Hear new Lady Gaga track, The Joker, ahead of album and movie release

Ahead of her appearance in the movie Joker: Folie à Deux – released on October 4th – Lady Gaga is letting loose new music from her album to accompany her starring role as Harley Quinn alongside the return of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.

Her new album – entitled Harlequin – is out this Friday, September 27th and is the 13-track soundtrack to the movie, a musical of sorts that’s so far attracted fair-to-middling review scores and – thanks to the extensive use of music – some fan confusion for those expecting a straight sequel to grisly surprise-hit 2019’s Joker.

The new track, entitled The Joker, has appeared as a 1 minute 15-second clip on the star’s Instagram page. A video shows Gaga exploring The Louvre at night, wandering solo through the exhibits before painting a lipstick smile on the bulletproof glass in front of the Mona Lisa. 

There’s also a reminder of the release date for the movie, of course, and – ever the artisté – a helpful plug for the Louvre’s Figures of the Fool exhibition, running through October 2024.

Harlequin features new Gaga tracks alongside such rousing staples as Get Happy, That’s Entertainment, Close To You and That’s Life. And if that’s not enough to appease her fans, the multi-faceted creator has a new artist album on the way too. Harlequin from the Joker movie will be followed by her seventh artist album in February 2025 with an unannounced single due out as soon as next month.

The singer has been recording at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio in Malibu, California: “When I’m here at this studio, I’m relaxed and I am able to face my demons and what’s remarkable is… that’s the music. I’m able to hear it back,” she said.

The new album will Gaga’s first since her collaboration with the late Tony Bennett, 2021’s covers album, Love For Sale. Her last true studio album was 2020’s Chromatica which spawned the Dawn of Chromatica remix album a year later.