... and Lady Gaga's artRAVE barely makes it into the top 50.
Trailing
behind her female pop competitors at #46, Lady Gaga is behind Cher
(#9), Miley Cyrus (#14), Dolly Parton (#23), Katy Perry (#26), Celine
Dion (#28), Demi Lovato (#41), Taylor Swift (#42), and Britney Spears
(#44).
The data shows Lady Gaga's average ticket price at $78.24 (clearly doesn't include giveaways or other sad attempts to fill the arenas)...
Tweet captured by PDLM
The average number of tickets sold per show at 13,348
The total number of tickets sold as far as publication - which was 21 shows played in 15 cities - at 200,222
And in terms of money, the average dollar amount pulled in per show is published at $1,044,372 with a grand total of $15.7 million.
The leading lady and lucky #46
Wow! So much for the Queen of Pop! Maybe Lady Gaga should have released The Greatest Thing after all, then maybe she could ride off Cher's coattails for a while instead of Tony Bennett's.
Now
that Gaga's North American leg of the tour is over, it should be
interesting to see how the rest of the tour pans out. Her next stop is
Eastern Asia, with two dates in Japan and one in Seoul, followed by
Oceania (6 shows),Western Asia (2 shows), and finally Europe (30 shows).
What do you think her final numbers will look like?
"What happened to Lady Gaga?" Asks the Sydney Morning Herald. "She of the meat-dress variety, whose only aim was to shock the public?"
"It’s simple science. What goes up, must come down, said Isaac
Newton. After a meteoric rise to fame on the back of solid talent, she
propelled her career forward with the power of image."
I'm not sure I would agree with the writer here that Lady Gaga's rise to fame was due solely to her talent, especially given the videos that we're seen of the artRAVE so far...
RIP Laurieann Gibson, who died of laughter after watching this
...but I think she's on the right track with the "image" thing.
The writer goes on to describe Gaga's most memorable outfits: the bubble dress, the meat dress, the lobster hat, and so on (none of which are - despite the fact that they're her most memorable - entirely original, on her part). She then says:
"But my personal favourites came towards the end, when
you could tell she was running out of ideas."
And on the meat dress:
"She explained at the time it was a statement for what one
believed in. But really, we all knew it was because the dress-up thing
was done for."
Okay can we just stop for a second and laugh, because the writer here says the dress-up thing was done for after the meat dress... and the meat dress was from the VMAs in 2010! 2010!!! That was four years ago!
"How could she possibly
one-up herself? Then she arrived at the 2011 Grammys in a plastic egg
shell. We couldn’t even see her on the red carpet. Let’s call it the
moment she imploded."
Well, you can only shock people for so long. When everything you do is a spectacle, it starts to be expected out of you. The writer says:
"The outfits that used to make headlines were now ho-hum."
Again, she's referencing a time that was 3-4 years ago.
"Here lies the genius of her “normal” dress. Now when she’s
photographed, she’s wearing – gasp – clothes! Granted, they’re high-end,
designer outfits that sometimes border on the surreal but still actual
clothes. Not bubbles. And we are genuinely surprised."
Why, with Gaga, is every criticism of her also met with an admission of her "genius"? The writer basically spent the whole article telling us how she's been bored with Gaga and her outfits since 2010/2011, yet she's a somehow still a "genius".
Anyway, the writer suggests Gaga might be sending a message to us all that she's accepting of herself now, and that she may be demonstrating that she "doesn’t need to be a completely different character every time
she gets dressed".
But I don't think so. Even when she's dressed "normal", she's still acting out a character. She's doing the same thing she always has - she puts on a costume, runs downstairs to get photographed by the paparazzi, rinses, and repeats. It's no different now in 2014 just because she's got black hair instead of blonde.
The writer closes with:
"But knowing Gaga, this is just the next stage of her image
transformation and, like all true chameleons, she’ll have another
reinvention to shock us back into buying her music soon."
The 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is coming up, and according to the Daily Star, Lady Gaga and Madonna are both hoping for a headline spot in a Berlin Wall Anniversary gig. Allegedly, neither one wants to play as a supporting act to the other, so organizers will have to choose between the two pop stars.
"Madonna and Gaga are equally desperate for the honour of performing.
