Friday, June 19, 2026

Lady Gaga “Harlequin” Album Rare Sales Disaster as “Joker 2” Movie Failure Kills It in 2nd Week

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Last week, Lady Gaga dropped a new album called “Harlequin.” It was a companion to “Joker: Folie a Deux,” which was supposed to be a hit movie.

But “Joker 2,” as we call it, has been unmitigated disaster at the box office, literally shunned by all the fans of the original hit movie.

The result is that “Harlequin,” a beautifully sung jazz album with two new songs, is dead, too. Today it dropped to number 97 on iTunes after one week. Sales for its second week were nil, leaving the total at under 30,000 copies.

Gaga must be furious, and rightly so. She worked hard on “Harlequin,” which contains some of her best work ever. But with the movie in shambles, Universal Music hasn’t lifted a finger to promote the collection. It’s dead on the vine.

The only thing that could help “Harlequin” now is for the Grammys to revive it in the jazz categories. The Oscars were supposed to come in to play here, but with the movie gone, Gaga’s original songs probably won’t make the final 5 for Best Song.

All that work, down the drain. What a mess.

Maybe now we know why Gaga released her Bruno Mars duet, “Die with a Smile,” right before “Joker 2.” And she has a new single from her 7th album coming before the end of October. She knew that “Harlequin” was going to relegated to Lost Gem status.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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