Little Monsters rejoice! Lady Gaga announces surprise ‘Harlequin’ companion album to ‘Joker 2’
Lady Gaga is giving Little Monsters a reason to go gaga again.
On Tuesday, the Grammy and Oscar-winning diva announced a surprise album, “Harlequin,” that will serve as a companion to her film “Joker: Folie a Deux.”
The 13-song set will arrive Friday, a week before the sequel to the 2019 blockbuster “Joker” hits theaters Oct. 4.
Gaga, 38, had been hinting at the album with billboards featuring “LG 6.5” written in red lettering that appeared in New York and Los Angeles. She had been teasing “LG7” as her upcoming seventh studio album.
The singer-actress had made some cryptic posts on Instagram in the past several days that seemed to suggest something was coming.
“I’m ready for my interview,” read the first post. “Still not October,” she teased Monday.
And Tuesday, she revealed what it was: “Harlequin,” which takes its name after her Harley Quinn character who has a “Bad Romance” with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.
As “Joker 2” brings some musical mayhem to the franchise, Gaga gets to show off her singing talents on standards — something that she has shown herself well equipped to do, from her collaborative albums with the late Tony Bennett to her “Jazz & Piano” residency in Las Vegas.
Among the classic tunes revisited on “Harlequin” are “Get Happy,” “Oh, When the Saints,” “World on a String,” “That’s Entertainment,” “That’s Life” and “Smile.”
The album — Gaga’s first since 2020’s “Chromatica” — comes on the heels of “Die With a Smile,” her duet with Bruno Mars that dropped last month and is No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“He asked me to come to his studio to hear something,” Gaga told Vogue in her October cover story. “It was around midnight when I got there and I was blown away. We stayed up all night finishing the song.”
Gaga also showed that she was getting her music groove back with her ostrich-feathered performance at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.
And there’s even more music on the way. Gaga — who last appeared onscreen in 2021’s “House of Gucci” — also plans to release the first single from “L7” in October.
Gaga told Vogue that her fiancé Michael Polansky — the couple got engaged in April — inspired the direction of “L7.”
“Michael is the person who told me to make a new pop record,” she said of her partner of five years. “He was like, ‘Babe, I love you. You need to make pop music.’ ”
Gaga said that “L7” — which is due in February — reflects the joy that she felt touring with Polansky during 2022’s Chromatica Ball.
“I feel like this new album, in a lot of ways, is about that time.”
