Lady Gaga: Why Her Failed 2016 Album ‘Joanne’ Was Actually Her Best Work – And Why Every Woman Should Fail At Least Once In Her Career

If there’s any woman in the world who’s paved the way for women to be different it’s Lady Gaga. I remember when she first started out in the entertainment industry, the first word that ever came to my mind was ‘weird’. That weirdness, however, paid off. She’s recently had a career high as she took home her 14th Grammy award for her collaboration with Bruno Mars. She’s also had a career low as her movie, ‘Joker: Folie Deaux’, where she played Lee Quinzel, better known as Harley Quinn, failed to succeed. Rolling Stone critic David Fear wrote, ‘While the push-pull tension between the allure of complete social breakdown and the remorse over unleashing the collective id is what ‘Folie à Deux’ really seems to want to dig into, the film never balances the two in a way that hits its targets.’

While gracing the cover of Elle for their February cover, Gaga finally addressed the surprising poor reception of the movie. She said, ‘People just sometimes don’t like some things. It’s that simple. And I think to be an artist, you have to be willing for people to sometimes not like it. And you keep going even if something didn’t connect in the way that you intended. When that makes its way into your life, that can be hard to get control of. It’s part of the mayhem.’ And of her upcoming album, ‘Mayhem’, she said, ‘I was actually pretty hard on myself about not walking into the studio with any preconceived ideas that I was going to strangle onto. ‘Mayhe’ is about following your own chaos into whatever cranny of your life that it takes you to.’

The ‘Joker’ sequel was labeled as ‘the worst film ever made’ by comedian Tim Dillon, who ironically made an appearance in the film. He added, ‘It’s not even hate-watchable. That’s how terrible it is.’ The only person who felt he had anything positive to say about the movie was of Quentin Tarantino. He praised the film for antagonizing fans of superheroes, movies, and studios making moneyHe said, ‘He’s saying ‘f*ck you’ to all of them. He’s saying ‘f*ck you’ to the movie audience. He’s saying ‘f*ck you’ to Hollywood. He’s saying ‘f-*ck you’ to everybody who owns any stock at DC and Warner Brothers.’

Moviegoers agreed with the general public. Bad word-of-mouth led to the film’s underperformance at the box office, as it raked in only $37 million across its opening weekend, eventually ending its run with a mere $58.3 million domestically. Fans of the comic book movie were already off guard when it was announced as a musical, and a much more fantastical approach than the gritty, grounded first film didn’t obviously work in the sequel’s favour. Nevertheless, Gaga was widely praised for her performance. 

This wasn’t the first time we saw Gaga on the big screen. It was 2018’s ‘A Star Is Born’ Gaga’s debut in acting. It also starred Bradley Cooper, Sam Elliot and Anthony Ramos. Bradley also co-wrote and directed the movie. Gaga was almost not cast to play Ally in the film. Cooper had to fight to convince Warner Bros.  In his pitch, he showed an iPhone recording of himself and Lady Gaga singing a duet of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Midnight Special’ recorded in Lady Gaga’s home. It’s now very hard to imagine anyone other than Gaga playing the role of Ally. And yet, her casting was a questionable choice, to say the least, when the movie just came out. No one believed in her capabilities as an actor, and especially in such a role as Ally.

I was one of those people who doubted Gaga’s depth and capability. Remember, my first impression of her was that she was weird. How could I possibly think she was capable of playing such a vulnerable character who had the emotional depth as Ally did? I was wrong, however. She did a phenomenal job at playing the character. In some weird and cosmic way, I felt that she WAS the character. Gaga herself felt that way too. In fact, she’d become so attached to her character during the shoot, she had to dye her hair blonde as soon as the film wrapped in order to ‘release’ Ally. She also said that in real life, she is nothing like her character Ally, the biggest difference being that she was extremely ambitious about her career from a young age and was classically trained in music, while Ally is starting off a late bloomer with no self-confidence in her talent.

And there was an emotional depth brought by Gaga in her performance; not just in her craft, but real life as well. Moments after finding out her best friend, Sonja Durham, passed away of cancer, the singer-actress performed the last song of the movie, ‘I’ll Never Love Again’. Of that experience, Gaga shared in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, ‘My very, very, very dear friend Sonja died of cancer that day. We were supposed to shoot in, like, 30 minutes, and I left the set because her husband called me and I could hear her in the background and I just got in the car and drove. I missed her by 15 minutes and she died. I literally laid with her, with her husband, and their dog, and his son…. When I came back, Bradley Cooper was so gentle with me and we got through it. I performed the song. He was like, ‘You don’t have to do it again. It’s okay.’ All I wanted to do was sing. I’ll never forget that day. It was really a special scene, and I’ll always remember that moment.’

