Madonna's Ray of Light

I listened to it every day for over a year at the gym and walking home after work. I was deciding whether to end my marriage. It was a great comfort and help to me at a very difficult time in my life.

It was OK.

One of her best albums, by far. Has aged better than the 80’s ones like True Blue or Like A Prayer.

It was the last Madonna album that I really loved. Back when we did a bunch of ecstasy and went to the clubs I listened to it constantly. The Power of Goodbye is so dramatic, I love it.

OP, have you heard this one? It was relegated to being a Japanese bonus track. I only discovered it recently. One of the most beautiful, ethereal, unforced things she recorded.

I liked it. There were about four of five good songs on it, which was about as much as you could expect from any album at the time.

I think it's her best work, aside from the debut album. Certainly the most sincerely, and innovative work of her career. I think she reached a place of spiritual enlightenment and authenticity here. And she became a mama. She was in such a cool headspace. She looked INCREDIBLE. And then...what happened? Guy Richie? She always morphs into "the next thing" or into who her boyfriend is. So I guess it wasn't as deep and soulful of a period as we thought. She dropped it when she became Queen Madge of the Manor. And then when Guy dumped her she totally regressed back to some perverse sexualized version of herself but old.

I still listen to Nothing Really Matters a lot. I think it’s one of her most overlooked gems

Her best.

She took the demos done by others and slapped her name on them. It’s the same fraud as Lauryn Hill’s. Pass.

It's definitely her best album. It's one of those albums that people who say they don't like Madonna will admit to liking.

This brings back dark memories for me. It was 2001 and I had ticket to go to her concert in LA. The exact day of the concert was 9/11. After the planes hit, she of course canceled it, but will thousands of tickets sold she rescheduled a week later. Half way through the show she did a kind of moment of silence. Even a week later, walking up to the stadium felt odd and risky, one of the planes was supposed to land in LA. Ground zero was still smoldering and thousands of people missing. Makes me kind of sad just like the music.

I loved this album, cannot believe so many years have passed. Some of her best work I could listen to again and enjoy. Thanks r5 for the bonus track.

It was a few years after Evita and she'd had some vocal training (finally). Her terrible voice was a bit better on "Ray of Light" although her 'philosophy' was still freshman dorm bullshit. She even took a few guitar lessons and pretended to play an instrument.

There were a couple of good tunes but the repellent Madge was still there in it so it still sucked over all.

If I must listen to Madonna (say, a captive situation), this would be the preferred album.

It really is a great album.

Sky Fits Heaven is so underrated. Perfect blend of energy and melancholy.

Totally agree about Sky Fits Heaven, R16. Underrated and still great.

I have to consider the album based on what it was at the time and what it is today.

When Ray of Light came out, I really liked the trance composer BT, and electronic music was generally off the mainstream/radio-play radar. Ray of Light pulled from that genre and it did so in a really successful way. It felt like "a win" in a way, with people appreciating the style as a seriois form of music. I recall a major outlet like Rolling Stone giving her credit for making a cold style of music warm and spiritial, which bothered me because a lot of trance music is really emotionally evocative. So there was that.

Frozen was the lead single, and it was unusual. The song sounded very spare and experimental at the time, especially for a single. It also looked and sounded "exotic" with the Middle Eastern vocal references, the movements in her video and her henna tattoos. Overall, the single was haunting and just a total surprise. The video visuals are imprinted in my mind. Really brilliant.

And Madonna had gone through a public metamorphosis that seemed in the moment admirable. She seemed like someone to look up to, and the spirit of her music and the sophistication of how it was composed felt authentically as if she had been processed through difficult life experiences and was illuminated by them and had settled into being an admirable person.

--

Decades later, my views are a bit different. I do vividly recall how profound the album seemed in the moment, and what it successful artistic expression it was. I like a lot of the songs on the album but never listen to some of them (Drowned World, Candy Perfume Girl, etc.). Sky Fits Heaven, Frozen, Nothing Really Matters are really great timeless songs to me now. Ray of Light is an admirable song to me because control freak Madonna let herself get a little unpolished vocally during that era when she seemed to have to prove she has vocal chops--but in the end, I find the track hard to listen to because of the screechy vocals.

Most of all, the spirit of the album has dimmed a lot for me given Madonna's antics post-marriage to Guy. Ray of Light presented her as evolved. The message of the album is that others matter, self and possessions matter less. Then she went on to make songs about revenge, about how she's Madonna, bitch, belittling others, self-aggrandizing. She has flaunted her wealth, is egocentric. That added to the many endless engineered transformations unfortunately makes the Ray of Light album's message seem nothing more than a work of illusory fiction, and that's disappointing because it felt like an authentic and deeply personal expression at the time. I feel a little bit duped by the Madonna marketing machine; whereas, with my favorite artists (Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Fiona Apple), their work has only deepened my understanding of who they are and their personal evolutions, and the music may be hit or miss, but the authenticity is unimpeachable and to me that is important with art that is so personal.

Wow r18 what a lovely and erudite study of this work and Madonna herself!

I hated it then and I hate it now. All the songs sound like a bunch of weird irritating computerized noises. It sounds SO dated now.

The title song is complete shit. The only listenable song was Frozen.

Last good one. Last time she was relevant. The gays still loved her back then.

R22 Confessions on a Dancefloor is a very good album, I Love New York notwithstanding. It's another example of Madonna appropriating a musical genre to great effect. I don't think Ray of Light was her 'last great one,' but it probably was her last great artistic statement. Confessions is fun and polished and sophisticated dance music, but it doesn't really say anything. The frustrating thing about Ray of Light in retrospect is that it said moving and spiritually resonant things about big lessons learned through her life experience--which Madonna then betrayed by going back to being shallow, catty, egotistical, disrespectful, etc., and so the meaning of the work has diminished over time since her personal enlightenment has dimmed and she's gone back to being the material girl instead of an ethereal woman.

Well said, R23.

Great post R18.

I think objectively this is her best album. It's her most cohesive, it manages to straddle the line between what was considered pop and alternative at the time, her voice is probably it's best here, and while it sounds very much of its time, it doesn't sound dated to me in a horrible way. It brings me back to those days, angsty teenage me who'd moved away from music like Madonna into the alternative scene, only to be won back by her for this one. And the mixture of electronica with world music is SO of its time, it's very nostalgic.

I don't like "Little Star", but I've never been able to stand musicians singing about their children. Even so, this is a lovely album to listen to, start to finish.

It had heavy rotation on my gym soundtrack. I love Ashtangi/Shanti.

[quote] I think it's her best work, aside from the debut album. Certainly the most sincerely, and innovative work of her career. I think she reached a place of spiritual enlightenment and authenticity here. And she became a mama. She was in such a cool headspace. She looked INCREDIBLE. And then...what happened? Guy Richie? She always morphs into "the next thing" or into who her boyfriend is. So I guess it wasn't as deep and soulful of a period as we thought. She dropped it when she became Queen Madge of the Manor. And then when Guy dumped her she totally regressed back to some perverse sexualized version of herself but old.

Cool, and what does any of that have to do with the actual music?

You could sense that her sense of humor (which was once a major part of her appeal) had died, never to return.

When it first came out, I hated it. I hated her then newly affected way of singing. "If I could melt yourrrr hearrrrrt." All of these hard R's, like she was trying to sound Irish or something. I couldn't get into the whole vibe of it. It seemed cold and soulless, especially after Bedtime Stories, which felt warm and inviting. I would say that was her most soulful effort, but calling Madonna soulful is a stretch.

Then I gave it a few more chances, and ended up hearing some of the songs in a club atmosphere, and eventually fell in love with it. I played it pretty nonstop for a few months, and then nothing. Every time I've tried to revisit it since, I just can't get into it. It's fun to hear the sound of it now for nostalgic reasons, but I just don't like it as an album. I like her early 90s work a lot more.

