Chromatica by Lady Gaga
Chromatica is the sixth studio album by American singer Lady Gaga. It was released on May 29, 2020, by Streamline and Interscope Records. Originally scheduled for April 10, 2020, the album's release was delayed for several weeks, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chromatica serves as a follow-up to Gaga's fifth studio album, Joanne (2016). The singer intended the album to be a reminder of her "absolute love for electronic music", and features production from various producers, such as BloodPop, BURNS, Axwell and Tchami. Themes of the album revolve around mental health, healing, and finding happiness through hardship. It also includes collaborations with Ariana Grande, Blackpink and Elton John. "Stupid Love" was released as the album's lead single on February 28, 2020, and reached number five in both the United Kingdom and United States. "Rain on Me" was released as the second single on May 22, 2020. "Sour Candy" was released as a promotional single on May 28, 2020 and impacted Australian radio as the third official single the following day. Background In press interviews after it was announced she would embark on one final performance of her 2016 Dive Bar Tour, Gaga hinted new music would be performed and released during the new leg's stop. However, the Dive Bar Tour performance was later postponed indefinitely due to scheduling conflicts. Later, Gaga hinted the release of new music during the globe-crossing Joanne World Tour, however, in an August 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly, the singer revealed that due to the constraints of the tour production, specifically the strictly-scheduled synchronization of its various technologies with the performances, there most likely will not be any new material performed on the Joanne World Tour, let alone any deviation from the structure of the show itself. It was also revealed in the same interview that production had begun on the follow up to Joanne, with Gaga offering that the album was still in the initial writing stage. Talking about previous record Joanne, Gaga admitted that it was an album that she made for his father, trying to heal his and her family's trauma. She later realized she "can't fix dad", and called the album a "futile effort" to heal him. Her disappointment drove her into depression and chainsmoking, and writing new music was her way for healing. Conception and artwork Talking about the album's title, Gaga described Chromatica as a planet and also as a location in her mind where all sounds and colors mix and stated: "I live on Chromatica, that is where I live. I went into my frame. I found Earth, I deleted it. Earth is canceled. I live on Chromatica." The dystopian planet of Chromatica appears in the music video for the song "Stupid Love", where Gaga portrays a warrior leader, and "follows a narrative about tribes battling for dominance in a world riddled with conflict". Gaga also confirmed how the concept of the planet Chromatica came about, saying: BloodPop brought it up, and we talked about how Chromatica was essentially on its own when you first look at it, it seems to be about colors and all the different colors and also music is made of a chromatic scale, you know? So it's all the colors, all the sounds, you know, so we, we're talking about inclusivity and life and also a lot of what we see around us and what we're experiencing is math, which is very much like music and sound is math as well. So we talked about that, and then I sort of went back and I said, 'OK, well, yeah, it's inclusivity but it's really a way of thinking,' you know, it's not just, 'Oh, Chromatica, we're being inclusive with all the colors, all the people,' and when I say, 'All the colors, all the people' I mean way more than we could possibly fathom." A temporary cover art was released along with the album preorder, showcasing a symbol over a pink background. It received comparison to the yin and yang symbol. The singer explained that the Chromatica logo "has a sine wave in it, which is the mathematical symbol for sound. And, for me, sound is what healed me in my life period, and it healed me again making this record, and that is really what Chromatica is all about." On April 5, 2020, the album's official cover was revealed. It shows the singer with "cotton candy pink" hair, wearing a "metallic bodysuit with spikes and studs sticking out of it", "a pair of platform boots with a tusk and a knife for its heels" and a "shoulder-to-fingertip sleeve covered in spikes" on one of her hands. She is attached to a large metal grate illuminated by "hot pink neon" light. It also involves the previously showscased Chromatica symbol. Trey Alston from MTV described the cover art as "part-Mad Max, Mortal Kombat, and cyber-punk fantasy", while Hilary Hughes from Billboard also found inspiration from the Alien films. The cover photograph was taken by German photographer Norbert Schoerner, with creative direction by Nicola Formichetti; Gaga's body armor was created by Cecilio Castrillo. Writing and recording “What I'm making now is a reminder of the freedom that I have as an artist, but also my absolute love for electronic music, my absolute love for ability for a computer to make something that is so visceral and soulful. The bulk of this album was made inside a computer… I played with modular synths, I played with real synth. I gave Bloodpop what I would play on the piano, we input it as midi, and then we would play with inversions and produce the record and make the song… —Gaga on the production of the album In the first seven months of 2018, Gaga was seen at various recording studios in and around Los Angeles and New York City. The earlier recording sessions have been