Lady Gaga's artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball and Hatsune Miku
"artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball" was the fourth headlining concert tour by American musician Lady Gaga and was held to promote her third studio album Artpop. Following ArtRave's concept, Hatsune Miku was invited to open up for Lady Gaga's during her world tour, from May 6 to June 3, 2014, while Lady Gaga's tour spanned from May 4 to November 24. During the concert, Hatsune Miku appeared as an all-new module and performed 6 singles, for a total of 25 minutes in the opening act of Gaga’s performances.
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga is an American singer and songwriter. She was born on March 28, 1986 and was originally known as Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta before she adopted her much more famous moniker. In 2008, she released her debut album The Fame to critical acclaim. The album reached 1st place in Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, and the U.K. as well as top 5 in Australia and the U.S.
Concert details
The tour locations included Germany, Canada, Tokyo, Seoul, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Greece, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K., as well as many other nations. By June of 2014, her tour was placed number four on the boxscore list, having grossed a total of $13.9 million and over 171,000 tickets sold (as reported by Billboard). The final figures show that the tour made $83 million USD in revenue.
The final concert of the tour was announced to be streamed live to audiences around on the world on Yahoo! Live andt the live stream broke viewer records for the search engine giant. Hatsune Miku opened for Gaga in over 15 cities in the United States and 3 cities in Canada, all to sold-out arenas. The tour reached Japan on August 13, and though Miku did not perform, the sold-out stadium enjoyed the sounds of pop band Momoiro Clover Z. The revenue earned from the two days in Japan were the most for any of the cities that Lady Gaga had visited, earning almost $8 million USD.
Lady Gaga and Hatsune Miku
In April 2014, Lady Gaga announced on Twitter that Hatsune Miku would be opening for her event. Fan reaction from Lady Gaga's side was mixed with the vocal majority condemning the collaboration while the majority of the Miku fanbase was elated to see that one of the most successful American pop artists in recent times invited Miku for her concert. That leg of the concert was in cooperation with Crypton Future Media, supplying the technology, and Sega, who supplied the modeling and design.
Lady Gaga has openly admitted to being a Hatsune Miku fan and will periodically upload photos of her with her Miku figurines or other merchandise on her social media accounts. Replies to her posts are mostly exceedingly positive. The collaboration was also made to help bridge the two pop music fanbases and encourage friendly interaction between them.
Reactions After the Tour
Many fans who shared their disapproval when the announcement was made ended up enjoying the concert in full, noting that while Hatsune Miku was a strange concept to them, she made for an entertaining evening. Clips of the event were uploaded to social media and YouTube which resulted in increased popularity of "Hatsune Miku" searches in America. The collaboration would spawn a series of memes where illustrations of Gaga and Miku would appear together with humorous dialogue.
Articles appeared almost immediately with many praising the visuals that Miku had brought to the tour. Some of the reviewers noted that it was difficult to fully enjoy the opening act as Miku was singing in mostly her native Japanese, and this detracted from the experience as they could not understand the lyrics but that her dancing and the music itself was suitable as an opening act for Lady Gaga.
Musicians and Producers
- Elekitel
- Guitar Hero Piano Zero
- kz (livetune)
- PolyphonicBranch
- ryo, supercell
Song list
| # | Song Title | Singer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Glass Wall | Miku Guitar | Hero Piano Zero |
| 02 | Two-Dimensional Dream Fever | Miku | PolyphonicBranch |
| 03 | World is Mine | Miku | ryo (supercell) |
| 04 | Story Rider | Miku | Elekitel |
| 05 | Yellow Yellow | Miku | kz (livetune) |
| 06 | Tell Your World | Miku | kz (livetune) |
References
VocaDB
ArtRave: The Artpop Ball - Wikipedia
NBC News
Fandom - Lady Gaga