It's time for people to show Lady Gaga's Joanne album the respect it deserves

In 2015, Lady Gaga unceremoniously announced she was ‘quitting pop music.’ The bombshell was later clarified to be a playful April Fools’ gag.

Although, the joke began to wear thin with her pop-adoring fans, because following the release of 2016’s Joanne, it appeared Mother Monster had ditched the genre completely.

With Gaga’s pop music renaissance Chromatica upon us — the singer’s first all-out pop record in seven years — we now know this isn’t the case.

With its ‘stripped down’ country and soft-rock sound, Joanne wasn’t the first time Gaga had ventured into new territory. Just two years earlier the pop chameleon teamed up with legendary jazz crooner Tony Bennett on Cheek to Cheek.

However, this was Stefani Germanotta’s first solo project to drift away from her usual schtick, and it was a hard pill to swallow for even the most ardent Gaga fans.

Joanne’s rock-tinged lead single Perfect Illusion offered the first glimpse of change, and it soon became clear the album would not adhere to the standard Gaga theatrics we’d become accustomed to. She was swapping the meat dress for a cowboy hat-denim shorts combo, and for the first time appeared to lay herself bare to the world.

Inspired by her late aunt, the album tracks are some of Gaga’s most personal to date, with an underlying theme of family running throughout. Complemented with a stripped-back sound and dive bar aesthetic, critics largely agreed that with Joanne, Gaga had succeeded in what she set out to achieve.

The acclaim wasn’t enough to convince some fans (lovingly referred to as Little Monsters), however. Many of whom weren’t quite so enthusiastic about her retreat from eccentric pop.

As a longtime fan, I couldn’t fathom the criticism. Primarily because Joanne was, and still is, one of her best releases to date.

There, I said it.

Complete with a stellar track-list — boasting stomping album-opener Diamond Heart, high-adrenaline John Wayne, country-influenced power ballad Million Reasons, and Father John Misty-produced Sinners Prayer — the album also features some of Gaga’s most intriguing collaborations to date, with the likes of Mark Ronson and Florence Welch lending their talents to her fifth solo release.

So, the notion Gaga super-fans would turn up their nose at such a brilliantly executed transformation was, for me at least, rather perplexing.

Just three years earlier, the superstar appeared to hit a dead end in the world of outlandish pop, when the high-concept ARTPOP failed to resonate with many. The misfire left some yearning to experience a more accessible side of Gaga — and with Joanne, they finally got it.

It also became clear Joanne wasn’t just a solid addition to her discography, but a necessary diversion from her former-self that would wind up benefiting the longevity of her career in ways even the most die-hard Gaga enthusiasts couldn’t have anticipated.

The greatest example being the singer’s show-stopping 2017 Super Bowl Halftime performance, during which Gaga dove off Houston’s NRG Stadium roof, landing right back into the public consciousness — kick starting a career trajectory that led to an Oscar-winning A Star is Born comeback.

And this game-changing Super Bowl milestone might never have been secured if it weren’t for Joanne.

Speaking on The Howard Stern Show in 2016, Gaga explained: ‘Basically the NFL wanted to talk to us about doing the half-time show, but they wanted to hear the new record.’

‘So I played them Joanne, the new album, and they loved it. And it was the record that sealed the deal,’ she added.

In the year following, Gaga earned her first top five hit in four years, and added yet another Grammy to her ever-growing collection. Not too shabby.

Now, as we prepare to take-off to the planet Chromatica, Mother Monster’s Joanne appears to have been left in the dust.

In fairness, the Little Monsters have much to be excited about with Chromatica. Already we’ve been gifted some of her most striking visuals to date, the fist-pumping lead single Stupid Love, Ariana Grande-assisted empowerment anthem Rain on Me, with more to come — including an epic duet with the one and only Sir Elton John.

But as we embrace Gaga’s journey back onto the dance floor, it’s worth acknowledging that without Joanne, Lady Gaga’s standing in pop might not have been what it is today.

Do you have a story that you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing james.besanvalle@metro.co.uk

Share your views in the comments below.