24:32 No no, you were right, Byron is very much in love with Jasper. Now, in Byron's defense, Fay never told him that Jasper was his grandfather (and Edgar died, so he couldn't have told him either). As far as Byron knew, Jasper was just some guy who lived in their house.
Someone really should have told him the doll housed the soul of his own grandfather but I guess they never expected him to develop a romantic fixation for it. Although it's a bit funny that it never occurred to him the doll may have some relation to him, because how many would keep around a doll that housed the soul of a random person? (Maybe... more than I expect)
So Paul Shapera actually did do a Q&A just before the atompunk album came out and addressed this. If memory serves, Byron didn't know Jasper was his grandpa??? But also, Shapera did genuinely intend for it to be a replacement for fatherly love. In a moment of absolute hilarity, it wasn't until that moment on stage when someone asked him about it that he realized right then and there that he accidentally wrote it in a way that could be preeetty hardcore misconstrued. Bless the audience, too, nobody really seemed to have the heart to tell him that it was the *common* belief that it'd been intentionally written to look very much like an actual ship. This poor man clearly doesn't go onto any sort of internet fandoms nearly enough.
Personally, I would argue that stealing cadavers is perfectly normal for a university student of the time period. I mean chances are that knox was very much aware of what Burke and Hare doing, and that seem to him very little reputational harm.
@@LincolnTheNerd Just wait until you learn the secrets on Radio Hour, and Analogue consciousness..... Wait a damn second........ I RECOGNIZE YOUR PFP FROM NADS!
My initial guess based on the title and thumbnail was this was going to be about repo the genetic opera, but now I’m very excited to learn about another new thing
Prepare to dive down, down, down, into the rabbit hole of the Shaperaverse. Dolls of New Albion: A Steampunk Opera came out in 2012. Since then, over 35 albums (plus a few predating it) have come out, a few books, a podcast, and in July a cabaret live-show just wrapped up the story from the first album chronologically till now... and Paul Shapera is going on to the next story (still connected to all the original albums, but without the same Posthumans) with a space opera.
@@N3RDYG0GGLES I mean, except for the two books which I haven't purchased yet, I did. But it may take a few months to listen through everything from start to finish.
@@emmathomas2832 it is a WONDERFUL IDEA. However, you're going to want to just accept that if you can actually complete even half of it, you'll become part of the fandom and want to talk to other people about it, so you might as well join the New Albion Discordian Society by that point, if not sooner. Best of joy and luck in your endeavor!
@@Luciachan23 Edgar is really petty and vindictive to the point of "evil". He's straightforward with how you hate him. Byron is... a very clueless dumbass who seems totally unaware of the impact he has on the world around him. I really do feel bad for him a lot of the time, but... my god, "infuriating" is absolutely the word to describe him.
@@starlite-1up20x6 Byron has such self-centered problems. I can’t even take his activism seriously because it’s all just about his daddy issues. I’m begging this man to get therapy (and an actual fun or compelling musical motif that’s not his dad’s pitch song ripoff)
@@Luciachan23 I’ll freely admit Byron’s many, MANY issues, but are you really going to slander him like this by pretending his songs are anything less than top tier?
@@starlite-1up20x6 Yup, his act songs are my least favorite of the album. I love Edgar and Annabella’s motifs and Priscilla’s arc is clearly #1. Byron’s got…the second best voodoopunk song. He’s no Aunt Jackie.
I'm a simple man. I see Dolls of New Albion, and I click. Since you mentioned TMA, I just gotta share this knowledge that made me do an old-fashioned fannish "squee" when I heard it: _Jessica Law, the voice actor for Nikola Orsinov, IS IN A PAUL SHAPERA ALBUM._ She plays a character in the album "Nash Harding and the Secret of the Twisted Tower". She's in only one song, I think, but she's there!
I feel like you'd enjoy the work of (or have already heard of) The Mechanisms! They do sci-fi rock-opera musical adaptations of myths and stories: my personal favorite works of theirs are The Bifrost Incident, and High Noon over Camelot.
Oh man this was a (welcome) jumpscare to see on my reccs. As someone who has been deeply hyperfixated on all of Paul Shapera's works (the Shaperaverse) for quite some time, I'm excited to watch this. There's a ton of stuff under his belt, all interconnected in some way or another and it's all so very good. (And if anyone is looking to get into it, the first part of the Shaperaverse has just wrapped up and we're getting ready to enter a new era, his upcoming Space Opera set far in the future. Be warned. There's /a lot/ of stuff to listen to, to Get everything.)
Also here's the most recent updated flowchart of albums; cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/757356630567419906/1050495206878883880/NA_Listening_Guide_Smooshed.png
@@HalfDryad Yes, though when it was released it was very distant and distinct from his other works. Over the years since then it has slowly been stitched together with the larger Posthuman narrative. And thank fucking god for that, because now I have versions of the librarians' theme and The Hunt that *doesn't* have unfortunate snippets of someone pleasuring the Slenderman.
