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Tag: Madonna

  • It Took Thirty-Four Years to Admit America Is Actually Godless So That Madonna’s Pepsi Commercial Could be Embraced by the Company and Re-Aired on TV Again

    It Took Thirty-Four Years to Admit America Is Actually Godless So That Madonna’s Pepsi Commercial Could be Embraced by the Company and Re-Aired on TV Again

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    In the final year of the still Reagan-dominated 80s, Madonna again “chose” (as if being inherently controversial to milquetoasts is a choice) to shock the world, but mainly the U.S., with the release of her video for “Like A Prayer.” As the lead single from her album of the same name, Madonna wanted to come right out of the gate with a song and visual that would set tongues wagging. Unfortunately for Pepsi (at the time), the offending visual coincided with the debut of her commercial for the brand, for which she was paid five million dollars (subsequently pocketing the cash despite the commercial airing all of twice in the United States). 

    To really ramp up the hype surrounding the premiere of the commercial, there was even a teaser made for it. A commercial for a commercial. Something unheard of in the advertising world until someone as blockbuster-y as Madonna came along. And yes, the teaser does come across as even more retroactively condescending by showing a scene of someone “primitive” (complete with wearing little more than “tribal paint”) in something like an African setting (though it was probably just somewhere in L.A. County) ambling to the nearest ramshackle with a satellite. The commercial then flashes to impressionistic scenes of Madonna getting her makeup done as a man’s voice warns, “Sound check. Thirty seconds to air.” A “trailer voice” then comes on to announce over scenes of the “primitive” man intermixed with Madonna, “No matter where in the world you are, on March 2nd, get to a TV and watch as Pepsi Cola presents Madonna, singing her latest release, ‘Like A Prayer,’ for the very first time on the planet Earth.” As though she might have performed it on other planets beforehand. And if she did, they were likely more tolerant of the imagery presented in the video. 

    Rather than being offended by the white savior-y elements, however, it was the “blasphemous” images of Madonna dancing defiantly in front of a bevy of giant burning crosses (KKK-style…except they like to brand it as the more euphemistic “cross lightings”) interspersed with her “canoodling” with a Black saint (played by Leon)—modeled after Saint Martin de Porres—that really sent conservatives into frothing-at-the-mouth overdrive. And since conservatives/Christians/Republicans were a key soda drinking demographic at the time (still are, in fact), Pepsi instantaneously capitulated to the furor surrounding “Like A Prayer” by pulling the commercial, ergo any ties they might have formerly had to Madonna. Not to mention effectively revoking the erstwhile pride they had about “landing” her.

    Their sense of “being betrayed” when Madonna premiered the actual video the day (March 3rd) after the commercial first aired (during an episode of The Cosby Show no less) was confirmed when they released a statement assuring the masses that they had not seen the incendiary (no pun intended) contents of the video before the commercial went forward. And yet, considering this was Madonna (and that she was already well-known for being controversial by 1989), shouldn’t they have maybe suspected something “untoward” to crop up during their partnership with her? Or perhaps they wanted to believe that, by signing a contract together, Madonna would fall in line like a good corporate duckie doing her best to “positively” represent the brand. In that sense, Madonna’s attraction to the enterprise probably had roots in her father-daughter dynamic. With Tony Ciccone representing the strait-laced, “behave yourself” corporation, Madonna must have been titillated to rebel against a new kind of patriarchal entity. To that point, the fact that the commercial focuses on a then present-day Madonna looking back at footage of her eighth birthday only adds to her self-infantilization in such a way as to be “scolded” by her “corporation daddy.” And she surely didn’t mind all the media attention that came with her “punishment.” Which was, ultimately, a lot of free publicity that only drew more attention to the song and album (as M phrased it before all the hullabaloo went down, “The Pepsi spot is a great and different way to expose the record. Record companies just don’t have the money to finance that kind of publicity”). And as Grown-Up Madonna sits alone in a classroom or dances in the halls of a stern, Catholic-esque school among the other children, it’s apparent she’s still stuck in that part of her past where she was first emotionally wounded. Which is a lot for a commercial about soda. 

    In this and so many other regards, it was a wonder that Pepsi greenlit the ad at all. Even without the eventual bad blood that arose when she “undermined” their collab with the “Like A Prayer” video. Tod MacKenzie, the spokesperson for Pepsi and its dealings with Madonna at the time, had even initially said of the partnership that they weren’t worried about M’s reputation for “rabble-rousing.” This evident in his statement, “Her appeal is in her music and her acting. That’s where people’s interests are.” But no, alas, that’s not what the people’s interests were once the religious right found they could come for Madonna’s endorsement deal by calling her out as a heathen. Even though what they should have been commenting on was her continued display of a keen business acumen. After all, this was the first time any musician had even premiered a previously unreleased song in a commercial. Although such “synergy” is commonplace now, Madonna, once again, blazed the trail for it to be so. And yes, also seemed to want to prove Andy Warhol’s uber-capitalistic adage that, “Good business is the best art” (on a side note, Madonna was quoted as saying something similar before the ad came out: “​​I like the challenge of merging art and commerce”). Yet if one were to ask Pepsi in 1989 if Madonna was doing “good business,” the company likely would have answered with a resounding no. For not only did she undo her promise to partner with them for a year’s worth of ad campaigns, but she also effectively repelled them from sponsoring what would have been the Like A Prayer Tour, slated to kick off in 1989. Instead, without Pepsi to bog her down with outraged input, she embarked on the envelope-pushing Blond Ambition Tour in 1990. So, in the end, Pepsi distancing itself from Madonna was the best for the latter’s artistic integrity (as she kept referring to it in Truth or Dare). 

    Over the next few decades, Madonna would continue to offer her “services” to middle-of-the-road corporations and their ad campaigns, including Gap, Motorola (where she also premiered a snippet of “Hung Up” for the first time) and H&M. By then, of course, “tastes” had changed enough (though not enough to evade having a second Bush as president) to allow for the types of controversies that Madonna had desensitized the masses to. And yet, she never did anything as inflammatory (again, no pun intended) as she did by making her “Like A Prayer” video synonymous with Pepsi. Even in 2003, the year of the Gap commercial, her offending version of the “American Life” video was censored by the star herself, deciding to pull it out of respect for “the troops” once war in Iraq was all but assured. Though perhaps, in the moment, airing the original would have put a pin in her Gap ad plans, what with the idea of maligning Bush in 2003 still being “unthinkable” for many, especially conservatives. 

    Even in today’s climate, corporations have their limits for what they’ll tolerate if they’re going to stand by a controversial spokesperson. Ye was a prime example of that with both Gap and adidas. But if someone (read: a woman) like Madonna had displayed even a hint of any of his antics, they would have been “kiboshed” far sooner. That said, there have been just as many “heretical” men in music (including Madonna contemporaries Prince and Michael Jackson, who had his own Pepsi campaign in 1984), it just so happened that Madonna “went too far” as a woman. Pushing buttons and challenging taboos in a way that no pop musician (of any gender) had ever done before. And yet, Pepsi felt obliged to cave to the pressures of pearl-clutching religious groups (of the sort that would have burned Beatles albums when John Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus” quote was taken out of context) threatening to boycott the brand. That’s when Pepsi really decided, “Oh fuck, we got in bed with the devil.” For there is no one more satanic to a capitalist than somebody who threatens the fullness of their bag. So it was that the same spokesperson who claimed that Madonna’s “appeal is in her music and her acting. That’s where people’s interests are” was quick to counteract that defense of working with the button-pushing pop star by finally announcing, one month after the original air date of the commercial, “​​When you’ve got an ad that confuses people or concerns people, it just makes sense that that ad goes away.” In truth, “it just made sense” for the ad to “go away” because it was hurting their brand, ergo their coffers. 

    Madonna herself knew the risks of getting involved with any entity imprisoned to shareholders, foreshadowing the botched business relationship by saying in Rolling Stone, “…the treatment for the video is a lot more controversial. It’s probably going to touch a lot of nerves in a lot of people. And the treatment for the commercial is…I mean, it’s a commercial. It’s very, very sweet. It’s very sentimental.” But that didn’t matter to the public once the music video was released. They could no longer separate “Like A Prayer” the video from “Like A Prayer” the commercial. Which just goes to show how daft Pepsi drinkers are, one supposes. 

    Nonetheless, it hasn’t stopped Pepsi from securing the most au courant musicians in pop over the years. From Spice Girls to Britney Spears. These being just some of the artists whose “vintage” Pepsi commercials will be aired during the 2023 MTV VMAs on September 12th as part of a commemoration of its one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary. And yes, they’re digging Madonna’s “Make A Wish” commercial out of the vault for it, too. A sign of “bygones being bygones,” even if it’s unlikely that Madonna will be “touched” by her sudden corporate acceptance (Pepsi even had the balls to take some kind of credit for Madonna’s commotion-causing by writing, “Cheers to disrupting the status quo”—as though they had any part in doing that when “Like A Prayer” came out). Besides, she is her own corporation anyway. Thus, one of her frequent sayings while recording in the 80s being, “Time is money, and the money is mine.” As it still was even after Pepsi reneged on their deal. 

    With tag lines shown at the end of the commercial that included both “A Generation Ahead” and “A Taste of America,” Pepsi proved itself to be a generation behind on having the so-called gumption to keep the Madonna ad running, as well as a taste of America in every way, hypocrisy-wise. For while the country loves to spout how it’s a God-loving/-fearing place founded on Christian ideals, all of that posturing is belied by godless behavior. At least now, finally airing the Pepsi commercial on TV again is a major step in admitting to that godlessness.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna Is Just Doing Normal Summer Mom Stuff Before Embarking on World Tour

    Madonna Is Just Doing Normal Summer Mom Stuff Before Embarking on World Tour

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    Labor Day approaches, and we can count the remaining days of summer (the social definition, not the lunar one, chill) on one hand. Everyone’s getting their fire pit nights and patio dinners on before pumpkin spice’s annual takeover—including Madonna. Oh, and it’s not just autumnal vibes that are coming for her, it’s an international tour. No biggie.

