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In front of a roaring crowd of fans, Madonna blessed us with the second and final night of The Celebration Tour’s Dallas stop yesterday. Speculation has been bubbling online all year long over possible special guest appearances Madge may have up her sleeve for each city, and last night that anticipation was met at American Airlines Center when she pulled Dallas’ own Erykah Badu up onto the stage…
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Vanessa Quilantan
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The topic of being a mother and the sacrifices that come with it is never an easy one to discuss. But it becomes even more of a political hot potato when the additional topic of being an artist is thrown in as well. In more recent years, it’s become a conundrum more philosophically analyzed and scrutinized in literature and pop culture alike. As for the former, Sheila Heti wrote an entire book (title, what else, Motherhood) about her decision not to become a mother precisely due to her fear of compromising her art. Some women truly feel/believe that one cannot exist without sacrificing the other. Lily Allen is clearly one of them—and maybe she’s not wrong. But it still seems that Allen has a bit of resentment/guilt about giving up on a key aspect (nay, the main aspect) of her artistic life: being a musician. That much was made clear during a promo interview for The Radio Times Podcast in honor of her own upcoming podcast (yes, it’s super meta) series, Miss Me?, co-hosted with lifelong friend Miquita Oliver.
It was during this amuse-bouche for Miss Me? that Allen remarked, “I never really had a strategy when it comes to career. Uh, but yes—my children ruined my career.” Oliver then looks at her in disbelief over how real she’s being as they both laugh about her decidedly British candor/sense of humor. Allen doubled down by adding “I mean I love them and they complete me [Jerry Maguire much?], but in terms of, like, pop stardom, totally ruined it. Yeah.” Oliver commends Allen’s honesty with, “That is such a good answer. I’m so happy to hear someone say that. Everyone’s like, ‘No, of course not!’” Allen quickly confirmed, “Does not mix. It really annoys me when people say you can have it all because, quite frankly, you can’t. And, you know, some people choose their career over their children and that’s their prerogative, but, you know, my parents were quite absent when I was a kid and I feel like that really left some, like, nasty scars that I’m not willing to, you know, repeat on mine. And so, I chose stepping back and concentrating on them and I’m glad that I’ve done that because I think they’re very well-rounded people.” Of course, when Allen’s children, Ethel and Marnie, grow old enough to hear about this little pull quote, it might leave its own nasty scar on them—realizing they were the direct cause of stifling their mother’s musical freedom and depriving the world of more Lily Allen records.
Then again, Allen hasn’t “full-stop” quit, with hints at her return coming as recently as this year, when she responded to a comment on Twitter (never to be referred to as X), “Please when are you making a follow-up to your best LP, No Shame?” with “I am making it now, I don’t know how long it will take, but you will be able to hear some things soon.” So clearly, Allen hasn’t “retired” from music if she can still find time to write a new album whilst “focusing on her kids.” Nor has it prevented her from other time-consuming creative endeavors like starring in a West End theater production (both 2:22 and Pillowman) or a TV show (Dreamland). Or, of course, making a podcast series with Oliver. But it would seem these things are more noncommittal than the rigors of putting out an album (Rihanna would appear to feel the same way, having taken a musical hiatus well before her post-children era and seeming to be spurred to maintain that hiatus after giving birth to two kids). Especially when a musician actually chooses to tour it. Yet Allen did do both of these things in 2014, when her daughters were three and one, respectively.
Maybe, indeed, it was going on the Sheezus Tour that gave Allen a wake-up call about the “artist’s lifestyle” not entirely mixing with motherhood (mind you, this was also the period during which she admitted to having sex with female escorts out of sheer loneliness and depression—having her second child the year before had left her with a bout of postnatal depression, to boot). Because after that, Allen wouldn’t release a record for another four years, 2018’s No Shame. This album, like Sheezus with “Take My Place” (about the stillbirth of her first child with Sam Cooper in 2010), would also explore the complexities and heartbreaks of motherhood, namely on track nine, “Three,” which speaks from the perspective of her daughters as they watch her leave for tour or various other musically-related publicity blitzkriegs. Hence, sadness-filled lyrics like, “You say you love me, then you walk right out the door.”
It was that line that perhaps provided Allen with the seed of the revelation that would come after touring No Shame in 2018-2019, coming to grips with the idea that maybe she had already missed so much of the early years and it was time to “settle down.” The timing of that epiphany seemed to coincide perfectly with meeting David Harbour in 2019, marrying him in 2020 and becoming a Carroll Gardens mom (second only to the similarly annoying Brooklyn cliche of a Park Slope mom). So it is that we haven’t seen any new music from Allen in six years. For context, her longest break between albums before that was the five-year period it took her to release Sheezus after It’s Not You, It’s Me.
And, talking of that sophomore album, her present comments about motherhood (in terms of “being there” in a way her own parents weren’t) and artistry are a sharp about-face from her last interview with Oliver in 2009, as It’s Not Me, It’s You was being released. During it, she told Oliver, “My childhood was tricky, but so is everyone’s I think. So, um, yeah. It affected me and made me the person I am today and I think I’m okay. Now.” If Allen were still to go by that, then perhaps she would keep making music and touring under the conception that absenteeism as a parent builds character. Raises children who are “tough” and imaginative.
Her one-eighty stance, alas, caused a backlash that was strong enough for Allen to retweet a defense from Charlotte Elmore saying, “Context for those going wild over a Lily Allen headline ⬇️ Let’s normalise not ✨having it all✨ and take the expectations down a notch?” But this is in direct contrast to everything the “modern woman” has been told, starting somewhere around the era of Baby Boom starring Diane Keaton. Yet, by the end of that film, viewers are ultimately left with the impression that “having it all” still requires some significant sacrifice/compromise (not to mention a boyfriend or husband). In short, a total reassessment of priorities.
Then there was someone like Madonna, who actually leveled up after having her first child, releasing an album (arguably still her best: Ray of Light) inspired by the occurrence of transmogrifying into “Mother” (beyond just the gay definition of that word). And in a recent interview with Mary Gabriel about the biography she wrote on the Queen of Pop, the author argues that part of what makes Madonna so unique, so punk rock (when she’s not appearing in bank commercials) is her continued ability to be unapologetically an artist after becoming a mother. Specifically, she told MadonnaTribe, “When Madonna became a mother, she rescued older women from the exile that motherhood often imposes upon them. In 2000 when she wore her shirt with Rocco on the front and Lola on the back, she showed what a forty-something mother looked like. Jumping around the stage at the Brixton Academy, she exploded the idea that a woman of a certain age—especially a mother of a certain age—couldn’t be gorgeous, fun, sexy, strong and enjoying a career. At a time when companies didn’t promote women with children because they feared the woman would be too distracted, Madonna showed motherhood wasn’t a distraction, it was empowering.”
Of course, here it bears noting that Madonna undeniably had plenty of hired help to aid in this process (speaking on that reality frankly with the “American Life” rap, “I got a lawyer and a manager, an agent and a chef/Three nannies, an assistant, and a driver and a jet/A trainer and a butler and a bodyguard or five/A gardener and a stylist, do you think I’m satisfied?”). Something Allen could technically afford to invoke as well, but has perhaps since thought better of it than the days when she was still releasing new music and touring circa 2014 and 2018.
Or maybe, as a Brooklynite, she found herself reading 2021’s Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder for added confirmation of her decision to “stand down,” as that book is all about the struggle for a female artist to keep working at her art after having a child, eventually turning that struggle into performance art (with the child incorporated into it). Also recently added to the culture of this mother-or-artist conundrum, Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power (like Nightbitch, also released in 2021) explores the territory of motherhood/womanhood when it comes to continuing to pursue art post-childbirth. Halsey appears to be conflicted on the matter as well, with lyrics like, “Go on and be a big girl/You asked for this now/You better show ’em why you talk so loud” and “I just wanna feel somethin’, tell me where to go/‘Cause everybody knows somethin’ I don’t wanna know/So I stay right here ’cause I’m better all alone/Yeah, I’m better all alone.” Described by Halsey as a concept album (Allen has, incidentally, said that’s what her next album is going to be, too) centered on the specific “horrors of pregnancy and childbirth,” it’s apparent that Allen isn’t the only female artist with some very mixed emotions on the matter of motherhood. Especially as it relates to continuing to be an artist at all.
During Allen’s formative years as a millennial, it was Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) who further corroborated the idea that women could “have it all” in the season three Sex and the City episode, “All or Nothing” (which first aired in 2000). A title that unwittingly speaks to what Allen is saying about choosing between one thing or another: artistry or motherhood (some would say artistry is the “all,” while motherhood is the “nothing”). And, lest anyone forget, Samantha was more of a perennially single, “non-mother” type than Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) herself, so maybe it was easier to make such a declaration.
And so, if Allen can confirm that, sooner or later, a choice must be made (or it will be made for you) about art or motherhood, it certainly doesn’t make the latter sound any more appealing to those women who do view their art as their true child. Besides, does any kid really want to be referred to as “Mommy’s favorite mistake” once they see in adulthood that they stymied their mum’s creative output?
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Genna Rivieccio
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While many things unrelated to the remarkable nature of the tour itself have made headlines (including a certain tumble in Seattle) since Madonna kicked off The Celebration Tour in London back in October of ‘23, one of the least likely to be foreseen on the proverbial bingo card was wheelchair-shaming by none other than Madonna herself. Unintended of course. But it nonetheless still made for some cringeworthy content. During which Madonna, upon approaching the audience to get a closer look at who dared not to stand up when she told them to, made the quick apology, “Politically incorrect. Sorry about that.” Ironically, though, Madonna has made her entire career out of being politically incorrect—perhaps only now coming to realize that it no longer works as effectively in the rigid, faux-woke climate of the present.
The foray into needlessly putting a spotlight on an audience member using a wheelchair started “innocently” enough as she shouted to the Los Angeles crowd, “…take this ride with me! What are you doing sitting down over there? I—what are you doing sitting down?” Appearing genuinely affronted by the perceived “lack of enthusiasm” where most performers might have left it alone, Madonna, ever the “pushy broad” she’s known for being, kept pursuing the matter, subsequently taking her mic off the stand so she could walk to the edge of the stage and better berate the person.
Alas, upon closer examination—and as the crowd cheered her on for her beratement (themselves not knowing the whole story either)—she saw the reason why the person “chose” to remain seated, immediately reacting with, “Oh. Okay.” She then added, in something resembling a Valley Girl accent (it was, after all, at one of her L.A. performances), “Politically incorrect. Sorry about that.” She quickly followed that up with the insistence, “I’m glad you’re here.” Which somehow came across as more demoralizing than welcoming, as though calling out the fact that somebody in a wheelchair shouldn’t be able to engage in such “regular person” activities as concert-going. Not “shouldn’t” from, like, a “societally shunned” perspective, but “shouldn’t” from a “oh it must be so hard for you to get by at all” perspective. Something that not only invokes the kind of pity Madonna herself would abhor, but also fails to take into account that California—the milieu where she was performing—is among the most accommodating states for people with a physical disability (with San Francisco and L.A. topping the list of the most wheelchair-friendly cities in the United States). However, considering that Madonna is still of an era when it was acceptable to say “handicapped” and managed to fall into the trap of being the very thing she once accused Lady Gaga of being (“reductive”) by calling Californians at the March 9th show, “You flip-flop, short-wearin’ motherfuckers!,” perhaps her view of the physically disabled is still entrenched in the past. Hence, her surprise at seeing someone of the kind at her show.
Funnily enough, it was also during the March 9th date at the Kia Forum that Madonna mentioned the importance of having an avatar, so to speak, of her 1982 “incarnation” onstage with her so as to remind herself what she stood for, and what she has always stood for. This, in theory, is tolerance and acceptance for everyone—making everyone feel as though they belong and are in a “safe space” so long as they’re with her (whether via her music or in person at a live show). Unfortunately, the exact opposite of that was displayed by Madonna in this brief but mortifying (for all involved) exchange.
And it’s not just people who use a wheelchair that Madonna might end up making feel uncomfortable with such behavior, but also anyone with the “gall” to enjoy a concert without standing up or screaming/singing along to every word throughout the show. Sometimes, even a select few performers admit to despising this, as it prevents their own ability to sing the songs very well over the din of the crowd (something Lorde went viral for a while back, during an instant when she shushed the audience while trying to sing an a capella version of “Writer in the Dark”).
The performer’s argument, though, usually aligns with Madonna’s long-standing spiel about how she feeds off the visible/audible energy of the crowd, hence her contempt for anyone she sees in the audience and instantly clocks as “not having a good time” (these reactions immortalized in Truth or Dare when she tells her manager of the L.A. crowd, “Somebody stuck some big fat man up in the front to give me dirty looks. I swear to God. There was only industry people in the first two rows… They totally bummed me out. They sat there with their arms folded, dirty looks on their faces. I swear to God… It was so distracting and so depressing to me to have two rows of people looking like they weren’t there to have fun”). But what if some people don’t feel that displays of “having a good time” need to mean that you’re screaming or smiling like a goddamn idiot?
Indeed, that’s one of the worst parts (nay, the worst part) about concert-going for introverts and generally shy people—the pressure to conform to how you’re “supposed to” act at a show (some people will even opt to miss out on seeing their favorite musician precisely because of these warranted phobias). Especially when the very performer putting it on is directly pressuring you to do so. Madonna and the “wheelchair debacle” highlights many important conversations about how to amend the concert-going experience in the future for those who don’t fit into the so-called norm of what’s “right,” or “expected” of someone just because the majority acts a certain way at a show.
Interestingly, at the March 5th date, she shaded L.A. once more by remarking, “This is probably too intellectual for a show at the Forum.” But Madonna proved herself to be unwittingly anti-intellectual by making “one size fits all” assumptions about her audience members. This, again, being the very thing her brand has gone against since its inception. Dichotomously, though, Madonna’s music has reached so many people and become so popular over the decades that she herself has become “one size fits all,” the way most juggernaut icons do (e.g., the increasingly problematic yet still pervasive Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson). Perhaps when that happens, it does an icon some good to be rudely awakened by a scenario such as this.
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Genna Rivieccio
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The pop icon announced her world tour all the way back in January 2023. At the time, Phoenix was scheduled for a July 2023 concert. Not too long after, we got a second date in January 2024.
In June 2023, Madonna was forced to reschedule a number of concert dates after she was hospitalized with a bacterial infection, and the summer show in Phoenix was off the table.
Next, she announced that Phoenix’s July 2023 concert would be rescheduled for March 16, 2024, but the January 2024 date was canceled to allow her to reschedule other shows.
So here we are, ready to watch the 65-year-old singer celebrate 40 years of hits.
Here’s everything you need to know if you’re planning to see Madonna in Phoenix this weekend.
Madonna is scheduled to perform at Footprint Center on Saturday, March 16.
Some very pricey standard admission tickets are still available, as is a better selection of slightly less expensive tickets from resellers.
Doors open at 7:30 p.m, and the show is scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m. Bob the Drag Queen is the opening act.
That said, Madonna has been notorious on this tour for going onstage hours after the posted start time. In fact, two ticketholders in New York City actually sued the singer for the late start. Be prepared to wait.
Footprint Center is located at 201 E. Jefferson St. in downtown Phoenix. The closest freeway exits off Interstate 10 are Washington Street/Jefferson Street or Seventh Street.
Yes. Ticketholders can ride Valley Metro Rail trains for free up to four hours before the event and up until midnight. An eastbound rail station is located at Third and Jefferson streets and a westbound station is at Third and Washington streets.
You can park in the adjacent parking structure at First and Madison streets, but there are many other parking lots and structures within a 10-minute walk of the venue, each with varying fees. For additional questions, call the parking hotline at 602-514-8472.
Downtown Phoenix has a bevy of restaurants, bars and clubs to choose from. Take a peek at our downtown dining guide to see what your options are.
If you love the Material Girl but aren’t going to the show, you can justify your love for her at Crescent Ballroom’s Madonna Extravaganza on Saturday night. The 21-and-over event includes a performance by metal tribute band Metaldonna at 9 p.m., a dance party with DJ Robbie at 10 p.m. and karaoke in the lounge at midnight. Costumes are encouraged. Cost is $10.