I can't say how much i love this opera , it's just so creepy , weird and ... relatable , i mean , yeah Annabel IS crazy but i can't say i don't relate to her and all the drama about parents who just want results , and the way the story interconects and the songs are composed , it's just too addictive . I'm not much into that shaperaverse but someday , maybe someday , i'll listen to his other works .
You show one clip of Edgar and I immediately had to google if that was Tim Ledsam of The Mechanisms (Gunpowder Tim). It was. I can't believe I recognized him from literally a single note, I wasn't even looking at the screen. If I wasn't already sold I am now.
17:32 "Necromancy? More like necroFUNcy! Perfect business opprtunity to necrofund me!" (Clicking on this video was my first introduction to this musical and I'm less than 20 minutes in to the video, but thats how I assume he said it...)
As one of your newer subscribers, I can assure you that listening to you ramble about things that I've never seen or heard of is exactly what I'm here for.
woah i wasn’t expecting to see new albion mentioned out in the wild, especially from a creator i’ve only started following recently?? i have yet to watch the video but this is gonna be real fun i think :)! i like some of the later shaperaverse musicals better but DoNA still slaps. music
update: it was indeed very fun!! i got jumpscared by gunpowder tim/tim ledsam (from the band the mechanisms who did narrative musical albums in a similar fashion) as edgar, i completely forgot he was in that one production?? still wild to me!! anyway the mcallisters are such a dumpsterfire in such a compelling way. great call to use jasper as the audience conduit because the story is soooo extremely wild from his perspective. he was just some guy!! he didn’t ask for any of this!!
15:58 fun fact! The production you used, the man who plays Edgar is a member of the Mechanisms, which is a band that features Jonny Sims (Mr. Magnus Archive himself) as the lead singer, it all loops back to TMA
I looooove Dolls of New Albion, but for me the one I stuck to out of the tetralogy was New Albion Radio Hour. I think I got nearly as attached to that one as you did to Dolls!
I knew it was coming, even before you said I wasn’t gonna like it, but you’re right, I don’t like it that Edgar brought us back again and married our daughter
Thanks to you, I found out about this musical my sophomore year and obsessed over it. It has been a year and I still love it, I listen to at least 1 song from it daily.
My favorite, as well. You made a few things clear that I didn't get from watching a few of the productions. Didn't realize that Fay's father, whom Edgar brought back, was Jasper. Makes a lot more sense now. That Edgar was a real bastard. He may have gotten Fay, but noway will she ever love him. He chose to claim an empty prize. I hope to hell he burns like her heart burns. Good video about one of my favorite steampunk operas!
As long time (7 years) fan of The Dolls of New Albion and almost super fan of Paul Shapera's work I am so so so happy that someone else is talking about his works. Because I never shutup about them and I think my friends are tired of listening to me bringing it up every time someone breathes Edit: Everyone Please also listen to Miss Helen's Weird West Cabaret and Fairy tales for Homeless Faeries
It's amazing to hear more people learn about the Shaperaverse. I'm a huge New Albion fan, to the point of doing a two year long dnd campaign in the setting, pretty much going over the tetrology of the operas with my best friend and sisters. Aaand I'm planning on jumping back in in a different play style, this one more the Ballad of Lost Hollow. Edit: Also you'll be happy to know in the campaign Byron was dragged into the flames of his burning house by a Dollified Fay, off screen. The party learns about it over the radio.
I totally relate to having an obscure escapism musical you obsess over, my personal musical escapism obsession is the musical adaptation of The Lightning Thief, all the songs are bangers
My sister has been obsessed with Once Upon a Time almost as much as you are obsessed with Dolls of New Albion. That is to say my ears perked right the hell up when I heard you say you're making a huge ass video on it. Congratulations on the channel growth. I caught your Ice Age video last month in my algorithm and immediately got hooked to your personality. You've got a great sense of humor and your expressiveness is really fun to watch. Especially in this video. I had a good time listening to you geek the hell out over this strange musical I've never heard of before. Hope you make that Supernatural video somewhere down the line too.
2:25 Literally me, like to a tee. I can sing the entire thing in one take to this day, I love it so so much. I relate so hard I love the images I have in my head of the musical
every since my brother introduced me to the shaperaverse when i was in elementary school, i've been *obsessed* with the whole thing lmao keep listening to the new stuff, relisten to the old stuff, i stumble across new little pieces of lore and connections with each pass. i love it sm
Having not listened to this musical for about a decade and with much less context at the time, this is a great rediscovery. Can't wait to hear the other installments!
I just listened to the whole album/opera again yesterday, maybe for the tenth time since I came across it years ago, and it still blows my mind how good it is. Every other song is a banger, and the story is both unique, touching, and covers some of the most fundamental topics of human existence. Still one of my favorite albums of all time. I'd be so happy to some day see a live performance, and I'm glad it is getting more of the recognition it so well deserves.
