"I wanted to really put together a show that would be the most beautiful, expensive-looking, delicious show, but that my fans wouldn't have to pay a ton of money to come see."

And!

The theatrics and story elements are in the style of an opera. Imagine if you could take the sets of an opera, which are very grand and very beautiful, and put them through a pop-electro lens. The design of the show is very, very forward, very, very innovative. I've been thinking about ways to play with the shape of this stage and change the way that we watch things. So what I've done is I've designed a stage with Haus of Gaga that is essentially a frame with forced perspective, and the frame is put inside the stage.

The show will feature songs from her upcoming album, The Fame Monster, which is "much more personal" than her first CD. "Each one of these songs on my album represents a different demon that I've faced in myself," she explains. "I don't write about fame or money at all on this new record. So we talked about monsters and how, I believe, that innately we're all born with the monsters already inside of us - I guess in Christianity they call it original sin - the prospect that we will, at some point, sin in our lives, and we will, at some point, have to face our own demons, and they're already inside of us."

But some of Gaga's demons are on the outside: Her record label, for instance. The powers that be didn't want her to use this picture — in which her hair is brown — for her album.

It was World War III. They were like, "It's confusing, it's too dark, you look gothic, it's not pop," and I said, "You don't know what pop is, because everyone was telling me I wasn't pop last year, and now look - so don't tell me what pop is, I know what pop is." It's funny, because I fought and fought and fought, and I actually ended up having two covers, because I wanted to do this yin and yang presentation with the covers. When I go to see what my fans are saying, I go onto GagaDaily - they see the cover and say, "I don't really like the blonde one, but the brown one is fucking sick. They love it, and I know what they love, so I make it for them, I don't care what anybody else wants.

Dammit, stop making me love you! Anyway, rehearsals start next week and the tour begins November 27. While you're waiting, check out the short clip below, which Ms. Gaga made with filmmaker Kathryn Ferguson — the piano composition was created by Gaga just for the collaboration. And get your outfit ready for Gaga's arrival. She says of her show:

"It's going to be a truly artistic experience that is going to take the form of the greatest post-apocalyptic house party that you've ever been to."

Prepare To Go Gaga For Lady Gaga's New Tour [People]
Inside The Monster Ball: Lady Gaga Reveals Plans for Ambitious New Tour [Rolling Stone]
Dazed Digital Presents Lady Gaga [Dazed Digital]
The Monster Ball Tour Dates [Gaga Daily]

The Lady will perform on September 13 at this year's MTV Video Music Awards, and she's planning something big. In an interview with Newsweek's Ramin Setoodeh, she says: "I'm going to be performing one of the most recent singles off my album. But it's going to be a different and more dramatic interpretation. And it is most certainly rooted in New York-style performance art." Setoodeh asks — and who could blame him — "What does that mean?"

Gaga explains:

It's less of me singing the song, and more of an art installation. A performance-art piece. It's very well-designed and thought out, and we've been planning it for months and months. It is for me a very meaningful performance, [for] where I am in my career, as well as the experiences I've had, as well as the co-headlining tour I'm going on in the fall. […] I sort of have this philosophy about things: there's never a reason to do something unless it's going to be memorable, unless it's going to change things, unless it's going to inspire a movement. With the song and with the performance, I hope to say something very grave about fame and the price of it.

Does that clear anything up? Hell no. But even more cryptic is her answer to the question, "what are you going to wear?"

I would say that the fashion for the performance is a representation of the most stoic and memorable martyrs of fame in history. It's intended to be an iconic image that represents people. I think after watching the performance and maybe studying it after you watch it on YouTube, you'll see the references and the symbols come through.

And, when talking about her lighting scheme, Ms. Gaga says: "I like it to be moody. I like it to evoke an idea more than light my face. It's not about what you see. It's about what you don't see, and sometimes that vacant space can be very scary."

Perhaps you find it tiring to hear about her "philosophy," her "art," "symbols" and "meaning." Maybe it would be easier if she just said, "I'm going to dress like Joan of Arc. It's gonna be dope." But the other women topping the chart right now? Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift. Those two aren't exactly… interesting.

