ReportWire

Tag: Madonna discography

  • Comparing Madonna’s “Right On Time” to the Nature of Some of Taylor Swift’s Recent Lyrical Offerings

    [ad_1]

    At a time when Taylor Swift’s lyrics have never been so glaringly cringe, Madonna, funnily enough, chose to release one of her own “From the Vault” tracks (though, of course, that’s not what she calls them) from 1994’s Bedtime Stories. This in honor of the forthcoming EP celebrating the album’s thirtieth anniversary, Bedtime Stories: The Untold Chapter. And, of “all” the songs (though the word “all” makes it sound as if the album is far more robust than its mere eight tracks) Madonna might have chosen to release from it as a single, she opted for the hyper-mushy “Right On Time.” This being more than likely because the other songs on it have been released/heard before by the die-hard fans in some way or another, including the supposed fellow “rarities” on it: “Freedom,” “Let Down Your Guard” and “Love Won’t Wait.” And what all of these previously unreleased tracks have in common with the ones that actually made the cut for Bedtime Stories is that the overarching motif is one of love, amorousness. Which was very much aligned with the fact that she met Carlos Leon in September of ‘94, a month before the album would come out.

    So, although, logically speaking, Leon might not have been a direct influence on the lyrics of the songs seeing as how Madonna had been working on them prior to meeting him, it was almost as though she “conjured” him with such lyrics as, “Who needs the sun/When the rain’s so full of life?/Who needs the sky?/It’s here in your arms/I want to be buried/You are/My sanctuary.” Quoting Walt Whitman (for she was also doing that long before Lana Del Rey), Madonna speaks an intro to the track from “Leaves of Grass”: “Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow.” Evidently, it was Leon who spoke to her in the right voice that September day in Central Park. As the lore goes, he was on his bike and she was running. He had noticed her a few times prior to this day before deciding to approach her. Ah, the glory days of when a person could get cruised, with no apps to make it “easy” (though actually much harder) to meet someone.

    And perhaps in that instant, Madonna really did think to herself, “It seems like I’ve been waiting/All my life for you to rescue me [a blatant nod to her 1990 track of the same name]/And there ain’t no hesitating/This is right/Boy, I was meant to be/With you.” Which does somewhat beg the question of when “Right On Time” was actually written—perhaps not “tacked on” to the album because it was too rushed. Then again, the generic sentiments of the lyrics don’t necessarily mean Leon was the catalyst for them at all. Not like Swift being oh so specific about Travis Kelce’s supposed “redwood” of a wang on The Life of a Showgirl’s “Wood” (arguably the most challenging track to endure). Or just about any other over-the-top-in-its-corniness song that’s aimed at him.

    Even though, in truth, Kelce is ultimately a blurred-out shape to Swift, who can use just about any of the men from her past as a composite for describing “love,” whether in its “positive” state (e.g., “Lover”) or its heart-wrenching, post-breakup one (e.g., “All Too Well”). But with the content (and that is the word to describe it, for every song on the album sounds decidedly “churned out”) on The Life of a Showgirl, Swift is worse off for trying to be “specific in her generalness.” For example, the unfortunate part during “The Fate of Ophelia” during which she sings, “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes.” The only thing “specific” about that might be alluding to, as usual, how Kelce plays football, but it’s certainly enough to amplify the ick factor.

    In (very slight) contrast, Madonna decides to keep her mawkishness more “catch-all” when she sings something like, “With you, you’re like a lucky charm that I just found/You, you’re like a ray of sunshine [so close to ‘ray of light’] on a cloudy/Day, you always make the darkness lighter/You, you’re right on time.” And yes, there’s no denying that if someone saw those lyrics without being aware that Madonna had penned them, they could easily attribute it to Swift. While some M fans might take that as an insult, perhaps it’s actually more of a testament to how underrated the Queen of Pop has been when it comes to writing “romantic” songs. Indeed, for the most part, she’s flown under the radar as a romantic because the majority of love songs by her that have been her biggest hits are more about unrequitedness and/or tragic loss (hear: “Live to Tell,” “Take A Bow” and “The Power of Goodbye”). It’s been very rare for Madonna to ever go totally “all in” on the saccharine front. Unless, of course, one is talking about her early 80s-era work, when she was more willing to play the “slighted ingenue” (case in point, “Burning Up,” “Think of Me” and “Pretender”).

    Yet such a “persona” never really “fit” Madonna to a tee the way that it has for Swift (and served her so well, too). Because Madonna’s message was always one that fundamentally traced back to empowerment. And for most women (who aren’t lying to themselves), a sense of true empowerment usually means being single. Or “going through men” the way that Madonna does now with her rotating crop of boy toys. This in itself being so much different that Swift’s “serial monogamy” style. And then, of course, when one thinks of Madonna’s most well-known hits, none of them are pining and whining anthems in the Swift vein. “Like A Virgin,” “Express Yourself,” “Vogue,” “Ray of Light,” and “Music” are just a few of the non-woe-is-me instances of Madonna’s typical form of chart success.

    And this is, in large part, what made (and makes) Bedtime Stories such a departure from most of the other work in her catalogue. One that is, inarguably, much more varied (both musically and lyrically) than what Swift’s usual themes have to offer. Yet with the release of “Right On Time,” it’s difficult not to feel as though this is one song that’s perhaps better left in “the vault.” For it doesn’t show off Madonna’s standard deviation from what pop stars like Swift tend to come up with when it comes to describing newfound love. In other words, listeners aren’t getting a track that innovatively compares this “tingly feeling,” as it were, to being “like a virgin.” Instead, the lyrics sound as though they were made to complement the possibility of Madonna synergistically promoting a watch brand. Which would also be very Swift-ish in nature.

    But, again, this is where it bears reminding that Madonna was doing “Swift shit” long before it all seemed to become attributed solely to said “Boring Barbie,” with M not only perfecting the art of marketing and PR, but also self-branding when it was still in its infancy for musicians (and celebrities in general). And, of course, commodifying something “underground” and making it mainstream (as Swift is trying to do with this whole showgirl shtick; granted, such a shtick is far less “underground” than vogueing was at the time when Madonna released the signature song paying homage to it).

    Perhaps by unleashing “Right On Time” just after The Life of a Showgirl, Madonna also wants to remind the masses that she was writing these types of mushy, “so in love” lyrics before her as well. Except, unlike Swift, Madonna had the good sense not to release the track until now. As a kind of afterthought. A “postscript” on her varied, typically overlooked range. But even Madonna wouldn’t have the audacity to put out the voice memos that Swift has for certain The Life of a Showgirl variants (oh so many variants) and sell them to an increasingly skeptical fanbase.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Madonna Chooses the Right Time to Release “Right On Time”—Because It Would Have Been a Disservice for Her to Include It on Bedtime Stories in 1994

    [ad_1]

    On the same day as announcing that her Bedtime Stories: The Final Chapter EP is actually real, and not just another tease (like, thus far, her much-talked about biopic, in all its various iterations), Madonna opted to casually drop one of the “rarities” from the record (of which there are actually none apart from this), “Right On Time.” A title that, in many ways, is only too appropriate for someone like her, who not only “burst onto the scene” just as the world needed/was ready for the first modern female pop star, but whose entire career has generally been guided by a “right place, right time” kind of luck. 

    “Right On Time,” however, seems to indicate that Madonna was aware it wasn’t the right time at all to release a track like this, awash as it is in the kind of syrupy lyrics that she might have been sooner caught singing in the early and mid-80s (e.g., the unbridled saccharineness of 1984’s “Shoo-Bee-Doo,” during which she sings, “Why don’t you dry your eyes, try and realize?/Love can open any door, and maybe/If you trust in me I can make you see/Shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo, ooh la la, come to me, baby/Shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo, ooh la la, don’t say maybe”). And although her intent with Bedtime Stories was to veer away from the oversexed aura that pulsated from Erotica’s very core, she probably didn’t really want to go this far on the other side of the spectrum. Hence, waiting only until now to show the extent of what she was willing to do in order to win back the favor of John Q. Public (namely, the type of people that could be classified as her own Midwestern brethren). Or rather, prove to the critics and the masses at large that, as she once pointed out, they couldn’t handle dealing with their own sexual fantasies, let alone talking frankly about sex at all. And so, as it was once said on VH1, Madonna, to paraphrase, simply picked up her clothes and put them back on. 

    And she did so, you guessed it, right on time. Because it just so happened that she wanted to embody a certain “softer” look and persona in order to throw her hat into the ring for the part of Eva Perón, writing an eight-page letter to Alan Parker in 1994 to express her ardent interest in portraying the simultaneously loved and hated Argentine political icon. To even more succinctly convey her acting abilities on that specific front, the concept behind the “Take A Bow” video would prove to be extremely instrumental. In it, Madonna goes for a 1940s-styled look (from the top [her hat with face veil] to bottom [her Christian Louboutin—then an unknown designer—heels]) meant to channel her inner Evita. A woman who could be both vulnerable, vixen-y and a little wrathful.

    That woman is nowhere to be found at any point during “Right On Time,” wherein Madonna is more unnecessarily worshipful than “vulnerable.” For example, “This is it, I know there’s so much more/With you, you’re like a dream that came true/Oh you, you’re like a fantasy that came into my life/And every day is so much brighter/You, you’re right on time.” And then, of course, there are the very “Till There Was You”-reminiscent lyrics, “Birds are singing just because they’re next to you/Bells are ringing, maybe you’re my dream come true/This groove keeps swinging, all the little things you do/The joy you’re bringing, maybe I’m in love with you.”

    Needless to say, a song like “Right On Time” does not possess the same subtlety or intelligence as some of the other love songs on the record (of which there are many), including “Inside of Me” (produced by Nellee Hooper), “Sanctuary” (produced by Madonna, Hooper and Dallas Austin) and, of course, “Take A Bow” (produced by Babyface, and who many said should have gotten a full-on “featuring” credit). In truth, it has all the lyrical subtlety of an anvil, which is out of character for the Madonna songwriting style of the post-early to mid-80s. And this is part of why “Right On Time” makes it more glaringly apparent than ever before that Bedtime Stories was M’s willful clawing back into the good graces of the public. This while, at the same time, proving her depth of range in musical styles. Glomming onto the R&B sound at a time when most (white people) remained focused on grunge, Madonna was also then still showcasing her ability to have her finger on the pulse of the next trend (meanwhile, Mariah was still either recording cheesy ballads or secret grunge albums). 

    To achieve that sound, Madonna turned to the likes of Dallas Austin to infuse the record with the, let’s call it, “flavor” she wanted (no doubt in part thanks to the influence of “canoodling” with 2Pac during that period). With the previously unreleased tracks from Bedtime Stories that have come out in the years since, it seems that Austin wasn’t in a musical variation kind of mood when it came to producing for M. At least if the backing track similarities between “Your Honesty” (which was unveiled on 2003’s Remixed & Revisited) and “Right On Time” are anything to go by.

    While Austin might have worked with her on this particular track, an official press release announcing the EP was sure to mention, “Madonna collaborated with Stuart Price to shape this EP, editing and mixing previously unreleased versions into a cohesive new chapter.” Price, a fan favorite producer, also worked with Madonna on Confessions on a Dance Floor, and now, for its “sequel,” slated for a 2026 release. And this is a reassuring piece of news, as one can’t help but get afraid when Madonna, who had once always stated that she hated looking back and only wanted to move forward, is in a “revisiting” mood like never before, having also released Veronica Electronica earlier this year. And, looking back on the record that came before Ray of Light, a track like “Right On Time” makes it abundantly clear that Madonna was still finding the “voice” for the next phase in her career. 

    Bedtime Stories was a through line to the recording of the Evita Soundtrack, the recording of which required Madonna to take some rigorous voice lessons in order to project in a certain way (hear: “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”). Ergo, the noticeable and permanent shift that happened in the sound of her voice when Ray of Light came out. Marking the then longest period of time—four years—that she went without releasing a studio album (though she’s well surpassed that precedent as of 2025, with her last album, Madame X, being released in 2019). 

    That wait, too, was a matter of perfect and right timing on Madonna’s part, who tapped into the electronic music zeitgeist after already doing so with R&B in ‘94. Releasing an “untold chapter” of Bedtime Stories in honor of its thirtieth anniversary also feels like it could be “right on time” in terms of reminding listeners that songs by pop stars not only used to be musically layered and dense, but that they could actually go on for longer than three minutes. Though, fittingly, Madonna’s “Right On Time” is only two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Perhaps a testament, once again, to how she has her finger on the pulse, knowing full well that nobody, even “older audiences,” has the attention span for a “long” song anymore. Though she doesn’t seem to quite grasp that no one has the wherewithal for a schmaltzy love song either. 

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Madonna’s Interview for On Purpose with Jay Shetty: A Reminder That She Considers Herself the Queen of Kabbalah Before the Queen of Pop

    [ad_1]

    If Madonna has been consistent about one thing since 1996 (though, to outsiders, it’s more like 1998, when Ray of Light came out), it’s her commitment and devotion to Kabbalah. Through all the “reinventions” and various physical “adjustments,” she has continued to incorporate the “teachings” into the majority of her work. Especially her music. And, of course, in her interviews. In her latest, the one billed as not only her “first podcast interview,” but also her “first interview in nine years” (which, of course, doesn’t really track when taking into account all the promotion she did for Madame X six years ago in 2019), she continues to do the same. And yes, one can understand why Madonna being on a podcast is momentous, considering such things are a bit too “low-budget,” so to speak, for her usual tastes. At the same time, one of Madonna’s greatest skills as an entertainer has always been to find a way to disseminate her “highfalutin” ideas while still managing to appeal to the “lowest common denominator” (see: “Vogue”).

    This time around, Madonna is attempting to once again get people on board with Kabbalah, just as she was able to with the majority of celebrities in the early 2000s (e.g., Britney Spears and Demi Moore). Indeed, whereas many who glommed onto the “Kabbalah Centre trend,” complete with the “red bracelets” a.k.a. scarlet thread intended to ward off the evil eye (which, to be fair, many celebrities do have a hard time avoiding), left it behind by the end of the 00s, Madonna never abandoned it, diving in deeper as everyone else seemed to gradually pull away.

    Granted, the 00s saw one of the pinnacles of Madonna’s support for the philosophy cemented in the form of her 2005 documentary, I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, directed by one of her go-tos for music videos (including “Ray of Light”), Jonas Åkerlund. It is in this documentary that a large bulk of what Madonna mentions is also conveyed to Shetty during his On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast. This includes the notion of how forgiving someone who “fucked you over” is one of the most revolutionary teachings of the Zohar, “a kind of decoding of the Torah or the Old Testament.” In fact, it’s one of the elements of Kabbalah that Madonna most underscores whenever she talks about it, this time around using her recently deceased brother, Christopher Ciccone, as an example of someone who fucked her over (see: his “tell-all” memoir, Life with My Sister Madonna) and who she chose to forgive (though, conveniently, when he was already about to die).

    While other celebrities would settle for being paid by MasterClass to teach something, Madonna has opted to participate in a “pay what you can” operation, via Kabbalah.com, called “The Mystical Studies of the Zohar with Madonna and Eitan Yardeni.” It was the latter who also featured prominently in the abovementioned I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, and shows up once again toward the second half of the podcast. This further cementing the idea that he is Madonna’s proverbial guru.

    During the trailer for the class, it’s only fitting that a deep cut, “Has to Be,” from the Ray of Light album should play as Madonna talks about her first notable experience with “the muse” or “manifestation,” as they’re calling it. Once again trotting out the first time she ever wrote a song—while living in, only too appropriately, an abandoned synagogue—Madonna recalls how, afterward, she kept wondering, “Where did that come from?” Trying to tell viewers that she never had any intention of becoming a singer, and yet, somehow, the music and lyrics for her first song, “Tell the Truth,” just “poured out” of her, so to speak. Though, to tell the truth, they were lyrics partially extrapolated from her journal.

    What’s more, anyone who knows the story of pre-fame Madonna is aware that she did have the ambition to be a singer once she realized it meant she would be front and center, rather than any form of “backup,” as would have been the case if she had continued pursuing the original avenue of being a dancer or, after that, the drummer in a band called The Breakfast Club. A band that she finagled her way into as a result of her relationship with Dan Gilroy, who had started the group with his brother, Ed, a man far less, let’s say, “charmed” by Madonna than Dan. Especially as time wore on and Madonna made it more than fairly apparent she wanted to take over as The Breakfast Club’s lead singer (in the end, she went off and started her own band called Emmy and the Emmys).

    Alas, these are “uglier” details on Madonna’s road to fame that she would prefer to leave out of her “Mystical Studies of the Zohar” class, instead presenting her rise to prominence as more of an example of the divine rather than what Norman Mailer once called an example of her having the “cast-iron balls of the paisans in generations before her.” To that point, Madonna does bring up being Italian (because Lady Gaga isn’t the only umpteenth-generation pop star who can make that claim) in the interview with Shetty, citing it as one of the reasons she always had difficulty remaining calm (in addition to being a Leo). Therefore, yet another one of the reasons why Kabbalah has been so helpful to her in that it’s effectively “stamped out” the inherent choleric nature of being una donna italiana. And yet, what Madonna still can’t stamp out is the Catholicism that has remained far more inherent to her work than Kabbalah. Even now.

