ‘This is my dancefloor I fought for’ packs an awful lot into seven words. It’s a poppy song which will get stuck in your head.
Fun Tonight ends Act One with a mix of euphoria and pensiveness. Why isn’t Gaga having fun tonight? Why does she want to break up with her man or woman or other? It breaks up the slew of positivity on the album, as Act Two kicks in with another orchestral interlude.
911, which is saturated in vocoder, is another track co-written with Justin Tranter whom we know is a good songwriter from hits like Issues, Sorry, Bad Liar, Believer, Lose You To Love Me and Make Me Feel by Janelle Monae. Along with Beyonce, Janelle is Gaga’s only competitor in the pop landscape.
Plastic Doll, meanwhile, is what happens when Bloodpop (the album’s main producer) gets in a room with J Kash, Skrillex and Rami Yacoub, who along with Shellback a key Max Martin acolyte. ‘I am top shelf, they built me strong’ sounds like a feminist anthem coated in candyfloss. ‘I’ve spent too long dancing all alone,’ sings Gaga, who is ‘no toy for a real boy’ which is an Instagram caption. File with Toy by Netta and all of Beyonce’s catalogue in the playlist Powerful Music for Ladies.
Sour Candy is a team-up with K-Pop superstars BLACKPINK and pivots (as Halsey did) towards East Asia, where Gaga is beloved. She goes piano house euphoria on Enigma (‘Is it all just virtual?’) and Cher-like disco on Replay (‘the monster inside you is torturing me’). Who needs drugs when you’ve got the sugar rush of Gaga?
Act Three concludes the album and brings in another queen. Sine From Above (sic) was written by 12 different people, including guest vocalist Elton John and top songwriter Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic. ‘When I was young I prayed for lightning…I lost my love, no one cared’ is the opening verse from LG, while the chorus showcases, once again, her fine vocal style which was groomed in the cabaret bars of New York City.
‘When I was young I felt immortal,’ croons Pinner’s finest former resident. There’s so much pathos in a 70-year-old singer who really did set the standard for performing singer-songwriters to essentially hand over the torch to Gaga. The pair are great friends and helped organise the recent ‘Corona Live Aid’ for UNICEF. Gaga, like Elton, is more than just a musician and cultural star; she is an agent for change who can do whatever she wants. Having been a Vegas performer and the latest lead actress in the evergreen movie A Star Is Born, she will probably get back to setting the world on fire. I saw her Born This Way show and, though it didn’t have as many great hits as I wanted to hear, appreciated what she was trying to do. She is the Head Monster and her Little Monsters will love her ‘return to form’ (copyright: every music journalist).
It just happens that Chromatica is the sort of album full of tracks to send the endorphins rushing, as the final drum’n’bass break of Sine From Above shows. It segues into 1000 Doves, which is proper Eurovision, and the album concludes with dance anthem Babylon: ‘We can party like it’s BC’ is a wonderfully quirky line.
Humans have always danced, whether to praise the deities or to get lost in the four-to-the-floor groove. If music is ‘socially organised sound’, ie sound that unites communities or just a community, this ticks the box. Like Madonna’s best work, Chromatica unites the world in dance, though nothing is as brilliant as Vogue or Express Yourself; like Elton John’s best songs, there is a touch of melancholy and self-awareness; like Lady Gaga’s first two albums, this is contemporary pop with a lot of Swedes helping out.
Props go to BloodPop aka Michael Tucker from Kansas City who, at 29, is the world’s most important pop producer (at least aside from Max Martin). Having already worked with Madonna on Rebel Heart and with Justin Bieber on Purpose, the world’s dancefloors are his oyster.
If only we could go to a dancefloor, or an arena, soon. This is Gaga’s decade and we are all her subjects.