    The pop icon, 65, took to her Instagram Stories on Tuesday to showcase a series of snaps of her end-of-summer fun, including a neon-bedecked backyard pool party. There is, of course, a guest appearance from a horse. It appears that Madge has been spending a good amount of time with her 11-year-old twins, Estere and Stella, and 17-year-old Mercy.

    Madonna is set to embark on her 45-city Celebration World Tour in October with a string of shows in London. The start of the tour was postponed when in June the musician contracted a serious bacterial infection and was hospitalized, including a stint in the ICU. Earlier this month, she announced that she was recovered, and planned to reschedule the dates that had been interrupted by her health issues.

    Madonna celebrated her 65th birthday on August 16, saying in an Instagram post last week marking the milestone that “It’s great to be Alive………… .. and Amazing to Be able to put on my dancing shoes and Celebrate my Birthday!”

    Like any Normal Mom, it would appear from the post that she went to Lisbon to celebrate.

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    Now, who’s ready to get pumpkin spicy?

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    Kase Wickman

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  • Between Anitta’s “Use To Be” and Miley Cyrus’ “Used To Be Young,” It Has to Be Asked: Are the Thirty-Something Women Okay, Perception-Wise?

    Between Anitta’s “Use To Be” and Miley Cyrus’ “Used To Be Young,” It Has to Be Asked: Are the Thirty-Something Women Okay, Perception-Wise?

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    There was a minute there when it seemed like society, or at least the representation of it through pop culture, had come a long way from reiterating the message that women are “dead” at thirty. Or, more accurately, their youth is. This was perhaps most succinctly encapsulated by Lily Allen’s 2009 track, “22,” on which she sings such chirpy lyrics as, “When she was twenty-two, the future looked bright/But she’s nearly thirty now and she’s out every night/I see that look in her face, she’s got that look in her eye/She’s thinking, ‘How did I get here?’ and wondering why.” This is followed by the chorus, “It’s sad, but it’s true how society says her life is already over.” And yes, it’s sad but it’s true how even “modern” women are still thinking this way. Especially if we’re to go on Anitta and Miley Cyrus’ latest single releases, both of which have the phrase “used to be” in them. A term that easily connotes some form of lament.

    For Anitta, she’s slightly less sad-sounding about the fact that she “used to be a ho” and now she “ain’t no more.” Because, if we’re to go by the accompanying music video’s narrative, she’s getting married, and she needs to put her former “ho life” ways to rest. Although Anitta might have had the masses thinking this could be about Simone Susinna for a brief second after being spotted with the Italian actor/model all over Europe, she soon after declared, “I’m not dating anyone, I’m single. I’ve always been single.” Or rather, a serial “dater” (read: fucker). Which puts her much more firmly in Selena Gomez’s camp, the latter having released “Single Soon” the same day as Miley’s divergently-themed “Used to Be Young.” But where thirty-one-year-old Gomez seems to be embracing her “single girl life” without a tinge of sadness just because she’s now “over the hill,” Anitta and Miley are patently entering their thirties with something like a white flag. Surrendering to the notion that they have to “grow up” and fall in line, adopting a more “zen” state that only “old ladies” can. Anitta conveys this through images of herself getting married so as to shirk her erstwhile life of ho-ish “sin.” Repenting in her chorus with the lines, “I used to be a ho, but now I ain’t no more/Been swimmin’ through the water, now I’m back to shore/I look at who I did and I’m like, ‘Oh, my Lord.’”

    In the first verse, Anitta then switches to Spanish, singing, “Una perra de raza muy dura de matar/Pero ahora soy mansa y ya no muerdo má’/Rompí mucho corazóne’ y a mí no me lo rompieron/Pero ya yo no quiero, ‘toy tranquila y ya.” The Spanish lyrics translate to, “A very tough breed [more specifically, breed of dog] to kill/But now I’m gentle and I don’t bite anymore/I broke a lot of hearts and they didn’t break mine/But I don’t want to anymore, I’m calm and that’s it.” As though a “switch” has been flipped within Anitta as a result of entering her thirties and now she’s decided it’s time to, as Selena Gomez (and her bestie, Taylor Swift, for that matter) also said, “Calm down.” Or “settle down,” as some prefer to call it. Because, despite all the work Madonna did to negate the idea that you’re expected to put yourself out to pasture by the age of forty, now it seems women are admitting even earlier to being “old” as opposed to “being a slut and doing whatever they want” at any age. As so many women who came before fought for them to be able to (though again, mainly Madonna…and Cher). 

    Instead, things feel like they’re going backwards vis-à-vis women and aging. For example, the existence of a recently-circulating meme featuring Margot Robbie with the phrase, “Life doesn’t end after thirty, she’s proof of that.” It makes one want to positively vomit. As though we need a thirty-something representation of Barbie to assure us that one’s thirties (as a woman, mind you) aren’t a death sentence. A form of thinking that is so fucking retro that we have to wonder if we’re even actually in the twenty-first century, and any progress has truly been made with regard to women’s viewpoints about their own age. Some, of course, will try to say that it’s actually “positive” for women to have candid conversations about getting older, but, once more, it has to be emphasized that talking about being old at thirty only serves to reinforce the false belief that youth is a commodity reserved strictly for teens and twenty-somethings when that simply isn’t the case. The adage, “You’re as young as you feel” ought to be brought up more regularly. Especially for a generation—millennials—that has been so often accused of having Peter Pan syndrome. Now, it seems, they’re only too willing to pass the youth torch on to banal Gen Z despite not being anywhere near “old” at all. Alas, not if we’re to go by the current trend in pop culture to brand people in their thirties and forties as “elderly.”

    Although there did seem to be a blip of evolution, the culprit for this regression toward branding thirty as “old” is, undeniably, TikTok, which is overrun by thirteen-year-olds who are the “tastemakers” of society at this moment (and possibly for the foreseeable future). So, of course, they’re going to view women in their thirties as “old,” never imagining that they themselves could reach that age from their cush vantage at thirteen. Ergo, the callous ability to come up with a trend based on Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” that compares celebrity women in their current state to photos of them when they were younger, as though to highlight that their “jig is up” because they’ve committed the “sin” of aging. And yes, Madonna herself stated (with her sardonic tone) in a speech for the 2016 Billboard Women in Music Awards, “Do not age. Because to age is a sin. You will be criticized, you will be vilified, and you will definitely not be played on the radio.” Nor will you get as much film work if you’re an actress. Something Charlize Theron, at forty-eight, is starting to contend with as she, too, puts up a white flag and surrenders, “I’m old” the way Anitta and Miley seem to be alluding to already at the outset of their thirties. As though women themselves needed to give narrow-minded patriarchal perspectives about aging any more clout. And yes, it’s all still rooted in the primal idea that a woman is “old” once she’s not of “child-bearing age.” But with the advancement of science, we’ve seen that women can have children well beyond their thirties. Even if they’re not nearly as embraced for doing so as men like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. To boot, with the rapid progress of cosmetic products and surgery, we’ve seen Aaliyah’s “age ain’t nothin’ but a number” aphorism realized. And both Anitta and Miley (but especially Anitta) have enjoyed their share of expensive ways to physically “enhance” themselves. 

    This is, in part, why it makes it even worse that they should go to all that trouble to stay looking young and yet still slap themselves with an “older now” demarcation. After all, “The confluence of celebrity culture and the ability to manipulate every casual selfie has created the sense that we are not meant to look old at all.” So why should women who look young cause a further mind fuck by declaring that they’re old? It just seems sort of counterproductive to a positive self-perception. Because when the likes of Anitta and Miley arrive in their forties and fifties, what will they say about themselves then? That they’re crypt-keepers? And all while women who are actually in their forties and fifties work far harder to appear in Anitta and Miley’s age bracket. Including someone like Kylie Minogue, whose recent hit, “Padam Padam,” highlights lyrics that are decidedly “too youthful” for a woman in her mid-fifties. Meanwhile, Anitta and Miley are looking the gift horse of their youth in the mouth by casually writing it off as being “old.” With Cyrus essentially insisting that she can no longer be “crazy” or “fun” because those things have been buried with the teen and twenty-something Miley. As though all such traces of “wildness” ought to be if a girl is to “transcend” fully into a woman (not that Britney ever chose to, still overtly holding on to what she said long ago, “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman”). 

    Maybe Cyrus thinks she’s doing a service to the women her age by “mourning the loss of her youth” at thirty, giving them permission to finally “mature” and “let go of childish things” such as drinking, drugging and ho’ing (as Anitta more or less calls it). But, in the end, it serves to underscore the already damaging idea that only those who are “Lolita age” can be classified as young (and yes, that entails fairly perverse implications about our society).

    Carrie Bradshaw, who existed most potently in the 00s—a time now known for its deeply problematic worldviews—once said to Samantha Jones, “It’s time for ladies my age to start covering it up. We can’t get away with the same stuff we used to” (cue Madonna gyrating to “Hung Up” in a leotard in her fifties as a big “fuck you” to that statement). And “getting away” with such “stuff” is only going to be made even more of a challenge for those women who don’t want to “button up at thirty” thanks to vibrant thirty-year-old women like Anitta and Miley playing up the notion of being “aged” once a girl’s twenties have concluded. 

