I would argue that Chromatica is, in some sonic ways, a follow-up to Born This Way (my favorite Lady Gaga album to date), in ways which I will explain further as I progress through the tracklisting. Chromatica is essentially broken up into three sections divided by short instrumental pieces fueled by light and cinematic strings - titled "Chromatica I," "Chromatica II," and "Chromatica III." The album kicks off with "Chromatica I" which swiftly dives into the powerful dance track "Alice," definitely a highlight on the album. When I first saw the Chromatica tracklisting, this is one of the songs for which I was most excited because I had a feeling that it was a reference to what is probably my favorite novel of all time - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There - and I was not disappointed. "My name isn't Alice," Gaga sings in a higher register as a powerful melody, "but I'll keep looking, I'll keep looking, for Wonderland." Given all of the chaos that has unfolded thus far this year - such as the COVID-19 pandemic (which even led to Gaga delaying the release of Chromatica from April 10th to May 29th) and the completely unnecessary murder of George Floyd, "Alice," which lyrically longs for a better place to call home, feels so fitting. Both of Gaga's documentaries - Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden and Five Foot Two - show that the singer occasionally suffers from depression and low self-esteem, and that is definitely presented here on Chromatica. Although definitely not what I had been expecting from the album's lead single "Stupid Love," Chromatica definitely presents Lady Gaga at her most emotionally vulnerable yet, and "Alice" - the first of many songs on the album to be reminiscent of rave and dance music from the '90s - is certainly no exception, making it an effective opening to the album: "Sick and tired of waking up," Gaga sings in an electronically modified voice in the second verse, "Think I might've just left myself behind." In the pre-chorus, Gaga declares that she is "in the hole" and "falling down...," another allusion to Alice in Wonderland. Before she reaches Wonderland, Alice falls for some time down a hole. Gaga is therefore expressing that she may be falling down a hole, but it will hopefully lead her to a bright and wondrous place. What's interesting, however, is that in the song's post-chorus, she demands, "Take me home; take me to Wonderland," but Wonderland is not Alice's home. This could perhaps be one of the very few lyrical aspects of the album that speak to Gaga's apparent concept of Chromatica being another planet on which she resides.
The album then gives us the first and second singles released from the album - "Stupid Love" (which I reviewed here) and "Rain on Me" (which I reviewed here). "Free Woman" is another definite highlight for me, and although a demo version of the song leaked some time ago, the final album version is so much better and has so much more energy, calling forth dance-pop and house music from the mid to late '90s. I would argue that "Free Woman" is one of the most lyrically emotional songs on Chromatica, even making me somewhat emotional when I first heard the album version, especially when, in the chorus, she sings in a steady but powerful melody that "I'm still something if I don't got a man." I especially love the wistful melody of the verses, such as when, in the second verse, Gaga declares that "this is my dance floor I fought for." For reasons already discussed prior about this ultimately being Gaga's first dance-pop album since 2013's ARTPOP, this line sums up the album fairly well. Gaga is taking the dance floor back and reclaiming it, saying that she deserves it and deserves to let loose on it. Although not even remotely similar sonically, I lyrically liken this song to Born This Way's "Scheiße" because of how both songs are speaking to feminine energy and female empowerment. Chromatica then, in my opinion, takes a dip on "Fun Tonight," one of the album's weaker tracks. It is, however, very different than what I had expected given the title. The title, in fact, is definitely meant to be deliberately misleading. I think that it is probably safe to say that most people seeing a song title like "Fun Tonight" would assume that the song is a party song, but it isn't. It is sonically one of the lower key songs on the album although definitely still not a ballad. The lyrics speak to Gaga's physical and emotional pain that she has endured over the years: "I'd do anything to numb the flame." This is likely a reference to not only emotional pain but also, as I said, physical pain. As closely documented in Five Foot Two, Gaga suffers from Fibromyalgia which, at times, causes her immense physical pain. The track also likely speaks to failed relationships: "Yeah, I can see it in your face. You don't think I've pulled my weight. Maybe it's time for us to say goodbye 'cause I'm feelin' the way that I'm feelin'... I'm not havin' fun tonight." (As I said, the song, despite its title, is about not having fun.) Although not a highlight for me, I do like its nod to Gaga's debut album in the second verse, which made me smile when I first heard it: "You love the paparazzi, love the fame."
