Madonna: Classic Or Dud

next year they're going to bust out with Zombie Baltimora

So was Paul McCartney, but he put on a show anyway.

Night tonight
Gimme the other
Gimme the other
BRAAAAAAAAAAAINS

Last time, she debuted American Pie, didn't she?

That was 1998, and she backed out: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,617156,00.html

Madonna covers Between the Bars. Surprising!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIytf5S5zMs#t=185

That was just embarrassing. Jesus.

I saw one of her Yeezus-style late-night public projections last night:
http://i39.tinypic.com/2wp4ac0.png

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/madonna-secret-project_n_3980924.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXfXrl4K2D4

oh HELLO

http://www.portalfamososbr.com/rebel-heart-e-wash-all-over-me-novas-musicas-de-madonna-vazam-na-rede/

hello lower register

I think this is better than it could have been, given all: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/madonna-1#page4

rediscovered this and felt like sharing it for those who may not have heard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbwVhNvkhw0

so beautiful

83-88: great singles, not-so-great LP's.
89-00: the peak
01-present: fuck off.

I find that analysis weird considering that a significant amount of her best material appeared early in her career, including two of her best albums (s/t, True Blue), while her "peak" era contains a wildly uneven, overrated album (Like A Prayer), one of the worst movie tie-ins ever recorded (I'm Breathless), and some truly terrible singles ("Dear Jesse", "Oh Father", "Cherish", "American Pie"). Also, Confessions had some good stuff on it and American Life is grossly underrated by practically everyone.

2008-now is pretty much trash, though.

You're both wrong.

No, I thought about it for a couple of seconds and I'm right.

I don't like how rigid her vocals sound on most of her postmillennial material. Then again, aside from some scattered moments on Music and Confessions I don't like the material either.

I love "Cherish" and like "Oh Father." I temper my enthusiasm for the latter because even before the voice lessons she'd sung better ballads than it.

I know most people disagree with me but I've hated "Cherish" since it first appeared on radio.

it's part of your charm

DAN CAN'T MAKE ME CRY

Oh Father is terribly GOOD

'Cherish' and 'Oh Father' two of my favourite things she's ever done! I disagree about Like a Prayer being uneven... at a push, there's maybe two songs that aren't as good as the rest, but neither are horrible (I'm not saying which ones!)

'Dear Jessie' is a firm favourite of mine too... a song that would work equally well being covered by either Erasure or The Cure.

"Dear Jesse" works in context but is kind of irritating as a standalone song, if that makes any sense.

It's one of only two songs that's managed to move me to tears, so I disagree.

Her duds: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2017/07/06/worst-madonna-songs/

alfred u abandoned me

'American Life' is garbage.

Glad you included the unbearably turgid "Love Don't Live Here Anymore," which I suspect normally gets a pass by part of her (first) classic era.

yr unbearably turgid

A day late, but the four classic album reviews (s/t, Like a Prayer, Bedtime Stories, Ray of Light) that Pitchfork did for Madonna's birthday are worth a read. Alex Frank's analysis of her potentially problematic "earth mother" RoL phase is spot-on and provocative, and Owen Pallett OTM on BS being mostly a pleasant bore.

Thanks! I know lots of stans for that record but it's really a misfire to my ears. Somebody called the genre experiment as being one in "neo-soul", not "R&B slow jam", but whatever it was, Madge didn't make it work, especially compared to other chart music that year imo

I don't understand why you (or they?) chose to review Bedtime Stories while Erotica is called a 'masterpiece' and the idea was to review four of her 'key records'.

Would love to read fgti on Erotica.

or you or Eric.

I wrote this about "Papa Don't Preach" last month: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/songs-of-the-summer-1986/

I'm daunted by Erotica. I think I'd have to lay down my arms.

You screw it, you fake it.

I would have chosen True Blue but that's an argument I've failed at making many a time

Erotica is the only album I think is a masterpiece, but I'll stunt for True Blue, s/t and, yes, Bedtime Stories (probably because it's in the context of the walk back from Erotica).

True Blue to my ears is Madonna at her most effortlessly brilliant and fun, that and the s/t.

i love True Blue

I once wrote half a manifesto about Erotica and taste and criticism and communities of meaning and appropriation and what we talk about when we talk about transcendence, and then I lost it and I wasn't upset because I couldn't do any of those topics justice.

Always a highlight of Madonna's brief seaquarium residency

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz2GvkiTWYo

its a strange track, its all in that last sixty seconds! but there it is!

Erotica is excellent, Like a Prayer is better.

Confessions is my go-to Madonna album these days

I thought they were going to be getting every Madonna album reviewed! They offered me that one or Like A Prayer but I picked Bedtime Stories because I kind of have a weird relationship to Like A Prayer. I haven't until yesterday been able to figure out what it is about that album's 'sound' that weirds me out but yesterday it hit me that it's her "Swedish album"

explain!