Favorite Album / Tour Story World … ?

[bxr 1,262]

Just a question, for the sake of curiosity … “story world” here being the album and/or tour’s concept, narrative, development, and design.
 

Spoiler

I was going to feature a separate poll for tour and album story worlds, and then by which is “your favorite,” and which are Gaga’s “opus” and “signature” story worlds within the tour / album scope; but just realized one question per thread poll, so I went with “Your Favorite Album Story World” … but/and by all means feel free to add your own additional commentary, and For Your Considerations …

Your Favorite Narrative / Story World (Tour)

- The Fame Ball
- The Monster Ball 1.0 (Theatre)
- The Monster Ball 2.0 (Arena)
- Born This Way Ball
- artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball
- Joanna World Tour
- The Chromatica Ball
- The Mayhem Ball

Gaga’s Opus Narrative / Story World (Album)

- The Fame
- The Fame Monster
- The Fame / Monster
- Born This Way
- ARTPOP
- Cheek To Cheek
- Joanne
- Chromatica
- Harlequin
- Mayhem

Gaga’s Opus Narrative / Story World (Tour)

- The Fame Ball
- The Monster Ball 1.0 (Theatre)
- The Monster Ball 2.0 (Arena)
- Born This Way Ball
- artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball
- Joanna World Tour
- The Chromatica Ball
- The Mayhem Ball

Gaga’s Signature Narrative / Story World (Album)

- The Fame
- The Fame Monster
- The Fame / Monster
- Born This Way
- ARTPOP
- Cheek To Cheek
- Joanne
- Chromatica
- Harlequin
- Mayhem

Gaga’s Signature Narrative / Story World (Tour)

- The Fame Ball
- The Monster Ball 1.0 (Theatre)
- The Monster Ball 2.0 (Arena)
- Born This Way Ball
- artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball
- Joanna World Tour
- The Chromatica Ball
- The Mayhem Ball

“Your Favorite” is, well, your favorite, whichever one you love to live in … immersive multi-sensory sound world-wise.

“Opus” is her paramount story world … her canon summit thus far.

“Signature” is the story world you think/feel is the one that most authentically illustrates or expresses her artistic identity or creative vision

(Slight note for distinction between Opus and Signature: Opus yields toward the global / critical / commercial reception, whereas Signature is more intrinsically about the artistic association.)

 

[Diamond Blood 4,478]

MAYHEM ball 1000% 

[Bronco 19,320]

I feel like as an album/tour/era Mayhem clears the rest. It's the most unified. 

TF & TFM is a great album setting. But I don't think the tour has the same narrative world as the albums. 
BTW I feel lacks a "narrative" setting, but the tour is very very strong. 

ARTPOP is just thematic, I don't consider it to have a "story" same for the Artrave. 
Joanne & the tour speak different languages. 
Chromatica & the tour exist in different planes of reality. 

[Lord Mayhem 3,187]

Favorite album concept: BTW

Favorite tour concept: BTWB 

She snapped in 2011-2012 

[gagacabana 3,006]

This made me realize how similar TFM, BTW, artrave and mayhem are, in the sense of sharing an artistic concept where Gaga feels much more free to embody characters and tell the story in her own way. Like it had been a while since she acted and was camp and had such fun on stage 

[bxr 1,262]

1 hour ago, Bronco said:

I feel like as an album/tour/era Mayhem clears the rest. It's the most unified. 

TF & TFM is a great album setting. But I don't think the tour has the same narrative world as the albums. 
BTW I feel lacks a "narrative" setting, but the tour is very very strong. 

ARTPOP is just thematic, I don't consider it to have a "story" same for the Artrave. 
Joanne & the tour speak different languages. 
Chromatica & the tour exist in different planes of reality. 

Mayhem feels like it really evolved into itself as everything unfolded … like it developed into deeper integrity 

That’s intriguing — I think TF / TFM tours were instrumental in establishing the sheer genius of her live performance mind … it felt like they evolved into themselves in real time, almost a structural blueprint to adapting a project in real time (which, I feel like was crucial to how Mayhem was able to anticipate the trajectory and incorporate that approach in the development stage — like how Gaga would perform a separate smaller solo club show at the tour stops where she would open for PCD/NKOTB, etc. and put that budget back into building out her own stage / story world with creative ideas she and the Haus would think up while on the road … so TF/TFM were constant feedback loops in that regard — in practice, with the gigs and stage innovation, but/and also with the concept of how this directly speaks to The Fame and its boy Monster while she’s on a tour that embodies that very concept as cultural critique). 

