Category Archives: Madonna

Vivid of color, silly of purpose, and chock-full-of-stars (pop-and-otherwise), Madonna’s new video for ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ is a vibrant and fun romp through a party pastiche. Reminiscent of her look from 1985’s ‘Dress You Up’ moment (with a stunning pink studded jacket by Discount Universe – thanks for the info Kyle Brincefield!) it’s a bit of a throwback to the 80’s and its black-lit neon brilliance, but re-packaged for a completely of-the-moment freshness.

A lot of people, including some Madonna fans, have complained that this is her worst song and video in years. I’ll admit, initially it was not one of my favorite tracks from the otherwise-epic ‘Rebel Heart’ album, but like the savviest of entertainers, the video sells it in unexpected ways, and I’ve come around to it.

If you want serious, deep, high-minded art, look at ‘Ghosttown‘ – if you want a fun, light-hearted summer ditty, this is your jam. It’s always nice seeing Madonna let her hair down, especially when it’s pink. (And I seriously need that jacket.)

{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.} 

Surrounded by a decorative circle of mosquito netting, I cradle the phone against the side of my head. In the dramatic tableau of my childhood bedroom, which has grown up along with me, I have created a world that is somewhere between Norma Desmond’s cocoon of a boudoir and the sumptuous candle-laden lair of the Phantom of the Opera. In the dim light of a fading winter’s night, I listen to a man’s voice but it doesn’t betray lust or love or even like, and I wonder if it’s all just a game. The January darkness has fallen quickly, and a thaw has left pools of fog across the hazy streetscape outside the window. At the tail-end of my winter break from Brandeis, I alternately dread and wish for the return to campus, and to Boston. My longing for connection supersedes any rational suspicion; my want for love overpowers any hesitation or concern. More than anything else, I’m in love with the idea of being in love, but I do not see that then. All I feel is longing, and so I stay on the line and listen and try to be funny and lovable and witty and enthralling. Nerves get the best of me, so there is mostly silence from my end.

Take a bow, the night is over
This masquerade is getting older
Light are low, the curtains down
There’s no one here
(There’s no one here, there’s no one in the crowd)
Say your lines but do you feel them
Do you mean what you say when there’s no one around?

Watching you, watching me, one lonely star
(One lonely star you don’t know who you are)

A phantom vision, a gentleman rising from the fog, appearing in the light of a street lamp. Whispers, glances, furtive eyes and tentative touches – a wisp of an encounter, ephemeral and fleeting,

For someone who had such little actual experience in matters of love, who’d never had a love affair that went beyond a year or so, my heart felt battered and bruised. Mostly my love went unrequited, and there’s a different kind of heartbreak in that. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all… or was that not the case? What happens if there was nothing to lose because you never really had anything in the first place? Does that discount the hurt? I would not know enough to compare.

I’ve always been in love with you
I guess you’ve always known it’s true
You took my love for granted, why oh why
The show is over, say good-bye.
Say good-bye, say good-bye…

On the radio, Madonna was beginning her longest run at the #1 slot, as ‘Take A Bow’ shot to the top thanks in part to an American Music Awards appearance with Babyface, who co-wrote the song. It was sweet and beautiful, and went with the softer vibe of the ‘Bedtime Stories’ album. The song itself was saccharine but effective, and Babyface’s luscious melodies were candy for the ears. Still, it was imbued with enough sadness and regret to make it more than just a passing fancy. The best of her songs straddle that line.

The video for the single was a lavish piece of cinematic beauty and breadth, shot in Spain and documented for an MTV making-of special entitled, ‘No Bull!’ in which Kurt Loder interviewed the blonde diva, and the video would end up winning accolades and awards for its simple heartbreaking story of a woman’s love for a bullfighter. Something went wrong somewhere along the way, and she ended up alone, streaks of tear-stained mascara running down her face.

In the video, Madonna cradled a television, caressing it like a loved one ~ the notion of loneliness obvious and crushing. I sympathized with her lonely obsession, the tinges of want and desire, and the echoes of what once was coupled with the realization of what could never be.

We thrashed beneath the sheets, we cried out streams of anguish, and in the end we ended up right where we began – alone and unlucky and heartbroken.

Make them laugh, it comes so easy
When you get to the part
Where you’re breaking my heart
Hide behind your smile, all the world loves a clown
(Just make ’em smile the whole world loves a clown)
Wish you well, I cannot stay
You deserve an award for the role that you played (role that you played)
No more masquerade, you’re one lonely star
(One lonely star and you don’t know who you are)

After winter break, I returned to Boston by myself, the temporary thaw and fog-filled nights turned into memories, the veracity of which I could never be quite sure. I worked on creative projects that I’d send out to my friends – ‘Whimsy’ and ‘Preference’ – in a desperate attempt to stay close to people, to not give up. Yet increasingly I felt isolated and alone, trapped in a turret of Usen Castle, with Boston but a dim glow in the distance.

