Posted September 29, 20213 yr The first reviews are already out, a few days before the release :cheeseblock: --- Financial Times: Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga reach acoustic wonderland in Love for Sale The singers play their parts to perfection in an album of Cole Porter duets Once a teen idol wowing bobby soxers — he is named in 1955’s Lolita as being among the title character’s favourite singers — Tony Bennett is now the grand old man of the American Songbook, one of the last links with pre-Elvis pop. At 95, remarkably, he still has a debonair way with a tune. Love for Sale is his 61st studio album. It pairs him with a singer 60 years his junior, Lady Gaga — an unlikely foil with whom he made an album of jazz duets in 2014, Cheek to Cheek. Despite some tut-tutting from critics, the odd-couple combination of dance-pop provocateur and antique crooner worked like a charm. She belted, he shimmied. Their tone was light-hearted but unironic, a vibrant matchup between stars from different generations. Their new duets are songs by Cole Porter. Musical backing comes from a small jazz ensembles, an orchestra and a big band. The orchestral arrangements have been done by Bennett’s longtime collaborator Jorge Calandrelli and the big band arrangements by celebrated New York orchestrator Marion Evans, an even longer-term collaborator. Like Bennett, he is 95. The album opens with a blaring trumpet fanfare, like curtain-up in a vintage Manhattan nightclub. The spotlight falls on Gaga, singing the first verses of “It’s De-Lovely” in a slow, full voice. The pace picks up when her nonagenarian partner soft-shoe-shuffles into view. “The night is young,” are his evergreen first words. At the microphone, the years fall away. Bennett has the quality once ascribed to Bing Crosby of being “phonogenic”, a vocalist suited to recording technology. He locks into his melodies like a stylus on a record, hoarser than in his heyday but with deftly worked shifts in gear. Meanwhile, Gaga plays her part to perfection, an arms-flung-wide singer with a keen sense of drama but also the self-discipline to know when to rein it in. Her exuberance conveys warmth and generosity, not competition for the limelight. Musically, the songs are based on 1940s and 1950s orchestral jazz. “Just One of Those Things” is a nimble swing number. “Night and Day” opens with the pounding sound of a drum battle before settling into a swish romantic fantasy. “Love for Sale” flips the script to a sleazy world of sex work, with Bennett chorusing “Young love for sale”, while Gaga, in the role of streetwalker, trills: “Who will buy?” The song brings a hearty helping of old-school Broadway razzle-dazzle to this grim scenario, a sophisticated cartoon of the seamy side of city life. Love for Sale’s title winks at the notoriety that singers like Bennett used to have. Back when Lolita was listening to his records, crooners were maligned by moralists as predators, preying on the supposedly easily manipulated feelings of their youthful listeners. But the album sweeps aside such slurs. It underlines the wit, skill, feeling and musicianship invested in the best pop songs — an observation as true of Gaga’s modern era as it is of Bennett’s nearly vanished one. Having revealed earlier this year that he has Alzheimer’s disease, he says that the album will be his last. Topped and tailed with trumpet fanfares, an act of circularity like the turning of a vinyl disc, its Cole Porter covers go beyond pastiche or memorial. They take us into the acoustic wonderland of studio recordings, a realm of pop music where time is mastered and voices ring out with a colour that won’t fade. ★★★★★ ‘Love for Sale’ is released by Columbia/Interscope https://www.ft.com/content/87b70f56-2fa2-41...56-64330e3e1eb2 Edited September 29, 20213 yr by Sour Candy
September 29, 20213 yr Author Rolling Stone gives 3/5 in a positive review. Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett Return to the American Songbook on ‘Love For Sale’ The iconic crooner’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis gives this album an added poignancy By Joe Gross There are moving May-December relationships and then there is the pairing of paisans that is 95(!)-year old croon-king Tony Bennett with 35-year old pop powerhouse Lady Gaga, a superhero team-up that has produced another album of rock-solid takes on the American songbook. Their 2014 standards collection Cheek to Cheek was a tenderhearted hit that allowed Bennet to break his own record for oldest act with a number one album and enabled Gaga to apply her seemingly boundless theater-kid enthusiasm to songs generations of theater kids have long worshipped. Here, the duo take on classics by Cole Porter, reigning GOAT of the Tin Pan Alley poets. Bennett’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis gives the collection a poignancy that was absent from Cheek to Cheek. Love For Sale has been billed as their final collaboration. Over traditional arrangements suitable for both supper club and Radio City, Bennett sings such standards