No backpacks or large purses are allowed. Small purses and fanny packs will be searched.
Footprint Center is a cashless venue. If you want food or drinks, bring a credit or debit card. Footprint Center also offers reverse ATMs near the Ticket Office or Section 218 that will convert cash into a preloaded Mastercard.
From the Ticketmaster website: “New security procedures have been implemented at Footprint Center. … Every individual entering the arena will be subject to search.”
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Jennifer Goldberg
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There is a long tradition of women emulating Marilyn Monroe’s famed performance of “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. In fact, it is very much a women’s song and visual (even if directed by Howard Hawks) that speaks on things being more satisfying (and enduring) than men. A sardonic sendup of the material girl trope—which is how many men still view women, seventy-one-ish years later (the film was released in July of 1953). This being, of course, why Madonna chose to tongue-in-cheekly reuse it in her 1985 video for “Material Girl.”
In fact, after that, Madonna not only secured her position as the Queen of Postmodernism (sorry Ariana Grande), but, in many ways, prompted a new generation to forget that Marilyn Monroe was the original pink gown-wearer traipsing about on a pink staircase as tuxedoed men fawned over and followed her around with rebuffed gifts. Granted, Carol Channing (a gay icon with a decided contempt for gays) was the first to bring Lorelei Lee to life on Broadway in 1949, but Monroe eclipsed that performance with her celluloid prowess.
Thus, the eternal Hollywood love of paying homage to that segment of the film that helped launch Monroe into “instant icon” status. After “Material Girl,” the next most memorable homage would become Nicole Kidman’s. Specifically, as Satine in 2001’s Moulin Rouge! (during which she incorporates the verse from “Material Girl,” “‘Cause we are living in a material world/And I am a material girl”). Many other musicians, including Kylie Minogue, Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera, have referenced/performed the song and visual as well, but not until 2020’s Birds of Prey (which would also feature a riff on “Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend” by Megan Thee Stallion and Normani called “Diamonds” for the soundtrack) was the re-creation of the performance so blatant again. Uncannily enough, Barbie’s star (one hates to break it to Ryan Gosling), Margot Robbie—as Harley Quinn—would be the one to engage in her own macabre sendup of the original. For added Hollywood incestuousness (or “six degrees of separation,” if you prefer), Ewan McGregor (who plays Christian in Moulin Rouge!) appears in the scene with her in his own modern take on the 1950s-era tuxedo (this one without tails).
Indeed, he was the one who, as Roman Sionis/Black Mask, caused her to hallucinate such a fantasy in the first place after slapping her with enough force. This after taunting her about losing the Joker’s favor in the wake of their breakup, “For all your noise and bluster, you’re just a silly little girl with no one around to protect her.” The accusation of being a silly little girl (when not instead substituted by the venomous “epithets” of “bitch” and/or “slut”) remains one of the most effortless ways for a man to demean a woman. And demeanment is, unfortunately, on the rise rather than on the decline—a reality that Ken brings to life onscreen with his inferiority complex that ends up causing him to destroy the matriarchal utopia of Barbie Land.
The reason? He wants attention, of course (not to mention praise and acknowledgement for doing nothing). For when “silly little boys” posing as men have their ego threatened, most of the rest of the world suffers (see: Donald Trump, who outshines Ken’s tan with orangeness). And when they see that the spotlight isn’t enough on them, they’re liable to mimic the person (particularly if that person is a woman) getting the most attention in a manner so obnoxious that it cannot be ignored. That, to this viewer, is how Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” came across at the 96th Annual Academy Awards (complete with the additional sausage party “cachet” of Guns n’ Roses’ Slash on guitar). For not only was Monroe something of the original Barbie (minus the rail-thin body type), but she was somebody that men were always trying to co-opt for themselves. Trying to turn into their little doll and take credit for “inventing” her out of the raw clay that was Norma Jeane Baker. But Marilyn was her own creation. It was just often hard for her to remember that with all the men around (including Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller) filling her head with mantras that she was somehow “wrong” or “unequipped.”
Thus, for Gosling to graft the “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” number for himself doesn’t feel “feminist,” so much as an unwanted and unnecessary impingement on Marilyn Land, ergo Women’s Land (known to some as Barbie Land). Marilyn, who died before she could suffer the inevitable Hollywood criticisms about looking old. Barbie, at least, has the benefit of being perennially plastic so as to uphold her Aryan-centric good looks.
Incidentally, during his Oscar monologue, host Jimmy Kimmel made a crack about Gosling and Robbie winning the genetic lottery. But even those (read: women) with good looks and regular plastic surgery upkeep end up falling prey to what Marilyn forewarns of in her illustrious number: “Men grow cold as girls grow old/And we all lose our charms in the end.” Unless, of course, you’re the kind of privileged white male that Ken embodies. Greta Gerwig, by creating “empathy” for such a character, perhaps didn’t fully understand what she hath wrought in doing so. Nor has Gosling fully understood the homoerotic coding (posing as a “butch” interpretation) he’s entered into the canon of “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” performances (already gay kryptonite to begin with, especially at drag shows).
Maybe Kimmel foreshadowed as much by making the Brokeback Mountain-related joke (also during his monologue) to Gosling, “You are so hot. Let’s go camping together and not tell our wives.” Because women, as has been emphasized repeatedly in life and in pop culture, are secondary to “men’s things” (which takes on a new level and meaning in terms of gay men imitating straight women). Even when they were originally “women’s things” (à la “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”) to begin with. Nonetheless, Ken’s “big dick Kenergy” still proved no match for fellow Barbie Soundtrack-er Billie Eilish in the Best Original Song category. But a “What Was I Made For?” win is, in effect, an “I’m Just Ken” win. Because what belongs to women also belongs to men (#dowry). That is, in “liberal” Hollywood, what Gretchen Wieners would call “just, like, the laws of feminism.”
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Genna Rivieccio
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It is an increasingly “grand tradition” in the genre of songwriting. Not to mention a rite of passage for any major pop star who stirs up enough controversy. That tradition being to “clapback” at the faceless blob known as “The Critics” (though some are simply trying to treat art with the seriousness it should be imbued with—but try telling that to a stan, or a celebrity as convinced of her perfection as Lana Del Rey). With Ariana Grande’s lead single from Eternal Sunshine, “yes, and?,” she revives this grand tradition with the help of the inspiration that came from being, let’s just say it, a homewrecker (a song title that’s already been used, to memorable effect, by Marina and the Diamonds [now MARINA], and appears on the list below). Repurposing the narrative to her benefit with a song that takes ownership of loving a certain babyface ginger dick, Ethan Slater. Best known, that’s right, for his portrayal of SpongeBob SquarePants in the musical of the same name (Grande always has a fetish for the wiry, slightly gay types).
While “yes, and?” can’t quite surpass a track like Madonna’s “Human Nature” in terms of its stinging qualities against the critics (e.g., “I’m not your bitch/Don’t hang your shit on me”), it’s definitely become instantly “up there” among the ranks of iconic clapbacks in song form. Below are a few other noteworthy ones from the past few decades, in no particular order.
“shut up” by Ariana Grande: Obviously no stranger to criticism by the time 2020’s Positions rolled around, it was fitting that Grande should kick off that album with the saucy “shut up.” A clear message to critics, tabloid headlines and online trolls alike, Grande’s directive was simple: “You know you sound so dumb (so dumb, so dumb, so dumb)/So maybe you should shut up/Yeah maybe you should shut up.” Elsewhere, she points out that those who tend to criticize tend to have the most time on their hands and are also plenty criticizable themselves. Thus, she adds, “How you been spendin’ you time?/How you be usin’ your tongue?/You be so worried ‘bout mine/Can’t even get yourself none.” That line about “using one’s tongue” also foreshadowed the lyric from “yes, and?” that goes, “My tongue is sacred/I speak upon what I like.” Because, apparently, it’s only okay when Ari does that, not critics.
“Without Me” by Eminem: Released as the lead single from Eminem’s fourth album, The Eminem Show, “Without Me” was a sequel, of sorts, to “The Real Slim Shady” from 2000’s The Marshall Mathers LP. By 2002, when The Eminem Show came out, Eminem was, even more than Grande, extremely well-versed in being caught in the melee of critics’ and politicians’ contempt. Not to mention the fellow celebrities/public figures Eminem was wont to name-check in his songs. In “Without Me,” that includes Dick and Lynne Cheney, Elvis Presley, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC, Limp Bizkit, Moby and Obie Trice (though Obie is only mentioned in reference to “stomping” on Moby). More than anything, however, Eminem’s intent is to remind all of his detractors how “empty” it would feel without him in the music industry. Hence, the earworm of a chorus, “Now, this looks like a job for me/So everybody, just follow me/‘Cause we need a little controversy/‘Cause it feels so empty without me.” The accompanying video portraying Eminem as a superhero rather than a villain only added to the efficacy of his jibe at critics.
“The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Sinead O’Connor: Although “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the second single from I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, is about many things, one of its most fundamental verses is peak “clapback at the critics,” of which there were already many—especially in conservative Catholic Ireland—at the time of O’Connor’s second record release. The verse in question goes: “There’s millions of people/Who offer advice and say how I should be/But they’re twisted and they will never be/Any influence on me/But you will always be/You will always be.” In this way, O’Connor insists that the public perception or criticism of her will never matter—only the opinion and viewpoint of the one she truly loves (at that time, producer John Reynolds) will. The video for the song also heightens the notion of O’Connor continuing to perform however she wants to and say whatever she wants to as its entire premise is just her dancing and singing onstage in front of an expectedly judgmental crowd.
“Human Nature” by Madonna: The occasional Sinead adversary, Madonna, brought listeners the inarguable mack daddy of all clapback songs in 1994, with the release of Bedtime Stories (still among one of Madonna’s most underrated records). A direct reference to her treatment and the general slut-shaming that occurred during her Sex book and Erotica era, Madonna wanted to remind critics that she may have forgiven, but she didn’t forget. As the fourth and final single from the album, “Human Nature” differed from the previous singles (including “Secret,” “Take A Bow” and “Bedtime Story”) in that it deliberately sought to remind listeners and critics alike that, despite presenting a “softer side” for this record, the defiant, devil-may-care Madonna was still there. Ready to pounce—and in a black latex bodysuit, too. For just as iconic as the song itself was the Jean-Baptiste Mondino-directed video, awash in S&M aesthetics inspired by Eric Stanton. As Madonna herself said of the track, “The song is about, um, basically saying, ‘Don’t put me in a box, don’t pin me down, don’t tell me what I can and can’t say and it’s about breaking out of restraints.” The restraints that critics have, so often, foolishly tried to place on Madonna.
“Like It Or Not” by Madonna: By 2005, Madonna had more than just the usual critics on her back. After turning forty-seven, Madonna kept pushing the so-called limits of pop stardom by daring to keep not only releasing records and performing live, but still dressing “too scantily” “for her age.” Complete with the leotards and fishnets that characterized her Confessions on a Dance Floor period. Fittingly, “Like It Or Not” served as the finale to the record, with Madonna promising her detractors, “This is who I am/You can like it or not/You can love me or leave me/‘Cause I’m never gonna stop.” Turns out, she might have been directing those comments at Guy Ritchie as well.
“Vulgar” by Sam Smith and Madonna: In case you couldn’t tell by now, Madonna is not just the Queen of Pop but clearly the Queen of the Clapback—as further evidenced by this modern update to the content and attitude of “Human Nature.” Sam Smith and Madonna came together for this song after the latter’s condemnation for her appearance (too obviously riddled with plastic surgery—that was the usual critique) at the 2023 Grammys and after Smith, too, was criticized for his increasingly “fat” and “effete” appearance during the Gloria album rollout and the according visuals that came with it (including the video for “Unholy”—during which Smith is dressed in some very Madonna-as-Dita attire). Teaming up to hit back at those who would try to keep them down (even though Madonna has far more experience with that than Smith), the duo triumphantly announces, “Got nothing left to prove/You know you’re beautiful when they call you/Vulgar/I do what I wanna/I go when I gotta/I’m sexy, I’m free and I feel, uh/Vulgar.”
“Your Early Stuff” by Pet Shop Boys: The Madonna-adjacent (in terms of gay fanbase, musical stylings and coming up in the 80s) Pet Shop Boys also know a thing or two about being critiqued. Especially when it comes to the main criticism being that they’ve been around “too long.” As though an artist should simply pack it in because some arcane alarm clock goes off in their head about being “too old” to continue when, the reality is, true artists keep creating art until the day they die. Featured on 2012’s Elysium (the duo’s eleventh album), Neil Tennant had no trouble writing the song as, per his own words, “Every single line in that song, every single thing has been said to me.” This includes such backhanded “compliments” as, “You’ve been around but you don’t look too rough/And I still quite like some of your early stuff/It’s bad in a good way, if you know what I mean/The sound of those old machines” and “Those old videos look pretty funny/What’s in it for you now, need the money?/They say that management never used to pay/Honestly, you were ripped off back in the day.” Unlike the other songs on this list, “Your Early Stuff” is perhaps most unique for stemming directly from the criticisms of the common people, as opposed to more ivory tower-y, “legitimate” critics.
“URL Badman” by Lily Allen: Another British addition to the list, this still too-untreasured gem from Lily Allen’s equally untreasured Sheezus record, “URL Badman” is Allen at her most delightfully snarky (which is saying something, as she she’s quite gifted with snark). Taking little boys who write for the likes of Complex and Vice (RIP, but that’s karma) to task, Allen speaks from the myopic perspective of the URL Badman in question, declaring, “It’s not for me, it must be wrong/I could ignore it and move on/But I’m a broadband champion/A URL badman,” also adding, “And if you’re tryna call it art/I’ll have to take it all apart/I got a high-brow game plan/A URL badman/I’m a U-R-L-B-A-D-M-A-N with no empathy.” This speaking to the crux of how musicians feel about critics in general.
“Attention” by Doja Cat: Released as the lead single from Scarlet, Doja Cat’s mountains of controversy had piled up significantly by 2023, chief among them being her blithe defense of dating a white supremacist/sexual abuser and her venomous attack against her own fanbase, who she told to “get a job”—the usual dig made by people who think paid time for unsatisfying labor is supposed to make you a more worthwhile person on this planet (hence, “Billie Eilish Is A Jobist”). “Attention” paired well with this rash of events, with Doja Cat creepily talking about some invisible monster (perhaps what Lady Gaga would call “the fame monster” inside of her) that needs the attention, not her. It’s a very, “That wasn’t me, that was Patricia” defense, and maybe “Scarlet” is the easier part of herself to blame for needing her ego to be fed. Nonetheless, she still demands of the critics, “Look at me, look at me, you lookin’?” later mocking them with the verse, “I readed all the comments sayin’, ‘D, I’m really shooketh,’ ‘D, you need to see a therapist, is you lookin’?’/Yes, the one I got, they really are the best/Now I feel like I can see you bitches is depressed/I am not afraid to finally say shit with my chest.” Obviously, that last line sounds familiar thanks to appearing in the chorus of Grande’s “yes, and?” when she urges, “Yes, and?/Say that shit with your chest.” In another moment of skewering the critics, Doja Cat balks, “Talk your shit about me, I can easily disprove it, it’s stupid/You follow me, but you don’t really care about the music.”
“Taco Truck x VB” by Lana Del Rey: Lana Del Rey has often felt similarly. And, like Sinead O’Connor’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” it’s one verse in particular that makes Del Rey’s lengthy “Taco Truck x VB” (the “VB” being an abbreviation for a previously unreleased version of Norman Fucking Rockwell’s “Venice Bitch”) stand out as a clapback track. The one that shrugs, “Spin it till you whip it into white cream, baby/Print it into black and white pages don’t faze me/Before you talk, let me stop what you’re saying/I know, I know, I know that you hate me.” And just like that, Del Rey dismisses all responsibility for dubious behavior….like wearing a Native American headdress, posing a non sequitur “question for the culture,” posting unblurred-out videos of black and brown protesters/looters during the BLM of summer 2020 or insisting she’s not racist because she’s dated plenty of rappers (on a side note: no one knows who she might be talking about apart from white “rapper” G-Eazy).
