Joanne

Unfortunately, therein lies the biggest problem with Joanne: for every time that Gaga seemingly breaks free of her shackles and embraces something more “real,” she quickly scuttles back into her comfort zone and hides behind glistening production. This probably isn’t quite the sound of the real Stefani Germanotta, but if you squint hard enough there’s a semblance of a real person in amongst the pop haze.

Intentionally overwrought, brash, and totally different to anything she’s ever done before, Lady Gaga’s Joanne doesn’t quite nail the artistic frankness she’s aiming for.

Joanne’s influences are writ so large it takes a while to settle. At its core, however, is a career-extending, creative curio that, even in its weaker moments (Come to Mama is wretched), is never dull.

The album's peaks offer compelling paths forward for Gaga--the country balladry of "Million Reasons," the slinky pop of Florence Welch duet "Hey Girl"--but a dearth of memorable melodies makes Joanne's restlessness often feel aimless.

Working together, they [Mark Ronson, Beck, Father John Misty and dudes from detail-obsessed rock bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Tame Impala] assemble some gorgeous pieces. ... Yet other songs, for all their vivid sonic color, lack strong stories.

It’s understandable that Joanne finds Gaga performing authenticity, if only because it’s the strongest way to convey artistic evolution to the masses in 2016. The image here--the illusion, really--is as imperfect as it is meticulously rendered.

Even if Joanne fails to connect with you emotionally, it’s nonetheless the album that will make fans and observers once again rethink what they know about the daring diva. Make no mistake: even with all her extracurricular endeavors paying off cultural dividends, Gaga’s greatest achievement is yet to come, and Joanne, flaws and all, feels like the necessary step to get there.

Joanne stumbles a bit, and will be received with bafflement by everyone other than hardcore Little Monsters, but you can’t help admiring her boldness.

To a certain extent it works, especially when Josh Homme’s on hand to lend gritty riffing and imaginative lead lines to some tracks: his spiky but fluid breaks on “A-Yo” and “John Wayne” are undoubted album highlights. Sadly, the bombastic orchestral stomper “Perfect Illusion”, a much-anticipated collaboration with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, is less impressive, just stridently dull.

Although Joanne lacks the indelible pop hooks that those two influences [Elton John and Prince]--not to mention Gaga herself--are famous for, the album is more sonically consistent and thematically focused than the singer's last solo effort, the regressive Artpop.

Once a step ahead of everyone else in recalibrating what it means to be a pop artist, she made her appropriations and reinventions look like fun. Now she sounds like she's just trying too hard.

Gaga has wrenched herself away from dance-pop to focus on the country and classic rock influences that have always been present in her music, albeit gussied up like a coked-out drag queen stumbling out of a bar at 4 am.