I much prefer “Music.”

To me, that was Madonna coming back down to Earth after all the new age pretension while still keeping the cool of her European producers.

It’s the only album of hers I can listen to without skipping any tracks.

I was knocked out by this Album. It was so good I couldn't believe it was Madonna! Not aged a bit still sound brilliant.

This was such an overrated album and nobody but Madonna fans remember it. ROL was so phony and pretentious and the lack of real instruments made it sound like a bunch of wavy, digital mush.

Bedtime Stories was her best album because most of the songs still hold up today unlike ROL. Why do you think Madonna performs Human Nature over and over but rarely plays ROL songs? And even if you aren’t a Madonna fan, everyone remembers Take a Bow.

I loved this album too and like others have said, is probably the last Madonna music I've purchased. Was this the one that was scented with patchouli? I can't remember if it was this one or one of her greatest hits albums.

This was a fun moment. Madonna sounded surprisingly good -- those Evita vocal lessons had paid off. And seeing Oprah and her audience of moms and aunts getting their LIVES to Madge has made for so many great GIFs.

get down

I love this record and it reminds me of very heady days from my youth in Seattle. I don't actually care for the song Ray of Light very much, though.

Had her plane disappeared somewhere in the ocean shortly after the release of this album she would have been a legend, she would have been Marilyn 2.0. Unfortunately the plane never disappeared and it looks like she will more likely be remembered as Jocelyn Wildenstein 2.0 instead. Damn pilot!

R32 RoL is her most critically-acclaimed album and pretty much every list of Best Albums of All Time includes it. It's simply not true that 'only Madonna fans remember it'. Hell, I know people who loathed Madonna for various reasons who'll grudgingly admit respect and even fondness for RoL.

R30, I love that album, too. Especially Runaway Lover and Amazing. It feels short changed with only 10 tracks, though.

That whole Bedtime Stories - ROL - Music time was pretty high quality.

Didn’t love it - too many mid- tempo tracks. Didn’t care for Music. Oddly I loved American Life which I believe went over like a lead balloon

I always like listening to her demos. Sometimes they’re better than what gets released, both final versions of songs and ones that didn’t make the cut.

Yep - RoL is her best album, by far. I am one of those who grudgingly admit to liking it.

I enjoy the album but it is overrated. Half the album is nothing but the usual pop songs about love and relationships. The only difference is some fancier production.

She really musically and emotionally regressed after this album and era.

R42 Sky Fits Heaven is more visceral on the album proper.

The chill-out, trance music was a very good choice. My personal favorite is To Have and Not To Hold. It has this great bossa nova / easy listening like beat and melody in the background that feels soothing and yet dark and moody.

Bjork did it better.

After Bedtime Stories and this all I could say was that I missed when Madonna was fun.

R47 - I don’t think Madonna was necessarily emulating Bjork, or for the sake of argument maybe you can say she was. Madonna’s mission, though, is to stay culturally relevant and to chart sales. Madonna is a different type of artist in that respect, so would have never gone full on Homogenic in her sound. In that way, they’re different albums, even if Madonna was encroaching on Bjork’s electronic territory.

Madonna and Janet both had to recreate their sounds to not fall out of relevancy in the late 90s. Madonna chose to take ambient, house music, downtempo and trance music. Janet chose to go more into neo-soul, electronica and trip hop. Mariah also switched her sound around this time and became more uptempo R&B and dance-pop with a sexy edge.

Neither Janet nor Mariah have any place in this thread. Take your nonsense elsewhere.

R51

They were all aging pop girls like Madonna who had to recreate their sound too to remain relevant like Madonna did. Madonna is a pop star in a competitive industry, so it's natural to compare her to her peers as well. No need for the hostility.

Not a Madonna fan.

That said, RoL is the only album I purchased and liked.

It used to be my favorite but now I prefer Erotica.

Can't really say I've ever been a huge Madonna fan but I had friends, male and female, who were totally into her. She was a pop singer with a mediocre voice and nice songs here and there, like Into the Groove and Live to Tell which was the first maxi single I ever bought. She finally won me over with Truth or Dare. I was 17 and living in a small town with practically no gay presence. I went to the cinema all by myself and was totally mesmerized by everything in the film: the style, the gayness, the production of her tour. That film is the main reason I've always defended Madonna against people who kept on going how she's a homophobic cunt. SHE's one of the reasons we became accepted, and she worked for gay causes when it wasn't fashionable. Obviously she's always been a narcissistic vampire but guess what, she didn't have to be gay friendly in public, like practically none of her peers were, but she was.

Fast forward to 1998. At that point I'd never bought a Madonna album, or actually listened to one besides Like A Virgin when I borrowed it from a friend and didn't like it. But I loved Ray of Light. It was beautiful and fresh, produced masterfully. Frozen, Power of Goodbye and Sky Fits Heaven were my favorites, and still are. The video for Frozen was magical and still looks great. She should've returned to her Frozen character Veronica Electronica instead of becoming the sad caricature of Mae West she's now, but well, what can you do.

Still, it was Confessions on a Dance Floor that became the best Madonna album for me.

Yeah, sorry for a rambling post. I'm tired after a long work day.

"Skin" was a good song. I still have it on my jogging playlist, lol.

R33, the album scented with patchouli was Like a Prayer, I believe.

Like ROL, but I still prefer Music, esp. the title track and Don't Tell Me.

I remember when she was pretending to be some sweet earth mother during this era and thinking it was so fake.

I was correct.

I never hear any songs from ROL on an oldies station or in a store, but I hear songs still played from all of her other pre-2000 albums. ROL is largely forgotten by everyone but her fans.

End of her run.

Music was a disappointing follow up. With the exception of the title track and Impressive Instant, it sucked. I don’t get the love for “Don’t Tell Me.” It was also a rushed album with only 10 songs.

I enjoy the album, but think it's somewhat overrated. Of course, it's a hell of a lot better than "Music". My two favorite Madonna albums are "True Blue", & "Confessions".

Erotica and Bedtime Stories are my favourite '90s Madonna albums. To me, they feel and sound more authentic than Ray of Light. ROL is a very well produced and arranged pop album but I do feel Madonna was trying too hard to push an image that was all an illusion, so like r18's eloquent post stated, the album has been devalued by Madonna's later behaviour. She never really was this earth mother who had achieved enlightenment. It was another mask she wore, her latest reinvention.

The quality of the songs is very high, but reading a lot of the 20th anniversary articles about the album in 2018, it became clear that Madonna's contributions to the album were not as much as we were led to believe in 1998 when the album first came out. Susannah Melvoin didn't get proper credit, and on several songs Madonna just added a lyric or two to get publishing royalties.

A lot of the album's beautiful soundscape is due to William Orbit, Marius de Vries and Patrick Leonard. I'm not saying Madonna didn't contribute to the album but, as a longtime fan, she presented a narrative in 1998 that wasn't 100% true and, subsequently, time has proven that Ray of Light was more of a fad for her than an actual way of life.

Madonna had just had Lourdes when making this album. It's not uncommon for women to feel more spiritual and explore different philosophies when they become new mothers.

R9 is correct.

I don't feel she was faking her spiritual awakening. She named her daughter after a sacred Catholic site after all, while exploring Kaballah, Hinduism, etc. Madonna certainly is more open than many pop artists. What's happening now is she is croning and becoming a crazy old lady with the plastic surgeon and derm on speed dial. I don't see the problem she can do what she wants!

It’s a Madonna album, ergo, it sucks.

[quote]One of her best albums, by far. Has aged better than the 80’s ones like True Blue or Like A Prayer.

More like the opposite. Her performances during the period were among some of her weakest as well.

This is also the period where she went around slamming all of her old hits, saying she outgrew them and could never perform them again. She also said she didn't want to be 60 and on stage looking like a fool. If she could have had a crystal ball.....

