Madonna - Is it the end?

VGThuy

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On a more positive note, I'm actually truly liking her song with rapper Swae Lee that was released today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpBEtsrwng4

I admit I had the captions on which helped me understand what she was saying at first, but I really liked what I heard.

There's a review embargo on this album that will be lifted on June 4, but from some early statements from five separate critics I read, apparently this album is a good one.
 

Prancer

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On a more positive note, I'm actually truly liking her song with rapper Swae Lee that was released today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpBEtsrwng4

I admit I had the captions on which helped me understand what she was saying at first, but I really liked what I heard.

There's a review embargo on this album that will be lifted on June 4, but from some early statements from five separate critics I read, apparently this album is a good one.

Did Julia Michaels write that song? I hear her influence all over it.
 

VGThuy

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Did Julia Michaels write that song? I hear her influence all over it.

According to the Wiki article, it was written by Madonna, Swae Lee (using his given name Khalif Malik Ibn Shaman Brown), and Starrah (using her given name Brittany Talia Hazzard) and produced by Madonna, Billboard, and Mike Dean.
 

Oreo

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For the last several years I've thought that Madonna was becoming more and more like the Gloria Swanson character, Norma Desmond, in Sunset Boulevard.
 

Miezekatze

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Seems pretty impossible to get tickets for the European shows :wuzrobbed

The ticket sale has priority treatment vor Longtime Fanclub members and holders of Citibank credit cards and even the Longtime Fanclub members didn't all get tickets, but ended up on the waiting list.

And the tickets are too expensive to try to buy them privately lately, that would be too high risk :lynch:

Pfff, I already missed the last tour, because I missed the sale for the German concert in southern Germany.
 

bardtoob

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I ran into her back in the late 70's/80's in NY clubs, when i was hanging out there in the summer months, the new Peppermint Lounge, Danceteria.. She is was a piece of trash... stealing people's drinks, taking cigs out of packs left on the bar table while people were dancing.. She was kicked out of CBGB for trying to take out cash out of an open register..

Someday you'll have to tell me how you got out before Perestroika.

Anyway, I respect Madonna's career, but the second she had to resort to plastic surgery (which was far later than usual because of nutrition, sleeping in full body moisture wraps, yoga and core work, every type of Swiss detoxifying treatment, etc.) she should have given up trying to be the headliner of youth culture. I think she could have still made good dance music ... But it is hard to get past that her plastic surgery has now made her look like an old hag.

... It could have also been tough giving $80 Million to Guy Richie, who replenished his family fortune with the divorce. I have also heard that Guy is teaching Rocco to be a lazy aristocrat while Madonna wants to show him how to work, if she can.
 
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genevieve

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Yes, Madonna, like Kylie Jenner or Kim Kardashian, has sought to parlay her fame into a cosmetics business, called MDNA Skin. In an interview, Madonna said her son likes to use her Reinvention Cream, the Sun reported...
She said, “My son is always coming into my bathroom and stealing all of my skincare products. It’s very funny to have a 17-year-old son saying, ‘Mom, can I have more serum? I need some more face wash. I need some more of this.’ I think it’s hilarious.”
Reinvention Cream :rofl:

I never know why anyone would buy products "created" by celebrities, but to each their own.
 

VGThuy

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Reinvention Cream :rofl:

I never know why anyone would buy products "created" by celebrities, but to each their own.

Agreed, but then after my sisters told me all about these Beauty "gurus" aka YouTube personalities in the "Beauty Community" having a huge clash that became a scandal resulting in like millions of people unsubscribing and then resubscribing after stories changed and loyalties shifted that all started because of gummy vitamins, and some of them being like racist or whatever, I'd take the carefully crafted PR-driven celeb lines over that any day.
 

VGThuy

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see, that whole influencers-hunger-games drama is the ONLY reason I would want to know anything about them :p

:lol:. It did provide some weird ass disproportionate unnecessary drama. I just find that mob mentality fan behavior to be ridiculous but I've been sick of it since that Mariah Bell/Eunsoo Lim story. Talk about #cancelculture run amok.
 