    Regardless, Madonna is all about incorporating a mélange of the different things she unearths in her studies as a student of life. So it is that Catholicism and Kabbalah have intertwined for her in many ways. Even in I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, during which Madonna is at her most markedly Kabbalah-centric on record (until the Jay Shetty interview came along), not only “subliminally” incorporating images and chants related to Jewish mysticism, but also offering such pearls of wisdom as, “If you want to read things literally, you read the Old Testament and if you want to understand the hidden meanings of the Torah, you read the Zohar.” Considering she was studying the Zohar at that point in time, in 2004 (when the Re-Invention Tour was in full swing), it is fair to say she could (and is now going to) effectively teach a class on the subject.

    Indeed, her entire purpose in coming on Shetty’s podcast was to reemphasize that she sees her purpose in life as being to share the wisdom she’s gleaned, in addition to her understanding of “the light” (as she keeps calling it, and also did in I’m Going to Tell You a Secret). This also being how she, at times, refers to God. Or what “God” is. During some of the interspersed footage and images in the trailer for her Kabbalah Master Class, the same footage of a POV shot that makes it look as though one is staring at the sky above, shining a bright light (a.k.a. the sun) through the trees is repurposed from I’m Going to Tell You a Secret. Which, again, was Madonna’s original master class on the philosophy. It is also during the documentary that she mentions, long before this podcast, that Kabbalah has changed her for the better, made her an inherently less selfish person. A person who now asks, “What was I thinking before I was thinking?” (and yes, she mentions to Shetty that this is something she still says often in reference to who she was before discovering “the teachings”).

    In I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, even her own father, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone, weighs in on the shift that has been palpable in Madonna ever since she had her first child and “got into” Kabbalah at the same time. Interviewed after going to see her show in Chicago (the closest city to their native Michigan where the tour was stopping) with his wife, Joan (RIP), Tony noted, “What I saw of last night’s performance was a more positive outreaching of her to the public. Her concern for the world, for people—to me, that’s maturity.” The couple is also shown watching Madonna during her performance of “Mother and Father,” during which her Catholicness flares up by way of the screens that showcase Jesus and Mary behind her. Something Tony is only too happy to see, regardless of what it “means” from Madonna’s perspective or whether or not she’s trying to “say” something else with these images. For Tony, Jesus and Mary being displayed without Madonna doing something blasphemous with or to their images—as she might have in the past (and still does when one least expects it)—is all he needs to see.

    He also mentions that even he hasn’t been immune to Madonna trying to spread “her” Kabbalah gospel, remarking that she gave him a book, but that, “To me, there’s nothing in Kabbalah that’s not in scripture… In the end, you know, we all believe in one God. I think most people do.” Ah, would that such a pretty thought were true—otherwise, there might not be half as many wars.

    I’m Going to Tell You a Secret is also the first time Madonna really tried to make her art serve as a “Trojan horse” for Kabbalah, or rather, a “tool” for those watching, commenting at one point (namely, in the segment after Michael Moore is interviewed), “I’ve always thought that my job was to wake people up. But it’s not enough just to wake people up. You’ve got to wake people up and give them a direction. You’ve got to wake people up and give them tools about how to deal with life. You’ve got to wake people up and give them solutions. Otherwise they’re gonna fall back asleep again.”

    Perhaps Madonna has seen people falling asleep again too many times in the past decade since the Orange Creature became the president, hence her seemingly sudden decision to pursue a “project” that never would have been on anyone’s bingo card up until now: teaching Kabbalah master classes (though at least M continues to set herself apart by not being paid by MasterClass itself to teach something like “marketing and self-promotion in pop stardom”).

    In the trailer for said class, there’s all kinds of hilarity ensuing. Including, first and foremost, that Madonna’s boy toy of the moment, Akeem Morris, is randomly sitting there for no apparent reason other than to look pretty while Madonna offers sound bites such as, “It’s, like, everything happens for a reason” (a cliche that Cher Horowitz would surely deem “way existential”) and “I don’t wanna do a residency in Vegas” (this said in the section about “False Gods”). During each divided scene, there are captions that mention the eight lessons that will be covered (should you choose to sign up): “Study the Art of Manifestation,” “Study Freedom,” “Study Reincarnation,” “Study False Gods,” “Study Chasing After What Doesn’t Belong to You” (during which a scene of Madonna revealing her pursuits of a married man [Antonio Banderas?] provides a bit of zest), “Study Desire,” “Study Forgiveness” and “Study Love.” It is during “Study Forgiveness” that, as previously mentioned, Madonna wields her recently deceased brother as fodder for how she’s managed to forgive someone who did her wrong. And surely, Christopher would be as delighted about this as seeing Madonna allow their visit to their mother’s grave be filmed for Truth or Dare.

    In this and a few other regards, it’s not difficult to be cynical about what Madonna is once more attempting: to convince people that Kabbalah is “the way, the truth, the life (or, in this instance, the light)” (if one will pardon the Christian parlance). Having long ago gone from the “Material Girl” to the “Ethereal Girl,” as it has already been said. And while that might remain a hard pill for many to swallow, Madonna is at least trying to use her pop star abilities as a force of good, a force of positive change. Which is more than can be said for, say, Sabrina Carpenter, who’s still emulating the sexually-charged portion of Madonna’s career (and not even with half as much shock value). Give this new crop of pop stars a bit more time, however, and they, too, will be offering pay-what-you-can master classes on spirituality. Just another way in which Madonna has blazed a path for them all.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Madonna’s Satan Year

    Madonna’s Satan Year

    [ad_1]

    It seems fitting that this is the year Madonna turns sixty-six—her “Satan year,” as it were. After all, satanic panic is chic again, what with the Christian vote that Donald Trump is trying to “appeal to” in this election, along with the release of Longlegs, a movie where Nicolas Cage plays a Satan-worshipping serial killer, and Maxxxine, a movie that revives satanic serial killer Richard Ramirez as part of the narrative. Madonna herself has, needless to say, always been rooted in religion. Not just because of her name, but her expectedly Catholic upbringing. Accordingly, Madonna had an early sense of what it was to be terrified by the fire and brimstone rhetoric of the Bible.

    And yet, that didn’t stop her from defiantly going against it. Starting from an early age, Madonna saw that rebellious acts—usually of a sexually provocative nature—were what got her the attention she was so sorely lacking in a household of seven other brothers and sisters, two of which arrived soon after Madonna’s father, Silvio, remarried in the wake of Madonna Sr.’s death in 1963.

    With the influence of Catholicism so deeply ingrained within her, it’s no wonder that those themes of good versus evil crept so frequently into her work. And yes, many would come to view Madonna herself as “satanic.” As she put it during a 1996 interview promoting Evita, “Many people see Eva Perón as either a saint or the incarnation of Satan. That means I can definitely identify with her.”

    Over the years, Madonna would come to be known for doing many “devilish” things. Below are some of her most memorable brushes with being “damnable,” though there are many other instances in between, particularly depending on who you ask.

    ***

    1984, “Like A Virgin” performance at the First Annual MTV VMAs: This was the “devilish” controversy that launched Madonna’s reputation for scandal in the first place. Although she would later state that the whole thing was an accident and she was just trying to make the best of a bad situation after her shoe came off, the result was immortally iconic (even if the excuse sounds like more typical Madonna lore). As she stated in 2015 of that performance and its “shock value” on the public, “Everyone’s showing their butt now, but back then, nobody saw anyone’s butt.” So, for the first of many times, Madonna was left no choice but to light the way with her “heathenism.”  

    1985, Playboy and Penthouse publishing Madonna’s pre-fame nude photos: Staying on-brand for what would become Madonna’s enduring sense of controversy, her next major one after the VMAs was a matter of “vintage” nude photos. Specifically, ones that were taken during her starving artist days in New York. It was Lee Friedlander and Martin H.M. Schreiber who sold one set of photos to Playboy, and Bill Stone who sold another to Penthouse. The expected result in Reagan’s “moral majority” America was outrage and consternation. That is, until Madonna did what no woman before her had tried: not caring. Indeed, just a year earlier, Vanessa Williams was forced to relinquish her Miss America crown (after becoming the first multiracial contestant to win) after her own pre-fame nude photos were sold to Penthouse. But rather than following suit by kowtowing to the moral outrage, Madonna hit back with two words, “So what?” And with that, shaming women was never quite as satisfying to the patriarchy that was quaking in their boots over this “Jezebel.”

    1986, “Papa Don’t Preach” song/“Open Your Heart” video: Even after becoming a married woman (albeit to as much of a wild child [in his own way], Sean Penn), Madonna hardly fell into the role of “staid wife.” In 1986, she continued to evolve her political form of pop stardom by releasing her third album, True Blue. The instant classic of a record featured two singles that would serve as Madonna’s “antichrist” bread and butter: “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Open Your Heart.” With the former, the controversy stemmed more from the lyrics themselves than the accompanying video wherein Danny Aiello played Madonna’s Tony Ciccone-inspired father. With the latter, it was Madonna’s unbridled presentation of androgyny, homosexuality, “pedophilia” and general sexual perversity that had the proverbial censors up in arms (MTV even tried to suggest “edits,” as though they had never met Madonna before).

    Directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino (who Madonna would also turn to again for some scandal with 1990’s “Justify My Love” video), “Open Your Heart” remains one of M’s most famous career visuals, presenting her as a peep show star in a black bustier with gold tassels. Though the bustier has a conical bra, it was actually designed by Marlene Stewart, not Jean-Paul Gaultier, who would furnish Madonna’s cone bra era during the Blond Ambition Tour. And while some might think that’s what got the then thirteen-year-old boy in the video (played by Felix Howard) all “titillated,” the fact of the matter is that he simply wants to emulate Madonna, mimicking her dance moves and looking longingly at the photo of her outside the venue (topped off by a giant cutout of Tamara de Lempicka’s “Andromeda” painting). Indeed, the most controversial aspect of all about “Open Your Heart” is Madonna very clearly acknowledging that gay men are probably more Single White Female-prone than actual women.

    1989, “Like A Prayer” music video and its timing with the Pepsi commercial: In a move that has continued to endure as one of her most controversial, Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” video was conveniently-timed, in terms of upping the “scandal quotient,” to be released around the exact same time as her Pepsi commercial premiered. Already paid five million dollars for the joy of her presence, Madonna naturally kept the cash after Pepsi decided to pull the plug as a result of her then too blasphemous “Like A Prayer” video, directed by Mary Lambert (who had also previously directed Madonna’s “Borderline,” “Like A Virgin,” “Material Girl” and “La Isla Bonita” videos). The most offending imagery to “Middle America” (a catch-all term for any part of the U.S. beyond San Francisco-New York-Los Angeles)? Madonna getting sexual with a Black saint in between dancing in front of some burning crosses. Oh yeah, and her stigmata hands indicating her “Christ-like” nature. It was all too much for Pepsi to deal with, as the company was threatened with boycotts and general moral outrage. So yes, long before Lil Nas X’s “Montero” video, there was Madonna causing a religious commotion with “Like A Prayer.”

    1990, “Like A Virgin” performance during Blond Ambition Tour: Although some might have thought “Like A Virgin” could never be as risqué as it was during the 1984 VMAs, Madonna challenged herself on that front in 1990. While she could have bypassed the song altogether (already, by that point, rather sick of it) for the Blond Ambition Tour, Madonna chose to up the ante on the sexually charged nature of the song by performing it on a red velvet bed. “Boudoir antics” indeed. As if it weren’t enough to have Luis Camacho and Jose Gutierez making lurid gestures while standing on either side of her in their own special cone bras, Madonna offered the pièce de résistance of the performance by “simulating masturbation” at the very end of the raunchy rendition—just before her voice for the opening of “Like A Prayer” asks, “God?” As though to indicate that perhaps the divine really does exist in the form of orgasm. Police in Toronto didn’t seem to agree, famously threatening to arrest her if she went through with the performance as usual during her dates at the SkyDome. Madonna was undeterred, with her adamance about doing the show as usual being humorously documented in Truth or Dare. In the end, the police didn’t have the cojones (or a viable reason) to arrest the biggest star in the world.

    1990, “Justify My Love” video: Continuing to test the limits of what boundaries she could push in the early 90s, Madonna’s next major scandal arrived thanks to yet another video collaboration with Jean-Baptiste Mondino: “Justify My Love.” In 2013, Madonna would say that it was her favorite video to make, and not without good reason. After all, what could be more fun than renting out the entire top floor of a posh Parisian hotel and being told there are “no rules,” for the cast of characters in the video to do whatever and act however they wanted? Usually, in a sexy manner.

    Although Madonna had toed the line between socially acceptable and too taboo before, “Justify My Love” ended up marking the first time that MTV put a kibosh on her freedom of expression, insisting the video was too racy to be aired. Some would go on to say that Madonna got the video to be banned by design, so that it would cause more controversy, therefore more publicity. Plus, it prompted her to sell it as a video single, after which it became the first short-form video to go multiplatinum in the U.S. After all, people needed to see what was so scandalous about the content, and how else were they going to if MTV wasn’t airing it?

    Madonna even found time to make a political commentary on Nightline about the whole thing, schooling Forrest Sawyer on the hypocrisy of America and how it would rather let children and teenagers watch gratuitous violence than be exposed to anything sexual. Least of all anything “too” sexually taboo (which, at that time, included bisexuality and sadomasochism) or anything where a woman is not being exploited or violated within a sexual scenario.

    1990, “The Beast Within” B-side: As though to drive home the point that she has no problem being associated with “hellfire” and that religion did a number on her thinking as a child, Madonna opted to read select passages from the Book of Revelation as the lyrics for a remixed version of “Justify My Love” called “The Beast Within.” Among her “eternal damnation” selections for the lyrics are, “Do not fear what you are about to suffer/Behold the devil is about to throw you into prison” and “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted/As for the murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolators/And all liars/Their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone/And he said to me/He said to me, ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy’/For the time is near/Let the evildoers still do evil/And the filthy still be filthy.” According to many people throughout Madonna’s career, she falls into the latter category.

    And yet, she is arguably among the most well-read when it comes to the Bible, telling her musical director, Stuart Price, in 2005’s I’m Going To Tell You A Secret, “There is some poetry in the New Testament.” She also explains, via voiceover, “To me, ‘the beast’ is the modern world that we live in, the material world, the physical world, the world of illusion that we think is real. We live for it, we’re enslaved by it and it will ultimately be our undoing,” then saying aloud to Price, “I like the juxtaposition of telling people they’re all gonna go to hell if they don’t, um, turn away from their wicked behavior” (for “The Beast Within” would serve as the opening song to the Re-Invention Tour, also showing up during The Girlie Show and The Celebration Tour in an interlude format). Again, it’s ironic when taking into account that so many of M’s detractors have felt she’s the one who needs to turn away from her wicked behavior.

    1992-1993, Erotica/Sex/Body of Evidence/The Girlie Show: It was also Forrest Sawyer who said, during the intro to the abovementioned Nightline episode, “It’s become virtually a seasonal affair. The weather changes, and there is a new Madonna controversy.” In 1992, Madonna proved that in spades by unleashing a quartet of projects that, when absorbed together by the public, reinforced, once and for all, her reputation as a “satanic presence” in America. It began with releasing Erotica and Sex back-to-back, with the former, er, coming out on October 20, 1992 (back when albums were still released on Tuesdays), and the latter on October 21, 1992. The two were thusly received as “twin” projects. Viewed as “more of the same” from Madonna, whose only goal, in the public’s mind, was to shock and appall rather than saying something that was actually meaningful. But of course her intent was always to hold up a mirror the U.S. and its false declarations about being the place for freedom of speech and open dialogue. Though at least it never really claimed to be sexually liberated.

    The music of Erotica was quickly lost in the scantily clad shuffle of the Sex book, which sold 500,000 copies in its first week and topped The New York Times Best Seller list for three weeks. As Madonna would later remark of the book, “[It] was sort of the pinnacle of me challenging people and saying, ‘You know what? I’m gonna be sexually provocative and I’m gonna be ironic and I’m gonna prove that I can get everybody’s attention and that everybody’s gonna be interested in it and still be freaked out by it.’” That they were, especially the conservatives of American government that were still enjoying power thanks to the Bush administration (ultimately just a continuation of the Reagan one).

    While others might have “toned it down” in response to the backlash, Madonna kept releasing content of a highly sexual nature, including the Uli Edel-directed Body of Evidence, released on January 15, 1993. Indeed, it was no coincidence that Body of Evidence should be released during such a “dead” month for new movies. But even that didn’t help it win at the box office, with its worldwide gross being $38 million to the $30 million budget it cost to make the movie in the first place. Madonna’s performance was, quelle surprise, the most panned thing about BoE.