She was at her best when she was making fun pop and wasn't taking herself too seriously. Once she started with the "I'm a profound artist" diatribe and moving to England, a lot of longtime fans lost interest. And she lost the plot.

Now, forget it.

Mariah was much more fun during this period, having dived full on into hip hop territory.

[quote]This is also the period where she went around slamming all of her old hits, saying she outgrew them and could never perform them again. She also said she didn't want to be 60 and on stage looking like a fool. If she could have had a crystal ball.....

Actually she said 50. I remember it correctly from her VH1 special Madonna Rising. Ironically, 50 was when she went crazy.

[quote]She was at her best when she was making fun pop and wasn't taking herself too seriously. Once she started with the "I'm a profound artist" diatribe and moving to England, a lot of longtime fans lost interest. And she lost the plot.

Yep. Her marrying her second husband fucked both her and her career up. She started becoming very weird once she married him.

Yeah R71 . Some longtime fans found her dismissive attitude towards her older hits a major turn off. That whole moving to England, enlightened period made her very middlebrow despite how she tried to go against it. Becoming besties with Gwyneth Paltrow? Geez.

R12, that's so sad. I'm sorry for that.

R73 And I was one of those former fans. The way she dismissed all her hit songs rubbed me the wrong way and then when she basically ditched her gay fans for years to do that English lady of the manor shit was when I was done with her.

Funny how she was more than happy to start singing those old songs again once her new releases started flopping.

She must have learned how to do an English accent from Dick Van Dyke when they were both in the movie [italic]Dick Tracy.[/italic]

It was and remains an annoying album. Her best albums are Madonna (1st), Bedtime Stories, Confessions, Like a Virgin. The first album is the best cause its raw, stripped down, and she has some charm, of all things.

I'm not saying she shot her entire wad on the first album, but its the coolest by far and does not date.

I'm probably the only person who thinks I'm Breathless is her best album followed by her debut. Of course, The Immaculate Collections is better than these albums combined. I really wish she had released the unreleased songs she did with William Orbit on Music instead of most of the Mirwais tracks that were included. Mirwais music ages badly.

The thing about Madonna is every album has a few good songs. Even the shitty albums everyone hates.

I woke up to it everyday for a long time. A really solid album and (at that time) a fresh attitude.

The album overall is incredibly dull. Ray of Light and The Power of Goodbye are good songs. The other two singles are tolerable. Everything is awful. Never understood the high praise for this album.

R82 Completely agree. Other than Candy Perfume Girl and Ray of Light, the songs are slow and dull.

I was never a Madonna fan, but the song (never owned the album) came out just as I was old enough to sneak into gay clubs and I just loved the song then and love it now. It represents those halcyon days of yore when a few drinks, a dance floor, and the idea of FINALLY being with men was all I needed to feel alive.

I liked it. Things were better in the 90s.

I liked it. Too bad the image she was promoting wasn't entirely authentic and she wasn't as involved in the songwriting as she claimed to be.

Things were better in the 90s. And even better in the 80s. EXCEPT FOR THE AIDS!!!!!

For me, Madonna's music is like cotton candy. Fresh at the moment it's released, but often leaves a bad aftertaste soon after consumption.

With the exception of a few singles here and there, only two of her albums stand the test of time for me. One is Like a Prayer, the other Ray of Light.

I think there are a few more stages. It's catchy at first. Maybe even more than catchy. Then after a year it's weak and thin and you notice the stupid lyrics or poor vocal performance. Then you come back to it 5 or 10 years later and think, hey, this is pretty good.

R30 / R58 I agree that "Music" came out of the gate very strong on the heels of Ray of Light. It's a very satisfying album, more fun than RoL but still shades of maturity (What It Feels Like For A Girl" etc.). It seemed like an appropriate next step from having the "a-ha" moment of personal growth and enlightenment, to settling into yourself and getting a little older and less in love with your groovy enlightened self. Grounded but still she was able to go back to her dance roots and through a little humor and swagger back in (video for "Music".) Those two records back-to-back are very, very strong. I really thought she was going on a journey, maturing, aging, and incorporating life lessons and years of experience in the industry into her work. (Those two were the last time I personally felt connected to her work.)

I think one of the problems that stopped this trajectory from continuing was that she got too big for her britches with "American Life." It was rather arrogant and not aesthetically well-designed as a concept or a mood. It was, thus, poorly received. (Just riffing here.) She sort of pushed it as far as she could lyrically with her observational critiques and "sophisticated" cynical assessments about life, fame, the gubberment, society, power structures, religion, etc. And after all that.... it was considered a commercial failure. Certainly in the States it did shockingly poorly fora Madonna record. So she may have felt embarrassed and pissed off and bitter about that.

That must have stung. It MUST have. Cuz THEN, she did a 180 and released a pure club/dance ear-candy situation. "Confessions" did MUCH much better and probably reaffirmed for her that she is, at heart, an Entertainer, not a philosopher. Of course, she lost the plot completely when she and Guy divorced. "Hard Candy" saw her start to get behind trends instead of lead them. That's also the album that christened the era of collaborations, to increase her exposure and relevancy. It's when the plastic surgery kicked in, and of course "Hard Candy" saw a return to over-sexualizing herself.

If Madonna had done a Greatest Hits tour in 2008 or 2012 it would have been perfect. I think she's way past the point of that now though.

[quote]Then I gave it a few more chances, and ended up hearing some of the songs in a club atmosphere, and eventually fell in love with it. I played it pretty nonstop for a few months, and then nothing. Every time I've tried to revisit it since, I just can't get into it. It's fun to hear the sound of it now for nostalgic reasons, but I just don't like it as an album. I like her early 90s work a lot more.

Exactly the same here. I loved it at first and played it constantly, then fell away from it. I've never revisited Ray Of Light in the years since except for Nothing Really Matters, which I love and think is one of her top 10 best songs.

I've revisited most of Madonna's other albums up to Hard Candy but Ray Of Light I just never got back into. I still LOVE her first album.

Yeah, no, r93. A guess you gave that snark the college try. Good boy.

I was seven years old when Madonna's first album came out. I was playing Monopoly with my teenaged babysitter when the Lucky Star video came on MTV. It was the first time I ever saw Madonna and I was mesmerized. At seven years old!

Of course I turned out gay.

[quote]there's nothing to currently enjoy about her first album.

Fun, catchy dance pop. Those songs have since become classics. You know nothing.

Madonna was a major force in reviving dance music in the early 80s, after the collapse of disco.

R93 seems to have some biases.

“Like A Virgin”, the song, is one of her best, as is “Material Girl”—the lyrics to both are very funny to me. “Everybody” from the first album has a fucked up, sinister vibe, and I like that super low budget video that MTV never used to play when they would do a showcase of her videos, at least for quite a few years. They pretended it didn’t exist and that “Lucky Star” was her first video (a song I think is kind of cloying, but still better than the queer and overplayed “Holiday”). “Burning Up” is similar to “Everybody” and is probably my favorite from that first album.

“Into the Groove” and “Crazy For You” are stone cold mid-80s pop classics. I don’t care too much for the genre or Madonna’s music in general, but those are great pop confections. “Live To Tell” is a great ballad even if it is, like a lot of her music, basically adult contemporary.

“Spanish Eyes” is by far the best song on the patchouli-scented Like A Prayer (I had the cassette when it was brand new), followed by the title track. Erotica had some pretty good songs and I dig the rough production. “Secret” from the next album is another great one. And my knowledge ends there.

By the time RoL came out, I was no longer paying attention to mainstream/pop music and had delved head first into rock music. Now, what I listen to would make most people’s ears bleed.

r93 is Datalounge's resident music critic, who is insufferable and always wrong. He's also the "ancient white fags" poster. Best if you just ignore his sad pathetic ass.

