Lady Gaga working with Elton John
Lady Gaga is teaming up with Sir Elton John to work on new music together this week (beg18Jan16).
The pop superstar is currently recording tracks for her next album, the follow-up to her 2013 release Artpop, and has already hit the studio with Mark Ronson to produce a collaboration.
It has now emerged she is also lining up her longtime friend Sir
Elton for songwriting sessions, and they planned to work together
this week.
The Rocket Man star let slip the news on Tuesday (19Jan16) during
an interview with DJ Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 show, explaining,
"I'm writing with Gaga tomorrow."
Sir Elton also revealed he is a big fan of Gaga's new music,
adding, "I've heard two songs, which are killer. They're just great
songs. It's like back to the early stuff of hers - like You and I
and... Bad Romance... They're not complex... They're not complex
arrangements, but they are great songs. It's all about the
song."
He admitted Gaga made "bad creative (decisions)" with Artpop, but
he still thinks she is a good songwriter.
"Artpop was not a great idea," he added. "It was not a good album
and I think she would admit that... I think she's a great writer.
To me, she is (real name) Stefani Germanotta and I love her and I
care about her - she's godmother to my two children. And I want her
to go and make a kind of simple, fabulous, great song record. Maybe
like (Carole King album) Tapestry, but her version."
Gaga recently credited Sir Elton with helping her deal with the
fallout from Artpop, which received mixed reviews and suffered a
large drop in sales after its first week of release, prompting some
critics to deem the album a failure.
She also lavished praise on Tony Bennett, who helped her recover by
recording a duets album, Cheek To Cheek, with her.
"There is nobody more bada** than Tony Bennett," she told Billboard
magazine. "That man is a part of the history of music in a way that
is extremely powerful, and he taught me to stay true to who I am,
to not let anybody exploit me.
"He is responsible in so many ways for making me happy, and I can
say the same for Elton. When the whole industry turned their back
on me during Artpop, they were the ones who said, 'Hey, this is a
blip. It's going to go away'."