David Lowe Robin Bennett Popular Books

David Lowe Robin Bennett Biography & Facts

Love for Sale is the second collaborative album by American singers Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, released on September 30, 2021, by Columbia and Interscope Records. It is the sixty-first and final studio album of Bennett's career, and Gaga's seventh. Following Cheek to Cheek (2014), the duo's first collaborative album, Love for Sale was recorded between 2018 and early 2020, consisting of their renditions of various jazz standards by American composer Cole Porter, to whom the record is a tribute. Upon release, Love for Sale received generally favorable reviews from music critics, most of whom highlighted the vocal chemistry between Bennett and Gaga. The album charted inside the top 10 of albums charts in various countries. On the US Billboard 200, it debuted at number 8 as the duo's second top-10 entry, and garnered Bennett the individual record for the longest span of top-10 albums for any living artist; his first top-10 record was I Left My Heart in San Francisco in 1962. Bennett also broke the Guinness World Record for the oldest person to release an album of new material, at the age of 95 years and 60 days. The album was preceded by the release of two singles: "I Get a Kick Out of You" and the title track. The duo gave a recorded performance at Radio City Music Hall on August 3 and 5, 2021, called One Last Time: An Evening with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, before Bennett retired from performing live. The special received four nominations at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards. The album's promotion also include the duo's appearance on MTV Unplugged, and solo performances by Gaga, such as her Jazz & Piano residency show and at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. At the Grammys, the album won Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, and was nominated for Album of the Year, while the track "I Get a Kick Out of You" was nominated for Record of the Year, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Best Music Video. Background Love for Sale is a follow-up to Cheek to Cheek (2014), Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga's first collaborative album. Bennett and Gaga first met in 2011 at the Robin Hood Foundation gala in New York City. After that, Bennett asked Gaga to sing a duet with him on his album Duets II, so they recorded the song "The Lady Is a Tramp". The next year, he confirmed to Rolling Stone that Gaga wanted to record a jazz album with him; he then recorded said album Cheek to Cheek between June 2013 and early 2014. After debuting atop of the US Billboard 200, with 131,000 copies sold in its first week, Bennett told Billboard that they were inspired by Porter's 1936 musical, Red, Hot and Blue, for a possible sequel to Cheek to Cheek. He also said: "we're gonna do two albums in a row with her [Gaga]. We'll have to try and do that as soon as possible, just as a follow-up for a second album." Upon the announcement of Love for Sale, on August 3, 2021, Gaga commented on Twitter: The day we released Cheek to Cheek in 2014, Tony Bennett called me and asked me if I wanted to record another album with him, this time celebrating the songs of Cole Porter. I'm always honored to sing with my friend Tony, so of course I accepted the invitation. Love for Sale was announced to be Bennett's final album, following his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in 2016. Development and composition Production The recording and finalizing of Love for Sale saw numerous delays due to Gaga's other projects – such as the movie A Star Is Born (2018) and solo albums Joanne (2016) and Chromatica (2020) – and the COVID-19 pandemic. Recording sessions took place at Electric Lady Studios in New York, between 2018 and early 2020. All songs on the album are written by Cole Porter, to whom the record is a tribute. The Arts Desk's Sebastian Scotney felt that Love for Sale is "a calmer, less histrionic album than its predecessor", Cheek to Cheek, indicative of how "the Bennett/Gaga partnership has also evolved", and furthermore he found it more cohesive as the "Cole Porter songs bring a unifying thread". After the record was finished, Gaga and Bennett went through all the songs to choose the album title, and decided to name it after the song "Love for Sale", which was Bennett's favorite. According to Sebastian Scotney, "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." El Hunt from NME noted that "in Gaga's hands, certain lyrics take on a tongue in cheek contemporary meaning". In an article at The Wall Street Journal, Marc Myers wrote that "Bennett appears a bit detached when he isn't singing" in behind-the-scenes videos of the album, but Gaga explained, "as soon as the music started, Tony knew exactly where he was". Songs Love for Sale is primarily composed of old Broadway hits, reinvigorated by Gaga and Bennett with their own style and twist on these classics. The standard edition includes 10 tracks; the deluxe edition includes two additional tracks. The album opens with Gaga and Bennett's version of "It's De-Lovely", accompanied by a "rattle of drums and blare of brass". The second song, "Night and Day" uses xylophones and flutes to add to the pair's duet. The title track "Love for Sale" involves a bebop saxophone solo. Ludovic Hunter-Tilney in the Financial Times noted that the song brings a "hearty helping of old-school Broadway razzle-dazzle" to the "grim scenario", the "sleazy world of sex work". The fourth track, also the first solo song on the album is a melodramatic rendition of "Do I Love You" sang by Gaga, with orchestral accompaniment. It is followed by a swing song, "I've Got You Under My Skin". Gaga, who has a tattoo of a sketch that Bennett made of Miles Davis' trumpet on her arm, made a slight change to the lyrics, singing "like a tattoo under my skin", to which Bennett responds with delighted laughter. The sixth track "I Concentrate on You" is a mid-tempo duet with the pair's flirtations addressed to one another. The seventh track is the duo's "campy" take on "I Get a Kick Out of You", which starts with a "jaunty piano", and Gaga slowly singing the first lines. Bennett then picks up, and when he sings the line "Then, I see your fabulous face", Gaga jokingly asks him, "Are you talking about me?" The big band arrangement subsequently accompanies the two for the rest of the song. According to Helen Brown in The Independent, Bennett "sounds genuinely desperate with devotion" in his solo rendition of "So in Love", while in her solo number of "Let's Do It", Gaga "goes full musical theatre, humming appreciatively as trumpeter Brian Newman lets rip with a solo," says NME's El Hunt. The tenth track "Dream Dancing" was described as a "swansong to [the duo's] partnership" by The Observer's Cragg Michael. Bennett sings alone in bonus track "Just One of Those Things",.... Discover the David Lowe Robin Bennett popular books. Find the top 100 most popular David Lowe Robin Bennett books.