Haley, you are such a fucking treasure and talented creator! Thank you for all the work you put into these videos; it's very apparent these are a labor of love. ❤
slenderman is not in new albion but his mom is indirectly responsible for a lot of whay happens in new albion if you think about it edit: BIG agreements on enjoying artists creating weird passion stuff. its great. also this never came up but the narrator of radio hour is a doll! and that is not a spoiler bc i dont think it literally ever gets brought up
Not in the same Narrative, but still linked through many threads, yes. There are a few albums not in the New Albion Narrative that still overlap because of characters in them.
@@remnants9974 Raven mentioned Sarah in The Path (from Lost Hollow to New Albion), she was in the short stories, and in addition to Slenderman, she was in The Posthuman War, which is her chronological first appearance.
All my favorite youtubers are people that ramble on about weird topics that I don't know exist or care at all about but they super love them and then I wind up kind of loving them too...
i automatically subscribed just bc i have NEVER seen anyone talking about this album AND IT'S ONE OF MY FAVORITES!!! I've been hyperfixated with dolls of new albion for sooooooooo long and to me it's just amazing what Paul Saphera wrote all that in times like this, where operas and albums telling stories aren't that visible. He has more albums that i think it's worth to talk about cause he's a very talented musician too, hope you talk about them soon. i'll check your content as soon as i finish this video, you seem like a really nice person. Thank you for the video!!!!
Please, do a longer video on the greater Shaperaverse. I have so many hours of extraneous rock opera lore burned into my head, and I need someone to spread it to others.
I think I read about this musical while doing a musical theatre research project in highschool and your video has brought this crazy amazing thing back to me
i managed to start my paul shapera dive at Miss Helen's Weird West Cabaret due to the simple fact that Tim Ledsam (gunpowder tim from the mechanisms) made a cameo lol
I would love to see you explain the others in the tetrology in a similar way, they're all just as wild and have just as complicated family relations happen
stoped 5 minutes in to go listen to the whole musical, and holy shit it’s so good. it’s a wild ride and a super fun listen. after i finished this vid, i’m for sure gonna listen to the sequels lol. thx sm for introducing this to more ppl
Never heard of!? I've been scheming for ways to trick my friends into watching this with me for at least a year now! It is great though, I love Dolls of New Albion, it's one of my favorites.
A WHOLE NEW ALBION VIDEO ESSAY??? HELL YES!!!! to anyone in the comments who wants to see this crazy show for themselves, allow me to humbly offer (and shamelessly self-promote) the UMass Amherst production of DoNA that I was part of last spring! i got to work with some absolutely PHENOMENAL actors and singers, and since Jasper is Haley's fave I should mention that our Jasper was INCREDIBLE and put SO much emotion and skill into the role.. it was a beautiful passion project for all of us :) xoxo, the narrator
Omg. I just recently found your channel (And have been binge watching for days now), loving every bit of it and now I see that you recap and review Dolls of New Albion! A musical i've never seen anyone else ever friggin' know. I love it here.
This musical was my *life* in late middleschool - early highschool, when I was *deep* in my steampunk phase and going through a lot (I still like the genre to this day, but I'm not as deep in it as I was at that age). It got me into sewing and cosplay. I genuinely have so much love in my heart for this musical, even now that I'm 23. This video took me back! Wonderful job! 👌
Haley your content is so funny I bloody adore it, never change! also your content is really good to fall asleep too but I also love watching how excited you get when doing these videos so I just start watching the video and forego the sleep anyways.
I’ve had this musical sitting in my Spotify library for like 2 years and haven’t gotten around to listening to it, but you’ve convinced me to finally give it a go - especially since I’m working on writing my first musical and need to consume as much musical theatre content as possible lol. Loved the video, super entertaining and you have a very captivating personality!
god i hope you do videos on the rest of the shaperaverse stuff, this is the first time i've ever heard about it and this video got me so invested in the #lore and i want to know more so badly
I found you because of the Baldur's Gate and Venom videos. And now searching for anyone else that might've known about his obscure musical I see you had already done a video on it! Crazy, great work!
Oh man, someone finally talked about that one musical that I came across when I got weirdly into steampunk music almost a decade ago, listen to a bunch, never watched and forgot about. This was really cool.
I'm so happy you included that transition from "Annabelle's Doll," it's so good. I'm thrilled to hear someone else talk about this musical because it rules
Great video! I love Paul Shapera musicals so much, because from my experience people either don't like it, or have a big wall covered in pictures and red string after having listened to all gajilion musicals. There is no in between.
I looked up the musical again, and stumbled on this, and just wanted to say that it's a real delight. I haven't looked at Shapera's other work much, but really should. I appreciate that you are so passionate about it, and I especially appreciated what you said about "weird" art. I absolutely agree that you should support obscure artists doing something different. You really made my day.
gd this gives me HUUUGE mechs vibes and i love it. clicked on the video because i am a lover of obscure musicals (razias fan) and i love some good fucked up necromancy and this sounds so cool
OHMYGOD for an entire month in like middle school this musical was literally the only thing i listened to it was insane, i was sooo not expecting to see a video about it !! not to mention that gunpowder tim from the mechanisms was also in one of the stage productions of new albion !! i was veryyy into high-concept steampunk cabaret in middle school ig
I never expected to see anyone talk about Dolls of New Albion, I expected even less for it the be Whipjack. I’ve loved this show for years and have wanted to stage it but I thought I was one of very few who knew it existed! I also love that the protagonist is Jasper, an inanimate doll with a trapped soul in it that learns to re-find his humanity after being unceremoniously plucked from death and forced to live once more.