“Homewrecker” by Marina and the Diamonds: Even if Marina Diamandis a.k.a. Marina and the Diamonds a.k.a. MARINA is singing from the perspective of her alter ego, Electra Heart, 2012’s “Homewrecker” is still plenty viable as a clapback song. And it definitely ties into Ariana Grande’s overarching theme on “yes, and?,” which is a direct addressment of the critics who have called her, that’s right, homewrecker. Opening with the tongue-in-cheek lyrics, “Every boyfriend is the one/Until otherwise proven…/And love it never happens like you think it really should,” MARINA paints the picture of a woman who won’t be torn down by the slut-shaming insults lobbied against her. Besides, as she announces (in the spirit of Holly Golightly), “And I don’t belong to anyone/They call me homewrecker, homewrecker.” She gets even cheekier when she adds, “I broke a million hearts just for fun” and “I guess you could say that my life’s a mess/But I’m still lookin’ pretty in this dress.” This latter line reminding one of Grande’s lyric on “we can’t be friends (wait for your love),” “You got me misunderstood/But at least I look this good.”
“Piece of Me” by Britney Spears: No stranger to being called a homewrecker herself after getting together with Kevin Federline in 2004, when Shar Jackson was pregnant with his second child, Spears was already jaded about critical lambastings by 2007. And “Piece of Me” was the only appropriate response to all the scrutiny (especially after Spears was reamed for her performance of “Gimme More” at the 2007 VMAs). Thus, she unleashed it as the second single from Blackout. Having endured the critical lashings of her every move, 2007 was also the year that Spears famously shaved her head at a Tarzana salon, providing plenty of grist for the tabloid mill. But to her endlessly stalking paparazzi and the various critics, Spears roared back, “You want a piece of me?/I’m Mrs. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous/I’m Mrs. Oh My God That Britney’s Shameless/I’m Mrs. Extra! Extra! This Just In!/You want a piece of me/I’m Mrs. She’s Too Big Now She’s Too Thin.” So apropos to her entire existence in the spotlight, Spears’ Vegas residency would end up being called that as well—a heartbreaking choice considering how many pieces her family took of her to make her endure that ceaseless run of performances.
“Rumors” by Lindsay Lohan: Inarguably Lindsay Lohan’s only solid contribution to the music business, “Rumors” embodies the apex of 00s tabloid culture, awash in all the language of voyeurism (“I can see that you’re watchin’ me/And you’re probably gonna write what you didn’t see”). And Lohan made the mistake of releasing it slightly before she would really be turned into a tabloid/late night talk show joke. This stemming from her overt dependency on drugs and alcohol at a time when a movie titled Herbie: Fully Loaded was going to come out. Cue all the obvious jibes. If only “Rumors” had been released just a year later to secure maximum impact as a defense for her clubbing/party girl behavior. Even so, it remains what RuPaul would call safe as part of the clapback canon.
“Industry Baby” by Lil Nas X featuring Jack Harlow: In 2021, Lil Nas X came under fire by Nike for selling a limited run of Satan Shoes featuring the famous swoosh logo with the help of MSCHF, an art collective based in Brooklyn. Nike sued for trademark infringement, prompting Lil Nas X to create quite the tailored concept for the premise of the “Industry Baby” video (with the title sardonically alluding to the insult “industry plant”). Incidentally, it was directed by Christian Breslauer, who would also go on to direct Grande’s “yes, and?” video. But Lil Nas X wasn’t just rebelling against the lawsuit, but all of his haters in general, rapping, “You was never really rooting for me anyway/When I’m back up at the top, I wanna hear you say/‘He don’t run from nothin’, dog’/Get your soldiers, tell ’em that the break is over.” And while co-production from Ye (a.k.a. Kanye West) has left some taint on the track, it still packs a punch when it comes to walloping the critics.
“Mean” by Taylor Swift: Probably the most flaccid of the clapback tracks on this list, “Mean” was a direct response to music critic Bob Lefsetz, who reviewed Taylor Swift’s 2010 performance at the Grammys less than favorably. Among some of his more scathing assessments about her off-key performance (made all the more noticeable because she had joined Stevie Nicks onstage) was that she full-stop “can’t sing” and that she had “destroyed her career overnight.” Nostradamus this man is not. But his words clearly stung enough for Swift to include an angry little girl clapback (something that “Look What You Made Me Do” would perfect) on 2010’s Speak Now, released nine months after she performed at the Grammys in January. Which means she found the time to tack “Mean” onto the record for optimal impact. Even so, Lefsetz would rightly note later of the rumors that it was about him and his review, “If this song is really about me, I wish it were better.”
“Not My Responsibility” and “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish: The subject of frequent scrutiny, Billie Eilish already has two clapback at the critics songs under her belt and she’s only twenty-two years old. The first “song,” “Not My Responsibility,” wouldn’t really become a song until it appeared on her sophomore album, Happier Than Ever, in 2021. Originally created as a short film interlude for her Where Do We Go? World Tour, the song came at a time when Eilish was being constantly called out for being, let’s say, the epitome of a twenty-first century sexless pop star. A direct attack on body- and slut-shaming, Eilish softly states, “I feel you watching always/And nothing I do goes unseen/So while I feel your stares/Your disapproval/Or your sigh of relief/If I lived by them/I’d never be able to move.” This more modern commentary on what criticism in the age of social media can do extends not just to critics, but the legions of online commentators as well. A legion that Eilish also acknowledges on “Therefore I Am,” which was released later in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, ergo Eilish’s ability to film freely in a vacant Glendale Galleria. A privilege the critics she derides would never have access to. Something that shines through in her laughing taunt, “Stop, what the hell are you talking about?/Ha/Get my pretty name out of your mouth/We are not the same with or without/Don’t talk ’bout me like how you might know how I feel/Top of the world, but your world isn’t real/Your world’s an ideal.” Often, an impossible one for anybody to live up to. But such is the complex and isolating nature of being a critic.
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Genna Rivieccio
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Talk about “being in your head all weekend.” For the image that Madonna and Kylie Minogue have left behind in the wake of performing “I Will Survive” (the gayest of the gay anthems by none other than Gloria Gaynor) and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” is something that has caused many an older gay gentleman’s synapses to short circuit. The performance in question occurred when Minogue joined Madonna onstage at her March 7th date of The Celebration Tour at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum. (Unsurprisingly, Madonna timed her rash of L.A. dates to coincide with when the Academy Awards would be taking place [March 10th], for it’s no secret that M and her manager, Guy Oseary, are beloved for the Oscar party they’ve been throwing since 2008.) Fittingly, their long overdue public union onstage (and in life) would serve as something of a nod to March 8th’s International Women’s Day (or at least that’s how the duo is billing it). And what could be more inspiring than two such women supporting one another?
The genesis of that support really began on November 16, 2000, when Madonna performed “Music” at the MTV European Music Awards whilst wearing a black tank top with Kylie Minogue’s name shinily emblazoned on it (along with a pair of then-fashionable very low-rise pants). Incidentally, Minogue was also at the same awards show, and performed “Kids” with Robbie Williams. While on the red carpet afterward, Madonna was asked about her recent predilection for wearing tees of Britney and Kylie, to which she replied, “Well, it’s really my celebration of other girls in pop music, basically. I had to give a big-up to Britney and then I had to give a big-up to Kylie… I think they’re the cutest.” And yes, Spears, too, has famously joined Madonna onstage during one of her tours before—once again, at an L.A. date (so don’t try to say the NY shows have superior celebrity cameos ‘cause they don’t). Specifically, the November 6, 2008 one at Dodger Stadium, where Spears cameo’d for “Human Nature” (appropriate, considering its “Piece of Me” vibe and the fact that Madonna used backdrops of Spears pacing around in an elevator for it).
This cameo by Minogue, however, appears to be more deeply felt. Not just by the audience of swooning gays, but by Madonna and Minogue themselves. Accordingly, Minogue posted a video of herself dancing on the floor of the arena as Madonna performed “Ray of Light” in the background, captioning it, “MADONNA It’s been a long time coming. LOVED being with you!!!! Celebration Tour AND it is now International Women’s Day …. THANK YOU and LOVE LOVE LOVE.” Madonna was slightly less gushing (she’s still a tough-talking, brass balls-packing Midwestern girl, after all) with her own caption beneath a high-quality video of their performance together: “Couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate International Woman’s Day…………………Then to Sing with @kylieminogue.”
In fact, wearing that instantly iconic ensemble back in 2000 was part of Madonna celebrating women outside of “just one day out of life.” At the time, while being interviewed on a 2000 episode of Celebrity!, Minogue said she was “chuffed” about seeing M wear the shirt. Right after her assessment, the host passed Minogue a gift containing a riff on that top bearing the name “MADONNA” instead (an uncanny foreshadowing of twenty-four years later, evidently). Although Minogue has been asked countless times since the beginning of her career about 1) what she thinks of Madonna and 2) how she feels regarding being so often compared to Madonna (with Minogue’s responses being gracious…most of the time), the two never seemed to align—meeting or collaboration-wise.
In 2011, she told an interviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald, “I’ve only met her briefly [backstage at the 2000 EMAs, as it were]. We have some friends in common and, you know, a message will go back and forth and she says, ‘Hi’ or I say, ‘Hi.’” And now they’ve said so much more—hopefully feeling comfortable enough at this point to message directly back and forth. A newly-established dynamic that many are likely hoping could lead to the frequently teased potential song they might make together.
Minogue’s own talk of wanting to do a collaboration with the woman she, too, calls “the Queen” has been repeated more than once over the years, including during an interview for HuffPost UK when asked if she would be interested in doing a song with M, to which Kylie noted, “Maybe the world would stop mid-orbit or something.” For about five minutes in Inglewood on March 7th, it kind of did.
But, as Minogue herself said, it’s been a long time coming. Indeed, over the past year, Madonna and Kylie have been dancing around each other (no pun intended) more than usual. That dance started around the time Minogue released “Padam Padam” in the spring of 2023. Mainly because said lead single from Tension was an instant chart-topping success despite the then fifty-three-year-old (she was eight days shy of fifty-four when the song was released) reciting lyrics that many (chiefly Republicans) would still deem age inappropriate, regardless of the numerous strides that have supposedly been made when it comes to not judging women through an ageist lens.
In contrast, Madonna, in later years, has rarely received so much attention or praise for a song (save for, oddly enough, her collaboration with The Weeknd and Playboi Carti on “Popular”) featuring her own similar use of “youthisms” in lyrics (hear: “Candy Shop,” “Girl Gone Wild,” “Some Girls and “S.E.X.,” among others).
Granted, she’s never really gone so far as to say something (at least not in what her critics would call her “geriatric phase”) like, “I know you wanna take me home/And get to know me close…/I know you wanna take me home/And take off all my clothes” or “This place is crowdin’ up/I think it’s time for you to take me out this club/And we don’t need to use our words/Wanna see what’s underneath that t-shirt.” And, in spite of being a notoriously ageist community themselves, the gays probably did wanna see what was underneath Minogue’s Madonna t-shirt last night, so obsessed can they be with aesthetic appraisal. But that might have been the thing that truly caused a short circuit from which none of them could ever return. Besides, maybe Madonna casually dry humping Minogue was enough.
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Genna Rivieccio
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It’s safe to say that, of all the pop stars working today (apart from, of course, Madonna), Ariana Grande is the one most blatantly enamored of postmodernism—wherein no distinction exists between high and low art, and references galore are placed in a “pastiche blender.” Even more than her contemporaries, Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift, Grande is the most obvious in how she’ll take a piece of pop culture and “reinterpret” it. Though perhaps some would say she’s merely recreating it, shot-for-shot, à la Gus Van Sant with Psycho. That much can practically be said of the video for her second single from Eternal Sunshine, “we can’t be friends (wait for your love).” This following her other pastiche-drenched video for “yes, and?,” which is a knockoff of Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted” video.
As with “yes, and?,” Christian Breslauer also directed “we can’t be friends (wait for your love),” marking their second collaboration. Perhaps they didn’t end up working together sooner due to Grande’s long-standing devotion to Hannah Lux Davis, who has brought us so many Grande music videos over the years, including “Bang Bang,” “Love Me Harder,” “Focus,” “Into You,” “Side to Side,” “breathin,” “thank u, next” (also filled with movie-related pastiche), “7 rings,” “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored,” “boyfriend” and “Don’t Call Me Angel.”
But “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” has a different vibe from all of those aforementioned light-hearted videos (of which, even “breathin” was more light-hearted than this). Suffused with the kind of melancholia and restraint that comes in the wake of a breakup, Grande and Breslauer take what Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman did in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and distill it down to four minutes and forty-three seconds (something Kaufman would likely be horrified by). Starting with Grande being in the waiting room of “Brighter Days Inc.” (dumbed down from the more “esoteric” company name in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lacuna Inc.—lacuna meaning “an unfilled space; a gap”), Grande’s penchant for pastiche might even extend to the 2004 (also when Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was released) video for Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For?” In it, Stefani also finds her in a dubious, nondescript waiting room filling out a form filled with odd questions (e.g., “Do you like the smell of gasoline?”). Except it isn’t to help erase her memory, but rather, “be inspired” a.k.a. get rid of her writer’s block. Grande doesn’t tend to have any issues with that, especially when she’s in her “after a breakup/new relationship” phase.
Riffing on Clementine Kruczynski’s (Kate Winslet) look, Grande sits in the waiting room of Brighter Days Inc.—an air of uncertainty about her—styled in a fur-trim coat, tights with knee-high boots (featuring a 70s-esque flower pattern) and a flower flourish drawn in white around her eye. This particular detail gives more Katy Perry than Clementine vibes (especially in the former’s hippie-dippy “Never Really Over” video), but it’s part of Grande’s own spin on the character. Which now also incorporates some version of herself thanks to her recent experience of wanting to erase the memory of a botched relationship. Namely, the one that resulted in her two-year marriage to Dalton Gomez. Hence, like Joel Barish (Jim Carrey, who Grande is a well-known fan of), we see Grande-as-“Peaches” (a none too subtle allusion to Clementine) filling out a form that basically denies Brighter Days Inc. any legal responsibility for what might happen after the procedure—including a lingering and barely dormant sense of regret.
So it is that we see “Peaches” checking the “Yes” box under the statement, “You have given extensive thought behind your decision and give Brighter Days Inc. the exclusive permission to remove this person completely from your memory.” Clementine herself, of course, didn’t give much extensive thought to it, later telling Joel, “You know me, I’m impulsive.” Peaches is likely the same way, simply wanting to rid herself of the pain that comes from remembering a failed relationship. Thus, despite seeing the anxiousness radiating from her as she resolves to go through with the decision, Peaches knows that it’s “for the best.”
Watching the “technicians” remove key mementos of the relationship from the box she brought in (the same way the patients in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind do), viewers soon see the wall of the “operating room” open up behind her (kind of the way the wall opens up behind Miley Cyrus in the “Used To Be Young” video) to reveal the first memory to be scraped. The one that relates to the tiny teddy bear in the box. A bear plucked from what the Brits (and Arctic Monkeys) call a teddy picker by Grande’s ex, played by Evan Peters…who is labeled simply as “Lover” where credited (how Swiftian). The memory then starts to black-out around her (the same way it does for Joel just as he’s remembering all the “good stuff” he loved about being with Clementine). Startled by the abyssal nature of the process, this is the moment where the lyrics, “Me and my truth, we sit in silence/Mmm, baby girl it’s just me and you.” And as the very “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn beat swells again, the blackness around her is replaced by another memory, one in which Lover’s back is turned to her in bed. While she sits up in the place next to him, it’s as though the two are at the point in their relationship where things have become strained, and words have lost all meaning.
From this memory, Grande runs out to open the door, leading her into a snow-filled landscape where “Brighter Days” of them making snow angels together exist. This being Grande’s version of Joel and Clementine lying on the ice of the frozen-over Charles River (though, in actuality, that scene was filmed in Yorktown Heights). A “cut” is then made by way of a sheet falling over the scene to transition us from Peaches lying on the snow to Peaches lying in bed with Lover (side note: the sheets’ pattern gives off a decidedly “hospital bed” feel—maybe an unwitting allusion to how love makes you crazy). And in the same way that Clementine is literally yanked away from Joel while they’re lying on the ice together, so, too, is Lover while he and Peaches are looking at each other with the same loving fondness in bed.