Miezekatze

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I don't care about the make up stuff, but she seemed to be quite into it last year.

When her fans complained that she puts more effort in marketing her skincare than in marketing her music or making new music, she posted some bitchy rant about that she can do what she wants and everybody who doesn't like it can go feck off :rofl:

I actually do like that about her, 99% of people on social media are always so keen on pleasing their followers and image and stuff, I think it's refreshing that she's been treating her fans badly for like 40 years now, without managing to get rid of them. It makes what everbody else puts so much effort into seem rather pointless.

The sentence about her son using the makeup sounds like typical marketing bla bla though :p

On a musical note, I'm quite positive I'll like her new album better than the last one. Rebel Heart had it's moments and it has some songs on it that I really love, but overall I think it was a bit chaotic, with no clear style and too many songs.
From the 4 songs of Madame X that are already out I really like 3 (only "I rise" doesn't really grab me so far). So that's promising.
 

VGThuy

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I think that was my problem with Rebel Heart as well. Like I was excited at first, but as a whole, the album didn't seem to have an identity as it was sort of all over the place in terms of coherency. Too many producers. I think I probably would have liked it more if she continued to work with Avicii to give it a much cleaner and consistent sound than what that album ended up having. However, he got sick and we know what happened afterwards. That said, I think it was The Guardian or Rolling Stone who said despite their mixed-to-positive reviews that thank god Madonna kept making music her own way because nobody else makes music like her. I think that's true. Maybe after some time, I'll appreciate Rebel Heart more as some sort of insight to what she was at that period and the sounds she was producing.

On another note, one album that I do think sort of aged well compared to like MDNA was surprisingly Hard Candy, despite like two or three truly blah tracks. I think I like that one better than her fan-celebrated Confessions on a Dance Floor, an album that I felt had like three or four outstanding tracks but the rest was sort of cold filler. I know that was sort of the point as it was supposed to sound like one long 45-minute or so track that is meant to be played in a club, but I find myself not listening to that one much. I also felt some of those songs on Confessions had some of her most mediocre lyric writing (I know non-fans will scoff saying all of her lyrics are that way).
 

Husky

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I just checked Madonna's Wikipedia entry and I think I have never seen a longer one. At least not for a person. :eek:

And watching the photos of her daughter Lourdes from the last 2 years, I thought something is wrong with this girl. So different from former times when she showed a radiant or amused face. Today she looks almost desperate. I wonder what happened?
 

MsZem

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Agreed, but then after my sisters told me all about these Beauty "gurus" aka YouTube personalities in the "Beauty Community" having a huge clash that became a scandal resulting in like millions of people unsubscribing and then resubscribing after stories changed and loyalties shifted that all started because of gummy vitamins, and some of them being like racist or whatever, I'd take the carefully crafted PR-driven celeb lines over that any day.
Haha, the James Charles scandal! It's basically middle school drama played out by adults (Charles is young, but some of the others aren't). They're not even interesting enough to act like Heathers.

There's an entire world out here on teen/preteen social media that we're not even aware of. They're putting out a lot of content (and sometimes, product) but how good can it be on that sort of production schedule? Back when Madonna was starting out (and for most of her career) you had to do more than makeup tutorials to gain a following.
 

antmanb

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On another note, one album that I do think sort of aged well compared to like MDNA was surprisingly Hard Candy, despite like two or three truly blah tracks. I think I like that one better than her fan-celebrated Confessions on a Dance Floor, an album that I felt had like three or four outstanding tracks but the rest was sort of cold filler. I know that was sort of the point as it was supposed to sound like one long 45-minute or so track that is meant to be played in a club, but I find myself not listening to that one much. I also felt some of those songs on Confessions had some of her most mediocre lyric writing (I know non-fans will scoff saying all of her lyrics are that way).

