Harlequin is a soundtrack album by American singer-songwriter Lady Gaga, released on September 27, 2024, by Interscope Records. It was produced by Gaga, alongside BloodPop, David Campbell, Jason Ruder, and Benjamin Rice. The record is musically inspired by and includes alternate takes of songs from the soundtrack for the musicalthriller film Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), in which Gaga portrays the DC Comics character Harley Quinn. Gaga stated that Harlequin serves as a "companion album" to the film, while some publications have referred to it as a soundtrack album, alongside the film's official soundtrack released a week later. Thematically, however, critics described Harlequin as a concept album about Harley Quinn, depicting the supervillain from Gaga's perspective.
The album consists of covers of American jazz standards, as well as two original compositions by Gaga, expanding her venture into jazz music following her collaborative albums with American jazz singer Tony Bennett: Cheek to Cheek (2014) and Love for Sale (2021). In promotion of Harlequin, she released a video shot in the Louvre, featuring her rendition of "The Joker", and gave a televised performance of original song "Happy Mistake". Days after the album's release, she performed the entire record during an intimate show at The Belasco in Los Angeles, which was later commemorated in the concert film Lady Gaga in Harlequin Live: One Night Only, released in December 2025.
Upon release, Harlequin received mostly positive reviews from music critics, who praised Gaga's theatrical presence, vocal performance, and her syncretic interpretation of Harley Quinn through the Great American Songbook, though some reviews noted similarities with her previous jazz-oriented projects alongside Bennett. It was later announced as a nominee for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the upcoming 68th Annual Grammy Awards. Commercially, the album reached the top 10 in Austria, France, Germany, Scotland, Spain and Switzerland as well as the top 20 in Belgium Wallonia, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Additionally, it topped the US Jazz Albums chart, marking Gaga's third number-one album there.
Development
Following the completion of The Chromatica Ball (2022), Lady Gaga took a step back from social media and promotional activities while she focused on preparing her role as Harleen "Lee" Quinzel (Harley Quinn) in the American musical thriller film Joker: Folie à Deux (2024).[1] In a lengthy Instagram post made on June 16, 2023, Gaga shared that she had been spending alone time "healing" while editing her concert film Gaga Chromatica Ball (2024), filming Joker: Folie à Deux, and creating music for a "special project".[2] Throughout the rest of the year and into 2024, she occasionally teased upcoming music via social media, sharing photos from within the studios where she was working and offering insights into the process.[3]
At the film's red carpet premiere in London, England, on September 25, 2024, Gaga discussed the inspiration for the album, stated, "When we were done with the movie, I wasn't done with her. Because I'm not done with her, I made Harlequin." She also described it as an "indicative of a complex woman that wants to be whoever she wants to be at any given moment."[4]Harlequin marked Gaga's first jazz standard record without Tony Bennett, following their collaborative albums, Cheek to Cheek (2014) and Love for Sale (2021).[5] In an interview with Rolling Stone, she emphasized that it was not a sad experience; instead, she felt his presence throughout the entire process. Gaga also reflected on her artistic choices, stating, "In a funny way, if I had put rock & roll chords over production in a record that I did with Tony years ago, I don't know how he would've felt about that. Tony didn't love rock & roll. But he would've said, 'Wow, that's amazing.' He was somebody who loved how risk-taking and different I am, and I always thought that was so cool."[6]
Gaga also explained how her work on Joker: Folie à Deux influenced the development of Harlequin. She explained that while filming the movie she had to "unlearn singing" and deliberately tone down her vocal technique, an approach that carried over into the album's performances.[6] Gaga said the record blends her own voice with elements of Harley Quinn's persona, at times drawing on what she described as Lee's "childlike immaturity" and, elsewhere, shifting toward a "much softer" and "extremely nostalgic" tone. She added that the album's vocals are intentionally genre-defying, an approach she said "makes sense for Harley Quinn" and reflected the artistic freedom she experienced while making the record.[6]
Composition and production
Gaga and Michael Polansky, both co-executive producers and co-writers on Harlequin
