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

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

Formula for success.

Let us not forget the Madonna single that wasn't...

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

isn't that quite a common time lapse between a new pop star emerging who gets derided as a plastic/inauthentic/wannabe and then once it's obvious they'll have longevity etc they get the grudging respect of the rockists

cf beyoncé now, even happened to kylie

Yep. The J.D. Considine review of LAP in Rolling Stone is a prime example of the form:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/like-a-prayer-19890406

Ever since Madonna's bellybutton first undulated its way into mass consciousness, her fame has been more a matter of image than artistry. ... With Like a Prayer, Madonna doesn't just ask to be taken seriously, she insists on it. Daring in its lyrics, ambitious in its sonics, this is far and away the most self-consciously serious album she's made.

And the real tell is the "St. Pepperisms" of "Dear Jessie": In 1989, if Rolling Stone broke out the Pepper, it was like the Jann Wenner Seal of Approval.

isn't that quite a common time lapse between a new pop star emerging who gets derided as a plastic/inauthentic/wannabe and then once it's obvious they'll have longevity etc they get the grudging respect of the rockists

and T-Swift.

"self-consciously serious" i.e. "Whew! Now we can pay attention."

I'm having a hard time thinking of anyone from the '60s or '70s where this change was as clear and pronounced as it was with Madonna. You can't say the Beatles, because there essentially weren't any rock critics in 1966. I must be missing someone obvious.

lots of teen poppers "grew up" in the late 60's and early 70's and were taken more seriously by critics. usually whenever they put out an album that had their first, middle, and last name as a title.

Monkees?

lol yer rilly bobby vee

http://991.com/newGallery/Robert-Thomas-Velline-Nothin-Like-A-Sun-382216.jpg

Did Abba manage it, except in retrospect?

Another Madonnabe single:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW2LOaCHhOg

I suppose not teenpop as such

i love alisha's "too turned on" as much as any madonna single of the 80's. and madonna could have done it circa first album. but it was alisha's fate to be a freestyle icon instead of a household name.

I think ABBA fits, but it took many years with them--don't think they were treated favorably by rock critics until long after they'd disbanded. (In North America, anyway--maybe different in Britain?) The Monkees...that one's tricky. Anyway, a separate thread. But I do think Madonna might be the blueprint for a phenomenon that happens with some regularity now.

(Cf. John Huston in /Chinatown/ on politicians and old buildings.)

True...I'm kind of a prude!

You've got to just let your body move to the politicians.

Wow, Music does not really hold up all that well. Some good tracks, of course (mainly the singles, plus I still dig "Impressive Instant") but the acoustic tracks are really quite dull.

I always forget how fantastic the lp version of "What It Feels Like..." is, because the video remix is the version I always think of first. Damn, though! It's REALLY strong in its original form.

Ok choosing her Top 5 videos is almost harder than choosing her Top 20 songs. I find myself leaving out "Rain", "Oh Father", "Express Yourself", and "Justify My Love" !

otm

power of goodbye is pretty generic, but it's really lovely all the same.

My ballot's coming out pure canon so far. Normally I cut all but the most essential singles, then fill up with deep cuts, but she has so many undeniable hits that they're crowding everything else out.

Are we supposed to order the side polls too or do all the votes count for the same amount of points?

Sub polls are scored thusly: 10-8-6-4-2

*Sigh* that makes it even harder...

Wow, Music does not really hold up all that well. Some good tracks, of course (mainly the singles, plus I still dig "Impressive Instant") but the acoustic tracks are really quite dull.

"Paradise (Not For Me)" clicked for me a few years ago.

I still think it's a decent record, but in my rush to re-listen to (almost) every Madonna record before doing my ballot, I sure wasn't expecting to like it less, in 2013, than I'm Breathless.

"paradise (not for me)" is really great, yeah

yeah "paradise (not for me)" is the one deep cut I return to, i like how she flits between being an old woman, a robot and singing in French, pretty rad.

music was seriously overrated by critics at the time (i guess due to a hold over of good will from ROL) - it's her highest placing album on pazz & jop!

Christgau was weird about Madge. He loved Erotica but gave A's to I'm Breathless and Music. To wit:

Anybody who denies that Madonna made great singles in the '80s is a boob. Run all together on The Immaculate Collection, they constitute the greatest album of her mortal life. But except for the debut, the albums per se from that period strove for schlock when they didn't stoop to filler. In the early '90s, she essayed great longforms--an ambition that presupposes good songs while cultivating consistency and flow. Then she got scared and discovered God, two not unrelated experiences that rendered her great singles and good songs more middlebrow. So rejoice that from Vocoder to cowgirl suit, she's got her sass back. Pretending to be cheap, she sometimes--as on my favorite moment, the processed-munchkin hook of the perfectly entitled "Nobody's Perfect"--really is cheap, which is essential to the illusion. All the songs are good, all chintzy. Which combo provides just the right consistency and flow.

Listening to the Something To Remember comp now. "You'll See" def sounds like she's auditioning for Broadway.

'you'll see' is pretty good but i mostly remember for its video being the sequel to the video for 'take a bow' right?

if i vote, #1 is borderline. such a great track. not sure where i'd rank the others, but probs 'take a bow', 'erotica', 'secret', 'bedtime stories', 'ray of light', 'beautiful stranger' would be up there. i'm really not much into her like a virgin/prayer run in the '80s, some singles aside. i think she really re-emerged w/erotica.

i really feel like virtually everything she released in the'90s was pretty unassailable (from what i know, i'm breathless isn't one i've heard.

)

I've got I'm Breathless on just now. I quite like it, the staginess of it and all, but it's a strange listen; more like a cast recording than a single artist, which speaks to some decent adaptability (assuming it's her on all tracks, a lot don't really sound like her at all).

Christgau largely otm about her earlier albums being largely shlock and filler btw - the debut is indeed excellent, but you can tell where the hard work's gone on the subsequent records. I guess this is as much about the filler's being overshadowed by some genuinely stunning pieces, as opposed to the filler being rubbish - most of it is perfectly serviceable - but it's hard to give much time to e.g. 'Pretender' when you've just had 'Material Girl' fill your ears.

The thing for me that's hard to get over is, I think, that for a dozen or so singles she's operating on such a high plane that even fantastic songs (e.g. 'Borderline') can lack that touch of genius, and pale in comparison. Whereas for most other artists it'd be a no.1 contender.

"He's a Man" works, I think.

Yup, that's the standout