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Tag: Madonna

  • The Obsession With Marking Time Through Pop Culture

    The Obsession With Marking Time Through Pop Culture

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    In the past several years, it’s become more and more common to “celebrate” (or mourn) the passing of milestone anniversaries for films and albums. This year, the sudden trend has evolved into also taking note of which songs were released, specifically, twenty-five years ago. A.k.a. singles that came out in 1998. Some of the more pronounced callouts in media have been Madonna’s “Ray of Light,” Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time,” Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing),” Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine,” Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody?,” Cher’s “Believe,” Christina Aguilera’s “Reflection” and Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic.”

    In 1998’s defense, of course, it was a particularly momentous year for music. And, as usual, it has to be said, Madonna was the one to set the tone for mainstreaming the genre of the moment—electronica—by releasing Ray of Light in March. Cher would follow auditory suit (likely to Madonna’s eye roll) in October of that year with the release of “Believe” and the album of the same name. Where Madonna stopped at suffusing her music with William Orbit-helmed electronica sounds, Cher pushed further by being among the first to incorporate Auto-Tune in a manner antithetical to its original purpose (which was to disguise being off-key). With her unapologetically warped voice singing the “I Will Survive” of the 90s, Cher rang in a new era of musical manipulation.

    Elsewhere, Brandy and Monica relied on the tried-and-true duet method for their chart success (as did Mariah and Whitney with The Prince of Egypt’s “When You Believe,” for that matter—it was an animated movie soundtrack kind of year, what with Xtina’s “Reflection” being from the Mulan Soundtrack, to boot). But perhaps what stood out more than anything about “The Boy Is Mine” was its totally implausible video, wherein we’re supposed to believe The Boy (Mekhi Phifer) was able to carry off the logistical nightmare of fucking two women who lived next door to each other in the same building.

    “…Baby One More Time,” needless to say, stood out for its sound and visual, with Britney notoriously catering to every man’s Nabokovian fetish for schoolgirls by dressing in a Catholic school uniform throughout most of the Nigel Dick-directed video. It was this moment in pop culture history that perhaps signaled the biggest sea change of all from one decade into another. For, although Britney burst onto the scene (and caused men’s pants to burst in so doing) in the 90s, she was a decidedly 00s pop star. The leading example of what that entailed sonically and visually, with the likes of Jessica Simpson, Willa Ford, Mandy Moore, Hilary Duff and, later, even Taylor Swift emulating what Britney had perfected. That is to say, being a “pop tart.” Prancing around in sequined leotards with fishnets and singing “subtly” about sex. Because, in 1998, the United States was still in love with the idea of losing more of its innocence, a desire immediately established in January of that year, when the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke. For not since “Dick” Nixon had the nation been forced to see how little trust they should place in the “highest office in the world.” And all because, like most men, he couldn’t resist a blow J.

    So as America continued to deflower itself in a post-internet existence that was further punctuated by the release of The Matrix in 1999, the music and the videos that came with it seemed to reflect this period in American pop culture history more than any other. Even Next’s “Too Close” was a 1998 hit that talked exclusively about a man’s issues with concealing his boner because a woman dared to get “too close” to him. Therefore, “asking for it,” etc. (or, “You know I can’t help it,” as Next insists). This prompting Vee of Koffee Brown to demand, “Step back, you’re dancin’ kinda close/I feel a little poke comin’ through on you.” It’s a song that encapsulates many a junior high dance of the day, when “freaking” was all the rage among the preadolescent set.

    As mentioned, more than the songs that were about sexual awakenings/yearnings, the music of 1998 was dead-set on innovating. This included the aforementioned “Are You That Somebody?” and “Intergalactic,” as well as Fatboy Slim’s “The Rockafeller Skank,” all awash in sounds that would become a retrospective “time stamp” for the era. In general, that’s part of the reason why many people so love to mark time through pop culture. More than one’s own personal life (with memories triggered by certain songs), it is far likelier to offer a historical snapshot of a particular epoch lost to the quicksand of minutes and then years and then decades. The obsession to mark time as a whole, however, stems not from nostalgia, so much as being part of a capitalistic society in which time is literally money.

    If you look up, “Why do people keep track of time passing?” one of the top answers is extremely telling: “Time tracking is key to understanding how you spend your time, personally and in business. It is key to productivity, insight and a healthy workflow. This is equally important to everybody in an organization, or society.” In other words, if you aren’t productive within the capitalistic machine (complete with the purchasing power to support entertainment industries), then what good are you? Do you even exist? That pop culture is also a buttress for capitalism, thus, makes it inextricably linked to that system. Further solidified by how these anniversaries of album and song releases can provide the catalyst for re-releases that will prompt fans and even casual listeners alike to buy the same product again, whether digitally or as a result of being enticed by some “collector’s edition”-type presentation.

    Underlying capitalistic-driven motivations aside, maybe the reason why some are especially gung-ho about marking the passage of time this year by looking back on 1998 in music is because it was arguably the last time a pioneering shift occurred in said medium. With the dawning of the 2000s, hauntology would come to dominate the musical landscape more than anywhere else, complete with musicians like Amy Winehouse and Arctic Monkeys sounding as though they were pulled straight out of the 1960s rather than the twenty-first century. The same could also later be said of such acts as The Raveonettes, Duffy, Adele and Lana Del Rey.

    And when next year rolls around to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of songs like Smash Mouth’s “All Star,” Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” Bloodhound Gang’s “The Bad Touch,” Sugar Ray’s “Every Morning” and Crazy Town’s “Butterfly,” we’ll perhaps more fully understand the pinpointable instant when things started to take a dive (compounded by 1999 also being the year Napster was launched).

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Taylor’s Four-Pack (Of “New” Songs)

    Taylor’s Four-Pack (Of “New” Songs)

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    In 2022, Madonna stated the obvious with regard to the mention of potentially selling her music catalogue: “Ownership is everything.” In other words, there’s no price tag she would accept to give up control of her music. Taylor Swift understands that better than anyone as she continues the daunting task of re-recording all the albums she made while under contract with Big Machine Records. At fifteen years old, the caveat of letting the label own her masters as part of the signing deal probably seemed like a small price to pay for fame. Over a decade later, as one of the most famous pop stars in the world, it suddenly felt like a huge mistake. Especially when music manager Scooter Braun bought Big Machine Records in 2019, thereby claiming ownership over Swift’s prized masters.

    The only “negotiation” Swift was offered in terms of buying them back was to agree to re-sign with Big Machine and “earn” one album back per every album recorded under the new contract. That’s fucked-up, Shylock-type shit, obviously, and Swift vehemently turned down the so-called deal in favor of signing with Republic Records, who offered a contract that allowed her to own all of her master recordings going forward. Without Swift on “his side,” Braun then sold the masters to a private equity firm called Shamrock Holdings (which, yes, sounds totally made up, complete with the word “sham” in it). And now, here we are two re-recordings (Fearless and Red) of six later, with Swift still managing to get her digs in at the (Big) Machine by releasing re-recorded versions of even her standalone singles from The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond. Luckily, this wasn’t the only “celebratory” marker of launching her Eras Tour on March 17th (because one supposes she loves an Irish boy too). She also offered a re-recording of “If This Was A Movie,” a bonus track on the deluxe edition of Speak Now (the likely next re-recording, as all but confirmed by the requisite Easter eggs Swift likes to dole out to salivating fans). But, better still, is a truly unreleased song from Lover called “All of the Girls You Loved Before.”

    Released too late to use in the soundtrack for To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, “All of the Girls You Loved Before” could easily have been written from the perspective of Lara Jean (Lana Condor) after finally getting the boy she was obsessing over for so long to see that it was her he should be with (this smacking of another Taylor single, “You Belong With Me”). Rather than playing into the 00s school of thought on how “other women” should be treated (read: with disdain—e.g., Pink’s “Stupid Girls” or Marina and the Diamonds’ “Girls”) by their “competitor,” Swift wields the “correct” approach (a.k.a. the publicly sanctioned one we’re all supposed to adhere to now—Hailey Bieber take heed) with regard to seeing these previous women as “gifts.” Silver linings and all that rot. Because, while he was out being a himbo, it gave him the chance to understand what he did and did not want in a woman. Or, as Taylor puts it, “All of the girls you loved before/Made you the one I’ve fallen for/Every dead-end street [a euphemism for “dead-end vagina”] led you straight to me.” It has a certain “invisible string” slant to it, to be sure. Swift also speaks of her own patchy past with men as she adds, “When I think of all the makeup/Fake love out on the town/Cryin’ in the bathroom [a line Olivia Rodrigo also riffs on in “good 4 u”] for some dude/Whose name I cannot remember now.” In effect, everyone else was just a pile of trash that allowed Swift and Joe Alwyn to climb to the top of the heap together.

    Another notable quality about “All of the Girls You Loved Before” is that it’s directly in contrast to the message of “Hits Different” (not to be confused with SZA’s “Hit Different”), a bonus track from the Target edition of Midnights. For, apparently, three years after Lover, Swift was in a less welcoming headspace toward her “love object’s” additional dalliances by noting, “I pictured you with other girls in love/Then threw up on the street.” But hey, people are so many colliding emotions at once that Swift can hardly be blamed for inconsistency in sentiments on the matter of dealing with “other hoes.”

    As for her Hunger Games re-recordings, “Eyes Open” wasn’t the best track to resuscitate if Swift was hoping for a reminder of her musical prowess. Mainly because the track has a decidedly Avril Lavigne tinge, correlatingly saturated in the 00s sound of Rock (said in the “italicized, capital R” sort of way back then despite it being the lamest sound ever), even though it was originally released in 2012. Another re-recording from the same soundtrack, “Safe & Sound,” stands the test of time slightly better. Perhaps because it was given the prompt to embody “what Appalachian music would sound like in three hundred years.” Swift, a sucker for being part of any movie soundtrack related to Appalachia (hear also: “Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing), thusly responded with sparse instrumentation as she harmonizes with Joy Williams and John Paul White (a.k.a. The Civil Wars), “Just close your eyes/You’ll be all right/Come morning light/You and I will be safe and sound.” A likely story.