In the next scene, Breslauer cuts to the memory box again, as a technician picks up a framed photo of the two arranged in “Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald) and Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) pose” with a cake between them, exactly as it was in John Hughes’ Sixteen Candles. It is at this moment that viewers might realize Grande is incapable of sticking to just one movie as a visual reference point (even with “34+35,” she couldn’t “only” refer to Austin Powers with her fembot aesthetic….there had to be a Frankenstein premise as well)—something we saw at a peak in “thank u, next.” A video that, although it wields Mean Girls as its primary inspiration, also sees fit to devolve into nods to Bring It On, Legally Blonde and 13 Going on 30.
While it’s unclear if Lover is doing this Sixteen Candles homage deliberately because he knows how much Peaches adores the movie or it’s simply another instance of Grande incorporating a pop culture reference apropos of nothing (which is understandable, as many women and gay men’s minds function that way), the point is that Lover disappears from the picture just as they lean into kiss one another over the birthday candles (something that was just as stressful to watch in Sixteen Candles for those fearing a fire hazard). Sitting there alone as the lyric, “So for now, it’s only me/And maybe that’s all I need” plays, Grande blows out the candles before we see the map of her brain again. In the style of Joel freaking out when the “eraser guys” manage to find Clementine hidden within a memory of his childhood (a suggestion made by Clementine so that he could hold onto her in some way even after the process), Grande starts panicking and crying before the computer flashes a sign that reads, “Relinking.”
In another memory still, we see Grande on the couch with Lover as he presents her with a necklace that then turns into a dog collar before Lover himself is transformed into a dog (for, as Birds of Prey taught us, dogs are the animals women are most likely to replace men with). This is where Grande takes the most liberties with her reinterpretation of the movie, for it seems that Brighter Days Inc. isn’t just capable of erasing memories, but also reworking them entirely. As such, the interior decor around her continues to, let’s say, shapeshift, while the TV in front of her plays back the memories one last time before we see Peaches shaking hands with the doctor and nurse for doing their job, the procedure now over.
The image of the box of memories, teddy bear and all, being incinerated then leads into Peaches walking down a street with a new boyfriend and passing Lover with his new girlfriend, neither party registering any kind of recognition. And just like that, Peaches forgets all about her pain. Just as viewers might forget all about the original Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But that’s what pastiche is about: subverting collective memories for the sake of consumption.
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Genna Rivieccio
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It should have been something momentous to the locals. But perhaps when Madonna said long ago of Chicago (in Truth or Dare), “We’re in a conservative town,” she was foreshadowing her debut in Sacramento, a city that people still often forget is California’s capital (so much so that the recent primary debate was held in Los Angeles rather than the state’s supposed “political hub”). Prior to arriving on February 24th for her first concert ever in the city, Madonna’s only notable connection to the town was dating someone who was from it (Ahlamalik Williams) before moving on to another. Apart from that, Madonna’s “allegiance” to Sacramento appeared to be nonexistent. Until her arrival at the Golden 1 Center for The Celebration Tour. And yet, this once-in-a-blue-moon event did not seem to move any of the scant few print media outlets that might actually cover entertainment. These being, essentially, the Sacramento Bee and Sacramento News & Review. Though, for some reason, the latter found it newsworthy to announce, “Billy Idol and partner in crime, Stevie Stevens, to play Thunder Valley on Feb. 9.”
Sure, the town was “good” enough about announcing the pop star’s presence here and there on radio stations and the news, but it was the fact that no one even bothered to make space in their publication to review the show that was most shocking (especially since, as mentioned, there’s really not that many publications, so one could have easily made it a priority). Because, again, this bia has never seen fit to show up in Sacramento. It truly is an occasion. She’s gone to fucking Fresno (back in 2006) before ever choosing to grace the capital with her presence. To tap into the market of the NorCal area outside of San Francisco, Madonna has usually instead performed in San Jose (which she seemed to swap out this time around in favor of Sacramento). Though, during her second tour, Who’s That Girl, she opted for Mountain View, about forty-five minutes south of San Francisco (to San Jose’s roughly fifty-five). Granted, most musicians rarely actually “opt” for anything, so much as they’re told by tour managers what will work best for the roster of dates and the markets they want to tap into. Sacramento never entered the equation for Madonna at any point on these previous tours. Indeed, the most “curveball” city on her round of U.S. dates over the years was probably East Troy, Wisconsin and Richfield, Ohio (both during the Who’s That Girl Tour).
Even “small towns” (in the same spirit as Sacramento being deemed small) like St. Paul and Pittsburgh could be bothered to give M a review during her The Celebration Tour stops there (and yes, she’s been to both of those places many times on her tours before). And they did so immediately after the show, whether good or bad. In St. Paul’s case, the reviews (that’s right, reviews plural) were generally favorable, save for the errant shade-drenched comment (e.g., “the show told Madonna’s story—her version of it, anyway—through a loosely chronological series of acts” and “she never broke a sweat, despite some occasionally murky sound and the sweltering eighty-degree heat in the arena that’s apparently one of Madonna’s contractual demands”). By and large, the main critique of Madonna live is the fact that she is always, but always, tardy to her own party. Hence, the St. Paul review that stated, “Some may excuse Madonna as she’s always been like this, but others are correct to note that it’s pointless and even rude to stage a tardy weeknight concert attended almost entirely by Gen Xers and Boomers.” The appearance of that generational pool tracks considering Madonna is one of the few artists a person can document their own life’s “eras” through (with Taylor Swift coming up the rear). The clientele at the Sacramento show, per a Reddit deep dive (because, to reiterate, there was no coverage of the event in any of the town’s media), seemed to lean more toward the boomer category, with one user stating, “I was quite impressed with the age range of Sacramento fans. Way WAY more baby boomers than I’ve seen at her shows in San Jose, Oakland, Fresno, LA, Vegas…and a huge number of them dressed up in Susan outfits, Like A Virgin wedding dresses etc etc. I did not expect that from my fellow Sacramentans—a very pleasant surprise.”
Unfortunately, there was no surprise about the lack of attention given to the event in Sacramento’s so-called mainstream media. Which is ironic in a way because Sacramento actually suits Madonna solely because, somewhere inside, she’s still a Midwestern girl. She can still “relate” to such a place known for being “simple” and perhaps “old-fashioned.” And yes, Sacramento is frequently called “the Midwest of California” (a line immortalized in Lady Bird). Madonna, to be sure, wasn’t so different from Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) in her bid “get the hell out of Michigan.” The way Lady Bird phrases such a desire is: “I have to get out of Sacramento… It’s soul killing.”
Part of the reason both Madonna and Lady Bird so intensely craved to escape from their respective middling hometowns was to stave off the aura of ordinariness they felt radiating from them—especially if they got trapped staying there. In truth, despite Madonna not being “for everyone,” her popularity and impact means that, at least on the surface, she ought to be “pedestrian” enough to appeal to Sacramentans. Just not, for whatever reason, the city’s media outlets. Yet everywhere else along the way, Madonna’s performance at [insert city here] managed to snag national (and even international) news headlines—most recently, from Pamela Anderson joining her onstage for the vogue ball in Vancouver to “falling off” her chair (a.k.a. being forced off it due to circumstances out of her control) in Seattle. The lone date to emanate nothing but the sound of crickets has been Sacramento. And that’s extremely telling for a number of reasons. For a start, the town’s aforementioned conservatism. For another, a certain lack of appreciation for that which is more “cosmopolitan.” No wonder there was more coverage about a Mardi Gras parade that took place the same weekend than the first- (and probably only) time appearance of Madonna performing live.
Thus, without any information about the show on mainstream outlets, it took a fair amount of trolling to find out that Detox was the person M chose to bring up onstage during the vogue ball (in keeping with her recent parade of RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants joining her onstage, thanks to the “in” Bob the Drag Queen has with everyone). A coup for someone so well-known as a fan—though perhaps not to the extent of fellow Drag Race alum Venus D-Lite, who spent hundreds of thousands on plastic surgery to help perfect his Madonna impersonator look.
But yes, Detox must be a fan indeed to have flown out to Sacramento…since, clearly, there was no one else famous readily on hand to pluck from the crowd the way there will be in San Francisco and L.A. Not even the state’s own governor, Gavin Newsom. And. it says something that there is no one famous from the arts that can be easily dug up for such an occasion. Any talent that does crop up in the town ultimately flees. And the lack of coverage about something so auspicious speaks to a larger truth about the city continuing to thumb its nose at anything “weird” or “overly” artistic. This, in part, being why the few creative types who are born here tend to leave (see: Joan Didion, Molly Ringwald and Greta Gerwig). What motivation is there to stay?
With the dates of 2006’s Confessions Tour being the most “love” Madonna ever showed to Northern California by turning up in both San Jose and Fresno, she tended to keep her distance after that, throwing a bone to Oakland for the 2001’s Drowned World Tour and 2008’s Sticky and Sweet Tour and elsewhere sticking to San Jose for 2004’s Reinvention Tour, 2012’s MDNA Tour and 2015’s Rebel Heart Tour. For the more intimate Madame X Tour, three dates were scheduled at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theater. Bringing us up to the present with Madonna’s lone “cameo” to date in Sacramento. And one wouldn’t be surprised if it was her last based on the total non-reaction.
In 1993, Madonna threw up her biggest middle finger yet to pretty much all cities in the U.S. after the major backlash against her “hyper-sexuality” a.k.a. the trifecta of the Sex book, Erotica and Body of Evidence. Thus, The Girlie Show only played U.S. dates in New York, Philadelphia and Auburn Hills, of all places, near her hometown of Detroit. That Madonna was so willing to bypass the West Coast altogether is indicative of her long-standing lack of affinity with it. Apart from her “80s L.A. years” with Sean Penn, one doesn’t much associate her with the state. Sure, she’s always had property in Los Angeles, but she’s never made it a secret that New York is her preference. So maybe one could say that Californians, especially “salt of the earth” ones like those in Sacramento, can sense a certain emotional distance from her. Therefore, why should they revere her with a major acknowledgement/review? Or having the town named after her for a day à la “Swiftie Clara.” The answer is that this is still someone who changed the shape of the culture, especially in a place as repressed as Sacramento. Someone whose impact is significant, and so should their first-time performance in such a town be. Alas, it clearly wasn’t.
Incidentally, during the time of The Girlie Show, Madonna stated, “Taking the adventure one step further is to play in front of a different audience every night. dealing with different cultures, different expectations, different ways of expressing pleasure and bewilderment—this to me is the ultimate thrill. The ultimate risk. And I love taking risks. You may have heard that about me.” Perhaps she couldn’t have known just how big a risk it was to gamble on coming to Sacramento and expecting to find anything like the “royal treatment” for her trouble, let alone a review. Even if a bad one, as would be expected from the likes of Sacramentan reviewers of the same Midwestern mentality as St. Paulites.
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Genna Rivieccio
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It’s been an entire presidential term since the last time Allie X released an album. The record in question, Cape God, came at an all too apropos moment in the culture: the era of lockdowns. As though intuiting the arrival of an “at-home glaze,” Allie X (real name: Alexandra Ashley Hughes) had taken inspiration from Steven Okazaki’s 2015 documentary Heroin: Cape Cod, USA for the Cape God universe. But if Cape God was all about the inevitable decay of one’s drug-induced malaise, Girl With No Face seems to capture the apex of a drug high before the crash. That moment just after a snort in the bathroom of some dark, debauched club. Alas, since clubs aren’t really all that dark and debauched anymore, Allie X has naturally seen fit to retreat into the past, during one of the inarguable best times for club culture: the 80s.
To set the mood of the record and bring her listener into this new sonic landscape she’s established, Allie X appropriately commences with “Weird World.” Unsurprisingly, X remarked that she began working on this song during the pandemic, a time for many people (especially white people) when the proverbial “mask” was peeled back on just about everything to reveal a very scary face of things indeed. As for the mask-centric cover art, which features Allie X’s exterior mask cracked down the center, it speaks to the chanteuse’s sentiment, “I feel like there was a sort of death that happened, like an erasure of maybe previous identities, and rather than emerging with a fully-formed new identity, I feel like I’m still in progress, I’m figuring it out. I like the idea that masks are flexible in that way. They’re a protection.” In addition to being a way to conceal—because, sometimes, concealment is protection. But there is often no protection from this world that is so weird, as Allie X describes it, opening the song with the verse, “Oh, the light shines through the linen/Der morgen beginnt singen/I don’t want to dream anymore/Oh, they tell me that I’m stubborn/Treffe meine wahl im zorn/I don’t want to dream anymore.” The German portion meaning, “The morning begins singing/Make my choice in anger.” Something that’s difficult not to do when we live in a world where the choice is between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And yet, Allie X commented on the freedom of ceasing to pretend the world is anything other than a totally fucked-up place, which is why, in turn, there are so many fucked-up people in it—mirror reflections of the system that upholds the globe (while simultaneously pushing it toward collapse). As Allie X put it, “The ‘weird world’ is this idea of seeing things as they actually are, and how that can actually be an empowering moment, even though it’s a sad moment.”
And, because it’s a kind of sadness that many don’t want to experience, they prefer to remain in denial, insisting the world isn’t “weird” at all. So it is that Allie X sings in the chorus, “I know nobody wants to hear this, but/I live in a weird world/Yeah, it’s sad but it’s true/Maybe you can’t see it/But you live in one too/I used to be a dream girl/But the world interfered/At least now I know why/Now I know why/Now I know I’m weird.” And that’s because, that’s right, the world is. The uptempo, synth-drenched rhythms change tack slightly on the record’s namesake, “Girl With No Face,” which features a more OMD meets Kraftwerk tinge (there are definitely notes of OMD’s “Messages” as Allie X starts off with her “ooo-ooo-ooos”). With the album’s overall hints of early Madonna (we’re talking the self-titled debut), perhaps it’s only right that Allie X should unwittingly (?) make an esoteric reference to Madonna’s character in Dick Tracy: No Face a.k.a. “The Blank.” That is, when she wasn’t Breathless Mahoney. The song and album title also feel like a clear nod to Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without A Face,” that song title itself taken from the 1960 French horror movie of the same name. Allie X’s sonic tones on the record do mirror some of what’s in that particular Idol single, but “Girl With No Face” is more sonically erratic than that, with the synths becoming screeching and violent around the one-minute, fifty-three-second mark as Allie X sings, “She has no friends/Up on the catwalk/And she is sharp/So shut your talk-talk/If you behave you get to play/But don’t be greedy, she can spot a fake.” Which is probably easier for Allie X to do in her current home of Los Angeles. A town that, in many ways, seemed to embrace the post-punk and new wave movements in music and fashion with more gusto than its rival city of New York.
But neither of these were the real muse behind the sound of Girl With No Face, as Allie X explained that the UK music scene during this period was one of the key influences on the record. She also added, “The movement I’m talking about, punk to post-punk, really did happen in the UK. Some would argue New York City, but that doesn’t interest me as much.” Thank fucking god someone has some sense about not being that interested in NYC. Because, as she said, she can spot the fakes—and there’s nothing faker than NYC new wave. It was all about that UK shit. Indeed, Allie X noted of getting in touch with her British roots again, “My dad is from the UK. He’s from Coventry. As a kid, I went there a lot and always felt this real connection to my uncles, aunts and cousins over there. I’ve always been the kid that would get made fun of for being weird, and going there, I felt like they all understood me and we had the same sense of humor and I really belonged… I’ve rekindled my love and connection for the UK as I’ve made this [record] and reconnected with a lot of my family whom I hadn’t seen in so long.”