"Chromatica II" is a jaunty instrumental intro to "911," and the transition between the two tracks is very cool. Another one of my favorite artists, longtime Lady Gaga fan Greyson Chance, even commented on this transition on Twitter. It's definitely one of the album's more ambitious moments. "911" is one of the catchiest songs on the album and is definitely a lot more upbeat than I had been expecting. One of the more disappointing aspects of Chromatica, I have to admit, is that when I first saw the tracklisting and saw titles like this one (as well as others which I will discuss as I progress through the tracklisting), I was expecting some of the dark electronic music heard on past tracks like "Dance in the Dark," "Marry the Night," "Bloody Mary" (which is probably my favorite Lady Gaga song of all time), "Heavy Metal Lover," and "Electric Chapel." The album's cover art also gave me that indication, but that is really not the case. "911," for example, is sonically light (as opposed to dark) and very upbeat, with Gaga experimenting with heavily filtered vocals in the song's bridge, vocals that are so filtered, in fact, that they almost don't even sound like her. This song is the closest that Lady Gaga has come to her sound on The Fame in a very long time, as it is an electro dance track with electronically altered vocals and an electronically altered male voice layered underneath hers, reminding me of early tracks like "Starstruck" and "Monster." Gaga has stated that the song is about her use of an antipsychotic that she refers to as "911" becomes it comes to her rescue when she needs it. (This context is very important because the phrase in the chorus - "pop a 911" otherwise makes very little sense.) She laments in the chorus that "my biggest enemy is me," perhaps the most brutally honest and self-aware that she is on Chromatica. "Plastic Doll" is a light and dreamy pop number, and while I definitely don't hate it and consider it stronger than "Rain on Me" (which is potentially the weakest track on the album in my opinion) and "Fun Tonight," it is one of the more mainstream pop offerings on the album and does very little to blow me away. While still a dance track and definitely not a ballad, it, like "Fun Tonight," is one of the lower energy tracks on Chromatica and is lyrically about reclaiming herself as a human being rather than a manufactured object not only as a pop star but as an object of men's desires: "Don't play with me," she commands in the ascending chorus. "It just hurts me... I'm not your plastic doll."
A day before the album's release, Lady Gaga dropped the song "Sour Candy" (a collaboration with K-Pop girl group BLΛƆKPIИK) as a surprise promo single, and I immediately loved it so much that I almost immediately got to work on reviewing it. It is both lyrically and melodically, in my opinion, one of the album's strongest highlights. We then get "Enigma," a song that is very likely, in part, named after the aforementioned Las Vegas residency. This one along with the following track "Replay" are both songs that really didn't blow me away. Although it sonically reminds me a bit of Born This Way (especially the song "Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)"), "Enigma" never reaches much of anywhere interesting lyrically, with its chorus mostly just repeating the phrase "I'll be your enigma." (Repetition in choruses sometimes works really well - as it does in my opinion on MARINA's 2015 track "Forget" - but other times does not.) Lady Gaga paints herself as a mystery not only on this track but via the album's imagery overall, seeming to want to go back to the days of telling interviewers in a flat and robotic monotone that all she cared about in a potential partner was "a really big dick." (She was, of course, trolling such interviewers, and it was all a part of the character that she was playing behind those early records.) She has since then presented a much more human version of herself as previously mentioned, but perhaps because of the concept of the album being that she is now an alien on a different planet called Chromatica, she has been presenting herself a bit more like she used to. If you check out her recent interview with Zane Lowe, for example, in which she's rocking hot pink literally all over, her signature monotone from the days of The Fame is easily recognizable, and she definitely seems like she has popped or smoked a little something. In a way, it evokes a great deal of nostalgia - bringing me back to the days of summer 2009 when I first became a Gaga fan and found myself attracted to, well, the enigma. The problem, however, is that she has already bared her soul on projects like Joanne, Five Foot Two, and her raw performance as Ally in A Star Is Born, so it doesn't translate like it used to. I have absolutely loved seeing Gaga more down to earth in interviews and performances, so don't misunderstand me, but the problem with mystery is that it is very hard to maintain it, whereas someone like Björk has, in my opinion at least, done a much better job of maintaining her mystery.
As previously mentioned, "Replay" is another one that isn't all that impressive to me. It has somewhat of an '80s synth flavor to it, especially in its intro, although it also gives us a very modern dance beat, with that somewhat anachronistic nature potentially because of the track, according to Genius, sampling the 1979 song "It's My House" by Diana Ross. Although not really a highlight for me, I do like that she calls back to the early days and why Lady Gaga, for more than a decade now, has affectionally called her fans "little monsters," the idea that we all have monsters inside of us in one way or another that we battle. One of Gaga's biggest monsters has been her fame monster (hence the title of the second album), but it has also been her battles with emotional and physical pain. "The monster inside you is torturing me," she sings on this track. I believe this to be Gaga addressing herself as if she is two split personalities, and she later sings in the song's second chorus that "you're the worst thing and the best thing that's happened to me." It's easy to say that she is talking about an (ex) lover here, but I think that it is a bit more complicated than that and that she is referring to her pain. Pain can absolutely be the worst thing that has happened to us but can also be the best because it can make us stronger and can also be a reminder that we are human. ("As much as it hurts, ain't it wonderful to feel?" Amy Lee asks rhetorically on the Evanescence song "The End of the Dream.") "Chromatica III" then moves into my favorite song on the album, "Sine from Above." (It is, in fact, one of the best songs from her entire discography thus far.) "Sine from Above" is a collaboration with pop-rock legend Elton John, with whom Gaga has been friends for many years. They, in fact, previously collaborated on a live medley of her song "Speechless" and his song "Your Song" (which she also covered in the studio) as well as on a studio track titled "Hello Hello" which, although featured in the end credits of the animated movie Gnomeo & Juliet, was, to the best of my knowledge, never released. Gaga explained in the aforementioned interview with Zane Lowe that the title is a play on the phrase "sign from above" but that the word "sine" was used in its place because of it being a soundwave. The song - an absolutely powerful electronic house song with a beautiful and memorable soundscape - is therefore intended to celebrate music as a healing factor, something to which I can definitely relate. Music has saved me more times than I could ever attempt to count.