In 2019, Gaga made history by becoming the first person to have won an Oscar, Grammy, BAFTA and Golden Globe within a single year. When she won an Oscar for Best Original Song for ‘Shallow’, her acceptance speech stole the entire show. It read as follows, ‘To my sister, my soulmate, I love you. My family’s here, I love you, Mom and Dad. Bradley, there is not a single person on the planet that could’ve sang this song with me but you. Thank you for believing in us. Thank you so much. And if you are at home, and you’re sitting on your couch and you’re watching this right now, all I have to say is that this is hard work. I’ve worked hard for a long time, and it’s not about, you know…it’s not about winning. But what it’s about is not giving up. If you have a dream, fight for it. There’s a discipline for passion. And it’s not about how many times you get rejected or you fall down or you’re beaten up. It’s about how many times you stand up and are brave and you keep on going. Thank you!’ She also later revealed, ‘I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped I’d fail. I said to him, ‘Someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the f*cling deli without hearing or seeing me.’

This was definitely a full circle moment for Gaga. She was an already established singer-songwriter by the time the movie came out, and everyone in the world saw her as just that. I related to her on a deeper level, however; on a more personal level. Though she’s widely known for her hit songs like ‘Born This Way’, ‘Bad Romance’, and ‘Poker Face’, I’d have to say that my all-time favourite song of hers is ‘’Till It Happens To You’. But even more so, I just loved her performance of the song at the Oscars 2016. It was so raw and poignant. I felt every single word Gaga sang in every part of my existence. Even now, I can’t get the song out of my head.

With that said, I’d like to discuss Gaga’s lesser known album, ‘Joanne’, named after her father’s sister who passed away of lupus complications following a sexual assault. Of the tragedy of her father’s grief, Gaga said, ‘My connection to her has been strong my whole life. I always wondered what it was—the mystery of Joanne—this person that I never got to meet that was an absolute tornado of both love and tragedy… She was a powerful, beautiful force in my family’s life and then it’s like a beautiful light that just goes out, so I’ve always used the fact that she didn’t get to live the rest of her life as a sense of strength and power within me that I have to go out and live the rest for her.’

The song ‘Joanne’ was very well received by critics. The album itself, however, failed to reach much success. Sales were underwhelming. Critics didn’t like it much either. In 2020, Billboard published an article written by Andrew Unterberger in which it described ‘Joanne’ as not the first of Lady Gaga’s albums to fail to meet expectation, but still the only album of hers that felt like it lacked a distinct identity. I can’t say that I fully agree with that testament. ‘Joanne’ marked the first time ever that Lady Gaga showed her vulnerability. The public wasn’t prepared for it. Some said the album was difficult to place in a specific context, and that it didn’t have enough of a hook to be a party album or background music. More reasons include:

• Lack of cohesion – Some have said that the album’s visual, lyrical, and promotional concepts were difficult to combine into a cohesive pop presentation. 
• Not enough of a statement – Some have said that the album didn’t make a strong enough impression to redefine Gaga’s image. 
• Not as big as her previous albums – Some have said that the album wasn’t as big as her previous albums, like The Fame, The Fame Monster, and Born This Way. 
• Difficult to place in a context – Some have said that the album wasn’t loud enough for a party, but too demanding for background music. 
• Gaga’s performance – Some have said that Gaga’s performance at the Pepsi Center was discombobulated, and that she rarely committed to her past. 

What followed is a 2017 Netflix documentary, ‘Gaga: Five Foot Two’, which was another vulnerable look at Lady Gaga’s life. It gave us more of an insight into the end of her engagement to Taylor Kinney, her friendship with Sonja before her untimely death, as well as her own health struggles. She also gave us a closer look into making ‘Joanne’. On her much controversial costumes that made her known for her ‘weird’ persona, the singer said in the documentary, ‘I never felt comfortable enough to sing and just be this way, now. To just sing, wear my hair back. I never felt pretty enough or smart enough or a good enough musician. That’s the good part. The good part is that I just didn’t feel good enough, and I do now. I know I deserve — of all the things I deserve, that is where I know I’m worth something so I have to stay there. I can see now. I don’t need to have a million wigs on and all that shit to make a statement.’

