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Do people really think The Fame and The Fame Monster are the same album?


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For the second time, I've seen a list of debut albums by "pop girls" that combined The Fame and The Fame Monster went quantifying sales for Lady Gaga's debut, which got me wondering if this is a common thought, or just an optimistic view by Gaga's.

The thinking seems to go something like: "It's clearly an extension of her debut (hence the name) and in some cases, both The Fame + Monster were sold together."  This obviously isn't super important, but just a few thoughts:

First, there seems to be a misunderstanding of what an EP is.  Yes, it stands for "extended play," but the name isn't referring to an "extension" of any particular work. The term comes from the vinyl era to differentiate between singles/45s (which only contained 2 songs; the main song and a B-side) and LP (also know as "long play" or "long playing," which we would consider a full album).  Usually they have 4-5 tracks.  The format was much more frequently used in the UK and didn't take off in the US until the digital era.  Honestly, to classify The Fame Monster as an EP at all is a stretch.  It has double the amount of songs of most EPs, and its running time of over 34 mins is very long for an EP.  As an example, Dirty Mind by Prince is considered his 3rd album, and it had 8 songs and a running time of 30 mins.  In fact, The Fame Monster violates the UK Official Chart Company's definition of EP, which restricts the running time to just 25 mins. 

Yes, The Fame and The Fame Monster were frequently bundled together, so it's also sometimes classified as a re-release of The Fame.  This obviously boosted sales of The Fame, and those sales should absolutely be counted for Gaga's debut effort.  It's a clever marketing tactic, and both albums were likely to benefit.  But from what I gather, when the video below tabulates these statistics, it's counting total TF and TFM sales and adding them together, which means the bundled editions would count as two copies of her debut.

Also, this idea that it's a continuation of her work is an interesting one.  That still doesn't make it the same album.  Meat Loaf's debut Bat out of Hell sales are never combined with his album Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell.  Janelle Monae's multiple Metropolis concept album series are never bundled together, even if the first release was an EP. Gaga herself called the album "conceptually different," and referred to it more as the ying and yang.  She even said she felt that re-releases were a disservice to music artists because "it's artists sneaking singles onto an already finished piece of work in an effort to keep the album afloat." 

I've also just not seen anyone else have any doubt that TFM was her follow-up album.  The Grammy Awards nominated each album for "Album of the Year" in separate years (2010/2011). 

I'm also a little dubious about the sale numbers listed in the video, even if you count TF and TFM together.  The figures I've seen look more like 22.5 million worldwide (14.3 million for TF and 8.3 million for TFM). 

Anyway, sorry for the long post on something so non-important :embarrassney_embarrassed_shame_guilt_hide_britney_karaoke_head_shake_no_smh: Just confused that this has happened more than once.

 

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The Fame Monster was released as a rerelease of The Fame in the UK, so when it 'charted' here the sales were just for The Fame. Wikipedia classes it as an 'EP' which I disagree with. I agree it's a separate album, and should be classed as her second album. Eight songs is more than enough for an album imo especially when they add up to 34 mins in total, there's been a lot of albums that are around 34-39 minutes in length. Gaga even did a separate tour for The Fame Monster, I mean, would anyone else really do a separate tour for a rerelease of an album? Any other artist would just have just extended the current tour for said album.

It's always weird to me to see people consider Born This Way as her 'second' album, when to me, it's her third. I know The Fame Monster was supposed to be a rerelease originally (but it still was in the UK as I just mentioned), but then Gaga opted to release it separately, which makes sense as the material on The Fame Monster was a lot darker compared to The Fame. Usually a rerelease of an album features material that still fits within the album's musical themes. Maybe if Gaga called the album simply 'Monster' and added more songs to the tracklisting people wouldn't be debating this ddd

Edited by Isla
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31 minutes ago, Mmdellavecchia said:

Exactly Same case with Lana and born to die Paradise edition . It's annoying for me when they count both as 1 album. One thing is to add a couple bonus tracks for an expanded edition , but to promote the thing as a whole new era is something different.

 

Seemed to be a bit of a thing back then as well, another example I can think of is Kesha with Animal and Cannibal. But I'm not a Kesha/Lana fan so I'm not sure what the deal is with Cannibal/Paradise and if they're considered separate albums or just rereleases of Animal/Born To Die.

Edited by Isla
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Yeah Lady Gaga didn’t debut with The Fame Monster so it shouldn’t count. There’s a Gaga fan that is commenting multiple times on that video saying it counts. Is this world wide sales? Because Britney is a global superstar when she debut while Gaga achieved more fame by the monster era. 

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5 hours ago, Isla said:

The Fame Monster was released as a rerelease of The Fame in the UK, so when it 'charted' here the sales were just for The Fame. Wikipedia classes it as an 'EP' which I disagree with. I agree it's a separate album, and should be classed as her second album. Eight songs is more than enough for an album imo especially when they add up to 34 mins in total, there's been a lot of albums that are around 34-39 minutes in length. Gaga even did a separate tour for The Fame Monster, I mean, would anyone else really do a separate tour for a rerelease of an album? Any other artist would just have just extended the current tour for said album.

