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

I love that! I've got to get hold of that.

I'd never heard of that before! that is pretty great and hilarious yeah. also this bit from wikipedia is o_O:

Musically, the song is based on Madonna's 1983 hit "Holiday". What made it interesting for Producer Ben Liebrand was figuring out which instruments were used in the original and re-recording the music from scratch as opposed to sampling the original, with different lyrics and a new melodies[2]

I wouldn't have been able to tell otherwise.

yeah, but Live to Tell is another ace movie tie-in where the record company finally wised up and demanded that it be brought onto the record xxxxp

"If you wanna go - yo Sven!"

I bought this. I bought a lot of terrible singles.

"music" might be the most underrated madonna single. there's so much going on in it. that weird guitar motif, the electrofunk synth line towards the end, the deliberately funkless "uh. uh."s. the main synth riff contains one note. the way her voice is distorted is almost anti-pop in that it works against what few melodic hooks the song has, keeps disrupting the groove. one of those songs where you feel like just the recognition that it would work as a catchy single is a kind of genius in itself

The way she kicks that dude and goes "hiiii-yah!"

also it contains the line "music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel" and PEOPLE STILL LISTENED TO IT

every time I look at or participate in a thread celebrating/laughing at New Order's terrible lyrics, so many Madonna lines pop into my head, and yet we've never really gone into how goofy some of her songs are that I can remember

tbh that's one of her BETTER post-2000 lyrics. like, it's just goofy and so kinda endearing to me rather than eye-rolly moralising

I'D LIKE TO EXPRESS MY EXTREME POINT OF VIEW
I'M NOT A CHRISTIAN AND I'M NOT A JEW

never 4get

For the most part she left her lyrics at a, to be kind, first draft level post-ROL, if I were to put her first-rate lyrics beside Bernard's it would be a dead heat, and she might even win.

oh no i forgot to vote for "papa don't preach" :(

lol lex, that entire rap is amazing

one of the most hilarious things ever, and yet it still works

insert a "but" in my last post

insert "butt" in every Madonna lyric

i unreservedly love the whole of "american life" including 99% of the rap but the way its DEEP THOUGHTS pay-off is THAT STUPID still makes me physically flinch

and i just realised
nothing is what it
seeeeeeeeeeeems

*slow hand clap madge*

It's a surprisingly good song and I considered throwing it a vote, but that lyric ... it'd be like ordering a nice bottle of wine despite the shit in the bottom.

"Do I have to change my name? Will it get me far?" why are you asking this in the 21st century after you've become a multimillionaire

American Life was the revelation when I returned to her albums last weekend. It's uneven as hell but not a failure or embarrassment like Hard Candy.

same. i really love "x-static process"

american life is like her 808s & heartbreak - when it doesn't work it's horrible and it's wildly uneven and the ratio of great to awful is not what it should be, BUT when they pulls off what they're going for it can be pretty amazing AND they get major points for ambition, for trying to do something completely unobvious and genuinely bizarre-sounding

oh yeah – it's an ambitious record

It is definitely an underrated album

Listening to Music again this morning. My god "Nobody's Perfect" is gruesome.

"music" might be the most underrated madonna single. there's so much going on in it. that weird guitar motif, the electrofunk synth line towards the end, the deliberately funkless "uh. uh."s. the main synth riff contains one note. the way her voice is distorted is almost anti-pop in that it works against what few melodic hooks the song has, keeps disrupting the groove. one of those songs where you feel like just the recognition that it would work as a catchy single is a kind of genius in itself

I totally agree and I put it high on my ballot!

Last week I said "Paradise (Not For Me)" was my (re)discovery. I was wrong: I meant "Gone."

"Gone" is a great closer and so is "Easy Ride" from American Life.

OTM

i mean i do kind of go back and forth over "easy ride", the lyrics are definitely tell too much instead of show (though no way near as bad as gets later on with something like "give it 2 me"), but when she has this kind of revelation in the middle when she sings "what I want is to live forever..." it feels so piercingly true for her (for someone that's always fought against mortality) that I'm impressed she's just come out and said it with such honesty that it always takes me back a bit and even at times makes me quite emotional. plus i love the production especially the strings and the way at the end the beat stutters and gets stuck and has this false ending cos look she goes round and round in this endless bind of life

She achieves a comparable effect on "Gone" imo.

it's a superstar sentiment: wanting to fade

Listening to Music again this morning. My god "Nobody's Perfect" is gruesome.