Back when that song "Beautiful" was all over the radio, a DJ friend of mine once said, "The devil didn't invent rock and roll for James Blunt." And I can't help but agree, as a woman raised on filthy Prince lyrics, Madonna writhing to "Like A Virgin" (at the VMAs!) and sexual innuendo in George Michael hits. Lots of people can sing. Lots of people write songs. Pop music should be more that that. Not a lot of people sing well, or write catchy songs; Lady Gaga does both. But more importantly: Lady Gaga makes it exciting. Titillating, unexpected. With Muppet coats, teacups, awful (untrue) hermaphrodite rumors and general pantslessness. Without her, pop would be a bland landscape right now. And think about it: People mocked what David Bowie and KISS wore, too. In addition, she uses her Haus of Gaga to "propel" friends and young designers into the spotlight, using her fame to further their careers.

You might think Lady Gaga is pretentious, a phony. But if she is, it's as someone once said of Holly Golightly: She's a real phony… She honestly believes all this phony junk that she believes. Asked, "How old were you when you first wanted to be famous?" Lady Gaga replies:

I think I was in my mother's womb. But it's not about fame, you see. It's about "The Fame." It's about a life of glamour. I believe in a glamorous life.

Lady Gaga Will Rock the VMAs [Newsweek]

Earlier: Questions About The High Fashion & Domestic Violence In Lady GaGa's Video
Before The Teacup & Blonde Wig, Pants Were Still A Problem
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Lady Gaga Visits The View

"I've never had to even think like a feminist because no one around me even thinks one [sex] is higher than the other." Yes, that's right. You are from Texas, and in the music industry, yet no one around you acts like women are inferior? Well: earlier in the interview, Kelly was faced with this question: "You once said that you sold more than 15 million records worldwide, and still nobody listens to what you have to say because 'I'm 25 and I'm a woman.' Do you consider the record industry to be a boys' club?" Ms. Clarkson answered thusly:

I just know for a fact ... why I said that was because I was actually on a phone call with two people who did not know I was on the phone, and I literally heard somebody I used to work with say, "Well, you know what, he can get away with it because it's a guy. She's a girl, so let's just face it, it's different." And I was like, "Is this the 1950s?" I hung up and didn't listen to the rest. I'm like,"I don't get it." No one thinks that ... and I'm from a frickin' Republican state. It's just sad. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the industry that do think like that. I absolutely know that for a truth because I heard it from their mouths. It's a blow to the stomach. It kind of hurts when you work so hard and take the high road so much ... it's lonely.

Confused? So is Kelly Clarkson, it seems. But not about her sexuality! She says: "People are like, 'Are you secretly a lesbian? Because I'd really love it.'" Alas: "I could never be a lesbian. I would never want to date [someone like] myself, ever. I'm a crazy person. I need some kind of stable, quiet man." Does that mean she'd date women, except they only come in one flavor, and that's batshitinsane? Oh, what about the fact that she's never been in love? "I don't think its very odd. I'm 26 years old," Kelly claims. "I just think I'd rather have quality than quantity."

Kelly Clarkson: "Not at all" a feminist [Feministing]
Kelly Clarkson says she "could never be a lesbian" [Reuters]
Kelly Clarkson Gets What She Wants [PopEater]

Lots of musicians have alter egos. Hank Williams had Luke the Drifter, Mariah Carey has Mimi, Marshall Mathers has Eminem and Slim Shady, David Bowie had Ziggy Stardust. But, writes Weiner:

Beyoncé's poppelgänger move on I Am…Sasha Fierce is, in the end, a huckster's feint: The so-called unguarded tracks offer us no deeper understanding of Beyoncé, unless you count the revelation, on the shivering power ballad "If I Were a Boy," that this booty-shaking, beauty-shop feminist has feelings, too, and that they that can be hurt. Beyoncé's personality split, at least as it's explored here, comes off like a talking point. […] So there's a scary subtext to Beyoncé's patently unrevealing "revealing" new album—is it that she won't take off her mask or that, after so many years in the spotlight, she can't?

Or even worse: Is it that there's nothing to see?

Doppelgänger Pop [Slate]
Earlier: Is The Meaning Behind Beyonce's Music Misunderstood?