    And yet, because you can’t keep a good woman down (no matter how much everyone insists she’s Satan), Madonna kept on truckin’ in 1993, taking her sex act on the road with The Girlie Show. However, in a sign of just how fraught her relationship with the United States was at the time, Madonna opted to only perform tour dates in New York, Philadelphia and Auburn Hills (just outside of Detroit, proving Madonna’s ongoing commitment to her Michigan roots). Though she claimed the general bypassing of the U.S. was because “I am going to the places where I have the most enemies,” there could be no denying that the majority of those “enemies” were in the “Land of the Free.”

    1994, saying “fuck” fourteen times on the Late Show with David Letterman: The Girlie Show’s final date was on December 19, 1993 in Tokyo. This meant that, on March 31, 1994, Madonna didn’t exactly have any new projects to promote when she went on The Tonight Show with Davide Letterman. Other than, of course, her “demonic agenda.” Infecting the minds of Americans with her “filth,” etc. And, in this instance, it was her filthy mouth that did viewers in. Though, to be fair, Madonna is the woman who once said, “I hate polite conversation. I hate it when people stand around and go, ‘Hi, how are you?’ I hate words that don’t have any reason or meaning.” “Fuck,” in Madonna’s mind, is not one of those words, having already told audiences during the Blond Ambition Tour, “Fuck is not a bad word, fuck is a good word. Fuck is the reason I am here…fuck is the reason you are here.” For Letterman and the rest of America that night in 1994, fuck also became the reason they were there.

    In the wake of the “fuck scandal,” Madonna would send Dave a letter in mid-April cheekily saying, “Happy Fucking Birthday Dave! glad you could get so much mileage out of the fucking show. Next time you need some fucking publicity, just give me a fucking call. love the anti-christ M. xx.” Ah, there’s that allusion to being demonic again, with Madonna knowing full well the public’s perception of her, particularly during this period in her career…

    1996, playing Eva Perón in Evita: It was precisely because her image had become a “liability” by the mid-90s that Madonna, some might cynically say, “orchestrated” her next image shift. The one that would soon lead to her being rebranded as the “Ethereal Girl.” It started in 1994, with the release of Bedtime Stories, an R&B-infused record with plenty of slow jams including the beloved final track, “Take A Bow.” While Madonna might have “softened” her image with Bedtime Stories and a follow-up compilation of ballads called Something to Remember in 1995, not everyone was sold on her continuing to “soften” that image through the persona of Eva Perón. Not just because many people (specifically, Argentinians) don’t exactly have “pleasant” thoughts about Perón, but because, as Madonna put it, “Many people see [her] as either a saint or the incarnation of Satan. That means I can definitely identify with her.”

    As such, Madonna had been petitioning director Alan Parker for the role since at least the “Take A Bow” video (helmed by Michael Haussman), which amounted to an audition tape for the part Madonna said she had been dreaming of playing since the late 80s, when she first secured meetings with Robert Stigwood (the original producer of the Broadway musical), Oliver Stone (then signed on to direct the film version) and Andrew Lloyd Webber himself. Alas, Madonna appeared to rub Stone the wrong way, with the director recalling, “At the time she hadn’t done many movies, and she was insisting on script approval. I said, ‘Madonna, you can’t have script approval.’ And she wanted to rewrite Andrew Lloyd Webber! Here she was making these demands, and I said, ‘Look, there’s no point in our meeting anymore; it’s not going to work.’” Needless to say, Madonna had the last laugh. Even though many Argentinians were still less than thrilled about Madonna playing their precious Evita, with one former secretary of Evita’s reportedly saying, “We want Madonna dead or alive. If she does not leave I will kill her.” But Madonna doesn’t “leave,” least of all because she’s been given a death threat.

    2001, “What It Feels Like For A Girl” video: With the advent of the twenty-first century, Madonna decided to try her hand at marriage again. And Guy Ritchie was quick to mold Madonna in his laddish image after the two were married in December of 2000. It took little time for the two to collaborate on M’s video for “What It Feels Like For A Girl” in 2001. Something of an ironic song choice when taking into account the misogynistic nature of Ritchie’s work. To be sure, there’s no denying a fair amount of gay and female fans alike might have felt betrayed by Madonna’s decision to marry someone who so overtly represented everything she didn’t. Including ageism, “light-heartedly” represented in “What It Feels Like For A Girl” as Madonna takes a joy ride with an elderly woman that she picks up from the “Ol Kuntz Guest Home.” While Ritchie might have meant “no harm” with such a phrase, it would become particularly poignant as the ageism lobbed against Madonna continued to augment as the 00s wore on. But that term was hardly what offended MTV enough to, yet again, ban Madonna. This time, for something she was entirely unaccustomed to being banned for: the portrayal of violence and abuse. Of course, it probably would have been totally acceptable if Madonna were a man engaging in these behaviors.

    2003, “American Life” video/“Die Another Day” video: As has been noted repeatedly, the most shocking thing about the “American Life” video was Madonna’s decision, ultimately, to censor it. Although she had originally intended to go through with the “X-rated” version that shows George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein lookalikes at the end, the invasion of Iraq changed her mind. In one of the original versions, however, it shows Madonna throwing a grenade into a fashion show audience, with Bush catching it only to end up using it as a means to light his cigar. In another version (of which there are many), a Saddam lookalike lights the cigar for Bush. All of which is to say that these two men are ultimately in one big boys’ club together. A club that happens to run the world on violence and destruction.

    The theme of torture was on-brand for the early aughts, what with Guantánamo Bay opening in January of 2002. Which also happened to be the year that Madonna released the video for “Die Another Day,” a visual that might have been “controversy-free” were it not for Madonna’s rampant use of Hebrew words and wrapping a tefillin around her arm at the end of the video. The tefillin being, in Orthodox Jewish communities, solely reserved for men—and certainly not designed to be paraded in relation to a pop song. But leave it to Madonna to subvert religious paraphernalia whenever and wherever possible…

    2003, kissing Britney and Christina (but mainly Britney) at the VMAs: For some, the “queerbaiting shtick” of Madonna kissing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera during the 2003 VMAs hasn’t necessarily stood the test of time. But even if one feels that it was all done solely for “shock value” (rather than a symbolic “passing the baton,” as Madonna suggested at the time), it can’t be denied that it was a bold move to test out on the mainstream during a period when conservatism ruled over America yet again (courtesy of one, George W. Bush and his puppeteer, Dick Cheney). And a lesbianic kiss, in 2003, was just the ticket to momentarily shock the U.S. out of its puritanical coma.

    2004, Re-Invention Tour: Just because Madonna had become “the missus,” it didn’t mean she was prone to “tame” her act, particularly since it became apparent fairly early on in the marriage that Madonna couldn’t (and wouldn’t) stop being an artist just to appease Ritchie’s retro ideals of what a wife “ought to be.” Nor was she wont to tamp down her rampant allusions to Kabbalah and religion in general throughout the tour, making political statements that were often uncomfortable for those concertgoers who foolishly expected her to “shut up and play the hits.” But even during what constituted her first “greatest hits” tour, Madonna would never do that.

    2009, Michael Jackson tribute speech at the VMAs: It’s not often that someone can be controversial for their projection of narcissism, but Madonna managed to achieve that during the 2009 VMAs, when she was tasked with giving a tribute speech to her contemporary, Michael Jackson. Although, in the past, Jackson had often expressed his disdain for Madonna, it didn’t stop her from blithely making comparisons between her and the fellow pop royal, opening the speech with, “Michael Jackson was born in August 1958. so was I. Michael Jackson grew up in the suburbs of the Midwest. So did I. Michael Jackson had eight brothers and sisters. So do I.” Of course, that brief “running off course” from the subject at hand would pale in comparison to her eventual Aretha “tribute” speech…

    2012, The MDNA Tour: Letting it all hang out during her post-divorce-from-Ritchie era, Madonna went balls to the wall with her controversy-courting during The MDNA Tour. From placing a swastika over Marine Le Pen’s head during the “Nobody Knows Me” interlude to toting firearms during “Gang Bang” (even more controversial when she still performed with the guns after the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting) to “promoting homosexual propaganda” during her Russian concerts, every step of the way during The MDNA Tour was beset with the old line about Madonna being a devil woman.

    2014-15, calling the Rebel Heart leak “terrorism,” Rebel Heart social media snafus: Rebel Heart, Madonna’s thirteenth studio album, was plagued with difficulties from the start. For, in addition to working with more producers than she ever had before (even during Bedtime Stories), early demos of the songs were illegally hacked and leaked online, forcing Madonna to release six songs way ahead of schedule, in addition to bumping up the album’s release date before she was ready. As a result, the album’s concept was altered in a way that prevented Madonna from more fully representing the duality of the “rebel” side and the “heart” side. So yes, she was in a bit of a fragile state when she likened the hack to “terrorism,” particularly at a time when the Sydney hostage crisis and Peshawar school massacre had just occurred. Madonna would also further ruffle feathers by likening the violation to “rape,” a word that fewer and fewer were comfortable with throwing around lightly. Indeed, one woman who didn’t let use of that word go was Vanessa Grigoriadis, who, in her “Madonna at Sixty” profile, commented, “It didn’t feel right to explain that women these days were trying not to use that word metaphorically.” In response, Madonna clapped back, “[That article] makes me feel raped. And yes I’m allowed to use that analogy having been raped at the age of nineteen.”

    Of course, worse than anything was Madonna’s “promo campaign” during the Rebel Heart rollout. The one that found her using images of Black men that included Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Bob Marley with the same black wires wrapped around their face as the ones featured on Madonna’s album cover. Not only did people feel it was in “poor taste” for Madonna to use such freedom fighting icons as a means to promote her music, but they also pointed out the fact that putting Black men in what amounted to chains was really not a good look for a white woman.

    2017, announcing that she “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House”: This remains one of Madonna’s riskier moves in the past ten years, perhaps underestimating just how much the America she came of age in is no longer one that values or upholds the tenets of so-called free speech at all. To boot, in the time since Madonna rose to stardom, the world’s sense of humor has only become more nonexistent as a result of how literally everyone takes things. Madonna tried to break it down for those offended by saying, “I spoke in metaphor and I shared two ways of looking at things—one was to be hopeful, and one was to feel anger and outrage, which I have personally felt.” Alas, you can’t explain language to people who bastardize it as much as the 1984 government.

    2018, Aretha Franklin tribute speech at the VMAs: Falling prey to a more rambling speech than the one she gave after Michael Jackson’s death, Madonna made matters worse for herself at the 2018 VMAs by showing up in highly appropriative garb traditionally worn by Amazigh women. Having freshly stepped off the plane after her sixtieth birthday party in Morocco, Madonna didn’t seem to remember what planet she had reentered when she proceeded to give a long-winded “early days in New York” story before finally tying it back to Aretha with one sentence at the end of the speech. The Aretha fans were not happy.

    2019, shrimping Maluma in the “Medellín” video: After Madonna took a four-year pause from making another studio album (usually the longest she would ever go, up until now, with five years already passing between 2024 and the release of Madame X), it was the music and mood of Lisbon that inspired her next one. Madame X would become, arguably, Madonna’s most eclectic album to date, with a wide range of sounds, musicians, voices and instrument styles permeating the record. One such example being Maluma’s presence on the album’s lead single, “Medellín.” Maluma ended up being approached about a collaboration at the 2018 VMAs (so, not a total loss for Madonna) and the two quickly struck up a rapport that would last well after finishing their collaboration. Indeed, so “warm” were their feelings toward one another that Madonna even felt obliged to suck Maluma’s toe during their “bed scene” together in the video. After all, this is the woman who famously promoted shrimping on the back cover of her Erotica album.  

    2020, quarantine diaries and hydroxychloroquine post: Among the least sexual of her controversies, there was a period throughout 2020 where Madonna would provide little “snapshots” into her quarantined existence, billing these Instagram videos as her “quarantine diaries.” While some could appreciate the campiness of the content and production, others took offense to Madonna saying things like, “Covid is the great equalizer.” This said from a posh bathtub filled with rose petals.

    To make matters worse, in terms of Madonna coming across as tone deaf and uninformed about Covid, she posted a highly controversial video that promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine as means of curing coronavirus. In other words, she was touting the same remedy as Donald Trump. It definitely wasn’t her finest hour vis-à-vis types of controversy.

    2021, VMAs introduction: Not one to let the next generation forget that she will forever remain the queen of “baring it all” at any age, Madonna showed up to the VMAs in 2021 to give a nod to the fortieth anniversary of the network, telling the audience, “And they said we wouldn’t last. But we’re still here, motherfuckers” before turning around to flash her ass for the camera, 2015 Grammys-style. As usual, Madonna’s exposure of her “illicit” body part got the tongue-wagging reaction she wanted.

    2023, introducing Sam Smith and Kim Petras at the Grammys: Less desirable for Madonna on the tongue-wagging reaction front was her appearance at the 2023 Grammys. Tapped to introduce Sam Smith and Kim Petras performing “Unholy” (which she would also incorporate into the opening of “Like A Prayer” during The Celebration Tour), few were focused on the words Madonna was actually saying as much as they were her face. Of course, it wasn’t the first time comments had been made about her plastic surgery-happy visage, but this backlash over her appearance was among the most merciless to date. So tireless was the commentary about Madonna being “unrecognizable” that it prompted a barrage of think pieces on the subject, including “Madonna’s Face and the Myth of Aging Gracefully.” But if “graceful” means “covering it up” and surrendering to “acting your age,” then, obviously, it’s not for Madonna.

    2024, “daring” to still bare her skin/be sexual during The Celebration Tour: Speaking of not covering it up, while some were likely hoping that Madonna would “stay down” once she was felled by a bacterial infection in the summer of 2023, she got right back up again to parade her body for The Celebration Tour. Unlike the Re-Invention Tour, this was her first all-out, fully admitted greatest hits tour, celebrating a forty-year career that few others, least of all any female pop stars, have rivaled. Continuing to explore her old favorite themes, religion, sexuality and double standards for women, Madonna also incorporated many nostalgic touches into the show, reflecting on her past in a way she never had before, and certainly not during a tour. Of course, for those who might believe that it was a sign of Madonna “slowing down” or “accepting her fate with the reaper,” they have another thing coming. For this “devil woman” isn’t liable to ever stop.

    ***

    Madonna once remarked, “We live in a very puritanical country.” Something she’s seen time and time again in her decade-spanning career. And while it might have seemed that such puritanism was at its peak in the Reagan 80s, it’s no secret that the United States, at its core, has not fundamentally changed with regard to its attitudes about sex and sexually empowered women. As a result, it’s no wonder that Madonna has been branded as “the devil” repeatedly throughout her various “eras.” But at least, by turning sixty-six, she can finally give conservatives “the mark of the beast” to match that accusation.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • The Pros and Cons of “Like A Prayer” in Deadpool & Wolverine

    The Pros and Cons of “Like A Prayer” in Deadpool & Wolverine

    [ad_1]

    Madonna hasn’t been shy about wanting her music catalogue to be appreciated by “the next generation.” In a 2022 interview with Variety, she even stated as much explicitly: “I’m just looking for interesting, fun ways to rerelease my catalogue and introduce my music to a new generation.” And yes, that was the same interview during which she also added that she had no intention of selling her back catalogue to anyone (as a slew of other “legacy artists” have done of late) because, as she remarked, “Ownership is everything” (an aphorism that has decidedly neoliberal overtones—something Taylor Swift can obviously get on board with).

    As for funneling her music into the ears of a younger generation, it goes without saying that she’s been a fairly noticeable TikTok proponent, engaging with the various trends and challenges of the moment. In 2022, Madonna even experienced a viral blip on the app with, of all things, an unreleased demo called “Back That Up to the Beat” (which was initially composed during her Hard Candy era before making it onto 2019’s Madame X as a bonus track). But her most “interesting” method of reaching a new generation, of late, has been to license “Like A Prayer” for use in Deadpool & Wolverine, the third installment in the Deadpool series of films starring Ryan Reynolds.

    In terms of how that particular single came to be such “a thing” for the movie, Reynolds explained during an interview for Live with Kelly and Mark, “‘Like A Prayer’ has been stuck in my head for six years with respect to this movie, and its application—how we use ‘Like A Prayer’ in the movie is exactly what I’d been thinking about for six years. The problem [was], like, I put it in the script, I built stuff around it and I hadn’t yet asked for permission to use it.” In another interview discussing the song’s use, Reynolds added, “It was a big deal to ask for, and certainly a bigger deal to use it. We went over and met with her and showed her how it was being used and where and why.” (Somehow, one doubts that Harmony Korine did the same for a scene in 1997’s Gummo.)

