I'm burning up, burning up for your VOTES! — ILM Artist Poll #31 is Madonna

"Don't Stop" is the only thing that actively grates from Bedtime Stories. I replaced it with "Your Honesty" on my iTunes version of the album, a track that she strangely left on the cutting room floor in the album sessions, and only later resurfaced on Remixed & Revisited. It's not spectacular but it's much better. And she sings some French on in so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w92At03mDL8

*on it

As in, "Secret" is great and "I'd Rather Be Your Lover" is probably the worst song on the album, and from there it gradually ascends to "Take A Bow".

I don't necessarily agree with this (although I do think "Take a Bow" is probably the best song on the record), but as I said upthread there definitely seems to be a thematic build of self-assassination from "Forbidden Love" onwards almost which I love.

has this already been posted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTaXtWWR16A

yeah vogue also kindof sucks and the video is gross

― plax (ico), Tuesday, February 19, 2013 6:37 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't know what to say about this

I need to be very dim for a moment and ask a clarification question re plax's post upthread.
re: Vogue = cultural imperialism.
can someone or plax explain this to me more? I'm not sure I really get what the argument against it is.

smart ppl, elaborate plz!

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, February 19, 2013 9:35 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it was more a feeling than anything else. it wasn't just performance; it was dominance. besides being a perfectly produced dance track, vogue established madonna as a dictator of taste.

In "Don't Stop"'s defense, she sings LA-DEE-DA-DEE.

"Don't Stop" is the Bedtime Stories pick for my deep cuts playlist, really dig that one, although i like the whole album a lot

"Vogue" was certainly the peak of her imperial phase.

can we debate what WAS Madonna's imperial phase? Did she boast several?

I'd say 1984-1987 and 1989-91, with 1998-2000 a mild comeback followed by several reminders of fading greatness ("Hung Up").

i think later she was just imperious

also, who has had more imperial phases than madonna?

i don't know if she wasn't still queen of the world in 1988, she just wasn't flexing her power for a brief moment

and she made it look easy

there were a whole crop of female singers that had bigger chart success than madonna in 88-91(janet, paula and mariah spring to mind)

can we pls not compare/contrast madonna/mariah bc i think my brain might explode

Hmm, Prince may have had a longer uninterrupted imperial phase, magnified by writing so many hits for other people.

Phil Collins had a pretty substantial imperial phase! Or phases, even.

madonna was the most famous, photographed, discussed person on the planet at that time and was dropping all-time iconic momements by the week tho so it was certainly her imperial phase in that regard just of a different kind to 84-86

as a kid with a nascent understanding of pop music in 88-91, it certainly seemed to me like no matter how big Whitney or Paula or Janet was, Madonna was at the top

oh yeah she'd ascended way above that - into the company of all the icons she was singing about in "vogue"

even in '92 when MTV couldn't play the "Erotica" video, they'd dance to it every day on the Club MTV successor The Grind

"vogue" really is a coronation anthem

i would recant the greta garbo bit in my room til i had it down, every word

it was like a prayer

i love the whole weird canon of giant classic soundtrack songs that were attached to an otherwise unremarkable film (xp)

Gets its own Wikipedia entry: Madonna Wannabe.

(Seem to remember Madonna making a disparaging remark about Paula Abdul's weight in the late '80s...couldn't find anything online. She didn't need to be, but I think she did, occasionally, feel threatened by this procession of competitors.)

years after Ciccone Youth, Mike Watt gigged often with a tribute band called The Madonnabes. and then, of course, there was that glorious moment when he and the Stooges got to play her songs at the RNR Hall of Fame induction (there's an amazing photo i can't find of Watt bowing to her with his bass when she passes by the Stooges backstage).

Prince's hitmaking days ended in 1994.

I guess it makes more sense to regard 1984-1991 as a continuous phase with a treading water period (Who's That Girl) and a lull in 1988 before a peak in 1990-early '91

She almost matches up perfectly with Cal Ripken's first imperial phase. I don't know what that means.

lol

that's why he's known around Baltimore as Caldonna

She was obviously just biding her time with A-Rod, as was Mariah Carey with Jeter; Cal was the shortstop they all really wanted.

talking to a gay dad i know last night - he's the one who told me that mark kamins had passed away a couple of weeks ago and i confess i hadn't thought of mark kamins in 20+ years - and we had a nice madonna chat and i was gushing about live to tell and the oh father video and he totally outgayed me when i asked him what his fave madonna song was and he said "what it feels like for a girl". he loves every madonna album. he's of the can do no wrong variety of fan. though i did get him to admit that the bedtime story remix 12 inch was a snooze when i put it on.

Wow, don't think I've heard "Angel" in close to 30 years.

"deeper and deeper" is great. Recall the live version of "Bye Bye Baby" being a lot better than the studio.

you f***ed it up

I haven't quite decided about Deeper And Deeper, but what really grabs me is the synthetic string melody that runs from 0:16 to 0:32. It's quite unlike anything else I can think of in pop - what is it, a klezmer scale or something?

I was in college 87-91, and what I remember about Madonna then is that -- unlike 84-86 -- people stopped making fun of her, or at least her music. Even rock guys were all, "I really like some of her songs." (I assume "Like a Prayer" remains the rockist Madonna fave.)

Harmonic minor scale? It pops up all over. "Father Figure" by George Michael, for example.

xpost

Byzantine scale?

artists "from Johnny Marr to Eric Clapton" all loved LAP, according to the Lucy O'Brien bio.

It's as simple as that? I meant there's a eastern european feel to the way that melody unfolds, but I don't really have the lingo to explain properly.

Phrygian scale?

Phrygian scale is "Have Nagila," "Miserlou" and also a bunch of flamenco. Think Byzantine scale is "Father Figure." Both are variations on harmonic minor scales, I think.

artists "from Johnny Marr to Eric Clapton" all loved LAP, according to the Lucy O'Brien bio.

And John Wesley Harding did the requisite acoustic version.

I'm plonking it out on my piano while consulting this xp, and it's coming out Phrygian, yes

The O'Brien bio, the best researched of the many (trashy) ones, boasts good quotes from bassist Guy Pratt on the recording of LAP -- says he was impressed by Maddie's musical knowledge. During a run-through of "Oh Father," she ordered the drummer to hit the hi-hat on the second chorus and someone else to start the tambourine after 16 bars.

xp I'm pleased to see that the most modern phrygian thing that those links cite is by Charles Mingus, plus something off Lord Of The Rings

Maybe the Madonna ridicule '84-86 from rock people got transferred over to Milli Vanilli/New Kids/Tiffany? (Cf. John Huston in Chinatown on politicians and old buildings.) I don't know--as I said earlier, I stepped on with True Blue. Christgau and Marcus started to write about her more, and more positively, around the time of Like a Prayer, and I'm sure that had a effect too.

xpost Don't Fear the Reaper!

Madonna ridicule peaked with the conical bras. But even then, no one was making fun of the music, just the person.

Like, even now, if someone was going to make fun of Madonna, conical bras is the quickest shortcut.

http://www.analyzemath.com/Geometry_calculators/cone_1.gif