    Like her aforementioned contemporary, Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse also had her own choice words for “sad women” that dared to turn thirty. And they appear via the lyrics, “Don’t get mad at me ‘cause you’re pushin’ thirty, and your old tricks no longer work” (Winehouse, as we know, wouldn’t live to thirty herself to find out). Perhaps still taking such a message to heart, Anitta and Miley are using the “trick” of running an offense on being automatically perceived as “irrelevant” just because they’ve hit their thirties. A maneuver that itself seeks to make it harder for other women (even “normal” ones in addition to famous ones) to be seen as relevant just because their birth year is no longer keeping them in the “right” decade.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Singular Woes of the “Geriatric” Pop Star: Miley Cyrus’ “Used to Be Young”

    The Singular Woes of the “Geriatric” Pop Star: Miley Cyrus’ “Used to Be Young”

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    In the spirit of “close-up videos” that have come before, including Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Gwen Stefani’s “Used to Love You,” Selena Gomez’s “Lose You To Love Me” and even Madonna’s “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” (with its slow tracking shot eventually leading to a close-up on M’s face), Miley Cyrus intends for her audience to know she means Serious Business with the earnest simplicity of the Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter-directed video for her latest single, “Used to Be Young.”

    For those who would rightly balk at Cyrus effectively branding herself as “old” at thirty, one need only look back at all the venomous flak Madonna got (and gets) for continuing to be a successful pop star into her thirties (and well beyond). Told to pack it in and cover up, Madonna refused to do anything of the kind. Indeed, despite all the barriers she broke down for women like Cyrus to continue into their “old” age, female pop stars are still keenly aware of the tick of the clock when they enter their thirties. Even someone as theoretically “untouchable” and “failproof” as Taylor Swift knows that “nothing gold can stay.” Which is why she commented to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, about a month from her thirty-third birthday, that she was a geriatric pop star. Therefore, amazed that she can still break all these records as she told Fallon, “It’s like, you know, I’m thirty-two. So we’re considered geriatric pop stars.” Both Swift’s and Cyrus’ sense of “jocularity” about aging in the pop arena is meant to mask an inherent fear about “losing their job” as a result of losing relevancy. 

    As Swift put it in 2020’s Miss Americana, “It’s a lot to process because we do exist in this society where women in entertainment are discarded in an elephant graveyard by the time they’re thirty-five. Everyone’s a shiny, new toy for, like, two years. The female artists that I know of have reinvented themselves twenty times more than the male artists. They have to…or else you’re out of a job. Constantly having to reinvent, constantly finding new facets of yourself that people find to be shiny… This is probably one of my last opportunities as an artist to grasp onto that kind of success. So I don’t know, like, as I’m reaching thirty, I’m like, ‘I want to work really hard, um, while society is still tolerating me being successful.’” In that sense, evermore‘s “tolerate it” could also be about society still “tolerating” her success. And oh how they’ve been tolerating it with the Eras Tour. The massive, arena-hopping juggernaut that has found Swift ramping up her parasocial relationships as Cyrus seeks to shirk live touring altogether. And yes, Cyrus received quite a bit of backlash for comments she made in a British Vogue article from earlier this year, during which writer Giles Hattersley described, “Cyrus was known to give everything on tour. She would perform for hours, take requests, not quit that stage until she was pretty sure every single person had had the night of their lives, swaying to ‘We Can’t Stop,’ bouncing to ‘Party in the USA,’ shedding a tear to ‘The Climb.’ Now she’s not sure she can do it anymore; certainly not in the foreseeable. He then quotes Cyrus as saying, “It’s been a minute. After the last [headline arena] show I did [in 2014], I kind of looked at it as more of a question. And I can’t. Not only ‘can’t,’ because can’t is your capability, but my desire. Do I want to live my life for anyone else’s pleasure or fulfillment other than my own?” 

    The answer appears to lie somewhere between yes and no, as she still works hard to please the fans. This latest single released so soon after her album, Endless Summer Vacation, being a case in point. And it seems she was planning “Used to Be Young” for a while, as she also mentioned it in that British Vogue article from May. Appropriately, it came up after she recounted how “a songwriter came to her with a track” that prompted her to say, “It was like, you know, the standard fucked up in the club track. And I was like, ‘I’m two years sober. That’s not where I spend my time, you know. You’re more likely to catch me and my friends literally walking through rose gardens or going to a museum… It’s not about being self-serious. I’m just evolved.” Hattersley then concludes, It inspired her to write a different song. She hopes to release it soon, she explains, as she recites a line from it to me, her eye contact steady, her voice calm. ‘I know I used to be crazy,’ she says. ‘I know I used to be fun. You say I used to be wild. I say I used to be young.’”

    Of course, to some, this comes across as though Cyrus is essentially saying you become boring and banal after your twenties, a trope that, quite honestly, doesn’t need to be reemphasized. Least of all to the already highly age-discriminatory Gen Z (see: the “Young and Beautiful” TikTok trend), which seems to have no awareness that their own “jig is up” fate as Alpha comes up the rear on “youth supremacy.” Then again, once everyone becomes a humanoid, perhaps age really will be rendered immaterial. In the meantime, Cyrus continues the tradition of confirming that one can only be “wild” in their youth (at least, “acceptably wild” anyway, for to continue that behavior into later years amounts to what we see on Britney Spears’ Instagram). Thus, she offers the staid, understated video for “Used to Be Young,” during which her figure cuts through a black space to approach the camera wearing a red sequined leotard with a white sleeveless Mickey Mouse shirt peeking out of the top. This being an obvious nod to her Disney days as Hannah Montana. The girl she ultimately had to kill over and over again with the type of wild behavior she also addresses on songs like “D.R.E.A.M.” (Drugs Rule Everything Around Me). Addressing it once more here, Cyrus appears to do it with a greater sense of gravity as she feels as though her youth is “spent” for real this time, whereas before she was merely talking about being “old” from the still-naive perspective of her twenties. But again, we apparently need to reiterate that being in one’s thirties isn’t old either. Even though Cyrus’ Disney star contemporary, Selena Gomez, also seems to feel that way if we’re to go on her comment about being “too old” for social media.

    But maybe there is something to why these pop stars who are still actually young tend to feel so old by their thirties. It’s a wizening lifestyle, after all. Even though you’re supposed to keep looking young no matter how old you feel—this belying the adage, “You’re as young as you feel.” If that’s true, no wonder Cyrus feels positively decrepit. Cyrus’ examination of age and it occasionally being “nothin’ but a number” were also apparent on 2017’s country twangin’ “Younger Now,” during which she claimed, “I feel so much younger now.” Six years later, that’s evidently no longer the case, with Cyrus both mourning and welcoming the loss of her youthful rebellion. This shining through as she gives Claire Danes a run for her “crying face” money right from the outset of the video, realizing that she’s “left [her] living fast/Somewhere in the past/‘Cause that’s for chasing cars/Turns out open bars/Lead to broken hearts/And going way too far.” This is something many a pop star has had to learn the hard way over the years, especially if they came of age in the 00s. Just look at Britney Spears, Lily Allen (who once sang vis-à-vis a woman approaching thirty, “It’s sad but it’s true how society says her life is already over”) or Amy Winehouse—the latter of whom didn’t even survive the follies and wildness of her youth. All three women were endlessly dragged through the tabloid mud for their “exploits,” though if they were men, such behavior would have been par for the course. 

    At the one-minute, eighteen-second mark of the video, a crack of light starts to appear as the doors to the soundstage part. As though to symbolically indicate there’s some positivity to growing “old.” Even for a pop star. For one thing, it means more leeway with creative expression, ergo the ability to release a song like this. With its frank subject matter and sparse piano instrumentation thanks to co-production from Cyrus, Michael Pollack and Shawn Everett, something about its intonation might also remind listeners of “Never Be Me” from 2020’s Plastic Hearts. A song that shows Miley, only two years ago, insisting that she could never be “stable” or “faithful.” Two qualities that are decidedly associated with being “old” a.k.a. mature. But maybe Miley could be those things now that she’s decided to relinquish the wildness of her past. Or so she says.

    However, knowing Miley (and pop stardom), it’s more likely she’ll flip-flop again to echo what MARINA sang on 2015’s “Can’t Pin Me Down”: “You ain’t got me sussed yet/You’re not even close/Baby, it’s the one thing/That I hate the most/All these contradictions pouring out of me/Just another girl in the twenty-first century/I am never gonna give you anything you expect/You think I’m like the others/Boy, you need to get your eyes checked, checked/You can paint me any colorAnd I can be your clown/But you ain’t got my number/No, you can’t pin me down.”

    And, as fellow “geriatric” pop star Taylor Swift mentioned, preserving one’s career as a female pop star depends on that kind of “elusiveness.” As she sardonically phrased it in Miss Americana, “Be new to us, be young to us, but only in a new way and only in the way we want. And reinvent yourself, but only in a way that we find to be equally comforting but also a challenge for you. Live out a narrative that we find to be interesting enough to entertain us, but not so crazy that it makes us uncomfortable.” Nonetheless, Cyrus might actually be making people too uncomfortable with all this talk of age and time passing. Decidedly “unsexy” topics in the realm of pop stardom. Even when you’ve had bouts as a rock and country star embedded within that framework.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • 25 Years of Madonna Ciccone, 40 Years of Madonna

    25 Years of Madonna Ciccone, 40 Years of Madonna

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Why Does It Take A Video of Madonna Doing Successive Jump Squats From Over Twenty Years Ago To Appreciate Her?

    Why Does It Take A Video of Madonna Doing Successive Jump Squats From Over Twenty Years Ago To Appreciate Her?

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    Being that there’s really no rhyme or reason to what might “take hold” with regard to virality on TikTok, one supposes it should be no surprise that a very specific moment from Madonna’s 2001 Drowned World Tour has become a popular “challenge” on the accursed app. That “moment” being more like fifteen seconds of unheard-of physical rigor for someone of any age (let alone someone over forty) as she proceeds to do approximately sixteen jump squats in rapid succession right after screaming, “Ah yeaahhhh!” An utterance few people would exclaim with joy prior to having to do something so physically strenuous. But such is the nature of Madonna: equal parts endlessly driven and masochistic. 