as “I Get a Kick Out of You” (the first single), the title track and “It’s De-Lovely” as if he was born this way. The band mostly sticks to Big Band brassy ladled with string syrup; “Let’s Do It,” a Gaga solo vocal that threatens to go full New Yawk on the chorus, folds in a brief organ run, while the guitar solos on “Dream Dancing” and “Just One of those Things” give the melodies very polite pokes. Gaga, cheeky as ever, drops in a verse about a tattoo at the end of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and almost runs away with a downright zippy opening to “Night and Day” before it resolves into swell romance. For Gaga, who belts away with joyful verve, this album (like Cheek to Cheek) points the way to a classicist (or maybe even Vegas-centered) musical future her fans probably didn’t considered when they were blasting “Poker Face” out of their parents’ Toyotas. As for Bennett, well, retiring from live performance at 95? He’s never going to make it in this business with that attitude. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-al...r-sale-1234339/ Edited September 29, 20213 yr by Sour Candy
September 30, 20213 yr Author Not a major publication but The Arts Desk: Album: Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga - Love for Sale A new Tony Bennett album...at 95 by Sebastian Scotney Tony Bennett has just turned 95, so it is no small miracle that this album has happened at all. Apparently he rang up Lady Gaga shortly before his 92nd birthday and said “let’s get this record done before I run out of birthdays.” The good thing about the new album Love for Sale (Streamline) is that it has a unifying theme. All ten tracks on the album – there are 12 on the “de luxe version” – are by Cole Porter. True, Bennett recorded less Cole Porter than Sinatra, but he is such an appealing character, and he can give such wonderful empathy to a lyric, that is perhaps the main joy here. The fact that the album stays in the elegant yet turbulent world of Cole Porter makes it a more convincing piece of work than Cheek to Cheek from 2014. And the Bennett/Gaga partnership has also evolved. It is as if there is less need now (for Gaga) to strain, to "act", find different idioms, to prove anything. This is a calmer, less histrionic album than its predecessor. That said, the video version of the title track does have her strangely whirligigging her arms. The arrangements mostly alternate between Basie-ish swing for quartet or small band, and a smoochier vibe with studio orchestra textures in which “with strings”, gloops of swoopy countermelody and reharmonisation are contrasted with flutes or oboes, vibes and piano. Not all the tracks are duets; there are solos for each of the singers in turn. One genuinely touching moment is in the verse of “I Get a Kick Out of You” where Bennett finds that authentically urgent and passionate vocal colour he had in tracks such as “A Child is Born” or “Make Someone Happy” on the classic album Together Again with Bill Evans. There are also lapses though: “So In Love”, sounds like it was recorded too late in a session, at a point when Bennett’s energy for the day had been spent. At his age it’s understandable, but a shame nonetheless. That does raise an interesting question: how does the new, monumental Bennett at 90+ compete with versions of Cole Porter from his own back catalogue? The lyric of “I Concentrate On You (“When fortune cries 'Nay, nay; to me/ And people declare ‘You're through' " ) clearly has more resonance when uttered by a reflective senior citizen. And yet, in retrospect Ralph Sharon, Bennett’s East-End (of London)-born music director from the Sixties onwards had more of a spirit of adventure than his modern counterparts. The new, latin version of this song from 2021 feels plodding and formulaic compared to Sharon's beautifully paced go-for-it voice and piano version on the album Steppin’ Out from 1993. And comparisons going further back have a way of bringing back more Cole Porter glories from the past. Yes, for his age, Tony Bennett is in astonishing vocal form on “Just One of Those Things”. But go back to the version of this song from 1957 on the album The Beat of My Heart: it is not just better paced, it also has some wonderfully insane voice-and-drums sparring (I presume with Art Blakey). The freshness of the older account holds the attention completely, more than six decades after it was recorded. Whereas the more reverent, curatorial approach of today’s arrangers and producers just seems to have less ambition about it. And an aside: there is a curiously annoying blooper on the video of title track "Love for Sale". The saxophone solo is clearly being played on an alto and has been credited as such...and yet the instrument filmed "playing it" is a tenor. Uh? 3/5 https://theartsdesk.com/new-music/album-ton...-gaga-love-sale Edited September 30, 20213 yr by Sour Candy
September 30, 20213 yr “Love For Sale” — Critics Reviews (Metacritic Only): The Independent — 100/100 Telegraph — 80/100 NME — 60/100 Rolling Stone — 60/100 Positives only, so far!