    The fourth song of the “Eras Tour celebration pack,” “If This Was A Movie (Taylor’s Version),” is awash in the country twang Swift was still fond of employing back in 2010. Considered a “fast-paced ballad,” Swift urges, “Come back, come back, come back to me/Like you would, you would if this was a movie/Stand in the rain outside ’til I came out.” That last line, of course romanticizing the stalker-y behavior of Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) in Say Anything (minus the rain…though there is a separate scene of him being drenched as he pines over Diane Court [Ione Skye] while talking on a pay phone). She pleads again (desperate much?), “Come back, come back, come back to me/Like you could, you could if you just said you’re sorry/I know that we could work it out.” To the point of Swift insisting it would all be okay if the boy in question just apologized, she was sure to state during opening night at Glendale, Arizona’s State Farm Stadium, “Sort of a running, recurring theme in my music is I love to explain to men how to apologize. I just love it, it’s kind of my thing. I love to tell them step-by-step: here’s how simple this is to fix things if you just follow these simple steps I’m laying out for you in a three-minute song. I just love the idea of men apologizing.” A fantasy that certainly gets plenty of play in “If This Was A Movie” (incidentally, Steven Spielberg’s new theme song).

    Although the track appeared as a bonus on Speak Now, it is being promoted as part of The More Fearless (Taylor’s Version) Chapter. Fans have speculated that because “If This Was A Movie” stands alone as the only track on Speak Now not to have been written entirely by Swift, she wants to section it apart from the re-recording of an album that will resultantly be solely written by her. But that seems like a very megalomaniacal reason. Then again, you don’t become the first female to sell out a show at every stadium from State Farm to SoFi without perhaps having a touch of the megalomaniac’s control freak nature.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • It’s Raining Heteronormativity: Miley Cyrus Gets Wet With “River” Video

    It’s Raining Heteronormativity: Miley Cyrus Gets Wet With “River” Video

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    One thing about Miley Cyrus is that she wants you to know she’s down for whatever and, accordingly, whoever. Among those who would like everyone to be aware of her “pansexuality.” And yet, in the years since that grand announcement, we’ve seen Cyrus dabble primarily in men (more to the point, men who look like they were sculpted out of marble). Oh yes, and then there was a brief dalliance with Kaitlynn Carter (long after an even briefer one with Stella Maxwell). So, yes, like the song from Katy Perry she inspired, “I Kissed A Girl,” Cyrus’ “leanings” toward the female sex feel primarily geared toward the thrill of the “novelty.” And while there’s nothing wrong with Cyrus playing mostly straight, it’s just that, by putting a big pansexuality sign over herself, she’s “unwittingly” (apparently) placed a larger responsibility on her shoulders to convey imagery and messaging that isn’t so, well, traditional.

    While it’s still “progressive” for a woman to show herself being pleasured by multiple men (a jarring thought for the patriarchy who want the concept of harems all to themselves), there is nothing new or exciting in what Cyrus is showcasing throughout a video that is, theoretically, meant to be drowning in sexual innuendo. That video, of course, being “River,” the second single from Endless Summer Vacation, and one that is in direct conflict with “Flowers” (save for the correlation that water does tend to make flowers “bud” and flourish). But that’s all in keeping with the many mixed messages on the record, all of which speak to the “pan” personality of a Sagittarius (unless you’re of the fairly consistent and straightforward varietal of the sign à la “The Archer” known as Taylor Swift).

    Shot in black and white, the video channels elements of Madonna’s “Cherish” (providing far more wetness, to be honest) and “Vogue,” but most especially her 2012 single, “Girl Gone Wild.” In it, she is surrounded by muscular men aplenty as well. The difference is, they aren’t so fucking butch. More to the point, the members of Ukrainian boy band Kazaky are among the male backup dancers wearing tight pants and heels as Madonna plays up the notion that boys can be girls gone wild, too (particularly when they’re gay). No stranger to less intelligently emulating Madonna, in fact, it’s a wonder Cyrus didn’t decide to call the song “Like A River.”

    As the video opens with “impressions” of Cyrus, followed by her silhouette (at one point in “superhero” pose), we then get a glimpse of just how much she looks like a young(er) Tish Cyrus (“must be somethin’ in the water/Know that I’m my mother’s daughter”), after which the camera pans out to reveal Cyrus on a runway-type stage with a bevy of spotlights on her. The decided “backstage”/“behind the scenes” photoshoot vibe of it all is compounded when Cyrus then appears against a giant white backdrop where she proceeds to mug for the unseen camera as she offers, “You could be the one/Have the honor of my babies/Hope they have your eyes and that crooked smile.” Not exactly a compliment/talk about using someone as a glorified sperm bank for bequeathing the desired attributes to one’s progeny.

    With regard to the lost potential for a concept centered around the “WAP” allusions of “River,” Cyrus places the most “gaze”-oriented emphasis on the male body (as they start to slowly creep in around the one-minute, twenty-second mark) rather than the female one (apart from her own, of course). Again, this indicates noticeably opting out of representing any other women in the mix that would indicate and make good on her pan(or at least bi)sexuality declaration. What’s more, because it’s the female “organ” that actually gets wet (subsequently providing wetness to the appendage that enters it) with river-esque proportions, it seems a waste that Cyrus should avert the viewer’s eyes from the very thing she’s actually referring to, even if it was done in a “subtle” manner (as subtle as Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion). Granted, male bodies like these are sure to incur the “river” “down there” that Cyrus is talking about…for straight women (and gay men alike). To drive home that point, Cyrus goes full-tilt “it’s raining men” (meets that famed scene from Flashdance) by the end of the video.

    All of that said, it’s rather undeniable that the song itself had far more potential to be “played with” than what Cyrus provides here. As for the defense/saying, “There’s beauty in simplicity,” that’s not quite the case with the visuals for “River,” which could have shown far more (to give another Madonna nod) girl(s) gone wild. Complete with them doing so amid the presence of an actual series of renowned rivers. Even the L.A. one, to be ironic…considering its near-constant state of dryness.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Endless Summer Vacation Shows Off Miley Cyrus’ Internal War Between the Carefree, Independent Spirit and the Hopeless Romantic

    Endless Summer Vacation Shows Off Miley Cyrus’ Internal War Between the Carefree, Independent Spirit and the Hopeless Romantic

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    Although Miley Cyrus set the tone for her new record, Endless Summer Vacation, with the sologamist anthem that is “Flowers” (the track that also kicks off the album), there are many incohesive statements regarding love and attachment on what marks Cyrus’ eight studio effort. Billed as a so-called love letter to Los Angeles (though those moments feel few and far between), Cyrus isn’t exactly giving Lana Del Rey a run for her money on paying homage to that milieu. And it does bear noting that both transplants have seemed to make L.A. into their “forever home.” Though, when it comes to a Sagittarius like Miley, “forever” can be a more laughable word than it is to most.

    Cyrus’ Sagittarian steez indeed takes hold of the entire album. Not just in how schizophrenic the emotions expressed can be, but also the sonic landscape itself. For if listeners thought “Flowers” was going to be a consistent benchmark, they would immediately realize otherwise via the tonal shift that takes place on “Jaded,” a twangy semi-ballad in the spirit of “Angels Like You”—complete with the part where Miley takes the blame for a relationship’s inability to work out. So it is that she declares, “I’m sorry that you’re jaded/I could’ve taken you places/You’re lonely now and I hate it/I’m sorry that you’re jaded.” But not sorry enough to have been a little less “cuckoo,” as the opposite sex so often likes to brand women that are too “emotional.” Still, Cyrus isn’t the only one responsible for the “misdeeds” that led to the end of this whirlwind, reminding, “You’re not even willin’ to look at your part/You just jump in the car and head down to thе bar ’til you’re blurry/Don’t know when to stop, so you take it too far/I don’t know whеre you are and I’m left in the dark ’til I’m worried.” This echoes fellow L.A. lover Billie Eilish’s sentiments on “Happier Than Ever” when she sings, “You call me again, drunk in your Benz/Driving home under the influence/You scared me to death, but I’m wasting my breath/‘Cause you only listen to your fucking friends.” The bottom line appearing to be: men can’t deal with their emotions, so they drown them in the numbing agent of alcohol.

    The theme switches up sonically and lyrically again on “Rose Colored Lenses,” with Cyrus ruminating on the promise of a new relationship to an alt-rock tune. The promise of it, of course, depends on keeping the rose-colored glasses on (hence, name-checking the album’s title in this particular song). This usually involves never leaving the sex haze of the room (“Never wanna leave this room”) one is in with that new person. Perhaps like her own version of “La Vie En Rose,” Cyrus suggests, with the benefit of her glasses on, “We could stay like this forever, lost in wonderland/With our head above the clouds, falling stupid like we’re kids/Wearing rose-colored lenses, let’s just play pretend/Wearing rose-colored lenses, pretend we’ll never end.” Sooner or later, unfortunately, the door to the sex room has to open, and real life has to creep in. If for no other reason than to wash the sheets (“Somehow the bedsheets are dirty/Like sticky sweet lemonade”).

    Yet real life still doesn’t quite creep in on “Thousand Miles” featuring Brandi Carlile. Ideal for soundtracking the life of Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) on Poker Face, Cyrus ramps up her twang again to sing, “I’m not always right, but still, I ain’t got time for what went wrong/Where I end up, I don’t really care/I’m out of my mind, but still, I’m holding on like a rolling stone/A thousand miles from anywhere.” A harmonica instrumental toward the end punctuates the “ramblin’ man” vibe of the song before leading into “You.” Sadly released too late to serve as the theme song for the show of the same name, “You” was already premiered during Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party. Another stripped-down, mid-tempo kind of ballad that the former Hannah Montana has perfected over the years, Cyrus insists, “I want that late-night sweet magic, that forever-lasting/I’m kind of crazy ’cause that’s how you make me/I don’t need Jesus ’cause, baby, you saved me, I’m done/But only if it’s with you, oh.” It’s the type of song one could also imagine being in a 90s romance road movie (maybe even, sardonically, Natural Born Killers).

    The transition from “AM” to “PM” that Cyrus mentioned while discussing the album for the Disney+ special, Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions), occurs with “Handstand.” It instantly demarcates itself as the most auditorily divergent song on Endless Summer Vacation. And yes, “Handstand” also possess a few Del Rey connections. For one, the spoken word poetry sound of her intro that harkens back to Del Rey reciting T. S. Eliot on Honeymoon’s “Burnt Norton,” and, for another, flexing about being able to do a handstand while Del Rey recently admitted to far less agility via the lyric, “I haven’t done a cartwheel since I was nine.” So one imagines a handstand is out of the question as well. Cyrus’ commitment to fitness, however, has never been more apparent than it is with this album’s promotion. Not just in the Madonna-reminiscent (see: the image from the Sex book where she’s suspended in mid-air naked) cover, but in a video like “Flowers,” wherein she shows off her physical prowess as though to say to anyone who ever thought it was a good idea to leave her: look what you’re missing. To that end, Cyrus always comes across as the one to leave first, following the adage, “Leave before you’re left.” And, if possible, do a handstand on the way out. Perhaps some of the reason behind the uniquely different sound on this track comes from Harmony Korine collaborating on the lyrics (likely the spoken ones). But the following bravado-oozing lines feel like they’re all Miley: You’re questioning the science, ’cause you don’t understand/How I’m doing what I’m doing in a fucking handstand/You found it so impressive that I do it again/My other one is busy, so I use my left hand.”