    It was that sort of vigor that went into conceptualizing the tour, which itself wasn’t very appreciated in its time, derided for not having enough “hits” performed, for a start. To boot, Madonna’s own brother, Christopher Ciccone, would condemn it in his “tell-all” by saying that the “tree concept” he had originally come up with for the backdrops that would appear onstage became something darker and more sinister. As did the entire tour once it transformed into Drowned World. Originally, Madonna had planned to tour in 1998/1999 after Ray of Light was released, but life kept getting in the way and it was 2001 by the time she took her act on the road again. For the new millennium, Madonna had reinvented herself once more. This time as both a “ghetto fabulous” cowgirl for Music and as an English “missus,” married to Guy Ritchie. 

    But if Ritchie thought she was going to stay home and darn his socks, he had another thing coming. Less than a year after her marriage (and giving birth to a second child), she would embark on this world tour in promotion of Music. It was, indeed, the title track and lead single from that record which would serve as her pièce de résistance of a finale for the tour. A finale that, as stated, is suddenly attracting far more attention than it ever did before. Perhaps because, in the early 00s, women were simply “expected” to be that physically fit if they wanted to still be considered part of the game at all. Not that it stopped anyone from continuing to call Madonna “over the hill” at forty-three. Though, as it’s long been plain to see, Madonna could always outpace the pop stars half her age. 

    With her recent bacterial infection, however, the media has been quick to pounce on the narrative that Madonna got it as a result of trying to “keep up” with those pop stars half her age—Taylor Swift being one such name specifically mentioned despite the fact that Madonna has always been a more entertaining (and more political) performer. Anything to discredit not only what she’s still capable of, but what she’s already been doing consistently from the very outset of her live performance days. Which is, to reiterate: dancing her fucking ass off. This is probably why she needed to get ass implants to replace it. In any case, apparently even “TikTokers” (a polite euphemism for nitwits who don’t catch on to things until decades later) can’t turn a blind eye to the impressiveness of what Madonna was doing even then, at an age when she was already being branded as a “geriatric.” 

    Perhaps it took the passing of a couple decades to fully understand the grueling nature of the choreography on that tour. No matter how old one is. Even Britney Spears, who was in the “prime” of her pop stardom in 2001, would have admitted to its difficulty. Thus, maybe the one token of Establishment appreciation it got—being nominated for an Emmy in the category of Outstanding Choreography—was telling of just how elaborate those moves were. But, as Madonna declared long ago, “I got the moves, baby.” In addition to, “Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free.” In that respect, Madonna has said that she’s always associated movement with freedom. Freedom to flit from place to place, freedom to try new things. Thus, her phobia of being fat. Or “zaftig,” as she put it in a 2006 article for Elle. 

    And it’s a fear you can see in her determined eyes as she does those jump squats. Not just the fear of being “rotund,” but the fear of being told that she “can’t.” That because of her age, she should be limited by her body. Repeatedly, Madonna has defied everyone, including herself, to prove the contrary, going so far as to keep dancing as she would have in 2001 during 2019’s Madame X Tour, which resulted in her needing hip replacement surgery afterward. At present, she’s hell-bent on proving her body (and the masses) wrong again by not giving up on the idea of this new world tour, celebrating (ergo, its name: the Celebration Tour) forty years of hits, just because she may or may not have almost died due to a serious bacterial infection. Itself caused by ignoring any signs her body was trying to give her about slowing down. Maybe, for that brief blip when Madonna was on the other side, neither God nor the Devil wanted to allow entry to someone so persistently stubborn. 

    Stubborn enough to endure the wait it took for her to be vindicated as a “stamina queen” twenty-two years after doing those relentless jump squats at the end of her show. While, on the one hand, it’s nice to see her being appreciated in some way by those who might not have known the extent of her tireless commitment to pop music as theater art, it’s also total bullshit that it takes TikTok to justify the Madonna love. Or at least love for her fitness routine. 

    In that same aforementioned Elle article, Madonna remarked, “I hope by the time it’s my moment to leave the world physically, I’ll have gotten my head around the idea that life is an endless cycle.” If that’s the case, hopefully in the next matrix, the cycle of taking too long to appreciate Madonna’s physical (and mental) prowess won’t occur yet again. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna announces new North American dates for her Celebration Tour

    Madonna announces new North American dates for her Celebration Tour

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    Madonna has announced the rescheduled North American dates of her global Celebration Tour, several weeks after she was hospitalized for a bacterial infection. The singer released the new dates on her website Tuesday, a day before her 65th birthday. 

    The tour will now kick off in Europe on the originally scheduled dates. Starting in London on October 14, Madonna will go on to play in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands before touring North America.

    Madonna was supposed to start her tour in Vancouver, Canada, on July 15, but Madonna postponed it after spending several days in the ICU in late June due to a “serious bacterial infection,” her manager said at the time.

    Less than two weeks later, Madonna took to social media to confirm she was “on the road to recovery” and “getting stronger.”

    “My first thought when I woke up in the hospital was my children,” the singer wrote. “My second thought was that I did not want to disappoint anyone who bought tickets for my tour. I also didn’t want to let down the people who worked tirelessly with me over the last few months to create my show. I hate to disappoint anyone.” 

    “Live Nation is pleased to confirm that most of the North America dates of Madonna’s Celebration Tour have been rescheduled and will take place immediately following the originally announced UK and Europe dates,” the statement on Madonna’s website said. 

    All tickets for previously scheduled shows will be honored on the new dates, with a few exceptions. Due to venue changes, the shows in Los Angeles and one show in New York will require fresh purchases — ticketholders will be refunded and given priority for the new venues. 

    Additionally, certain shows in Tulsa, Nashville, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Phoenix had to be canceled due to scheduling conflicts. “Madonna regrets the inconvenience to fans and hopes to make it up to those markets in the future,” the statement said.

    The Celebration Tour’s North American leg will now begin in Brooklyn on December 13 and wrap up in Mexico City in April 2024. 

    The tour promises to cover all four decades of Madonna’s remarkable career, which began with the 1982 song “Everybody” and rose to national prominence the following year with the song “Holiday.”

    “I am excited to explore as many songs as possible in hopes to give my fans the show they have been waiting for,” Madonna said when she announced the tour in January.

    S. Dev

    S. Dev is a news editor for CBSNews.com.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna to perform in Toronto, Vancouver in rescheduled Canada tour dates | Globalnews.ca

    Madonna to perform in Toronto, Vancouver in rescheduled Canada tour dates | Globalnews.ca

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    By Staff

    The Canadian Press

    Posted August 15, 2023 2:57 pm

    Madonna is set to celebrate her comeback in Canada in the new year.

    The pop legend has rescheduled the North American leg of the Celebration Tour, which was delayed weeks ahead of its planned kickoff in Vancouver last month when Madonna landed in hospital.

    The tour will now kick off in London on Oct. 14, and the singer will stop at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on Jan. 11 and 12 and Vancouver’s Rogers Arena on Feb. 21, 2024.


    Click to play video: 'Madonna fans frustrated over lack of communication after Vancouver show postponed'


    Madonna fans frustrated over lack of communication after Vancouver show postponed


    Live Nation says it will honour tickets for the previously scheduled shows.

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    Madonna’s manager has said the performer developed a serious bacterial infection in late June, which led to a several-day stay in the ICU.

    The tour is now set to begin in the United Kingdom in October, and she’ll cross the pond in December, starting the North American leg in Brooklyn, N.Y.

    &copy 2023 The Canadian Press

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  • In The Wake the Lizzo Debacle, One Is Reminded That Madonna’s Own Behavior Toward Her Dancers Might Not Have Sat So Well With People Today

    In The Wake the Lizzo Debacle, One Is Reminded That Madonna’s Own Behavior Toward Her Dancers Might Not Have Sat So Well With People Today

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    As Lizzo has gone expectedly silent amid a climate that doesn’t take so kindly to emotional abuse anymore, one can’t help but think back to a time when it was easier to “get away with” being both a bit bawdy and “bullying” with their dancers. For example, no one was about to cry “sexual harassment lawsuit” or “failure to prevent and/or remedy hostile work environment” in 1990, the year Madonna spent touring the world with her coterie of hand-picked gay male dancers. Many of whom contributed to making the subsequent Truth or Dare documentary as entertaining and eye-opening as it was. Indeed, they tended to feel the same way. Which is why select members of the troupe did decide to sue her after the film’s release. Those members being Kevin Stea, Gabriel Trupin and Oliver Crumes. 

    Funnily enough, it was also three dancers (Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez) from Lizzo’s The Special Tour who decided not to take any further abuse from the erstwhile Svengali formerly pulling the strings. In Stea, Trupin and Crumes’ scenario, the affront came when they realized the extent to which they and their personal lives were paraded in Truth or Dare. With the lawsuit also filed in California, the dancers cited the emotional detriment of Madonna featuring scenes in which the dancers “discuss[ed] intimate facts about their personal life not previously known to the public.” Chief among them, the fact that Kevin and Gabriel were gay, and did not necessarily want that information to be so public at a time of peak homophobia in the U.S. Of course, Madonna would likely insist that she did them and the world a favor by committing something akin to “immersion therapy.” Getting viewers accustomed to seeing more gay men onscreen, as well as forcing Kevin and Gabriel to be “open” about who they were, etc. Where was the “harm” in that (apart from to the eyes of Republicans “hate watching” the documentary)? 

    What’s more, this height of Madonna’s career (so oversaturated that she eventually quipped that she only ever felt overexposed at the gynecologist’s) did not exist at a time when “consent” was such “a thing.” Not sexually or otherwise. And, to that end, it does bear noting that Truth or Dare was produced by Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films, therefore it was also named in the suit against Madonna and her company, Boy Toy Inc., as well as Propaganda Films (co-founded by “Madonna music video director,” David Fincher). 

