Madonna - Is it the end?

[VGThuy]

Ariana cannot enunciate. It drives me crazy.

Love her or hate her, but Celine takes care of her voice like no other singer.

Me too. As I've grown older and stopped caring about liking "cool" artists, I gained so much respect for Celine Dion. Seriously. I really admire her as a person and the way she takes care of her voice and her work ethic is admirable.

All of my sisters are fans of Ariana Grande as are some friends of mine, but her lack of enunciation drives me up-the-wall and I think her voice is very thin and not very pleasant to listen to. It's like she runs out of breath really fast. I also think her music is pretty generic and boring. But I'm not her demographic. I'm still surprised at her lack of enunciation since she started out in musical theatre. But I guess joining Nickelodeon early on in career and learning how to act in the Nickelodeon "school of performance arts" has informed her as an artist more than anything else.

 

[Vagabond]

My point was that how often do we see women being criticized like we're seeing in this thread compared to men? Like I said, the men get a free pass while women are put under a microscope for us to pick at.

Wow! Someone who has never heard of Michael Jackson!

 

[Prancer]

But I think what I meant about the Ariana vs Mariah comparison is that Ariana hits all those notes and sounds record-ready (at least in the live performances I've seen), but there's no there there.

I was really surprised when I heard that Aretha Franklin really liked Ariana and considered her very talented for that reason--there's just something kind of colorless about her singing and that can't be said about the Queen of Soul.

But I don't at all understand anyone thinking she can't sing at all or needs autotune . There is ample evidence that she can hit those notes all by herself without any studio help.

Ariana cannot enunciate. It drives me crazy.

That, too, although I don't think it's that she can't, more that she thinks that's a style.

Ariana is way more fun when doing impressions of other artists than when she sings her own stuff (see also: her SNL appearance as the Spotify intern who saves the day)

That's actually the first thing that made me pay attention to her. I thought her music was kind of meh, but when I heard her do those imitations, I realized that she has the potential to be really good and not just another singer with a pretty soprano.

But that will probably have to wait until she's not a pop princess any more.

My point was that how often do we see women being criticized like we're seeing in this thread compared to men? Like I said, the men get a free pass while women are put under a microscope for us to pick at.

Oh, I dunno. I've seen quite a few comments here about Paul McCartney having lost it, along with people defending him as so great that it doesn't matter that he can't sing for shit any more. Wasn't he one of your examples? But most of them were posted during the London Olympics, because that was, not coincidentally, when most people here saw him singing live in an international broadcast. I haven't seen Rod Stewart for years and Elton John didn't sound too terrible last time I heard him, but even that wasn't on a big stage with an international audience.

 

[PRlady]

No one had weirder enunciation than Tori Amos, whom I loved. Once I actually looked up what exotic country she came from.

North Carolina.

 

[genevieve]

Vince Neil is not the singer he used to be, for sure.

 

[BaileyCatts]

Is this the video that we are talking about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG3WkiL0d_U

Talk about much ado about nothing!

Good thing that there's nothing bad happening in the world that actually merits our attention.

that is definitely NOT what was live streamed! That video is totally dubbed over to improve the vocals because as much as I love 80s Madonna, she was truly awful. (the real video, not this dubbed over one).

 

[VGThuy]

No one had weirder enunciation than Tori Amos, whom I loved. Once I actually looked up what exotic country she came from.

North Carolina.

I never got into Tori Amos as much as people I knew did because the way she was choose to enunciate some words or sing them made little sense to me and gave me a hard time getting into a lot of her music. That said, there are some songs of hers that I absolutely love and I do believe she's an excellent artist.

 

[Prancer]

No one had weirder enunciation than Tori Amos, whom I loved. Once I actually looked up what exotic country she came from.

North Carolina.

She is still around and still weird. And again, I think her enunciation or lack thereof is a stylistic choice, as she has had classical training.

Vince Neil is not the singer he used to be, for sure.

Roger Waters. Axl Rose. Meat Loaf. Alice Cooper.

Age gets us all in the end.

 

[Vagabond]

Roger Waters. Axl Rose. Meat Loaf. Alice Cooper.

Age gets us all in the end.

Tony Bennett. Placido Domingo. Tom Jones.

Age hasn't gotten them yet.

 

[MacMadame]

Tony Bennett. Placido Domingo. Tom Jones.

Age hasn't gotten them yet.

Age has totally gotten to Tony Bennett.

 

[quartz]

Tori Amos is amazing live. Doesn’t matter if you can’t understand the words - her entire body expresses the music, and her voice is more of an instrument in itself.

 

[Prancer]

Tony Bennett. Placido Domingo. Tom Jones.