Bedtime Stories was such a great and solid album but unfortunately it came out during the SEX fallout and didn't get the credit it deserved. "Secret" is her best single after "Vogue" imho and that whole album is brilliant.

The late 90s/early 00s denim-on-denim look was popularized by her outfit in the Ray of Light video. Her skin was super glow-y around this time.

The RoL album was a perfect compliment to my high school teenage melodrama and burgeoning queerness.... enough so that I put "There's no greater power than the power of goodbye" as my senior yearbook quote. Super fucking gay. And I went to an all boys Catholic school. Even gayer.

Fast forward 20+ years later and I still love to listen to "To Have and Not to Hold". It reminds me of such high drama I felt as a teenager falling in love for the first time.

AND I FEEL.... LIKE I JUST GOT HOME AND I FEEEEL....

I traded fame for love without a second thought

It all became a silly game, some things cannot be bought

I got exactly what I asked for, wanted it so badly

Running, rushing, back for more, I suffered fools so gladly

And now I find, I've changed my mind

The face of you, my substitute for love

Traveled 'round the world

Looking for a home

I found myself in crowded rooms

Feeling so alone

I had so many lovers

Who've settled for the thrill

Basking in my spotlight

I never felt so happy

The face of you, my substitute for love

My substitute for love

I eat piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles and piles AND PILES! of shit.

Zephyr in the sky at night, I wonder Do my tears of mourning sink beneath the sun?

Great, great album. The revisionism in this thread from haters!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

She wrote most lyrics but added (more than a few) lyrics to a few like Ray Of Light. It is clear in the songwriting credits.

Her voice was strong. There are YT vids of her vocal demo of ROL, singing it while listening to the music on headphones. At the end she asks the booth something. She sang it just like it sounds on the record. Her voice was great during this time though it was not her best live performances except Oprah.

But those hard Rs were stupid. I have no idea why she sang Rs that way.

Easily my favorite Madonna album. And IMHO her best. But I am blown away it's been 23 years since its release.

I can't believe how long ago the late 90s are. God, it seems like yesterday.

Timeless classic. Easily one of her best albums if not the best. Ray Of Light, Frozen, Drowned World / Substitute for Love, Nothing Really Matters, The Power of Good-Bye, Sky Fits Heaven are AMAZING

One of fav 🙇‍♀️

God her face was so normal back then. There were NO indications that she was going to down the puffy cheek/ cat-eye /lip filler/gold tooth grill/ crazy cat lady/ Wildenbeast path.

My two favorite Madonna albums are this one, Ray of Light, and the under-rated Bedtime Stories.

I heard somewhere at the time that Ray of Light was an ode to Princess Di but that doesn't make sense except for in the video all the traffic zipping around in a blur. Anyone else hear this at the time?

R111 Amazing video. Such a different side to Madonna. It was her "I just want to be normal" moment.

Sorry that was for R110 ^^^.

"Substitute For Love" has aged quite well, I think.

She was exquisitely beautiful in the RoL era. It's like she finally was comfortable in her skin and grounded. No artifice. No neediness. Just a solidity and artistry. It just didn't last very long, for whatever reason. (I blame Guy!)

The album is null and void because Madonna has been proven to be a no-talent sociopath. And all the enlightenment she claimed to have had during this moment was all an act.

I she still friends with Ms Rupert?

All I know is when this album came out I was a spring chicken with a flat stomach, a perky bum, and not a care in the world!

[quote]I blame Guy!

Me too! That fat English fuck.

I loved "Bedtime Stories." That was her last good album. I could only listen to 2 or 3 tracks on ROL.

Damn. I never heard Substitute for Love. That's a great, little song.

Youtube is full of unreleased songs from all of Madonna's album recording sessions. A lot of them make you wonder why they weren't included on the albums because they would've been hits. This is the demo of a song called Stay (not the same Stay from Like A Virgin) that didn't make the cut for her first album. It's a little rough, but a polished-up version could've been a big hit. Youtube is a real treasure trove.

R113 Highly unlikely since RoL was originally written and recorded by someone else. It's a cover version.

R113, you're thinking of the video to Drowned World, which makes reference to Princess Di's death (hounded by paparazzi).

R98, he's also Whitbot, the same person who thinks great singing didn't exist until Whitney Houston released her debut album. He's obsessed with DL posters Miss Warwick and charlie, accusing anyone who challenges his opinions of being one of them. There's something mentally wrong with him.

He's beyond insufferable. I advise anyone who comes across his posts to FF them (and it's easy to detect who he is from the predictable meltdowns accusing people of being "ancient white fags").

Oh my god, R79, I'm only a few songs into that and I'm LOVING it, and already am so disappointed she didn't focus more on these Orbit songs than the Mirwais ones she went with. I've never liked her work with Mirwais - I mean, what do I know, right? "Music" ended up being a huge hit. But personally a second, predominantly Orbit album would've been much more enjoyable to me. Songs like "Liquid Love" and "Run" are really fantastic! She could've kept "Music", "Don't Tell Me" and "Paradise (Not for Me)" and had Orbit for all the rest as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks for sharing!

R106, you may want to listen to the original before you give Madge too much writing credit.

R129 And the songwriting credits indicate her level of involvement in that song. Your point? She wrote every lyric to, among most of her songs, Live To Tell and Like A Prayer. She didn’t need a relatively forgotten (though great) song like ROL to prove anything.

This was an authentic moment for Madonna. I think Guy deeply hurt her. Madonna has always carried her pain out in the open. It manifests differently. She is going through an eccentric phase now but who cares. She was not doing this during Rebel Heart, at least not in the beginning. She looked gorgeous during this phase. Those pics with Sean at this fundraiser were fire.

I’m loving her crazy eccentric self right now. She lived in white hot fame for so long. All the celebs go through a crazy time. She waited until she was older.

Lordy time flies!

This is all nice and back and forth chatter, but the real question is who did Felicity choose, Noel or Ben, as the dulcet tones of The Power of Goodbye played out behind her angst during the season one finale promos?

That Croatian ER guy was so hot in Power of Goodbye video esp when he manhandles Madge....hubba hubba!!

To Have and Not To Hold was a sad soundtrack in 1997-98 for a man I loved but who did not love me in return.

Now when I hear it, it makes me melancholy and reminds me of the friends I had that, over time, have disappeared....they all seem to slip away, not from a falling out but just.....from the shifting of time.

23 years?? I don’t know where the time goes. To me, it feels like 23 years ago was 1975! I still think of Ray of Light as “modern” music.

Her best work ever.

[quote] To me, it feels like 23 years ago was 1975!

So nothing notable has happened to you since 1998? You never left the 20th century?

This explains so much about DL.

The only song that holds up on this album for me is "Skin," perhaps because it's the only attempt to wed Orbit's sound with something sensual rather than cold pseudo-spirituality. Her geisha get-up for Nothing Really Matters was embarrassing at the time, and you can tell that even Madonna doesn't believe that "love is all we need." The Testino photographs in the liner notes are also still quite lovely.

The music video for Ray of Light was a flagrant rip off of the movie Koyaanisqatsi and the music video for an Italian song Non è mai stato subito. She was prevented from playing "Frozen" in Belgium for many years because a musician sued her for plagiarism

Perhaps most egregious is the fact that she stole lyrics for Sky fits Heaven from a GAP commercial, which required her to pay a hefty settlement to the writer.

Did a google search for Madonna Erotica and this came up. My lil gay eyes! Yuck.

She won the Frozen suit as it was ridiculous. Songwriters, all of them, are sued all the time for plagiarism. All the time. Haters gonna hate. Madonna’s legacy is that of a top 5 artist of all time.