    The lawsuit itself arose at the beginning of 1992, which was evidently already establishing itself as a tumultuous year for Madonna. And yet, the dancers weren’t about to, well, dance around the issue at hand. While Stea and Crumes were more concerned about rightful compensation for their images being used, Trupin was most harmed by the personal life damage it did, stating that he had to undergo therapy afterward because it “exposed him to contempt and ridicule.” Just as Lizzo’s own dancers are at this moment in time by those who refuse to believe their “god” could do any wrong. And they, too, are being asked, “How could you?” Not just by Lizzo fans, but Lizzo herself, who claims to have been “blindsided” by the dancers’ complaints. Even though said dancers stated that multiple attempts were made to get Lizzo’s attention re: the severity of the matter, and the lawsuit was the last-ditch effort to do so. In which case, mission accomplished. 

    With Madonna, the relationship with her dancers was a bit different. Not just because they were gay men who themselves thrived on sexual energy coursing through their veins the way Madonna did (and still does), but because Madonna “cultivating” them for her tour was considered more groundbreaking in that period due to their sexual orientation. While some (including Lizzo herself) would point out that Lizzo hiring “fat” dancers is also groundbreaking, it doesn’t hold the same political gravity as what Madonna was doing in 1990, and at an apex of the AIDS epidemic no less. And so, with this in mind, the dancers were likely “just grateful” to be considered for such a major world tour at all. In fact, their presence in Truth or Dare was one of the first mainstream instances of homosexuality displayed onscreen, prompting many men to come out afterward. 

    Nonetheless, that wasn’t “enough” to keep Madonna’s trio of dancers from speaking up about their violation of privacy. With Trupin’s experience being that “director Alek Keshishian told him he could delete any footage he believed was an invasion of privacy, and says that when he asked that the scene in which he kisses the other dancer [“Slam”] be removed from the completed film, Madonna shouted, ‘Get over it, I don’t care!’” Something, of course, that Lizzo would never be free to say today. Though we all know she wants to. Because the thing about major celebrities hiring “backup” is that they become mere brushstrokes in the painting of the “star” herself. Who wants the painting to look a certain way without considering the, shall we say, painstaking strokes it takes to make it look that way. 

    We may never know if the dancers of Truth or Dare were genuinely “okay” with Madonna’s sexually charged presence both onstage and off (see: the Evian bottle scene) during the Blond Ambition Tour, or merely responding to it “positively” because they were a product of the time they lived in. When you really were expected, especially as a dancer, to just be grateful to have work with such a big star, and one who paid so well. Plus, as Madonna was sure to point out, most of the dancers had never been given the chance to “see the world” as the Blond Ambition Tour was about to enable them to. Something that Madonna felt proud of in terms of her ability to “give that” to them, which, in turn, allowed for effortless emotional manipulation. Manifest in the more than somewhat problematic voiceover of Madonna saying, “The innocence of the dancers move me. They’re not jaded in the least. They haven’t been anywhere. This was the opportunity of their lives. And I know that they’ve suffered a great deal in their lives, whether with their families or just being poor or whatever. And I wanted to give them the thrill of their lives. I wanted to impress them. I wanted to love them.”

    Taking in such scenes and presentations as this prompted bell hooks to write, “Given the rampant homophobia in this society and the concomitant heterosexist voyeuristic obsession with gay lifestyles, to what extent does Madonna progressively seek to challenge this if she insists on primarily representing gays as in some way emotionally handicapped or defective? Or when Madonna responds to the critique that she exploits gay men by cavalierly stating: ‘What does exploitation mean?… In a revolution, some people have to get hurt. To get people to change, you have to turn the table over. Some dishes get broken.’”

    It was obvious that, more than viewing her dancers as “dishes” to be (further) broken, she saw them as her little dolls. To play with and “position” as she wanted. All while assuming that the dancers would be ecstatic merely for the privilege of being around her. And for a time, they were. To boot, every dancer has ostensibly “made peace” with what happened, with Madonna even joined onstage by Jose Xtravaganza for her Finally Enough Love Pride event in June of 2022. The dancers also “expressed themselves” regarding the Blond Ambition Tour via their own 2016 documentary, Strike A Pose. So who knows? Maybe Lizzo’s dancers will one day make their “catharsis doc” as well, and could even end up saying they harbor no ill will toward the self-proclaimed “Big Girl.” Who, in a similar fashion to Madonna, expected nothing but gratitude.

    In that spirit, Lizzo was reported as saying something to the effect of, “You know dancers get fired for gaining weight; you should basically be grateful to be here.” Where once (including in 1990) this “logic” might have gone largely unquestioned, it’s becoming less and less acceptable to put up with abuse just because someone is a “major pop culture fixture.” In other words, celebrity/pop icon privilege is slowly but surely starting to unravel. And one tends to believe that the recent barrage of onstage attacks has something to do with that. Not just because fans feel entitled to a “piece” of the celeb or want to create a viral moment with them, but because they no longer seem to believe a celebrity is an “untouchable creature.” Wanting to prove that point by more literally knocking them off their pedestal. 

    The modern genesis of this may very well have started with what Madonna’s dancers did. In J. Randy Taraborrelli’s Madonna: An Intimate Biography, the revelation about the trio suing her is described as follows: “Madonna was angry about the suit. ‘Those ingrates,’ she said to one colleague. ‘To think that I made them who they are, then they treat me like this.’” A line that reeks of Norma Desmond-level delivery. Taraborrelli added, “Shortly after the suit was filed, Madonna happened upon Oliver Crumes at a party. ‘If you want money,’ she told him, her tone arctic, ‘why don’t you sell that Cartier watch I bought for you?’” Everything about this exchange (whether “lore” or not) exhibits what’s wrong with how celebrities view the people in their employ. 

    Regardless, some can still only see it from the celebrity’s side, with Keshishian defending Madonna back then by saying, “…it was extortion, in my mind. They’d signed the releases and it wasn’t as if we were filming it in secret. The cameras were there all the time. They did the interviews. What did they think was being filmed—a home movie!? I didn’t respect that. I felt bad for Madonna because she really did love those kids and they turned around and did that. That’s why celebrities grow more and more weary of getting close to anybody.”

    By the same token, that’s why people in the arts grow weary of working with celebrities: the expectation that they can be treated “lesser than” just because they’re working for some post-modern equivalent of a deity. Even so, there’s no denying that the current trio of dancers’ lawsuit against Lizzo is a harbinger of change. A warning to other singer-industrial complexes that what might have eked by largely unpublicized (with Madonna eventually settling out of court), therefore unchecked, is not going to anymore.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • In Case Anyone Needed Additional Evidence That Celebrities Have More Influence Than Politicians, Look No Further Than the Plea to Taylor Swift Amid L.A.’s Hotel Strike

    In Case Anyone Needed Additional Evidence That Celebrities Have More Influence Than Politicians, Look No Further Than the Plea to Taylor Swift Amid L.A.’s Hotel Strike

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    “With great power comes great responsibility.” That’s the Spider-Man platitude so often wielded for those who are actually in offices of power. And yet, it’s become more and more apparent that politicians hold far less influence than a certain type of celebrity. One in particular being Taylor Swift. Swifties, like members of the Beyhive, hold the power to move mountains if and when it means something to their “leader.” Who they acknowledge as the person to “obey” far more than anyone serving a legitimate political institution. Knowing this, select state politicians in California, including Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, signed an open letter from Unite Here Local 11 (the hotel union representing striking workers) asking Swift to postpone her Los Angeles dates as a show of solidarity with hotel workers who have walked off the job in protest. 

    More than just a show of solidarity, the reason for “targeting” Swift stems from the knowledge of how the Eras Tour has caused an entire micro-economy to spring up in its wake. One that hotels in L.A. are profiting from majorly while the hotel workers’ “stand” against being taken advantage of goes unnoticed in the midst of “Taylor fever.” Playing five dates at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium, Swift is likely drawing in not only the majority of Los Angeles with these dates, but also many others from the far reaches of California (and beyond) who need a hotel room to stay in. Thus, the hotels’ ability, as mentioned in the open letter, to double and triple their rates due to the high demand. Workers’ rights be damned. 

    In effect, the reaction has been: that sounds like a “management problem,” not an “average person” problem. Let alone a “Swift problem.” And, considering the recent Grammys after-party she held at the Chateau Marmont, Swift has never much concerned herself with the plight of the worker (least of all the hotel worker). Many argue such things shouldn’t be her concern. After all, she’s “just” a singer. Or, as Swift’s recent collaborator, Lana Del Rey might say, “I’m a simple singer, I’m doing my best to navigate the waters of the constant tumultuous hardships in war-torn countries all over the world that I travel through monthly. For the record I’m doing the best I can and my intentions are better than most people[’]s that I know.” Such humility. In any case, the I’m “just” a celebrity defense doesn’t hold much water for someone like Swift (or Del Rey, who has her own sect of worshipful acolytes). For, as we’ve seen (and as referred to above), Swift is that rare breed of celebrity who has more clout than, let’s just say it, the president. At the mere drop of an instruction, Swift can get legions to do something (including register to vote, as she did when she, for the first time in her life, took a political stance by denouncing Tennessee Congressional candidate Marsha Blackburn). The catch is, she has to be interested in the cause. 

