Joanne

Pitchfork 6.9/10 Nobody wants to immediately recognize herself in Gaga’s aesthetic; we want her to suggest a path we hadn’t thought of before, to nurture and clarify a beauty we didn’t even realize was there. Joanne feels too self-conscious, an affront to the Gaga of yesteryear—the truest self, after all, isn’t always the quietest.

A.V. Club C Joanne, Artpop’s proper follow-up, contains no ham-fisted attempts at authenticity. Instead, Gaga tries to find a middle ground between her sophisticated present and glitzy, electropop past.

The Needle Drop 6/10 Lady Gaga's rootsier sound and image on Joanne is a welcome change of pace, though she doesn't always commit to the new direction.

NME 4/5 Gaga Americana is not the Nashville kind, nor the big-beards sort, but a schlocky, thrill-packed theme-park. When Gaga strips herself back, what’s underneath is just a more streamlined strangeness.

The Line of Best Fit 7/10 A pop album with a capital P, when Gaga talked about stripping back, she obviously meant doing away with the pretensions- Joanne is, unmistakably, still a slick operation.

Evening Standard 3/5 A collection of serious, well-crafted songs.

Rolling Stone 3.5/5 Joanne is Lady Gaga's best album in five years, since the disco-stick hair-metal manifesto that was Born This Way.

DIY 3/5 Intentionally overwrought, brash, and totally different to anything she’s ever done before, Lady Gaga’s ‘Joanne’ doesn’t quite nail the artistic frankness she’s aiming for.

The Independent 3/5 This ... effort effectively abandons the electropop dance arrangements of Artpop in favour of more stolidly rockist fare, as if pursuing rock’n’roll authenticity. And to a certain extent it works.

All Music 3.5/5 Where previous Gaga albums were high-wire acts, Joanne is decidedly earth-bound, a record made by an artist determined to execute only the stunts she knows how to pull off.

Clash 7/10 ‘Joanne’ is certainly not the all-conquering opus it was intended to be and will prove divisive, but it remains a daring and exciting record, delivered from one of modern pop’s most unique and singular voices.

The Observer 3/5 A career-extending curio.

Slant 3/5 While she may have eschewed the outlandish costumes for now, Gaga has merely replaced them with a different kind of pretense.

Pop Matters 6/10 It’s different, it’s unfocused, it’s interesting, and—make no bones about it—it’s far from revolutionary. It’s less a reinvention than it is a casual reboot, and even if its pleasures are modest, it’s still a fascinating document from a diva who refuses to remain in one place.

The Guardian 3/5 Joanne stumbles a bit, and will be received with bafflement by everyone other than hardcore Little Monsters, but you can’t help admiring her boldness.

The Telegraph 4/5 It turns out Gaga is a rock and roll showgirl at heart.