Here is what they had to say about it:
"Lady Gaga fancies herself a renaissance woman, capable of shifting genres as ably as she changes Halloween costumes. And though she claims to have been singing "jazz" all her life, she overzealously belts through the standards on Cheek to Cheek like a precocious teenager performing show tunes at a high school talent show. The difference is that this amateur is backed by a team of admittedly competent, professional musicians and, of course, Tony Bennett, who, though not exactly in peak form here, manages to escape the whole charade almost unscathed. Almost. It's tempting to praise Gaga for wiping off the war paint, but that's like giving a lollipop to a toddler for not shitting in the living room."Read the rest of the list for yourself: HERE.
This writer at Slant Magazine is obviously not buying Lady Gaga's claims to have been singing jazz for as long as she says she has (though with her record of lying, who really believes anything she says anymore?) and calls her out for being an amateur.
And he's not the only one. This article from the Guardian says of Gaga's performance:
"Gaga’s gallop through evergreens such as Anything Goes, I Can’t Give You Anything But Love and Let’s Face the Music and Dance deserves a merit badge for trying. She’s head-over-heels in love with this music clearly; but her rhythmically square, shouty delivery is more generic Broadway than anything convincingly to do with jazz."Despite that, and despite its lukewarm reviews (3 Stars from Rolling Stone, 3 Stars from Billboard, 2 Stars from Slant Magazine), Cheek to Cheek has been nominated for "Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album" at the 57th annual Grammy Awards.
If she was after a Grammy, working with Bennett might have been a good move; after all, Tony Bennett holds the record for most wins in that category with 11 in total.
And, speaking of The Grammy Awards...
Lady Gaga is about to go on tour with Tony Bennett, but as of yesterday has announced that she's working on new music with two more Grammy Award winners: Nile Rodgers and Diane Warren.
So what does this mean? Is she going to drop the "Jazz" thing and work on pop/rock music instead, as some of her fans seem to think?
What about when she said, "I'm planning to release one jazz album a year. I think I will continue to do that forever"?
With so much going on all at once in the world of Lady Gaga, and her penchant for not really following through with things, what do you think is going to end up happening in the end?