    Shifting sounds like shifting gears (a car analogy for an “L.A. record,” after all), “River,” the second single from Endless Summer Vacation, switches things up after that brief foray into the auditory equivalent of a drug trip. “River” is instead awash in the 80s-inspired beats that characterized Bangerz (hip hop appropriating though it might be), “River” is as sexual as one would expect from a Sag like Cyrus, who can’t help but use the word to her innuendo-making advantage. This includes lyrics like, “Heart beats so loud that it’s drownin’ me out/Livin’ in an April shower/You’re pourin’ down, baby, drown me out.” If it was slightly more seductive-sounding, it could easily pass for lyrics on Madonna’s “Where Life Begins” from Erotica, during which she sensually notes, “I’m glad you brought your raincoat/I think it’s beginning to rain.” Splooge, cum, orgasm—get it? Anyway, Miley’s in good company now for making such overt allusions using water.

    With James Blake and Sia joining in on the songwriting credits for “Violet Chemistry,” there feels like a bit of tonal influence from both as Cyrus creates something like a thematic follow-up (nightlife-wise) to “Midnight Sky.” With the latter remarking, “Yeah, it’s been a long night and the mirror’s tellin’ me to go home/But it’s been a long time since I felt this good on my own,” “Violet Chemistry” offers, “Tonight, we’ll just be wrong/Ain’t done this in so long/We ain’t gotta talk, baby, we’ll keep the stereo on/Stay a while, stay a while with me/Stay a while, don’t deny the violet chemistry.” Cyrus is also sure to mention that she doesn’t really care if this is a one-night stand or “eternity,” she just wants that carnal flesh now, announcing, “There’s something between us that’s too major to ignore/May not be eternal but nocturnal, nothin’ more.” This might be the most L.A.-oriented element on the record, in fact.

    Returning to playing the jilted lover we first got to know on “Flowers,” “Muddy Feet” featuring Sia feels like another dig at Liam Hemsworth as Cyrus spits accusations like, “Back and forth/Always questioning my questioning/Get thе fuck out of my head with that shit/Get the fuck out of my bеd with that shit.” She also wants the person in question to “get the fuck out of my house with that shit,” having cultivated her own space in the wake of the divorce—reminding one of the Whoopi Goldberg aphorism on marriage, “I don’t want somebody in my house.” Especially if they have muddy feet. Elsewhere, Cyrus adds with venom in her voice, “You’ve watered the weeds and you killed all the roses/Worthy arrives when the other door closes.” Even if the “worthy” being turns out to be yourself (as “Flowers” reminds). Sia joins in for the “Woah, oh, oh, oh, mm” outro that fleshes the song out before leading into “Wildcard.” Another Sag anthem, to be sure.

    Questioning her “adroitness” in playing the role of “wifey” (a.k.a. being monogamous), the conflicted feelings Cyrus displays throughout Endless Summer Vacation are at total war here. On the one hand, she wants a love that lasts forever (that impossible word again), but on the other, she’s a free spirit who “can’t be tamed.” And so, as though providing her version of Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” Cyrus addresses the difficulties presented in pursuing a wildcard like her as she opens with the wry verse, “Do you wanna play house?/I could be your wife/Go and meet your mom in a dress too tight/Maybe I could stay and not break your heart/But don’t forget, baby, I’m a wildcard.”

    The push and pull of the life monogamous versus the life sologamous additionally shows up in the lines, “I love when you hold me/But loving you is never enough/And don’t wait for me/‘Cause forever may never come.” Cyrus also gives a nod to “Flowers” with the lyrics, “I walk in the door, with my lips stained red/Pillows on the floor and the flowers dead.” The implication being that she’ll have to buy her own again, now that she’s caused another relationship rupture with her wildcard tendencies. The emotions of this segue perfectly into “Island,” on which Miley ponders whether she truly loves being alone or not. Musically, there’s a slight hint of interpolating George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” as Cyrus goes over the pros and cons of being so steadfastly independent. Indeed, to be as independent as she announced she could be on “Flowers,” it’s no secret that one has to be rich. The kind of rich that can get you away from all the riffraff. Private island rich, if you will. Thus, Cyrus describes the scene, “I’m on an island, dirty dancing in the sun/So close to heaven, but so far from everyone/Yeah, I’ve got treasures buried underneath the sand/But I’m still wishing for the love that I don’t have.” In short, it has a very “money can’t buy happiness” motif. Further intensified by Cyrus asking throughout the chorus, “Am I stranded on an island? Or have I landed in paradise?” Many actual island dwellers are forced to ask themselves the same thing outside the summer months. Because no, despite climate change, it’s no endless summer vacation for the “ordinaries” in this life.

    It appears that, in the end, Cyrus decides in favor of independence on this track, noting, “And I won’t lie, it sure gets lonely here at night/But no one here needs nothin’ from me and it’s kind of nice.” This assertion, however, is once more belied by a track like “Wonder Woman,” the true denouement of the album (because the demo of “Flowers” doesn’t really count). Like the faint tinges of “Careless Whisper” on “Island,” this ballad has traces of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” all over it. Accordingly, it’s designed to be type of song that will wreak tears as Cyrus speaks of the proverbial “strong female” who never dares to show emotion (lest it slow her down with accusations of being “weak”). Dissecting the fragility of women and how they’re made to feel as though it’s an Achilles’ heel rather than a source of strength, Miley once more channels Madonna via her 2015 song, “Joan of Arc.” On it, Madonna laments, “I never admit it, but it hurts/I don’t wanna talk about it right now…/I’m not Joan of Arc, not yet/But I’m in the dark, yeah/I can’t be a superhero right now/Even hearts made out of steel can break down/I’m not Joan of Arc, not yet/I’m only human.”

    Alas, the last thing patriarchal society wants women to be is human. Miley knows this only too well as she depicts the “wonder woman” who stifles it all, singing, “She’s a wonder woman/She knows what she likes/Never know she’s broken/‘Cause she’s always fine/She’s a million moments/Lived a thousand lives/Never know she’s hopeless/Only when she cries.” And when she does cry, it’s of course only in private…otherwise, she might be branded as “crazy” like Britney Spears (recently accused of being just that once more after crying in an Instagram video). Vulnerability is, after all, not “sexy,” right?

    As for the bouts of vulnerability Cyrus reveals on Endless Summer Vacation, they ultimately betray her “tough girl” act. This is also reflective in her breakaway from RCA Records for the release of this album in order to fulfill a different contract with Columbia (sorry Mariah). The perk? It’s in conjunction with her own Smiley Miley imprint. Therefore, Cyrus is simultaneously mirroring the independent spirit of most musicians during this epoch while also holding fast to the romanticism associated with having a Major Label Deal. In effect, it’s never been a more schizophrenic time to be alive. Especially for a woman. And that much is chaotically (but catchily) conveyed on Endless Summer Vacation.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Lola Leon Leads With Her Heart—and Her Devil Horns

    Lola Leon Leads With Her Heart—and Her Devil Horns

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    It’s a drizzly winter afternoon—New York at its least hospitable—and Lola Leon has found refuge in a bowl of red-sauce pasta. The musician and model is tucked into a quiet table at SoHo’s Sant Ambroeus, refueling after a late night in Ridgewood working with her producer and friend Eartheater. An incognito Leon looks the part of an off-duty dancer: bare face, black sweatshirt, hair scraped back into a bun. “It’s really giving, my hair is so dirty that it’s the only thing I can do with it right now,” she says between languid bites of penne. Even a set of cherry red nails reads as against-type. “If you see me on a regular basis, I’m usually missing, like, three,” she adds with a droll, down-tempo delivery. 

    The 26-year-old is in the swing of self-reinvention. Her familiar first name, Lourdes (given by parents Madonna and Carlos Leon), has fallen by the wayside. After shrugging off music as a possible pursuit—she instead studied dance at SUNY Purchase—Leon made her way onto the scene last year, with a summer single that heralded the November release of Go, her debut EP. If a taste for mononyms runs in the family, the musician has landed on Lolahol. I ask if the epithet has taken on a different depth of meaning in the months since she coined it. “I just think that the name itself is depth,” Leon says, leaning into the literalism alongside the ambiguity. “Eartheater calls it ‘Lola’s lair.’ It’s kind of just, like, inviting people into my world, maybe into my brain a little bit. My spirals.”

    Leon’s latest role, though, is more surface-level than subterranean. This spring, she appears in her first-ever makeup campaign, representing the newest foundation from Make Up For Ever. Called HD Skin, it’s a velvet-finish powder formula designed for adjustable coverage—the sort of thing one can dial down or stipple on as needed, with the trust that it will behave accordingly. “That is what’s important to me: I don’t want to look like a wreck under lights, sweating, in the middle of the heat,” Leon says, hinting at upcoming performance dates. The waterproof foundation, packaged in an iPhone-slim compact, suits an unpredictable night out. But finding the right product for a given skin type and situation is a trial-and-error process—emphasis on the error, she jokes. “When I was younger and first started using makeup, I would just put the most insane amount of foundation in my hands, rub my hands together, and then smear it all over my face,” the musician recalls. “It was such a thick coating, but I just felt that that looked good in my mind.” The habit wasn’t enough to make her swear off the stuff. “I think starting with a clean base and having everything be even is important.”

    Beauty still has its hazards. The same brows that dominate the Make Up For Ever campaign portraits—high, neat hedges framing Leon’s chestnut eyes—are “a disaster right now,” she laments. “I was dermaplaning, a.k.a. shaving your face, and I shaved off the beginning of my whole eyebrow. So I’m just looking crazy for a couple weeks, but it’s okay.” Luckily the mishap followed her recent runway turn for Luis De Javier’s New York Fashion Week debut, held inside a storied former synagogue. “I felt really lucky to be there,” she tells me, singling out the inspired casting and well-matched looks, styled by Patti Wilson. Leon modeled a strapless red leather minidress, with devil horns protruding from the bust; visible among a smattering of tattoos was her own lanky devil above the right elbow. “I don’t know,” she smiles. “People say that I can be a little prickly, so the horns make sense.” 