Harlequin was recorded at several studios in the United States, including Dragonfly Creek Recording Studio and Shangri-La in Malibu, California, The Sound Factory at the Palms and Studio A in Las Vegas, Nevada, and EastWest Studios in Los Angeles.[7] It consists of 13 tracks and mostly comprises renditions of jazz and pop standards, marking Gaga's first record in the genre without longtime collaborator Bennett.[8] The album also includes two original compositions by Gaga.[9]Harlequin was produced by Gaga alongside BloodPop, David Campbell, Jason Ruder, and Benjamin Rice, while she also served as co-executive producer with Michael Polansky.[6][10] Gaga and Polansky are credited as co-writers on several tracks, including "Get Happy", "Oh, When the Saints" and "If My Friends Could See Me Now", all of which were updated both sonically and lyrically.[10] "Good Morning" includes a doo-wop intro and a new verse: "When the inmates began to sleep / The stars were shining bright / Now the warden's on his way / It's too late to say goodnight!".[11]
Regarding Harlequin's original material, the album departs from its standards-based structure with two original compositions by Gaga. "Folie à Deux", written solely by Gaga, is an orchestral waltz described as an unsettling ballad, featuring a haunting choral arrangement.[12][13] "Happy Mistake", the other original track, is a power ballad that has been compared to Gaga's earlier song "Shallow" (2018) as well as the introspective style of Joanne (2016), built around a restrained acoustic arrangement that gradually intensifies vocally as the song progresses.[13][14][15] In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gaga explained the meaning of the song, stating:
"Playing a strung-out girl my whole career was a way for me to split off from my true self, but, it's all me. Basically, that song says if I was ever going to find joy or happiness in my life, it would probably feel like an accident. Where I was in my life for a long time, I was on a path that was pretty futile because I was so split off from reality. My dedicated fans know this about me, that playing a persona had a price, and it has a price for Lee and her love of Joker. There's definitely a way that I address that on this record."[16]
Across the album, Gaga reworks several jazz and pop standards by infusing them with contemporary textures and theatrical elements.[6]Rolling Stone noted a modern sensibility in her interpretations, citing her rendition of "That's Life", popularized by Frank Sinatra, and a more rock-leaning reworking of Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler's 1932 song "I've Got the World on a String".[6] According to Billboard, Harlequin functions as a concept album centered on Gaga's "manic characterization of Harley Quinn".[13] Within this framework, "The Joker", originally from the 1964 musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd, is transformed into a rock-oriented track through the use of distorted guitars, driving percussion and a more aggressive vocal delivery.[12][13] Other standards adopt a more subdued approach, such as "Smile", which is presented as a piano-driven rendition sung in a breathy, melancholy register and accompanied by brass accents and a French spoken-word section.[17][11]
Release and cover
On one version of the album, the 1862 painting Stańczyk by the Polish painter Jan Matejko appears depicted on a wall.
Gaga posted an image on September 20, 2024, containing a "grainy" red background with a white text displaying, "I'm ready for my interview".[18] She later uploaded four more "cryptic" images with three containing sound through Instagram, with many fans believing to be her seventh studio album or related to Joker: Folie à Deux.[19] On September 24, she revealed the album to be titled Harlequin and shared the cover artwork via Instagram. In the same post, Gaga referred to the project as a "companion album" to Joker: Folie à Deux, shared the tracklist on the back of a milk carton, and linked to pre-order the album's CD, vinyl, and digital formats on her web store.[20][21]
The album's standard cover depicts Gaga standing in a shower with orange hair, wearing a white dress and a flotation device around her neck, while her makeup runs down her face from the water.[22][21] An alternate cover used for an exclusive vinyl sold only on Gaga's web store shows her in a messy bedroom lying on the bed facing the ceiling. She sports orange hair once again while items present in the shot reference previous moments in her career, including her collaborations with Bennett and her concert tour, the Joanne World Tour (2017–2018).[23] The back cover of the album features a photograph of a messy bedroom with the 1862 painting Stańczyk by the Polish painter Jan Matejko hanging on the wall.[24][25]
On September 25, 2025, Gaga announced via her social media a collaboration with the Louvre Museum in promotion for the album. The post featured an 80-second preview of "The Joker" set to an accompanying visual that shows Gaga exploring the museum at night. Towards the end of the clip, she uses red lipstick to draw a Joker-inspired grin on the Mona Lisa. The clip also promoted the "Figures Du Fou" exhibition that opened at the Louvre on October 16, 2024.[21]
After the premiere of Joker: Folie A Deux in London, Gaga hosted a "secret" intimate listening party where she played Harlequin from beginning to end and also danced and sang with her fans.[26] On October 1, 2025, she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in a white harlequin ensemble and performed "Happy Mistake".[27]Consequence's Eddie Fu said it was "another case of Gaga's live performance topping the studio recording",[28] while Stereogum's Tom Breihan felt she gave the track "the full stadium treatment".[29]