    And since “what matters” is, unfortunately, subjective, Swift didn’t bother to comment on the urgent plea from the Unite Here 11 union and select California politicians. Instead, she carried on with the dates as scheduled. After all, she’s a busy woman, and everyone should just be grateful she’s bothering to grace their city with her presence at all. Right? How is it her “job” to also get involved in local political disputes? This being something a few have pointed out, in addition to announcing that politicians are trying to deflect from their own less than stellar attempts at helping workers secure a better living wage. It’s “on them” to handle such things. Or should be. But the reality is, as the twenty-first century has forged ahead, celebrity power has only continued to outshine actual political power. Although U.S. politics and celebrity have long been linked in the modern era (especially when we look to the example of JFK and Marilyn Monroe), it’s ramped up to a scale that the Founding Fathers never could have possibly envisioned (therefore made provisions for in the Constitution).

    There was Madonna draping herself in an American flag and little else during a Rock the Vote campaign in 1990; there was Britney Spears influencing a California anti-paparazzi law that went into effect in 2010; there was Paris Hilton being dragged into the 2008 election campaign thanks to an anti-Barack Obama ad from John McCain likening the former’s “political goals” to wanting nothing more than to become another celebrity; there was Kim Kardashian posing on a 2017 cover of Interview as Jackie Kennedy and being referred to as “America’s New First Lady”; there was Jay-Z and Beyoncé pantomiming “dirt off their shoulders” with Obama at a fundraiser they put on for the president in 2012…the list goes on. And, of course, extends to the fact that celebrities often become politicians themselves (e.g., Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger), in lieu of “merely” exerting influence outside of actual political jurisdiction. 

    The slew of merchandise available that can have anyone nominating their “fave celeb” for the job of president via the simple line “[Insert Name Here] 4 President” is also eerily telling. Take, for example, the aforementioned Paris Hilton, who responded to McCain’s campaign ad by making a parody video called “Paris For President.” It wasn’t really a parody though. For there’s no denying Paris would take the job if she thought she could. But perhaps she’s not as delusional as her former mentee Kim’s now ex-husband, Kanye, who ran for president in 2020 despite 1) having no chance in hell and 2) missing a large number of states’ deadlines to appear on the ballot as a third-party candidate. Call it another prime example of celebrity hubris.

    Just as Swift has her own form of it. Which includes picking and choosing when to get involved with “petty” political matters. And when it comes to doing anything that might jeopardize the trajectory of her tour for the sake of hotel workers, Swift has made it apparent that she’s not exactly “comrade” material. Though the union and backing politicians that tried to implore her to be are obviously aware of the  “unofficial” political position she holds within the nation’s ever-diminishing heart.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • After ICU Stay, Madonna Promises Rescheduled Tour Dates

    After ICU Stay, Madonna Promises Rescheduled Tour Dates

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    Often characterized as one of the hardest-working people in show business, Madonna worried fans in June when a serious bacterial infection sent the 64-year-old icon to the hospital just weeks before her Celebration World Tour was set to begin. The seven-month, 45-city tour was put on hold as the star recovered, but now it appears she’s ready to return to the road, as Madonna promised Friday that new dates for the concert series would be announced in coming days.

    According to longtime friend and collaborator Guy Oseary, Madonna was rushed to a New York hospital on June 24 with “a serious bacterial infection which led to a several-day stay in the ICU.”

    “We need to pause all commitments, which includes the tour,” Oseary announced on Instagram on June 28. “We will share more details with you as soon as we have them, including a new start date for the tour and for rescheduled shows.”

    The next day, Madonna was discharged from the hospital and returned home, CNN reported at the time. It wasn’t until July 10 that fans heard from the singer, when she said via Instagram that though “I did not want to disappoint anyone who bought tickets for my tour,” she needed to focus on “my health and getting stronger.” 

    “The current plan is to reschedule the North American leg of the tour and to begin in October in Europe,” she said then, news that was reiterated by promoter Live Nation in a press release the same day, with rescheduled dates to “be announced as soon as possible.”

    It appears that announcement is almost at hand, as via Instagram stories and X (formerly Twitter), Madonna announced Friday that “the re-routed tour schedule will be coming in the next few days.”

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    According to People, the new dates “will be available soon in a post on her Instagram Story.” It’s expected that under the new schedule, the first performance of the show, a live 40-year retrospective, will be on October 14 at London’s O2 Arena, with dates throughout Europe scheduled until mid-December. As of publication time, Madonna’s already-scheduled North American tour dates begin on December 13 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, with shows still planned in the U.S. and Mexico through the end of January. 

    Given that, it’s likely that the new dates will fall later in 2024, but current ticketholders need not worry. According to Live Nation, “fans are encouraged to hold onto their tickets as they will be valid for the new dates once announced,” or, as Madonna put it, she will “see you soon for a well-deserved Celebration!!”

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    Eve Batey

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  • Madonna Shares Update On Rescheduled Tour Dates Following Hospitalization

    Madonna Shares Update On Rescheduled Tour Dates Following Hospitalization

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    By Meredith B. Kile‍, ETOnline.com.
    Published:

    Madonna is on the mend and preparing to get back on the road.

    The legendary singer took to her Instagram Story on Friday to thank fans once again for their love and support following her hospitalization earlier this summer, promising that postponed dates for her “Celebration Tour” will be rescheduled soon.

    “Thank you again for your incredible Support and Patience over these past few weeks,” she wrote, over an image of a hand holding a yellow rose. “I’m happy to report that the re-routed tour schedule will be coming in the next few days! See You Soon for a well-deserved Celebration!”

    Photo: Instagram/ @Madonna

    On June 28, amid rehearsal for the “Celebration Tour”, Madonna’s manager, Guy Oseary, revealed that his client had “a several day stay in the ICU” after developing “a serious bacterial infection.”

    Days later, ET learned that Madonna had been discharged from the hospital and was home resting per her doctor’s orders. In a post to social media on July 10, the singer addressed her health and officially announced that the North American leg of the tour would be postponed.

    “Thank you for your positive energy, Prayers and words of healing and encouragement. I have felt your love,” she wrote at the time. “I’m on the road to recovery and incredibly grateful for all the blessings in my life.”

    “My focus now is my health and getting stronger and I assure you, I’ll be back with you as soon as I can!” she continued, in part. “The current plan is to reschedule the North American leg of the tour and to begin in October in Europe. I couldn’t be more grateful for your care and support.”

    Earlier this week, Madonna took to social media to share her thanks for the friends and family who were by her side throughout the health scare, particularly her children. The singer is a mom to daughter Lourdes Leon, 26, from her relationship with Carlos Leon; Rocco Ritchie, 22, from her marriage to director Guy Ritchie; David Banda, 17, Mercy James, 17, and twins Stella and Estere, 10, the four of whom she adopted.

    “Love from family and friends is the best Medicine,” she wrote on Instagram. “One month out of the hospital and I can reflect. As a Mother you can really get caught up In the needs Of your children and the seemingly endless giving……….. But when the chips were down my children really showed up for me. I saw a side to them I had never seen before. It made all the difference.”

    More From ET: 

    Madonna Pays Tribute to Her Children Who ‘Really Showed Up’ For Her Amid Health Scare

    Madonna Posts Health Update While Celebrating 40th Anniversary of Her Debut Album

    Madonna Shares Photos of Herself Following Hospitalization for Bacterial Infection

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    Melissa Romualdi

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  • Beyoncé Shouts Out ‘Queen Mother’ Madonna At Renaissance Tour Stop

    Beyoncé Shouts Out ‘Queen Mother’ Madonna At Renaissance Tour Stop

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    Beyoncé recently gave a sweet shoutout to Madonna — from one queen to another.

    In videos circulating on social media, Queen Bey was captured showing love to the “Material Girl” singer Sunday during a New Jersey stop on her Renaissance World Tour. Madonna attended the show with three of her daughters — Mercy, Stella and Estere.

    “Big shoutout to the queen,” Beyoncé said on the stage. “Queen Mother Madonna, we love you.”

    Madonna celebrated her experience at the concert in an Instagram story Tuesday. “Thank You Queen B. for your Magnificent show!” she wrote, along with a crown emoji.

    “My Daughters were enthralled! We Love you!” she continued.

    The Queen of Pop also shared photos from the concert, including one that showed her and her children posing with Beyoncé and her youngest daughter, Rumi.

    Beyoncé accepts the award for Best Dance/Electronic Music Album at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 5 in Los Angeles.

    Beyoncé and Madonna have publicly expressed their admiration for each other on several occasions recently.

    In 2022, the “Cuff It” singer released “Break My Soul (The Queens Remix),” a reworked version of Beyoncé’s hit “Break My Soul” from that June. The remix heavily samples Madonna’s 1990 classic “Vogue.”

    Shortly after the remix debuted, Madonna shared on Instagram that Beyoncé had sent her a floral arrangement and a note thanking her for her impact in the music industry.

    “Thank You, Queen. I’m So Grateful For You. You Have Opened So Many Doors For So Many Women,” Beyoncé’s note read.

    “You Are Masterpiece Genius. Thank You For Allowing Me To Sing In Your Song And Thank You For Naming The Remix!!!!”

    On Sunday, Madonna said in another Instagram post that she was “lucky” to be alive after being hospitalized in late June with what her manager called a “serious bacterial infection.”

    “One month out of the hospital and I can reflect. As a Mother you can really get caught up in the needs Of your children and the seemingly endless giving,” she wrote in a caption for the post. “But when the chips were down my children really showed up for me. I saw a side to them I had never seen before. It made all the difference.”

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  • Madonna says she is ‘lucky to be alive’ after heath scare – National | Globalnews.ca

    Madonna says she is ‘lucky to be alive’ after heath scare – National | Globalnews.ca

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    Madonna is feeling grateful.

    In a lengthy post to the legendary pop singer’s Instagram account on Monday, Madonna provided another update about her recent hospitalization from a serious bacterial infection.

    The 64-year-old musician wrote that support from her family and friends has been the “best medicine” throughout her recovery.

    She shared photos of herself with two of her children, son David Banda and daughter Lourdes Leon, to mark one month after her release from hospital.