All artists steal. Madonna stole. Michael Jackson stole. Quincy Jones stole. The Beatles stole. Prince stole. Beyoncé stole. The list goes on

But Madonna has nothing on Led Zeppelin who stole most of their melodies and riffs too. The music industry today is a lot more transparent than in the past. That's why every new song has 20 credits on it because of these past plagiarism lawsuits. Everything is credited.

Elder gays living in the past. This album was 23 years ago.

R143 What a great put down. Wow. You’re brilliant. Meanwhile R143 is 90, says YASSS Queen whenever it sees gaga

Uh, Madonna's legacy is that of a thief par excellence, R140, both terms of her musical "artistry" and her all-important image. She's simply lucky that most of the idiot mall rats who first bought her records in the '80s didn't know about Brigitte Bardot or Jean Seberg or German Expressionist film. The video for Power of Goodbye also ripped off from the Joan Crawford movie Humoresque (1946) and the original Thomas Crown Affair (1968). She had to pay the estate of photographer Guy Bourdin for stealing his work for the video to Hollywood from American Life. She stole Justify my Love from the Prince protege Ingrid Chavez who had to sue for proper credit. Madonna is notorious for tinkering with a word or two to claim a writing credit, as she unsuccessfully tried to do with You Must Love Me from Evita.

Why are you all so invested in defending her behavior? Listing other people who engage in similar practices is hardly a defense. Not even Quincy Jones would steal from a fucking Gap commercial.

R145 I didn’t even read 5 words of that triggered screed. Unhinged nut. Bwhahahahahahaha

Bwahahaha, eh? Move over, Dick Cavett.

r145 all artists take inspiration from others. Madonna was influenced and inspired, it wasn't outright theft, or doing a carbon copy of something. And when the hell did she evoke Jean Seberg or Bardot?

Such an amazing sophisticated album. I just wish she would have another ROL moment

R128, no problem! I don't like Miwais either. His music is just too blippy and Euro for me. It's like the more organic sound of Orbit's music.

That should say 'lacks the more organic sound"

COOZE AT R139!!!!!

Love it. It It places high on all Best Of critics lists. She sounded fantastic, great lyrics, cohesive sound. It just all came together. Frozen shouldn’t have worked. It was very risky. That is one of her best qualities- she takes huge risks. She rarely plays it safe.

R153 Yes. Frozen is really a masterpiece. It has no reason to be. It is just one of those things. William Orbit (and Patrick Leonard, genius) knocked it out of the park. Madonna totally rose to the occasion in voice, in lyrics, and in the video. I's really, really special.

The dance version is even better. Both the dance version of Ray of Light and Frozen are great. Oddly enough, the way the strings sound at the opening kind of reminds me of the beginning of the Lords of Acid's Rough Sex.

Frozen is a great song, I agree. I love those opening strings, and the "mmmms", and especially towards the end the way she sings "you hold the keeeeeeeeeeeeeey" to the same tune as the "mmmms". I remember reading an interview with Tori Amos where she was being interviewed someplace where "Frozen" started playing over the speakers and she was like: "I LOVE this!" and started singing over the opening strings. I know how she feels.

I'm not as enamoured of the video as others are though. Not that I think it's bad. But Chris Cunningham has done better, I think, especially when he plays around with unsettling imagery: "Come to Daddy", "Windowlicker" and "Only You" as examples. Not that I think "Frozen" would've suited one of the treatments that Aphex Twin got, but something subtly unsettling like the tone of "Only You" would've been more interesting to me, I think.

Then again, I would rather watch "Frozen" than "All is Full of Love", so...

Thanks for the nice comments about my post at R18.

Since I mentioned BT as an originator of the trance genre, I thought I'd post a couple of his songs that have a sort of similar vibe just in case anyone has never listened to him and might like the music. (Good music, even electronic, is timeless.)

This is from his 1999 album "Movement In Still Life," and so it came out the year after Ray of Light. It's a really diverse album and I think that the commercial success of Ray of Light potentially might have actually affected his label's investment in marketing him to a broader audience.

I'll post a couple more after this...I'm not trying to divert or hijack the thread, just to share some good music that was overlooked back when it was made. I have a love/hate relationship with Madonna, but one thing I appreciate about her is that by exploiting genres that are little known in the mainstream, she has reliably introduced people's palates to different types of sounds so that they can discover others who mastered them before she came along.

Thanks for sharing some BT, R157. I need to listen to more of him. The only song I'm really familiar with of his is "Blue Skies" with Tori Amos, which I really like.

I remember being so confused when Madonna brought out Music and everyone was raving about how she was doing stuff that BT was clearly already doing as though she invented it.

BT's full 1995 album Ima, which opens with a sound very similar to Ray of Light (1998), but more expansive and certainly less made for radio. This sort of music is the reason I was annoyed by reviews that praised Madonna for making "cold" electronic music warm and spiritual. I've always found good trance compositions to be quite moving and emotionally involving, and BT is a classically trained musician whose compositions reflect classical structures.

Yeah, R158, I discovered BT through Tori Amos. She is my favorite artist, and he made Blue Skies bu recording, cutting up and editing her vocals like a patchwork. He also remixed some of her songs as dance tracks. Interestingly to me since I am from NoVA/DC, both Tori and Brian Transeau grew up in the DC suburbs of Maryland and both studied classical music at conservatories (she went to the Peabody prepatory--the youngest person ever admitted--and he went to the Washington Conservatory of Music). I suspect they respect one another as musicians, and it's...interesting Madonna gets credit for her actual music since her primary role in it is choosing and paying producers.

This is the last one I'll post so I don't piss people off too much for going off the rails.

This is a track from the 1999 GO movie soundtrack, which is really fun if you haven't seen it. It's sort of an early adulthood Pulp Fiction, but less brutal. BT wrote the whole musical score for the movie--and again, I suspect Ray of Light may have been a major push to popularize this style of music and make people respect it more, and I wonder if he would have gotten the opportunity to do this without that push.

If we're talking about other albums for people who enjoy Ray of Light, for some reason I keep thinking about Nitin Sawhney's Beyond Skin. I feel like it's a great album for those who found Ray of Light tending too far towards pop and not world music-y enough. It came out around the same time and won some award, if I remember rightly. And it's real good music.

I'm not sure if others will see the connection I do, but I do think many who liked Ray of Light but wanted more from it will like this too.

They make a cute couple here, R160. I wonder if they...

Major Tori fan here too, and I remember distinctly a joint interview with the two of them in like 1995/1996 where Tori points out exactly what you said: 'making "cold" electronic music warm and spiritual' about BT's work. And so those musicians raving about Madonna did make me roll my eyes a bit.

I like his Tornado Mix for Talula too.

Aww R62, thanks, I've never seen that picture.

I doubt they ever...because Tori was with her boyfriend Eric Rosse throughout all those years and she seems pretty dedicated, a serial monogamist.

I'm definitely among Tori's greatest fans, and I love everything I know about who she is as a person, but I'm not the kind of fanatic who collects merchandise that bears her name and idolizes her. I marvel at her creative and intellectual prowess and her many talents. Most often, a person is a masterful writer, a technically great singer, a technically great piano player or a great composer--and none of that even begins to factor in the insights she has.

Something she and BT seem to have in common as musicians is that they follow their muses, so to speak, and that makes them less-commerical artists. I liked BT's music a lot for many years, but eventually his experimentalism lost me. He and Björk both seemed to evolve beyond what was very listenable music to me and into some other creative realm, which I wholly respect artistically but couldn't engage with as a listener. Tori has gone on an epic musical journey, revered and reviled by many along the way, and she has never really lost me because of the sum of all her gifts.

ANYWAY.

Since this is ultimately a Madonna thread, I'll add that Madonna has never lost me as an artist, either.

I really don't like her very much as a person based on most of what I have seen--and she seems to like not being liked--but her music has evolved consistently to an impressive degree while always staying commercial. That is something.