Gaga’s ’Joanne’ era wasn’t a successful one by any means, but it was an important one. It was impactful as it was the era that marked to be the era that made someone notice. That someone was Bradley Cooper himself. He cast her as Ally after seeing her perform Édith Piaf’s ‘La Vie en Rose’ at a cancer benefit in 2016 and being blown away by her talent. He was struck by her warmth, curiosity, and charisma. The following day, he called her agent to ask if she would meet with him. And of course, she did. Cooper said he knew it when he met Gaga that she was ‘so soulful and deep and open and warm and caring.’ Gaga, in turn, said that Cooper made her feel comfortable and challenged her in ways she’d never been challenged before.

One viral moment of the promotional tour of ‘A Star Is Born’ is Gaga telling her audience, ‘There could be 100 people in the room and 99 don’t believe in you. You just need one—and it was him.’ This very much holds true when describing Gaga’s ‘Joanne’ era. Her quote perfectly describes that period in her life and career. In hindsight, I think Bradley Cooper and I are actually two of the very few people out of the entire population who had actually come to appreciate Gaga’s ‘Joanne’ era.

I actually think that ‘Joanne’ is Gaga’s best work of art, and the most unappreciated. It magnified her talent the ‘pop star’ persona that she’d put on for years beforehand. It marked a celebration of her as a woman and as a person rather than her as the pop star we used to know. And just as a fun fact, the entire album was made without using autotune, which means that the vocals we hear on the entire album is purely Gaga’s voice. Although, I really shouldn’t say ‘just as a fun fact’ when describing the album, because by her avoiding using autotune just adds to the complexity of Gaga’s pureness, passion, and hard work.

This wasn’t the first time that Gaga showed her vocal strength and capabilities. Two years prior, she released a jazz album, ‘Cheek To Cheek’, with the legendary Tony Bennett. They collaborated again on their second collaborative album, 2021’s ‘Love For Sale’. Unlike ‘Joanne’, ‘Cheek To Cheek’ was a massive success. It was inspired by Bennett and Gaga’s desire to introduce the songs to a younger generation, since they believed these tracks have a universal appeal. It’s safe to say that the general public agreed with them. They were an unlikely pair, but somehow, they worked. So why did ‘Cheek To Cheek’ work but ‘Joanne’ didn’t?

Maybe it had to do with the fact that she did ‘Cheek To Cheek’ as a collaboration with a man; a man who’d already established himself as a jazz legend, whereas ‘Joanne’ was a standalone album that the world just wasn’t ready for. I, on the other hand, was fully prepared for it. The album itself was a risk for Gaga. It was a storytelling arc that resigned her as an artist. Her solo album catalog was based off of a party themed vibe. And then came ‘Joanne’, an album that spoke heavily about loss and grief. It’s a weird mixture in itself that someone with the persona of Lady Gaga had an album that heavily discussed these serious subject matters.

The year 2016 was a diabolical one for me. It was a mixture of happiness and sadness all at the same time. I was a new college graduate. I was getting married. I officially signed papers to purchase my own place. I’d achieved things I only dreamed of as a little girl; as a girl with a disability, more like. And yet, I was filled with sadness. I was grieving a loss. But not that of death. I was grieving the loss of my identity and sense of purpose following my rape. I wasn’t newly raped at the time. It had happened long before I ever met my husband. But the effects in the aftermath of what had happened that night were still very much there.

The effects of sexual trauma are lingering. Shweta Kapoor, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic psychiatrist, said ‘A lot of times if you ask them, ‘Have you ever experienced trauma in your life?’ they probably don’t even recognize it. Because trauma has been an indelible part of their life since childhood. They don’t know that it’s trauma, they think this is normal and happens to everyone. Perpetrators may say things like, ‘I’m not doing anything bad to you, you’re just making it out to be sexual. This is how I love you, that’s why I’m touching you.’ Imagine getting those messages from people who you really trust. Over time, you start to believe that you’re making it up and start losing your sense of self and self-worth. Due to their experience of early life adversity, they have much lower distress tolerance. If anything stressful comes up … they can go from zero to 100 in a second. It’s your brain’s way of protecting you when you get triggered. If it’s too overwhelming, your brain steps in to protect you, leading to dissociative experiences. When you’re sexually abused as a child, an adolescent or even as an adult, it’s a feeling of being out of control, right? OCD is very much like you’re now taking control of your life, but it goes too far. It becomes impairing for you, but you can’t stop. Once you get labeled with borderline, your trauma reactions are seen as a personality flaw, something you should fix, and not due to something that happened to you. It’s something that happened to you. It’s a part of your life story but it is not you.’