I found dolls of new Albion through the Mechanisms actually cus Tim was in a production of it- oh u used clips from that production lol (the first clip the guy w long hair and the goggles)
There have been moments where I have semi-seriously considered learning how to draw solely to make those animatic music videos that all the popular musicals get so that I can urge reaction channels to react to Shaperaverse musicals and spread the brainrot. And just to be clear, I tried to get into art over 10 years ago and I hated it. I know I do not like to draw. But fuck it, there are not enough Shaperaverse music videos on youtube, *someone* has to do them. Worst case scenario it might have to be me.
Hello! Casual little member from the dedicated cult following here ^_^ loved the storytelling choice to describe the events as if the audience was Jasper! Brilliantly done, I throughly enjoyed watching your video
I absolutely love this musical. Grew up enjoying it and have never met another soul who watched it. I haven't seen this video on it yet because I just found your channel but I recognized the eye immediately.
i clicked on your channel for the bg3 video, didn't expect a video about this too. I've been a fan of paul for ages, glad to see him get more recognition!
Ho boy, this one musical nobody's heard of is only the beginning of a rabbit whole that transcends this one narrative we live in
…a whole rabbit?
@@yungoldman2823 A whole typo! How very NADS!
24:32 No no, you were right, Byron is very much in love with Jasper. Now, in Byron's defense, Fay never told him that Jasper was his grandfather (and Edgar died, so he couldn't have told him either). As far as Byron knew, Jasper was just some guy who lived in their house.
Someone really should have told him the doll housed the soul of his own grandfather but I guess they never expected him to develop a romantic fixation for it.
Although it's a bit funny that it never occurred to him the doll may have some relation to him, because how many would keep around a doll that housed the soul of a random person?
(Maybe... more than I expect)
So Paul Shapera actually did do a Q&A just before the atompunk album came out and addressed this. If memory serves, Byron didn't know Jasper was his grandpa??? But also, Shapera did genuinely intend for it to be a replacement for fatherly love. In a moment of absolute hilarity, it wasn't until that moment on stage when someone asked him about it that he realized right then and there that he accidentally wrote it in a way that could be preeetty hardcore misconstrued. Bless the audience, too, nobody really seemed to have the heart to tell him that it was the *common* belief that it'd been intentionally written to look very much like an actual ship. This poor man clearly doesn't go onto any sort of internet fandoms nearly enough.
Fun Fact: Jasper was a really skilled Gardner before he died, and he was working on opening a botanical garden
Wait is that true 😂
@@N3RDYG0GGLES yup! There is a huge amount of lore for everything.
Oh did he grow the sentient flower that went to find enlightenment in the radio show?
@Briggsy-pq2ht not in radio Hour but there is a snippet about what happened to it.
Personally, I would argue that stealing cadavers is perfectly normal for a university student of the time period.
I mean chances are that knox was very much aware of what Burke and Hare doing, and that seem to him very little reputational harm.
What! Someone's talking about Dolls of New Albion? That's insane, i thought i was the only one cursed with the task of remembering it's existense.
So, fun thing. Jasper was a reincarnation of the Gamblers, and Priscilla was a Reincarnation of the Monk
:O
I KNEW IT!
@@LincolnTheNerd Just wait until you learn the secrets on Radio Hour, and Analogue consciousness.....
Wait a damn second........
I RECOGNIZE YOUR PFP FROM NADS!
My initial guess based on the title and thumbnail was this was going to be about repo the genetic opera, but now I’m very excited to learn about another new thing
Also yes to transformer content
i love your recording setup so much, its so cool and casual and just feels like my friend is telling me about something insane
everyone deserves a friend who will get out a whiteboard to properly explain something in a needlessly complicated way
As somebody without a whiteboard but with a plethora of things to explain needlessly and complicatedly, I agree.@@haleywhipjack
Dolls is one of the least insane things in the Shaperaverse. XD
Or like a work from home professor who really likes to write on a white board.
Prepare to dive down, down, down, into the rabbit hole of the Shaperaverse. Dolls of New Albion: A Steampunk Opera came out in 2012. Since then, over 35 albums (plus a few predating it) have come out, a few books, a podcast, and in July a cabaret live-show just wrapped up the story from the first album chronologically till now... and Paul Shapera is going on to the next story (still connected to all the original albums, but without the same Posthumans) with a space opera.
Good gods I will never catch up with the lore will I 😂
@@N3RDYG0GGLES I mean, except for the two books which I haven't purchased yet, I did. But it may take a few months to listen through everything from start to finish.
