Lady Gaga is a pop star — and a jazz singer and a movie star and a makeup mogul etc., etc. — but you always kinda get the feeling that what she really wants to be is a true blue all-American rock star. Born This Way indulged in that fantasy, all hair metal stomp and glam rock flamboyance, and she sorta dug into it again for 2016's Joanne; Cut off jeans! No-nonsense ponytails!
Today, she revisits that fertile ground again with "Sweet Sounds of Heaven," the latest single from the Rolling Stones' upcoming Hackney Diamonds. The song is a big, seven-minute power ballad that sees Mick Jagger and Gaga trading big, showy vocals and some fist-pumping swells of choir and guitar.
It's more or less a duet between the two vocalists, but Gaga is clearly channelling some Merry Clayton-esque, background-singer-who-steals-the-show bravura in her wailing delivery. It's a pretty solid song for a band in their sixth decade! Gaga adds some real electricity to the thing, and you just know she had fun in that studio trading "oh yeahs" with Jagger.
Stevie Wonder is also featured on the track in a less showy role, working his magic on some Fender Rhodes, Moog and piano. According to press materials, Jagger wrote the song while "at his home in London one sunny afternoon, the leaves were rustling as the wind blew through the trees around outside, and he started playing a chord pattern of C, F and B Flat on his piano."
Hackney Diamonds arrives October 20. You can listen to "Sweet Sounds of Heaven" below.
Today, she revisits that fertile ground again with "Sweet Sounds of Heaven," the latest single from the Rolling Stones' upcoming Hackney Diamonds. The song is a big, seven-minute power ballad that sees Mick Jagger and Gaga trading big, showy vocals and some fist-pumping swells of choir and guitar.
It's more or less a duet between the two vocalists, but Gaga is clearly channelling some Merry Clayton-esque, background-singer-who-steals-the-show bravura in her wailing delivery. It's a pretty solid song for a band in their sixth decade! Gaga adds some real electricity to the thing, and you just know she had fun in that studio trading "oh yeahs" with Jagger.
Stevie Wonder is also featured on the track in a less showy role, working his magic on some Fender Rhodes, Moog and piano. According to press materials, Jagger wrote the song while "at his home in London one sunny afternoon, the leaves were rustling as the wind blew through the trees around outside, and he started playing a chord pattern of C, F and B Flat on his piano."
Hackney Diamonds arrives October 20. You can listen to "Sweet Sounds of Heaven" below.
