This is not ‘stripped-back Gaga’. This is not ‘the real Gaga’. Most reviewers would have you believe that Joanne is raw, powerful and ultimately true-to-self. But don’t believe what you hear – Gaga’s latest album is confused, lightweight and devastatingly disappointing.

Is this a return to form after her unwise Artpop move? Are we getting one step closer to the ‘real’ Stefani Germanotta? Ask yourself this: what is genuine or ‘rootsy’ about inventing a totally new character, a character with so many different voices and sounds that you can’t define it? Getting back to her roots for Lady Gaga would mean more keys, more powerful, jazzy vocals and more charm and humour.

The character that Gaga has invented for Joanne is a vague, pseudo-Country girl. The album is full of nostalgic references which ultimately ring hollow as they have no grounding or reference point. Vocals in the titular song ‘Joanne’ reek of Dolly Parton’s melancholic lines, but entirely miss their target. Instances when any pretences are disposed with and Gaga gives in to tropes and clichés, such as in ‘John Wayne’ (think Mustangs, whiskey and horse riding) are ironically more convincing. Of course, this is helped by the incredibly catchy chorus lick, which has a more powerful energy than any other song on the album.

Sadly, for idolatrous Gaga worshippers such as myself, these moments of drive are few and far between in what is essentially an album of confusion and contradiction. While ‘Perfect Illusion’ might ring round your head for half a day, or play in a club in two years time, there are very few memorable songs: even ‘Joanne’ itself is disappointing, refusing to take any of the musical buds and make them go anywhere.

It’s a story of missed opportunities wherever you look within the album: ‘Dancin’ in Circles’ and ‘A-Yo’ begin with a Sweet Escape-era Gwen Stefani sound, which could provide an interesting counterpart to the Country aesthetic, but instead Gaga shies away from any interesting fusion, reverting to a post-Artpop Eurovision style.

When you are aware of the slightly Eurovision sound present in many of the songs, it’s difficult not to hear in every gap. Critics aren’t wrong to suggest that there’s more space in Gaga’s sound in ‘Joanne’ – there is just a little more air and time to breath than in Artpop’s dense, multi-layered style. However, what this has resulted in is the sense that every song in the album is a different country’s entry into the Eurovision Song Contest.

Why is this? It might be a product of the increased variety within the album, which, while it poses opportunities to explore entirely different sounds within the same space, leads to the confusion that I was so dreading. Her new country-girl aesthetic isn’t even strong enough to bind the disparate entries together. ‘Angel Down’ is Azerbaijan: pensive, building and powerful, but ultimately clichéd. ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ is the slightly rogue entry from Greece or Cyprus: added bass and modal inflections promise some interest, but ultimately it’s destined for 16th place.

And what of the big hits? As predicted, ‘Perfect Illusion’ and ‘Hey Girl’ are two of the highest trenders online. But I can’t help wondering whether they will fade away like ‘Paparazzi’ or ‘Poker Face’ haven’t. Collaborating with Florence Welch in ‘Hey Girl’, Gaga begins by channelling an R&B sound, somewhere halfway between Alicia Keys and Boyz II Men. When Welch sings, however, the song transforms into a strangely, uncomfortable miss-match of styles. There are even hints of Take That in some of the progressions, which doesn’t sit well with me. Lady Gaga is simply trying to do too many things, and ends up doing them all with mediocrity.

Of course, the actual sound of the album is typically brilliant, and will sound reasonably satisfying through any good headphones or speakers – you have producer Mark Ronson to thank for this. But in an interview with Rolling Stone, Ronson claims that Gaga’s ‘Joanne’ is “raw and exposed”. The only song in which the vocals are particularly exposed is ‘Joanne’ itself, and here it’s not a good thing.

Whether Lady Gaga set out to explore her own sound, or whether she aimed to please the greatest number of people with a plethora of styles, she sadly succeeds in neither