In December 2025, Gaga announced Lady Gaga in Harlequin Live: One Night Only, a concert film centered on Harlequin.[30] Co-directed and executive produced by Gaga and Polansky, it was filmed on September 30, 2024, during an intimate, fan-only performance at The Belasco in Los Angeles, where she performed the album in full.[31] The film debuted at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on December 18, 2025,[30] and premiered online on Gaga's YouTube channel on December 24, 2025.[31] The production design drew from the photo shoot for the album's alternative artworks.[31] The stage was designed to resemble a dimly lit, disheveled studio apartment, including a window with crooked venetian blinds, and a mattress on the floor with unmade bedding.[32] Chris Willman of Variety wrote Gaga appeared to be having "the manic time of her life" during a performance that "was utterly bonkers but also one of the best things she's ever done".[32]
Harlequin received positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Harlequin received a score of 73 based on ten reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[34] Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? compiled eleven reviews and gave the album an average of 6.8 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.[33]
Many critics praised the "fun" and the lively, uninhibited mood of Harlequin. Rolling Stone'sRob Sheffield rated the album three and a half stars out of five, praising Gaga's theatrical presence and singling out the original track "Happy Mistake" as the album's highlight.[40]Sputnikmusic's Dakota West Foss,[41] Tony Clayton-Lea of The Irish Times,[39] and Consequence's Mary Siroky complimented the album's musical style, boldness, and Gaga's passionate rendition of the jazz standards.[14] Robin Murray from Clash described Harlequin as "unique, fun, and wildly over-the-top", and dubbed Gaga a "360 artist for the modern era."[15] Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine and Melissa Ruggieri of USA Today regarded Harlequin as an album demonstrating Gaga's vocal prowess.[12][42] Neil Z. Yeung of AllMusic labelled it a fresh, "no-skips effort" in Gaga's discography.[35]
Other critics offered more mixed assessments. Thomas Green of The Arts Desk noted a few "throwaway bits" among the standards, but otherwise praised Gaga's performance and the album's liveliness, adding that her original songs sit comfortably alongside the well-known classics.[8]The Daily Telegraph's Neil McCormick and Ludovic Hunter-Tilney of Financial Times felt Harlequin was "more of the same" of Cheek to Cheek and Love for Sale, but opined Gaga adds her own personality to the jazz standards.[36][37] Michael Cragg for The Guardian thought Harlequin as a product of Gaga's Jazz & Piano concert residency whilst channeling Harley Quinn's different moods, but regarded it as a prelude rather than a fully-conceived record.[38] Helen Brown of The Independent wrote that while the album contains some effective nods to the madness of Harley Quinn, particularly on tracks like "Smile", there are too few moments that fully embrace the character's twisted persona.[17] Bruno Lespit of Le Monde felt the record is "lacking any clear musical direction".[43]
Commercial performance
In the United States, Harlequin debuted at number 20 on the Billboard 200, with 25,000 album-equivalent units sold in its first week, including 16,000 from physical sales and digital downloads, allowing it to debut at number three on the Top Album Sales chart.[44] The album marked the largest sales debut for a jazz release since Love for Sale (2021), Gaga's collaborative album with Bennett, which opened with 41,000 units.[44] Additionally, Harlequin accumulated 11.3 million on-demand streams, representing the highest streaming total for a jazz album since Bewitched (2023) by Laufey.[44] The album also debuted at number one on both the Top Jazz Albums and Top Traditional Jazz Albums charts, becoming Gaga's third album to lead both rankings, following Cheek to Cheek (2014) and Love for Sale.[44][45] In Canada, the album entered the Canadian Albums Chart at number 66.[46]
In the United Kingdom, Harlequin initially peaked at number 59 on the UK Albums Chart upon release, before climbing to number 11 following its release on physical formats.[47] It also topped the Jazz & Blues Albums chart.[48] Across Europe, Harlequin reached the top ten in several territories, peaking in the top five in Scotland,[49] Switzerland,[50] and Spain,[51] as well as within the top ten in Austria,[52] Germany,[53] and France,[54] where it also topped the French Jazz Albums chart.[55] The album additionally entered the top 20 in Croatia,[56] Italy,[57] Poland,[58] Portugal,[59] Sweden,[60] and Belgium Wallonia.[61] It also charted in other European markets, including Greece,[62] Finland,[63] Ireland,[64] Belgium Flanders,[65] and the Netherlands.[66]
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