Being that “Girl With No Face” is something like the “thesis” of the album, the true jumping-off point for the concept, it makes sense that Allie X would say of this “alter ego,” of sorts, “She’s my invisible muse—my cunty muse!” And cunty she is, if one is to go by the warning, “Torment the girl, she can ruin your world/Don’t get in her way.” The attitude of the girl with no face is perhaps so pronounced because one can project whatever they want onto her, and usually, expressionless women are presumed to be bitches anyway (perhaps why “bitchy” Madonna was cast as No Face…apart from having an “in” with the director). There’s even a dash of Edwyn Collins’ only signature, “A Girl Like You,” when Allie X declares, “Say, ‘I never met a girl like you,’” adding in the outro, “I never met a girl like you/Like you/I’m the girl with no face/And you never need a face.” Not when no one’s really looking at anybody anyway. And, as the next song indicates, nor do you really need any tits.
As the third single from the album, “Off With Her Tits” (a phrase one could easily envision a different kind of queen shouting in a fit of rage) brings with it a tempo that becomes more straightforwardly upbeat again. And one would have to be “upbeat” to sneak in the fear-inducing lyrics, “Off with her tits/I gotta fix/This one little bit/Or l’ll throw a fit/Now off with her tits.” Although Allie X preferred to keep it less direct with regard to what the song is about, it can easily serve a dual interpretation. On the one hand, it’s clearly about a woman’s tits getting in the way of her being “taken seriously,” instead appraised for her body rather than her wit (i.e., “Go take the piss/I’m flat with a wit/Not soft full of shit/Now off with her tits”). On the other (and considering Allie X’s fanbase), it feels like it can directly address some of the transgender dysphoria that can occur when one doesn’t identify with the body of a woman. The fact that even women weigh in on other women’s tits with a misogynistic viewpoint plays into the verse, “Then I called the doctor/Said, ‘Miss what can you do?’/She told me she’d cut them off/I said, ‘Sign me up for June’/I went to the teller/Took out 10K in cash/She said, ‘Bitch are you joking? I wish I had that rack.’” Not Allie X, who wants to be valued for her intellect before her body. Luckily for her, gay men can appreciate both.
And speaking of gays, the following track is dedicated to a particular couple that came to see a show of hers at the Bowery Ballroom in 2018: “John and Jonathan.” Amused by the similarity of their names when they introduced themselves after the concert, Allie X remarked that she might write a song about them one day. Of course, John and Jonathan thought, “Yeah, right.” But, lo and behold, the inspiration did hit a few years later. And to the overt tune of Kraftwerk’s 1978 single, “The Model.” Infused with just a touch more disco flair as Allie X paints the picture, “John and Jonathan are on the town/John and Jonathan, they go up, they go down/At the Bowery, in line they wait/They will stay all night then wake at eight.” Although it seems to initially be a frothy rumination on two “cosmopolitan” gay men, Allie X soon makes it an interior reflection about the weirdness of fame as she asks, “But how will I know if they care for me?/Do I believe what they say?/When I’m on stage they all cheer for me/I must soak up the praise/And save it for a rainy day/Dear John and Jonathan/Who am I to you?” That last line touching on the inherently parasocial nature between fan and star. Except that, in John and Jonathan’s case, at least Allie X actually does know who they are.
As for whether or not “Galina” still knows who Allie X is, well, that’s less apparent. And for those few who thought track five on Girl With No Face was a misspelling of the Italian word for “hen,” they might be either relieved or disappointed to learn that it’s actually about a Russian woman named Galina who worked at the naturopathic clinic in Toronto where Allie X would seek some alleviation for the eczema on her inner elbows. Per Allie X, Galina, for many years, “made this cream in her kitchen that worked better than steroids. She would always say, ‘It cost me more to make this than I’m charging you. I get this man in the Swiss Alps to gather these herbs and I make you this cream.’ She was pretty old, so I always worried: ‘What happens when Galina retires? It’s not like this is some patented product.’ So sure enough, in the summer of 2022, I returned to the clinic, and I was like, ‘Could I place an order for the cream from Galina?’ And the lady was like, ‘Oh, Galina has retired.’ And I was like, ‘What!?! Did she tell anyone the recipe?‘ And she was like, ‘No, she won’t tell. There’s nothing we can do—Galina has lost her memory.’” Thus, in the words of Joni Mitchell, “Don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” What’s more, something about that story smacks of how so many things get lost when one generation starts to die out. Of course, Allie X, being an L.A. Lady now, renders the deep message with a tinge more shallowness in the jaunty tune that goes, “Galina, wake up I’m running out of luck/And I get so ugly without you/Now, open your eyes/Help me make it through the night/Galina, wake up Galina, wake up/Know you don’t give a fuck/Fear, you’ll take the answers to your gravе/You could open your eyes/Hеlp me make it through the night/Galina, please, wake up.”
Allie X’s urgent need for Galina back in her life not because she actually cares all that much about her as a person, but because she needs her “goods” to look her best acknowledges the generally transactional nature between human beings (which has only worsened in the years since the 1980s, the decade Allie X is communing with). Her concern for her own appearance rather than Galina’s well-being further manifests in the lines, “My hand’s turnin’ dry and red/She keeps sleepin’ in her bed/My face crackin’ in the light/Her lips part, the tiniest smile.”
Reiterating the Kraftwerk influence on the record, the following track, “Hardware/Software,” correlates easily to Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love” (and the entire Computer World album). To boot, Allie X’s construction of the song is very akin to the Kraftwerk style in that it leans heavily on the music itself, with only two verses, the latter of which includes, “My hardware is getting too fast/I need to slow down, honey, wanna make it last/And my software is kicking me in the gut/It’s gonna get me soft like a pillow top/I wanna line my bed with a mountain of debt/I wanna earn my face on the internet/I wanna kill, kill, kill ‘til my world is dead/And I can’t stop thinking ‘bout all of that.” Needless to say, Allie X’s lyrics are slightly more sex- and violence-drenched. Ah, and talking of violence, the track that follows is the New Order-y (“Blue Monday,” of course) “Black Eye.” Though the opening gives a dash of Kilo’s “Cocaine” (recently sampled in Beyoncé’s “America Has A Problem”), it’s really all about the “Blue Monday” feels for the majority of the song, with Allie X addressing she’s a bit of a masochist when it comes to rolling with life’s punches, so to speak (hence, the black eye metaphor). Although some might initially be quick to accuse this of being some sort of anti-woke, “he hit me and it felt like a kiss” song, it is, instead, very much on-brand for the message of the album, which is to never let other people (and the hardships they can so often cause you) get in your way or stop you from achieving your dreams and goals. Thus, Allie X gives herself the pep talk, of sorts, “Oh, hit me, hit me with that super pain/‘Cause a hit feels like I’m dancin’ in the rain/Gimme that beat/There’s no need to cry, it’s just a black eye, yeah/Hit me, hit me with that super bass (Nicki Minaj would tend to agree)/‘Cause I want tonight to slap me in the face/Gimme that beat/There’s no need to cry, it’s just a black eye, yeah.”
The accompanying video, directed by none other than Allie X (which is in keeping with the fact that she also produced the entire Girl With No Face album), offers the surreal, visceral visuals one would expect of such a song, without hitting the viewer over the head (violence pun intended) with the actual image of Allie X being punched in the eye. But for those who have never slept on Allie X’s brilliance, this is no surprise. For those who have, she brings listeners the tongue-in-cheek “You Slept On Me.” Sonically, it pays clear homage to Michael Sembello’s Flashdance staple, “Maniac.” But lyrically, the best way to describe it is: Sparks and Charli XCX birthed a song together and the result was, “I held my tonguе for about long enough/It’s about damn time that I spoke up/I’m an icon, honey, this isn’t a chore/And I need to make money so give me yours/You missed my debut then my renaissance/You missed my late romantic, my veridict au France/Now I’m a modern bitch and I’m getting tough/Better make it up, kids, enough’s enough/Oh, what a shame/It’s clear to see/You’ve been so dumb sleeping on me.” Allie X continues to unleash the “cunty muse” she was referring to vis-à-vis her Girl With No Face persona by concluding, “You’ve been eating Krispy Kreme/You’ve been praising Paula Deen/There’s no point trying to disagree/Just get in line, you tired queen/Yeah, yeah.” Ah, the dangerous risk Allie X took by “insulting” her primary fanbase.
Taking us out of the 80s for a moment to channel a Labrinth-esque vocal intro, Allie X then dips right back into the decade with the “goth pop” (her words) tone of “Saddest Smile.” And, of all the songs on Girl With No Face, this is the one that perhaps most closely encapsulates a key “mood board” she used as inspiration for the “feel” of the album: Uli Edel’s Christiane F. (side note: that means Madonna is even more roundaboutly embedded in this project via the fact that Edel also directed Body of Evidence). The languor and theme of the song exists almost as though in deliberate negation of what Ariana Grande and MARINA talk about on “fake smile” and “Highly Emotional People,” respectively, for Allie X instead insists that things are as they always were, and we must suppress our emotions in order to be even vaguely accepted in society. Ergo, “When I’m sad, I don’t cry/I put on my saddest smile” and “No one wants to see you soften/So we have to harden ’til we can turn to dust.” A bleak and honest thought, one put far more bluntly than Allie X euphemistically saying this world is fucked on the opening track, “Weird World.”
The tempo picks up again on the defiant “Staying Power,” an anthem of divergence from the norm. It’s repetitive sound seems designed to highlight Allie X’s insistence, “I don’t sing for straight men ’cause they just ruin the world/Wanna be good daughter but I pushed my mom away/Wanna be good patient but my doctor makes me pay/Wanna save the baby but I threw away the bath/My body’s weak, my mind is bleak, there’s one thing that I have/Staying power, I’ve got the power/The world can hurt me, I don’t mind.” This, too, channels her sentiments on “Black Eye,” which is essentially Jennifer Love-Hewitt saying, “What are you waiting for? Huh?! What are you waiting for?!” in song form. It’s a taunt and a challenge to the world, the universe to throw its worst at Allie X because 1) she can take it and 2) she’s got, that’s right, staying power.
This jubilant declaration of strength (however sardonic) persists on the album’s finale, “Truly Dreams.” And this song, too, is a blender of nods to 80s signatures, an explosion of pastiche. One that can best be characterized as: Siouxie Sioux’s “Hong Kong Garden” sound with a dash of the way Debbie Harry chants “Dreamin’” on Blondies’s song of the same name and, of course, a lilt that majorly channels Kate Bush. Whatever homage the listener can hear in it, the most important takeaway is her message in the chorus: “I keep dreaming/And if it’s not enough then/I’ll just keep my hopes and dreaming/With all my might, just listen/Truly dreams never die/They never die/(Never die, baby, can never die).” Because the real death in this life is when one gives up on their dreams. The body’s expiration after that is just incidental. And even if one feels as unseen, as invisible as the Girl With No Face, it doesn’t mean they can’t still serve cunt just like Allie X’s alter ego (and Breathless Mahoney as “The Blank”).
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Genna Rivieccio
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While some pop stars are “allowed” to trip or fall (e.g., Taylor Swift on the top of her precious “Folklore cabin” during The Eras Tour) without it making the overly judgmental rounds on multiple news outlets, Madonna has not been permitted the same luxury for quite some time. Certainly not when she took her last “international incident” of a tumble at the 2015 BRIT Awards (resulting in various ageist memes including the one about her needing a stairlift at her “advanced” age). A fall that was, once again, not something she herself was in control of, but rather, a consequence of an Armani cape tied too tightly around her neck so that it didn’t come off easily at the planned moment, prompting her dancers to whip her backwards like a ragdoll.
In the newest edition of “Madonna ‘falls,’” it was yet again a dancer-related mishap, with Daniele Sibilli as the “culprit” who actually stumbled (in extremely thin stilettos, mind you) while dragging Madonna across the stage on her “Open Your Heart” chair—this being the song she was singing for a Seattle audience at the February 18th performance of The Celebration Tour when it happened. Unlike during the “Living for Love” mishap at the BRIT Awards, Madonna wasn’t fazed enough by the fall from her chair to stop singing her verse, continuing on as she toppled from seat to stage, legs up in the air for a few seconds as she did so (something about it smacking of Guy Ritchie’s denouement for 2001’s BMW short, Star).
For a moment, she does try to go on singing as though nothing happened, thinking better of it and making a deliberate attempt to force out her laughter (after all, this is the same woman who had an early demo called “Laugh to Keep From Crying”). Because this is M’s way of publicly announcing that she’s fine, it’s all good. Of course, most fans know from her last majorly publicized fall that she doesn’t do too well with any sign of imperfection, least of all in her live performances, always rehearsed to the nth degree (this probably being why the protocol in place should she fall was for everyone else to just keep going).
After the BRIT Awards debacle, when Madonna went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to promote Rebel Heart and its lead single, DeGeneres asked, “Can we talk about the fall?” (As was DeGeneres’ way with guests to kind of make them feel like shit.) Madonna was quick to point out, “I didn’t fall. I was yanked.” And it is important to make the distinction that in both of these highly publicized falls, Madonna was collateral damage in the error of something or someone else (a combination of both, if you will). In the case of that performance of “Living for Love,” her cape had been tied too tightly at the neck to be yanked off from her shoulders in the same way as was initially rehearsed. This resulting in her falling backward down some very steep steps. But even then, and for as much more drastic and potentially harmful as that fall was, Madonna still didn’t stop her performance. A consummate believer in the philosophy: “the show must go on.”
After collecting herself, she then continued as though nothing happened, taking the opportunity to prove what a beautiful and well-choreographed piece it was (with the camera flashing to a then freshly married Kimye marveling at it for further proof). And ironically, right after the fall, she even had to sing the lines, “Took me to heaven/Let me fall down” and “Lifted me up and watched me stumble.” On The Jonathan Ross Show that aired a few weeks later, Madonna told him, “I’m never writing lyrics like that again!” Fearing she had somehow “conjured it.”
The one thing everyone who interviewed her about it could agree on, though, was that she damn well knew how to take a tumble, something she herself also noted with pride to Ross when she said, “I know how to fall. I’ve fallen off my horse many times and I’ve got good core strength.” This is why, as she told DeGeneres about the BRIT Awards, Madonna cried not because of being in pain, but because of humiliation. She also said her first thought was not even about her own well-being but, rather, “Shit, I made a mistake” and “I wanna start over.”
Such devout commitment to the art and the work echoes the even more extreme example of her nearly dying over the summer of 2023 and waking from a coma with her first thought being (after her children, she says) the fans who bought tickets to see the show she had been rehearsing through for months. Rehearsals that, many say, she was pushing herself too hard in, leading to the fever that led to the ignored bacterial infection that led to her hospitalization. So yeah, being such a perfectionist to the point of compromising her health, these snafus known as falls could easily be glossed over instead of blown way out of proportion as an even worse media slight to someone who so rarely “fucks up” (which is why people are eager to see her do so). And again, these were not even her fuck-ups, the media just wants to paint it that way for the purposes of their tireless anti-Madonna campaign as related to her age. Spinning the story as though the fall somehow correlated to her being in her sixties.
So (un)naturally, every outlet from Us Weekly to Page Six to People to Entertainment Weekly to the Daily Mail had a headline to offer about Madonna’s fall-off from the chair. And of course each headline chooses to conveniently omit that she didn’t “fall”—her dancer tripped, causing the chair he was carrying to teeter and make M fall off of it. But no, that’s not the angle anyone wants to sell. Instead, an entity like The Blast wants to promote, “Madonna, 65, Suffers From a Chair Fall During Her Concert in Seattle.”
Despite these attempts at demeanment, she’s still going to, as she said in “Living for Love,” “pick up my crown/Put it back on my head.” Which is, as she’s shown the masses time and time again, what she will always do when she falls, whether literally or metaphorically. This being, in the end, the mark of a true success rather than a failure.
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Genna Rivieccio
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In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture…and all that it affects.
As Mariah Carey has been trending with “the kids” these days (mainly because Miley Cyrus bowed down to her while being presented with the Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance, even though Carey announced her name as “Mirey” instead of “Miley”), it’s only natural that Ariana Grande should return to collaborating with her (having previously featured on yet another remix in 2020…for Carey’s 2010 song, “Oh Santa!”). Except that, well, it’s not really natural at all for a remix of “yes, and?,” which, if anything, should include contributing vocals from Madonna, the pop star that Grande borrows most heavily from for the single (apart from Paula Abdul…but only for the accompanying music video’s visuals). Because, needless to say, “yes, and?” is extremely influenced by “Vogue.” Which Madonna herself borrowed from the gay Black and Latino community of ballroom dancers in the late 80s. Because, as many are still aware, Madonna was the only mainstream artist at that time willing to showcase, promote and generally associate with gay men during a period when it was anathema to do so thanks to the AIDS pandemic. We all know Mariah damn sure wasn’t doing that shit, especially since she was doing her best at the outset of her career to not be branded as a Black artist, least of all liberally associate in public with gay Black people.