    But, more than anything, it was “one of her sons” (though it’s unclear if that means Rocco Ritchie or David Banda) being a fan of Deadpool that incited Madonna to take the plunge on licensing such a timeless, beautiful song for a Marvel movie. As Kayla Schaefer (Megan Stalter) on Hacks puts it in season three, “Executives love listening to their kids.” In this case, that executive is Madonna, the CEO of all things Queen of Pop-related. And yet, taking advice from others on what to do with her image and work hasn’t always gone according to plan (think: her strong affiliation with the Bored Ape Yacht Club).

    In this scenario, the consequence of “lending” “Like A Prayer” to such a specific and highly commercial cause is twofold. On the one hand, Madonna has achieved her aim of infecting the minds of a younger generation as that “Like A Prayer” scene makes the rounds on TikTok. On the other, now little ignorant assholes are referring to the track as “the song from Deadpool,” not seeming to comprehend how reductive and disrespectful it is to the true majesty of the work. Maybe Madonna didn’t totally account for how “giving” the song to Reynolds would result in it being subsequently forever associated with 1) a fight scene where Deadpool and Wolverine take on a wide range of other Deadpools and 2) a scene where Hugh Jackman’s abs are prominently focused on as the duo works to prevent the Time Ripper from destroying all timelines.

    Neither scene, of course, really suits the lyrics of “Like A Prayer,” apart from, one supposes, “I can feel your power.” But maybe, beyond that, Reynolds was going for a certain “tone,” and “Like A Prayer” fit the bill more than anything else he could come up with. Even though, in truth, there are many other Madonna songs that might have better embodied the vibe, including “Frozen,” “4 Minutes” and “Give It 2 Me.” Alas, Madonna’s “later” work is rarely as lauded or appreciated as the material she released before the mid-nineties. And when it comes to Marvel movies, choosing the song with the most wide-ranging appeal is the name of the game. Hence, using one of her biggest hits from, what else, the eighties.

    Evidently wanting to get their mileage out of shelling out to license the track, Reynolds as Deadpool even makes a comment about it after emerging from his death brush with Wolverine to inform everyone, “You put a Deadpool and a Wolverine together, make ‘em hold hands while listening to Madonna: indestructible, motherfucker.” Sort of like Madonna herself, who has continuously “reanimated” (a.k.a. reinvented) during every decade of her career to show that her ability to adapt to each new era (whether that means embracing certain technology, apps or, now, film franchises) itself informs her own eras—which then inform pop culture itself. And the cycle goes on and on…presumably in every timeline.

    The major drawback of that, however, is that, as she angles to get her back catalogue into the ears of new listeners (perhaps aware that only the true die-hards are more interested in her releasing new music), she is left with little choice but to dilute the integrity of the original product. And that’s a big digression for someone who once defiantly told her father when he asked of her Blond Ambition Tour, “Can’t you tone it down a bit?”: “No, because that would be compromising my artistic integrity.” This being precisely what Madonna has done (though not for the first time) in opting to have “Like A Prayer” so prominently featured in Deadpool & Wolverine. But maybe it’s better to have the song remembered for being in the latter than so prominently used in the recent fail that was The Idol.

    And, on the note of “failure,” it’s a good thing, for Madonna’s sake, that Deadpool & Wolverine has surpassed the box office receipts of the first two movies—lest Madonna somehow get blamed for being “box office kryptonite” (though that’s technically a DC word) even when she’s not actually in the movie.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Madonna Ushered “Yeehaw Culture” Into the Mainstream

    Madonna Ushered “Yeehaw Culture” Into the Mainstream

    [ad_1]

    While the term “yeehaw culture” (an oxymoron if ever there was one) has only recently become a “trend” (along with the phrase “yeehaw agenda”), Madonna was embodying it decades ago, with her 2000 album, Music (the vibe of which was presaged by her early 2000 cover of Don McLean’s “American Pie”). In fact, it seemed Madonna intuited George W. Bush’s presidential “win” in November months before (with Music being released on September 18th of that election year). For she had already decided on cowboy hats and other assorted “western regalia” for her first reinvention of the twenty-first century. Or rather, her photographer, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, talked her into it. The result was an instantly iconic, instantly recognizable identity from her many eras (back when people weren’t using the word “era” to describe phases of people’s careers). 

    And arguably the best part about Madonna’s so-called country era was that she didn’t actually try to sing country music at all. Apart from hints of it on “I Deserve It” and “Don’t Tell Me,” the latter co-written by her brother-in-law, Joe Henry. A country musician who had envisioned it as a “torch song” until Madonna decided it was much better to, like, invent the country-dance genre. Something that, of late, Beyoncé seems to think she created. Worse still, so do the legions of listeners obsessing over the “brilliant” “innovation” of Cowboy Carter. An album that, in every way—sonically and aesthetically—owes its debt to Music (just as the visuals from Renaissance do). A record that so astutely managed to anticipate the arrival of the “yeehaw president,” therefore the rise of conservatism yet again (evidently, eight years of a Democrat in the 90s meant the pendulum needed to swing the other way). Except that, in Madonna’s campy hands, those cowboy aesthetics associated with machismo and narrow-mindedness became, well, super gay. Ultra kitsch. As though Madonna was preemptively thumbing her nose at the repression and oppression that was to come with the Bush presidency. As usual, she was being ironic. 

    That much was made crystal clear on her album cover by pairing her “butch” denim jeans not with cowboy boots, but with ruby-red sequined high heels that riffed on Dorothy Gale’s a.k.a. Judy Garland’s famous ruby-red slippers in The Wizard of Oz. Because if anyone supports “friends of Dorothy,” it’s Madonna. And Lawd knows Dubya (and his entire administration) wasn’t going to during his two long terms in office. In this way, too, Madonna predates Beyoncé (and everyone else) in subverting/“perverting” the semiotics of western culture (a.k.a. “yeehaw culture”) in order to make it more accessible to groups (like the gays) who were typically marginalized from “participating” in it (read: being able to freely dress up in the sartorial trappings of a cowboy). One could even argue that Music was influential on spurring (no pun intended) the screen adaptation of Brokeback Mountain, released in 2005. Forever to be known as the “gay cowboy movie.” But who made it safe for cowboys to be gay five years earlier? Madonna. The Mondino-directed video for “Don’t Tell Me” solidified that fact as Madonna “bucked around” with some very fey cowboys as her backup dancers. 

    In fact, the only “pure archetype” of a straight cowboy is the man shown toward the end of the video, who eventually endures the humiliation of being thrown from his horse (meanwhile, Madonna relishes her seamless “ride” on a mechanical bull). After getting up from the ground, it’s obvious his pride has been wounded. And it’s also obvious that Madonna’s underlying intent is to wound the conventional straight male ego with this symbolic image. Taking it down a peg, as it were. 

    In addition to the album artwork and the “Don’t Tell Me” video, Madonna spent the majority of the Music promotion cycle dressed in her cowboy attire (often of a “ghetto fab” nature, like the style displayed in the video for “Music,” directed by another go-to of M’s, ​​Jonas Åkerlund). Whether performing at the Brixton Academy or the MTV EMAs, Madonna was committed to lending a flamboyance to the conventional cowboy look that no one else before her—least of all a pop star—ever did. Here, too, one can make the case that she was even a blueprint for the fusion of pop and country that Taylor Swift would become known for by the time 2008 rolled around. And all without Madonna ever having to prostrate herself to the genre of country at all. In this regard, too, she set a new precedent for solely culling the images of western/country/Americana without feeling the need to back it up with some claim of “deserving” to wield this imagery (e.g., the way Beyoncé and her supporters keep being sure to tout how she’s from Houston and spent her childhood at rodeos). 

    Granted, Madonna has far more working-class roots than most of the people who have dabbled in country of late, with her salt-of-the-earth Midwestern background also being an indication of “country-ness” beyond the South. But needing to insist she was “worthy” of being deemed country was never part of her game plan for Music. Instead, she wanted to play up the idea that artifice is a key aspect of the personas people try on. Even “real” cowboys who, sooner or later, have to take off their costume at the end of the day. The “Don’t Tell Me” video amplifies this concept of western culture and lore being a construct by briefly deceiving the viewer into thinking Madonna is walking on a real deserted road in the heart of the West before Mondino pans back to reveal that it’s nothing more than a screen projecting the image while Madonna walks in front of it. 

    Unlike the proponents of “yeehaw culture” in the present, Madonna never felt obliged to make some grand claim about her “legitimacy” as a “country western star.” The point, instead, was to lightly poke fun at the hyper-masculinity of the “culture” and put her own feminine (/homo) stamp on it. Alas, it seems many people have quickly forgotten her major contribution to the mainstream-ification of cowboy chic. In such a way that she did make it safe for non-white male conservatives to want to partake of it. Though not everyone might be thanking her for making this style extend beyond the backwater roads of the West, Midwest and South. 

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • The Celebration Tour: Madonna’s Shelved Biopic Reanimates in the Form of a Pop-Theater Concert

    The Celebration Tour: Madonna’s Shelved Biopic Reanimates in the Form of a Pop-Theater Concert

    [ad_1]

    Among the many memorable statements Madonna made throughout 1991’s Truth or Dare, the one that stuck out most, in terms of characterizing the Blond Ambition Tour, was this: “It’s a journey that you go on… You take a journey. It’s cathartic. You can’t get to one place without going to another place.” Madonna has obviously borne that same statement in mind with regard to the conception of her twelfth—that’s right, twelfth—tour. For we, the audience, are all taken on the journey of her life. So yes, more than a “greatest hits” tour (with that term being used more loosely in Madonna’s interpretation), this is a “pop” odyssey. Except that Madonna doesn’t like the word “pop” to describe her show. As she told the crowd, “I really hate that word, ‘pop,’ ‘cause it sounds disposable, and I am not.” This much she’s been determined to make the masses—however hating and skeptical they are—consistently aware of. Even though some of her more adamant detractors (Morrissey especially) have billed her as precisely that. Designed for disposable, assembly-line consumption with each new era. Ergo, a nickname like McDonna (an insult hurtled at Madonna by, who else, Morrissey) referring to her McDonald’s-like nature, capitalism-wise. And sure, Madonna has never made any attempt to hide her zeal for money, but if that were the only thing motivating her, she would have stopped (to many people’s delight) a long time ago.

    In truth, she had a number of opportunities to simply “take the money and shut up” in her early days, as she was forging an artistic path for herself. One that quite a few others tried to help shape along the way—apparently not aware of the iron will they had come up against until it was too late, and they had already sunk a lot of money into molding their “coquette.” This included Belgian producers Jean-Claude Pellerin et Jean Vanloo, who hired Madonna to be a backup dancer for Patrick Hernandez in 1979, but also wanted to make her into their next Big Thing. They flew her to Paris and put her up in a nice place near Parc Monceau so they could work on that “shaping” with vocal coaches, the works. Then there was Camille Barbone, who managed Madonna under Gotham Management from 1981 to 1982, when Madonna broke out of her contract to pursue her own artistic route. One that was not in line with the Pat Benatar-inspired sound and aesthetic Barbone was cultivating. Of course, these are not the people or occasions M references in The Celebration Tour. Though she says, “I think of it as a retrospective. I’m gonna tell you the story of my life—the last forty years of my life,” that story can’t feature any of the people who might not have gotten a “return on their investment” in supporting Madonna Ciccone before she was: MADONNA. Although perhaps it could if Madonna ever did release the biopic she was working on for three years (starting in 2020). And obviously, this tour is meant to be a “substitute” for that biopic (as opposed to a substitute for love). The one that she publicized at length via her various writing sessions with both Diablo Cody and Erin Cressida Wilson. The production also involved intense auditions (described as “Madonna boot camp”) for the lead role, with Julia Garner finally winning out over competitors like Florence Pugh, Sydney Sweeney, Alexa Demie, Odessa Young, Emma Laird, Bebe Rexha and Sky Ferreira. But maybe Madonna, in the end, got “creeped out” by someone trying to fulfill an impossible role, preferring to just do it herself by going on tour. Thus, the announcement at the beginning of 2023 that, while the movie was shelved, there would be a tour to soothe wounded fans instead. Indeed, many fans likely breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the delicacy of telling such a story could go wrong in manifold ways. Even with (or perhaps precisely because of) Madonna directing the project herself.

    A world tour, on the other hand, that was something she could guarantee to conquer (or so she thought before that major “health scare” a.k.a. near-death experience over the summer). And she could also tell her life story that way instead, as The Celebration Tour is so clearly “runoff” from the Little Sparrow (the main working title) script she had been working on for years. Mining through so much material to ensure the accuracy of her story’s telling. Maybe even snippets of the dialogue were repurposed in some of the “vignettes” of The Celebration Tour…like Madonna trying to get into a club (presumably Paradise Garage) and being rebuffed. A slight she wouldn’t forget about, she admits, informing the audience, “Nobody let me into any clubs dressed like this. Can you imagine? Assholes! I’ve been getting revenge for the last forty years.” For who would deny Madonna entry into any club now? Having all but assured every DJ has a dance hit of hers that will undoubtedly get the crowd going. This fear of rejection she has stemming from being “bounced” so often in her pre-fame days manifested most overtly in a 2000 MTV promo for the Madonna V.I.P. Contest, wherein M appears at the front of a line outside of a club, only to be met with the jarring question, “Are you on the list?” She looks at the bouncer skeptically and replies, “People don’t usually ask me that question.” Unmoved, the bouncer says, “Well I can’t let you in here if you’re not on the list.” Out of patience, she reminds, “Excuse me but I’m…Madonna.” The bouncer then points to the slew of other people dressed like Madonna (a running theme throughout her career) waiting in line (or “on line” as  New Yorkers annoyingly like to say) to get inside. As Madonna realizes that the bouncer sees her as another “wannabe”/nobody, it seems to take her back to those days when she couldn’t get into a club just for being herself. Awakening from the nightmare in the comfort of her palatial abode, she remarks, “Thank god, it was just a dream.” She then looks into the camera as cliché cheeseball music plays and adds, “But for millions of people not getting into a nightclub, it’s a reality they have to face every day… Won’t you please help put an end to club-going nightmares? Enter today.” So yes, to say that club culture was, is and remains a heavy influence on Madonna’s psyche would be an understatement. And it’s a culture that infected her upon encountering “the scene” in New York City. The “stage,” naturally, where she begins The Celebration Tour’s story. For it was this moment that she attributed to the birth of her “Real” Self: in 1978, when she moved to New York.

    Thus, it can be no surprise that the “journey” of the tour commences with mentioning the “transfer” to her beloved adopted city, centered around “early days” tracks like “Everybody,” “Burning Up” and “Holiday.” “Can you imagine moving to New York in 1978?” she asks the crowd at one point. Because, sure, 70s and 80s NYC is plenty glamorized now, but back then, it was truly the last place a girl on her own should move. Even a girl as “tough as nails” as Madonna. But it was perhaps New York itself that transformed her into the level of “tough” we know today, having endured all manner of horrors upon arrival, including being raped at knifepoint. But Madonna’s the type of person who can take all of these traumas “in stride”—that is to say, she believes that every struggle is what makes you into the person you are (ergo, “You can’t get to one place without going to another place”). So who would she be, indeed, without all those emotional scars (or “Beautiful Scars,” as one of her Rebel Heart-era songs is titled)? Especially the one that stemmed from her mother dying of breast cancer when Madonna was five years old. Had that not happened, there’s no denying Madonna’s drive for fame wouldn’t have been as intense. Not to say that it was a “good thing” her mother died so she would be compelled to seek love from the entire world so as to fill the void where maternal love was supposed to be. Indeed, during a video portion of the show, Madonna features a soundbite of herself from a 1995 interview wherein she says that she would have gladly traded her fame and fortune for one thing: a mother. The concept of motherhood is, in fact, very much omnipresent throughout the tour. And yes, of course, lots of sexuality and writhing. After all, how do you think women become mothers? (Answer: by fucking).

    But before Madonna became a literal mother to six children and a metaphorical “Mother” to all the gays, as well as every pop star that came after her (Britney included), she was a loudmouthed “street kid” aspiring to be a club kid. And that’s the version of herself we see sitting next to her after her performance of “Into the Groove.” Dressed in what look like “rags” by today’s standards. And Madonna is the first to admit her 1981-era sartorial choices were slightly “tragic.” Nonetheless, she turns to the dancer mimicking her early 80s style while wearing a flesh-colored mask that obfuscates their real face (for an eerie effect) and asks the audience, “Anyways, have you met Me? Have you met Myself?” By some accounts, none of us ever really will (#nobodyknowsme).

    With this reflection on the past, it’s ironic that Madonna should begin the tour with “Nothing Really Matters.” Not because, for most non-fans, it wouldn’t be considered a “greatest hit,” per se, but because one of the defining lyrics of the song is: “Nothing takes the past away like the future.” She then proceeds to bring the past back after that song, as though to further prove she can defy time however she wants to. Of that rag-wearing club aspirant, Madonna notes, “I like to keep her by my side. I never forget where I come from—the struggle, the humility, the hard work. And I just want to give you a hug right now, thank you.” Yes, Madonna symbolically hugging and thanking her early twenties self for all the bravado and determination she brought to New York so that the Madonna of forty years later could relish the fruits of those labors is a combination of being ultra-meta, a psychologist’s wet dream and, to the more cynical, yet another sign of Madonna’s enduring narcissism. Something her former University of Michigan roommate, Whitley Setrakian, once commented on by shrugging, “Her passion was…herself. The Project of Madonna.”