The sun filtered through the bare branches of an oak tree, falling in orange shafts and moving over walls of painted cinder blocks. I’d sit and stare at the digital red numbers of my alarm clock, before the light drained from the room. I thought of the first man I ever kissed. I thought of the last time I saw him, and of the cold winter that followed. I listened to Madonna and wondered how far my heartache was from hers.

All the world is a stage (the world is a stage)
And everyone has their part (has their part)
But how was I to know which way the story’d go
How was I to know you’d break
(You’d break, you’d break, you’d break)
You’d break my heart?

Her paramour took a bow, then took his leave. Is this what men did? The only guy I’d been with had left before the snow came. He’d done worse things to me before that, but whether I was blinded by love or too young to know any better, I hadn’t wanted him to leave. He’d left a wake of regret over something in which I had no say, no control. The terrifying and forlorn barren desert of the heart. A literal no-man’s land.

I’ve always been in love with you
(I’ve always been in love with you)
Guess you’ve always known
You took my love for granted, why oh why
The show is over, say good-bye

Yet after every winter came the thaw. Not the tricky, brief ones of January or February, but the lasting, sustaining and final thaw that obliterated winter once and for all. It happened that year, as it did every other. Maybe it was messier than usual, maybe it took a little longer, but soon enough spring had arrived. Winter took its bow, and said its farewell.

Say good-bye (bye bye), say good-bye
Say good-bye.

SONG #112 – ‘Take A Bow’ ~ Winter 1995

It’s become almost impossible to objectively review any Madonna album at this point in time. Thirty years of an unprecedented stint in the spotlight (a light that continues to shine brightly as everyone continues to offer their take on the woman). It’s worth resurrecting one of my favorite Oscar Wilde quotes: ‘The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.’ To cavort, wrestle, and entangle yourself with the fickle beast of fame takes something altogether superhuman – to win more often than not takes a miracle. The fact that the world still has an opinion on Madonna – no matter what it may be – is proof that she’s still winning.

Ageist, sexist, and below-the-belt jabs aside, the single constant that most people side-step when it comes to the woman herself is what she has always done best: music. With ‘Rebel Heart‘, the music once again almost gets lost amid the tumultuous journey to get here: early leaks and piracy, sexy photo shoots and red-carpet ass-flashes, and that dangerously epic tumble on stage. Now that the album has seen its official release, the world can hear things as Madonna originally intended.

Opening with an instant Madonna classic, ‘Living For Love’, things get off to an anthemic powerhouse start, as a gospel-tinged chorus builds to a rousing hand-clapping climax. At first I was oddly unimpressed by the song. Yeah, it was good, but was it great? It took a few listens, one magnificent video, and a pair of live performances to reveal the merit of this. Madonna knows what she’s doing. That some of us still doubt and wonder only makes her prove it, and such drama is what drives much of the album.

“Tell me I’m no good and I’ll be great,” she defiantly commands on ‘Iconic’, following up,  “Say I have to fight and I can’t wait.” With a spoken-intro by Mike Tyson and a bit by Chance the Rapper, ‘Iconic’ is a pretty pop song draped in other distractions. As on bonus tracks like ‘Autotune Baby’ there’s a gorgeous song trapped within the skittering rap and musical madness, and she’s going to make you work to find it.

For ‘Rebel Heart’ Madonna worked with everyone and their mother ~ Diplo, Avicci, Nicki Minaj, Chance the Rapper, Natalia Kills, Nas, Kanye West, Alicia Keys and even Mike Fucking Tyson ~ and it’s apparent in the sometimes-jarring stand-alone construction of the songs. While some Madonna albums (‘Ray of Light’ or ‘Confessions on a Dancefloor’) work best as a cohesive whole, others offer a smorgasbord of songs that have nothing to do with one another (‘True Blue’ and ‘Music‘). Each format has its merits and drawbacks, and ‘Rebel Heart’ is decidedly in the latter bunch. The first eight songs alone are the very definition of extreme, veering from the wild and wonderfully crass ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ to one of the most tender songs she’s written in her career ‘Joan of Arc’. Such a roller coaster is sometimes difficult to stomach, but to her credit Madonna manages to wrap it all up into one giddy ride.