    Self-defense seems like an attendant mechanism for a famous upbringing. Hiccups have a way of becoming tabloid catnip, as when Leon, a former Marc Jacobs campaign star, arrived tardy to the designer’s February fashion show. (She made it inside, she assures me.) “Obviously I respect Marc and all the work that he does, but I think when people are making a story out of something, they’ll just kind of run with whatever they think is going to be interesting and gossipy.” Jacobs’s show touchingly paid homage to the late Vivienne Westwood: knitwear twisted into “tit top” rosettes, voluptuous dresses, coats with upturned collars and models’ arms folded tightly across their chests. To Leon, the stiff outerwear was a reminder that “you kind of have to be hypervigilant and hyperaware at the same time as minding your own business.” 

    But within that exoskeleton, there’s a sense of cheek. I bring up a lyric in “Lock&Key” (“No sleep, next plane, no sleep, make up”), which seems to reflect the harried pace of a certain kind of life. “That’s a Lady Gaga reference,” Leon points out, referring to an interview clip turned soundbite that swept the internet. “I was like, Oh my god, I have to use some parts of this. It was just too funny and too camp not to.” There’s a shade of reality in the words: “I love it when I actually have the fucking time to do my whole face,” she says, explaining that it’s usually a hasty situation. “[Makeup] really has the ability to, like, make you feel like a different type of bitch.” 

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    Laura Regensdorf

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  • Society Once Asked, “Where’s the beef?” Nicki Minaj Plans to Stew It With Her Own Record Label

    Society Once Asked, “Where’s the beef?” Nicki Minaj Plans to Stew It With Her Own Record Label

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    As a woman in the music industry, there’s never been a better time to show the patriarchy how useless it is by starting one’s own label (though let us never forget that Madonna already set that bar a long time ago with Maverick). Ultimate proof that “the suits” have been capitalizing on the myth of their “indispensability” for far too long. Among the ranks of female musicians to have recently started their own label is MARINA, who founded Queenie Records in late 2022. But while MARINA is known for being a more, shall we say, collaborative personality, Nicki Minaj has a reputation for starting beef with just about every interaction (almost Azealia Banks-style)—usually with fellow female rappers. Thus, for her to establish a record label would theoretically mean she’s willing to pack in her combative ways in order to “fully show up” for the musicians she wants to sign. And sure, she claims, “When I get behind an artist, y’all know how I do shit for people that’s not even signed to me. Imagine what I’ma do for the ones that’s signed,” but when anyone rubs her the wrong way, it’s game over.

    One of the latest female rappers to do that was Latto (evidently, taking Cardi B’s erstwhile spot for most threatening new addition to the scene). The beef arose when Minaj called out Latto as an example of a new artist who didn’t deserve such reverence compared to her, this being catalyzed by the Recording Academy’s decision to move Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” into consideration for the pop category instead of the rap one while putting together their nomination list (in the end, “Super Freaky Girl” didn’t make the cut at all, while Latto’s “Big Energy” received a nomination in the category of Best Melodic Rap Performance). Minaj’s response to this was, “They stay moving the goalposts when it comes to me. If you can’t tell by now there is a concerted effort to give new artists things they don’t deserve, over artists who have been deserving for many years.”

    This echoed Minaj’s contempt for Cardi’s early success as well. However, rather than start a Twitter war as she did with Latto, the beef came directly to Nicki at a New York Fashion Week party in 2018. When Cardi famously got elbowed in the side of the forehead by one of Minaj’s security guards before then throwing her shoe in Minaj’s direction. The feud’s boiling point was spurred by Cardi’s irritation over “lies Nicki was spreading,” in addition to threatening other musicians in the business that she wouldn’t work with them if they chose to work with Cardi. Taking to Instagram Live after the incident, Cardi expressed, “You lie so much you can’t even keep up with yo fuckin’ lies.”

    Latto felt similarly when Minaj forced her into the drama over the Grammys by tweeting, “This Karen has probably mentioned my name in over 100 interviews…but today, scratch off decides to be silent; rather than speak up for the black woman she called her biggest inspiration.” The accusation came after Latto texted her privately in support of her statement about the unfairness of the category classification for “Super Freaky Girl,” prompting Latto to remind Nicki when she dragged it out in public, “1st of all I texted u cause I didn’t wanna do the internet sht w sum1 I looked up to. I do agree but the way u going about it seems malicious.” Hence, Latto definitely not looking up to Nicki anymore by the time it was all over, complete with getting #40YearOldBully to trend on Twitter. Latto then shared a recorded phone conversation she had with Nicki (because she knew “who tf I’m dealing with”) that featured Nicki accusing Latto of trying to put herself “above” other female rappers a.k.a. Minaj. All in all, it doesn’t sound as though Minaj would create a very “safe space” to nurture up-and-coming female artists in. Especially with the Lil’ Kim prophecy in mind that went: “She wanted to be the only female out there… she wanted to be out there by herself.”

    As the beefs rack up, it appears Minaj might end up being just that in more ways than one. Particularly if she alienates more women trying to or who actually get signed to her label. As Cardi concluded on her 2018 Instagram Live, “You’re out here fucking up your legacy looking like a fucking hater.” And yet, there was a time when creating controversy of this nature was considered “good” for one’s rep. These being in the pre-woke days of pop culture, when everyone could freely admit that they got off on the drama. With the present climate, the urging for women in rap to partake of a more “room for everyone” spirit has been met with continued venom from Miss Chun-Li herself—making it slightly difficult for her to transition into a 2020s climate. But, apropos of “Chun-Li,” it was Minaj herself who insisted, “They need rappers like me/So they can get on their fuckin’ keyboards and make me the bad guy.”

    Yet it seems Minaj is only too adept at doing that to herself (all while refusing to admit to the Taylor adage, “It’s me, hi. I’m the problem it’s me”). This is perhaps because Minaj comes from an old school sensibility regarding what rap entails. More than just the music itself, it is (or was) about a lifestyle centered on beefing. As Minaj once phrased it, “Rap is different now. You gotta pretend you like people and stuff. Everybody’s gotta get on the bandwagon. They get on the love bandwagon, and they get on the hate bandwagon.”

    To play both sides of old and new school takes on what rap should include outside of the music itself, Nicki is known for firing shots behind the scenes while paying “respect” in public—ergo, Latto taping the aforementioned conversation wherein she called Latto “delusional” for saying other female rappers were flourishing. With that in mind, is there any nascent female rap aspirant that would really dare to fuck with Minaj’s label knowing how petty (no reference to her husband intended) she can be? That might be why Minaj was certain to specify, “Don’t think my label is just rap, or Black, or anything. We got some other genres of music.” For, if not, Minaj is liable to get jealous if another woman on her label actually did succeed a little “too well”—conjuring the image of the lyrical threat, “These birds copy every word, every inch/But gang-gang got the hammer and the wrench.” Minaj has also reiterated her contempt for any woman who tries to compete for her throne on her latest single, “Red Ruby Da Sleeze” (during which she also alludes to the Latto beef, in addition to “potentially” shading Megan Thee Stallion with the line, “I don’t fuck with horses”).

    Continuing her beloved tradition of sampling, Minaj used Lumidee’s “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)” (itself a sample from Steven “Lenky” Marsden’s Diwali Riddim compilation) on the follow-up single to the Rick James-grafted “Super Freaky Girl.” Minaj, whether aware of it or not, appears to tongue-in-cheekly include Lumidee’s original verses at the end: “If you want me to stay/I’ll never leave/If you want me to stay/Love endlessly.” In other words, she wants everyone else to love her endlessly…not the other way around. Which certainly makes for plenty of beef-stewing on a new label. Or, if nothing else, the building of a new kind of Barbz army.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna’s brother, Anthony Ciccone, dies at 66: ‘Family remains’ – National | Globalnews.ca

    Madonna’s brother, Anthony Ciccone, dies at 66: ‘Family remains’ – National | Globalnews.ca

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    By Staff

    The Associated Press

    Posted February 26, 2023 5:25 pm

    Madonna‘s eldest sibling, Anthony Ciccone, has died, a family member said Saturday. He was 66.

    The announcement was made on Instagram by musician Joe Henry, who is married to Madonna’s sister Melanie Ciccone.

    “My brother-in-law, Anthony Gerard Ciccone, exited this earthly plane last evening. I’ve known him since I was 15, in the spring of our lives in Michigan so many years now gone,” Henry wrote in the caption of a black and white portrait.

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    “Anthony was a complex character; and God knows: we tangled in moments, as true brothers can. But I loved him, and understood him better than I was sometimes willing to let on,” the post said.

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    No details about the death were provided. Public records show Ciccone was most recently living in Michigan, where he and his seven siblings grew up.

    National news media in recent years reported that Ciccone had spent some time living on the streets and at a rehabilitation facility. Henry’s post announcing Ciccone’s death nodded to difficulties, saying “trouble fades,” family remains, with “hands reached” across the table.

    Madonna liked the Instagram post, but the pop music star did not comment on it.

    The Associated Press sent emails seeking more information to two of Madonna’s representatives.

    &copy 2023 The Canadian Press

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  • Madonna Continues To Laugh Off Grammys Criticism Like Only She Can

    Madonna Continues To Laugh Off Grammys Criticism Like Only She Can

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    True to form, Madonna is using sarcasm and self-awareness to reclaim the narrative around her heavily criticized appearance at the 2023 Grammy Awards.

    On Monday, the Queen of Pop alluded to the media firestorm that ensued after she appeared at the Feb. 5 ceremony while sharing a new photo of herself on Twitter.

    “Look how cute i am now that swelling from surgery has gone down. Lol,” she wrote alongside the photo, which appears to have been taken amid preparations for her forthcoming Celebration Tour. She then concluded the tweet with a laughing emoji.

    Madonna, a seven-time Grammy winner, briefly took the stage at the 2023 ceremony to introduce Sam Smith and Kim Petras. She was a fitting choice given that “Unholy,” Smith and Petras’ smash single, melds sexual and religious imagery in the same vein as her own 1989 classic, “Like a Prayer.”

    “I’m here to give thanks to all the rebels out there, forging a new path and taking the heat for all of it,” she said of Smith, who is nonbinary, and Petras, a transgender woman.

    Madonna at the 2023 Grammy Awards.

    Kevin Winter via Getty Images

    Unfortunately, not everyone was listening. Instead, Madonna drew online scorn for her appearance, with many hurling out accusations of plastic surgery and other cosmetic interventions.

    “Can’t wait for Madonna’s new film ‘Desperately Seeking Surgeon,’” one person wrote, nodding to the Material Girl’s seminal performance in 1985’s “Desperately Seeking Susan.”

    Two days after the Grammys, Madonna responded to the backlash with a lengthy note on Instagram in which she reminded everyone ― for the upteenth time in her four-decade career ― that her stylistic decisions were always intentional.

    “Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny that permeates the world we live in,” the 64-year-old wrote. “A world that refuses to celebrate women past the age of 45 And feels the need to punish her If she continues to be strong-willed, hard-working, and adventurous.”