    “As a Mother you can really get caught up In the needs Of your children and the seemingly endless giving,” she wrote. “But when the chips were down my children really showed up for me. I saw a side to them I had never seen before. It made all the difference So did the love and support from my friends.”

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    Madonna expressly thanked her talent manager and producer, Guy Oseary, for gifting her a framed Polaroid of Keith Haring wearing a jacket with Michael Jackson’s face painted on it. She said Andy Warhol took the photo.

    “I sobbed when I opened this gift because I realized how lucky I am to be alive,” Madonna continued. “And how fortunate I am to have known these people and so many others who are also gone.”

    Haring died of AIDS-related complications in 1990, while Warhol died of cardiac arrhythmia a few years prior in 1987. Fellow singer and worldwide sensation Jackson died in 2009 at age 50.

    “Thank you to all my angels who protected me and let me Stay to finish doing my work!” she concluded.

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    In the comments of her post, thousands of Madonna’s friends and admirers have shared good wishes for her health.

    American actor Sharon Stone commented on Madonna’s post, writing “Honey i was so worried,” next to a heart-eyes emoji.

    Actor Julia Garner, Brazilian television presenter Astrid Fontenelle and longtime friend Rosie O’Donnell also left messages sending Madonna love.

    Before falling ill, Madonna was set to begin a new, greatest-hits world tour. Parts of the Madonna: The Celebration Tour — including the tour’s July 15 start in Vancouver — had to be rescheduled after the singer was hospitalized.

    The tour will now begin with four nights at the O2 Arena in London starting on Oct. 14.


    Click to play video: 'Madonna confirms postponement of North American tour'


    Madonna confirms postponement of North American tour


    Madonna spent several days in the intensive care unit, according to a June 28 statement from Oseary. He said Madonna is expected to make a full recovery.

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    Madonna herself shared an earlier update when she returned home from hospital this month. The Queen of Pop told her fans she was on “the road to recovery.”

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    “My first thought when I woke up in the hospital was my children. My second thought was that I did not want to disappoint anyone who bought tickets for my tour,” Madonna wrote. “My focus is now my health and getting stronger and I can assure you, I’ll be back with you as soon as I can!”

    Madonna has six children. Her daughter Lourdes Leon is from a previous relationship with Carlos Leon, a former personal trainer and actor. She had her son Rocco Ritchie with director Guy Ritchie. Madonna also has four adopted children, David Banda, Chifundo (Mercy) James and twins Stella and Estere.

    &copy 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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    Sarah Do Couto

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  • Madonna thanks her children, feels lucky to be alive 1 month after health scare

    Madonna thanks her children, feels lucky to be alive 1 month after health scare

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    Pop music icon Madonna thanked her children and all the “angels” who protected her one month after she was hospitalized with a serious bacterial infection. 

    The singer, who was hospitalized for several days just before the start of her Celebration Tour, said in an Instagram post Sunday that “love from family and friends is the best medicine.”

    “As a Mother you can really get caught up In the needs Of your children and the seemingly endless giving,” she wrote. “But when the chips were down my children really showed up for me. I saw a side to them I had never seen before. It made all the difference.”

    Her post included a photo with her son, David Banda, and another with her daughter, Lourdes Leon.

    Madonna has six children: Lourdes, Rocco, David, Mercy and twins Estere and Stella. Madonna had Lourdes in 1996 with Carlos Leon. She had Rocco in 2000 with Guy Ritchie. David, Mercy, Estere and Stella were all adopted from the African nation of Malawi.

    The singer also thanked her manager, Guy Oseary. She said Oseary gifted her a picture of Keith Haring taken by Andy Warhol. In the picture, Haring, seen from behind, is wearing a jacket with Michael Jackson’s face painted on it.

    “I sobbed when I opened this gift because I realized how lucky I am to be alive,” she wrote. “And how fortunate I am to have known these people and so many others who are also gone.”

    In late June, Oseary announced that Madonna would need to halt her Celebration Tour, which was scheduled to begin July 15, because of the bacterial infection. The North American leg of the Celebration Tour will be rescheduled, Madonna said. The European leg of the tour will begin in October. 

    “I assure you, I’ll be back with you as soon as I can,” Madonna said earlier in July.

    Aliza Chasan

    Aliza Chasan is a digital producer at 60 Minutes and CBS News.

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  • 40 Years of ‘Madonna’

    40 Years of ‘Madonna’

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    “Unlike the others, I’d do anything / I’m not the same, I have no shame,” a 24-year-old Madonna proclaimed on “Burning Up,” the second single from her eponymous debut album. At the time, the world didn’t know just how true that was about the woman who’d go from shilling her singles on the dance floor to becoming the biggest, most influential pop star of all time. Whether performing an intimate acoustic set or entertaining thousands, Madonna is not and has never been like “the others.” If anything, the others have been trying to emulate her since she burst on the scene with Madonna on July 27, 1983, forever changing pop music. Through a mix of moxie, talent, and sheer force of will, she ascended to the highest echelon of music history—inventing the idea of the modern pop star and becoming the best-selling female recording artist of all time. There was Elvis. There was Michael Jackson. And there’s still Madonna.

    And boy, have we seen the multitudes behind her artistry over the course of her four-decade career. What makes Madonna remarkable is her perpetual reinvention. From her penitent Catholic Like a Virgin era to the Kabbalah-embracing Confessions on a Dance Floor moment—she laid the blueprint for aspiring female pop stars to continue evolving. Much ink has been spilled over the myriad ways Lady Gaga has seemed to model her career after Madonna’s (a comparison Gaga has refuted). And it wouldn’t be a stretch to say Taylor Swift owes the entire concept of having various “eras” to Madonna’s legacy. But before you can reinvent yourself, you have to prove that you’re someone worth paying attention to in the first place. And 40 years ago to the day, Madonna did just that.

    Cut to New York City in the early ’80s, when a 20-something Madonna, originally Madonna Louise Ciccone of Bay City, Michigan, was just a downtown girl with a dream. After trying her hand at modern dance and fronting two bands, Breakfast Club and Emmy, Madonna decided to strike out on her own. Legend has it that her big break came when she tried to get DJ Mark Kamins to play her demo, and then met Sire Records’ Michael Rosenblatt during a night out at Danceteria. Rosenblatt introduced her to Sire founder Seymour Stein, who signed her, and thus Madonna was born—well, almost.

    She still had yet to fully establish herself in the music industry. Enter Madonna, her self-titled debut album. Making Madonna was not necessarily an easy process, but the trials and tribulations underscored something that the world would soon discover about the once and future queen of pop: She’s always known exactly what she wants. Case in point: After recording Madonna, she wasn’t happy with the finished product, and brought in John “Jellybean” Benitez, a relatively unknown DJ, to assist (a story that her main producer on the album, Reggie Lucas, refuted). A risky move, but she knew exactly what she was going for with her music and how to get there.

    It’s no wonder that the album became a slow-burning hit when it was released on July 27, 1983. Madonna slowly crept up the charts, debuting on the Billboard 200 at number 190 and peaking at number eight on that same chart in 1984, around a year after its release, having sold over 2.8 million records. Critics and fans alike were taken by Madonna’s seamless integration of disco and pop beats, with critic Don Shewey writing for Rolling Stone that Madonna was an “irresistible invitation to dance.” Of course, not everyone loved Madonna out of the gate—Robert Christgau of The Village Voice called the aspiring popstar a “shamelessly ersatz blonde” with “a shamelessly ersatz sound that’s tighter than her tummy”—but even her biggest critics couldn’t deny the confidence of her catchy debut.

    Listening to the album 40 years later, her confidence and self-assuredness are hard to ignore. It’s nearly impossible not to bop along to the funky synth of “Lucky Star,” the album’s first track. Or lose yourself in the recursive choruses on songs like “Borderline” which plays at the double entendre inherent in the title. Or get swept up in the joyous percussiveness of “Holiday,” the album’s most enduring song. It’s evident that Madonna was in complete control of her artistry, even from the jump. “You better think of me,” she demands on one earworm-y hook. And we would for the next 40 years.

    In his review of Madonna for All Music, critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine seemed to figure her out immediately. “All of the elements may not be particularly impressive on their own—the arrangement, synth, and drum programming are fairly rudimentary,” he admits. “But taken together, it’s utterly irresistible.” This remains true of both Madonna the album—sublime in its simplicity—and Madonna the performer. She has always been more than the sum of her parts and her mystique is the result of what she’s done with those parts, making herself the very personification of a pop star by simply being herself. She knows precisely who she is, what she likes, and what she loathes (note to self: Never send Madonna hydrangeas).

    This past year has been a difficult one for the queen of pop. In January, she kicked off the year by announcing her Celebration world tour. But in June, Madonna landed in the hospital with a bacterial infection, forcing her to postpone the North American leg of the tour, a total of 41 shows. “My focus now is my health and getting stronger and I assure you, I’ll be back with you as soon as I can,” she said in a statement. “I’m on the road to recovery and incredibly grateful for all the blessings in my life.”

    Of course, there’s so much more to Madonna than the music. There’s the movie stardom, the celebrity, the controversies, the fashion, but the music is where it all began. On July 27, 1983, it was impossible to know that Madonna would become forever synonymous with pop music, that indelible pop hits like “Like a Virgin,” “Material Girl,” “Like a Prayer,” “Vogue,” and “Hung Up” were in her future. But what was evident even four decades ago was that a new force to be reckoned with had burst onto the scene, fully formed and ready to take over. And you can still hear why: On Madonna, she laid the groundwork for all the iterations to come. She may have been a once-in-a-generation lucky star, but we’re the luckiest by far.