    That passion for the Project of Madonna is alive and well for The Celebration Tour, with those “past selves” and incarnations being constantly present onstage. And yes, she might owe a debt to the 9.9.99 VMAs for that idea. It was during that year’s awards show that a slew of drag performers dressed in some of her most iconic looks gave her a nonverbal introduction before she took the stage to then introduce Paul McCartney and present the award for Video of the Year. With the endless barrage of options in terms of “Madonna looks,” the pop star has long been a favorite of drag queens, and so it’s only right that the tour should be emceed by one. Specifically, Bob the Drag Queen, who introduces the show in Madonna’s famed Marie Antoinette ensemble from the 1990 VMAs (and yes, one of the drag queens at the 1999 VMAs wore that look, too). He’s also sure to call out that legendary tidbit about how Madonna arrived in NY with a mere thirty-five dollars in her pocket, adding to that reminder a touch of goading about how he’d like to see you try to become the Queen of Pop with just thirty-five dollars and a dream in New York City. Of course, one of the unacknowledged things about Madonna is that she did benefit, like the rest of her baby boomer cohort, from the time and place she found herself in. For, while it was difficult to do what she did in many regards, it was also much easier to become famous in the early 80s without any…polish. Particularly as she got in on the ground floor of the postmodern/MTV pop star period that would dominate until the 00s. There wasn’t much competition in her field—not the way there is now in terms of everyone vying for the same piece of “virality pie.” One wonders if Madonna would have been able to thrive in such a climate, or if she was truly built for the more “blood, sweat and tears” form of fame that did not rely on smartphones and the internet for some kind of “democratizing” advantage. She herself has said she’s glad she came up during a time before social media, for it allowed her to experiment and become the artist she wanted to without risk of it somehow backfiring on her later with the video and photos “receipts.” Many of which we have access to, but a great many that we don’t.

    Even some of those very earliest performances of “Holiday.” A song that stands out more particularly than previous performances of it on her tours in that she uses it to show the drastic “comedown” effect that AIDS had on the club and party circuit. Lending new meaning to phrase, “Keep dancing till we die.” Incorporating Chic’s 1978 single, “I Want Your Love,” at one point, the song starts to slow as ominous musical undertones begin to creep in. Soon, Madonna is repeating the word “holiday” with a melancholic tone as the music has stopped altogether and the gay man she was dancing with (“played” here by Daniele Sibilli) proceeds to fall to the ground—his light-hearted dance now transformed into a danse macabre. Resigning herself to this loss, she places her coat (lined with Keith Haring’s signature graffiti) and kneels over him as the stage’s trap door opens to take them both down into the depths. The opening to Madonna’s least appreciated song (and definitely not a greatest hit), “In This Life,” then plays before transitioning into “Live To Tell.” This precursor to how AIDS put a stop to the party and cast a dark pall over the 80s for anyone outside of a conservative yuppie bubble is what helps to lend such a powerful effect to the performance. Serving as a contrast and visual manifestation of how everything changed once AIDS arrived and gay men—gay men that Madonna knew—started dropping like flies.

    “Live To Tell” not only makes excellent use of the many hanging retractable screens that appear during the show, but it also marks the first appearance of the “portal frame.” A sort of life-size picture frame Madonna can stand in while suspended in midair, “going back in time,” as it were. And seeing the faces of those she lost to AIDS, including her first gay friend and mentor, Christopher Flynn. Then, of course, her “twin flame,” Martin Burgoyne. Both of these men being who she refers to in “In This Life.”

    Being that no greatest hits tour of Madonna’s would be complete without “Like A Prayer,” she uses it once more to draw on her go-to theme of Catholicism’s intertwinement with sexuality. That, by repressing it, the religion ends up rendering sex “taboo,” therefore even hotter because of its “forbiddenness.” Choosing to incorporate Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy” before and after, the audience is treated to dancers in gimp masks gyrating before neon crosses. Because without Catholicism and its subversion, there is no Madonna. What’s more, the themes and visuals presented by this back-to-back pairing of “Live To Tell” and “Like A Prayer” ultimately serve as a better representation of what Ryan Murphy was trying to convey in the atrocious AHS: NYC.

    Unfortunately, Madonna may have grown too accustomed to death already after her mother’s premature one. And, after her performance of “Don’t Tell Me” (which expectedly features a bevy of glam cowboy costumes), she informs the audience, “When I was a child, of course, I associated being a mother with death because my mother had many children and then she died. And then I thought, ‘Why would I want to be a mother? It just ends up in death.’ So my whole life I just kept saying, ‘I’m gonna live the life my mother never had. And I did. Oh boy, did I.” Eventually, though, she “surrendered to the pleasure” of motherhood. Being among the first of her kind to show others that you can be a mom and still be a badass. You don’t have to give up all of yourself to do it (though, some mothers are wont to point out that Madonna has had an army of paid staff to help her raise her children, therefore remain “herself”). In fact, you can even impart some of yourself onto the children. Which Madonna would like to think she’s done in that all of them have artistic inclinations. She’s taught them, in effect, that art is the best and healthiest way to cope with trauma and loss. To put it another way, “Everything in this show is bits and pieces of my life. People I’ve loved, people I’ve lost, friends I’ve lost, peers I’ve lost, children I’ve gained, family, art, life—all of it. That’s what saves me, and that is how I survive.” Naturally, this leads into “I Will Survive” (a gay anthem, bien sûr), Madonna’s chosen cover track for the tour (whereas the Rebel Heart Tour favored “La Vie En Rose”). It’s a pointed selection, of course, for the crux of this tour seems to be about Madonna dealing with her survivor’s guilt over the years, particularly with regard to so many of her contemporaries dying before her. Most overtly, this pertains to Michael Jackson and Prince (both of whom Madonna “dated,” as much as one can date men like that). When combined with Madonna, they formed the Holy Boomer Trinity of pop culture icons, all born in 1958. Both men are acknowledged during the tour, though Prince to a much less cringeworthy degree. His “cameo” arrives, fittingly, at the end of “Like A Prayer.” For the album of the same name is heavy with Prince contributions, from “Love Song” to the closing track, “Act of Contrition”—wielded at the end of “Like A Prayer” here so that the Prince lookalike can do his guitar-scorching thing.

    Regrettably, Madonna remains among the many to act as though 1) pedophilic allegations against Michael Jackson never happened and 2) Leaving Neverland doesn’t exist. Strangely, Madonna’s Jackson obsession has only increased over the years in spite of how vocal he was about his contempt for her. At one point calling her, in his taped recordings with his “spiritual advisor,” Shmuley Boteach, a “nasty witch.” He also listed Madonna as one of the people who was “jealous” of his talent by saying, “They admire you and know you’re wonderful and great, but they’re jealous. ‘Cause they wish they were in your place, wish they were in your shoes. And ‘M’ is one of them. Madonna. She’s not a nice… she hasn’t been kind. She’s a woman, and I think that’s what bothers her. Women don’t scream for other women. And men are too cool to scream for women.” Needless to say, Jackson doesn’t seem to be factoring in the many screaming gay men at Madonna’s shows. The Celebration Tour being no exception to the rule. But it seems the segment that features her and Jackson’s 80s-era silhouettes dancing (to the tune of “Billie Jean” and “Like A Virgin,” in a nod to what Madonna did on The Virgin Tour) against one of the screens is more for the people who really were seeking a greatest hits tour in buying a ticket. Digging deep among the few images of them actually together, Madonna displays the three “photo sessions” of the two of them (the first when she went backstage to see the Jacksons after their 1984 Victory Tour, the second when they went to The Ivy together in 1993 and the third, of course, from their 1991 “date” at the Academy Awards). It’s no longer totally obvious why Madonna is so dead-set on solidifying her association with a child molester (and master manipulator of those children and their parents) except the usual excuse about how there’s no one else on the same level to compare herself to anymore. Least of all in the present climate of TikTok and YouTube nobodies coasting off millions of views rather than actual star quality and charisma.

    Oddly, the main criticism about the Michael portion of the program, which, alas, sticks out in one’s mind because it’s toward the end of the show, has little to do with Madonna continuing to elevate and idolize a sexual assaulter and more to do with being “hokey” or “corny.” Um, no, the real problem is Madonna remains hellbent on aligning her affections with someone who was blatantly inappropriate with children, whether one believes the “allegations” or not. Her blind spot about Jackson also negates Madonna’s feminist persona. One that would surely adhere to the adage about believing victims. Women or men. Like the men in Leaving Neverland (James Safechuck and Wade Robson, of Britney-kissing fame). Considering Madonna herself was the victim of sexual assault, it also seems bizarre that she would be so willing to gloss over this “complicated” aspect of Jackson’s legacy. Yet, in some sense, it mirrors the glossing over of her own complicated one. From the cultural appropriation arguments (ostensibly “amended” by featuring the Queens Remix of Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” during the “Vogue” segment) to ignoring the fact that she and Sinead O’Connor weren’t exactly “best mates.” Or even in possession of the kind of acquaintanceship that would warrant Madonna flashing her image on one of the screens during, of all things, “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.” To add insult to injury, O’Connor’s image is displayed right after Marlon Brando’s—not exactly a known advocate of women’s rights.

    In fact, one of the key clashes between Madonna and O’Connor stemmed from their divergent views on feminism. With O’Connor saying of Madonna, in a 1991 Spin interview, “Madonna is probably the hugest role model for women in America. There’s a woman who people look up to as being a woman who campaigns for women’s rights. A woman who, in an abusive way toward me, said that I look like I had a run-in with a lawnmower and that I was about as sexy as a Venetian blind.” To be fair, Madonna was no kinder in her assessment of appearance when it came to her “beloved” Michael Jackson either, publicly declaring she wanted to give him a makeover, starting with his hair and also, “I wanna get him out of those buckly boots.” For someone as prone to and reliant upon image overhauls, there was no chance things could have worked out between them, “romantically” or platonically.

    Additionally, Madonna’s affection for Jackson makes little sense when taking into account that he echoed what many detractors have said over the years: “Let’s face it, she can’t sing and she’s just an okay dancer. What does she do best? She knows how to market herself. That’s it.” And yet, one apparently can’t put a price on effective “marketing.” Madonna was even able to market herself as a “better” Catholic than Sinead by commenting of her ripping up an image of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live, “I think there’s a better way to present her ideas rather than ripping up an image that means a lot to other people.” Evoking a sort of, “Hey, that’s only okay when I do it” philosophy on Madonna’s part when it comes to controversy-starting. Once more highlighting the palpable tinge of hypocrisy in featuring Sinead’s image during the tour.

    After her performance of “Don’t Tell Me,” Madonna is due for her second speech of the night. And, after talking about motherhood, she took the opportunity to address the shitty state of the world by inquiring of her audience, “How can we change this? What can we do? Do you ask yourself that question? You know how you can change it?” “Give you more money,” someone in the audience jadedly quips. Because, sure, it’s no lie that Madonna has cadged her fair share of dough from fans as she assures them it’s all for a good cause. But, ultimately, isn’t it? If one woman can still bring so much joy and entertainment to people in a world that is increasingly bleak as fuck in general and utterly flaccid on the showmanship front in particular, there can be no denying she’s earned those millions. And yes, Madonna does make someone like Taylor Swift, with her “precious” Eras Tour, look positively banal. The Celebration Tour, accordingly, is a reminder to those who have been foolish enough to forget that there is only one true master in the art of pop stardom, and it’s the very woman who helmed it.

    While some have said that Madonna “conceding” to a greatest hits tour is a sign of desperation, this is not a conventional “greatest hits” tour by any means (and certainly, few would cite “Mother and Father” or “The Beast Within” as being among her hits). Unless one counts the fact that these are the greatest hits to the gay men who have enjoyed dancing to these tracks in the club the most. How else does one explain the presence of “Fever,” “Justify My Love,” (cover or not) “I Will Survive,” “Bedtime Story” and “Rain”? What’s more, her overt preference for the Erotica album on this tour not only reveals that she thinks the record has finally been vindicated enough to be truly appreciated, but that this, like so much of what she’s done, is a tour for the gays. Correction: the older gays. In other words, the proverbial last of the Mohicans in terms of having any fucking taste.

    *note: this review references the November 19, 2023 performance

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • 25 Years of Madonna Ciccone, 40 Years of Madonna

    25 Years of Madonna Ciccone, 40 Years of Madonna

    [ad_1]

    It might prove a challenge to most to imagine a time when Madonna wasn’t, well, Madonna. When she was Madonna Ciccone or Madonna Louise or Madonna Louise Veronica or simply “Nonnie.” But for almost a full twenty-five years, she lived as a civilian before exploding onto the music scene like a supernova. And yet, unlike the supernova’s explosion marking the end of a star’s life, Madonna’s “Lucky Star” appropriately marked the beginning of hers. As a star, that is. Although Madonna would still remain known to a select demographic after the release of her self-titled debut on July 27, 1983 (just twenty-one days before her twenty-fifth birthday), it was only a year later, on September 14, 1984, that she would become a household name thanks to rolling around seductively in a wedding dress at the inaugural MTV VMAs.

    That happened a little over a month after her twenty-sixth birthday (though Madonna was able to fudge her age slightly in the earlier days…like during a 1982 audition for Fame, when she told the casting director she was twenty-one, or in a 1985 blurb in Time that cites her as twenty-four instead of twenty-six). Indeed, one might say she didn’t truly become “Madonna” until then. During that moment when she was twenty-six…accidentally writhing around in front of a live audience, not to mention the many cable viewers watching at home.  

    Up until then, it was arguable that some semblance of “plebeian Madonna” still remained. Complete with the “street urchin-y” aesthetic complemented by all that “junk jewelry.” That image—and the many accessories that went with it—being shed by 1986, with the release of her third record, True Blue. Another “summer record” that came out at the end of July, Madonna forewent her “vagabond chic” look in favor of a sleeker gamine one, most noticeable in the fitness regimen she had taken on to get rid of the pounds from what she called her “chunky” era. So it was that she was slowly but surely leaning further into what “Madonna” would mean: constant, ceaseless evolution. 

    The cynics, of course, would deride her “reinventions” (a word she hated so much she decided to reappropriate it for herself by calling her 2004 world tour the Re-invention Tour) as “gimmicks,” whereas Madonna described them as simply continuing to pull back the layers to reveal more and more of her “true self.” Or whatever was true of herself at a particular (impressive) instant in time. What remained steadfastly true throughout all the incarnations was her enduring level of superstardom. Despite most of the twenty-first century thus far consisting of critics and fans alike writing her off as being everything from “desperate” to “over,” the fact that intense analysis and dissection of Madonna has gone on unrelentingly should indicate how relevant she remains. Even in the various TikTok trends (as though it should require TikTok to remind people who already know that Madonna is unmatched for her tireless work ethic and trailblazing viewpoints) that have come to highlight her singular nature among the pop star crop. Take, for instance, the one that’s recently gone viral of her doing jump squats repeatedly during a musical breakdown on “Music” for 2001’s Drowned World Tour. Madonna was doing that shit at forty-three. 

    And, at thirty-four, she was already railing against the society that was going to try and “put her out to pasture” once she turned forty. As they did to any woman in the public eye (luckily for Marilyn Monroe, she didn’t stick around long enough to experience it). It seemed that it wasn’t until Madonna’s fifties that becoming a lone spokeswoman for ageism against women in entertainment (especially pop stars) really ramped up though (and has only continued to do so in her sixties). This shined through most markedly during a speech she gave while accepting the award for Billboard’s Woman of the Year in 2016, stating with her sardonic tone, among other blunt truths, “Be what men want you to be, but more importantly, be what women feel comfortable with you being around other men. And finally, do not age. Because to age is a sin. You will be criticized and vilified and definitely not played on the radio.” 

    A feat Madonna has miraculously managed to overcome with the release of “Popular,” a song she’s featured on with The Weeknd and Playboi Carti. Regardless of the latter two having an influence on why the song is being played on the radio, it nonetheless is. And the fact that it’s charted on the Billboard Hot 100 has put Madonna in the rare category of being among the few artists to chart one of their singles in five different decades. 

    And so it seems that, having evolved into the sixty-five-year-old Madonna as of August 16, 2023, one of her key purposes all along was not just to break down barriers for the LGBTQIA+ community, but also for any female musician who wanted to keep going past their thirties. In the future, when women like Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift are in their sixties and still releasing albums, they will owe a direct debt to Madonna for bearing the brunt of the abuse that has made the public more accepting of pop stars not having an expiration date (something Kylie Minogue, too, has recently benefited from with “Padam Padam”). 

