New Albums: Joanne, The Pretenders, The Radio Dept.

Lady Gaga

Joanne

(Interscope **)

nolead ends Everything with Lady Gaga seems like a piquant gesture rather than a moment of truth or an inner artistic voice. Crooning with Tony Bennett, rhapsodizing about performance artist Marina Abramovic, acting for Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story TV series, wearing a pink hat on the cover of her new album - it's all the same: a bold business decision to portray her in a certain light rather than building an aesthetic from the soul. Though the brilliant Born This Way still sounds uniquely driven by demons and divas within, its Artpop follow-up was such a mess that Born felt accidental.

Joanne doesn't quell that sorry sensation, even if its mix of soft Americana, folksy electro, and clarion-clear schmaltz-rock distracts the listener with its oddness. Yes, there's a Madonna manqué in "Perfect Illusion," and a Prince tribute in "Hey Girl" (with Florence Welch), but they're forgettable. When she howls of heartbreak on "Sinner's Prayer" (co-penned with Father John Misty), the cowboy-haunted "John Wayne," and the awkward folksy "Angel Down" ("I confess I am lost in the age of the social" . . . really?), the album nearly screams its announcement that this Manhattan lass once owned a Gram Parsons album - or at least one by Shania Twain. What saves Joanne is the fact that Gaga can still write the catchiest hooks on the planet (e.g. the heated, honky-tonk "A-Yo") and sing them with power and nuance. Period.

- A.D. Amorosi
nolead begins The Pretenders
nolead ends nolead begins Alone
nolead ends nolead begins (BMG ***)

nolead ends "I like being alone," ad libs 65-year-old Chrissie Hynde on her 10th album of pretending her band is a band. This time, the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach produces and applies his trademark too-obvious ideas to Hynde's blunt cool, resulting in more of the bluesy chug that's replaced the jangle of her best-known material for some time now. There are some contemporary-alt twists, too: the expansive swoon of "Be the Man That You Are" takes after Arcade Fire's Funeral, and closing track/single "Holy Commotion" appears to clap back at Garbage's 1998 hit "Special" for biting Hynde's own "Talk of the Town." Her first album in eight years needs its screws loosened, though; 2002's dynamite Loose Screw had more verve and surprise than anything by Auerbach's best-selling main duo. If only she went it alone.

- Dan Weiss
nolead begins .The Radio Dept.
nolead ends nolead begins Running Out of Love
nolead ends nolead begins (Labrador ***1/2)

nolead ends On the surface, the Radio Dept.'s Running Out of Love is an appealing, gentle album of synth-based dream pop. The lyrics, however, reveal harsh, angry political perspectives. On their first new album since 2010's excellent Clinging to a Scheme, the Swedish duo of Johan Duncanson and Martin Larsson rail against gun problems, anti-immigrant sentiments, and fascist rabble-rousing. They say the album is about Sweden in 2016, but it could be about America (or many other countries, sadly).

Songs like "Swedish Guns," "Committed to the Cause," and "This Thing Was Bound to Happen" may be topical, but they sound durable. New Order often provides the template - the seven-minute-plus "Occupied" liberally and joyfully lifts from "Blue Monday" - but you can also hear echoes of the Pet Shop Boys in "Can't Be Guilty" and German indie rockers the Notwist in the instrumental title track's seamless blend of guitars and electronics.

More good news: The band begins a rare U.S. tour on Valentine's Day at Union Transfer.

- Steve Klinge

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Alicia Keys, Here; Bon Jovi, This House Is Not for Sale; Jim James, Eternally Even; Common, Black America AgainEndText