Madonna - Madame X (2019)

i'd like to upgrade my opinion of "medellín" from "weird" to "weird and great"

lost my goddamn mind at the "human league plays tchaikovsky" part of "dark ballet"

"god control" is the best madonna song i've heard in 100 years ok i'll stop liveblogging for now

also i really love "crave," feels like it'd belong to a modern bedtime stories

"killers who are partying" is a rough set of lyrics lol but the melody and the arrangement are so chilled and spare and it feels so different for her that i come back around to liking it

A marvelous album.

yes!!!!

God Control omis a bat shit performance of the kind I've wanted for years

Is

"come alive" reminds me of ray of light atmospherically, which is extremely refreshing

The strength of the trad Madonna material -- “I Don’t Search I Find,” “Looking for Mercy,” “Crazy" -- suggests she had another kind of album in her and it would've worked too.

Also, I know this is rockist, but it's nice to see her down to her + producer in the credis.

*credits

"i don't search i find": oh, madonna can still make excellent house music!!!!

I'm actually going to run out of battery quite soon which is sad, but this is certainly carving its own path and impressing me and such. The production of Dark Ballet is insane - such clipping! Such distortion! And a piano solo! And what the fuck is it now? :D This is her Butterflies & Hurricanes moment isn't it. I love it

the only song i don't care for at all is "extreme occident" and it's a bonus track

yeah i love this so far

It took some getting used to. She's not following a 2019 pop template that I can hear, and she's not coming up with vocal melodies as sharp as her old ones to complement the production dissonances, but maybe she doesn't care either.

In other words, she's making me work to listen to her. Not many pop stars of any age in 2019 do this.

oh yikes just got to "killers who are partying"

See? What English speaker writes English like that?!

there are cool sonic moments and arrangements that are interesting but other than that this is in no way an album for me .

do you hate "La Isla Bonita"

I almost thought the robot was singing "Barbie Girl" during a Clockwork Tchaikovsky. Anyway, was cool to see Mykki Blanco in the video.

Three songs in and good God this is pretentious. Shut the fuck up, Madge.

madonna life is snrubbish

Three songs in and good God this is pretentious.

a compliment, of course

not knowing anything about the contemporary pop landscape really: this is not going to be a success is it?

Probably not, and that's what makes it a success. She don't give a fuck. She's liberated.

do you hate "La Isla Bonita"

none of these songs have melodies like that

i only heard a few tracks at the front end but none of them are fit to shine la isla bonita's insular huaraches

Several of these tracks are better than "La Isla Bonita," it's true

Not wild about this so far but "Gun Control" continues the trend of NRA sound effects being in her recent albums' best songs.

Well, it's certainly more interesting than her past few albums, that's all I'll give it.

The vocal filters are, at this point, even more irritating to my ears than her Evita voice.

On Tuesday they bothered, now I accept them like any tic (like I accepted that Evita voice).

My son (age 5) really liked "Batuka"

like I accepted that Evita voice

You know, there isn't a playwright in the world who could make me believe this would happen.

don't feel strongly about most of this but "God Control" really rules and i still have no idea what the hell "Dark Ballet" is

I hate this. All of it.

She don't give a fuck. She's liberated.

That's a strange take. All I hear is Madonna chasing every trend in pop from the last 5 years. She's thirsty for relevance.

God Control, Dark Ballet and I Don’t Search I Find are some of her best songs in a long time. I didn't really enjoy anything else. Most of the songs felt way longer than they actually were.

I failingly struggled to ignore the lyrics to 'Dark Ballet' but I like and respect the sound she's going for. It doesn't entirely work, though.

I do agree that there's a fine line between not giving a fuck and consistently feeling the need to remind everyone that you totally don't give a fuck, like, at all.

I put this on the other day after playing one of my kids the new Taylor Swift song (they hated it, but they hated the other one, too, and eventually came around to it, so ...). I told her the new Madonna album was supposed to be pretty good. Her first reaction was "oh, I've heard this, we did this song with grandma at Zumba class!" and indeed it was kinda Zumba-friendly. Then within a song or two she scrunched up her nose and dismissed it as "but she's trying too hard to be pop." I say to her, what are you talking about, Madonna is one of the biggest pop stars of all time! And her response: "Yeah, but she's older and her pop music was from before, and here she's trying to sound like all the pop music *right now*." Swear to god, didn't give her a word of prompting. I'm not even sure what pop music she was referencing, but I presume she had something in mind.

Me, I thought what I heard sounded fine, but I also at first thought that I put on the wrong record or was playing it out of sequence. I don't think I heard the whole thing and don't remember much of what I heard, but I recall a disco pastiche, some bad lyrics about being a star, sort of a Latin vibe and it all being kinda ... mellow?

she's not coming up with vocal melodies as sharp as her old ones to complement the production dissonances

kinda feeling the opposite, especially on songs like "crave" and "come alive." these are sharp melodies just deployed very weirdly and archly. which is of course part of what makes this record work for me

rebel heart had a similar tension but you had to dig through the 23 bonus tracks to really hear it

Rebel Heart, a record I like but not more than this one, took fewer risks. That one did sound as if she sat down with a phalanx of writers to come up with Proper Songs.

come alive come aliiiiive

Still haven't been able to make it more than a few songs in, but so far Madonna is the worst thing about this.