    “I have never apologized for any of the creative choices I have made nor the way that I look or dress and I’m not going to start,” she continued. “I have been degraded by the media since the beginning of my career but I understand that this is all a test and I am happy to do the trailblazing so that all the women behind me can have an easier time in the years to come.”

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  • Like A Surgeon, Letting Perfectionism Run Amok: On the Latest Backlash Against Madonna’s Face

    Like A Surgeon, Letting Perfectionism Run Amok: On the Latest Backlash Against Madonna’s Face

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    Anyone who sees Madonna rather regularly (perhaps better phrased as “any Madonna fan”) is likely wondering why people are acting as though this is the first time they’ve noticed that she’s had very noticeable plastic surgery. But then again, every so often, when Madonna makes an especially public appearance, as she did at the 2023 Grammy Awards, this usual, collectively expressed outrage about her looking like, apparently, Jigsaw from Saw comes about. And so begins the requisite news cycle about the alterations to her face (which once constituted being the emblem of an entire cover story for a 2008 New York Magazine article entitled “The New New Face”).

    This time around, though, something feels slightly different about the commentary. That is to say, more people (specifically, females) were inclined to come to her defense in the matter, with a slew of women commenting on how Madonna’s overwrought plastic surgery was a classic case of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t as a woman enduring the accursed aging process. This goes tenfold for women in entertainment, who are subject to unrelenting scrutiny that so often comes in the form of the public comparing images of their younger selves to their current selves (an entire TikTok trend, to boot). The commentary then becomes something to the effect of, “She used to be such a beautiful girl”—the implied follow-up to that statement being either, “She’s really let herself go” or, if she’s had the plastic surgery tacitly expected of her, “She doesn’t even look like herself anymore.”

    This is where Madonna’s face presents an even more philosophical question: what really is “the self”? Is it the carapace we walk around in, or is it so much more than that? Of course, celebrity culture and the society it reflects would like us to believe: not so much. And Madonna, for all her exhortations to be yourself and come as you are, has also fallen prey to that trap. Those who have come to her rescue in print, however, might offer up the notion that if this is what she wants to look like, that’s her right and prerogative. Except, what no one seems to want to acknowledge is that Madonna is suffering from some very overt signs of body dysmorphia, unable to see herself objectively at this juncture…as made evident by her over-the-top, smoothed-into-oblivion face filtering on Instagram. These being the “renderings” of her appearance that she wants to see herself as, in contrast to the other image—the one she accused of being merely a case of “close-up photos of me taken with a long lens camera by a press photographer that would distort anyone’s face!!” This written in an Instagram caption that felt obliged to address all the controversy directed at her after making an introduction to Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ performance of “Unholy” at the Grammys.

    Her intro speech for that duo was, alas, met with a leaden thud among the audience, whose lack of response evoked the crickets chirping effect when she asked in a half-hearted shouting voice, “Are you ready for a little controversyyyy?” The audience, it seemed, was not. Jaws ostensibly dropped to the floor in stunned silence as they watched a version of Madonna that was later compared to Miss Trunchbull from Matilda proceed to inform the masses, “If they call you shocking, scandalous, troublesome, problematic, provocative…or dangerous [this last word said as she lifted her skirt to the side to show off some leg], you are definitely onto something.” But none of that, least of all her leg showoff, seemed to resonate with audiences as much as her face. And to get back to that word, “problematic” (which is also what Kim Petras is despite many seeing her as a triumph for trans musicians everywhere), Madonna has become just that over the years not because she has had plastic surgery, but because she essentially refuses to have a truly candid conversation about it. Which would be far more in the spirit of the “rebel heart” she views herself as being (in addition to simply not kowtowing to the expectation that a woman should have any plastic surgery whatsoever).

    The only flagrant allusion Madonna has ever made to having work done arrived in the 2003 video for “Hollywood,” during which, to be on-brand with lyrics simultaneously extolling and deriding the vanity of Hollywood, Madonna is shown getting a series of Botox injections under duress. Though, clearly, she has been only too willing to go under the needle and knife in the two decades since that song was released. Which is why the most interesting thing about this entire “debacle” was that, at no point did Madonna address her plastic surgery at all… nor has she ever (though this addiction to the surgeon’s knife is an obvious extension of her perfectionistic nature). Instead, she wielded her go-to offensives in the aforementioned Instagram missive by saying, “Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny that permeates the world we live in. A world that refuses to celebrate women past the age of forty-five and feels the need to punish her if she continues to be strong willed, hard-working and adventurous.”

    But ultimately, that’s not really what Madonna was being punished for in this instance. What she got punished for, as a few called out, was having the gall to “show her work” (a.k.a. “You’re Not Offended That Madonna’s Had Plastic Surgery, You’re Offended That You Can Tell”), which is how Monica Hesse for The Washington Post phrased it. This being a reference to a passage Hesse recalled from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, during which “the Bennet sisters are taking turns playing piano at a social gathering. Middle sister Mary ‘worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments’ and was the best player of the group, but Elizabeth, ‘easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well.’” Hesse’s point being that Madonna pulled a Mary (namesake-wise, that’s pretty appropriate) by quite literally showing her work. But again, that’s what she’s been doing for some time now, so it’s almost a source of confusion as to why this public appearance in particular was so jarring for people. Maybe the hairstyle she sported over-accentuated “the work.” Maybe the ensemble—intended to be a nod to her Erotica-born Dita persona—was causing a heightened awareness of her face somehow. Who knows? But even for all of Hesse’s well-meaning intentions to defend Madonna, there was still some insulting rhetoric at play when she said, “There was nothing subtle or easy about what had happened to Madonna’s face. There was nothing that could be politely ignored. The woman showed up as if she’d tucked two plump potatoes in her cheeks, not so much a return to her youth as a departure from any coherent age.”

    So much for solidarity in sisterhood. Which Jennifer Weiner also attempted backhandedly with an op-ed of her own for The New York Times in which she speculated that perhaps this is just Madonna’s latest “brilliant provocation.” Another calculated bid for stoking controversy and a “conversation,” if you will, therefore attention. And attention, in Madonna’s mind, has always gone hand in hand with relevance. For, like Oscar Wilde said, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Madonna has adhered to that aphorism repeatedly throughout her storied forty years in the music industry. This time around, however, there seemed to be no calculation on her part behind being talked about, but rather, it was a “happy” accident (via unhappy circumstances) that she could convert into yet another dialogue about ageism against women in particular and the patriarchal double standards about how a woman of “a certain age” should or should not look.

    But her attempt at that conversation fell as flat as her rapport with the Grammy audience when, in the same post condemning ageism, she not only didn’t acknowledge having surgery at all (which is what people were shocked by), but also opted to, once more, filter the shit out of her face as she announced, “I have never apologized for any of the creative choices I have made nor the way that I look or dress and I’m not going to start.” Again, the heavy use of filters sort of negates that assertion about not apologizing for how she looks. She continued, “I look forward to many more years of subversive behavior—pushing boundaries, standing up to the patriarchy and most of all enjoying my life. Bow down bitches!” That last Beyoncé-grafted quote is not only cringe-y because it further confirms Madonna feels she needs to rely on others more “relevant” than herself for legitimacy, but also reminds one of bell hooks’ essay, “Madonna: Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister?” A merciless criticism of Madonna’s careful manipulation of the queer and BIPOC communities to further her own narrative that brings us to another question about using the critique of her face as a sign of misogyny. For if she feels the reaction to her visage is rooted in misogyny, then one must also ask: is getting massive amounts of plastic surgery really standing up to the patriarchy or simply continuing to work within it (and actually fortify it)? Something that Madonna has done for her entire career. A reality hooks touched on when she wrote, “Madonna [has] clearly revealed that she can only think of exerting power along very traditional, white supremacist, capitalistic, patriarchal lines.”

    Before Madonna would go so hard at the surgeon’s office, hooks was also apt in pointing out, “Madonna often recalls that she was a working-class white girl who saw herself as ugly, as outside the mainstream beauty standard. And indeed what some of us like about her is the way she deconstructs the myth of ‘natural’ white girl beauty by exposing the extent to which it can be and is usually artificially constructed and maintained.” If that was true in 1995, when hooks’ essay was published, it’s true on an entirely new, more sinister level now.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Super Bowl 2023: Britney Spears to Make an appearance Alongside Rihanna? Here’s what we know

    Super Bowl 2023: Britney Spears to Make an appearance Alongside Rihanna? Here’s what we know

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    As the day approaches, fans have taken over the hype and made their best guesses after Rihanna decided to make an appearance after seven long years and deliver her greatest hits on the stage of the Super Bowl LVII halftime show. The “Queen of Pop-Song” is a queen for a reason, as she has taken over the internet by storm, where fans have suspected everything from how she will wrap up her 13-minute appearance to what she will be styled as. Others are curious about who Rihanna will collaborate with at her mega-live stage event, which will undoubtedly be a significant event for her given that she will step in after 7 long years for her son and take to the stage to celebrate her Caribbean heritage in order to support black women.

    Though Madonna performing “Party Rock” with the rap duo LMFAO or Missy Elliott at Katy Perry’s has not aged well or been forgotten by the audience for the halftime show, making it one of the most pressing issues to be addressed and putting all of our thoughts into it, how can we figure out who it could be?

    Of course, I’m not privy to any special information. But as someone who has followed RiRi since “Pon de Replay” premiered on TRL (RIP), I feel qualified to throw some strong contenders into the mix. Choosing the song for the set list was one of the biggest challenges the singer faced. So we can only speculate as to who will appear on stage with Rihanna. As collaborations with artists such as Jay-Z, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Shakira, Maroon 5, and Paul McCartney went on to be very successful events, having someone as a guest on her special day will definitely take the limelight away.

    To make it seamless, we have put our thinking cap on, and the arrow has hit the aim of:

    Can Britney Spears make an appearance with Rihanna at Super Bowl 2023?

    Britney Spears and Rihanna once teamed up on the remix of her classic song “S&M,” and they even played it live at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards. Spears is now officially free from conservatorship, and a performance on one of the greatest platforms would mark the occasion.

    However, there is currently no indication that Spears will appear alongside Rihanna. In reality, TMZ reported that Spears has been having mental health issues and may seek medical assistance after her family and friends believed she would require an “intervention,” according to people close to the singer.

    While there has been no official confirmation of the report, Britney’s husband shredded the evidence on her behalf, claiming that “no intervention” occurred because it was “unnecessary.” The outlet says that the insider told them, “Unfortunately, there is a lot of hysteria in the media right now, but Britney is fine, and much of this has been overblown and grossly distorted.”