Accordingly, Mariah, while Blacker than Madonna (obviously), doesn’t really have a place to comfortably assert herself within the spirit of this song. Not just because it’s evident that she’s struggling to find a moment on the remix where her vocals can actually shine (without fully upstaging Grande’s—though upstaging has never seemed to be a problem for Carey), but because she also comes across like an AI-sounding version of herself. Perhaps in a bid not to be compared to Grande, Carey goes a few octaves lower than we’re used to hearing as Grande hits all of her usual high notes. Sure, the two harmonize at the beginning for an effect that could bring all the dolphins to shore, but, as the song commences, Carey gets totally lost in the shuffle of Grande’s dominating voice.
While the point of adding Carey into the equation might have been, among other reasons (apart from making certain gay men splooge), to highlight their comparable vocal stylings and talents, the result is, instead, underscoring Grande’s vocal prowess compared to her “mentor’s.” An effect, as many snarky critics would be quick to point out, that wouldn’t have happened with the likes of Madonna contributing to the track. And no, it’s not “just” because she doesn’t have the same vocal range as Carey, but because her voice is different enough from Grande’s to actually complement it. And since the implications of a remix are that a song is actually going to stand apart from its original with either different music or a collaborator that’s noticeable (as was the case on Grande’s “34+35 Remix”), “yes, and?” falls short in many regards.
Being that Carey’s genre range has never gone far beyond the limits of “adult contemporary,” pop and R&B (while allowing occasional rap features on her pop songs), she seems totally at sixes and sevens when tasked with blending in seamlessly to the dance-centric rhythms of house music. Her one additional verse contribution also lands flatly with regard to “serving,” and, indeed, even reads like it was generated by AI as well: “I’m so done with sharing/This hypocrisy with you/Baby, you have been rejected/Go back, no more pretending, bye.” It’s almost like a bad imitation, lyrically, of Beyoncé shouting, “Tell him, ‘Boy, bye’” on “Sorry.”
The fact that nearly every outlet that’s reviewed the original “yes, and?” has called out the noticeable homage Grande gives to Madonna on this song adds to the overall feeling of how thudding this remix sounds. Because, (yours) truly, if anyone was going to help with the remix, it ought to have been Madonna. Carey could have easily been put on ice (something she’s used to vis-à-vis Christmas storage) for a different remix of another song that might have actually worked better for her vocals. What’s more, while Grande may have already paid the ultimate compliment to Madonna by casting her as God for the “God Is A Woman” video, that Grande selected someone for “yes, and?” who has been so blatant about her contempt for the Queen of Pop in the past (as recently as all the shade thrown in her autobiography, The Meaning of Mariah Carey) is yet another pouring of salt in the wound of not “tapping” M to be involved with this homage to “Vogue” more directly.
In any case, perhaps Madonna is still too busy with The Celebration Tour/riding high on the success of her feature on The Weeknd’s “Popular” to be concerned with this rather overt slight/misjudgment.
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Genna Rivieccio
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For those seeking to dig up their long-buried romantic side, Lisa Frankenstein arrives at the perfect time: Valentine’s Day. And, although it was released during what was called the worst box office weekend for movies since Covid, one can only hope that the receipts will pick up (or at least stay the same) for screenwriter Diablo Cody’s latest signature offering in the coming weeks. Not to mention picking up for the sake of director Zelda Williams’ (yes, Robin Williams’ daughter) debut feature (having previously directed the short films, Shrimp and Kappa Kappa Die), who has just as much riding on the success of the film as Cody. Except that “success,” when applied to a movie like Lisa Frankenstein, can definitely not be measured in box office returns, so much as “finding its audience.”
When Cody hoped that would happen with 2009’s now-respected horror-comedy, Jennifer’s Body, it didn’t. And that was, in large part, due to some very poorly-executed marketing plans, ones that relied heavily on playing up Megan Fox’s “sexiness” rather than the actual story. While JB might have been maligned at the time (just as Lisa Frankenstein is now), Cody stated, “If people hadn’t rediscovered Jennifer’s Body, I would not have written Lisa Frankenstein. With that whole area, that genre, I kind of felt unwelcome in it, because I had flopped so hard on my last attempt.” Thank “God” those feelings went away, and Cody was able to bring us another campy “coming-of-rage” (as Lisa Frankenstein is called) tale that reworks Mary Shelley’s classic to the advantage of a teen girl in the “mad scientist” role.
Except, in true underlying discriminatory fashion, Lisa doesn’t create her monster through science (so much for a chem lab scene), but rather, by simple wishing…while tripped out on PCP-laced alcohol. From there, a Victorian-inspired dream sequence ensues (giving the likes of Yorgos Lanthimos and Michel Gondry a run for their money), featuring Lisa (Kathryn Newton) in a dress that reflects the 1800s period she’s flashing back to…minus the giant Pabst Blue Ribbon logo painted on the front of it. In fact, the hand-painted logo on that dress is what got costume designer Meagan McLaughlin the job. And it seemed to be the job of a lifetime in terms of getting to rework some of her favorite looks from the decade, which are overtly inspired by both Madonna and Winona Ryder (80s queens on opposite aesthetic spectrums, yet somehow two sides of the same coin, kind of like horror and comedy).
Considering that Cody was recently working on a script with Madonna for her since-shelved biopic, perhaps it’s fair to say that the pop star has remained on Cody’s brain—which undoubtedly shines through in this movie. McLaughlin (whose meticulous attention to detail on the wardrobe front cannot be underestimated) also admitted she was “obsessed with Madonna in 1984, and you don’t grow out of that obsession. [That’s why] there’s a hint of Madonna-esque Like a Virgin fashion in [the movie].” More than just a hint, mind you. Except Lisa appears mostly in black lace rather than white. As for the obvious Tim Burton flair of the film (including the house and neighborhood exteriors), it’s in large part because of how much Lisa reminds one of Ryder’s characters in Beetlejuice and Heathers, with McLaughlin adding, “Winona Ryder is a huge influence for me in that period, and we were absolutely inspired by her costumes in Beetlejuice and Heathers. I had taken a screenshot from Heathers of Winona in a gray top with a black skirt with suspenders, and that inspired one of Lisa’s looks…”
And if Lisa is Winona Ryder-inspired, then there’s no denying the Creature (Cole Sprouse) is heavily Johnny Depp-inspired. Particularly his Edward Scissorhands era (which also included Ryder). A mood board for the costumes looked not only to Buster Keaton, but, surely, also Depp in his early 90s movies. After all, 1989 was on the cusp of that decade, and it took until at least 1995 to fully shake an all-out 80s tinge that still lingered heavily in most people’s sartorial choices. And, talking of 1989, that was also the year Heathers was released in theaters and changed the landscape of teen movies forever. Particularly when it came to actually speaking candidly (and comically) on what it meant to be a teen girl. For the satirical purposes of Daniel Waters’ script, the murderous rage so many women at that age feel became literal as Veronica Sawyer (Ryder) becomes involved with a rebellious “James Dean type,” named, appropriately, J.D. (Christian Slater), who is willing to carry out the murders she otherwise wouldn’t. Hence, the indelible voiceover of Veronica saying, “Dear Diary, my teen angst bullshit has a body count.” Other absurdist lines delivered glibly include, “Great pâté, Mom, but I gotta motor if I wanna be ready for that funeral” and “Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?” (that one delivered by Heather Chandler, not Veronica). Lisa begins to deliver such outlandish lines in a similarly blasé manner. That’s all part of the genre. And so is the hormonally-driven lust of crushing hard over a boy.
For Lisa, the J.D. in her life turns out to be the Creature, who immediately becomes emotionally attached to his “maker,” defending her at all costs from anyone he sees affecting her negatively. At the top of that list is her new stepmother, the Nurse Ratched-esque Janet (Carla Gugino, relishing a villainous role as usual). Convinced she’s the source for all that is good and holy in Lisa and her father Dale’s (Joe Chrest) life, Janet has little patience for what she perceives as Lisa’s “acting out” ways. And it isn’t long before she makes it her mission to paint Lisa as “crazy” enough to be locked up, which would leave her with Dale and her own perfect cheerleader daughter, Taffy (Liza Soberano).
Surprisingly, though, Taffy is actually nice to Lisa, making it a point to treat her like a real sister, defending her from naysayers and taking her out to parties. Including the first “rager” of the year, where she encounters the “cerebral” (“He’s in a wheelchair?” Taffy asks in regard to that word) boy she’s been crushing on, Michael Trent (Henry Eikenberry). And also, unfortunately, his girlfriend, Tamara (Joey Harris). The latter being the Goth Lite that Lisa will soon outdo with her own theatrical aesthetics (ones clearly inspired by the bands she loves: Bauhaus, The Cure, Joy Division, etc.—the only nod to “goth” [before it got rebranded as “emo”] missing from that era is The Smiths). It’s Tamara that fucks her over with the old reverse psychology trap of handing her a cup, quickly retracting it and saying something to the effect of, “Silly me, I should’ve known better to than to think you knew how to party.” Lisa then takes the cup from her, not wanting to come across like a prude in front of Michael. She might have been better off upholding her “virginal” image, though, because the PCP is about to take her on a wild ride.
To that end, without her hallucinogenic journey, she not only wouldn’t have seen what an asshole her lab partner, Doug (Bryce Romero), is as he puts his hand on her chest after pretending he just wants to “help” her, but she also wouldn’t have been able to “astral project,” so to speak, to the Creature’s gravesite and work the “magic” that will set him free, liberate him from the ground.
“I wish I was with you,” Lisa tells the bust atop his gravestone while imagining herself in the bachelors’ graveyard. When that wish actually comes true (because apparently it’s as simple as “ask and you shall receive,” paired with a lightning bolt jolt), she explains to the Creature that what she really meant by that was she wanted to be dead, too (how very Lana Del Rey declaring, “I wish I was dead already”). Down there in the ground with him because the living are such assholes. Her bluntness prompts him to start crying, leading Lisa to the realization that she must do everything in her power so that he doesn’t cry again because his tears smell fouler than the corpse itself. And even when he starts to look more and more like a viable character from Less Than Zero, his stench still doesn’t go away. Such is the drawback of “building a boyfriend” out of a dead body. Or, as the various taglines go, “If you can’t meet your perfect boyfriend…make him,” “Dig up someone special” and “She’s slaying. He’s decaying” (side note: Cody was gunning for a tagline that went, “You always dismember your first”). Harsher critics of Lisa Frankenstein will accuse the movie itself of decaying from the very first scene. Indeed, less open-minded reviews have touted such scathing assessments in their titles as, “Lisa Frankenstein Will Make You Miss Tim Burton. A Lot.” or “Lisa Frankenstein: There’s nothing animated about this corpse comedy.”
“Corpse comedy” being, in truth, a genre that really only Weekend at Bernie’s can lay claim to. “Zom-com” is, instead, the term that’s been bandied around to describe a film like this. And it also applies to 2013’s Warm Bodies, which riffs on Romeo and Juliet. In a sense, the Frankenstein story is a kind of Romeo and Juliet narrative…when the gender of the “Dr. Frankenstein” in the equation is swapped and the “monster” she’s created starts to fall in love with her. As for the “mechanism” used to keep bringing the Creature more and more to life (therefore, more and more “on her wavelength”—no crimped hair pun intended), Cody might have gotten some inspo from another 80s-loving movie: Hot Tub Time Machine. Sure, the tanning bed might not be a portal through the decades (like Back to the Future’s Delorean as well), but it’s an equally 80s-centric “luxury” that ends up being wielded for paranormal purposes.
With the boon of the tanning bed to bring a jolt of life to his new limbs, the only obstacle for the Creature in securing Lisa’s love is the aforementioned Michael Trent, who reels the anti-heroine in with his compliments of her poetry (macabre, of course). He’s the editor-in-chief of the high school lit mag, after all, so he must have taste (in fact, his self-aggrandizement over that taste will come into play in a big way later on, when Lisa has the revelation that only he can have taste in “cool” things, not his girlfriend of the moment). Second to that, the Creature is dealing with just one more noticeable, er, deficit: he’s missing a few key parts. Namely, a hand, an ear and what some women would arguably call the most important appendage of all. Though Lisa assures him that’s actually the thing that least makes a man, well, a man. Nonetheless, that doesn’t stop her from admitting she no longer wants to be like a virgin. She wants to fuck, and soon. Especially with her and the Creature’s body count piling higher by the day (they’re sort of like Dexter Morgan in that they justify their killings by deeming their victims as “bad people”).
Lisa knows it’s only a matter of time until the police come after her. Which feels like a full-circle moment considering her own mother was brutally killed by an ax murderer (a detail and flashback that seems like Cody’s nod to 80s slasher movies in general). Now she’s the one toting an ax around town, at one point trying to convince herself that she might be able to kill her own creation. But she could never—not just because he’s become both an extension of her and her best friend, but because they’ve obviously fallen in love somewhere along the distorted line between the land of the living and the land of the dead.
Starting with Lisa’s visits to Bachelor’s Grove cemetery, as a matter of fact. And while Victorians don’t actually seem to have a tradition of burying single men in their own special cemetery, there does happen to be a supposedly haunted graveyard called that in Illinois (that has nothing to do with a “bachelors only clientele,” mind you). Cody herself is from said state, specifically the Chicago suburb of Lemont. And, being that so many 80s movies are centered on suburban teen angst (thanks, in large part to Cody’s unwitting mentor, John Hughes, a fellow former suburban teen who spent his adolescence in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook), it’s evident Cody knows how to convey that in Lisa Frankenstein. And also, of course, Jennifer’s Body. In point of fact, Cody has said that she would like to think Lisa and Jennifer exist in the same cinematic universe (additionally mentioning her hope of rebooting the film as a TV series).
Sort of the way it seems, unspokenly, that all of John Hughes’ teen movies do. One of which, Weird Science, Cody cites as a particular influence on Lisa Frankenstein (though not Lisa Frank, who founded her company of the same name in 1979 and subsequently served as a school supplies-oriented mascot for a generation of girls). Indeed, the “revived” woman (actually created from a computer and a doll) in Weird Science was named Lisa. This being one of those quintessential 80s names for girls. And what’s even more quintessential about the 80s, as Cody reminds us, is that romantic devotion was revitalized to an almost Victorian extent (as manifested in the music of some of the aforementioned bands).
Accordingly, Lisa writes the Creature a “farewell” note that reads, “Death is temporary. I’ll love you forever.” To be sure, Lisa Frankenstein mirrors that level of wistfulness and romanticness (something Mary Shelley knew all about) for its entirety. The kind of romance we’ve, by now, been taught to mock or write off as being of the “Billy Bob and Angelina variety.” Intense to the point of vials of blood being involved. Or, in this case, limbs. Thus, the intensity of Lisa and the Creature’s bond is only further cemented when the latter cuts off a certain boy’s dick and has her sew it on his own Ken doll-esque area. Needless to say, it definitely helps that Lisa happens to be a skilled seamstress.
In the final moments of Lisa Frankenstein, the viewer is treated to the sight of a now-capable-of-speaking Creature reading aloud from a book of Percy Shelley’s poems (namely, “To Mary”) on a bench (in a manner that sort of mimics the bench-reading scene from Notting Hill). As he reads, a bandaged-up, undead Lisa rests “comfortably” on his lap. The Frankenstein roles have now reversed, in a fashion similar to what happens at the end of Frankenhooker (which, although released in 1990, very much smacks of the year it was actually filmed: 1989). Except that Lisa is no longer the one truly in control. Perhaps this is a subtle statement, on Cody’s part, about what happens when a woman falls in love: she ends up surrendering some (if not all) of her power. Unless the guy, like J.D. in Heathers, proves himself to be a complete twat and a girl has to take that power back, Veronica Sawyer-style.