The last two tracks on the standard edition of Chromatica are "1000 Doves" and "Babylon," both of which are different than what I was expecting when I first saw the titles. "1000 Doves" has a bit of a softer quality to it (which is what I was, for some reason, expecting), although it is heavily electronic and reminds me a bit of "In My Blood" by The Veronicas. A user on Genius even said that when they first saw the song title, they were expecting a song like Joanne's "Angel Down" but were in for a surprise, and that is exactly how I feel. It has a lot of energy, with Gaga's powerful and soulful vocals over a clubby and electronic track that reminds me of Céline Dion's cover of Cyndi Lauper's "I Drove All Night." I really like this song because although I by no means consider it to be generic, I can definitely imagine it doing well on the radio. The lyrics are stunningly beautiful. As do most of the songs on Chromatica, "1000 Doves" addresses emotional struggle and finding hope at the end of that struggle. "Lift me up; give me a start," Gaga pleads in the wistful and catchy chorus, "'cause I've been flying with some broken arms. Lift me up, just a small nudge, and I'll be flying like a thousand doves." It could be that Gaga is saying here that in order to get out of an emotional funk, she just needs a single word or act of kindness from someone, but she could also be once again addressing herself and her own inner strength, and that is one thing that I do really appreciate about Chromatica. It is by no means a lovey dovey album worshipping the ground on which a lover walks, nor is it an angry and bitter breakup album cursing the ground on which an ex walks. It isn't, in fact, about anyone else, really; it is primarily about herself - her struggles, her losses, and her victories. That doesn't mean that she isn't ever involving other loved ones in the healing process, but this album, as I said, is not primarily about topics such as sex and romance. Chromatica ends with "Babylon," a song that speaks primarily of the toxic nature of gossip. It is another song that is very different than what I was expecting. Even though Gaga does often close albums with bangers rather than ballads (with "Applause" closing ARTPOP being the best example), I, for some reason, was expecting another ballad here or at least something with more weight and emotion. The song reminds me both of early '90s tracks such as Madonna's "Vogue" and Gaga's own song from Born This Way, "Black Jesus + Amen Fashion" (to which, on some levels, it sounds strikingly similar, another reason why the album reminds me in some ways of Born This Way). It is also somewhat jazzy with its use of saxophone.
I, being the little monster that I am, had to have the exclusive version of the album on CD from Target, since it features three bonus tracks that cannot be legally purchased anywhere else in the United States (with the exception of a "Stupid Love" remix). The first of these tracks is "Love Me Right," the only song of the three that is original as opposed to an alternate version. If Gaga's goal on Chromatica was to feature dance track after dance track with that energy never fading (with the exception, as I said, of the interludes), then I can understand why "Love Me Right" was cut from the standard edition because it is a bit of a ballad, albeit a power ballad, reminding me a great deal of some of the A Star Is Born numbers such as "Heal Me" and "Before I Cry." I love the reference that she makes to the aforementioned Netflix documentary Five Foot Two (which is phenomenal) in the first verse: "I'm tall in high heels, but I am only five foot two." Because of the opening lines at the beginning of the first verse - "My life is a story. Do you wanna know the truth?" - I definitely think that this could have made for an effective opening track, but I also completely understand why it was cut and why something like "Alice" was chosen as an opener instead. The Target edition then offers an absolutely beautiful and intimately raw piano version of "1000 Doves." It is labeled as the piano demo which strongly suggests to me that it might have been originally intended to be a ballad. If so, then that would explain why I pick up a bit of a ballad energy from it. The Target edition finally closes with a forgettable remix of "Stupid Love." I overall appreciate Chromatica and am happy to have new music from Gaga. I love the previously discussed emotional vulnerability in the album's lyrics like there never has been so persistently on a Lady Gaga album before, and I also love her ability to tackle dark themes on upbeat dance tracks (which I think works better on some songs than on others), but there is also a part of me that is a bit disappointed. I think that Born This Way might always be her magnus opus, that she isn't ever going to top the raw and vehemently creative energy heard in examples such as "Government Hooker," "Bloody Mary," "Heavy Metal Lover," etc. There is heart on that album that I have yet to hear her replicate, but at the same time, I don't fully know if I would want to hear that replicated because it would then stop being as special as it is. I guess that I just, from the cyberpunk and sci-fi visuals released alongside the album (including its incredible cover art), I was expecting more, something more grandiose and something more theatrical.
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