It's always weird to me to see people consider Born This Way as her 'second' album, when to me, it's her third. I know The Fame Monster was supposed to be a rerelease originally (but it still was in the UK as I just mentioned), but then Gaga opted to release it separately, which makes sense as the material on The Fame Monster was a lot darker compared to The Fame. Usually a rerelease of an album features material that still fits within the album's musical themes. Maybe if Gaga called the album simply 'Monster' and added more songs to the tracklisting people wouldn't be debating this ddd

Rerelease in germany as well, the recordlabel released the ep alone in some countries, japan? 

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19 hours ago, Isla said:

The Fame Monster was released as a rerelease of The Fame in the UK, so when it 'charted' here the sales were just for The Fame. Wikipedia classes it as an 'EP' which I disagree with. I agree it's a separate album, and should be classed as her second album. Eight songs is more than enough for an album imo especially when they add up to 34 mins in total, there's been a lot of albums that are around 34-39 minutes in length. Gaga even did a separate tour for The Fame Monster, I mean, would anyone else really do a separate tour for a rerelease of an album? Any other artist would just have just extended the current tour for said album.

It's always weird to me to see people consider Born This Way as her 'second' album, when to me, it's her third. I know The Fame Monster was supposed to be a rerelease originally (but it still was in the UK as I just mentioned), but then Gaga opted to release it separately, which makes sense as the material on The Fame Monster was a lot darker compared to The Fame. Usually a rerelease of an album features material that still fits within the album's musical themes. Maybe if Gaga called the album simply 'Monster' and added more songs to the tracklisting people wouldn't be debating this ddd

2009 vs today's Music standards are different. 

 

2009 anything under 10 songs was an ep.

 

Over 10 songs and i believe 37 minutes was constantly an album.

 

Now you have albums that have 12 songs under 30 minutes. 

 

But i have seen a backlash coming now saying that's just ridiculous one minute songs should be interludes 

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33 minutes ago, Alexanda said:

Oh, okay, they used both covers for the rerelease where i'm from. 

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That cover was only available on her website. 

 

@Jordan Miller did you or anybody purchase that limited edition book they did for this. 

 

The photos, felt like a year book of what happened, hell she almost got arrested in Russia for a photo she did.

 

Came with both discs, but the playstation/Burned cd black (man those were fun, burning cds on pink cds or blue cds. )

 

And a lock of her wig, those i thought being who she was at the time, i thought it was a lock of her actual hair.

 

Only 10,000 was made, and individually numbered and 90.00 brand new in 2009

 

 

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2 hours ago, Spicechinodiva said:

That cover was only available on her website. 

 

@Jordan Miller did you or anybody purchase that limited edition book they did for this. 

 

The photos, felt like a year book of what happened, hell she almost got arrested in Russia for a photo she did.

 

Came with both discs, but the playstation/Burned cd black (man those were fun, burning cds on pink cds or blue cds. )

 

And a lock of her wig, those i thought being who she was at the time, i thought it was a lock of her actual hair.

 

Only 10,000 was made, and individually numbered and 90.00 brand new in 2009

 

 

In the US, yes. 

But we even had 2 The Fame versions (the fontcolor is different and Again Again was replaced with the american bonustracks: Paper Gangsta and Starstruck.) 

 

 

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18 minutes ago, Alexanda said:

In the US, yes. 

But we even had 2 The Fame versions (the fontcolor is different and Again Again was replaced with the american bonustracks: Paper Gangsta and Starstruck.) 

 

 

Were they American bonus tracks? Paper Gangsta and Starstruck were on The Fame in the UK. 

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28 minutes ago, Isla said:

Were they American bonus tracks? Paper Gangsta and Starstruck were on The Fame in the UK. 

Paper gangsta was definitely for the US.

 

It's hella shady now knowing it's about LA Reid dropping her From def jam.

 

He said it was a mistake, but he said it's a hip hop label and in 2005, you telling me this thing (that's who he described Gaga as) was gonna bring dance pop back to the US.

 

Like he said we already have Madonna, I didn't think Lady Gaga was needed. But she ended up being what 90s and gen z wanted in pop stars.

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I consider them to be two seperate albums since they had different covers and names, but it gets confusing because some countries sold them bundled together which means that The Fame Monster's sales are over-inflated as a result of some people counting The Fame's sales as The Fame Monster's sales. :britstare11_britney_ftr_for_the_record_annoyed_tired_irritated_sigh:

The Fame in general is just really confusing because there are many different versions of the album; the earliest printings had Again Again, but later versions didn't. Some of the later versions also had Paper Gangsta and Starstruck, and an updated version of Boys Boys Boys I think? :idgi_dont_get_it_how_confused_what_hmm_umm_thinking:

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56 minutes ago, Stefani said:

I consider them to be two seperate albums since they had different covers and names, but it gets confusing because some countries sold them as a single album bundled together which means that The Fame Monster's sales are over-inflated as a result of some people counting The Fame's sales as The Fame Monster's sales. :britstare11_britney_ftr_for_the_record_annoyed_tired_irritated_sigh:

The Fame in general is just really confusing because there are many different versions of the album; the earliest printings had Again Again, but later versions didn't. Some of the later versions also had Paper Gangsta and Starstruck, and an updated version of Boys Boys Boys think? :idgi_dont_get_it_how_confused_what_hmm_umm_thinking:

The many versions of The Fame are definitely confusing. Again Again was added back to the UK edition. There’s also Retro Dance Freak which is an Australian/Japanese bonus track.

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