Her voice is not technically great, but I find it very warm and often lovely to listen to.

I overlooked the creative merits of her videos for decades, always thinking of most music videos as commercials to sell albums and concert tours, but looking back on her many brilliant music videos, I think they are evidence that she is an artist with a distinct and strong vision who can meld her ideas with those of collaborators to mutual benefit. Not many artists have a library of music videos that can compare favorably to hers and that proves to me that she deservea credit for it; it can't all go to the many directors and producers she has worked with.

Her lyrics are very hit or miss and usually simplistic to the point of triteness. But she really does have a gift for mining non-mainstream sounds and finding producers to work with to integrate those sounds into her work. Besides personal styling (costumes, hair and makeup) I think this is the 'secret' to her self-reinvention. She is an appropriator of cultures and styles, which is condemned nowadays, but in her case I do believe that from Vogue to techno to La Isla Bonita to Babyface R&B to her new Portuguese-influenced music, she deeply appreciates what she appropriates, and she works to understand those styles and really digest and integrate them into her sensibility and worldview. I do believe that she is curiosity driven and that is the mark of an artist.

The teeth grills and the butt implants and the cheek implants are sad, though, and she needs to stop.

Yeah, I always felt Madonna could be put more along the lines of making homages rather than outright stealing, just because in her interviews she has always, from what I've heard anyway, credited where she got the idea for her videos, look, music from. I know there has been some controversy over some of the songs, but I wonder if the fault is more with people like Kravitz and Orbit who brought her songs without telling her another woman had been working on the lyrics? Madonna said that she didn't know about Chavez when Kravitz brought "Justify My Love" to her, and she sounded pretty genuine to me anyway.

Great post, anyway R163. And I think you put your point about Björk perfectly too, at least as far as I see it too.

[quote]And when the hell did she evoke Jean Seberg or Bardot?

Your ignorance is showing, R148. In her Papa Don't Preach video, Madonna copied Jean Seberg's appearance in Breathless in great detail, from the short haircut to the striped boatneck top to the blue jeans (see below). In her Cherish video, Madonna was "inspired" by Brigitte's appearance in And God Created Woman (the scene where Brigitte's at the beach, soaking wet in a short sleeve, partially unbuttoned dress, hair looking short because it was in an updo ).

[quote}. . . all artists take inspiration from others.

If you've been regularly copying the images of others, imitating the very famous (Marilyn) as well as the obscure (Amanda Lear) throughout your long career, then it's no longer inspiration. It's ripping off others because you can't be original enough. You're hiding behind one persona after another, since your authentic self isn't that interesting. And people still wonder why she's imploding and ageing ungracefully these days? She has no more images to hide behind. No more tricks left.

Some Madonna stans have the nerve to bitch about Lady Gaga's Born This Way ripping off Express Yourself, when Express Yourself copied parts of Respect Yourself by The Staple Singers. I don't think Gaga's original, but Madonna fans have no room to complain, either. The song Ray Of Light lifted chunks from Sepheryn by English duo Curtiss Maldoon. Madonna's This Used To Be My Playground video copied Boy George's To Be Reborn video. Madonna's Love Profusion video copied Billie Piper's Honey To The Bee video.

She was "inspired" to perform Vogue at the VMAs, Marie Antoinette style, after Dangerous Liaisons won critical acclaim and several Oscars. Two of her dancers confirmed this. For her Nothing Really Matters video, she was "inspired" by the attention the novel Memoirs Of A Geisha was getting. In other words, she wasn't setting trends. She was latching onto trends that existed already. Also, she is one of the most sued entertainers for copyright infringement and has paid up many times.

[quote]. . . she deeply appreciates what she appropriates, and she works to understand those styles and really digest and integrate them into her sensibility and worldview.

Does she really, R163? I have read accounts where she dismisses her past work. It seems less about a deep appreciation of art and more about business: what she can market for headlines and profits? She uses then discards. She was more interested in chasing the current zeitgeist and exploiting it to appeal to the young. Her obsession with appearing cool to today's kids reveals her own superficiality and immaturity.

Everything R145 wrote is true. When your awareness goes to artists and popular culture before your time, beyond the narrow confines of your generation's entertainers, you notice that everything has been done before and usually done better. The true talents of today borrow from the past, but put their own unique spin on it so it becomes a little bit different.

I've always loved this album, it's one of the few I could listen to all the way through. Easily Madonna's best. Perfect production and song placement; that pairing of Power of Goodbye/To Have and Not to Hold near the end of the album is great.

I loved her debut album too. It was a perfect post-disco/synth album. She had the right swag and attitude at the time. I liked Ray of Light and Music too. She completely forgot her roots and alienated her fans. Does she not care she had a primarily black fanbase and gay fanbase before she became super mainstream?

[quote]The true talents of today borrow from the past, but put their own unique spin on it so it becomes a little bit different.

Which is what Madonna has always done.

Great album. It certainly allowed her to showcase her talented. The music and lyrics and performance challenged and expanded Madonna's skills. It introduced a variety of newish musical subgenres to her range and to the masses.

I don't get why she stopped trying to make house, ambient and trance music. Ray of Light, Confessions, Music and American Life were all good progressions for her. What is she is doing now isn't. She doesn't fit hip-hop or trap sound at all.

[quote]She was "inspired" to perform Vogue at the VMAs, Marie Antoinette style, after Dangerous Liaisons won critical acclaim and several Oscars. Two of her dancers confirmed this.

And so what if she did? She saw the movie and decided to do a Marie Antionette theme. That was an incredible performance, one of the best ever, and is still famous over 30 years later. It's a good thing the movie inspired her to do it. Madonna is so precise in her presentation, and Madonna had gays on stage with her at a time when she was the biggest star in the world, and when most gay men had a stigma against them that was further exacerbated by the AIDS epidemic.

R168: Always? No, stan. She's often copied without adding anything new. Her imitation of other celebs is, to use her own words, reductive. There was nothing unique about her slavish duplication of Jean Seberg and Brigitte Bardot in two of her music videos. Her Hollywood video was a complete ripoff of the work of photographer Guy Bourdin. Bourdin's son filed a federal lawsuit and received an undisclosed financial settlement. He said, ""It's one thing to draw inspiration; it's quite another to simply plagiarize the heart and soul of my father's work."

R171: Are you dense? It was yet another example of how she appropriates. This idea that she's a trendsetter is a myth. How nice that she dazzled you. But don't try to change the subject by opining about her support of gay people, because my discussion was focused on her lack of originality.

I agree with everyone here who thinks Ray Of Light is one of her best. There's a very free & fresh quality that surrounds everything concerned with this album--the music, the artwork, this period in her career. Madonna seemed like she was on a new path with this one. Every now & then I pull it out for a listen & think that the centered, focused, beautiful woman on the cover & in the tracks is strangely the same woman who became so unhinged. Back then who would've guessed that she'd butcher her looks with poor surgery, have such issues with her aging appearance & turn into the haggard sister of the woman on the cover of Bedtime Stories? I guess the confidence projected on the cover of Ray Of Light was fleeting.

Hung up evokes such overwhelming feelings of saudade in me.

Especially, midway through the song. The last third, when the bass builds and the clock ticks is perfect.

R165 Please never study Art History, Architecture, Design, Film or Fashion as from your post I can tell your head would explode and the rest of us will be cleaning up bloody grey matter for weeks.

[quote]Always? No, stan. She's often copied without adding anything new. Her imitation of other celebs is, to use her own words, reductive. There was nothing unique about her slavish duplication of Jean Seberg and Brigitte Bardot in two of her music videos.

She wore similar outfits. So what? The videos were original.

[quote] Are you dense? It was yet another example of how she appropriates. This idea that she's a trendsetter is a myth. How nice that she dazzled you. But don't try to change the subject by opining about her support of gay people, because my discussion was focused on her lack of originality.