attributed to post-production work for the soundtrack to Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born, a remake of the 1937 film of the same name in which she has top billing. The later recording sessions have mostly been attributed to further production for Chromatica. Producer BloodPop, who had co-produced every song on the standard edition of Gaga's previous studio album Joanne (2016), shared on various social media platforms that he and Gaga had been recording at the singer's Malibu estate with German electronic music producer Boys Noize. BloodPop continued to post similar updates through the entirety of 2019 and January 2020, indicating production had continued for nearly three years. In July 2018, experimental electronic music producer Sophie confirmed that she had contributed production work for the upcoming project but was unaware if her collaboration would make the final cut. In an interview with Beats 1's Zane Lowe, Gaga confirmed the album will be a dance record, saying "We are definitely dancing… I put all my heart, all my pain, all my messages from the other realm that I hear of… what they tell me to tell the world and I put it into music that I believe to be so fun and you know, energetically really pure. I want people to dance and feel happy. I would like to put out music that a big chunk of the world will hear, and it will become a part of their daily lives and make them happy every single day." She divulged how her intuition had evolved since the production of her last album, especially with the "real" and "honest" nature of this record's production virtually halting her inclination to second guess her creative output. Gaga also went into great detail about how the collaborative process of creating the album helped her overcome her internal struggles: We made a lot of the record in my studio house. So I have a house where it's Frank Zappa's old studio, it's a live room, it's a big studio, it's beautiful. And I would be upstairs on the porch, outside the kitchen, and Bloodpop would come up and he'd go, 'Okay, come on, that's enough, off the porch,' and I would cry and I would say, 'I'm miserable, I'm sad, I’m depressed,' and he'd go, 'I know, and we're gonna go make some music now. And then I'd go downstairs and I would write. This album is such a display of not only how you can reframe the way that you view the world, but I promise and I hope, that the love that was around me in the process of making this album is something that other people feel, that they know that artistically, like, you know how producers are, if one guy's working on it, or one girl's working on it, they don't want anyone else to work on it, they don't wanna share, they, everybody gets cocky, there was none of that. These records got passed around to so many different people, there were so many different iterations of these songs because we all wanted it to be perfect and literally nobody cared who put their fingerprints on it, as long as it was the dopest thing that we could give to the world and that it was meaningful, authentic, and completely me. Gaga collaborated with Ariana Grande on the track "Rain on Me". In an interview with Justin Moran of Paper magazine, released in March 2020, Gaga talked at length about numerous topics, including the recording process for Chromatica, and confirmed that BloodPop was the "center" and her "nucleus" of production while creating the album and that he had a hand in the creation of every track. Gaga worked with a wide array of producers, such as Burns, Axwell of Swedish House Mafia, Skrillex, Madeon (who had previously worked with Gaga on her third studio album, Artpop), Ryan Tedder, Justin Tranter, Tom Norris, Madison Love, Tchami, Benjamin Rice, and Rami Yacoub, to create an album described as an "electronic tapestry" by Moran. In discussing the large collaborative atmosphere that enveloped the album's production, Gaga said, "It's easy to go into a computer and find a cool loop, but the producers I work with don't work this way. When they're inspired, they embroider things." She later added: “I’ve been in this business a long time… I’ve never seen so many producers be willing to pass around music and be like ‘What do you think, man?’, and have it be a conversation. And if we didn’t use somebody’s production, it was no big deal… Everybody was in service of the song, which made me feel so loved, as the writer. Because when I write a song, I want it to sound the best that it could be, I also want it to interpret what I’m saying the best that it can interpret.” Gaga collaborated with Elton John on the song "Sine from Above". Talking about their work together, she described him as her “mentor” and explained how he played a significant role in her road to recovery: "Elton’s always really challenged me to take care of my artistry and to really take care of myself. And I really, really honour that about him. He is so, so uniquely special. And I cannot tell you how instrumental in my life he’s been to showing me that you can go all the way in life and… be authentic and be you and do good things in the world and take care of yourself and be there." The album also includes a collaboration with Ariana Grande on the track, "Rain On Me", whom Gaga described as an artist "who immense trauma while in the public eye", which brought them together for the creation of the song. Gaga collaborated with K-Pop girl group Blackpink on a song titled "Sour Candy". In an interview for Japanese entertainment site TV Groove, Gaga stated that "when called them and asked if they wanted to write a song with , they were so happy and motivated" and that she wanted "to celebrate them". The group's members sing in both English and Korean on the song.
