Two years ago this week, an album arrived that wasn't quite a soundtrack and wasn't quite a standalone statement. Harlequin, credited to Lady Gaga, landed on September 27, 2024 via Interscope Records — a companion piece to the film Joker: Folie à Deux, released one week before the official score. The singer had spent months as Harley Quinn on screen, and now the character bled into the record itself.
Gaga produced Harlequin alongside BloodPop, David Campbell, Jason Ruder, and Benjamin Rice. She framed the project as a way to keep exploring the psychology of the DC Comics villain she played opposite Joaquin Phoenix. Some outlets called it a soundtrack album, though the actual soundtrack followed days later. The distinction mattered: this was Gaga's own reading of Quinn, not a simple song collection.
Jazz standards and original anchors
The album draws almost entirely from American jazz standards. Of its thirteen tracks, eleven are covers, while two original compositions anchor the narrative: 'Folie à Deux' and 'Happy Mistake.' Critics described the record as conceptual, built around Harley Quinn from Gaga's perspective. The jazz direction felt both familiar and strange for a pop star who had spent years moving between dance music and stagecraft.
Gaga had already established her jazz credentials through two collaborations with Tony Bennett: Cheek to Cheek in 2014 and Love for Sale in 2021. Those albums positioned her as a student of the Great American Songbook. Harlequin continues that thread, but the context shifts dramatically. Bennett's death had closed one chapter; Harley Quinn opened another, where jazz standards become psychological masks.
Vintage pop with a fractured edge
The sound on Harlequin mixes vintage pop with rock, soul, gospel, and doo-wop. Gaga described the album as 'vintage pop,' a phrase that captures the tension between old material and new emotional territory. 'The Joker,' a song associated with the film's title character, received a music video filmed inside the Louvre, while 'Happy Mistake' got a television performance that emphasized the rawness of the original writing.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gaga explained what 'Happy Mistake' meant to her. The song was created specifically for Harlequin, not the film itself. In a separate conversation with the Associated Press, she confirmed the album contains both music from the movie and original compositions. The two original tracks serve as anchors, but the covers do the heavy lifting of building the character.
Rollout from red images to the Louvre
The rollout began on September 20, 2024, when Gaga posted a red-background image with the text 'I'm ready for my interview.' More visual material followed on Instagram in the days before release. The red motif echoed the film's palette and Harley Quinn's signature colors. The Louvre video for 'The Joker' added another layer: high art colliding with comic book iconography.
Harlequin arrived at a peculiar moment in Gaga's career. Her jazz phase with Bennett had cemented her credibility as a vocalist. The Joker sequel gave her a chance to inhabit a character whose psychology is famously fractured. The album's structure mirrors that fractures: eleven covers holding two originals, old songs filtered through a new persona, and promotional material that moves from museum halls to social media grids.
The two-year anniversary lands in 2026, when Harlequin is no longer news but has settled into Gaga's discography as a curious entry. The album asks what happens when a pop star uses jazz standards to build a fictional identity. 'Happy Mistake' remains the clearest statement of intent, a song written from inside the character, performed as if the mistake and the person were the same thing.