― Tim F, Wednesday, February 27, 2013 4:15 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol note that that was the closing track to my deep cuts mix :)

i'm glad we're talking about the Mirwais era now -- i love that dude's fucked up sound so much. not sure if any of his stuff will be on my ballot besides obviously "Don't Tell Me" and maaaaybe "Die Another Day" but i want to fit American Life on my albums ballot

Listening to HC for the first time since it was new and was abt to argue that there's nothing on it that compares go the badness of American Life, but then Spanish Lessons happened.

American Life really is a wonderful fiasco of an album. funny how the only time she worked with the same producer for the bulk of two back-to-back albums, there was such a night-and-day contrast to how they were received by the public. biggest difference of course being Madge's own nascent guitar playing all over the record. Lauryn Hill did her own learning-guitar-in-public disaster album a year earlier, but it was live without a net, Madonna just picked the strangest possible producer to accompany her acoustic reflections.

have we confirmation it's Madonna's guitar? I like to think it is -- it sounds like it a few times. But then in 2001 I reviewed Mirwais' own record and the guitar lines were fairly similar.

"Music" is like a healthy "Piece of Me."

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2313/2486029046_3728b1e59d.jpg

she did the whole thing of going on Letterman a month after she started taking guitar lessons and playing "Don't Tell Me," and American Life was the product of that, she talked about playing guitar on it in interviews, etc. no idea if she did all/most of the guitars or if she's just peppered in with Mirwais's guitars thoug. xp

I watched the Letterman thing with her greasy-haired guitarist at the time but thought it a publicity stunt in advance of her tour. She got flak for her electric work on "Candy Perfume Girl" that tour but it didn't bother me; the live arrangement was more unbuttoned.

Everyone asleep? Good. I wanted to dissent on "Music" and say that I think it's one of her blandest singles.

yeah i don't hate it like i used to but it's never been of any real value to me. same goes for "Ray Of Light," while we're talking about the big latter day hits, kind of hoping that one gets totally snubbed in the poll results.

http://img.over-blog.com/420x537/1/52/29/59/Photos_25/Madonna-s_1994_Handwritten_Letter_to_David_Letterman_1.jpg

I watched the Letterman thing with her greasy-haired guitarist at the time but thought it a publicity stunt in advance of her tour. She got flak for her electric work on "Candy Perfume Girl" that tour but it didn't bother me; the live arrangement was more unbuttoned.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 27, 2013 10:00 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean everything madonna does or thinks is filtered into her public persona, but is it really a 'publicity stunt' if a musician picks up a new instrument?

It sort of is when someone not perceived to be a musician like Madonna does!

Also: symmetry. She's giving a guitar a WTF look on the cover.

ehhh in a world where Lil Wayne walks around with a guitar in public and occasionally fumbling at it with oven mitts for 6 years straight, i'm not gonna doubt the sincerity of any star who actually bothered to take lessons and write an album on guitar

everyone asleep? good. i suddenly can't get "did you do it?" out of my head and i'm concerned there's something wrong with me.

Madonna just picked the strangest possible producer to accompany her acoustic reflections.

― steeny HOOSer (some dude), Thursday, February 28, 2013 2:03 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm it was a bizarre contribution but it probably served to enhance the acoustic fumblings - mirwais' stop-start glitchiness were an oddly complementary frame for her rudimentary (and, listening back, unusually close-miced) guitar pluckings - the entire thing gives off this air of mechanical brokenness. it's the furthest thing from a "hi i am doing Real Honest Acoustic Music now" move because it sounds like it's refracted through so much smoke & mirrors

also that letterman letter <3

mirwais' stop-start glitchiness were an oddly complementary frame for her rudimentary (and, listening back, unusually close-miced) guitar pluckings

otm