It looked like we were heading for a retread of La La Land, where pop is snootily compared with the “real”, “authentic” stuff played on wooden instruments without choreography. It was at this point of the film, with Jackson voicing scepticism towards her glossy new sound, that I pre-emptively cringed.

The song itself is torrid yet robust, and truly outstanding.Īs her solo career takes off, Ally segues from Jackson’s earthy songcraft towards poppier territory, via another highlight: Look What I Found, a joyous bit of Aloe Blacc-style neo-Stax soul that suits Gaga incredibly well. Moments before she makes the octave jump for the big chorus, her face flickers with terror, then as she is singing it, disbelief – a moment that announces music is bigger than its performers, that it plays them rather than the other way round. Their performance is pure symbiosis, him needing her stability and creative energy, she needing his big stage, and Gaga is extraordinarily good. Jackson invites Ally out at an open-air concert to perform Shallow, the song they worked up together the previous day. The film’s most powerful sequence sees the two in perfect equilibrium. Her star is indeed born, but Jackson struggles to stay in her slipstream, buffeted by his drinking, familial pain, tinnitus and perhaps a bit of jealousy.Ĭover art for the A Star is Born soundtrack. Ally turns out to be an instinctive songwriter, and briefly knocks Jackson out of his stupor the pair fall in love.

It’s a nice opening performance from Gaga: the low-key setting hardens any potential ripeness, and perhaps only she could create its balance of genuine melodrama and knowing camp. His Jackson is an alcoholic who meets Ally, a waitress and jobbing singer who entrances him in a bar with a performance of La Vie en Rose. And to top it all, he can sing: convincingly snarly on blues-rockers like Alibi, stoic on the extremely strong Isbell-penned country ballad Maybe It’s Time, affectingly doleful on his duets with Gaga. His arguably unnecessary shirtlessness in one scene was instantly validated by the audible ripple of arousal around the cinema I saw it in. He delivers a very accomplished lead performance in the film and, as director, crafts scenes of intimate naturalism and big-guns emotion with equal aplomb.

A star is born soundtrack lyrics