They both like to think of themselves as very political, and will also
have new albums to promote by then. It could reignite their long-running
feud as the date draws nearer because neither are used to being told
no."
The source then goes on to say:
"However it’s highly likely organisers would choose the Queen of Pop over Gaga, if push came to shove."
Yup! It's true! Calling Lady Gaga the new "Queen of Pop" is not enough for some people. Now they're calling Gaga the new "Queen of Jazz". A little premature, don't you think?
1. She's already proved her chemistry with Tony Bennett in his previous album!
Tony Bennett has two duet albums (Duets: An American Classic and Duets II), and every song on those two albums is a duet with other artists. Lady Gaga and Bennett have only one song together on Duets II, The Lady is a Tramp - and somehow this demonstrates to Take40 that she's going to be the new "Queen of Jazz". Bennett worked with a total of 35 artists between the two albums... does that mean all 35 artists are the new Queens and Kings of Jazz too? That's a lot of imaginary crowns to pass around!
k.d. lang was featured on both of Bennett's albums, she plays in jazz shows, she plays in jazz festivals, she's going on Broadway for a jazz revue... arguably she's an actual jazz artist now. So why isn't k.d. lang the new Queen of Jazz? Why is it Gaga?
Oh, I know why. Because Gaga is special.
2. Her voice is built with sweet Jazz tones
Again, so is k.d. lang's voice. So are a lot of people's voices. Having jazzy tones in your singing voice does not make you the "top" of the genre, especially if you haven't really worked in it yet...
But of course for Gaga, it does. Lucky her!
3. Gaga was singing jazz in high school
Really? Gaga's the new "Queen of Jazz" because she was in a musical in high school? How many other people in the world were in plays and musicals in high school? And what does high school have to do with anything?
So Gaga was in a Guys and Dolls production in high school over a decade ago... so what? It's not like she's been releasing jazz music since high school. Now that would be an accomplishment. But no, she released two jazz songs - one of them THIS WEEK, and somehow this makes her the new "Queen of Jazz".
4. She can turn any of her songs into a perfect jazz track
Again - what's their point? These guys turned Thrift Shop by Macklemore into a perfect jazz track, so what does that say about them? Are they Kings and Queens too?
It's not unusual to find jazz remakes of pop songs, and you certainly don't have to be the absolute best in the genre in order to redo a song to give it a jazzy twist. Sorry, but there are a million better songs out there than the jazzy remake of You and I.
5. She's gives jazz music a whole new image
First of all, outlandish outfits are not a new thing (in any genre of music). And second, if her costumes are part of the reason why she's the new "Queen of Jazz", then why was she asked to tone it down when performing with Tony? Surely if she was the new Queen of Jazz, she would be able to wear whatever she wants to!
Yeah, right. Gaga's bringing the same amount of novelty to jazz as she did with pop: zero.
Sigh.
The article is HERE if you want to check it out for yourself.
In summary though, it was just another article worshiping Gaga for accomplishments she hasn't yet earned. Her jazz (duet!) single hasn't even been out two days yet, and she's already the "Queen" of the genre.
Tell me, readers, does this happen with any other celebrity? Why is Gaga automatically the very best at everything she does, even when she hasn't done it yet?
Lady Gaga - the new Queen of Pop... Lady Gaga - the new Queen of Jazz...
What's next? Will she be announced as the new "Queen of Metal" when she does a collaboration with Rob Halford? I wouldn't doubt it!
The single cover. ...yes, seriously. Photo by Steven Klein
We've been hearing a lot lately about Lady Gaga's upcoming album with Tony Bennett, called "Cheek to Cheek". Gaga and Tony were in New York Monday night filming a "live" concert set to air October 24th 2014 to promote the album.
At midnight (New York time) they released the first single from the album, the Cole Porter classic "Anything Goes".
Gaga claims to have been singing jazz since 13 years of age (is there anything she hasn't "done"? No, really, is there?) and claims recording jazz is easier than recording pop.
“You know, it’s funny, but jazz comes a little more comfortable for me
than pop music, than R&B music,” Gaga said in an interview Monday.
“I’ve sang jazz since I was 13 years old, which is kind of like my
little secret that Tony found out. So this is almost easier for me than
anything else.”