    ALSO READ: Sam Asghari steps up for wife Britney Spears amidst health speculations, calls it “inappropriate”

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  • Madonna accuses critics of

    Madonna accuses critics of

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    Madonna slammed critics who commented about her appearance at the Grammy Awards this past weekend, calling their comments ageist and misogynistic. 

    Madonna introduced the performance of “Unholy” by Kim Petras and Sam Smith, who took home the award for Best Pop Duo/Group — becoming the first transgender and nonbinary winners of the award, respectively — but online, people quickly commented on the singer’s appearance. 

    In an Instagram post, she addressed those comments, saying first it was an “honor” to introduce the duo. Madonna then took aim at her critics.

    “Instead of focusing on what I said in my speech which was about giving thanks for the fearlessness of artists like Sam and Kim- Many people chose to only talk about Close-up photos of me Taken with a long lens camera By a press photographer that Would distort anyone’s face!!” the pop icon wrote. “Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny That permeates the world we live in.”

    The public perception to Madonna’s Grammys look prompted defense from both fans, commentators and columnists alike, as newspaper outlets asked questions about what some dubbed the singer’s “new face,” with others taking to Twitter to ask, “Is that even her?” Some commentators even accused of her being “unwell.”

    Madonna continued her response to her critics on Instagram, writing that we live in a world that “refuses to celebrate women past the age of 45,” but punishes them if they continue to be “strong willed, hard-working and adventurous.”

    The singer celebrated her 64th birthday last August.

    65th GRAMMY Awards - Madonna
    Madonna speaks during the 65th GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 05, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. 

    Timothy Norris/FilmMagic via Getty Images


    “I have never apologized for any of the creative choices I have made nor the way that I look or dress and I’m not going to start,” Madonna continued on Instagram. 

    “I have been degraded by the media since the beginning of my career but I understand that this is all a test and I am happy to do the trailblazing so that all the women behind me can have an easier time in the years to come.”

    Madonna then quoted Beyoncé Knowles, writing, “You won’t break my soul” — a lyric from a song of the same name, which won the Grammy for Best Dance Recording. After her wins at this years Grammys, Knowles became the most decorated artist in the awards’ history.

    Madonna then ended her Instagram post by writing, “I look forward to many more years of subversive behavior -pushing boundaries-Standing up to the patriarchy -and Most of all enjoying my life.”

    C Mandler


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    C Mandler is a social media producer and trending topics writer for CBS News, focusing on American politics and LGBTQ+ issues.

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  • Madonna unveils 2023 North America and European tour dates

    Madonna unveils 2023 North America and European tour dates

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Madonna will “Take a Bow” with a new tour through North America and Europe starting this summer that will be a “Celebration” of the pop icon’s hits, which include 38 songs in the Billboard Hot 100.

    The 35-city Live Nation-backed “Madonna: The Celebration Tour” will kick off July 15 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, with stops in Detroit, Chicago, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta and Boston, among others. That leg ends on Oct. 7 in Las Vegas.

    Then the Material Girl hits Europe, where she has 11 dates throughout the fall, including London, Barcelona, Paris, Berlin, Milan and Stockholm, among others. The tour will wrap in Amsterdam on Dec. 1.

    The singer will “be highlighting her unmatched catalog of music from the past 40-plus years,” according to the announcement. It will also “pay respect to the city of New York, where her career in music began.”

    “I am excited to explore as many songs as possible in hopes to give my fans the show they have been waiting for,” Madonna says in the announcement.

    Tickets go on sale starting Friday, Jan. 20.

    Some of Madonna’s Hot 100 hits include “Vogue,” “Music,” “Crazy For You,” “Like a Virgin,” “Like a Prayer,” “Justify My Love,” “Live to Tell” and “Papa Don’t Preach.”

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  • Madonna world tour: Greatest-hits show to stop in 3 Canadian cities | Globalnews.ca

    Madonna world tour: Greatest-hits show to stop in 3 Canadian cities | Globalnews.ca

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    NOTE: Videos in this post contain strong language and mature content. Please watch at your own discretion.

    Madonna has announced a new, greatest-hits world tour and her first stop will be in Canada.

    The pop icon announced Madonna: The Celebration Tour on Tuesday, revealing that the first show will be in Vancouver on July 15.

    She announced the tour in a YouTube video which features Madge playing a risqué game of Truth or Dare over dinner with other Hollywood stars, including Amy Schumer, Judd Apatow, Lil Wayne, Eric Andre, Bob the Drag Queen and more.

    The five-minute video ends with Schumer daring Madonna to “do a world tour and play your greatest muthaf—ing hits.”

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    “Four decades?” asks Madonna. “All those songs?” — which gets the whole room singing their favourite Madonna classics.

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    In her media announcement, Madonna added, “I am excited to explore as many songs as possible in hopes to give my fans the show they have been waiting for.”

    The singer has announced three Canadian dates on the 35-city tour, which spans from mid-July to the beginning of December:

    • July 15 – Vancouver, Rogers Arena
    • Aug 13 – Toronto, Scotiabank Arena
    • Aug 16 – Montreal, Centre Bell

    Fun fact: it turns out the Montreal date is the Material Girl’s birthday, so she’ll be celebrating her 65th in the city.

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    Other stops include dates across the United States and 12 stops in Europe.

    For members of the public, tickets go on sale Friday, Jan. 20. Legacy members of Madonna’s Official Fan Club can scoop up their tickets as of Tuesday morning, Jan. 17.


    Click to play video: 'Madonna calls Canada boring'


    Madonna calls Canada boring




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

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    Michelle Butterfield

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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    Genna Rivieccio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna Gambles on Rereleasing “Gambler”

    Madonna Gambles on Rereleasing “Gambler”

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    Apropos of nothing—not even some TikTok virality bullshit—Madonna has seen fit to reissue her 1985 single, “Gambler,” for all streaming platforms. Although Madonna has been rereleasing all kinds of remastered and remixed “goodies” lately (especially for Erotica’s thirtieth anniversary) in honor of going through her back catalogue with Warner Bros., “Gambler” is the most arbitrary pick to date. For it’s not as though the single has been reissued for the fortieth anniversary or some such. No, 2022 marks a rather unspecial thirty-seven years since the advent of Vision Quest and its soundtrack, for which Madonna offered up both “Gambler” and the more well-known “Crazy For You.” As for the former, Madonna, ever the ahead-of-her-time feminist, stated of the lyrical composition, “[It’s] really the girl’s point of view, because she’s, like, an unstoppable person… She doesn’t really need this guy.” Yes, it sounds exactly like herself she’s describing.

    Except that, in Vision Quest’s case, it applies to the female lead, Carla (Linda Fiorentino), passing through Spokane, Washington on her way to San Francisco. She ends up boarding at high schooler Louden Swain’s (Matthew Modine) house after his father (Ronny Cox) rents a room to her. Despite coming across as the older, more mature woman (in real life, she’s a year younger than Modine), the attraction between her and Louden develops incrementally, all with the help of “Crazy For You” to soundtrack it. But the flipside to the vulnerability of such a ballad is “Gambler,” filled with the chutzpah and bravado that Madonna herself rose to fame on. Her own backstory, characterized by clawing her way to the top as a New York street rat, easily fits in with lyrics like, “Gambler/Yeah, I know all the words to say/‘Cause I’m a gambler/I only play the game to win, yeah” and “Don’t wanna say this but I think that I should/I’m better off forgotten if you think that I’ll be good/One day you see me, the next day I’m gone/Don’t fight me, baby, I don’t wanna hold on.”

    Had Madonna been keeping a diary circa 1979-1982, these are lines that could surely have been ripped from its pages as she moved on from people like Dan Gilroy and Camille Barbone in her endless bid to break into the fame business. Indeed, “Gambler” couldn’t have been written with as much conviction as anyone except Madonna, complete with all her Leo arrogance as she goads, “You’re not happy with the way I act/You better turn around boy, don’t look back/You’re getting angry, you know I can see/You’re just jealous ’cause you can’t be me.” For a long time, of course, that was true, with every pop singer in the game yearning to have as much success and idol worship as Madonna. As time wore on, and she started to become viewed as more of a caricature of herself (particularly in her social media postings), jealousy has given way to something like “pity.” But of course, Madonna would never allow other people’s negative reactions to what she does stop her (hence, “you can’t stop me now”). Perhaps knowing more than ever that every behavior she engages in is a “gamble.” From rereleasing this little-appreciated single to rereleasing her Sex book in the climate of peak cancel culture.

    No matter, for the theme song of Madonna’s life has been “Gambler.” With every move she’s made being one giant leap of faith starting from the moment she opted to drop out of college and move to NYC on a wing and a prayer. Thus, one can hear the genuineness of her earnest defiance as she makes the final declaration, “Yeah, I’m a gambler/That’s right, baby!” Although the single sounds better than ever, Madonna evaded giving the somewhat lackluster accompanying video an “HD” upgrade, leaving the look of it decidedly “lo-fi.” Which suits the aesthetics of the era perfectly as we see interspersed Vision Quest scenes attached to Madonna’s nightclub performance in the movie. Indeed, she’s billed as “Singer at Club” in the credits, yet another nod to the grind of her early days spent performing in dives throughout the Eastern Seaboard. A grueling slog she was eager to transform into a national tour once she hit the bona fide big-time with her second album, Like A Virgin.

    So it was that “Gambler” managed to make the cut for the setlist of 1985’s The Virgin Tour. Yet, although the tour kicked off on April 10 in Seattle, “Gambler” wouldn’t get an official release as the second single from the Vision Quest Soundtrack until September of ’85. So clearly, Madonna believed in it enough to do some ample pre-promoting throughout the tour, wherein she appears for the only live rendition of the song dressed in simple skin-tight black leggings, a black crop top with a cross cutout at the chest and arm-length black fringe gloves. Relying solely on her raw stripper energy, Madonna dances about in the manner she became known for in early videos like “Everybody” and “Lucky Star” as she asks, “You understand what I’m talkin’ about, Detroit?” (with the sole official recording of the show having taken place in her hometown).

    Not only did she make Detroit understand all about the undiluted ambition emanating off her in “Gambler,” but the entire rest of the world. Produced by then-boyfriend John “Jellybean” Benitez (who Madonna would throw over in 1985 for Sean Penn), this single ultimately needs no “reason” to be rereleased. For it not only distills, but cuts to the core of Madonna’s entire identity—the very one that has landed her where she is today.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Unclear Why It’s Called AHS: NYC and Not AHS: AIDS

    Unclear Why It’s Called AHS: NYC and Not AHS: AIDS

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    At a Pride performance called Finally Enough Love (in honor of the remix album of the same name) back in June, Madonna quipped, “One of the reasons New York is so great is that I’m pretty sure the first queer human evolved from this city. I think they came from the caves of Central Park West.” “Joke” aside, we all know that if queer people evolved from anywhere it was ancient Greece—but chalk it up to New York arrogance that Madonna would even try to present such a thing as a “jocular” theory. Anyway, the obvious point was, New York has long been a mecca for the LGBTQIA+ community—but more than that, a mecca for gay men. 