Age hasn't gotten them yet.

Age has totally gotten to Tony Bennett.

And Domingo. He can still sing beautifully, but he had to switch to singing baritone parts (and is considered somewhat lacking in them) because he doesn't have that upper tenor range any more.

 

[Vagabond]

Prancer, I will grant you that age has caught up with Domingo (now 78) in terms of his natural vocal range and the stage roles he can take. There cannot be many tenor roles in the repertoire that a man in his seventies can play. so if his voice had somehow not deepened he would have had to rethink his career anyway.

 

[Prancer]

Prancer, I will grant you that age has caught up with Domingo (now 78) in terms of his natural vocal range and the stage roles he can take. There cannot be many tenor roles in the repertoire that a man in his seventies can play. so if his voice had somehow not deepened he would have had to rethink his career anyway.

He did! He set himself up for all kinds of retirement jobs and does all of them and keeps singing, too.

The older I get, the more amazed I am at what some people who are older than I am can do.

 

[VGThuy]

I think as some of the best singers/dancers/athletes age and continue to work in their craft, it really has redefined people's expectations on what people are capable of doing in older age. Honestly, and this is very embarrassing to say but to bring it back to Madonna, it took Madonna for me to realize life doesn't end at 40-50 for those who work at it. I mean granted I was in my twenties when I had to realize that but I don't know why I had some images of older people not being able to do what they are actually able to do.

Eleven years ago, when Madonna was 50, she was able to do this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEfQAhNkzo4

IMO, she was doing more demanding and even cleaner dancing in her mid-40s to early 50s than she was in her thirties. I think for some longtime Madonna fans, we thought she could keep doing this forever and now that she's in her 60s I think we have to expect a new phase in her life regarding her dancing BUT that doesn't mean she can't still put on a good show once she's in shape for it vocally and physically. Since she doesn't have the voice of a Mariah or Whitney or Celine, etc. Madonna's career has always been based on making pop music and imagery, and I think she herself is trying to figure out how wade that environment in her 60s and of course she's taking some falls along the way. But whoever comes after her will have learned from it.

Also, later on, I realized the actual ages of some of the best Broadway dancers I've seen on video and some of them were like in their mid-40s on doing some incredible dancing. I think that was also a wake up call to me. For example:

Gwen Verdon at like 42 doing this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz0RFhnvtJ8

 

[Prancer]

I think as some of the best singers/dancers/athletes age and continue to work in their craft, it really has redefined people's expectations on what people are capable of doing in older age. Honestly, and this is very embarrassing to say but to bring it back to Madonna, it took Madonna for me to realize life doesn't end at 40-50 for those who work at it.

91-year-old Dick Van Dyke has a message for you.

Fred Astaire at 71

Toni Basil at 75

Dancers are the best athletes.

Madonna may not be 20 any more and wil never move like she is, but if she keeps at it, she will be dancing for years.

 

[VGThuy]

Other than Astaire, the other videos seem within the past two years or so. There was some talk of Dick Van Dyke being CGIed but I don't know if that's true. Obviously, Madonna is far from the only one, as I discovered later on when I saw older dancers doing what their thing and impressively, like my Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon examples earlier on. It's just for me since I'm part of the 90s MTV generation and my image of "old" people was really Golden Girls reruns and other stereotypical images of older people perpetuated in films and television at the time, it took me to age a bit to understand what aging actually looked like as so much was made about her age when she turned 40 in 1998 and people wondered back then if she would still be performing her pop songs at 50. I then saw her at 50 doing that and then retroactively saw her Confessions Tour at 48 (her best tour by far IMO) to hit the point home for me.

To be fair to me, I was in my twenties when Madonna turned 50 and doing a 2+ hour tour full of heavy choreography. I do think the fact that people are thinking she's too old now and not embracing her age, I think some people still have that sort of perception. It's like Fred Astaire wearing a suit/tux and dancing in a classy way (same fashion he's had since forever) is more welcome than Madonna dressing similarly to what she has been and dancing in a non-classy way. Of course, Madonna's dancing in the past two months wasn't in the same sphere as Astaire dancing.

I do wonder if styling has changed a lot as well for women in their 40s and 50s and beyond or at least the images that get promoted in the media now. When I look at Christine Brinkley at 60+ or my Mom, it makes me think about how expectations of women changed regarding their image and what they look like these days.

 

[genevieve]

Just for fun...Into the Groove at Live Aid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mQgGMAfKEU

It's clear Madonna was never a technical singer (omg her breath support is so bad I don't know how she even got through this) but this is a great, raw performance. And for the sweet Totally '80s jazz dance moves!!