    Although Madonna has been Madonna for far longer than she was Madonna Ciccone (at times wrongly spelled as “Cicconi”), perhaps the one thing that has always lingered from that pre-fame girl is the masking of vulnerability through a “tough-as-nails” persona. Rarely lowering her guard to let anyone see it after the trauma that would last her entire lifetime: the death of her mother when “Nonnie” was just five. It was this loss that also sowed the seeds for Madonna Ciccone to become Madonna. Driven to seek out the love she was craving from an absent mother (and that she couldn’t get enough of in such a big family where every sibling got lost in the shuffle) by eventually finding it in millions of worshipful fans that could still probably never fill that void.

    Even so, Madonna the Pop Icon has made do with her substitute for (maternal) love the best she can. And, like many women, no matter how old they get, she’s still just that “little girl lost in a storm.” Forever Madonna Ciccone at heart.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Amid Comparisons to Madonna and Michael Jackson, It’s Worth Reminding That Taylor Has Never “Ate”

    Amid Comparisons to Madonna and Michael Jackson, It’s Worth Reminding That Taylor Has Never “Ate”

    [ad_1]

    As Taylor Swift continues to dominate the global conversation thanks to the Eras Tour (still not as record-shattering as the Renaissance Tour though), the comparison that keeps being brought up is that she is somehow the Madonna and Michael Jackson of our time. As for the latter, it’s difficult to make such a comparison for many reasons, not just because he was a Black man (at the start), but because he never had the squeaky clean image that Swift does (even before the pedophilia was publicized). Nor did (/does) Madonna. In fact, part of the reason both performers were so controversial was because of the sexually-charged manner in which they took the stage. And yes, Madonna grafted the crotch-grabbing maneuver from Jackson—yet another case in point of her tendency to appropriate from (gay-leaning) men of color. 

    As for Swift, who is being treated by this nation as though she has, to quote Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) in 10 Things I Hate About You, “beer-flavored nipples” or something, she doesn’t ever get political enough to be as “dangerous” or retroactively controversial (let alone controversial in the moment). Madonna, for example, is currently being compared to Lizzo for possessing the same bullying nature toward her dancers from the Blond Ambition Tour. Famously encapsulated by her asking of one dancer, “Does anybody give a shit?” after he expressed an opinion. While those who “have a fuckin’ sense of humor,” as Madonna said during her August 5th Blond Ambition show in Nice, might be better able to understand that it’s all coming from a place of irony (and that everyone needs to stop being so fucking literal), there’s not much room for that “brand” of humor anymore. Instead, such forms of “jocularity” are doomed to be written off as a form of white privilege that’s no longer tenable. And yet, talking of irony, that brings us to Swift, whose own white privilege is rarely ever acknowledged in discussing her road to success. 

    As is the case with many white women who end up famous (including Billie Eilish), Swift had ample parental support. Hers was not just emotional, however. Having a father like Scott Swift, the founder of The Swift Group (part of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management) certainly helped her with the encouragement to “pursue her dream.” After all, there was no worry that Taylor might end up homeless or anything if the whole “music thing” didn’t pan out. Because, as Pulp noted, “‘Cause when you’re laid in bed at night/Watching roaches climb the wall/If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah.” And who knows what Mr. Swift might have helped stop (and start) along the way for his eldest child (with Swift’s only other sibling being her younger brother, Austin)? 

    Madonna, in contrast, had neither emotional nor financial support from her father when she set off to New York. This after already scandalizing Tony Ciccone by dropping out of college (Swift didn’t bother with that form of education at all). Specifically, giving up the dance scholarship she had earned to attend the University of Michigan. Because, in her mind, she was destined to truly make something out of herself. Not to be molded by the proverbial machine. Swift, comically enough, signed with a record label called Big Machine. And while Swift was growing up on an idyllic Christmas tree farm (as immortalized in her 2019 song of the same name), Madonna was mourning the loss of her mother and dressing in hand-me-downs or clothes she despised that were sewn by her stepmother, Joan. In fact, part of the reason she despised them is because Joan would sew the same exact outfit for all of her female siblings, prompting Madonna to rebel/differentiate herself by mismatching her socks. At least it was something.

    Sometimes, “divine” intervention would occur to keep Madonna from having to wear one of her stepmother’s “bespoke” ensembles. Like the time Joan slapped her and Madonna’s nose bled onto the dress she might have had to wear to church were it not for the physical lashing. Madonna wasn’t upset, though. Quite the contrary. As she told Carrie Fisher in a 1991 Rolling Stone interview, “I was thrilled about it because my nose bled all over an outfit that she made me wear for Easter. I really hated it, and I didn’t want to wear it to church.”

    So yeah, Madonna had it rough compared to Swift’s idyllic, nurturing, largely trauma-free childhood—complete with a mother, summering in Cape May and traveling frequently to New York for her vocal and acting lessons (the latter of which didn’t much pay off in Valentine’s Day). And, talking of a mother schlepping her daughter to the big city, Britney Spears’ mom, Lynne, did the same thing. Only she didn’t actually have the money to do it. She (along with Herr Jamie Spears) was merely banking on Brit’s success in the long-run by betting everything they had on her in the moment. This still included “borrow[ing] money from friends to pay for gas to get her to auditions.”

    Despite the reward of Britney landing her role on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club (after getting rejected the first time at age ten), Lynne was certain to tout, “It cost a lot to send Britney to classes and competitions, and by the time she made it to The Mickey Mouse Club, what she made barely paid for the apartment we stayed in.” Even if that were true, continuing to gamble it all on Spears’ talent resulted in an irrefutable major payday later on (enhanced, of course, by that needless conservatorship). All of this is to say that perhaps there is something to the idea of women (and men) who struggle to become famous actually having the ability to be described as someone who “ate” after every performance. Because every performance is like a reliving of that time when they were fighting to prove themselves, to claw their way to the top. And yeah, it probably makes a difference in one’s eventual performance effect when their key formative influence was David Bowie instead of Faith Hill and Shania Twain (as for Britney, her key influence was Madonna).

    That said, Swift can put on all the sequined gowns and other assorted styles of sequined clothing she wants for the Eras Tour, but it doesn’t blind one to the fact that she is not giving (said in drag queen voice) the way a Madonna or a Spears can. She is not at that level of fierceness. Maybe it’s her surfboard body, or her inherent commitment to (as opposed to rebellion against) Christian values, or a refusal to address anything other than romance (instead of sex) and its demise in her lyrics. Whatever the reason, Swift is not the performer she’s being made out to be by overly ass-licking media just because she’s breaking records for album and tour sales. It doesn’t alter the reality that, when it comes to transcendent performance and actually pushing boundaries, Swift plays it entirely safe—in general and during the Eras Tour. Starting with the costumes that scream “generic pop star.”

    Take, for instance, her opening number ensemble: a Versace sequined leotard and shimmering Louboutin knee-high boots. This decidedly “prototype” look and style has not only been done to death by the average pop star, but it was helmed by Madonna in the 80s, starting with her “Open Your Heart” bustier paired with fishnet tights, worn for the Who’s That Girl Tour. The leotard/bustier aesthetic would come to define Madonna’s tours over the years, right up to a modified version of it for 2019’s Madame X Tour. 

    If that weren’t enough, Swift cops tour looks from many others, ranging from Tina Turner (with the fringe dress she wears during her “Fearless Era” section) to Florence + the Machine (with the flowy, feminine, witchy frocks she wears for the “Evermore Era” and “Folklore Era” sections). Elsewhere, things on the costume front get especially basic bitch for the “Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Midnights Era” sections. The supposedly “most original”/“cutting edge” ensemble she wears (during the “Reputation Era” section), an asymmetrical bodysuit with snakes (that look more like sperm) crawling up the side that actually has a pant leg, doesn’t say much about her ability to shake up fashion trends. It damn sure ain’t a fuckin’ cone bra. 

    This isn’t to blast Swift’s talents entirely. No one wants to undercut a woman who’s “killin’ it” in the music industry, but it bears noting that, clearly, the definition of “killin’ it” has grown decidedly soft in the present. And it’s kind of insulting to those who do still have a higher standard of what an envelope-pushing entertainer can achieve to be told that Swift is this era’s answer to someone like Madonna or Michael Jackson. Or even Britney. Granted, it was the increasingly absurd New York Times that sparked this debate by remarking on how Swift has “a level of white-hot demand and media saturation not seen since the 1980s heyday of Michael Jackson and Madonna.”

    As one person commented of the comparison, “Michael and Madonna both brought something new and leveled up the game. Taylor is simply not. She may have the same success level but she definitely doesn’t have the stage presence required to compete with those legends.” And it’s true. To put it even more succinctly, “Taylor Swift is literally immune from slaying. Living proof that you can be the number one recording artist of all time and never once serve.” Of course, that assessment was met with plenty of vitriolic pushback on the platform now called “X,” but it’s completely accurate.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Unlike Most Women in Music, Tony Bennett Didn’t Have to Constantly Change His Image In Order to Endure

    Unlike Most Women in Music, Tony Bennett Didn’t Have to Constantly Change His Image In Order to Endure

    [ad_1]

    “I was like the Madonna and the Michael Jackson of my day,” Tony Bennett once told Conan O’Brien during a 1993 interview. The notable distinction between Madonna and Michael being that the former constantly changes her image. Jackson, like Tony, did not bother to do anything significant in that arena. In fact, he leaned into his image (awash with sequins, fedoras and exposed socks) all the more as the years went by: the very thing that can (and usually does) turn one into a caricature. The same went for Bennett, who stalwartly refused to update his look (a black tuxedo and bowtie) as the decades passed. Not even after he first “resurged” onto the scene in a big way at the beginning of the 90s. For Bennett had already capitulated to rebranding once before, at the height of the psychedelic rock craze. Or rather, just after it—releasing Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today! in 1970, complete with psychedelic cover art. 

    The so-called image change and attempt to do something different was immediately lambasted, and Bennett was soon after dropped from Columbia Records. An interesting reaction, when considering that most women who refuse to change their look or sound over time end up being cast aside and relegated to whatever time period they rose to prominence in (e.g. Nancy Sinatra with the 60s, Stevie Nicks with the 70s, Cyndi Lauper with the 80s, Alanis Morissette with the 90s, Britney Spears with the 00s, and so on and so forth).

    Mariah Carey, too, spoke of Columbia Records trying to “button her up with the 90s” by capping off the decade with a greatest hits album of hers. Carey wasn’t having it, and released 1999’s Rainbow the year after #1s came out. With “Heartbreaker” as the lead single, it served as a complete sonic shift into her artful melding of pop and hip hop, which she had already hinted at plenty with 1997’s Butterfly. An album, incidentally, she had to fight tooth and nail to secure some creative control over, made perhaps easier (or harder, depending on who you ask) as a result of being in the process of cutting ties romantically with Tommy Mottola, then CEO of Sony Music (a.k.a. her boss).  

    Carey has reinvented herself to a lesser extent than Madonna since the dawn of the 2000s, with the latter unveiling new “personae” as readily as a new outfit, ramping up what some critics would call her “shtick” with more intensity than ever at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Starting with Music in 2000, Madonna continued to reinvent herself tirelessly, with the glam cowgirl aesthetic giving way to a Che Guevara-inspired war rebel guise for 2003’s American Life. She then continued with a 70s-chic dancing queen image for 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor, a sexy boxer for 2008’s Hard Candy, a molly fan on 2012’s MDNA and a romantic freedom fighter on 2015’s Rebel Heart.

    By the time 2019’s Madame X arrived, Madonna decided to roll all of her many personae into one with the marketing speech, “Madame X is a secret agent traveling around the world, changing identities, fighting for freedom, bringing light to dark places. Madame X is a dancer, a professor, a head of state, a housekeeper, an equestrian, a prisoner, a student, a mother, a child, a teacher, a nun, a singer, a saint, a whore…a spy in the house of love.” That last phrase being a clear nod to the Anaïs Nin book of the same name. For Madonna is nothing if not a bridge between high and so-called low art. All while also showing that to stay “relevant” in the music business as a woman, you have to be willing to shed previous images as willingly as snakes shed their skin in order to survive. Madonna being among one of the few women musicians to do that, therefore have a chance at competing with Bennett’s far more effortless longevity. And yes, even Lady Gaga (the best Madonna impersonator currently working today), Bennett’s “bestie” in recent years, is another example of a woman who has to reinvent. Even aesthetically static Taylor Swift (who can always be counted on for the same blonde hair and red lipstick) has chosen to perform this year under the banner of the Eras Tour…overtly wanting to highlight the notion that she’s reinvented herself repeatedly over her now decade-plus career.

    Then, of course, there’s Cher, who occasionally gets held up as an example of a woman who has “lasted” for decades, though she isn’t actually putting out any new material or bothering to tour anymore. Madonna stands alone in that category (even if her recent bacterial infection might have put a delay on her forthcoming Celebration Tour). And it’s precisely because she’s among the few to have put in the ceaseless work to remain in the spotlight that’s “required” only of a woman. This then getting branded as “desperate” or “gimmicky” as critics insist she essentially ought to put herself out to pasture…as she once phrased it during a 1992 interview with Jonathan Ross. And it was also in that interview that she herself called out Jackson’s total inability to reinvent himself now and again, telling Ross, “I really wanted him to cut his hair. Sometimes I think it’s good to cut your hair and start all over again.” She then added, “I wanted him to get rid of those loafers and the white socks. I just thought, you know, just try something new.” Clearly, there’s a reason their “friendship” didn’t last too much longer after attending the 1991 Oscars ceremony together. For no man likes to be reminded that his “look,” therefore his entire self, is “outmoded.” 

    Male musicians, instead, appear to prefer coasting on the laurels of what secured them their fame and accolades when they were younger, never needing to try anything else different afterward because society simply does not place that onus upon them. Nor does society judge men for continuing to pursue their art well past “middle age.” In point of fact, Bennett, like Madonna, referred to artists such as Picasso when he said, “Right up to the day they died, they were performing. If you are creative, you get busier as you get older.” Few people have been as willing to “grant” that to Madonna, who has also vowed to never stop (hear: “Like It Or Not,” with its lyrics, “You can love me or leave me/‘Cause I’m never gonna stop”). And yes, in 2015, she name-checked Picasso as well, stating, “I like to compare myself to other kinds of artists like Picasso. He kept painting and painting until the day he died. Why? Because I guess he felt inspired to do so. Life inspired him, so he had to keep expressing himself, and that’s how I feel.”

    Of course, when Bennett said it, it was fine. When Madonna said it, it was self-aggrandizing. Proof that she was conceited enough to hold herself in such high regard as a “master” like Picasso. Well, where’s the lie? Madonna is an undisputed master of pop music. And even Bennett conceded to that in 1996, when he presented her with an Artist Achievement Award at the Billboard Music Awards. To introduce her, he confirmed what most already knew: “She has consistently surprised and delighted us with her fascinating transformations, with a dazzling display of invention. She’s kept us on the edge of our seat—wait till you see what’s next.” 

    With Bennett and musicians like him, there’s never any such excitement or anticipation. Rather than consistently reinventing, they merely stay consistent. Nonetheless, their reverence goes unquestioned. And while Madonna is a master in pop music, Bennett, in contrast, was a master in “crooning,” specifically “American standards” (all well and good, but not exactly leaving much room for “originality”). This included covering work from Rat Pack staples like Sammy Davis Jr. And whenever Bennett sang the latter’s “I’ve Gotta Be Me,” it proved a telling anthem for a man who never had to compromise the way he looked or sounded (save for that one time in 1970 that put him off even the mere idea of experimentation forever).

    Not solely because of his vocal talent that didn’t need any additional “bells and whistles,” but because he had the luxury of being a male performer. A fact that meant alterations to appearance (and sound) were hardly “requisite” the way they tacitly are for women who want to enjoy the same longevity in the music industry. Which is perhaps why Madonna remains a rare example, with even Janet Jackson disappearing more than once or twice into the abyss and Kylie Minogue only happening to touch on the virality phenomenon with “Padam Padam.” But that, too, is a direct result of Madonna’s boundary-breaking for women in Minogue’s age bracket. Boundaries that, for men, do not exist at all.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Madonna Is Immortal Regardless of Any Health Scares People Pounce On to Use Against Her

    Madonna Is Immortal Regardless of Any Health Scares People Pounce On to Use Against Her

    [ad_1]

    If there is any star on this Earth who serves as an exemplar of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t, it’s one, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. From the moment she burst onto the scene (and caused certain men to burst out of their pants), Madonna has been condemned for being either too this, too that or not enough of this, not enough of that. Too sexual, not talented enough. Too ambitious, not caring enough. Too caring (therefore “fake”), not focused enough on her career anymore. The pendulum-swinging list goes on. And in the wake of her health scare heard ‘round the world (indeed, not since Madonna fell off her horse in 2005 has her health had quite such a scare), the latest thing Madonna gets to be accused of after being “obsessed” with immortality is, in fact, being mortal.

