Joanne by Lady Gaga was one of the best albums to come out in 2016 or 2016 in general. It was fully released October 21 but suffered a leak a few weeks. The album which is inspired by Gaga’s aunt named Joanne, who died of lupus complications after being sexually assaulted when she was 19. The death, which happened 10 years before Gaga was ever born, deeply affected her father’s side of the family. This year she released a documentary, Five Foot Two, that shows the creation process of Joanne as well as her own struggle with fibromyalgia and doing the Superbowl.

For me personally, I am quite iffy on Joanne. I understand the concept, and I think it is a great memoir to a person who was gone too soon. But it does not feel completely genuine. Knowing that her last album, ArtPop, flopped it almost seems like she distanced her self from her old self. She states “You can’t make music with a bunch of boys who are staring at a lobster on your head. They are going to get distracted.” It feels very fake and similar to how another pop star, Miley Cyrus is distancing herself from her past album cycle(s). But I do enjoy most of the music, Hey Girl especially. But due to lack of promo, she didn’t sing any song off of Joanne at her halftime show, you can tell that this album cycle was a waste. None of the songs got really huge, only Million Reasons breaking the top 5, but only staying there for a week. 

So in total, Joanne is a complicated album that is not that well but did inspire me to dig dipper into pop music as well as criticism of it.

Joanne, Lady Gaga Aunt