September 30, 20213 yr Author The Guardian: Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett: Love for Sale review – jazz interloper livens up crooner’s swansong Columbia/Interscope The pop diva and jazz maestro defy the latter’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis and team up once again, this time for a creditable set of Cole Porter covers By Alexis Petridis When Lady Gaga announced her 2014 album of duets with Tony Bennett, Cheek to Cheek, various explanations were given for the existence of an album that would once have seemed unthinkable. It was a return to her roots: long before Stefani Germanotta changed her name and became an arty fixture in the downtown clubs of Manhattan, she had trained as a jazz singer. And it was a reaction to the control exerted in the world of mainstream pop. On the albums that made her globally famous, she protested, producers had Auto-Tuned her voice against her wishes; singing standards was “rebelling against my own pop music”. If you wanted to be cynical, you might also have suggested it was a savvy move. Before Cheek to Cheek, Gaga’s career had wobbled. Her third album, Artpop, met with mixed reviews and, by her previous standards, underwhelming sales. You didn’t have to buy the rumour, vehemently denied by the singer, that it lost her label $25m and led to redundancies to figure out that shifting 2.5m copies was noticeably different to the 15m of her debut. If the pop world was slipping out of her grasp, Cheek to Cheek smartly opened Lady Gaga up to a different market: not jazz fans per se, but the old-fashioned, easy-listening end of the BBC Radio 2 audience – a cohort, it’s worth adding, who still buy physical product. That cynical voice might say something similar about Love for Sale, a collection of Cole Porter songs that arrives a year after Gaga’s Chromatica: a well-reviewed return to electronic dance-pop that didn’t restore her once dominant position within the pop firmament. But cynicism is quite a hard pose to maintain when confronted by the album itself, which arrives bearing an emotional charge that its predecessor did not. Bennett is 95 and has Alzheimer’s, diagnosed after plans for the album were laid: the two shows he and Gaga gave last month in New York were his final public performances, and Love for Sale will be the last new release of a recording career that began 72 years ago. His family were unconvinced he would be able to record the album at all. Beyond sympathy and sentiment, Love for Sale disarms cynicism simply by being infectiously good fun. If Gaga is enacting another stage of a gimlet-eyed scheme to broaden her appeal, she doesn’t sound like it. Indeed, if you wanted to level a criticism, it’s that she occasionally feels as if she’s enjoying herself too much to inject the requisite pathos into a song such as Night and Day. She’s better served by the lighter, more uptempo love songs. Bennett’s vocals are clearly those of an older man, but they never bely his failing health: he was always a full-voiced singer, and the amount of power he still can muster is pretty remarkable. And if his condition affected the chemistry between them in the studio, you wouldn’t know it on the evidence of I Get a Kick Out of You or You’re the Top. Presumably mindful of the objections jazz fans might raise to Lady Gaga recording another album of standards – chiefly, that there are umpteen hugely talented jazz vocalists who struggle for recognition and record deals – she begins the album with a kind of apology, flipping the lyrics of It’s De-Lovely: “Control your desire to curse, while I crucify the verse.” But it isn’t needed. Set to arrangements that offer no concession to this century, her performances avoid all the obvious pitfalls you might expect from a pop singer keen to prove they can cut it without studio ministrations. She doesn’t over-sing, or camp the songs up; nor does she sound cowed by the company she’s keeping. There’s a conversational ease to her vocals. If it’s never going to supplant Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book in anyone’s affections, Love for Sale underlines that Lady Gaga can creditably sing jazz. Whether she chooses to again, without Bennett, is anyone’s guess. And if you’re unlikely to reach for it over, say, The Beat of My Heart or his late 50s work with Count Basie, it isn’t a bad way for Bennett to bid farewell. It’s not just that he still sounds good. He once claimed the modern material he was forced to record on 1970’s Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today! made him physically sick; it’s fitting that an artist so resistant to pop trends says goodbye by allowing a huge contemporary pop star into his world, rather than vice versa. 3/5 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/...for-sale-review Edited September 30, 20213 yr by Sour Candy