Well the rest of the world apparently disagrees with you because that performance is still famous and acclaimed today. She obviously did something right. I don't remember her doing a remake of Dangerous Liasons on stage. She got done up as Marie Antionette. And she was great.

[quote]This idea that she's a trendsetter is a myth.

Yeah, Madonna never set trends. 🙄

She basically changed the music industry and girls all over the world copied her look. No female artist has had the influence Madonna has had. That's a fact.

She was the first female artist to outsell most male artists, which was unheard of.

Ah ha.

As expected, I see late stage syphilis afflicted Janbot has arrived to shart and dump excrement all over this thread.

Soon we'll be getting 30 year old images of Janet Jackson posted on here.

R165 Excellent points. It infuriates me when assholes take other's ideas as if they are their own. I had a loser acquaintance who did this. He'd take whole quotes from other people and never give credit. He was always my enemy.

R165: My head would not explode because I'm aware (unlike stans who think the sun rises and sets with their fave celeb) of the past: the art, architecture, photography, cinema, and fashion that inspired later generations. I have taken such classes. How else do you think I became aware of how much copying Madonna has done? Trying a personal attack instead of refuting the examples I gave is rather transparent. But thanks for playing, boo.

R176 & R177: You sound pressed. Spoken like a true stan, as evidenced by your many overly defensive replies to me. You types always reveal your butthurt. . .at even the mildest criticism. Madonna is the past. Have fun dining on your memories.

I've yet to read a reasonable explanation for how her method of copying the past or latching onto already popular trends is supposed to be original. Talking about her album sales, popularity, or copied fashion choices is not an explanation. So what if she sold millions? Quantity doesn't equal quality. McDonald's sells billions of burgers and no one calls their food haute cuisine. I will give her this: Ray Of Light is a good album. The fact that much of her later music sucks suggests that a lot of talented producers and songwriters did some heavy lifting in the past. How many of these same people work with her now?

When Gaga and Beyonce copy, it's a ripoff, a lack of talent, blah blah. When Madonna does it, it's homage. [italic]Riiiight[/italic]. Hypocrisy or delusion, take your pick.

R178: You seriously think every comment or thread that is not favorable to Madonna is by Janbot? That's obsessive. Get a grip. Personally, I think Janet's vocals are weaker than Madonna's.

Thank you for getting my point, R179. That acquaintance of yours is a parasite. Yes, artists borrow all the time. I can respect the ones who give props to those who inspired them. It's the ones who don't and act like they're original genuises (genii) who are hacks.

First paragraph at R180 was supposed to be a response to R175.

[quote]She was "inspired" to perform Vogue at the VMAs, Marie Antoinette style, after Dangerous Liaisons won critical acclaim and several Oscars. Two of her dancers confirmed this.

Yeah but wasn't this like 3 years after the film had already been out?

It's not like she was crazy thirsty and doing it a week before the 87 Oscars.

Not to mention Glenn Close has always been a huge Madonna fan and said she was glad her dress was used.

[quote]She was "inspired" to perform Vogue at the VMAs, Marie Antoinette style, after Dangerous Liaisons won critical acclaim and several Oscars. Two of her dancers confirmed this.

Yeah but wasn't this like 3 years after the film had already been out?

It's not like she was crazy thirsty and doing it a week before the 87 Oscars.

[quote]You sound pressed. Spoken like a true stan, as evidenced by your many overly defensive replies to me. You types always reveal your butthurt. . .at even the mildest criticism. Madonna is the past. Have fun dining on your memories.

No, not defensive just countering your biased and inaccurate appraisal of Madonna's work.

Madonna did, very much, copy and/or approximate the styles, works and ideas of others.

Boy George said it best at her peak - that Madonna always knew how to "buy the style of now."

Changing frequently was part of her talent and it often worked beautifully for her, especially in early years. It likely led to the staying power in her very long career we see now. Her career of constant change is a fascinating juxtaposition to someone like Sade, who's also had a very long career (with her band) working within much the same creative garden that she did when she started.

But her offerings were very much her take on existing trends, ideas and sounds. Let's give her credit where it's due (and not where it's undeserved).

Madonna herself has admitted that she didn't invent her look, she said she was dressing like every other girl in the East Village, she just happened to be the one who got famous.

[quote]Boy George said it best at her peak - that Madonna always knew how to "buy the style of now."

I like Boy George, but he's always been quite jealous. He screwed his career with his drug abuse and got left behind and he's quite bitter about it.

R188 all true, but he nailed her approach quite succinctly. That really is the name of the game for her.

I don't understand the criticism. In any business, you work with people who are successful and hot at the moment. Actors work with directors who are hot. Music is the same way. So there's a producer who's on a hot streak and you want to work with that producer. So what? That's the music business. Madonna is just like everyone else. How many artists were lining up to work with Phil Ramone or Quincy Jones or Barry Gibb back in the day?

R190 She should use popular producers, which is very much the thing now anyway.

Criticism isn't about that, just the idea that she's a huge innovator and it's all 100 percenter her. A visual innovator, sure. But to create the music she had lots of help. (and since you mentioned Quincy Jones - to be brutakly honest, so did Michael Jackson.)

They all have help. That's the job of a producer. But Madonna has had a lot of input into her sound.

[quote] I do believe that from Vogue to techno to La Isla Bonita to Babyface R&B to her new Portuguese-influenced music, she deeply appreciates what she appropriates, and she works to understand those styles and really digest and integrate them into her sensibility and worldvie

Exactly, pitchfork actually said this same thing when they reviewed "Celebration". Very few artists can appropriate "well" without it coming off as kitsch or as a pale-imitation. And Madonna NEVER claimed she invented those styles she appropriated.

[quote] But Madonna has had a lot of input into her sound.

Yes, the person who wrote the music for Holiday confirmed this. She was demanding and controlling from the very beginning.

I agree with some of the things in R180's link but some of them are really reaching. Madonna always said Express Yourself was a homage to Fritz Lang's Metropolis, not sure why the person at the link acts like they've discovered who shot JFK. And Madonna's Vogue sounds absolutely nothing like Malolm Mclaren's Vogue. At all.

I just want to point out some timing. Don't Bungle the Jungle benefit at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, 24th May 1989 with Sandy and Madge. I was there. And so was Willy Ninja who preformed to Deep in Vogue which was released soon after. Ninja was electrifying. Madonna and Sandy, not so much. Madonna SOAKED that in and came out with Vogue the next year. Ii don't consider Madonna a cheap thief, but she always identified the sexy exciting shit, often new and not huge, like lots of big strs, and then did her own big sexy exciting version of it.

There's nobody in the arts or entertainment field that did not copy someone else. I don't think people in the 80s were that stupid to not release who Madonna paid tribute to. And while Madonna copied a lot. She doesn't act like she invented shit like The KKKartrasashians did and at least she sings her own songs unlike J. Ho. And unlike Gaga and Katy, she never tried to force a gay icon status onto herself, it came to her naturally through being outspoken about gay rights in the time of Reagan and moral majority. Now that that's out of the way. It's the body of work put out should be judged. I think she had a strong run of pop albums up until Confessions. When she began releasing songs like "4 Minutes" and "Bitch, I'm Madonna", it was over for her and she is a walking parody of herself.

Ray of Light is among her best album and deserves the praise it gets. I think Music and American Life deserve praise too. She had something to say on those albums.

R197, now, if you are a woman in pop, it's just assumed you are a gay icon. This is why these dumb gays throw themselves at the proverbial altars of Britney Spears, Katy Perry, etc. But Madonna was one of the last stars who earned her status as a gay icon.

R196, interestingly enough, Vogue was originallygoing to be a b-side to (the very unmemorable single) Keep it Together. That would have been her worst musical decision since making Into the Groove a b-side to Angel.

