Lady Gaga returns with her new album Joanne. The 14-track project features the already-released singles "Perfect Illusion," "Million Reasons," and "A-YO." It has only a single guest feature—Florence + the Machine's Florence Welch—with Gaga handling the rest of the vocals herself.
Of course, she receives some production help, primarily from Mark Ronson, who co-produced the album. "Everything she wrote about was honest, and you hear that in how she's singing," he told Rolling Stone in a recent interview. "I was just playing it at a photo shoot and this kid said, 'This is amazing – what is it?' When I said it was Gaga, his mouth dropped in shock. She's made incredible records, but this is raw and exposed in a way that maybe she's never sounded before."
Joanne is named after Gaga's late aunt, and it strips away the flashy visuals and EDM-fueled spectacle that have long-defined her career. Instead, she opts for a rootsy, countrified take on pop songs, featuring her powerful voice front-and-center. In an effort to promote the new era in her music, she recently embarked on a dive bar mini-tour, popping up in Nashville, America's country music capital, for a surprise performance. “It’s an endless proving of myself, that I really am a musician, that I have something to offer in the room," she recently told T Magazine. "That women can be musicians, women can be rock stars, women can be more than an objectified idea of a pop star.”
You can purchase Lady Gaga's Joanne on iTunes now, stream it below, and catch her performing at the Super Bowl LI halftime show this year.