“This music actually healed me.” That’s the hopeful message Lady Gaga brings with her as she emerges from something of a career detour—having mostly abandoned dance pop in favour of her 2016 album <i>Joanne</i>’s more stripped-back sound and the intimate singer-songwriter fare of 2018’s <i>A Star Is Born</i>. She returns with <i>Chromatica</i>, a concept album about an Oz-like virtual world of colours—produced by BloodPop®, who also worked on <i>Joanne</i>—and it’s a return to form for the disco diva. “I’m making a dance record again,” Gaga tells Apple Music, “and this dance floor, it’s mine, and I earned it.” As with many artists, music is a form of therapy for Gaga, helping her exorcise the demons of past family traumas. But it wasn’t until she could embrace her own struggles—with mental health, addiction and recovery, the trauma of sexual assault—that she felt free enough to start dancing again. “All that stuff that I went through, I don’t have to feel pain about it anymore. It can just be a part of me, and I can keep going.”<br /> And that’s the freedom she wants her fans to experience—even if it will be a while before most of them can enjoy the new album in a club setting. “I can’t wait to dance with people to this music,” says Gaga. But until then, she hopes they’ll find a little therapy in the music, like she did. “It turns out if you believe in yourself, sometimes you’re good enough. I would love for people that listen to this record to feel and hear that.” Below, Lady Gaga walks us through some of the key tracks on <i>Chromatica</i> and explains the stories behind them.<br /> <b>Chromatica I</b> “The beginning of the album symbolises for me the beginning of my journey to healing. It goes right into this grave string arrangement, where you feel this pending doom that is what happens if I face all the things that scare me. That string arrangement is setting the stage for a more cinematic experience with this world that is how I make sense of things.”<br /> <b>Alice</b> “I had some dark conversations with BloodPop® about how I felt about life. ‘I’m in the hole, I’m falling down/So down, down/My name isn’t Alice, but I’ll keep looking for Wonderland.’ So it’s this weird experience where I’m going, ‘I’m not sure I’m going to make it, but I’m going to try.’ And that’s where the album really begins.”<br /> <b>Stupid Love</b> “In the ‘Stupid Love’ video, red and blue are fighting. It could decidedly be a political commentary. And it’s very divisive. The way that I see the world is that we are divided, and that it creates a tense environment that is very extremist. And it’s part of my vision of Chromatica, which is to say that this is not dystopian, and it’s not utopian. This is just how I make sense of things. And I wish that to be a message that I can translate to other people.”<br /> <b>Rain on Me (With Ariana Grande)</b> “When we were vocally producing her, I was sitting at the console and I said to her, ‘Everything that you care about while you sing, I want you to forget it and just sing. And by the way, while you’re doing that, I’m going to dance in front of you,’ because we had this huge, big window. And she was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t. I don’t know.’ And then she started to do things with her voice that were different. And it was the joy of two artists going, ‘I see you.’ Humans do this. We all do things to make ourselves feel safe, and I always challenge artists when I work with them, I go, ‘Make it super fucking unsafe and then do it again.’”<br /> <b>Free Woman</b> “I was sexually assaulted by a music producer. It’s compounded all of my feelings about life, feelings about the world, feelings about the industry, what I had to compromise and go through to get to where I am. And I had to put it there. And when I was able to finally celebrate it, I said, ‘You know what? I’m not nothing without a steady hand. I’m not nothing unless I know I can. I’m still something if I don’t got a man, I’m a free woman.’ It’s me going, ‘I no longer am going to define myself as a survivor, or a victim of sexual assault. I just am a person that is free, who went through some fucked-up shit.’”<br /> <b>911</b> “It’s about an antipsychotic that I take. And it’s because I can’t always control things that my brain does. I know that. And I have to take medication to stop the process that occurs. ‘Keep my dolls inside diamond boxes/Save it till I know I’m going to drop this front I’ve built around me/Oasis, paradise is in my hands/Holding on so tight to this status/It’s not real, but I’ll try to grab it/Keep myself in beautiful places, paradise is in my hands.’”<br /> <b>Sine From Above (With Elton John)</b> “S-I-N-E, because it’s a sound wave. That sound, sine, from above is what healed me to be able to dance my way out of this album. ‘I heard one sine from above/I heard one sine from above/Then the signal split into the sound created stars like me and you/Before there was love, there was silence/I heard one sine and it healed my heart, heard a sine.’ That was later in the recording process that I actually was like, ‘And now let me pay tribute to the very thing that has revived me, and that is music.’”
