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 “Joker: Folie a Deux.” The 13-song set will arrive on Friday, a week before the sequel to the 2019 blockbuster “Joker” hits theaters on 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 previously 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 on Monday.And on Tuesday, she revealed what exactly 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 currently 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 openin...