October 1, 20213 yr Author The Riff Magazine: REVIEW: Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett reunite once more on ‘Love For Sale’ Paying tribute to the legendary composer and songwriter Cole Porter—and of course the undeniable legacy of Tony Bennett, now 95 and living with progressing Alzheimer’s—Bennett and Lady Gaga have come together to collaborate on their second album, Love For Sale, seven years after their first project together, Cheek to Cheek. It’s Bennett’s 61st album since his debut in 1954, a staggering statistic to say the least, and Gaga’s seventh (or eighth, or ninth, depending on how you classify her discography), making the two seasoned performers the ideal candidates to take on some of the most covered songs in the Great American songbook. Though some may have questioned how the two, from vastly different eras and genres, came to form a close enough relationship to create an entire album of standards the first time around, the success clearly indicates how they ended up recording a second. “I feel a sudden urge to sing,” Gaga proclaims in the opening line to the first track, “It’s De-Lovely,” carrying the first part of the song by herself before yelling out “come on!” to which Bennett is cued in and the music kicks up. The two playfully exchange lines through the rest of the song, amplified by jazzy horns and piano and effectively setting the sound for the remaining 11 tracks. “Love For Sale” follows in the same direction as the first, with Bennett this time leading the song’s slow intro over a piano backing him. As the track picks up, he cues Gaga in with the titular lyric. The two then delve into the clever lyrics about how to win over your lover with affection that’s only “slightly soiled.” Each has two solo recordings on the album, Lady Gaga taking on “Do I Love You,” a slow, piano-heavy ballad and “Let’s Do It,” where her voice is just as angelic, light and as impressive as ever. Gaga is theatrical and ambidextrous, proving for what feels like the hundredth time over that she’s one of the most talented pop stars working today. Think about it: Just a month ago, she released Dawn of Chromatica, a hyper-pop rework of her previous album, Chromatica. Bennett is featured solo on both “So In Love” and “Just One Of Those Things,” and at 95 he still sounds great. Though he’s not in his vocal prime, his voice a bit scratchier and shakier than in previous decades, he’s still distinctly Tony Bennett enough to perform with the same charisma and charm. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” from the 1936 film “Born To Dance,” and “I Get a Kick Out of You” (originally from “Anything Goes”), are two of the most recognizable songs on the album. Though written by Cole Porter, they are both widely associated with Frank Sinatra’s renditions. But when Bennett and Gaga take the reins, older versions are simply antiquated. The two conclude with “You’re The Top,” which when thinking this could really be Bennett’s final recording, is rather shocking. Led by Gaga with the snazzy lyric “At words poetic, I’m so pathetic,” Bennett comes in singing of the Colosseum and Strauss symphonies. Through saxophone solos and trilling piano playing, the two end their work on an energetic note. Both Tony Bennett and Gaga will easily go down as some of the most influential performers in American entertainment history, each deservingly so. If this is really Bennett’s final work, it’s definitely worth a listen. Besides, they really are the top. 7/10 https://riffmagazine.com/album-reviews/lady...-love-for-sale/
