Lady Gaga’s ‘Harlequin’ album: rare sales disaster as film ‘Joker 2’ fails in second week

Last week, Lady Gaga released a new album called Harlequin. It was a companion to Joker: Folie a Deux, which would become a hit film.

But Joker 2, as we call it, was an absolute disaster at the box office and was literally shunned by all fans of the original hit film.

The result is that “Harlequin,” a beautifully sung jazz album with two new songs, is also dead. Today it fell to #97 on iTunes after a week. Second week sales were zero, putting the total under 30,000 copies.

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

The only thing that could help “Harlequin” now is for the Grammys to revive it in the jazz categories. This should have been the Oscars, but with the movie gone, Gaga’s original songs probably won’t make it to the final five for Best Song.

All the work goes 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 seventh album before the end of October. She knew that “Harlequin” would be relegated to “Lost Gem” status.