You know how Lady Gaga is barely a thing these days? You know how her last two studio albums have screwed the pooch, so to speak? You know how she’s spent money hand over fist, indulging in every coked-up fantasy and daydream she’s ever had? Yeah, well Gaga needs money. She needs to sell something, somewhere. And so she’s doing what many artists do when they need money: she’s releasing a jazz album. Seriously. So many artists go that route when their pop albums begin to fail – they either do jazz standards or they “go country.” Anyway, Gaga recorded a live show with Tony Bennett last night:

When Lady Gaga recalls her first meeting with golden-throated crooner Tony Bennett, she still sounds impressed. She had just performed a set of pop hits and a cover of Nat King Cole’s “Orange Colored Sky” – “a jazz song,” she points out – at the Robin Hood Foundation benefit gala in New York City in 2011, when she got word he wanted to see her after the show. “He heard me sing that song, and he asked to meet me,” she says now. “I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, Tony Bennett’s here.’ And I was so nervous. I fixed my hair, and my mom was fixing her makeup. We went back to meet him, and he said, ‘Do you want to do a jazz album together?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course I do.’ And we were fast friends and friends ever since.”

Last night, Gaga and Bennett walked side-by-side down a red carpet, with the former wearing a décolleté black dress and the latter dressed in a tux and ear-to-ear smile, in New York City prior to singing together at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center. The concert, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek Live!, will air on PBS Great Performances this fall, and it preceded the announcement of Cheek to Cheek, the singers’ album of classic jazz standards that is also coming out in autumn.

Although Bennett had reportedly told a French website that Gaga had written new material for the album, specifically a song called “Paradise,” Gaga told Rolling Stone on the red carpet that the record would consist solely of standards, at least at this point. “It’s all songs from the great American songbook,” she says. “How did we pick the songs, Tony?”

“It’s all the great songs of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, all the greatest composers,” Bennett says. “No other country has ever given the rest of the world so many magnificent songs, and they’re gonna live forever. Wait ’til you find out when she sings those songs.”

Gaga’s Cheek to Cheek collaborator sees something else in his foil. “She phrases like I phrase,” Bennett says on the carpet. “She’s a wonderful singer. Everybody knows and loves her very much. I think when they hear this album that we’re doing, they’re going to say, ‘We had no idea that she sings that well.'”

[From Rolling Stone]

Gaga does have a voice and she can sing properly. So, I have no doubt about the technical proficiency of Gaga’s jazz recordings. I also don’t blame her at all for wanting to hang out with Tony Bennett, who is by far one of the coolest people in the world. But this is all about money and Gaga’s fading fame. She’s grasping to reinvent herself yet again and I really don’t believe the little monsters give a sh-t any more.

Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News.