My brain has decided to read this as a challenge which seems like a bad idea
@@emmathomas2832 it is a WONDERFUL IDEA. However, you're going to want to just accept that if you can actually complete even half of it, you'll become part of the fandom and want to talk to other people about it, so you might as well join the New Albion Discordian Society by that point, if not sooner. Best of joy and luck in your endeavor!
@@mixofreak noooo don't encourage me (I'll get back to you in 3 months)
"I do like Byron... I have complicated feelings about Byron."
This is the absolute mood for Byron, it's perfect. Loved everything about this video!
I despise Byron; he’s my pet peeve character. His dad is way worse but oh boy is Byron more infuriating.
@@Luciachan23 Edgar is really petty and vindictive to the point of "evil". He's straightforward with how you hate him.
Byron is... a very clueless dumbass who seems totally unaware of the impact he has on the world around him. I really do feel bad for him a lot of the time, but... my god, "infuriating" is absolutely the word to describe him.
@@starlite-1up20x6 Byron has such self-centered problems.
I can’t even take his activism seriously because it’s all just about his daddy issues. I’m begging this man to get therapy (and an actual fun or compelling musical motif that’s not his dad’s pitch song ripoff)
@@Luciachan23 I’ll freely admit Byron’s many, MANY issues, but are you really going to slander him like this by pretending his songs are anything less than top tier?
@@starlite-1up20x6 Yup, his act songs are my least favorite of the album. I love Edgar and Annabella’s motifs and Priscilla’s arc is clearly #1. Byron’s got…the second best voodoopunk song. He’s no Aunt Jackie.
I'm a simple man. I see Dolls of New Albion, and I click. Since you mentioned TMA, I just gotta share this knowledge that made me do an old-fashioned fannish "squee" when I heard it: _Jessica Law, the voice actor for Nikola Orsinov, IS IN A PAUL SHAPERA ALBUM._ She plays a character in the album "Nash Harding and the Secret of the Twisted Tower". She's in only one song, I think, but she's there!
also tim ledsam (jordan kennedy, gunpowder tim) is playing edgar at 18:49 !!
@@hydrategeaOh, I'm very aware! That was the first production of it I watched.
I feel like you'd enjoy the work of (or have already heard of) The Mechanisms! They do sci-fi rock-opera musical adaptations of myths and stories: my personal favorite works of theirs are The Bifrost Incident, and High Noon over Camelot.
Oh man this was a (welcome) jumpscare to see on my reccs. As someone who has been deeply hyperfixated on all of Paul Shapera's works (the Shaperaverse) for quite some time, I'm excited to watch this. There's a ton of stuff under his belt, all interconnected in some way or another and it's all so very good. (And if anyone is looking to get into it, the first part of the Shaperaverse has just wrapped up and we're getting ready to enter a new era, his upcoming Space Opera set far in the future. Be warned. There's /a lot/ of stuff to listen to, to Get everything.)
Also Slenderman Musical isn't set in New Albion but does have interconnected stuff to the rest of the universe!
Also here's the most recent updated flowchart of albums; cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/757356630567419906/1050495206878883880/NA_Listening_Guide_Smooshed.png
@@HalfDryad Yes, though when it was released it was very distant and distinct from his other works. Over the years since then it has slowly been stitched together with the larger Posthuman narrative. And thank fucking god for that, because now I have versions of the librarians' theme and The Hunt that *doesn't* have unfortunate snippets of someone pleasuring the Slenderman.
No way! Is that Gunpowder Tim?
Yes. Several of the Mechs sing on Paul's albums, and Paul even had a few lines in the Bifrost incident
I actually started listening to Paul shapera's Miss Helen's Wild West Cabernet because gunpowder Tim made a cameo :P
I can't say how much i love this opera , it's just so creepy , weird and ... relatable , i mean , yeah Annabel IS crazy but i can't say i don't relate to her and all the drama about parents who just want results , and the way the story interconects and the songs are composed , it's just too addictive . I'm not much into that shaperaverse but someday , maybe someday , i'll listen to his other works .
Honestly the idea of mixing necromancy and steampunk sounds like an amazing idea, especially in a fantasy or dnd setting
Shoutout to this video for sending me down the New Albion/Shaperaverse pipeline
You show one clip of Edgar and I immediately had to google if that was Tim Ledsam of The Mechanisms (Gunpowder Tim). It was. I can't believe I recognized him from literally a single note, I wasn't even looking at the screen. If I wasn't already sold I am now.
you said "magnus archives" and i sprinted to your patreon, an excellent plug
Haley - "How about a half hour about a MUSICAL nobody's heard of?"
Me - "You daughter of a bastard.... I'm in."
17:32 "Necromancy? More like necroFUNcy! Perfect business opprtunity to necrofund me!"
(Clicking on this video was my first introduction to this musical and I'm less than 20 minutes in to the video, but thats how I assume he said it...)
As one of your newer subscribers, I can assure you that listening to you ramble about things that I've never seen or heard of is exactly what I'm here for.