ETA: Holiday is even better (easier song vocally): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jC9SWuKHpc

 

[VGThuy]

Just for fun...Into the Groove at Live Aid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mQgGMAfKEU

It's clear Madonna was never a technical singer (omg her breath support is so bad I don't know how she even got through this) but this is a great, raw performance. And for the sweet Totally '80s jazz dance moves!!

I think her singing got much better technically after she took voice lessons for Evita and the Ray of Light album benefitted heavily form that. Some fans though preferred her older way of singing. Once she went away from being Kabbalah Earth Mother and went back to dance-heavy clubby music, it seems she went back to sounding like her older voice with better technique...at least when she isn't heavily editing her live performances in post-production like in some of her Tour DVDs.

Here's a voice teacher analyzing Madonna:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlAYcaxvX9w

I always thought her voice coaching video during her Reinvention Tour was interesting and showed Madonna's voice when it's not overly edited:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY9GR_-eXHE

The same voice teacher above analyzed that video and said it was a very "smart" vocal exercise.

 

[Tinami Amori]

Madonna has some good songs, great to dance to, and fun videos to watch. If she is viewed in terms of "how entertaining she is", then she is fine. I love her "material girl" video because it has some good ideas "boys will come and boys will go and that's alright by me. experience has made me rich and now they're after me".. I liked her "like a Virgin" song because it is filmed in Venice.. but thought it is nuts to sing about any value of "virginity"..

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..

Bill Graham, who hosted many parties at his estate in the late 70's and early 80's, would have nothing to do with her, while he would let in many unknown people, and was a nice host to all..

She is a self promoting gold digger, a hypocrite, who has no morals.. When she bought her first estate in UK, with vast woods, planes and grounds, which historically can be accessed by "commoners" due to laws, she tried to enclose them and to prohibit local people from walking through them, claiming "privacy" issues. Well, many nobles and royalties lived at that estate, and they never tried to "fence off the grounds with security" from the "common folks".
The centuries of history and UK citizens rights of "walk through" were questioned by "her liberal royal rock-n-roll celebrity" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1464836/Madonna-wins-rambler-fight-over-9m-estate.html

It's too bad that just because she is, yet again, pretending to stand for the "right message", her popularity exists... She rides the wave of PC, but she is a selfish, self-serving bitch, who pretends to be for the people. When it comes to her money and property and interests, she is ruthless...

The naive ones who were taken by her "nasty woman" message, were lied to....... she is a nasty woman, because she does and says it all for her own interests, and she is "nasty" to those she wants to use, or those do not suit her interests. She'll say anything to upkeep her "royal estates"... and it is the young ones who pay money, and sold on "radical messages".
https://speechwriting-ghostwriting.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c53ec53ef01b8d2569e22970c-320wi

While she is preaching to all "socialism and minority defense" she lives in a multi-million dollar mansions, with "yours, you stupid believers" money.....

But then there is, of course, her lame attempt to learn the "power of Kabbalah" in its' most simplistic and cheaply marketed form, sold as "learn Kabbalah and you can rule the world" BS to the dumb ones who seek immediate tools of "power", skipping the fact that learning the Kabbalah a right way take decades and many books and teachings.

Who ever "buys" whatever she is selling, is punishing oneself..

 

[VGThuy]

You just sold Madonna to me all over again.

 

[antmanb]

If you haven't seen Madonna's speech from the 2016 Billboard Women in Music awards, I *highly* recommend it. It's definitely well worth 10 minutes of your time. She addresses some of the points brought up in this thread, specifically aging, misogamy in the music industry, and feminism.

"People say that I'm so controversial, but I think the most controversial thing I have ever done is stick around."

The speech was great and she made many good points but, call me incredibly cynical, Madonna controls every single aspect of her image in a very obsessive way, and I just don't believe the tears, that's just not Madonna, and if she cried it's because she planned to and it was the best way to deliver what she was doing.

I think I've said this before (certainly in real life, but probably on FSU), as a rape survivor I will never, ever, understand why she decided to put Mike Tyson on the track Iconic on Rebel Heart.

For me, as a fan, I listen to the speech I linked above, and I just feel like she's so badass and has such a unique POV, I wish more of this made it into her music. (It used to: 1995's Human Nature is a great example, and hasn't aged a day in 20 years).

Human Nature is an incredible song, which makes it all the more baffling that on GHV2 the radio edit of the song was put on instead of the proper single. The radio edit is too repetitive.