October 1, 20213 yr Author The Irish Examiner: Album review: Love For Sale, by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga They may belong to different eras, but the two New Yorkers sparkle together on an album of Cole Porter songs ★★★★☆ Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga are artists from different universes. He’s the 95-year-old king of the smoothies, perhaps second only to friend and rival Frank Sinatra in the pantheon of golden-era crooners. Gaga is a cybernetic pop star, last seen setting virtual dance floors alight with 2020’s grippingly futuristic Chromatica album (and who will next materialise affecting a terrible Italian accent as socialite Patrizia Reggiani in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci). Yet they are also friends and collaborators with lashings of chemistry. And their second collection of duets – following on from 2014’s Cheek To Cheek – is an irresistibly stomping affair that finds the two swapping lines like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn throwing up sparks in a sepia rom-com. Featuring lavish orchestral arrangements by Bennett’s long-time foil, Jorge Calandrelli, Love For Sale collects 10 of the pair’s favourite Cole Porter songs. They’ve clearly come to lionise rather than to interrogate Porter’s status as one of the most important songwriters of the 20th century. There is no tiptoeing through the material or attempts at a post-modern makeover. It’s broad, a little cheesy, and bristling with old-school chutzpah. That is made obvious as Bennett and Gaga plunge headlong into I Get A Kick Out Of You, perhaps best known as a Sinatra hit and here recreated as a game of vocal booth volleyball between the two singers. Bennett, who has Parkinson's, has stated this is to be his final album (it will be the 61st of his career). Yet his singing remains remarkably spry and steeped in emotion as he and Gaga bustle their way through It’s De-Lovely, Love for Sale, and Night and Day (Bennett performs solo vocals on Just One of Those Things, Gaga on Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love)). For Bennett it’s a more than fitting swan song. And for Gaga it’s a reminder that, when not blasting off into the further reaches of pop, she's an old-time entertainer with charm to spare. https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/art...d-40710434.html
October 1, 20213 yr Author LOVE LOVE this one Clash: Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett - Love For Sale A union of two greats... Pandemic aside, Lady Gaga has proved to be unstoppable across the past 18 months. With the warm glow of the acclaim lavished on her acting turn in A Star Is Born still resting on her shoulders, 2020’s dazzling ‘Chromatica’ pointed to pop’s future, one forged from emphatic electronic production. A recent club-focussed remix album added another chapter to ‘Chromatica’, before Gaga revealed plans for yet another project. ‘Love For Sale’ is emblematic of her incredible creative breadth, the culmination of a decade-long friendship with Tony Bennett. It’s another facet to Gaga’s artistry; capable of forging new pathways for pop, she’s also in love with the Great American Songbook, peppering her catalogue with moments of outright classicism. ‘Love For Sale’ is rooted in the Cole Porter catalogue, and it features a series of gilded vocal performances from the storied duo. Opener ‘It’s De-Lovely’ is cute and infectious, while ‘Night And Day’ breathes new life into the oft-covered jazz staple. ‘Love For Sale’ hinges on the neat chemistry between the two, their nimble performances fuelling a later turn on ‘I Get A Kick Out Of You’. Indeed, the album is at its strongest when the pair interact – it’s heartening after a year of Zoom recordings to hear two pristine vocalists push each other to a new level. Ultimately, swing albums aren’t in short supply right now – since the turn of the Millennium, it’s almost become a pop stable all over again, a cocktail-fuelled lounge experience. ‘Love For Sale’ exceeds this, though, propelled by the vivacity of its performances, and the easy-going charm with which it is accomplished. Existing in a different realm to ‘Chromatica’, it’s testament to Lady Gaga’s astonishing breadth, and the timeless effervescence of Tony Bennett. 7/10 Words: Robin Murray https://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/lady-gag...t-love-for-sale