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    Chris Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “Mind Your Business” Has the “Piece of Me” Tone That Keeps Britney Spears Firmly Associated With the 00s

    “Mind Your Business” Has the “Piece of Me” Tone That Keeps Britney Spears Firmly Associated With the 00s

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    For those who were worried that the 2000s might never come back authentically (instead having to settle for ersatz imitations like the makeup aesthetic on Euphoria), Britney Spears, the decade’s foremost representative, has decided to return with non-remake music (no shade at “Hold Me Closer”). Though, depending on who you ask, it’s some “fake version” of her still being controlled by members of her family and/or her new husband, Sam Asghari (or maybe even her gay bestie du moment, Cade Hudson). In short, that she hasn’t “returned” at all. Worse still, that the vocals on “Mind Your Business” are recycled from what Myah Marie, a singer who recorded many of the demos on 2013’s Britney Jean (which will.i.am executive produced), already did.

    And yes, 2013 was the last time Spears and will.i.am collaborated via “It Should Be Easy,” another EDM-centric ditty for Britney Jean that was released as the final single. However, “Big Fat Bass,” from 2011’s Femme Fatale, was not. Perhaps because both Brit and Will knew they would have something better to offer in their 2012 collaboration, “Scream & Shout” (from which “Mind Your Business” takes many sonic cues). A song wherein Britney repurposes (most of) her immortal 2007 line, “It’s Britney, bitch.” This hailing from “Gimme More,” the lead single on her fifth album, Blackout. The one her then-paparazzo boyfriend, Adnan Ghalib, says she wrote portions of on a Starbucks napkin (“iconic,” as Paris Hilton would remark). And it was “Piece of Me” that came after “Gimme More,” both songs exuding a tongue-in-cheek irreverence that showcased just how little Spears could bother to give a shit about her public image anymore. One that had been tarnished and tainted into oblivion by that point already anyway. After all, the head-shaving incident had occurred in February ‘07, along with her lip-syncing flop of a VMA performance in September, making “Piece of Me” an ideal track to unleash later that year in November. 

    It is the spirit and sound of “Mind Your Business” that echoes, once more, Spears’ “fuck you” defiance on “Piece of Me.” And yet, at the same time, it has to be said that the frozen in time quality of Spears’ sound on “Mind Your Business” makes one wonder if she is truly still “relevant” or simply catering to what longtime fans continue to want from her. We won’t use the term “cashing in,” for that’s a bit too crass in this case. Britney, after all, has been given the tacit sanction to cash in all she wants after being exploited for so many years. But, in all those years of being “handled,” forced to do things without being allowed to put in much creative input of her own, did she become trapped in the age she was effectively enslaved at (twenty-six) and in (2008)? Is that, in the end, what “Mind Your Business” embodies about Spears returning to the music business as a free agent? 

    It was Taylor Swift who once said, “There’s this thing people say about celebrities, that they’re frozen at the age they got famous.” In Spears’ scenario, not only does that hold true (based on her perpetually childlike nature), but it also applies to the age she got frozen at before losing her agency. The age she last recognized herself as, well herself. Not to mention one of the last instances where she had more control over the music she released (even if it wasn’t enough control to get Original Doll out there). So it’s only natural to want to return to that state (as natural as Britney wanting to revert to being twelve years old on her forty-first birthday). “Mind Your Business,” for precisely that reason, sounds like it could be straight outta 2007 far more than it sounds like “fresh content.” The same goes for the puzzling cover art, which makes some of the half-assed PicsArt offerings Lana Del Rey has been known to “create” look positively effort-laden. Where “Mind Your Business” is concerned, the image for the single is confirmed to feature a photo of Spears (or at least her face) from 2003 taken by Mark Liddell (from the same photoshoot Spears favors using an image from for her Instagram profile). Which, again, speaks to all the ways that everything about this single seems to want to freeze Spears in that decade. A freezing that appears to be of her own making. 

    And, as alluded to before, it might not technically even be “fresh content,” with the possibility that it was first “generated” in the Britney Jean era and “laid down” by Myah Marie. A woman, incidentally, who once uploaded a parody of “Piece of Me” called “Don’t Take the Kids From Me.” Removed at some point after it was initially posted in 2011, the purported lyrics doing a sendup of Spears’ original song include, “I was miss preteen wet dream when I was seventeen/I lip-sang and pretended to sing/Got breast implants and a wedding ring/Then I flashed all my privates, they put pictures in the magazines/Don’t take the kids from me, don’t take the kids from me.” Then there was also the verse, “I started hittin’ the bottle/Lost all the titles of role model/Hitched in Vegas, forgot it/Did all the things that I wanted/And with a kid in the car/Don’t need a seat belt for protection/Don’t take the kids from me.” For a parody that came out in 2011, it has all the crisp mean-spiritedness that was plaguing Spears in ‘07-‘08. A time that would have also prompted Spears to repeat, “Mind your B, mind your B, mind your B” (the “B” obviously playing on the first initial of her infamous name—so infamous, in fact, that she often gets the “icon treatment” of being referred to by the mononym of “Britney”). 

    To that point, as Spears enters a new decade as a liberated woman, “Mind Your Business” feels decidedly “old hat” (though she did have some fire flat caps and fedoras in the 00s). By the same token, everything about it is “giving the people what they want”: 2000s hauntology. Although no one really wants something truly “new” from Spears, her uncanny ability to deliver the same themes and sounds from the 00s doesn’t quite work as well within the context of now, an era when, sure, she’s still occasionally “stalked” by paparazzi, but nowhere near the swarming level that was happening to her in 2007. To boot, those magazines that could once make so much coin off tracking her movements are no longer selling the way they used to. And websites like TMZ and Perez Hilton certainly have nothing close to their 00s-level influence. So, who then, is “Mind Your Business” really speaking to? Other than a need to dust off the time period in which Spears can last recall herself at her “best.” Or maybe she’s redirecting some of her ire toward the comments section (which she’s turned off at this point), where trolls abound in innovatively hateful ways. 

    And so it is that “Piece of Me” lyrics like, “Don’t matter if I step on the scene/Or sneak away to the Philippines/They still gon’ put pictures of my derrière in the magazine/You want a piece of me?/You want a piece of me” transmogrify into “Mind Your Business” lyrics like, “Uptown, downtown, everywhere I turn around/Hollywood, London, snap-snap is the sound/Paparazzi shot me, I am the economy [the “Britney economy” being the name of the entire career that cropped up out of documenting her in the aughts]/Follow me, follow me, follow me/Follow, follow me.” That last line having new meaning in the social media epoch. 

    This perpetual feeling of being hunted (like Diana) might still hold true for Spears in the form of the conspiracy theories surrounding her (even more so in the wake of the conservatorship) that make people obsessed with knowing her “real” location (or why she hasn’t gone anywhere at all). But it’s no longer as resonant as it was in the mid-aughts when she could scarcely walk down the street without risking some version of an assault. Indeed, it was her inability to do so that eventually led to the first major anti-paparazzi law getting passed after they ambushed her while she was being escorted by ambulance to the hospital in 2008. 

    Of course, a song like “Mind Your Business” exemplifies the great dichotomy of fame. Of how, on the one hand, a celebrity craves the kind of attention that secures them millions (or even billions of dollars), yet on the other, they just want to be treated like a “regular person.” A.k.a. have the financial/influence-related benefits of fame, along with anonymity and privacy in their “off” hours. Alas, being famous is a 24/7 occupation (but at least the pay grade somewhat matches that grueling schedule more accordingly than it does for others). 

    Britney once likened her life to a “Circus” and having all eyes on her in the center of the ring. To some extent, that’s made her world-weary. To another, it’s part of the “I’m paid attention to, therefore I am” mentality that many celebrities can’t ever shake once they find their fame. And, talking of circuses, the intro to “Mind Your Business” has a very circus-y, zany type of sound—with a sinister undertone that the Joker could probably get on board with. For that’s what belies the “glitz” and “glamor” of fame: a seedy, nightmarish underbelly. It then concludes with a choir-y repetition of “mind your B.” This after the final verse delivered by Spears that somewhat unfortunately echoes another 00s song, Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out?” Namely, when Spears, likely referring to her current coterie of canines, warns, “If they don’t get up out my face, then send the dogs out (woof)/Five seconds and then the dogs come out (woof)/You know what happens when the dogs come out/None of your business-ness.” The playful nonsensicality of it harkens back to Spears’ tone on “Work Bitch” (among the few standout tracks from Britney Jean) when she says, “I bring the treble, don’t mean to trouble ya/I make it bubble up, call me the bubbler/I am the bad bitch, the bitch that you’re lovin’ up.”

    Elsewhere, it’s not as though will.i.am’s lyrics do much to update the sound of the song either, with Big Brother-y nods like, “They watchin’ me, they watchin’ ya/They got eyes up in the sky/So pose for that camera” channeling Snoop Dogg and Justin Timberlake’s 2005 single, “Signs,” on which the former raps, “Now you stepping wit a G, from Los Angeles/Where the helicopters got cameras/Just to get a glimpse of our Chucks/And our khakis and our bouncer cars.” Much as they tried to get a glimpse of Britney doing just about anything banal (usually leaving Starbucks)…circa the 00s.

    In the present, Spears still refers to unflattering paparazzi photos she sees of herself (though it’s hard to say where), as though despising, more than anything, not being able to sustain the image she has of herself as that twenty-two-year-old from 2003 (hence, the picture chosen for the “Mind Your Business” cover art). Madonna, too, has a similar problem, but in contrast to Britney’s idol, there seems, here, to be a lack of any attempt at reinvention (both image-wise and in terms of experimenting with a different sound), so much as a leaning further into the decade that made her an icon in the first place. Because maybe, in the end, the early and mid-aughts are the last time she can remember, like so many of us, feeling any sense of “normalcy.” For, as skewed as her (and humanity’s) “normal” was back then, it’s undoubtedly even more oblique now. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • 7/10: CBS Evening News

    7/10: CBS Evening News

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    7/10: CBS Evening News – CBS News


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