    Although the media and hoi polloi have long demanded of Madonna that she “act her age” and “surrender to being ‘old,’” her “brush with death” has proven that no matter what she does, in the eyes of the public, they want her to be the exact opposite only when it’s convenient for them. And, at present, what’s convenient for them is wanting her to go back to “being her immortal self.” The one who would say (and mean) shit like, “So, how do I stay in shape? It’s all in your head… It’s called will, it’s called no one’s gonna stop me, and how I stay in shape is no one’s gonna stop me. And how I stay in shape is I don’t believe in limitations.” Alas, her body is apparently not in agreement with her mind at this juncture. And it likely has everything to do with her tendency to push herself to the physical limits whenever she’s about to embark on a world tour. For, despite having passed more choreography on to her backup dancers in recent years (like Kylie Minogue in the “Padam Padam” video), Madonna is still very much involved in all the dance numbers that go on. She is, after all, a dancer at her core. That’s what set her entire career into motion. So hell no, she ain’t gonna stop dancing. Regardless of so-called age limitations.

    That said, the likelihood of her getting a bacterial infection stemming from pushing herself to the brink while rehearsing is all but assured. Almost as much as the public suddenly using it as an opportunity to say either 1) see? We told you she was old and should slow down or 2) why can’t she prove herself to be the sole intstance of pop icon immortality like she always said she would be? Either way, the public wins by setting up Madonna to fail in one manner or the other. That her own family should take the chance to swoop in and further plant the seeds about Madonna’s frailty is also telling of what the pop star is up against. That is to say, being unable to trust even those theoretically closest to her to have a little faith and uphold her image of being physically “infallible.” Because for someone like Madonna to lose hold of that image is especially heart-wrenching when considering she came of age in an era of stardom when “presentation” and “illusion” still meant everything. When it wasn’t fashionable to “let it all hang out” with no sense of polish. In short, at a time when being a star meant never pulling back the curtain behind the Wizard of Oz. Not in the name of “inclusivity,” “body positivity” or anything else.

    So for an unnamed member of the Ciccone brood to come out (and to The Daily Mail of all places) with tidbits like how the family was “preparing for the worst,” that she “believes that she is invincible” and that she “has been wearing herself thin over the past couple of months” is only an additional blow to someone who already has to deal with the wagging tongues of so many non-family members as well. Except that, as is usually the case, only when she’s been felled do the masses finally throw her a bone with a touch of sympathy and appreciation (even if that wasn’t really what went down when she took a tumble due to a wardrobe malfunction at the 2015 BRIT Awards). Only then do they suddenly remember how bangin’ all her hits are, everything she’s achieved and all she’s done for the LGBTQIA+ community.

    To this point, it was during a 1995 VH1 interview with Jane Pratt that Madonna sagely remarked, “When I’m dead, they’ll finally kiss my ass.” That seems to be exactly what’s happening now, even if only with the “threat” of her death, as people start to realize just how valuable she is to pop culture. Nay, she is pop culture. Even more than a particular woman who came before her: Cher. An icon that, let it be known, likely hasn’t had any public health issues because she’s more or less been in retirement (at least tour-wise) since the 00s. A decade when Madonna, in contrast, managed to achieve some of her biggest successes, including major album sales from Music and Confessions on a Dance Floor, as well as entering the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest-grossing tour by a female artist thanks to the 2008-2009 Sticky & Sweet Tour.

    In the same aforementioned interview, Madonna reminded, “When Marilyn Monroe was alive, they were so vicious and cruel to her. They ripped her to shreds. They wouldn’t give it up to her in any way, shape or form. And then when she died, it was just like, ‘Oh, she’s a comedic genius.’ I mean, excuse me… They do that to everybody.” But Madonna definitely leads the pack on having such a thing done to her. And, in Marilyn’s favor, at least she was a star during a time when memes didn’t yet exist for people to so ruthlessly mock her (which they surely would have vis-à-vis her pill and alcohol addiction), or her own various health scares that she had throughout her career. But again, it was an era when any such “imperfections” of celebrities were protected under lock and key thanks to studio “fixers” and vague gossip column reverence. Not to mention an era when you were typically “put out to pasture” as a woman by the age of forty or sooner.

    What’s more, Madonna is a rare exception in the annals of most pop culture icons in that she never allowed any drug-related vices to get the better of her. Thus, outliving so many of her contemporaries—Prince and Michael Jackson included. But the older Madonna gets, the more likely she is to become extremely private about her health. After all, it’s something people love to use against her as a means to lord mortality over her, as though getting off on the fact that she’s actually human while, at the same time, treating her so inhumanely with their nonstop barrage of venomous comments whenever she reveals any modicum of weakness (whether physical or emotional). By the same token, they begrudge her for insisting that she is, in truth, immortal.  

    As she’s quoted saying in a 2015 Vice article, “I want to live forever and I’m going to.” Indeed, even if Madonna dies, she’s going to live on. And those either relishing her ICU stay or all at once getting the notion to appreciate her in lieu of joining in on the usual “shit on Madonna” parade would do well to remember that.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • “Vulgar”: A 2023 Update to the Sentiments of “Human Nature”

    “Vulgar”: A 2023 Update to the Sentiments of “Human Nature”

    [ad_1]

    Although reports (and video) surfaced of Madonna’s steely demeanor toward Sam Smith as he approached the stage to perform “Unholy” with Kim Petras at the 2023 Grammy Awards, it appears their backstage photos together were more illustrative of the things that were to come. And have now arrived in the form of “Vulgar,” released to coincide with Pride Month. What’s more, if anyone had listened to Madonna’s speech before introducing Smith at the Grammys instead of obsessing over her appearance, they might have heard her when she said, “Here’s what I’ve learned after four decades in music. If they call you shocking, scandalous, troublesome, problematic, provocative or dangerous [flashes her leg], you are definitely onto something.”

    Madonna, thus, has been onto something from the start, causing clutched pearls from the moment she rolled around in a wedding dress on the stage of the inaugural MTV VMAs with her underwear showing in 1984. And yet, she knows that the newest generations of controversy-starters must continue the cycle if the barrier-breaking she’s done already is to endure. So it was that she added in her speech, “I’m here to give thanks to all the rebels out there forging a new path and taking the heat for all of it. You guys need to know, all you troublemakers out there, you need to know that your fearlessness does not go unnoticed. You are seen, you are heard and, most of all, you are appreciated.”

    That’s certainly more than anyone offered up as consolation to M at the height of her media backlash from 1992 to 1993, after releasing the erotic hat trick of the Sex book, Erotica and Body of Evidence. All taken together as a “done solely for shock value” unit, the press had a field day with mocking her and writing her off as going “too far,” being overexposed and, yes, vulgar. Although Madonna would put her clothes back on for 1994’s Bedtime Stories persona, she was not exactly going “gentle into that good night,” offering up “Human Nature” as a defiant, “fuck all y’all” single. An unapologetic clapback at her critics, Madonna sardonically sings, “Did I say something wrong?/Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about sex (must’ve been crazy)/Did I stay too long?/Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t speak my mind (what was I thinking?).” In the video that accompanies it, she pointedly appears in a black leather catsuit and wields a riding crop to complete her Erotica-referencing S&M aesthetic. This being why it’s also a very deliberate nod to “Human Nature” that Sam and Madonna should abbreviate their names to S&M on the single’s artwork. The video’s theme of repression and stiflement—literally trying to box Madonna in—is also something that Smith can relate to these days.

    Elsewhere on “Human Nature,” there’s her whispered incantation of a mantra, “Express yourself, don’t repress yourself”—the words to live by she’s been imparting to the masses from the beginning (complete with another hit single that built the message into the title, 1989’s “Express Yourself”). After all, Madonna spent too much of her youth living in a repressed Catholic environment before fleeing Michigan and going to New York to finally become her uncensored self. Without fear of being shamed or told to “act like a lady.” This was largely because she found her family in gay men such as Christopher Flynn, Martin Burgoyne and Keith Haring—all of whom would die of AIDS. Madonna’s ingratiation into gay club culture (first via Flynn in Detroit) is inarguably what set the tone for her entire discography, starting with the sweltering, sensual “Everybody,” which was literally “made” by the club’s (Danceteria) reaction to it.

    While most—especially those in the mainstream—would turn their backs on the gay community as AIDS ran rampant, Madonna shored up her efforts to publicize awareness. Unfortunately, a new generation of gays has largely tried to reject Madonna and balk at her continued existence, as though forgetting that she was the original epitome of what it meant to be a “good ally.” Smith, it appears, has not let that go unnoticed or forgotten in collaborating with Madonna on “Vulgar.” A song that has its own roots in Smith being condemned for his recent “persona” as a “they/them.” His identification as non-binary was announced in 2019, when he stated, “After a lifetime of being at war with my gender I’ve decided to embrace myself for who I am, inside and out…” As the rollout of Gloria began, it was clear they meant what they said—and that it was too much for someone like Piers Morgan to bear. Indeed, the inspiration for “Vulgar” was a result of Morgan decrying Smith’s Gloria the Tour costumes, chief among them a “Satan outfit” and fishnets. Morgan was quick to compare Smith’s “attention-grabbing” antics to what Madonna has been doing all along—and no, Morgan is not a fan of her either…nor is he a fan of anyone but himself.

    Morgan also went so far as to bring on a gay commentator for, of all rags, The Sun and The New York Post. So it was that Douglas Murray confirmed what Morgan wanted to hear by saying, “I think Sam Smith’s a person of limited talent myself.” This also being the same rhetoric that has been used on Madonna for most of her career. Well-aware of it from the outset, Madonna addressed it in Truth or Dare by telling her backup singers, “I know I’m not the best singer and not the best dancer, but I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in pushing people’s buttons, and being provocative and political.” An interest that has remained steadfast to this day. So it’s only natural that she should take an additional interest in Sam Smith’s case, defending him from trolls like Morgan on “Vulgar” by announcing, “If you fuck with Sam tonight, you’re fucking with me/So watch what you say or I’ll split your banana/We do what we wanna, we say what we gotta.”

    Her fierce protection of Smith channels a statement she would give many decades after losing so many gay friends: “I didn’t feel like straight men understood me. They just wanted to have sex with me. Gay men understood me, and I felt comfortable around them.” And she certainly seems to feel comfortable around Sam if “Vulgar” is any indication. Giving Britney’s British accent on “Scream & Shout,” Madonna alludes to her own canon by singing, “Let’s get into the groove, you know just what to do/Boy, get down on your knees ’cause I am Madonna”—that last reminder being a nod to her playful 2015 single, “Bitch I’m Madonna.” Not to mention her love of mixing the sacred with the profane by urging someone to get down on their knees. For you can both pray and give head in that “pose.” But, as Madonna once admitted, “When I get down on my knees, it is not to pray.”

    The pulsing, rhythmic beat—clearly inspired by ballroom culture—is co-produced by Smith, ILYA, Cirkut, Omer Fedi and Ryan Tedder. Although clearly designed to be “TikTok length” (for Madonna is nothing if not adaptable to the trends of whatever time she’s in), the duo gets their point across in the under three-minute timeframe via lyrics like, “Vulgar is beautiful, filthy and gorgeous/Vulgar will make you dance, don’t need a chorus/Say we’re ridiculous, we’ll just go harder/Mad and meticulous, Sam and Madonna.”

    There’s no denying that the theme of “Human Nature” is all over this track. And, considering Smith has been doing a cover of it during the encore portion of Gloria the Tour, it seems likely that “Vulgar” will either replace it, or be added into the encore mix. Either way, these are two bitches who are most definitely not sorry for any perceived “vulgarity.” Besides, they’re not your bitch, don’t hang your homophobic shit on them.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Seymour Stein: The Last of a Dying Breed

    Seymour Stein: The Last of a Dying Breed

    [ad_1]

    Seymour Stein was of the old school in every way. Someone who ascended the ladder of an industry by starting at the bottom and pulling himself up by his proverbial bootstraps. Perhaps he could see something of that quality when he first laid eyes on Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone in a hospital room in 1982. This was sixteen years after Stein had thrown in his own money into co-founding Sire Productions with producer Richard Gottehrer. This, eventually, would become Sire Records. Cashing in on signing British acts to showcase in the culturally bereft U.S., Sire’s success led to its acquisition by Warner Bros. Records in the late 70s, right as Madonna was arriving in New York with nothing more than a dream and that fabled thirty-five dollars in her pocket. Roughly four years later, her path would cross with Stein’s in Lenox Hill Hospital. Laid up after having open heart surgery, Stein seemed just as eager as Madonna to be seen as someone with power.

    And the power Stein held in that moment was something that even he couldn’t fully understand. After all, Madonna was a “fluke” act for the Sire brand, more known for signing New Wave groups like Talking Heads, The Cure, Soft Cell and Depeche Mode. But something about Madonna evidently spoke to Stein’s own inner hustler. Seeing her hunger and raw ambition, Stein was endeared rather than put off by it, likely sensing a kindred spirit. For, in addition to being a gay man trapped in a woman’s body, Madonna is also a New York-born Jewish man at heart. Mark Kamins, another personality from Madonna’s early rise that kicked the bucket, was integral to arranging this meeting (just another reason she wrote “Lucky Star” with him in mind). As one of the “hottest” DJs in New York, he had a certain clout with record execs like Stein. And, of course, as is the case with most people living in New York, he wanted something in exchange for his “good deed”: “giving” him Madonna. What he ultimately wanted from that “trade” was to be a producer. Per Stein, however, “I told him flat out that no big artist would ever risk working with an unproven producer, even if he was New York’s hippest deejay. Like everyone else, he’d have to earn his stripes by finding nobodies and making them sound like stars.” Madonna was going to fit that bill perfectly. Especially since her real name already carried such stage name weight.

    Kamins was determined to produce Madonna once she got signed, making it all the more important to him for this hospital room meeting to go well. Maybe it was the drip-drip-drip of the penicillin into Stein’s heart that warmed it so much to the sound of Madonna’s voice, or maybe it was the fact that Stein was actually a gay man (even if closeted for a long time about it). Either way, he recalled thinking upon his first listen to the “Everybody” demo, “I liked the hook, I liked Madonna’s voice, I liked the feel and I liked the name Madonna. I liked it all and played it again. I never overanalyze or suck the life out of whatever I instinctively enjoy.” An explanation such as that, of course, would never be heard among the halls of today’s record labels. Whose operational practices seem to be based entirely on what’s “trending” as opposed to using one’s own instincts and emotional reactions to set trends. Gone are these Steinian days of taking a chance on an artist based on instinct, having faith in a musician’s “raw material” to grow and evolve into something truly special (as Madonna put it, “Not only did Seymour hear me, but he saw me and my potential!”). The lack of gambling in art in general and music in particular these days is most manifest in how everything “old” is repackaged as something “new” for bite-sized consumption on TikTok. This complete with the “sped-up version” trend that makes every shortened song sound like Mickey Mouse is singing it.

    With the Stein hospital room signing being one of the many mythological stories adding to the narrative of how Madonna rose to fame, one myth that never endured was M being controlled by any kind of Svengali figure in her early career. If anything, Madonna herself was the Svengali to all the music men (and women) she orbited (from Stephen Bray to Kamins to Jellybean Benitez), getting them to do her bidding with her unbridled powers of seduction. In contrast to most female pop stars, Madonna was never “groomed” by any man behind the scenes, but entirely self-made. Stein’s ability to intuit something special about her without worrying if she was going to contribute to the label’s bottom line is why we have Madonna. In the decades since, this overall lack of a combination of risk-taking and intuition is what has contributed to the deterioration of popular music’s quality. For, like every industry, music has been subject to the merciless tenets of neoliberalism (which was just taking flight at full-force as Madonna eked by the cutoff for pre-Reaganism and Thatcherism). A “philosophy” that really only has one tenet: make more money.

    Artistic experimentation isn’t conducive to that, and as such, Stein might never have signed Madonna in such a climate as the post-1985 one. While some have maintained that the “democratization” of music through early internet mediums like MySpace is what has actually improved things for artists by cutting out the “middle man,” in so many ways, that middle man was an artist unto himself. For it takes a certain kind of talent to recognize talent (with Madonna also remarking of his death, “Anyone who knew Seymour knew about his passion for music and his impeccable taste. He had an ear like no other! He was…deeply intuitive”). And without people such as Stein, we wouldn’t get Madonna. Tellingly, there hasn’t been a similar artist of her impact to come up in the world since, maybe, Britney Spears.

    So sure, Stein might look faintly like Harvey Weinstein, but he was no predatory prick when it came to his music industry cachet. For him, it really was all about the music. As Sid King told Stein’s father, “Your son is good for one thing and one thing only, and that’s being in the record business.” Madonna would tend to agree.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • The Only Person Who Can Have an “Eras Tour” Is Madonna (But Does That Really Mean She Should?)

    The Only Person Who Can Have an “Eras Tour” Is Madonna (But Does That Really Mean She Should?)