See I'm one of those fans that thinks Confessions is the last great truly cohesive album that she made (I love Stuart Price's production on that album and there are only a couple of songs that I would skip, but for the fact that they're all mixed into one another so I still listen to them). I also quite liked Hard Candy despite the turn to more RnB/Hip Hop that a lot of fans hated. I've tried and tried with MDNA but that is garbage from start to finish, I struggle to find more than 2 songs that I genuinely like.

I agree that the lyrics on Confessions are quite mediocre, but when I start to say that there are plenty of songs on all of her other albums that have mediocre lyrics so I just don't think she's that good with lyrics (and frankly most popstars are lacking in that area), and the fact she repeats so many rhyming words across all of her back catalogue :shuffle:

The one unpopular fan opinion I have...I'm not much of a fan of Ray of Light :shuffle: yes there are some stand out songs on the album but outside of the four main singles plus maybe one or two extra I find too much filler on that. But I know i'm in the minority. Whereas Erotica was one of my favourite things she's ever done, both at the time and still now I listen to it and don't think it sounds 127 years old.
 
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VGThuy

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See I'm one of those fans that thinks Confessions is the last great truly cohesive album that she made (I love Stuart Price's production on that album and there are only a couple of songs that I would skip, but for the fact that they're all mixed into one another so I still listen to them). I also quite liked Hard Candy despite the turn to more RnB/Hip Hop that a lot of fans hated. I've tried and tried with MDNA but that is garbage from start to finish, I struggle to find more than 2 songs that I genuinely like.

I agree that the lyrics on Confessions are quite mediocre, but when I start to say that there are plenty of songs on all of her other albums that have mediocre lyrics so I just don't think she's that good with lyrics (and frankly most popstars are lacking in that area), and the fact she repeats so many rhyming words across all of her back catalogue :shuffle:

The one unpopular fan opinion I have...I'm not much of a fan of Ray of Light :shuffle: yes there are some stand out songs on the album but outside of the four main singles plus maybe one or two extra I find too much filler on that. But I know i'm in the minority. Whereas Erotica was one of my favourite things she's ever done, both at the time and still now I listen to it and don't think it sounds 17 years old.

Love this discussion.

I love Stuart Price's music editing and mixing for Madonna on her concert tours. I don't think it has been the same since he left. Confessions is my favorite Madonna tour by far and I love the way the music was mixed throughout. I just don't find the music on the album makes me want to dance whereas Hard Candy did. I also thought Pharrell got the dirty disco for some of the tracks (like the "Get stupid" part in "Give it 2 Me") whereas Price had a much more mechanical clean sound to it.

Ray of Light is my favorite Madonna album. My favorite tracks are actually the non-singles except for the title track which is just perfection production wise. "Sky Fits Heaven" is such a monumental song and both "Drowned World (Substitute for Love)" and "Mer Girl" are shockingly poignant and well-written songs for her. That's when I thought she could be a great songwriter. With that album, she seemed insightful and self-critical without being self-pitying or sounding too self-centered.

Some of her later albums had some personal tracks where she goes on about her life but it becomes a bit meh at times. I think her changed lifestyle and privilege made her experiences less interesting to hear about and I don't think she has the self-awareness or self-hatred to make talking about how lifestyle of the richest and most famous person is a golden cage or how it's all a sham, or anything to make it interesting. Instead, when she talks about it, it's a bit eye-rolling. That's why I loved the angry tracks that were inspired by her divorce from Guy Ritchie from MDNA as at least it was something raw and real to latch on to (like the song "Gang Bang").

Speaking about that, that's probably why her Hard Candy track, "She's Not Me", is probably my favorite Madonna track from 2008 on. It's just 6 minutes of Madonna going from fun dance song and bragging about her name against her husband's mistress and how "she's not me" to something sadder and more desperate as it starts to sound like she's pleading "she's not me" leaving us wondering who is she trying to convince? It's pretty epic, with Pharrel's great beats and Prince's guitarist Wendy Melvoin providing some great riffs.
 
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