2024-09-30 18:48:29
American singer Lady Gaga will support the feature film Joker: Folie à Deux, in which she plays the sociopath Harley Quinn, with a new album. She called her first studio album after a four-year hiatus Harlequin and will release it this Friday. The star surprised fans with the announcement on social networks, writes the DPA agency.
The recording is to serve as an accompaniment to the film. It contains 13 songs, including apparently covers of well-known songs such as Get Happy from Judy Garland’s repertoire, I’ve Got The World On A String famously performed by Frank Sinatra or the spiritual When the Saints Go Marching In. Lady Gaga sings some of them in the film alone or with Joaquin Phoenix.
Well-known hits will be complemented by original compositions. Lady Gaga sings one such rock tune in a recent music video. She filmed it in the Louvre in Paris. Here, her character from the film goes as far as Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the Mona Lisa, where she paints a smile on the glass with lipstick.
Lady Gaga on the cover of the forthcoming album Harlequin. | Photo: Interscope Records
The 38-year-old singer also showed the cover of the album on social networks, in which she stands in the shower with wet hair and smudged lipstick, dressed in an orange life jacket. The recording will be released by Interscope Records.
Joker: Folie à Deux had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month to mixed reviews. Czech cinemas will start showing it next Thursday. The news follows the award-winning comic film from 2019, which won the actor Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar for acting and grossed over a billion dollars worldwide.
The sequel was again directed by Todd Phillips. Compared to the previous film, he works more prominently with music. “We use it to give the characters a way to express what they want to say when the dialogue and the scene are not enough,” Lady Gaga said at the Venice festival. However, she objected to the film being called a musical.
Lady Gaga at the London premiere of Joker: Folie à Deux. | Photo: Reuters
“I composed a waltz for that film. I had piano player Alex Smith with me the whole time, I wanted him to be there for my scenes. In some of them I play a grown woman who sings like a little girl and acts very immature, which I found interesting,” she mentioned American woman in a recent interview for Vogue magazine.
In the first installment, clown-for-hire and failed stand-up comedian Arthur Fleck searched in vain for his place in the fragmented society of Gotham City. As a result of bad decisions, he turned into the ruthless killer Joker, who stirred up a wave of violence.
The novel opens in Arkham Institution for the Criminally Insane, where Fleck is on trial for the murder from the first film. Here he meets another local ward, the sociopath Harley Quinn played by Lady Gaga, who becomes his great love.
Lady Gaga has sold over 170 million records worldwide and won 13 Grammy Awards. She released her last album Chromatica four years ago.
She recently told Vogue magazine that she is preparing her seventh studio album, workingly titled LG7, for February 2025. It will be a completely different project than Harlequin, which the singer internally calls LG6.5, Pitchfork.com explains.
In recent years, Lady Gaga has also been developing an acting career. She drew significant attention to herself in 2018 in the romantic drama A Star Is Born, where she acted alongside Bradley Cooper.
For the song Shallow, which they sang in it, she received the Oscar for the best film song.
This year, the singer celebrated success with a performance at the Summer Olympics in Paris. At the moment, the duet Die With A Smile, which she recorded with the singer Bruno Mars, has been at the top of the US Billboard 200 chart for the fourth week.
Video: Sample from Lady Gaga’s new album
Lady Gaga from the new album Harlequin released a short music video filmed in the Louvre in Paris. | Video: Musée du Louvre