RUPAUL RETURNS
Supermodel of the World and high-profile drag queen extraordinaire RuPaul has unveiled her long-player Born Naked, a high energy collection of 10 (mostly) thumping tracks that take the formula of Ru’s previous sounds and elevates them to the standards of today. Featuring a slew of guest stars (RuPaul’s Drag Race judge Michelle Visage, electro-pop king Frankmusik, living legend and all-time-icon Martha Bloody Wash and rap royalty Big Freedia, to name a few), the album peaks with the stunning ‘Sissy that Walk’, a high-octane track that sounds like it could have made a killer Girls Aloud single, and a song whose construction is meticulously crafted yet completely bonkers in its conviction.
Full of inspirational and affirmational (er…) lyrics, the best appear on the aforementioned ‘Sissy that Walk’ where Ru echoes her mother’s ultimate manifesto about being spoken about behind one’s back: “Don’t forget what my mamma said: People talkin’, since the beginning of time. Unless they payin’ your bills, pay them bitches no mind.”
In the immortal words of RuPaul herself, Born Naked is available now on iTunes.
LADY GAGA AND THE ARTRAVE
American pop songstress Lady Gaga has announced she is returning to Australia in August for her much anticipated ArtRave: The ARTPOP Ball tour. The tour will kick off in August, with most of the shows for the first-released dates selling out nationwide within minutes.
This will mark Gaga’s first trip back to Australia after 2012’s hugely successful Born This Way Ball tour, in which she impressively sold out four shows at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena. The album of the same title fared reasonably well in this country, but as has been proven once more with the quick-sell of the ARTPOP Ball tickets, album sales (or a lack of them) don’t necessarily equate to big ticket sales. Aussies love going to pop gigs, and Gaga has established herself as a killer live act in the two grand-scale tours and two promotional tours she has brought to this country. Regardless of whether the music buying public are ‘over’ what Gaga has to bring to their record stores, they WILL fork money out to see her live.
This time around Gaga’s offering her little monsters more variety in way of ticket packages: some tickets in the seated areas are priced at under $100, whilst your General Admission tickets total to around $170 – the same as they were for the Born This Way Ball. Of the newer style ticket offerings, the ‘Early Entry’ package – which entitles the bearer early entry to the venue prior to others with a General Admission ticket – comes in at just under $400, whilst the Holy Grail of the Meet and Greet packages – called The ARTPOP Zone – secures you a specialised “elevated” seat ON THE ACTUAL STAGE, rather than in front of it, which certainly sounds extremely innovative and the kind of spectacle that only Gaga could promise. On top of all that, you also get cocktails with Gaga in an intimate setting afterward and a professional photograph taken of you with the singer.
At time of print all tickets across Australia have sold out, but we predict several more dates will be added in the coming weeks. Naturally, being your Local One-Stop-Shop on all things Gaga, we’ll keep you posted.
CATFISH: THE CASEY DONOVAN STORY
Australian Idol winner and sometime-celebrity Casey Donovan has broken her silence on a six-year ordeal involving a fake engagement and a crazy, lesbian stalker named Olga. Spilling the beans to New Idea Magazine, Donovan explained she was in a relationship with a man for almost six years, only to discover the man who she’d been conversing with for all these years was actually a woman named Olga.
Casey even admitted to having sex with Olga at her fake-hubby’s request, claiming to have felt “dirty” and “used” after the event. The story reads in a complicated fashion and feels like there is perhaps ‘something missing’ from the overall narrative, but poor Donovan has put the prolonged Catfish experience down to having low self-esteem. So low that she was beside herself to hear somebody tell her they loved her.
It’s a sad, tragic story, but it certainly makes you wonder how this façade lasted for Six Years. SIX YEARS, FOLKS! Six bloody Years.
Casey’s autobiography hits shelves next month, but you can read more of her Catfish ordeal in the latest New Idea or – strangely – by visiting the UK’s Daily Mail online.
Written by Adem Ali