Lady Gaga, who has been palling around with Tony Bennett as of late, admitted that she really needed to take a break from music last year.
The “Born This Way” singer appears on this weekend’s CBS Sunday Morning in a joint interview with Bennett, with whom she worked on her latest album. It’s very different from Gaga’s past work and comes after Gaga took a break from performing following her third album, ARTPOP.
That album was widely considered a failure, since it didn’t live up to the incredible standards set by The Fame and Born This Way. Even the negative reviews caused Gaga to question her artistic decisions, but she doesn’t live by a formula.
“I felt like people were holding me to a pretty high standard,” Gaga told CBS’ Anthony Mason. “Everybody's hooting and hollering because, you know, I didn't sell 20 million records this time, which I did with my first album. And you know, it's not easy to replicate that. And you just -- I don't have a formula.”
ARTPOP did come quickly after Born This Way and was followed by an extensive tour. While she was at the center of that storm, she “crashed” in the middle of 2013 and needed a break. Everything was not OK for Gaga.
“You know, it's one thing to put a train on the tracks,” she said. “But it's another thing to keep the train on the tracks. You can't just let a train out on the tracks and just run it out; it'll -- I crashed.”
She even thought she might not make music again. But then, she got into the studio with Bennett and it just clicked.
Their album, Cheek to Cheek features all jazz standards, which comes out on Sept. 23. The unlikely musical duo also released a video for “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and a concert special is slated for Oct. 23 on PBS.
image courtesy of Kristin Callahan/ACE/INFphoto.com