Still haven't been able to make it more than a few songs in, but so far Madonna is the worst thing about this.

― Josh in Chicago,

Absolutely this! The whole album needs way less Madonna.

I don't know who but Madonna could've come up with these melodies, lyrics, beats, and juxtapositions

Melodies? Monotone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbMu-H7i3D8

(but sure, the juxtapositions)

madonna life is snrubbish
Well done

Insane people think I am
Brain inside my only friend
Hope it gives me birth each new
That dope I don’t smoke, it’s true

otm

brooklyn academy of music show fucking magical.

Sounded it too, from what i've read. Having people's phones locked up at 8pm and then her no-showing til 10.45 caused me to roll my eyes though, not sure if that was just opening night teething trouble..

it's been 10:45-ish all three nights so far. but at this point everybody knows, and ticketmaster has been emailing ticketholders to let them know the new official start time is 9:30 pm, meaning she's officially only 75 minutes late now! and there are places inside where you can drink (decently poured cup of pinot grigio: $16) and have your phone unlocked while you wait. and lots of random fans walking around asking out loud "how long do you think she's gonna make us wait tonite?" followed by the inevitable response "she's earned it!" all part of the magic.

She's playing new stuff almost exclusively, which for a person at her stage of celebrity at this point in her career is radical.

yes, absolutely. and it's such a unique show. "concert" doesn't quite cover it. it was beautiful. and she was in really, really good voice.

We went the second night. Things felt a little rough around the edges, and her extended breaks to talk to the crowd were a momentum killer, but the high points were stunning (audience wide "whoa's" during "Frozen" and "Fado Pechincha." The staging was deceptively simple-looking but really good - the lighting/projection mapping during "Human Nature" reminded me of Fantasia's beginning. More no-phone shows everywhere please.

Setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/madonna/2019/bam-howard-gilman-opera-house-brooklyn-ny-339ce0dd.html

Batuka
Play Video
Fado Pechincha
(Isabel De Oliveira cover)
Play Video
Killers Who Are Partying
Play Video
Crazy
Play Video
La Isla Bonita
(with “Welcome to My Fado Club” improvised song)
Play Video
Sodade
(Cesária Évora cover)
Play Video
Medellín
Play Video
Extreme Occident

^^ holy shit

seeing here in SF. I've actually never seen her before so this seemed like a good way to finally do it.

I'm just happy she's doing Frozen which is one of my favorite songs. I can't say I'm enthralled by the new album but it's a far bit better than her last few from the limited exposure I've had to them.

so saw this last night. evening marred a bit by one of the people we went with who is super high maintenance not liking 1) the phone situation 2) the theater's accomodation for disabled people (she has a foot in a boot right now, so she had a point, but there wasn't much to be done) 3) the late start 4) the heat. The heat in the theater was a legitmate point but she wound up leaving early because of it; apparently Madonna wants it over 80 degrees in the theater for her voice, the theater didn't even pump it as high as she wanted. So it was pretty muggy. All that drama aside: this show was pretty fucking impressive. The set pieces and choreography are great, and the new songs really come across better like this than they do on the album. There are a LOT of long parts where madonna just sits on the stage and yammers and rambles though, which is to take up the time to change the set dressing behind a screen, and that goes over well depending on your tolerance for her increasingly lewd Aunt humor. Madonna herself is looking a little stiff moving around but frankly I couldn't do that for 2.5 hours so I shouldn't talk. And, there are a few moments in this show that are completely transcendent, particularly Frozen, which she sings behind a translucent screen that shows a large dance routine by Lourdes (whoI should note is unbelievably beautiful), it was one of the best things I've ever seen on a stage. Fun night all around even if it didn't start until after 11pm and our guest was...difficult.

counterpoint: I wish she'd lay off the autotune effect; it's tiresome on the album and unnecessary live since she can sing perfectly fine so I don't know why she is so reliant on it these days. to my ear it doesn't even sound current, it sounds dated.

(she only uses it on the songs from the new album that have it though, it's not all over the older songs; but there are only a few of those anyway)

Can’t say I even tried with the album as none of the tracks I heard appealed to me (I’m not counting the Blaya cover). But I’m here for the Honey Dijon remixes for “I Don’t Search I Find”. This is the “CLUBMIX” but the actual “Remix” is great too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP2JyvzcSiI

From last night in London I think?

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B8Tcni4hu5Y/

thanks eminem

i still regularly think about how wild this album gets in places. i really hope she goes all the way with that for her next album