    [ad_1]

    The rumors have been brewing for a while now, reaching a crescendo throughout all of January as Madonna finally confirmed on the 17th that a greatest hits tour has, in fact, been in the works. And it’s called, almost as generically as 2004’s Reinvention Tour, The Celebration Tour—named as a nod to her 2009 greatest hits compilation, Celebration. Being that Madonna’s last album, Madame X, was released in 2019, perhaps she’s “surrendering” in some way to the idea that the most money to be made from her music, in terms of “drumming up” tour business, is through the assurance of greatest hits. For she already knows her die-hard fans will show up for anything she does—now she wants “the leftovers” who can’t respect some of her more “experimental” phases to join in too.

    As for the timing of the tour, it seems to indicate Madonna losing a certain “ahead-of-the-curveness” in that Taylor Swift already stole headlines recently for the announcement of her own 2023 greatest hits show, called The Eras Tour. Which already made history for shutting down Ticketmaster during the presales due to “overwhelming demand” and subsequently inciting an antitrust investigation. It’s unlikely that The Celebration Tour will have the same issues or history-making propensities, but there’s no denying that it will sell out in most cities, maybe even the two dates (thus far) Madonna has bestowed upon New York, the place she’s almost grotesquely fond of because it “made her into the person she is” (though Madonna students know it was her mother’s death and the tutelage of Christopher Flynn that did that). Ergo, the tour announcement was sure to mention, “The Celebration Tour will take us on Madonna’s artistic journey through four decades and pays respect to the city of New York where her career in music began.” It’s unclear how much more respect Madonna can pay to it, but anyway… She herself also added, “I am excited to explore as many songs as possible in hopes to give my fans the show they have been waiting for.” How Taylor-esque.

    And yet, the only person who can really give people a bona fide “Eras Tour” is Madonna. After all, she isn’t called the Queen of Reinvention for nothing, having “revamped” herself repeatedly over the years. Some people would cynically call that a “bid to stay relevant,” while Madonna has described it as the search for her true self as she slowly peels back the layers (yes, it’s very Kabbalah-spurred). Either way, it’s been iconic and culturally impactful for the rest of the world to watch. From the Boy Toy incarnation of Like A Virgin to the bleach-blonde, slicked-back hair and gamine physique of True Blue to the dominatrix of Erotica to the “Ethereal Girl” of Ray of Light to the glamorous cowgirl of Music to the Che Guevara imitator of American Life to the “disco dolly” of Confessions on a Dance Floor, Madonna has provided look after look (therefore Halloween costume after Halloween costume) for the masses to soak up and embed in their collective cultural lexicon.

    With Taylor, those marked reinventions—aesthetic or otherwise—have never really been there. Sure, her “sound” has evolved from the country-ier days of Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now to the more pop-centric focus heralded by Red. But, in the end, her “deal” is being a singer-songwriter that sort of fell into being a pop star (something Lana Del Rey hasn’t been able to do on a similar mainstream level—possibly because she’s viewed as “too dreary” for the main mainstream). Madonna, always underestimated for her singing-songwriting abilities, is, in contrast, a pop star of the prototypical order. The blueprint for every girl who came after her. She was the post-modern ideal (that arrived just as MTV did): media savvy and never missing an opportunity for self-promotion and “synergy” (read: advertising ventures with such companies as Mitsubishi, Pepsi [short-lived, but still], Motorola and H&M).

    What’s more, she had no aversion to being in the public eye on an almost constant basis—prompting the rockumentary meets early reality TV stylings of 1991’s Truth or Dare. It is this Alek Keshishian-directed film that Madonna parodies in her ad for The Celebration Tour, with appearances by Amy Schumer, Diplo, Judd Apatow, Jack Black, Lil Wayne, Bob the Drag Queen (who will open on Madonna’s tour), Kate Berlant, Larry Owens, Meg Stalter and Eric Andre subbing out for the original Blond Ambition Tour dancers. A.k.a. the ones that sued Madonna afterward and then made a follow-up documentary called Strike A Pose in 2016.

    The allusions to her early 90s projects also expand when Judd Apatow (one of many inexplicable presences in the room) dares Madonna to recreate one of her Sex book poses with Larry Owens, Jack Black and Lil Wayne. Afterward, Schumer then dares her to go on a world tour to perform all of her “greatest mothafuckin’ hits.” Madonna replies, “Four decades?” “Yeah bitch.” “As in: forty years?” “Yes.” “As in: all those songs?” “Fuck yeah.” “We’re talking ‘Like A Virgin’—” (a song, by the way, that Madonna has frequently paraded her contempt for). Amy interjects, “We’re talkin’ [singing], ‘Open your heart,’ we’re talkin’ [singing], ‘Tropical the island breeze.” Madonna and the others join in to sing, “All of nature wild and free/This is where I long to be/La isla bonita,” with Madonna stopping to say, “Wait, hold up. That’s a lot of songs.”

    Ironically, however, in far fewer years, Swift has almost as many studio albums out as Madonna, making it possible for her to have fifty-five singles under her belt in the span from 2006 to now. That’s getting awful close to Madonna’s robust ninety singles—especially at the rate that Swift produces. So sure, Swift has the “rep” and the “cred” to do a greatest hits tour, but it’s hardly something that should be called “Eras” (perhaps largely inspired by the fact that she didn’t get to tour folklore and evermore thanks to Miss Rona). For the eras of Swift are ultimately always the same, expounding on this, that or the other heartbreak (all while sporting the same blonde hair and red lipstick). Madonna’s lyrical topics are, conversely, far more varied. Needless to say, so are her looks.

    And, though it makes more sense for Madonna to do a greatest hits tour (despite balking at the notion for so long), it’s odd, in a way, for her to bother with such a “theme,” for she always includes a few crumbs of that ilk on every tour—usually favoring the inclusion of “Holiday,” “Vogue” and the aforementioned “La Isla Bonita,” at the bare minimum. This is why one has to ask, is it really a “Celebration” Tour or a Capitulation Tour, with Madonna finally surrendering to the fickle tastes of the philistine hordes? You know, like Taylor Swift. But maybe, in the name of pop star symbiosis and catering to the hoi polloi, the two can join each other onstage again like they did at the 2015 iHeartRadio Music Awards. Since they’ll both be in greatest hits tour mode at the same time and all.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Madonna’s “Take A Bow” Video As Harbinger of Technosexuality and Obsessing Over a Simulacrum of a Person

    Madonna’s “Take A Bow” Video As Harbinger of Technosexuality and Obsessing Over a Simulacrum of a Person

    [ad_1]

    By the time Madonna’s Bedtime Stories album came out in 1994, the postmodern era was well into effect. Indeed, one might say Madonna single-handedly created its peak in the 1980s (Don DeLillo merely wrote in its style). Not just with her own career being birthed at the same time as MTV (where she became more known for her visuals than her music), but with her unapologetic commitment to “synergistic efforts” that were previously balked at by most musicians who felt their job simply ought to be making music. Madonna, in contrast, was the first truly “multimedia” icon. Even if that Pepsi commercial only did air twice in the United States. A truly profligate waste of five million dollars, which Madonna pocketed without looking back.

    In fact, “not looking back” was her modus operandi for a long time. And when the 90s arrived, she was determined to change her musical and aesthetic tack with the new decade. That meant a mélange of house and R&B “flavors,” which started to manifest on 1992’s Erotica before Madonna more noticeably softened her tone (e.g., no more talk of teaching us how to fuck) on Bedtime Stories. That softness being most marked on “Take A Bow,” the second single from the record (following “Secret”). Co-produced by Babyface, the track remained at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks, and saturated the culture so much that it was played during the season one finale of Friends. To add to the instant classic nature of the song, Madonna filmed a Michael Haussman-directed video for it in Ronda, Spain. And, being Spain, M naturally thought to incorporate bullfighting. Along with a steamy real-life bullfighter named Emilio Muñoz (Madonna never being shy about parading her enthusiasm for Latin men…or women, for that matter).

    Although the internet became available for public use the year before, in 1993, it was still too “germinal” to consider in mainstream pop culture. That’s why Madonna and most others continued to suck firmly on the TV titty—wielding that as the beacon of modern life more than computers/an “online presence” just yet. Accordingly, in the “Take A Bow” video, Madonna taps into the trend-turned-way-of-life that is obsessing over a simulacrum of a person via television. Even though she might have had a love affair with The Bullfighter in actuality, their botched romance has rendered her into little better than an obsessive ex who scrolls through their erstwhile boyfriend’s social media profiles as we see her watching him on TV and caressing his Screen Face.

    Despite The Bullfighter breaking her heart, she can’t seem to let go of the prototype, as it were, that she fell in love with. The “edition” of him that lured her in the first place. And that’s the trap many fall prey to after a breakup: still romanticizing a relationship by remembering the honeymoon period and wondering where it all went wrong. Why it couldn’t stay as it was in the beginning. But with screens, whether attached to a TV or, now, phones, the simulacrum is able to provide the version of a person that one wants (mainly because the public images and videos that people choose to parade tend to show them at their “best”). Or rather, the version that they want to believe in, for projections can thrive long after being disillusioned in real life by the person in question. So it is that we see Madonna both depressed and aroused in a Ronda hotel room as she touches the screen with her ex on it as lovingly as she would to his actual cheek. Perhaps more lovingly, because he can’t talk back a.k.a. say anything that might break the illusion of his “perfection.”

    The rise of technosexuality in our current landscape was something Madonna foretold as well in this video, slipping under sheets in her lingerie with the TV. Where a pristine version of a person she can project all of her fantasies onto resides. If there is one single image from the twentieth century that embodies the coalescing of (wo)man with machine, it is this. For it is the indelible representation of there no longer being a real distinction between a person and an “apparatus,” with the former having made itself merely an extension of the latter. And since fetishizing the non-real version of people has only ramped up in the twenty-first century, it’s easier than ever to sexualize a simulacrum (see: OnlyFans). This then becomes a fine line between actually wanting to fuck a person versus the very machine they’re being viewed on.

    To that point, Madonna places her crotch near the screen where The Bullfighter goes about his bullfighting pageantry. She wants to fuck him again so badly, that the machine with his image on it becomes an adequate enough substitute. In this fashion, Madonna builds on the so-called sci-fi element of J. G. Ballard’s Crash, which also foretold of the human “fusing” with machinery to the point of seeing it as a viable sexual outlet (this tends to include vibrators, one would posit). To boot, she appears far more satisfied with the simulacrum than the real thing when Haussman finally does cut to a scene of them “consummating” in the flesh toward the end of the video. The tryst is violent and messy—something that would never happen with a screen. Nor would an-all-too-abrupt splooge, as we see The Bullfighter orgasming from Madonna’s perspective beneath him. This shot quickly transitions to him walking away from her as she cries against a wall. Her tangible experience, ruined by his callous, detached approach, was just so upsetting compared to the imagined form of it. For whatever reason (maybe just to feel something), The Bullfighter subsequently walks through a stream of broken glass in response. Pain is pleasure for some people, after all.

    Upon finishing his “glass walk,” the tables are turned on The Bullfighter as he adjusts his head to glance back at the TV where, presently, Madonna’s own image is on it. This reversal infers that it’s his turn, at last, to have no choice but to fetishize the simulacrum—because that was the last time she was ever going to give him any pussy (confirmed by the sequel to this video, “You’ll See”). So he, like her, caresses her Screen Face before the switch is made back to his Screen Face on TV, followed by Haussman panning out to reveal Madonna, once more, leaning against the wall in her room with his bullfighting image still playing on what appears to be a loop. Now, they can both be mere projections that each one can return to whenever they want as a source of pain-pleasure. Because that’s what it is to have access to a simulacrum of a person: constant self-torture thanks to the irresistible option to revisit their onscreen effigy.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Madonna Takes A Bigger Risk on Dredging Up the Sex Book in the Present

    Madonna Takes A Bigger Risk on Dredging Up the Sex Book in the Present

    [ad_1]

    While it’s nice to see #JusticeForErotica happening after thirty years, Madonna’s decision to dredge up her accompanying project of the day, Sex, proves, perhaps more than anything else, that she might truly believe herself immune to cancel culture. Presumably because of the “carte blanche” that is imagined to come with being amid the last of the living legends. But as a film like Tár recently proved, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve contributed to society—there’s always an occasion to be cancelled.

    As something of the “companion” to the Erotica album, Sex was originally published in October of 1992 by Madonna’s then-new company, Maverick, in collaboration with Warner Bros. and Callaway. And the images and excerpts pulled from it caused even more of a stir than Madonna getting her drag on in the “Erotica” video as a riding crop-toting dominatrix named Dita (an alter ego inspired by actress Dita Parlo). Although her publisher was concerned about unleashing the content—afraid that they had possibly given Madonna too much “free rein” (no riding crop pun intended)—the coffee table book was an immediate success.

    In mere days, it sold over a million copies worldwide (no small feat considering its cumbersome design) and topped The New York Times Best Seller list for three weeks. It all seemed to prove what Madonna wanted to hold up as a funhouse mirror to conservative America (itself the biggest “undercover” batch of pervs) worked like a charm. She would go on to assert in a 1998 episode of Behind the Music (complete with a talking head segment from Harvey Weinstein), “I was really being explicit about my own sexual fantasies, turning my nose up at the whole idea that, you know, women aren’t allowed to be sexual and erotic and provocative and intelligent and thoughtful at the same time.” Yet, that was a bit of a “smokescreen” for a more authentic underlying motive. As for the “fantasies,” Madonna has appeared to execute one of them throughout most of her real life—this being a strong penchant for younger, non-white men. Which she’s displayed with every boy toy since her divorce from Guy Ritchie, from Jesus Luz to Brahim Zaibat to Timor Steffens to Ahlamalik Williams.

    Within the pages of the Sex book itself, this is where she continues to take the greatest risk in the present in terms of having her words used against her in a more crescendoing way than before. Specifically, such assertions as, “One of the best experiences I ever had was with a teenage boy… He was Puerto Rican.” The specification of his ethnicity adding to the notion that this isn’t really “just” a fantasy. For Madonna was known for prowling the Lower East Side in the 80s to pick up underage Puerto Rican boys with her then go-to cohort, Erica Bell.

    In 1998, when Madonna was still in the process of perfecting her “softer” side in the wake of all that bond-age rage, she positioned the Sex book in the same Behind the Music interview as being less a political statement and more an act of rebellion, noting, “It was an act of rage on my part. In the beginning, everyone agreed that I was sexy, but no one agreed that I had any talent. And that really irritated me. And the Sex book was sort of the pinnacle of me challenging people and saying, ‘You know what? I’m gonna be sexually provocative and I’m gonna be ironic and I’m gonna prove that I can get everybody’s attention and that everybody’s gonna be interested in it and still be freaked out by it.” Yet, hadn’t she already done that many times over by 1992? From “Like A Virgin” to “Like A Prayer” to “Justify My Love,” her visuals had consistently been sexually provocative while incorporating an ironic tone. Which is why the excuse she gives for doing it doesn’t quite track. Complete with her assessment, “And it was sort of like my way of saying, ‘See? The world is hypocritical.” But who among any of us is truly immune to a little hypocrisy? Which Madonna engaged in a lot during the early 90s when she grafted much of her work from other, far less famous people (usually BIPOC and/or queer).

    Enter another reason the book is a sore/risky subject to bring into the light again so flagrantly: the salt in wound it might add to someone like Judith Reagan. An editor at Simon & Schuster in 1991, it was Reagan who approached Madonna with the idea for the book. Madonna likely thought what she had in mind was too “staid” and decided to take the bare bones of the project and go to another publisher: Callaway. The entity that would also go on to publish Madonna during her children’s book phase in the 00s. Reagan would later state in one of the few comprehensive biographies of Madonna (written by J. Randy Taraborrelli), “She had obviously taken my concept, my photos and ideas and used it as a proposal to secure a deal with another publisher. I never heard from her, not a word of gratitude, or an apology, or anything. Frankly, I thought it was in poor taste.” But, as is no secret by now, Madonna has never given much of a fuck about “good” taste when it comes to advancing her career.

    Indeed, by essentially admitting, beneath all the posturing about making a political statement, that she wanted the attention, Madonna played right into her long-standing psychological analysis. The one that dictates when a child loses a parent too early, they’re destined to spend the rest of their lives testing boundaries, seeking approval and wanting to be lavished with an amount of adoration that only fame can vaguely fulfill. You know, interminable void-wise.  

    With the reissuing of Sex in conjunction with Yves Saint Laurent curating an exhibit for it at Art Basel, Madonna, once again, appears to be courting the attention she can’t resist, even at such a dangerous time in the history of U.S. witch-hunting. To be sure, the book does continue to push the envelope, even to this day. Unfortunately, its “reboot” comes at a time when the Gatekeepers That Be would prefer that envelope to remain firm in its place—ironically, even more so than in 1992, at a theoretical height of oppression. However, with only eight hundred copies reprinted at a price of almost three thousand dollars, maybe Madonna is actually playing it safe. Re-releasing Body of Evidence, on the other hand… that would be bold.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link