    This being the overt reason why Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s latest season of American Horror Story would opt to make NYC the backdrop of a dark time in gay male history. Or rather, one of those “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” moments in history. For gay men did have quite the load of fun with their anonymous sex in those last days of disco. You know, before it all went to shit. Very macabre shit. AHS: NYC plays up that grisly era in the most heavy-handed of ways: by making AIDS the mysterious serial killer picking off scores of men throughout the city. 

    Of course, there’s a real killer in the mix as well, just to throw viewers off the scent and also stretch the season out to a full ten episodes. And perhaps Murphy is over-extending himself on the project front in that AHS: NYC arrived on the heels of his exploitative success, Dahmer. Which makes it feel as though Murphy currently has some tunnel vision about gay serial killing. And sure, AIDS might be deemed the personification of the most brutal gay serial killer of all—but that metaphor doesn’t translate very well in Murphy’s overwrought landscape.  

    In that same abovementioned performance from Madonna, she added, “If you can make it here, you must be queer.” It was precisely the opposite in 80s New York, when to be gay was a “quality” that all but assured the signing of one’s death warrant. Even so, just because the “horror story” (getting a bit more “poetic” this time around as the AHS juggernaut seems to be running out of “conventional” horrors to tackle) is about AIDS, doesn’t mean the season should be called “NYC.” Yes, New York does have a storied history of gay people—particularly gay men—flocking there to seek refuge from their narrow-minded family members, friends and hometowns. But to discount all the other major cities, especially San Francisco, where this disease ran rampant as a result of providing that sense of freedom to gays, is part and parcel of New York-style ego. Indeed, like New York, AHS: NYC is often bloated and overblown. 

    It starts, predictably enough, in 1981 (for all interesting and romanticized things that happened in New York were in the 80s). Opening on a pilot named Captain Ross rebuffing the advances of a flight attendant named Tawny as he claims to be married, flashing his ring as proof. Minutes later, the ring comes off as he prepares to go cruising along the West Side Piers, only to pay for his pleasure in a severed head. This establishes the initial threat as a sentient killer, whose wake of victims leads to the Brownstone Bar.  

    Unfortunately, Murphy and Falchuk were feeling experimental this season—and not in a good way (unless one counts use of Kraftwerk’s “Radioactivity”). Not sure what plot to follow, it appears that some of the decision-making was slapdash, including a particularly bad episode called, appropriately, “Bad Fortune.” In it, Sandra Bernhard gets to milk her needless role as Fran, hired by bath house singer/proprietor Kathy Pizzazz (Patti LuPone) to tell fortunes at another joint she owns. For key proof of the heavy-handedness described, look no further than this “narrative,” wherein Fran proceeds to draw the Death card over and over for every man she sees for a tarot reading. What’s more, even in what can be passed off as a “campy” part, Bernhard’s “acting skills” are little more pleasant than the sound of nails on a blackboard. 

    As the season tries to grow into its own leather-clad, lesion-pocked skin, viewers are hit over the head more frequently with the Big Daddy plotline—especially after the Mai Tai Killer is offed in episode seven, “The Sentinel.” And it is as Big Daddy is ramped up as a “grand metaphor” that one is reminded of Susan Sontag. For it is she who said in Illness As Metaphor, “My subject is not physical illness itself but the uses of illness as a figure or metaphor. My point is that illness is not a metaphor, and that the most truthful way of regarding illness—and the healthiest way of being ill—is one most purified of, most resistant to, metaphoric thinking.” 

    Published in 1978, it was almost as though she could intuit that “something was coming” (“Something Is Coming” being the title of AHS: NYC’s first episode). How much a disease like AIDS could be weaponized by conservative factions filled with Republicans and evangelical Christians. Wielding the disease to say, “We told you so! Fag life is a sin! And now it’s being punished by God Himself!” Now, it’s been weaponized by Murphy and Falchuk to probably buy more real estate.

    In AHS: NYC, it takes quite a while for “AIDS” to be identified by name, with Murphy’s love of revisionist history inexplicably offering a cluster of deer on Fire Island as a source of the new, highly dangerous contagion. Discovered by Dr. Hannah Wells (Billie Lourd), she notices an immediate correlation between what she’s been seeing in some of her gay patients and the deer that are rapidly dying off. So it is that she insists on killing the infected sect of the deer to prevent the spread of the disease. 

    Naturally, it’s already too late for such “preventive” measures. And while AIDS famously originated from chimpanzees, perhaps Murphy’s “creative decision” to make it appear as though Fire Island deer were the culprit is meant as an allegory for conservatives in power at the time trying to “control” the gay population (the way the deer population is being “controlled” through a sanctioned mass killing). All by allowing them to be exterminated by AIDS via doing absolutely nothing to help stop it. Maybe because, as some conspiracy theorists, like Fran, believe: the CIA unleashed the virus deliberately on LGBTQ communities. Still, that deer analogy could be giving too much credit to the show’s “layers.” And if Fire Island’s proximity to NYC is a chief reason for naming the season after a geographical location, then, really, it ought to have been AHS: Fire Island—but maybe it’s too soon since the release of Joel Kim Booster’s movie, Fire Island, for that. 

    At the same time as that ominous, leather-masked (and shirtless, to show off that musculature) presence referred to as Big Daddy (Matthew William Bishop) is terrorizing the city, so, too, is another man. This one dubbed the “Mai Tai Killer.” Those versed in their gay culture will recognize the similarities between this man’s modus operandi and the Last Call Killer that plagued 90s-era NYC. Needless to say, this isn’t the only form of pastiche Murphy and co. implement to “pay homage” (read: pass something off as their own) to the bad old gay days of yore. There are also allusions galore to William Friedkin’s Cruising (complete with using the same song on that soundtrack, Willy DeVille’s “Heat of the Moment”). A major progenitor of the gay male serial killer genre that’s cropped up as a means to illustrate the many-layered dangers that faced gay men just trying to get off through an anonymous hookup. Not to say straight women didn’t (and don’t) face similar risks (see also: Looking For Mr. Goodbar) in “the big city” as well. 

    Elsewhere on the Cruising emulation front, there is The Native journalist Gino Barelli (Joe Mantello), fervently reporting on the pileup of gay bodies as the Mai Tai Killer and/or Big Daddy (again, the manifestation of AIDS—that is, when the genre switches away from slasher/conspiracy and into melodrama) remain at large. Gino appears to be a clear foil for Arthur Bell, the journalist who wrote a number of articles about the unsolved murders of gay men, playing into the AHS: NYC theme of the NYPD not giving a goddamn about this “facet” of humanity. Of course, neither did the LAPD or the SFPD or any PD in America—begging the question, once more, why not just call it AHS: AIDS?

    Even with a closeted gay cop on the inside, Patrick Read (Russell Tovey), it does little to help the community. And it certainly doesn’t make Gino, who is Patrick’s live-in boyfriend, happy to know that Patrick is working for the enemy. As other gay men, including Adam Carpenter (Charlie Carver) and Theo Graves (Isaac Powell), become ensnared in the swirl of violence that has been intensifying throughout the summer, everyone has a different speculation about who or what is behind it all. Initially, Adam tries to shake down Theo (in more ways than one) for info about this elusive Big Daddy, since Theo once photographed him in the style of Robert Mapplethorpe. Per his sugar daddy Sam’s (Zachary Quinto) assuance, Theo insists that Big Daddy disappeared and/or died a while ago, indicating that perhaps he was “Patient Zero” in this little revisionist scenario.

    In the meantime, Mr. Whitely (Jeff Hiller) a.k.a. the Mai Tai Killer continues collecting his body parts to create a Frankenstein-esque human to display at the Pride parade. He calls it: the sentinel. A perfect representation of all the apathy toward gay men exhibited by institutions such as the NYPD and the government itself (namely, the Reagan administration). Just as Whitely is a representation of the self-hating gay that would do harm to his own kind. 

    The Mai Tai Killer plot is, however, but a red herring for the real killer. Effectively, AHS: NYC is about AIDS as the true murderer—which means the story could have taken place in any metropolis—London, Paris, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas. And, talking of that latter city, Dallas Buyers Club, despite its straight actors playing bi or trans, does a more humanizing and less exploitative job of addressing the subject of AIDS (with an especial emphasis on the extreme measures employed to attempt treating it in an era of no cure). With regard to AIDS in London, It’s A Sin is also more worthwhile than AHS: NYC. The existence of both alternate works are just a couple of many that convey how New York wasn’t the lone epicenter of AIDS. And titling a show that focuses primarily on AIDS as “NYC” is, again, a sign of pure ego. As though New York “owns” the “commodity” of gay history. It doesn’t. 

    Perhaps the reason the title (not to mention to the story itself) is so irksome is because there was much more potential in terms of what might be explored with such an all-encompassing term as “NYC”—and now, it feels as though an opportunity to unveil the manifold terrors of that city has been squandered. Leaving it up to Scream 6, one supposes, to pick up the slack. Even so, if the intent was to ensure that AIDS would be associated solely with NYC, therefore as the source of all pain and suffering, well, mission accomplished.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Lolahol’s “Cuntradiction” Video: A Familiar Equine Scene

    Lolahol’s “Cuntradiction” Video: A Familiar Equine Scene

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    Seeming to no longer have any qualms about following in her mother’s footsteps, Lolahol—still better known as Lourdes Leon—has not only stepped up behind the microphone to record an album (okay, an EP) called Go, but she’s also shown that she takes no issue with emulating Madonna’s visuals either. And we’re not just talking about the “Like A Virgin”-esque writhing and general hyper-sexual image. No, Lolahol has gone into Madonna’s aesthetic vault to bring us a video concept centered on horses.

    To those who regularly see Madonna on Instagram, it doesn’t take long to realize that the video for the second single (after “Lock&Key”), “Cuntradiction,” makes optimal use of Madonna’s Bridgehampton realm. One in which we frequently see her feeding and riding horses in the various photos and videos she posts. But hey, why shouldn’t Lolahol make good use of that property? It is likely part of her inevitable inheritance, after all. However, more than just Madonna riding horses in her day-to-day life (even after falling off of one in 2005), she also long ago incorporated them into her work (the most current example being “Medellín”). This transpired rather notably in a Steven Klein (a fellow Bridgehampton resident) video and photoshoot that served as backdrops during Madonna’s 2006 Confessions Tour (specifically for the opening, “I Feel Love/Future Lovers”). As is to be expected, Madonna, at times, gets very suggestive in her interactions with the horse (tranquilized or not), with one image featuring her lying on top of its side smoking a cigarette. Lolahol furnishes us with a similar pose (minus the cigarette) via direction from Anna Pollack.