Same here. As a closeted gay teen in the late 90s, I was empowered by her music and videos, even if I didn't fully realize it at the time. I do remember VH1 used to occasionally run "Madonnarama" music video marathons. I would scramble to tape the marathons on VHS--and remember the excruciating decision to tape over some mid-90s Ladies Pro skating competition to capture all the videos.

you made the right choice.

But I think what I meant about the Ariana vs Mariah comparison is that Ariana hits all those notes and sounds record-ready (at least in the live performances I've seen), but there's no there there. Mariah had the amazing voice and was able to just let it fly all over the place.

That's how I feel about Ariana - it sounds like a very technically proficient, well placed vocal but it doesn't really go anywhere. She definitely has it in her - when she parodied Christina, for example, she really went for it and let go and sounded powerful.

When she did the one love concert in Manchester after the bomb her voice sounded so weak especially when she was singing with Mylie Cyrus it was so apparent that Mylie has a much more powerful voice, and while a lot of Ariana's quirks in singing seem like a style choice, you'd think she'd want to step up in a duet with a powerful singer, singing a song that isn't hers.

Mylie covered one of Ariana's tracks on Radio 1 here in the UK and a bunch of the reactions to her performance were "oh is that what the lyrics are, I've never understood them before". It wouldn't hurt her to enunciate more

Ariana cannot enunciate. It drives me crazy.

Love her or hate her, but Celine takes care of her voice like no other singer.

I was obsessed with Celine from the moment she won the Eurovision Song Contest - I sought out all her French language music and then was so excited for her first English language album. I saw her in concert in around 1994 (my second ever concert ) and she was incredible. I then went through a phase of being "too cool" to be into Celine but i'm back on the train again now. I also think she has a great sense of humour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exfR9QMN9Mk

 

[misskarne]

I mean, at the end of the day, people's voices change as they get older, too. I'm going to see Queen in February and I'm certainly not expecting Brian May and Roger Taylor to sound the same as they do on the recordings. (Especially not Roger's glass-shattering falsetto which didn't even make it into the 80s.)

One of the issues is that some people still do expect a singer to sound as they did when they were young.

 

[Jenny]

piling on the love for Ann Wilson, and adding Nancy to that as well (she sings too ). Saw Heart in concert a couple of years ago and they totally , and if you know anything about what they went through in the early days, even more so.

As for Ariana, my first exposure to her was the summer her famewhore half brother was on BB, and that put me off the both of them. Not fair to Ariana I'm sure, but then again, she seems to be doing fine without me.

 

[allezfred]

I mean, at the end of the day, people's voices change as they get older, too.

Even when people's voices change, they should still be able to carry a tune. Madonna was auto-tuned and she was still out of tune......

 

[taf2002]

I was really surprised when I heard that Aretha Franklin really liked Ariana and considered her very talented for that reason--there's just something kind of colorless about her singing and that can't be said about the Queen of Soul.

But I don't at all understand anyone thinking she can't sing at all or needs autotune . There is ample evidence that she can hit those notes all by herself without any studio help.

Two examples why I don't think much about her talent: The first time I ever heard of her was in the song Bang Bang. Jessie J & Nicki Minaj sounded fantastic (to me). Ariana's part sounded weak compared to them.

Then about a yr ago I watched a 2hour program celebrating Stevie Wonder & focusing on his Songs in the Key of Life. The guest singers all sang songs off that album. Ariana was the only one who sounded bad live. Stevie Wonder songs are hard to sing but no one else flat out made you wonder why they were invited. She was horrible live.

 

[antmanb]

Even when people's voices change, they should still be able to carry a tune. Madonna was auto-tuned and she was still out of tune......

To be fair there were no effects on like a prayer (more's the pity) and the second track sounded to me like there was a lot of pre recorded track along with heavy vocoder effects on whatever was being done live. Quavo is basically the T Payne of the 2010s - he can't even rap without vocoder on

 

[PRlady]

Tori Amos is amazing live. Doesn’t matter if you can’t understand the words - her entire body expresses the music, and her voice is more of an instrument in itself.

Except her words are amazing. I lost my father as a child, and Winter expresses the father-daughter relationship better than any song I’ve ever heard. I still get emotional when I hear it.

Which is why I quietly when y’all make fun of skating to Papa Can You Hear Me.

 

[antmanb]

Except her words are amazing. I lost my father as a child, and Winter expresses the father-daughter relationship better than any song I’ve ever heard. I still get emotional when I hear it.

And Kwan's exhibition to it was absolutely beautiful too. I love the song and when Kwan skated to it I nearly peed my pants

 

[PRlady]

And Kwan's exhibition to it was absolutely beautiful too. I love the song and when Kwan skated to it I nearly peed my pants

HOW did I miss this? When was it?