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Genna Rivieccio
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There was scarcely a dry eye in the house when Joni Mitchell took the stage at the Crypto.com Arena toward the middle of the Grammy Awards to sing “Both Sides Now.” Although written by Mitchell, Judy Collins recorded the song first and released it on her 1967 album, Wildflowers. Suffering a common dilemma among songwriters (save for Diane Warren) who allow their compositions to be sung by other people, Mitchell didn’t like Collins’ interpretation of the track and ended up recording it herself for 1969’s Clouds. Her sophomore album was quick to chart on the Billboard 200 (at its highest position, it went up to number thirty-one), with “Both Sides Now” becoming her signature song as much as “Like A Virgin” would become Madonna’s on her own sophomore album. It was for this reason that Mitchell chose to sing it to mark her first-ever performance at the Grammys in her fifty-six year career. That’s right, despite winning eleven Grammys (now twelve after Sunday), Mitchell had never previously taken the stage at the ceremony to remind people of why.
At age eighty, it seemed just as good a time as any to highlight to the audience watching the Grammys (whether in-person or at home) of how she is the progenitor of the confessional female singer-songwriter shtick (to use a somewhat jaded term). In other words, without Joni, there would be no Taylor, no Lana. And without them, there would be no Olivia, no Billie—and so the cycle continues. She was joined onstage for a rousing reminder of what she “hath wrought” by Brandi Carlile (as her number one fan, that was only natural), SistaStrings, Blake Mills, Lucius, Allison Russell and Jacob Collier, all of whom flanked her as she sat in a regal armchair at the center of the chandelier-bedecked stage while holding a cane. As the chair slowly turned around, one couldn’t help but flash to a similar moment at the Billboard Music Awards in 2016, when Madonna turned in a similar fashion in her own fancy chair with a cane to sing a tribute to Prince in the form of “Nothing Compares 2 U” (at the Grammy Awards this year, Annie Lennox would sing that as a means to pay homage to Sinead O’Connor, even though Prince was not a fan of her cover—which sounds slightly familiar in terms of Mitchell not being a fan of Collins’ interpretation of her work…except Collins’ version was considered the first instead of vice versa).
But Mitchell gets far more respect than Madonna, so no one would ever try to mock her for having a cane (something Madonna uses for style rather than function, at her own risk of more public mockery). Apparently, once you get legitimately old, people don’t try to give you as much shit for it (Joe Biden and other U.S. government officials being the exception to the rule). And with Mitchell being eighty, she’s more than earned her stripes, ergo her right not to be judged for how she looks. But then, unlike post-Madonna pop stars, Mitchell’s work was always about substance over style, whereas pop music doesn’t exist without the flourishes of spectacle. This extends not only to how women dress and look, but also what they incorporate into their performances.
Incidentally, the woman to bridge this gap between “thoughtful music” and spectacle before Madonna even broke onto the scene was Celine Dion, whose debut album, La voix du bon Dieu, came out in 1981. Her gradual veering toward becoming more pop than “choir girl” happened in 1983, with her first hit single, “D’amour et d’amitié.” By the time Dion transitioned to English-language music and, much later, her spectacle-laden Vegas residency, Madonna had already put up a decided partition between the categories of pop singer and “serious” singer (even though Like A Prayer allowed critics to see her as both). For years, Dion was most people’s answer to the latter, until Madonna finally started to be reconsidered for her vocal and songwriting talents with 1998’s Ray of Light. 1998 was also the year, as it happened, when VH1 Divas Live aired, a special honoring Aretha Franklin by flanking her with Gloria Estefan, Shania Twain, Mariah Carey and, that’s right, Celine Dion. The latter was shaded in Mariah’s 2020 autobiography (though not by name or as many times as Madonna) for not “understan[ing] the culture of the court, and tr[ying] to come for the Queen” during the closing performance. As if. Dion was simply putting back out the energy that Franklin was giving when no one else would, not even Mariah. So hopefully the two didn’t run into each other backstage at Crypto.com Arena, because the last thing Dion needs after being diagnosed with a highly rare neurological disorder called stiff-person syndrome and being totally ignored and disregarded by Taylor Swift onstage is Mariah’s kind of self-superior energy. Which was only fed into all the more when Miley Cyrus accepted the first award for the night and graciously bowed down to her (figuratively, not literally) in a way that Swift probably should have with Dion.
But clearly, she was too caught up in the moment. Not just of making Grammy history by winning Album of the Year four times—the only musician ever to do so—but also of paying more respect to Lana Del Rey than Celine. Who proved her resilience yet again not just by showing up in her current health condition to dole out this honor, but by taking Swift’s comportment with a grain of salt. Though surely Swift couldn’t have acted that way if Mitchell had presented her with the award, for she is thought to be among Swift’s biggest influences, blueprint-wise, in her later album years. The “confessional, no holds barred” songwriting tack and all that.
Then again, there was a time when Mitchell wasn’t really of the mind that Swift was anything like her, saying back in 2014, when it was still rumored that Swift might play Mitchell in a biopic, “I squelched that. I said to the producer, ‘All you’ve got is a girl with high cheekbones.’” Not exactly high praise for Swift for anything beyond her looks (which remain the Aryan wet dream). Though Swift has perhaps taken the shade-throwing in songs even farther than Mitchell, who told Elton John during their 2022 interview together, “People thought that [my songwriting] was too intimate. It was almost like Dylan going electric—I think it upset the male singer-songwriters. They go, ‘Oh no, do we have to bare our souls like this stuff, you know. I think it made people nervous, you know. More nervous than…it took to this generation, they seem to be able to face those emotions more easily than my generation.”
That it did and that they do. Though Dion, another emotional Canadian (must be something in the water there), has her fair share of soul-baring songs. The only “catch” is, she didn’t write most of them. And yet, like Whitney Houston, her emotional delivery could fool anyone into believing that she had lived these experiences. Which, perhaps she did in some way or another. For, like Beyoncé often being approached with material that “might work” for her specific personality, so, too, do icons in Dion’s echelon receive song submissions that are tailored to them. Written with them foremost in mind. Which is perhaps why Swift looked down her nose at Dion while onstage, instead focusing on a fellow singer-songwriter like Del Rey’s accomplishments.
Whatever the reason for Swift’s social faux pas, Dion’s presence in conjunction with Mitchell’s on this night of a thousand stars spoke to the unique ability that these women have to bounce back from even the greatest of falls. Both physical and emotional. And there’s no doubt that their love of and connection to music is part of what has kept them both enduring in a manner that is, alas, simply “expected” of women, whether they’re legendary sonic powerhouses or not. Thus, women’s resilience is often taken for granted. Sort of the way Madonna’s continued presence is on this Earth after her own near-death experience during the summer of 2023. And yet, one would never know it to see her on The Celebration Tour now. Mitchell, too, is planning to take the stage at the Hollywood Bowl in October for the Joni Jam. And, who knows, Dion might well find a way to tour again. If she can take the stage at the Grammys, then maybe at least one live performance isn’t far behind…
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Genna Rivieccio
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It’s been four years since the Pet Shop Boys released 2020’s presciently-titled Hotspot (which later felt like a nod to the “hot zones” caused by being in the throes of a pandemic). Ever since 2016, this four-year gap between records has tended to be Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s pattern, perhaps slowing down to more thoroughly take in the world around them as they’re simultaneously inspired and disgusted by it. But that has always been the brilliance of the duo: being able to turn the horrors into a catchy, sardonic ditty. “Loneliness,” of course, proves to be no exception to the rule.
As the lead single from the oh-so-on-brand-as-a-Pet-Shop-Boys-album-title Nonetheless, it’s clear this electropop duo is making a statement about life’s worsening state in a post-social media, post-pandemic world. Perhaps PSB was inspired by loneliness at the start of 2020, when lockdowns, particularly throughout Europe and the UK (its own “continent,” it wants you to know), put a glaring spotlight on people’s personal lives. Because, at that time, a mirroring pandemic was forming. The one that showed the masses just how empty and meaningless their existence was without the distraction of work, where ersatz social situations could present themselves under the guise of “camaraderie.” Maybe the same type of camaraderie that could be felt in a gulag.
Thus, with this massive public health issue (one that is ongoing and will likely remain so), Pet Shop Boys surely must have found their musical muse. And they’re ready to address it, as with all things, head-on. Hence, the accompanying video, directed by Alasdair McLellan. A sumptuous visual featuring a narrative and tone that often reminds one more than slightly of Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy,” itself a specific kind of anthem for loneliness (more to the point, lonely gays who had no one to turn to at a time when being gay was hardly à la mode). And yes, this is PSB’s most overtly gay video. For never before have they been so on-blast with two men kissing, touching, blowing each other, etc. Perhaps it’s because once a person reaches a certain age, “subtlety” is hardly something to be bothered with.
And, speaking of “a certain age,” some might assume Tennant and Lowe’s seeming absence from the video is tantamount to what Elton John did when he started to feel “too old” to be filmed for music videos by having people like Justin Timberlake and Robert Downey Jr. stand in for him instead. But, just when you’re ready to assume they’ve decided to make this video all about one-off gay hookups (okay, so there’s some straight ones in there too), Tennant and Lowe materialize around the four-minute mark, after a Tilt-a-Whirl scene. These images at the “funfair” continue, with the video finally concluding at a party where all the people previously showcased throughout appear, including the “running boy,” still looking rather lonely among the throng. Which, of course, is the worst loneliness of all—feeling alone in a crowd.
It’s not that stark of a thematic contrast to the opening scenes of the video, which focus in on desolate, oppressive structures in Sheffield, with a title card that also mentions we’re supposed to be in the year 1992. A year that, compared to now, hardly seems as lonely. One of those oppressive structures is Sheffield Forgemasters, containing within its walls a number of men doing rugged, lad-oriented things that remind one a lot of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, de facto Madonna’s “Express Yourself” video. However, just as PSB has us duped into thinking this is a “homos only” video, they’re wont to show us a boy and a girl getting hot and heavy, if you will, as they try to stave off their own loneliness (in addition to their hormones). The main boy we keep seeing throughout the narrative, however, is able to swing both ways in order to accommodate his hunger to feel wanted, desired. Thus, capable of telling himself he’s not lonely—because how can someone who’s never alone possibly feel that way?
Alternating between scenes of color and black and white, a continuous thread throughout is the image of the boy running along a pathway in his wifebeater…usually as Tennant is singing, “Where you gonna run to now from loneliness?/Who you gonna turn to out of loneliness?” The implication being that “going both ways” doesn’t always mean one is doing it out of “sexual fluidity,” so much as a desperation to feel connected to someone, anyone—no matter how ephemerally. Which is why, inevitably, a glory hole is bound to appear sooner or later in this video. One that gets desexualized when somebody slips a note through it that reads, “Are you lonely?” Elvis, too, once essentially asked the same question with, “Are you lonesome tonight?” Indeed, the subject of loneliness has often been explored by some of music’s major icons. For example, in 1993, the year after “Loneliness” is meant to be taking place in, Madonna released her “Bad Girl” video, yet another homage to how sex can dilute feelings of loneliness (in addition to being an homage to Looking For Mr. Goodbar).
As “Louise Oriole” a.k.a. Madonna keeps going to bed with strangers, the thrill of doing so becomes increasingly dulled and the loneliness starts to become impossible to stave off, particularly after one encounter where a stranger leaves her an unsettling note. Not one that asks, “Are you lonely?,” but rather, states, “Thank you whoever you are.” Talk about making a girl feel cheap. And soon, she’ll have to pay the price of her life for this method of attempting to keep the loneliness at bay.
Which ties into PSB riffing on the old chestnut, “Wherever you go, there you are” when Tennant ominously reminds, “Wherever you go, you take yourself with you/There’s nowhere you can hide…” Tennant then adds, “From the loneliness that’s haunting your life/The sense of wounded pride/Everybody needs time to think/Nobody can live without love.” Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s just that those who do live without love tend to turn into people like Trump and Putin. And yes, Pet Shop Boys acknowledge the isolating nature of power on the single for “Loneliness,” which also features “Party in the Blitz” and “Through You (Extended Mix).” The cover itself provides a familiar pose and image, one that can be characterized as Twin Peaks meets Actually (the cover art itself, not the album).
The surrealism that’s synonymous with Twin Peaks also applies to the feeling of loneliness. And perhaps no country knows loneliness as well as Britain right now. Except that it’s a self-imposed kind after so many decades spent pushing the EU away, which speaks to the lyrics, “When you gonna not say ‘no’ and make the answer ‘yes’?/Who is here to help you out?/Oh, tell me/Can’t you guess?” The answer, we’d like to believe is: “ourselves.” That self-help mumbo-jumbo about how you are the only person who can change your situation. Pull yourself up out of the hole of loneliness, the pit of despair, etc. For Britain, however, that seems to be an impossible task.
As bona fide Brits themselves, the Pet Shop Boys make a highly specific reference to A Hard Day’s Night, when Tennant sings, “Like Ringo walking by the canal/Downcast and alone/You’re taking time to play that part/A man who skims a stone.” But while some are only “playing the part” of loneliness for dramatic cachet, others are one botched name pronunciation away from suicide.
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Genna Rivieccio
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Madonna’s alleged lateness to her recent concert has sparked a lawsuit filed by her own fans.
The Queen of Pop is currently on her Celebration Tour. She kicked off its first show in October and is expected to conclude in late April.
But during her stop at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on December 13, the Material Girl reportedly kept her audience waiting for over two hours.
Per TMZ, two concert-goers filed the lawsuit on Thursday (January 18), holding Madonna accountable for “false advertising.”
According to the plaintiffs, Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden, the singer violated the agreed-upon terms of ticket sales.
The fans claim they were misled by the concert’s advertised start time of 8.30 p.m., only for Madonna to take the stage well past 10.30 p.m.
Such a delay, they argue, not only disrupted their plans but also devalued the tickets they had purchased.
In court documents obtained by PEOPLE, the two fans contended that this was a “wanton exercise in false advertising, negligent misrepresentation, and unfair and deceptive trade practices.”
They cited that the same incident happened at her other Brooklyn concerts on December 14 and 16.
“Many ticketholders who attended concerts on a weeknight had to get up early to go to work and/or take care of their family responsibilities the next day,” the suit reads.
Had Madonna initially advertised her show to start at 10:30 p.m., the fans stated they wouldn’t have bought tickets to the concert.
The lawsuit also mentioned limited access to public transportation, given that they didn’t leave the venue until around 1 a.m. local time.
Notably, Madonna has had a history of turning up late for her shows on this particular tour.
Back in October, British fans across the pond slammed the ‘Holiday’ singer for her considerable lateness to the stage.
According to Yahoo News, the O2 Arena, where Madge held her six sold-out shows, had a strict curfew of 10:30 p.m.
But Madonna reportedly performed until 11 p.m. before abruptly stopping the entire show, with four additional songs subsequently cut from her setlist.
Fans took to X, expressing frustration that the “tube” (train service) was only running until 11:30 p.m.
The abrupt ending left many fans feeling let down and dissatisfied, which resulted in a surge of complaints.
“It was so disrespectful. The tube ends at 1130 and the O2 has a 1030 curfew,” one person with the username @justbrwsing1 wrote on X. “They knew these things yet she still went on late. She didn’t even apologize.”
Same
It was so disrespectful
The tube ends at 1130 and the O2 has a 1030 curfew. They knew these things yet she still went on late
She didn’t even apologize— Just Browsing 🇺🇦 🌈 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 (@justbrwsing1) October 16, 2023
Another person, @AO46125430, echoed similar words:
“It also sounded absolutely awful, like she was on night 80 not the 2nd night. No energy, I was bored and read the news, until I managed to escape for a nice quiet tube home.”
It also sounded absolutely awful, like she was on night 80 not the 2nd night. No energy, I was bored and read the news, until I managed to escape for a nice quiet tube home.
— A O (@AO46125430) October 16, 2023
A third person chimed in on the discussion, writing:
“@Madonna get on stage on time, especially in London with the curfew. You can not be charging 1000s for tickets then doing part of the show. @guyoseary get this under control.”
@Madonna get on stage on time, especially in London with the curfew. You can not be charging 1000s for tickets then doing part of the show. @guyoseary get this under control.
