section_path: Artistry/Musical style and themes
section_name: Musical style and themes
paragraph_text: Musical style and themes
  
  Critics have analyzed and scrutinized Gaga's musical and performance style, as she has experimented with new ideas and images throughout her career. She has called the continual reinvention "liberating", and has been drawn to it since childhood. Gaga has said that synesthesia, characterized by her seeing colors while making music, has played a key role in her creative process, explaining: "As I'm writing, it assembles in my brain, then through the recording it becomes a full piece of colour. Every song is a different shade." Gaga combines a variety of music genres, particularly incorporating elements of rock into her pop and dance music. She has also branched out into jazz and other non-pop musical genres. Gaga's voice has been classified as a contralto, with a vocal range spanning from B ♭ to B. She has changed her vocal style regularly, and deemed Born This Way "much more vocally up to par with what I've always been capable of". In summing up her voice, Entertainment Weekly wrote: "There's an immense emotional intelligence behind the way she uses her voice. Almost never does she overwhelm a song with her vocal ability, recognizing instead that artistry is to be found in nuance rather than lung power."
  
  According to Evan Sawdey of PopMatters, Gaga managed "to get you moving and grooving at an almost effortless pace" with The Fame. Gaga has said that she believes "all good music can be played on a piano and still sound like a hit". Simon Reynolds wrote in 2010: "Everything about Gaga came from electroclash, except the music, which wasn't particularly 1980s, just ruthlessly catchy naughties pop glazed with Auto-Tune and undergirded with R&B -ish beats."
  
  Gaga's songs have covered a wide variety of concepts; The Fame discusses the lust for stardom, while The Fame Monster expresses fame's dark side through monster metaphors. The Fame is an electropop and dance-pop album that has influences of 1980s pop and 1990s Europop, whereas The Fame Monster displays Gaga's taste for pastiche, drawing on "Seventies arena glam, perky ABBA disco, and sugary throwbacks like Stacey Q ". Born This Way has lyrics in English, French, German, and Spanish and features themes common to Gaga's controversial songwriting such as sex, love, religion, money, drugs, identity, liberation, sexuality, freedom, and individualism. The album explores new genres, such as electronic rock and techno.
  
  The themes in Artpop revolve around Gaga's personal views of fame, love, sex, feminism, self-empowerment, overcoming addiction, and reactions to media scrutiny. Billboard described Artpop as "coherently channeling R&B, techno, disco and rock music". With Cheek to Cheek, Gaga pursued the jazz genre. Joanne, exploring the genres of country, funk, pop, dance, rock, electronic music and folk, was influenced by her personal life. The A Star Is Born soundtrack contains elements of blues rock, country and bubblegum pop. Billboard commented that its lyrics are about wanting change, its struggle, love, romance, and bonding, describing the music as "timeless, emotional, gritty and earnest. They sound like songs written by artists who, quite frankly, are supremely messed up but hit to the core of the listener."
  
  On Chromatica, Gaga returned to her dance-pop roots, and discussed her struggles with mental health. Love for Sale and Harlequin expand on her venture into jazz music. The former consists of a tribute to Cole Porter, while the latter was inspired by her role in Joker: Folie à Deux. With Mayhem, Gaga aimed to revisit "the pop music my earliest fans loved." Described by Billboard as a "chaotic blur of genres", it incorporates synth-pop, with industrial dance influences, and elements of electro, disco, industrial pop, rock and pop rock. Lyrically, it explores themes of love, chaos, fame, identity, and desire, using metaphors of transformation, duality, and excess.
  
  Critics have analyzed and scrutinized Gaga's musical and performance style, as she has experimented with new ideas and images throughout her career. She has called the continual reinvention "liberating", and has been drawn to it since childhood. Gaga has said that synesthesia, characterized by her seeing colors while making music, has played a key role in her creative process, explaining: "As I'm writing, it assembles in my brain, then through the recording it becomes a full piece of colour. Every song is a different shade." Gaga combines a variety of music genres, particularly incorporating elements of rock into her pop and dance music. She has also branched out into jazz and other non-pop musical genres. Gaga's voice has been classified as a contralto, with a vocal range spanning from B ♭ to B. She has changed her vocal style regularly, and deemed Born This Way "much more vocally up to par with what I've always been capable of". In summing up her voice, Entertainment Weekly wrote: "There's an immense emotional intelligence behind the way she uses her voice. Almost never does she overwhelm a song with her vocal ability, recognizing instead that artistry is to be found in nuance rather than lung power."
  
  According to Evan Sawdey of PopMatters, Gaga managed "to get you moving and grooving at an almost effortless pace" with The Fame. Gaga has said that she believes "all good music can be played on a piano and still sound like a hit". Simon Reynolds wrote in 2010: "Everything about Gaga came from electroclash, except the music, which wasn't particularly 1980s, just ruthlessly catchy naughties pop glazed with Auto-Tune and undergirded with R&B -ish beats."
  
  Gaga's songs have covered a wide variety of concepts; The Fame discusses the lust for stardom, while The Fame Monster expresses fame's dark side through monster metaphors. The Fame is an electropop and dance-pop album that has influences of 1980s pop and 1990s Europop, whereas The Fame Monster displays Gaga's taste for pastiche, drawing on "Seventies arena glam, perky ABBA disco, and sugary throwbacks like Stacey Q ". Born This Way has lyrics in English, French, German, and Spanish and features themes common to Gaga's controversial songwriting such as sex, love, religion, money, drugs, identity, liberation, sexuality, freedom, and individualism. The album explores new genres, such as electronic rock and techno.
  
  The themes in Artpop revolve around Gaga's personal views of fame, love, sex, feminism, self-empowerment, overcoming addiction, and reactions to media scrutiny. Billboard described Artpop as "coherently channeling R&B, techno, disco and rock music". With Cheek to Cheek, Gaga pursued the jazz genre. Joanne, exploring the genres of country, funk, pop, dance, rock, electronic music and folk, was influenced by her personal life. The A Star Is Born soundtrack contains elements of blues rock, country and bubblegum pop. Billboard commented that its lyrics are about wanting change, its struggle, love, romance, and bonding, describing the music as "timeless, emotional, gritty and earnest. They sound like songs written by artists who, quite frankly, are supremely messed up but hit to the core of the listener."
  
  On Chromatica, Gaga returned to her dance-pop roots, and discussed her struggles with mental health. Love for Sale and Harlequin expand on her venture into jazz music. The former consists of a tribute to Cole Porter, while the latter was inspired by her role in Joker: Folie à Deux. With Mayhem, Gaga aimed to revisit "the pop music my earliest fans loved." Described by Billboard as a "chaotic blur of genres", it incorporates synth-pop, with industrial dance influences, and elements of electro, disco, industrial pop, rock and pop rock. Lyrically, it explores themes of love, chaos, fame, identity, and desire, using metaphors of transformation, duality, and excess.