Also I still love the idea behind the forced perspective of TFM theatre show breaking the fourth wall of celebreality, while diving into the divide between celebrity and humanity … it felt like it had undercurrents of evolutionary anthropology or something … 

Spoiler

"So we talked about growth, and that led us into this kind of scientific space, and we started talking about evolution and the evolution of humanity and how we begin as one thing, and we become another. I begin as a cell and I grow and change throughout the show. And it's also done in what now is becoming my aesthetic, which is, you know, it's part pop, part performance art, part fashion installation—so all of those things are present... It's a story, it's me battling all my monsters along the way. I'm playing all the music from The Fame, all the music from The Fame Monster. And the stage that I designed with the Haus [of Gaga] is a giant cube that sits. Imagine you were to hollow out a TV and just break the fourth wall on a TV screen. It forces you to look at the center of the TV. It's my way of saying, 'My music is art.'"

BTW the album felt like a subcultural sonic census, just … like the theme was contemporary identity from a lens in the life of Gaga … audiobiographical in a way where each song could be a character in the cast of her monster community or something … proto-chromatica tribalism pre-kindness punk prototype   That tour was ambitious … whew … the magnitude

Aw, ARTPOP … I won’t wax could be anythings, in the interest of time and space … and bricks and strings

Oh wow, the seamlessness on that Joanne take

Oh wow [2] — That, Part, Though. The Chromatica album and tour creative briefs woke up one morning and said, “color palettes don’t exist,” and the journey continued accordingly  

 

[bxr 1,262]

2 hours ago, Lord Mayhem said:

Favorite album concept: BTW

Favorite tour concept: BTWB 

She snapped in 2011-2012 

Proportions on infinite ♾️⚡️🦄

[bxr 1,262]

2 hours ago, gagacabana said:

This made me realize how similar TFM, BTW, artrave and mayhem are, in the sense of sharing an artistic concept where Gaga feels much more free to embody characters and tell the story in her own way. Like it had been a while since she acted and was camp and had such fun on stage 

I hadn’t noticed it before but, to your point, TFM, artrave, and mayhem deal most directly with a clear duality, and it feels like once the boundaries or points of absolute polarity are set (Fame / Monster ; ART / POP ; Mayhem / Harmony (or Chaos / Balance … reconciling the nemesis) her own character is able to express that much more freedom within the confines, once the black and white lines are set on the page, she is free to animate the scene in technicolor … BTW, I never thought about a duality there, but it’s almost like that’s dealing with if your identity is valid or not — the duality of personal identity itself as “good” and ”bad” (socially or culturally or politically) … I don’t remember where this tangent was headed, but, to your point, her character in the story worlds really is the whole repertoire’s animating spirit 

[gagacabana 3,006]

1 hour ago, bxr said:

I hadn’t noticed it before but, to your point, TFM, artrave, and mayhem deal most directly with a clear duality, and it feels like once the boundaries or points of absolute polarity are set (Fame / Monster ; ART / POP ; Mayhem / Harmony (or Chaos / Balance … reconciling the nemesis) her own character is able to express that much more freedom within the confines, once the black and white lines are set on the page, she is free to animate the scene in technicolor … BTW, I never thought about a duality there, but it’s almost like that’s dealing with if your identity is valid or not — the duality of personal identity itself as “good” and ”bad” (socially or culturally or politically) … I don’t remember where this tangent was headed, but, to your point, her character in the story worlds really is the whole repertoire’s animating spirit 

Absolutely absolutely !!! Her duality motto is ever present indeed 

[Borislshere 53,214]

The mayhem ball feels like a more matured born this way ball. She went from fighting herself at the born this way ball to learning to love all parts of herself at the mayhem ball. so to answer, the mayhem ball. I love the message so much 

[Agunimon 489]

She really outdid everything with Mayhem's tour.

[PartySick 169,217]

Joanne plays like a Lifetime movie to me. It could absolutely be a visual album set to a film about a girl whose heart gets broken and she goes on a journey of denial, rebellion, self destruction, isolation, catatonia, depression, and eventually acceptance, healing, altruism, and maturity.

Now, idk how much of that is intentional on miss Gaga's part but that's what I see in the album so that's why I picked it.

 

If we're talking tours? Mayhem Ball puts everything else to shame tbh.

[Blackout19 14,530]

btw

[bxr 1,262]

13 hours ago, PartySick said:

Joanne plays like a Lifetime movie to me. It could absolutely be a visual album set to a film about a girl whose heart gets broken and she goes on a journey of denial, rebellion, self destruction, isolation, catatonia, depression, and eventually acceptance, healing, altruism, and maturity.

Now, idk how much of that is intentional on miss Gaga's part but that's what I see in the album so that's why I picked it.

 

If we're talking tours? Mayhem Ball puts everything else to shame tbh.

!!! That you articulated that Joanne creative brief — so wilde; the needle drop into Diamond Heart for some reason always felt like the opening scene of that very storyline you illustrate … self monologuing in a bathroom mirror at the venue before she delivers the performance that catapults her career into that tumultuous journey which the rest of the album explores … but, instead of Lifetime it felt more MTV (circa Save the Last Dance, Carmen: The Hip-Hopera, etc. when they had the movie production studio in full effect) but, I guess, a CMT movie, on account of the Joanne aesthetic … but absolutely floored that you vibed on that story world frequency

 

Mayhem leveled up the evolution of stage manifesto