‘Devil Pray’ is a glorious folk song accented by electronic flourishes, vocal distortions, and a melody-line oddly reminiscent of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ while rumored second single ‘Ghosttown’ is the sort of power balladry that Madonna has never been given the due respect owed for such majesty. (See ‘Rain‘ or ‘Live to Tell‘ or ‘Drowned World’.) ‘Ghosttown’ is rife with apocalyptic images of the end of the world, but Madonna finds solace in holding onto another person. That sort of rumination is what lifts the album through its sagging points. Like the pair of bitch songs: ‘Unapologetic Bitch’ and ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’. The former stings an ex-lover over a reggae-electronic beat and the latter is an all-out aural assault on any naysayers. Those two cuts fall clearly on the ‘Rebel’ side of the equation, but they veer toward the grating. Madonna does rebellion more convincingly on ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici’ where she ticks off a list of all the provocative and milestone pop culture markers she’s staked over the years (name-dropping ‘Ray of Light‘, ‘Musicâ’, ‘The Power of Goodbye’, ‘Like A Prayer‘, ‘Open Your Heart’, and ‘Justify My Love’) and on challenging tracks like ‘Illuminati’ where she espouses the “all-seeing eye” and shoots down conspiracy theories with commanding authority.

Madonna’s own hurt and vulnerability form the crux of what makes her so lovable in spite of her self-obsessed tendencies. Scars form a metaphor for a number of cuts here: “We made it through the fire, Scarred and we’re bruised but our hearts will guide us,” she sings on ‘Hold Tight’, while ‘Beautiful Scars’ expounds upon its titular theme atop a percolating modern-disco backing track. After everything she’s been through (and put herself through) a few battle wounds are to be expected. For the woman who once showed off her naked body in ‘Sex’, she’s been largely uncomfortable in her skin – no one who shape-shifts in such chameleon-like ways could be entirely happy with herself. Madonna works that out through the music here.

One of the strongest cuts on the album, ‘Inside Out’ finds her seeking a deeper connection: “I wanna know what you’re all about, You’re beautiful when you’re broken down, Let your walls crumble to the ground… Every scar that you try to hide, all the dark corners of your mind, Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” It also boasts the best bridge Madonna has written in years ~ big, beautiful, and soaring: “Let’s cross the line so far we won’t come back, Can’t read your mind, I shouldn’t have to ask, Cynical smile, Time to take off your mask, I’m on your side so let me love you, let me love you.”

Madonna has said that she wanted to focus on solid song-writing this time around, and she’s largely succeeded, even if you have to hunt to find some of them. (Buried gems lie in hidden wait behind the distractions constructed around ‘Illuminati’, ‘Veni Vidi Vici’ and ‘Iconic’.) Other songs are more readily accessible. ‘Heartbreak City’ is emotionally haunting, chronicling the dark ending of a relationship, as the steady drum march drones toward its inevitable ending.

Percussion plays a main role on this album, driving in some songs, dropping out in the middle of others, and it comes in all forms. From the natural hand-clapping of ‘Body Shop’ to the thundering beats of ‘Hold Tight’ to the racing programmed power of ‘Graffiti Heart’ it’s always exhilarating. Remember, Madonna got her start playing the drums, and the beat has always been her most powerful stock in trade. Even when something starts out as quietly as ‘Wash All Over Me’ the percussive march of time arrives to obliterate: “Torn between the impulse to stay, Or running away from all this madness. Who am I to decide what should be done? If this is the end, then let it come, let it come, let it rain, rain all over me.”

In the end, Madonna is at her best when stripped down and working a pop song within its basic framework. The lush orchestral grandeur of ‘Messiah’ and the gorgeous melody of ‘Joan of Arc’ find her at her most vulnerable (“I can’t be a superhero right now, Even hearts made out of steel can break down”) but the music is so rich the introspective lyrics are buoyed by her delicious delivery.

Title track ‘Rebel Heart’ provides the emotional apex and namesake centerpiece of the beautifully unwieldy collection, finding Madonna at a certain peace: “I’ve spent some time as a narcissist, Hearing the others say, ‘Look at you, look at you’ Trying to be so provocative, I said, “Oh yeah, that was me,” All the things I did just to be seen.”

Three decades into the fascinating career we’ve had the privilege to watch unfold before our eyes, she’s still finding new ways to surprise and rebel, and it’s still the best show in the business. As the brilliant ‘Graffiti Heart’ reminds us, Madonna played with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring in the 80’s, and the artistic scene of New York City that was so fresh and vibrant and raw is something that Madonna, even in all her commercial success and polished personae, has kept as key to her artistic merit. Now she’s inviting the rest of us to show her our graffiti hearts, to reveal our scars, to confess and to be ourselves. Throughout all the guises she adopts in this latest romp ~ a rebel heart, unapologetic bitch, martyr, lover, sinner, and queen, there’s one thing she can’t help but be: Madonna.

Like its various versions (Standard, Deluxe, Super Deluxe) ‘Rebel Heart’ is a fragmented affair ~ a fascinating patchwork that almost becomes a rich tapestry, but even when it’s a mess, it’s a gorgeous mess (witness the sonic wonder of ‘Holy Water’ or the scattered multiple-personalities of ‘Iconic’). In the end, Madonna reveals and revels in the rebellion of her heart, and as she continues to forge new ground in the way a female artist is perceived and behaves, she proves to be as relevant as she was thirty years ago.