    A bed in the corner of the hay-filled stable lends added kink to the très Equus-oriented motif. Interspersed “disturbing” shots of horses filmed in black-and-white or nightshot mode are meant to lend perhaps a tinge of “horror” to the bestial flavor. And, speaking of, as Lolahol sensually sings, “I want it to last/But I want it to end,” she leans back while mounted atop a horse in “bondage”-y lingerie that Rihanna would surely approve of (and yes, Lola already made her debut as a Fenty model in the Savage X Fenty Vol. 3 show). And also, of course, her mother, who, like, invented such provocative scenes and maneuvers (see: Sex).

    While some children might have run in the other direction away from “that life” (kind of like Rocco Ritchie running into the arms of Madonna’s ex-husband back in 2015), Lola has very much decided to embrace it. Dare one even say, “carry the torch.” The very “fire” Madonna tried to symbolically pass on to Britney and Xtina at that 2003 VMAs performance… yet neither pop star has been able to fully embrace it in the long-run (Britney for obvious reasons). And, incidentally, since Lourdes “played” a flower girl at the beginning of the aforementioned performance and then graduated to full-on “Like A Virgin” bride regalia for the 2009 “Celebration” video, maybe all the writhing and gyrating she’s employing in the present was foreshadowed.

    More of which comes after the first round of “stable scenes,” when things start to get “impressionistic” as we’re shown images of Lolahol eating an apple (yes, how “profound” on the symbolism front) and other assorted fruits before we see her lounging sideways on a banquet table and then smashing some grapes… and, predictably, crawling/writhing (again, very Madonna) across it.

    Another tableau presents itself when Lola and a suspended rope appear in an empty barn as she proceeds to “do sexy shit” with it. This leads into another dirt-filled barn where horses run around amid mirrors that reflect their image back to them in a manner that, one would think, might cause an inevitable snafu. But anyway, that’s not the real standout of this portion, so much as Lola vaguely recreating the pouring of sand on her body the way Madonna does in the “Don’t Tell Me” video (the moment, it could be said, that M’s own fascination with horses first began). Implementing the dance moves she studied in school (as her mother did before dropping out), Lolahol does everything to give the most while pretending to do the least.

    In the final scenes, Pollack captures footage of a butterfly on Lola’s hand (cue Lana Del Rey’s “Happiness Is A Butterfly”), followed by the image of crushed grapes that remind one of what Caroline Polachek’s vibe was in “Billions.” It’s all concluded with a black-and-white image of a horse running away through the field. Likely back to Madonna’s crotch.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Lolahol Seeks to Take Up the Mantle of Madonna’s “Weird Art Kid” Persona on Go EP

    Lolahol Seeks to Take Up the Mantle of Madonna’s “Weird Art Kid” Persona on Go EP

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    Inching her way ever forward into the spotlight, Lolahol, which media outlets are certain to remind is “Madonna’s daughter” (just in case the music itself isn’t enough), has released a five-track EP on the heels of her debut solo single, “Lock&Key.” The latter obviously appears on the album, called Go. A title, in fact, that feels apropos considering the 90s-oriented sound of it all tying into that iconic, yet still-too-underrated 1999 rave movie. Except that, rather than providing a dance-y, ntsss ntsss ntssss vibe, Lolahol is more “classic trip hop,” as it is pretentiously billed.

    And, talking of pretension, even the cover itself offers some of that in terms of its blatant “homage” to Marilyn Minter’s work (recently featured in Madonna’s stage backdrops during her performance at Terminal 5 for Pride). This image, however, was shot by the elusive indiana420bitch (who has, of late, been responsible for Kim Kardashian’s “scum aesthetic” photos). Yet, despite the patent derivativeness, it gives us some kind of glimpse into what to expect sonically. Lips pressed against glass and smeared, glittery bluish-purple eye makeup being visually tantamount to what we hear as the EP opens on the faux provocatively-titled “Cuntradiction” (for which Lolahol has also created a video with very familiar aesthetics). Her initially trilling, high-pitched vocals give way to a general languor that remains for the rest of the album. In fact, if Lolahol’s overall sound could be described in one word it would be: languor.

    Touching on familiar themes of toxic and inequitable love that her own mother has addressed in many a song (particularly “Frozen”), Lolahol accuses, “I am nothing in your eyes/‘Til you don’t have me by your side.” Maybe that’s why she’s inclined to confess, “I want a version of you, not the whole thing”—her own so-called partner likely feeling the same way. Indeed, that’s how most people feel in the present epoch, with social media being a key contributor to why so many expect a “version” of someone, as though they’re a two-dimensional being. This being essentially what we’ve all been reduced to with our various “platforms” on which to present ourselves. Or rather, the “best” version of ourselves. Something Lolahol a.k.a. Lourdes herself is wont to project as well, thanks to the arsenal of resources at her disposal. Including NYC favorite Eartheater, who executive produced the album via her Chemical X imprint… though one wonders if, in another time and place, Lolahol might have been a Maverick artist.

    And, talking (yet again) of Madonna-related things, after the Madame X Tour was released, one fan pointed out, “I get it now. Madonna’s a weird art kid.” Art and its correlating “weirdness” being an aspect of life that she’s consistently imparted to her own children, adopted or otherwise. That much is clear in what Lourdes’ approach has been to most of her “career”—primarily modeling up until this point. All while playing into that fashionable (no pun intended) idea that a model should be more than just a body—she needs to be a unique “personality.” A “performance artist,” of sorts.

    As an unapologetic art bitch, Madonna also undeniably imparted a love of James Baldwin onto her kids, hence the title of the second track on Go, “Giovanni’s Room.” With an ambient yet industrial sound, Lolahol paints the picture, “He locked the door behind him…/we simply stared at each other.” The uneventful nature of life in the twenty-first century, characterized primarily by being in rooms (thanks to the internet) and other “non-places,” is thusly captured in this sentence—perhaps giving Billie Eilish a run for her Gen Z money. And yes, both Billie and Lolahol seem to relish offering up ersatz Gen X themes of disaffection from their Gen Z bodies.

    A generation that, through Lolahol, admits, “I was trembling/I am lost.” In other uneventful news, Lolahol further delineates, “He pulled me against him/Pulled myself into his arms as I gave him me (or is it weed?) to carry.” And, in contrast to what we were told by Madonna in the 00s about her children’s upbringing, Lolahol describes, “Spend my days watching the TV screen/My mom says I look lost.” Maybe that’s why Lola finally decided to “get some direction” as a singer, since modeling as a profession expires far sooner. And obviously, Madonna won’t stand for anything other than “excellence” in her products a.k.a. children, they being just another reflection of herself.

    And Lola reflects M quite well, candor-wise, on “Not Pussy” when she commences, “I don’t give a fuck about you/It’s your choice, I’m not gonna make the first move.” At the same time, the Madonna we’ve come to know would never play into such gender-specific limitations. Regardless of being a woman, she always made the first move if it suited her whims or purposes. Especially in the pre-fame New York days, when she would home in on the men (and women) she thought might be useful to her career (an element of her ambitious personality that Weird Al decided to hyper-caricaturize in Weird). Lolahol, in contrast, had a built-in career from day one of being born out of Madonna’s pussy. So she can’t tell anyone that “Not Pussy” has to do with her success, for it absolutely does.

    Maybe that’s why she has no shame in declaring, “I’m lazy.” An admission that could very well be part of her warning, “You want me/You know I’m no good for you”—this being a lyric that smacks of Amy Winehouse (“I told you I was trouble/You know I’m no good”) and Lana Del Rey (“We both know/That it’s not fashionable to love me”). She finally delves more fully into the “WAP”-oriented titled by chanting, “Pussy, pussy, pussy,” then suggestively adding, “Jump in, jump out of my…” She subsequently throws a curveball by saying, “…spirit” in lieu of the expected “pussy,” then randomly incorporates the flex, “Every dream I have is lucid.” The sonic tone of the song, like most of them, once more mirrors a sound that can best be categorized as Unreleased Ray of Light Demos, which makes sense considering Lola’s predilection for 90s styles and rhythms. Continuing to goad the boy in question, Lolahol demands, “Are you in or are you not/Pussy, pussy, pussy.” This sentence structure becoming an overt play on words with regard to the pursuer himself being a pussy for waffling in his so-called pursuit.

    The following song, “Purple Apple,” is slightly more slowed down (though all of the songs manage to come off that way when delivered in Lolahol’s manner) and also veers toward sounding like it could be on the Stranger Things Soundtrack. The track is somewhat alluded to in the video for “Cuntradiction,” when the overwrought image of biting viscerally and seductively into an apple is wielded by Lolahol (as if Lana Del Rey didn’t already do that recently enough in the short film, Tropico).

    The demanding side Lola must get from her mother shines through as she orders, “Roll me a spliff”—this weed imagery relating to the song’s name, for, in addition to a “purple apple” referring to a girl giving a bite on a guy’s Adam’s apple while she grabs his balls, it’s also worth noting that one can smoke out of an apple as well. And while Lolahol smokes her blunt (a habit she seemed to inspire M with), she likely thinks of the person she’s wasting time on as she announces, “I’m takin’ all the risks/And you’re not doin’ shit.” Of course, all celebrity children think they’re taking a risk when it comes to inviting an outsider into “their world.” That’s likely part of why Lola offers the telling lines, “Melt me down/Lay me down/I’m your fruit/Feed off me/Spit me out/Leave me.”

    But Lolahol is the one to leave us with the conclusion of Go, “Lock&Key,” which almost seems like the weakest of her “oeuvre” now that we’ve heard “more of it” (read: a mere four additional songs). Plus, it has the backstabbing element of quoting from a Lady Gaga interview via the chorus, “No sleep, next plane, no sleep, make up, next club, next car, next plane, no sleep, no fear.”

    Evidently, however, Lourdes Leon must have some fear if she feels obliged to perform under a “conceptual” stage name. One with the same manufactured attempt at “being real and raw” as the songs themselves, with their overarching inauthenticity. Though clearly wanting to reveal “who she is” to listeners, the generic and recycled content of it all makes it difficult for her to stand apart, least of all from her mother’s towering shadow. At the same time, M herself was once given a similar critique re: superficiality for her early work… not that “Lolahol” will ever be capable of “falling out of the industry” in the same way that Madonna once was at the start of her own musical journey.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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