A review of The Dolls of New Albion was not something I was expecting to happen, but I'm very excited that it did
actually obsessed with the 2nd person youtube video format
At 20:15 "We can't bring him back twice". Do I have news for you.
woah i wasn’t expecting to see new albion mentioned out in the wild, especially from a creator i’ve only started following recently?? i have yet to watch the video but this is gonna be real fun i think :)! i like some of the later shaperaverse musicals better but DoNA still slaps. music
update: it was indeed very fun!! i got jumpscared by gunpowder tim/tim ledsam (from the band the mechanisms who did narrative musical albums in a similar fashion) as edgar, i completely forgot he was in that one production?? still wild to me!!
anyway the mcallisters are such a dumpsterfire in such a compelling way. great call to use jasper as the audience conduit because the story is soooo extremely wild from his perspective. he was just some guy!! he didn’t ask for any of this!!
15:58 fun fact! The production you used, the man who plays Edgar is a member of the Mechanisms, which is a band that features Jonny Sims (Mr. Magnus Archive himself) as the lead singer, it all loops back to TMA
No because I had the video playing in the background and when Edgar started singing I whipped around like “TIM?!” LMAO
Nikola's VA was in a shaperaverse album! And paul himself had a tiny cameo in the bifrost incident
I didn't catch you saying "The Magnus Archives" at first, but still got it by seeing the Fears listed.
I looooove Dolls of New Albion, but for me the one I stuck to out of the tetralogy was New Albion Radio Hour. I think I got nearly as attached to that one as you did to Dolls!
For me the one I always relisten to is Act 3 of GTAC. Gotta get that sweet sweet devastation in my day to day life!
Radio Hour is what really got me hooked, too! and its narrator remains my favorite character in the series
@@SpookiestAlice Lloyd our beloved!
@@cyqry he's my special little guy! my poor little meow meow! im currently making him suffer with one of my friends (:
(also this is spooky from nads)
@@SpookiestAlice Spooky friend! :D
I knew it was coming, even before you said I wasn’t gonna like it, but you’re right, I don’t like it that Edgar brought us back again and married our daughter
He's in the business of Necromancy, let's take it from the top
He's got a body like a mannequin, it's ticking like a clock
I can **hear** Misery Business’s sound to this comment-
Thanks to you, I found out about this musical my sophomore year and obsessed over it. It has been a year and I still love it, I listen to at least 1 song from it daily.
"I'm just here to keep you company as you do laundry"
Me: Stop calling me out Haley!!
FINALLY THE DOLLS OF NEW ALBION ON MY PAGE.
THE EXVITEMEMT J FEEL WHENEVER ANYONE TALKS ABOUT DOLLS OF NEW ALBION OH MY GOG
My favorite, as well. You made a few things clear that I didn't get from watching a few of the productions. Didn't realize that Fay's father, whom Edgar brought back, was Jasper. Makes a lot more sense now. That Edgar was a real bastard. He may have gotten Fay, but noway will she ever love him. He chose to claim an empty prize. I hope to hell he burns like her heart burns. Good video about one of my favorite steampunk operas!
Apparently Fay DID get her revenge on Edgar. She poisoned him slowly until he finally kicked it.
Hearing you ramble about the things you love is why i am here and what makes my work tolerable lol
As long time (7 years) fan of The Dolls of New Albion and almost super fan of Paul Shapera's work I am so so so happy that someone else is talking about his works. Because I never shutup about them and I think my friends are tired of listening to me bringing it up every time someone breathes
Edit: Everyone Please also listen to Miss Helen's Weird West Cabaret and Fairy tales for Homeless Faeries
And Michael's Secret Stories! Nash is probably one of my favorite Paul Shapera musicals
a friend of mine was in the 2019 production of this show, so this was such a wild reccomendation to appear on my feed
It's amazing to hear more people learn about the Shaperaverse.
I'm a huge New Albion fan, to the point of doing a two year long dnd campaign in the setting, pretty much going over the tetrology of the operas with my best friend and sisters. Aaand I'm planning on jumping back in in a different play style, this one more the Ballad of Lost Hollow.
Edit: Also you'll be happy to know in the campaign Byron was dragged into the flames of his burning house by a Dollified Fay, off screen. The party learns about it over the radio.
I totally relate to having an obscure escapism musical you obsess over, my personal musical escapism obsession is the musical adaptation of The Lightning Thief, all the songs are bangers
My sister has been obsessed with Once Upon a Time almost as much as you are obsessed with Dolls of New Albion. That is to say my ears perked right the hell up when I heard you say you're making a huge ass video on it.
Congratulations on the channel growth. I caught your Ice Age video last month in my algorithm and immediately got hooked to your personality. You've got a great sense of humor and your expressiveness is really fun to watch. Especially in this video. I had a good time listening to you geek the hell out over this strange musical I've never heard of before. Hope you make that Supernatural video somewhere down the line too.
