No wonder Hoobastank had to try so hard to find one; look who had all the rest of them!
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[5.29]
Crystal Leww: Lady Gaga is a genius who basically invented a whole era of music (RIP EDM-pop 1.0), but I cannot stand the narrative around Joanne. “Million Reasons” was the worst thing about her Super Bowl show because it’s boring and because it engages with and weirdly validates criticism of Lady Gaga that was never applicable to begin with. The criticism of Lady Gaga circa “romama gaga ooh lala” was that she made nonsensical pop music, and that lyricism was dead because somehow people believe The Beatles were on some deep shit or that Gaga’s genius wasn’t her whole damn aesthetic package from looks to those fat, nasty synths. So she applied a host of aesthetics to her music from Springsteen to Koons. Now, I guess we are onto her Chris Stapleton wave (no disrespect to cowriter Hillary Lindsey, who cowrote Actual Good Country Songs “Jesus Take the Wheel” and “Girl Crush”), which is perhaps the worst of them all. “Million Reasons” is pop lyricism wrapped up in country production packaging, and unlike the converse, it doesn’t quite work because country production packaging both requires and exposes clumsy lyricism. Lack of lyricism totally works for pop music, but it often does not for country music, especially for country ballads, and this comes across as wildly weak.
[3]
Thomas Inskeep: I suspect people are reading this as Gaga’s country move because of the acoustic guitar/voice pairing and because of the Hillary Lindsey stamp on the songwriting (“Jesus Take the Wheel,” “Girl Crush,” and about 50 more country hits you know). But to my ears this isn’t so different from any other big Gaga ballad; the woman does love drama, and thank goodness for that. What’s interesting is that I can’t hear a bit of co-writer/co-producer Mark Ronson in here. That’s alright, though; Gaga can nearly do this in her sleep, but thanks to Lindsey’s input, this isn’t a rote exercise, but a triumphant plea. One of Joanne‘s highlights.
[8]
Alfred Soto: Colleagues hear country in this showbiz ballad, which reminds me of the incident in my office last week when a student heard me playing Brantley Gilbert and wondered why I was listening to metal. “Million Reasons” is no different than “Speechless” or “You and I” or a million other ballads, perhaps not as good, except Gaga didn’t slather her trembling-rocking-chair vibrato over those. I’m not sure what “Million Reasons” is about, except its will to bigness.
[5]
Will Adams: Lady Gaga has always had these torch songs in her, but it took being surrounded by explosive, shiny pop to draw out their own bombastic qualities. Joanne is tempered beyond belief in the name of seriousness, making “Million Reasons” its least effective offering. It crescendos where it needs to, Gaga sustains notes where she needs to, and it’s all kind of pretty, but it lacks the endearing excess of her previous ballads.
[5]
Hannah Jocelyn: This didn’t click for me until the Super Bowl performance – I’m not sure what the process behind Joanne was, but whatever they did in that studio really obscured how well-crafted most of the songs are on that album. I hope time looks back kindly on the record, and if not, at least this will have its fans. I do like the Spektoresque “good one, good ones” at the end of each chorus, and the bridge is beautiful. “Tell me that you’ll be the good one” I don’t get – it doesn’t really make sense unless the worn-out leather is referring to her emotional state from being hurt so many times before. Nonetheless, this is just a really good song – not overthought, not fussy, just a showcase for Stefani Joanne’s talents to show through.
[7]
Micha Cavaseno: Stef… Girl… wyd? Like, let’s think about this. You’re a performing arts school girl from Manhattan, Italian heritage. You are far removed from country as signifiers for authenticity no matter how hard you might try, and even if the ‘authenticity’ of others like Taylor Swift are dubious, they’ve been established and fostered long before anyone could make a judgement. I know you’ve already exhausted Springsteenism. The rumors that you might dally with influence from rap were always worrisome, and I’m glad we never saw that error make the light of day. But is this truly the right choice? A straight pop ballad version of “Million Reasons” in the Elton John/Beatles style like you’ve done before with “Speechless” would have been acceptable, and I get that after as maligned as ARTPOP was you want to seem more down to earth. But uh, is this really the way? Because nothing sounds as “HELLO FELLOW HUMANS” as you attempting country I’m afraid.
[2]
Katie Gill: You could write a book about the authenticity politics of Joanne and how Lady Gaga seems to be using country music stylings to push this promotion of her “real self”, despite the fact that she’s using explicitly performative stylings to explore this concept of the real in the first place. But I’m still coming off of a killer sinus infection and am a little bit hopped up on cough syrup so I’ll leave that to somebody else! For all the focus on Lady Gaga as a spectacle, there’s not that much focus on Lady Gaga as a performer. It’s telling that her Super Bowl set included plenty of high-energy numbers but just one slow ballad: “Million Reasons.” This certainly isn’t the best Gaga ballad (my money for that still goes to “Til It Happens To You”) but if Gaga wanted to remind the world on a national stage “hey, I can still do slow ballads”, I can see why she picked this one. It’s a beautiful composition that her voice does wonders with, pulling emotion out of almost every note.
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