Dr. Kapoor described about 5 years of my life. As much as I wanted to believe that I was okay – that I was ‘over it’ – I really wasn’t. My sexual trauma didn’t happen in my childhood, but it still took time for me to even realize that something did, in fact, happen without my consent. No one in my life understood where I was coming from. Some even had the audacity to laugh at my expense. ‘You’re overreacting. It was just sex. I don’t understand how anyone could be raped in the first place,’ one friend told me. That friend claimed to be my best friend during the years of my trauma. I realize now that, in a way, she represented a similarity to my rapist, and that was why I was friends with her.

‘What was that moment in your life that blasted you so hard, you don’t remember who you were before it happened?’ Gaga asked her audience before performing’Joanne’ on tour. If I were to answer the question, I guess I’d have to say it was when I saw another former ‘best friend’ at a mutual friend’s birthday party years after a falling out. She stopped talking to me after I had a grand-mal seizure at a restaurant and my husband confronted the restaurant manager as it happened because of an order I made and it wasn’t communicated to me what the ingredients were even though I’d asked. She just ghosted me after that and unfollowed me on all my socials. Some time later, our mutual friend said that she said she stopped talking to me because I ‘made things weird’ for her and her group of friends. LOL!

When I saw her years later, I’d just given birth to my son. It was the first time I’d gone out of the house without him. That former friend of mine acted as though nothing happened. She and her husband sat in front of me and my husband. She attempted to converse with us as if we were old friends, but we wouldn’t oblige; I wouldn’t oblige. At first, I was angry that our mutual friend would purposely have this happen as she was also part of that plan. But then I realized it was exactly what I needed. It was that exact moment that made me realize that I was finally okay. My trauma wasn’t healed and I knew it’d be a part of my life forever, but I was okay. That was the moment I realized I wasn’t going to allow anyone to treat me the way my rapist did – ever. That was the moment I realized that I knew I deserved better. I wasn’t the problem. The people in my life were. They made me believe I was. They made me believe that whatever they did to me was out of love. I believed them. Just the same way I believed my rapist. That was I said to myself, ‘Enough is enough.’ I related to Lady Gaga more than I felt I could relate to anyone else. Just like me, she was also raped when she was 19. That’s why ‘’Till It Happens To You’ meant so much to me in the first place, which was also released during her ‘Joanne’ era.

‘Til is happens to you, you won’t know
It won’t be real
No it won’t be real
Won’t know how it feels…

In a 2020 interview with Oprah, Gaga said, ‘I was raped repeatedly when I was 19 years old, and I also developed PTSD as a result of being raped and not processing that trauma.  I did not have a therapist, I did not have a psychiatrist, I did not have a doctor help me through it….All of a sudden I started to experience this incredible, intense pain throughout my entire body that mimicked, actually, the illness that I felt after being raped.’ If there’s anything that ‘Joanne’ did for me was inspire me to challenge my trauma heads on. It forced me to asked questions about myself and actually answer to them rather than ignore them. It forced me to accept me for the person that I really am rather than for the person others expect me to be. Instead of seeking validation from my family, friends, or Instagram, I began to seek it from within, in honoring the hopes and dreams I once had. The resentment I’d felt towards my past, the bitterness I held on to for so long without even realizing it, had faded.  I now feel more present than ever before, I’m clearer on what I want, I allow myself to be seen in ways I never thought I could before. I allow love, real love, into my life and don’t hold such a jagged guard up like I used to. 

For me, ‘Joanne’ marked the end of an era. It was the time where we officially said goodbye to the Lady Gaga we were first introduced in 2007, and instead introduced to Stefani Germanotta. She made ‘Joanne’ with love; love for herself, for her family, and for her fans. She didn’t care that it failed. She did it as a passion project. As the saying goes, ‘If you keep the dream, and you always say ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ then the dream can never die. Actually putting the skin in the game and going out there and doing it is the moment you can truly fail. And that causes so much paralysis for so many people.’ [28:43].

Lady Gaga once said, ‘I allow myself to fail. I allow myself to break. I’m not afraid of my flaws.’ I think for us, women in particular, it’s important to remember. It’s an important reminder that it’s totally okay to fail. Not everything we ever decide to do will be successful, but we shouldn’t not pursue projects if we think they won’t be successful. We should pursue them anyway. For we should always work on any given project or opportunity for ourselves and for our own happiness and opportunity for growth, not for the opinions of others. And who knows, maybe these failed projects will lead to more successful ones. You never know who’s watching you. For every 100 people who don’t like you, there will be 1 person who will, and that 1 person could change your entire life. Failure is necessary. Failure is an opportunity for growth. Don’t be afraid to fail. Allow it to happen. Embrace failure. It could lead to a beautiful future. Do it for yourself, not for others.