2:25 Literally me, like to a tee. I can sing the entire thing in one take to this day, I love it so so much. I relate so hard I love the images I have in my head of the musical
Damn, Haley what a memory digger! I seeked this musical after hearing the New Albion 1 song in Wiremux's steampunk playlist!!
Damn, that playlist is a throwback
Can you do the rest of series? I love the musical series SO much but no one else shares my love and hearing you talk about it fills such a void. ❤🖤✨
i’m learning so many things about myself today
every since my brother introduced me to the shaperaverse when i was in elementary school, i've been *obsessed* with the whole thing lmao
keep listening to the new stuff, relisten to the old stuff, i stumble across new little pieces of lore and connections with each pass. i love it sm
putting the cat in the thumbnail is a genius move, i never saw the musical but the kitty made me watch the video
Having not listened to this musical for about a decade and with much less context at the time, this is a great rediscovery. Can't wait to hear the other installments!
“How did Annabelle make both those decisions?” She grew up, she matured.
I just listened to the whole album/opera again yesterday, maybe for the tenth time since I came across it years ago, and it still blows my mind how good it is. Every other song is a banger, and the story is both unique, touching, and covers some of the most fundamental topics of human existence. Still one of my favorite albums of all time. I'd be so happy to some day see a live performance, and I'm glad it is getting more of the recognition it so well deserves.
i’ve been singing “i would have had the lime pie but i was dying inside” randomly for YEARS
How on earth have I never known there was a steampunk and dieselpunk musical?
Haley, you are such a fucking treasure and talented creator! Thank you for all the work you put into these videos; it's very apparent these are a labor of love. ❤
Please do a whole series about all of Paul Shapera's muscials
slenderman is not in new albion but his mom is indirectly responsible for a lot of whay happens in new albion if you think about it
edit: BIG agreements on enjoying artists creating weird passion stuff. its great. also this never came up but the narrator of radio hour is a doll! and that is not a spoiler bc i dont think it literally ever gets brought up
Not in the same Narrative, but still linked through many threads, yes. There are a few albums not in the New Albion Narrative that still overlap because of characters in them.
I think they mention it at the end of the Fairypunk trilogy sort of.
@@remnants9974 Raven mentioned Sarah in The Path (from Lost Hollow to New Albion), she was in the short stories, and in addition to Slenderman, she was in The Posthuman War, which is her chronological first appearance.
@@mixofreak I meant about Loyd
@@remnants9974Oh! Then yeah, it does there, in The Lost Fairy.
"little cult" .... debatable
I'm gonna say that I, jasper, died in a baking accident.
I appreciate the additional musical reference. 😆
@@TheNitpickChick eyyyyyy someone got it
All my favorite youtubers are people that ramble on about weird topics that I don't know exist or care at all about but they super love them and then I wind up kind of loving them too...
i automatically subscribed just bc i have NEVER seen anyone talking about this album AND IT'S ONE OF MY FAVORITES!!! I've been hyperfixated with dolls of new albion for sooooooooo long and to me it's just amazing what Paul Saphera wrote all that in times like this, where operas and albums telling stories aren't that visible.
He has more albums that i think it's worth to talk about cause he's a very talented musician too, hope you talk about them soon.
i'll check your content as soon as i finish this video, you seem like a really nice person. Thank you for the video!!!!
Please, do a longer video on the greater Shaperaverse. I have so many hours of extraneous rock opera lore burned into my head, and I need someone to spread it to others.
I think I read about this musical while doing a musical theatre research project in highschool and your video has brought this crazy amazing thing back to me
i managed to start my paul shapera dive at Miss Helen's Weird West Cabaret due to the simple fact that Tim Ledsam (gunpowder tim from the mechanisms) made a cameo lol
The only youtuber I have push notifications on for, genuinely excited for this one.
23:47 ASDSASDFGH the way you spoke here, it was your soul AUDIBLY leaving your body,,,, when i say i *wheezed* ???
I would love to see you explain the others in the tetrology in a similar way, they're all just as wild and have just as complicated family relations happen
stoped 5 minutes in to go listen to the whole musical, and holy shit it’s so good. it’s a wild ride and a super fun listen. after i finished this vid, i’m for sure gonna listen to the sequels lol. thx sm for introducing this to more ppl
Never heard of!? I've been scheming for ways to trick my friends into watching this with me for at least a year now! It is great though, I love Dolls of New Albion, it's one of my favorites.
I KNOW THIS MUSICAL!!!
I genuinely yelped when I saw this in my subscription!!!
*pushes you back into the NADS box*
I literally gasped when i saw the thumbnail
Same here!
A WHOLE NEW ALBION VIDEO ESSAY??? HELL YES!!!! to anyone in the comments who wants to see this crazy show for themselves, allow me to humbly offer (and shamelessly self-promote) the UMass Amherst production of DoNA that I was part of last spring! i got to work with some absolutely PHENOMENAL actors and singers, and since Jasper is Haley's fave I should mention that our Jasper was INCREDIBLE and put SO much emotion and skill into the role.. it was a beautiful passion project for all of us :) xoxo, the narrator
got this concept stuck in my head again and couldnt remember the name-- had to dig around to re-find this video!!!!! thank you!!