October 2, 20213 yr Author Really love this one too Consequence: Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga Make the Great American Songbook Shine Again with Love for Sale The legendary crooner's final album with Lady Gaga is a worthy swan song by Mary Siroky Unlikely friendships are hard to resist. Had it not been for a charity gala nearly a decade ago, it’s difficult to imagine Tony Bennett (legendary crooner of the big band era) and Lady Gaga (songwriter, actress, and modern pop music aficionado) crossing paths, let alone deciding to collaborate. Fate had other plans: Not only did that charity pairing yield a lovely friendship and collaborative album, 2014’s Cheek to Cheek, but Gaga and Bennett had such fun together that they decided to return for twelve more tracks. Love for Sale is Tony Bennett’s sixty-first (!) album, and presumably his last; the 95-year old singer recently announced his retirement, and is currently living with Alzheimer’s. The album is a lovely swan song, and the collection of tracks, already inherently soaked in nostalgia, feels all the more poignant with the end of Bennett’s career in mind. While their initial meetup might have come as a surprise, Bennett and Gaga’s chemistry makes a great amount of sense in the context of their respective careers. There was plenty of doubt around the Mother Monster in her earlier days, but the classically trained vocalist has spent the seven years between the previous collaboration and this endeavor winning over a huge amount of the general public with more introspective albums like 2016’s Joanne and her massive turn in 2018’s A Star Is Born. To be sure, Gaga has always had the versatility to bounce between genres, along with the talent necessary to go toe-to-toe with legends, but if there is anyone who still feels inclined to write her off, this album is the perfect link to drop. A tribute to Cole Porter, Love for Sale consists of jazz standards from the legendary composer and joins the ranks of dynamic jazz duos of old. There is a sixty-year age difference between Bennett and Lady Gaga, but the two slide together as easily as Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, at home in the tracks and clearly having fun. Where Cheek to Cheek was a charming foray into standards for the duo, there’s an extra level of emotionality behind this latest collection. Gaga has always been an emotional performer, and she does quite a bit of heavy lifting on Love for Sale, but Bennett’s vocals remain crystal clear. The album (unsurprisingly) is at its best when the two are together. The production is lush and gorgeous — the strings are transportive on “Night and Day” — and the big band swing fails to lose its charm throughout the album. Gaga goes solo on “Let’s Do It,” while Bennett is on his own for “So in Love” and “Just One of Those Things.” Again, though, things are most fun when the pair align, whether it’s playfully bouncing back and forth in the cheeky “You’re the Top” or imbuing the title track with refreshing, heartfelt energy. In celebration of the release, Lady Gaga held a livestream concert, playing through selections from the album along with jazz-infused covers of her classics “Poker Face” and “Born This Way.” In a nod to her captivating entrance in A Star Is Born, she also shared a rendition of “La Vie En Rose.” Following the show, Tony Bennett shared on Twitter, “Susan and I tuned in for Lady Gaga’s special live performance to celebrate #LoveForSale. So glad we could all join no matter where we are in the world. Lady, your performance was fantastic as always.” In response, Gaga tweeted, “I love you Tony and Susan. In just under 5 hrs the world can listen to ‘Love for Sale,’ our last album. My greatest honor, a bittersweet joyous heartbreak. I will never be the same Tony. Thank you for your gift to all of us.” Bittersweet, joyous heartbreak — isn’t that what jazz is all about, after all? Essential Tracks: “You’re the Top,” “Love for Sale,” “Night and Day” https://consequence.net/2021/10/lady-gaga-a...or-sale-review/
October 9, 20213 yr Author It has got a couple more 3/5 scores so currently 70/100 on Metacritic. Hope it stays there, it looks so much better than 69 :lol:
