Lady Gaga Previews ‘Joker: Folie À Deux’ With Companion Album ‘Harlequin’

Lady Gaga hasn’t taken her foot off the gas this year. Her concert film Gaga Chromatica Ball dropped in the spring and she wrapped up her Jazz + Piano residency in Las Vegas in July; a few weeks after that, she gave an unforgettable performance in French at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in Paris. And just last month, she teased her return to music with the Bruno Mars collab “Die With a Smile.”

Now, the highly anticipated release of Joker: Folie à Deux is just a week away, and Gaga is starting the celebration early with Harlequin, her companion album for the movie containing soundtrack songs and two new original tracks.

The album largely consists of covers of beloved jazz standards and other classics from the past century that are featured throughout the film in some way. From “Good Morning” and “Get Happy” to “That’s Entertainment” and “Smile,” Gaga—or rather, her character Lee—puts her own spin on Great American Songbook.

In the lead-up to the album’s release, Gaga dubbed the project “LG 6.5,” a cheeky indication that this project is something completely separate from her upcoming studio album, codenamed LG7, due out in February. When speaking to Rolling Stone about the distinction and whether this qualifies as a Lady Gaga album or a Harley Quinn album, she explained how the creation of this album itself is emblematic of her artistic career as a whole.

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“I view this as both, actually,” she said. “It’s a Lady Gaga record, but it’s also inspired by my character and my vision of what a woman can be. It’s why the album does not adhere to one genre.”

She expanded on that idea in an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music.

“For me, this idea of dual identities was always something that was a part of my music-making, and I was always kind of creating characters in my music. And when I made Lee for Joker, she just really had this profound effect on me,” Gaga said. “I was able to discover the character through the [movie’s] story, through the music that we did live every day as well as dance and the costumes and the makeup.”

After it was all said and done, Gaga wasn’t able to step out of the Harley Quinn character. So, while she was still mentally living as Lee, she created something that the iconic comic book figure herself would be proud of.

“I kind of had this deep experience with the character, and she just didn’t really leave me creatively, and I decided I wanted to make a whole album inspired by her,” Gaga said. “She’s a really complex woman.”

Joker: Folie à Deux is in theaters Oct. 4.