Joanne eschews Warholian rhetoric and her usual exhaustively cluttered, go-for-broke mentality in favour of spartan arrangements and earnest soul-baring, deploying her weapons-grade voice to breathtaking effect in the title track and the Americana-tinged Million Reasons; and although her urge to blur genre boundaries still smoulders, Joanne is a case of less Dada, more Gaga.
• Lady Gaga. Joanne. Interscope.
• Four stars (out of five)
Single download: Sinner’s Prayer
For those who like: Her dalliances with Tony Bennett, Art-pop Americana
— John Hayden