— Craig Hepworth (@VertigoTheatreP) October 15, 2023
The unexpected cutting short of the performance also raised questions about event management’s efficiency. Yahoo News claims she was also late for a show the day prior.
Madonna has yet to publicly address the recent lawsuit filed by her fans.
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Maurice Cassidy
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It’s not uncommon for some of the biggest names in music to start their concerts late, but two Madonna fans in New York are suing the singer over claims her two-hour tardiness made it difficult to wake up early the next morning.
Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden on Wednesday initiated the lawsuit against Madonna, the tour promoter Live Nation and New York’s Barclays Center, where she performed.
On the tickets purchased by Fellows and Hadden, Madonna’s sold-out Celebration Tour performance on Dec. 13, 2023 was scheduled to begin at 8:30 p.m. local time. The 65-year-old singer did not appear on stage until after 10:30 p.m.
Court records show the concert concluded around 1 a.m.
Fellows and Hadden argued that Madonna’s delayed performance was inappropriate because “many ticketholders who attended concerts on a weeknight had to get up early to go to work and/or take care of their family responsibilities the next day.”
The concertgoers said they were not given any notice about the show’s delayed start.
As well as the loss of sleep, the men argued they faced legal harm because the concert’s late end time left them “stranded in the middle of the night.”
In the lawsuit, Fellows and Hadden alleged they were “confronted with limited public transportation, limited ride-sharing, and/or increased public and private transportation costs.”
Had they known about the late start time, Fellows and Hadden said they would not have purchased the tickets.
“Madonna had demonstrated flippant difficulty in ensuring a timely or complete performance, and Defendants were aware that any statement as to a start time for a show constituted, at best, optimistic speculation,” the lawsuit reads.
Madonna performed for three nights at New York’s Barclays Centre. Each night, the singer did not take to the stage until around 10:30 p.m., despite the advertised start time being two hours prior.
The lawsuit accused Madonna, Live Nation and the Barclays Center of a breach of contract, “unconscionable, unfair, and/or deceptive trade practices,” negligent misrepresentation and false advertising.
Madonna, Live Nation and the Barclays Center have not commented publicly on the legal filing.
The lawsuit is seeking federal class-action status and an undisclosed amount in damages.
This is not the first time Madonna has faced a lawsuit over her late concert starts. According to The Guardian, Madonna was sued in 2009 and 2020 by concertgoers who felt scorned by her lack of punctuality.
But Madonna is not alone in her tardiness. Musicians including Lauryn Hill, Guns N’ Roses, Rihanna and Snoop Dogg have also established reputations for being late to their own concerts, sometimes by several hours.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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Sarah Do Couto
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Fed up Madonna fans, tired of waiting on her concerts to start, have sued the singer after her New York City shows last month began hours late.
Madonna’s Celebration tour concerts at Barclays Center were scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m., but the pop icon “did not take the stage until after 10:30 p.m. on all three nights,” according to the suit filed Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court. Plaintiffs Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden, who attended the Dec. 13 show, said they wouldn’t have purchased tickets if they’d known the concert would start and end so late.
They’re also suing the Barclays Center and Live Nation for “wanton exercise in false advertising, negligent misrepresentation, and unfair and deceptive trade practices.”
The suit notes Madonna’s history of late concert starts. In 2012, a Madonna concert in Miami didn’t start until around 11:30 p.m. The singer’s Melbourne concert in 2016 started more than four hours late while her Brisbane show that same year was delayed by two hours.
Wednesday’s lawsuit over Madonna’s late start times also isn’t the first of its kind. In 2019, a Florida fan sued over a delay, alleging the original 8:30 p.m. start time of a show at the Fillmore Miami Beach was changed to 10:30 p.m.
“There’s something that you all need to understand,” Madonna said during a Las Vegas concert that year. “And that is, that a queen is never late.”
The plaintiffs in the latest suit are expressing themselves about Madonna’s timeliness.
“By the time of the concerts’ announcements, Madonna had demonstrated flippant difficulty in ensuring a timely or complete performance, and Defendants were aware that any statement as to a start time for a show constituted, at best, optimistic speculation,” the suit alleges.
The plaintiffs in Wednesday’s suit allege that, unlike the 2019 Florida show, there was no advance notice of the late start, leaving concertgoers hung up waiting for the December show to start. Most attendees left after 1 a.m., the suit claims, which meant there were limited options for public transportation and ride-sharing.
“In addition, many ticketholders who attended concerts on a weeknight had to get up early to go to work and/or take care of their family responsibilities the next day,” the suit reads.
The plaintiffs are suing for unspecified damages.
Late start times didn’t end in New York. Earlier this month, Madonna took the stage around 10:15 p.m. during a Boston Celebration tour performance, nearly two hours after the scheduled start.
The tour itself also got a late start, although that was a result of Madonna being hospitalized for a bacterial infection.
CBS News has reached out to Madonna, Barclays and Live Nation for comment.
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Causing outrage by positioning oneself—literally—as Jesus is nothing new in the music industry. Whether it’s Nas (from whom Lil Nas X obviously takes a portion of his name) or Madonna, nailing oneself to the cross has long been a popular form of controversy-stirring (in addition to “simple” cross burning). But, as it’s been a while since someone has done it, perhaps Lil Nas X thought the time had come for someone to jump back up there. After all, feeling like a martyr is the name of the game in these modern times, for it seems to be one of the best ways to get attention (since taking off one’s clothes doesn’t have the same rarity as it used to).
It’s easy to feel like a martyr anyway as a celebrity in the social media age, wherein internet trolls appear in waves to deride anyone they perceive as somehow affronting. And Lil Nas X is no stranger to invoking the “wrath” of such trolls. But he, in turn, knows how to invoke his own wrath by being even more “controversial” in response. Indeed, he seems to take a page from Ye’s (back when he was Kanye West) 2004 “Jesus Walks” video with the religious overtones and imagery that abound in this self-directed project. Perhaps this is why Ye is featured as one of the “problematic” figures walking on the stairway to heaven. And, also taking a page from something Ye would do (and has done in the video for “Famous”), Lil Nas X includes the presence of Taylor Swift walking up the stairway as well. Though she surely wouldn’t like the implications of having to share any “heaven space” with said man/eternal nemesis. One friend she might not mind having around, however, is Ed Sheeran, another famous face (or rather, imitation of a famous face) who appears on the scene. Mariah Carey (who’s also name-checked in the song via the lines, “Last year was a quiet year/Now I’m on Mariah, yeah/I’m finna take it higher, yeah, okay”), Oprah and Barack Obama are in the line for “ascent” too as the very Kendrick Lamar-esque (specifically, “Humble”) beat drops.
As the camera then makes its way upward to show us a “slice of life in the sky,” we see the “angel” (or is he God?) that is Lil Nas X, who waves playfully to none other than Michael Jackson doing his moonwalk amongst the clouds. This, in fact, may be the most controversial moment of all in the video. But it also seems telling that a shot of Michael Jackson immediately prompts the camera to dip quickly down into hell to see what’s going on there (as Lil Nas X already showed us his fondness for doing in “Montero [Call Me By Your Name]”). And, in Lil Nas X’s imagination, what’s going on is a “gladiator-style” basketball game between Jesus and the devil…after a quick flash to Lil Nas as some kind of devilish Macbeth-ian witch standing vigil over a cauldron filled with dismembered arms and legs.
During said basketball game, “Satan” is, of course, wearing Lil Nas X’s notorious “Satan” Nikes with “Luke 10:18” emblazoned on them (that verse containing the lines: “He replied, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven’”). After “J Christ” makes a slam dunk, Lil Nas X then cuts to himself dressed as the head cheerleader sassily cheering on the game as his fellow squad members lift him above their head.
It’s in the next scene that Lil Nas X delivers on the promise of a song title like “J Christ,” appearing nailed to the cross that we initially see him on from a perspective that makes him appear turned upside down as he raps, “Which way that we goin’? Hmm, this way” before the cross is “flipped around” to show his crucifixion “right side up.” Lil Nas X then goes from crucifixion to sheep shearing—perhaps a symbolic nod to how he plans to lead his flock while ensuring they all look their best. As Lil Nas X does while “serving cunt” in the next scene where he treats the white steps he stands on like a heavenly Met Gala photo opportunity. Turns out, Ts Madison is watching him strike these poses on her TV, as the headline, “Breaking News: We Are So Back” captions it. And yes, based on the subsequent headline detailing the “Global Flood Warning,” it’s clear that this moment in history would be the perfect time for J Christ to swoop in (which makes him sound more like a superhero than a messiah). Lil Nas X, indeed, does offer a fair point about how these are very apocalyptic times, and Jesus really ought to be materializing per the Bible’s “save the date” promises regarding the apocalypse.
The Noah’s Ark allusion is, obviously, not lost on the viewer either as torrents of water proceed to flood the city. Lil Nas X then does a very 00s-inspired round of choreography amid the lightning and rain with a billboard behind him that reads, “Lord Help Me For I Am At War.” Or, as Ye phrased it on “Jesus Walks,” “We at war/We at war with terrorism, racism/But most of all we at war with ourselves.”
Lil Nas X goes through that war with the self in a very “Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump” sort of way as he battles with the storm on a ship caught thrashing among the waves. When the tempest subsides and Lil Nas X’s ship starts to sail into the sun of a new dawn, the words, “Day Zero A New Beginning” flash over the screen. The final title card then quotes the Corinthians with, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Ah, leave it to Lil Nas X to repurpose scripture for the announcement of an upcoming album drop.
In short, the real reason for Lil Nas writing a song called “J Christ” was so he could serve all the looks while declaring, “Back-back-back up out the gravesite/Bitch, I’m back like J Christ/I’m finna get the gays hyped/I’m finna take it yay high [not Ye low].” And he has…even while also sinking into the depths of hell to do it.
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Genna Rivieccio
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For a minute there, Ariana Grande had a reputation for releasing new music as frequently as Rihanna once did (the singer-turned-makeup mogul could formerly be relied on for an album a year). That reached an apex in the time period between summer of 2018 and winter of 2019, when Grande famously released the one-two punch of Sweetener and thank u, next in the span of six months. Part of that rapidity stemmed from being creatively inspired by the storm of personal events that transpired in the months after Sweetener’s release, including the death of her ex, Mac Miller, and her breakup with then fiancé Pete Davidson (who Grande put on the map, dating-wise). Grande’s prolificness didn’t let up in 2020 either, when she gave the world a prime example of “pandemic pop” in the form of the Positions album.
Soon after the release of that record, Grande announced her engagement (again) to “celebrity (a.k.a. luxury) realtor” Dalton Gomez. This was also after the news that she had been cast as Glinda in the film version of Wicked (because turning musicals based on movies into musical movies is all the rage now). A project that also consumed her enough for her to announce that she would not release new music until production was over. Now, going on four years since Positions was released, Grande is ready to reintroduce herself. And, of course, throw some shade at one of the latest scandals to have affected her “brand” in the headlines: that she’s a homewrecker willing to wreck a home for someone who looks like Ethan Slater, her co-star in Wicked (who, appropriately, plays a munchkin with a crush on her). As for Slater’s high school sweetheart, Lilly Jay, the two divorced soon after the announcement of Grande’s relationship, with Jay commenting, “[Ariana’s] the story really. Not a girl’s girl. My family is just collateral damage.” And yet, even to Jay, Grande would likely quip, “Yes, and?” That two-word phrase being most known for its association with improv philosophy until now.
What’s more, the “and what?” (just a synonym for “yes, and?”) vibe of it is also associated with another pop star. The mother of all pop stars, as it were: Madonna (someone Ari is no stranger to collaborating with). Because, indeed, it isn’t just the sound of the song that emulates Madonna’s house-inspired “Vogue” stylings (something Beyoncé also wanted to resuscitate recently with “Break My Soul” [cue another “Queens Remix” instead featuring Ariana and Madonna] and Renaissance as a whole). It’s also the “I don’t give a fuck what you think” aura that Madonna has exuded, specifically, since 1985, after nude photos of her from her pre-fame days were sold to Playboy and Penthouse. Rather than cowering in shame or “apologizing,” as was usually the case in those days, Madonna was the first woman to stand up for herself in such a scenario and say simply, “So what?” Deciding that what she did for money before she was famous was her own business, and she oughtn’t be judged for it, even if the photos were splashed across these glossy men’s magazines for all to see. This unprecedented reaction on the part of a slut-shamed famous woman prompted the iconic New York Post headlines: “Madonna on Nudie Pix: So What!” and “Madonna: ‘I’m Not Ashamed,’ followed by the subtitle, “Rock star shrugs off nudie pix furor.” (Both front pages that would be “arti-ified” by Keith Haring and Andy Warhol.) With those simple two words, Madonna paved the way for Grande’s own: “yes, and?”
Of course, the danger of that is how people will now start using it to justify objectively egregious acts, like, say, murder (just imagine how bad “yes, and?” would be received if Israel suddenly started adopting it as its mantra while bombing Palestine, or if Russia did the same in its actions toward Ukraine). And yes (not to be confused with yes, and), we do live in a society where certain kinds of murder are glorified, even applauded (see: Gypsy-Rose Blanchard). Certain kinds of grotesque behavior in general, mostly related to the debasing things people will do for money. One might even say, in her allyship, Grande is ultimately hollerin’ for a dollar when she says, “Boy, come on, put your lipstick on (no one can tell you nothin’).” Because obviously it benefits her makeup brand’s sales to encourage all genders to wear it. Being an “ally” in the process is just an added bonus.
In addition to alluding to her “homewrecking” ways (though nothing will ever compare to the homewrecker’s anthem that is Marina and the Diamonds’ “Homewrecker”), Grande also references her body being commented upon back in April of 2023. When she chose to respond to the wave of comments about how “thin” and “unhealthy” she looked with a video. One in which she stated, “I think we should be gentler and less comfortable commenting on people’s bodies, no matter what [Billie Eilish had a similar, blunter statement to make on “Not My Responsibility”]… You never know what someone is going through. So even if you are coming from a loving place and a caring place, that person is probably working on it.” This comes back again in “yes, and?” when she sings, “Don’t comment on my body, do not reply.” Not to mention the Britney-centric declaration, “Your business is yours and mine is mine” (it all has the decidedly tongue-in-cheek tone of Spears’ “Piece of Me” video).
Grande’s positivity doesn’t extend just to the body, but also to finding light in dark situations (a running motif in her work since Sweetener, when she repeated, “The light is coming to give back everything the darkness stole” on “The Light Is Coming”). Thus, she urges, “Yes, and?/Say that shit with your chest.” In other words, stick out your chest with pride (another subtle gay allyship allusion), hold your head high, etc. Grande then adds, perhaps anticipating the fallout for daring to live one’s “most authentic life,” “Be your own fuckin’ best friend.” It’s a sentiment that echoes the sologamist verse on “thank u, next” (indeed, Ari appears to want “yes, and?” to make even more direct reference to that track when she sings, “Keep moving like, ‘What’s next?’). The one that goes, “I ain’t worried ’bout nothin’/Plus, I met someone else/We’re havin’ better discussions/I know they say I move on too fast/But this one gon’ last/‘Cause her name is Ari/And I’m so good with that.” As she also seems to be on “yes, and?”—even if currently “riding the dick” that is Ethan Slater’s. A tabloid tidbit she addresses with, “Why do you care so much whose dick I ride?/Why?” Probably because celebrity worship/envy and the according “need” to know everything about their personal lives has been an ongoing part of our culture at least since the dawn of film.
In truth, celebrities would probably be a bit disappointed if no one cared whose dick they were riding, but that’s another story/psychological analysis. Besides, no one wants to “overthink” too much with a song like this playing, its infectious house rhythms (ready-made for striking poses on the ballroom dance floor courtesy of production from Grande, Max Martin and ILYA) likely to infiltrate LGBTQIA+ spaces the world over in no time.
To be sure, the release of new Ari music always feels best at the beginning of a year, as thank u, next did. Punctuating it with so much initial hope before people start to notice a few months in that shit is not only still the same, it’s probably getting worse. To which government officials might riposte, “Yes, and?”
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Genna Rivieccio
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