Madonna: Classic Or Dud

See, that's my problem with her in album-length form: fuck the ballads, full-on disco from start to finish please. Is that so hard?

sorry, pally: MY Madonna requires "Live to Tell," "Crazy For You," "Bedtime Stories," "Love Tried to Welcome Me," and "In This Life."

I'd forgive this if her post-Evita voice wasn't at its most pompous.

This is the nub of it I think.

Erotica hides its ballads really well imo.

Yeah, I listen to it all the time obv and I still get surprised. I think it helps that all of the ballads (as well as the other slow tunes - "Where Life Begins", "Secret Garden" etc.) really feel like an extension of the same character as inhabits the uptempo tunes. "Bad Girl" and "In This Life" are precisely the depressive songs that the all-nite-diva would sing to herself the next day, under a cloud of hangover and regret.

Yeah that's cool but why can't she relegate the hangover to another disc? Why's it so hard? (I'm being bitchy, really. The Erotica ballads/downtempos, apart from the obvious one, are decent enough. But I'd be lying if I said I ever listen to them or that I'd need to save them in a fire as with "Deeper and Deeper.")

sorry, pally: MY Madonna requires "Live to Tell," "Crazy For You," "Bedtime Stories," "Love Tried to Welcome Me," and "In This Life."

They're all yours, baby, including the overrated "Live to Tell." Come on - Dave Marsh thinks it's her best single. How good could it be then??? "Gambler" >>> "Live to Tell" Didn't know "Bedtime Story" counted as a ballad but I do dig that one. Had to youtube "Love Tried to Welcome Me" since I couldn't recall it. Made it to the chorus. Zzzz.

I knew I really couldn't stand her balladry when I listened to Something to Remember. Obviously not an ideal place to hear them since they're the entire picture rather than desert oases. But man what a chore to get through!

The only time I hear some new kind of New Age-disco fusion is on "Sky Fits Heaven."

Actually, that Shanti Shanti Shanti number on Ray of Light fuses the two nicely enough. One of my fave tracks on a pretty blah album.

Why's it so hard?

to love one another?

"Something To Remember" the song I've adored since about 8 years old.

Obviously if she couldn't sing or write the ballads no one would endorse them! She's got soggy ones too (e.g. "This Used To Be My Playground" and "The Power of Goodbye").

Now "Angel" I made it all the way through, several times, in fact. Like the Janet of "Love Will Never Do Without You," she knows how to play with her vocal limitations so that she comes off as intense as Mavis Fuckin' Staples by the end of the song. From right before the vaguely Orientalist instrumental break to the fadeout, it just burns!

I wouldn't count "Angel" as a ballad. Would you?

Not at all. Just sayin'.

I'd rescue "I'll Remember" from a fire.

Oh that's a good one -- always forget it.

this used to be my playyyyyyyyyyyyyyground

It's weird, I know I am the anti-Alfred when it comes to Madonna, and I'm not trying to be challopsy, I just have different taste but it's always strange to me how completely differently other ppl rate her stuff from how I do.

I've never been able to make it all the way through Erotica and I know that album gets a lot of love. But then again, most of the "classic" 80s era stuff, the production drives me nuts and I can't listen to it.

Ray of Light isn't "not dance" so much as it's dronerock with IDM accessories on it. Which is why I love it so much, clearly but it's kind of where I start with Madonna, not where I end. I think it completely works as being both danceable and introspective but I've got quite a high tolerance for her being spiritual and "pompous". She's one of the few artists whose songs about their kids I don't skip, probably because her feelings about motherhood seem so tied up with the loss of her own mother, and therefore sometimes quite ambivalent.

I've grown to really really rate Music - once I was able to take it out its time and place and disassociate it from that awful, awful Ali G nonsense. I'm also with DJP that American Life is such an odd little album that even when it fails, it's still interesting to listen to. And when it's good, it's amazing.

But this is when I really really want a Madonna vote-in poll because I think that tracks 40-10 on it would be a good learning experience for me to hear the stuff that I haven't explored because I can't get past the production or the setting or whatever.

I suppose one of these days I should give Hard Candy another listen and perhaps it won't seem as terrible but I kinda blame Guy Ritchie for that, I'm just gonna call it her "Here My Dear" and file it and wait for the next one.

What makes Ray of Light a drag is the tension between the insistence on introspection and the buttoned-down beats; or, rather, she hadn't yet found a correlative for "thoughtful" dance music. The results are a little like Young Americans: auteurist pop with dance leanings.

Also: when her lyrics aim for "spirituality," she's embarrassing or worse. I'd forgive this if her post-Evita voice wasn't at its most pompous. The only time I hear some new kind of New Age-disco fusion is on "Sky Fits Heaven."

otm

candy perfume girl is one of my favourite madonna songs though

here my dear is/was an amazing album btw

I've never actually heard it, to be honest, but given it's one of those albums that most people seem to agree should come with a trigger warning for misogyny, I feel it's probably better if I give it a miss.

Guess I should find another by-word for "breakup album so bitter it's actually painful to listen to." Except Hard Candy doesn't seem to be a breakup album so much as a "look at me, I'm so hot, I got it going on I don't even need to think about you" which could be interesting if executed well but my memory is, it wasn't and it just came off as clunky and try-hard. (You are welcome to prove me wrong.)

well "look at me, I'm so hot, I got it going on I don't even need to think about you" seems to be the standard approach of most modern breakup songs/albums, rather than the bitter/angry/twisted/downbeat mood of albums like here my dear. i dont know if id say HMD is misogynistic, its just very acidic (but when did i stop loving you is one of the best/most bitter breakup/relationship post mortem songs ive ever heard).

but what i like about HMD is that hes not ashamed to put it all out there - it has some of the most painfully raw (but also beautiful) and honest songs he wrote. anyway, enough about marvin.

She's one of the few artists whose songs about their kids I don't skip

I agree! "Little Star" is lovely.

Songs on ROL I like:

Swim (guitar!)
Candy Perfume Girl
Skin
Nothing Really Matters
Sky Fits Heaven
To Have and Not to Hold
Little Star

Am I the only one who didn't Madonna's Neil Young-style thrashing on "Candy Perfume Girl" when she played it on the 2001 tour?

*who didn't MIND

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/Madonna-to-play-Super-Bowl-XLVI-halftime-show-100311

Madonna to play Super Bowl halftime
NewsCore

Updated Oct 3, 2011 12:57 PM ET

Madonna will perform during the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show, fansite SB Nation reported Monday.

The site said unnamed NFL sources had confirmed the "Material Girl" singer will entertain football fans at the NFL championship game, to be held Feb. 5 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

The Black Eyed Peas played the halftime show at last year's title game, watched by over 111 million viewers.

The high-profile gig has gained notoriety after the infamous 2004 "wardrobe malfunction" that resulted in Justin Timberlake exposing Janet Jackson's breast to a live worldwide television audience.

As a result, the NFL has tried to steer clear from notably risque performers, inviting tamer acts such as Tom Petty, Paul McCartney and The Who.

watch out, Middle America – Madonna's gonna flaunt her roped, knotted Biceps of Doom.

unlike Bruce, slamming her gentles into a cameraman won't be an accident

Did they run our of old rock acts?

I wonder if it will be "controversial."

(Seriously, though, doesn't Lady Gaga exist for this sort of thing?)

They'll never run out of old rock acts, but Madonna was the last of the remaining huge 80s stars to not have done it.

(MJ, JJ, Springsteen and Prince have all been there)

next year they're going to bust out with Baltimora

he's dead!

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.