Omg. I just recently found your channel (And have been binge watching for days now), loving every bit of it and now I see that you recap and review Dolls of New Albion! A musical i've never seen anyone else ever friggin' know. I love it here.
The fandom lives on a discord server! The link to it is on Paul Shapera's website
I love the New Albion series! I never thought anyone else knew about it!
You truly called me out on the doing laundry while listening 😂. I love your content it feels like a friend just ranting it’s so great
I found this musical when listening to a steampunk playlist! I always thought it was really cool and wanted to see it live.
Love this channel, and now i feel the compulsion to understand everything there is to know about new Albion
This musical was my *life* in late middleschool - early highschool, when I was *deep* in my steampunk phase and going through a lot (I still like the genre to this day, but I'm not as deep in it as I was at that age). It got me into sewing and cosplay. I genuinely have so much love in my heart for this musical, even now that I'm 23. This video took me back! Wonderful job! 👌
Haley your content is so funny I bloody adore it, never change! also your content is really good to fall asleep too but I also love watching how excited you get when doing these videos so I just start watching the video and forego the sleep anyways.
I’ve had this musical sitting in my Spotify library for like 2 years and haven’t gotten around to listening to it, but you’ve convinced me to finally give it a go - especially since I’m working on writing my first musical and need to consume as much musical theatre content as possible lol. Loved the video, super entertaining and you have a very captivating personality!
god i hope you do videos on the rest of the shaperaverse stuff, this is the first time i've ever heard about it and this video got me so invested in the #lore and i want to know more so badly
I love this musical and I'm so happy someone's talking about it!
I found you because of the Baldur's Gate and Venom videos. And now searching for anyone else that might've known about his obscure musical I see you had already done a video on it! Crazy, great work!
Oh man, someone finally talked about that one musical that I came across when I got weirdly into steampunk music almost a decade ago, listen to a bunch, never watched and forgot about. This was really cool.
I'm so happy you included that transition from "Annabelle's Doll," it's so good. I'm thrilled to hear someone else talk about this musical because it rules
That bracelet/hand jewelry thing is so cool!
I love listening to you rant about wild and obscure musicals 😭
Great video! I love Paul Shapera musicals so much, because from my experience people either don't like it, or have a big wall covered in pictures and red string after having listened to all gajilion musicals. There is no in between.
I looked up the musical again, and stumbled on this, and just wanted to say that it's a real delight. I haven't looked at Shapera's other work much, but really should. I appreciate that you are so passionate about it, and I especially appreciated what you said about "weird" art. I absolutely agree that you should support obscure artists doing something different. You really made my day.
gd this gives me HUUUGE mechs vibes and i love it. clicked on the video because i am a lover of obscure musicals (razias fan) and i love some good fucked up necromancy and this sounds so cool
Fun Fact: some of the mechs have sung on Paul's albums, and he had a few lines in bifrost
"rambling about things that i love and think about so much" is my ideal video genre (especially when i have no clue about it), don't worry about it
i used to create set/light designs for the trilogy and play with them like dolls in my head
OHMYGOD for an entire month in like middle school this musical was literally the only thing i listened to it was insane, i was sooo not expecting to see a video about it !! not to mention that gunpowder tim from the mechanisms was also in one of the stage productions of new albion !! i was veryyy into high-concept steampunk cabaret in middle school ig
I've been vibing to Paul Shapera's post-human universe for so long 😁
I've been obsessed with the Dolls of New Albion for so long when I tell you i clicked on this video so fast --
I never expected to see anyone talk about Dolls of New Albion, I expected even less for it the be Whipjack. I’ve loved this show for years and have wanted to stage it but I thought I was one of very few who knew it existed!
I also love that the protagonist is Jasper, an inanimate doll with a trapped soul in it that learns to re-find his humanity after being unceremoniously plucked from death and forced to live once more.
I found dolls of new Albion through the Mechanisms actually cus Tim was in a production of it- oh u used clips from that production lol (the first clip the guy w long hair and the goggles)
There have been moments where I have semi-seriously considered learning how to draw solely to make those animatic music videos that all the popular musicals get so that I can urge reaction channels to react to Shaperaverse musicals and spread the brainrot.
And just to be clear, I tried to get into art over 10 years ago and I hated it. I know I do not like to draw. But fuck it, there are not enough Shaperaverse music videos on youtube, *someone* has to do them. Worst case scenario it might have to be me.
Hello! Casual little member from the dedicated cult following here ^_^ loved the storytelling choice to describe the events as if the audience was Jasper! Brilliantly done, I throughly enjoyed watching your video
I absolutely love this musical. Grew up enjoying it and have never met another soul who watched it. I haven't seen this video on it yet because I just found your channel but I recognized the eye immediately.
i clicked on your channel for the bg3 video, didn't expect a video about this too. I've been a fan of paul for ages, glad to see him get more recognition!