ROL was a masterpiece.

I see the unhinged idiot trashing her is here with long winded diatribes. I didn’t read them past the first sentence. Madonna triggers like no other artist.

All of her collaborators have said Madonna has a lot of input into the actual music part as well. She write the melodies. If you read the book Like An Icon, all the biggest named songwriters who wrote with her RAVE about her songwriting abilities, her ear for musical instruments and sound. Rick Nowels and Patrick Leonard being just two among them. They have written with the best of the best and said Madonna is in their league. Nile Rogers said she is the greatest artist her has ever worked with and he knew it way back then.

[quote] now, if you are a woman in pop, it's just assumed you are a gay icon. This is why these dumb gays throw themselves at the proverbial altars of Britney Spears, Katy Perry, etc. But Madonna was one of the last stars who earned her status as a gay icon.

I agree it's very annoying. It's just celebrity worship at it's finest which is often a sign of low self-esteem. Britney, Katy, Beyoncé, Nicki and Ariana have done nothing for the gay community and have broken no boundaries or done any gay activism prior to their fame. But just because they make dance music and feature hot guys in their videos, they're gay icons. Puh-lease.

And now it's guys like Harry Styles being called a "gay icon" in the media and he's just a male Lady Gaga with his posturing. Freddie, Elton, Boy George and George Michael were more brave and groundbreaking than him. Troye Sivan and Perfume Genius don't even get as much attention and they're actually gay.

Love it. It was so organic and authentic.

I have never bought that story about Vogue being a B-side originally. It just seems like a good story to tell. It was obvious she wanted to build on the Shep remixes of Like a Prayer and Express Yourself.

R203, I believe it. Warner also though Live to Tell would bomb and was a bad choice for a lead single. And they thought releasing Angel as an A-side to Into the Groove was a brilliant decision. LOL

R200, Seymour Stein, owner of Sire Records also said he dioesn't have a favorite artist among the ones who are part of Sire but it would be very difficult for him to think of an artist smarter than Madonna. I believe him there.

R201, it's like being a gay icon is just something pop stars thrown on a resume now. It's like how people always list "excel" on their resume--it's something employers assume people know but people throw it on there to show "yes, I am qualfied!". I don't get it. Just about every gay "icon" from the past 15 years or so has been nothing but forced. Think Lady Gaga--she was a supposed gay icon at a time when gay rights was becoming extremely mainstream. How is that an accomplishment? People like Madonna , Elizbeth Taylor and Princess Diana all earned their gay icon status at a time when gays were despised. It actually meant something.

I love the harmonies on this demo

R198 That is a lie. Madonna had her fans but she was never a gay icon. What did she do for us that helped us, really. She was always a commodity, as Boy George said. She never had a heart or an original bone in her ugly body. You need a heart to actually care for others and she never has. She was never a legit gay anything. She just used them like she used everyone else.

R208, wtf are you even on about? Even people who hate Madonna would admit she spoke up a LOT about gay rights in the 80s and 90s. She helped make gays more visible and she was very open about how the gay community inspired her in her videos for Vogue and Deeper and Deeper. She became nore and more associated with gays from the late 80s onwards.

I love R197's post. Love ROL. Don't love a lot of Madonna's music but I appreciate her creativity and her personal and musical resourcefulness. Even Ghost Town was a good song. Better than many. She doesn't deserve slave devotion for being a great singer or evolved human being, but she has her own genius about her. No one can achieve what she has without talent. She's actually true to her time and the last time time that artists did what they wanted. She's not the only one of course. Annie Lennox and Courtney Love come to mind. Tori Amos. Kate Bush. Madonna is just an extremely commercial asshole artist. Grown tired and jaded and sad about LOOKING old and her stunts grown obsolete. Can't fuck with others as much as she once did. A bit like Warhol really.

Madonna was never a gay icon R208? You're on crack. Which was still good in the late 80's. We called it base. I find that crack has gotten a very bad name for itself. Madonna never went in for that shit - but Janet and Michael tried it. Giggling.

Madonna did an AIDS PSA.

[quote]No, not defensive just countering your biased and inaccurate appraisal of Madonna's work.

R185: And you aren't biased in your fanatical defense of her? Puh-leeze. Your 18 gushing comments on this thread say otherwise.You give a flimsy excuse for every valid criticism. "So what? Everybody does it." No, stan, everybody does not. But some other singer copies Madonna and her fans throw a fit. Damn hypocrites.

Madonna stans can be such masochists, too. She's a great example of an entertainer who displays contempt for her fans, yet they come back for more. She habitually starts her concerts 2-3 hours late, inconveniencing her audience to the point that some have no way home because public transportation closed later in the evening. These people paid $300-$400 per ticket to attend more of her concerts, then become upset or even surprised that she made them wait for hours again and again? What doormats.

I gave specific examples of her plagiarizing and unoriginality, and you respond with things irrelevant to that topic. "That performance is still famous and acclaimed today." Famous? Infamous. Acclaimed? To her nostalgic older fans, obviously. The younger generations don't care. That doesn't mean she was original. Wearing the actual costume Glenn Close wore in Dangerous Liaisons is unimaginative and derivative.

"...and girls all over the world copied her look." So? Are you referring to her 80s fashion (rubber bracelets, multiple crucifixes and crosses, lace gloves, etc)? That was the work of fashion designer/stylist Maripol, hon. Later, Madonna did her Marilyn and Marlene Dietrich cosplay. BTW, in an 80s interview, Madonna basically said that she came up with that look all by herself. False. She's been propped up by many talented people. Rarely does she give credit where it's due, especially if mainstream reporters hadn't picked up on who was really behind it. She's lucky her career started before the internet and social media became commonplace.

[quote]She wore similar outfits. So what? The videos were original.

You asked where Madonna copied Seberg and Bardot. I answered that question. Don't ask if you don't want to see inconvenient proof. I already pointed out her ripoffs of other music videos that went beyond just outfits: the whole concept was copied for her own videos. This Used To Be My Playground copied Boy George's To Be Reborn (after he saw Madonna's plagiarizing, he quipped: "This used to be my video"). Love Profusion copied Billie Piper's Honey To The Bee. Her Hollywood video reproduced the photos of Guy Bourdin without permission and his estate won the subsequent copyright infringement lawsuit. So no, you're not interested in reading comprehension.

I doubt you'll check out those videos because that would mean actually getting out of your bubble of ignorance and denial. I was a Madonna fan when I was a teenager. Then I grew up and saw through her bullshit. One could overlook a lot of that if she were a decent enough person instead of a narcissistic cunt. Worship her all you want. Suck on her left tit if you meet her. Maybe she'll appreciate the fawning. Who cares? But don't pretend you are objective. No one is fooled, stan.

Thing is, Madonna wasn’t looking old. She looked great even during the Madame X tour. I’m not sure what she did this time but her face is settling now. Cher went through a time where she looked frightening as well. Huge cheeks and botched face. Madonna has earned her time to be a little off. She’ll come around again.

ROL was wonderful. Madonna has a lot of talent.

R212 ahahahahhahahahaha I LOVE to see triggered BIBLE length freak outs over Madonna. Of course I didn’t read a word. FREAK.

[quote] BTW, in an 80s interview, Madonna basically said that she came up with that look all by herself. False.

She's always said she dressed like everybody else.

Jesus Christ you're unhinged. Many people in this thread have countered all of your insane ramblings.

[quote]I gave specific examples of her plagiarizing and unoriginality, and you respond with things irrelevant to that topic. "That performance is still famous and acclaimed today." Famous? Infamous. Acclaimed? To her nostalgic older fans, obviously. The younger generations don't care.

Honey, the younger generations don't care about anyone from Madonna's era. They have no interest in Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen or Michael Jackson either. And yes, that performance is legendary and frequently cited.

^There's only two of you Madonna loons here, stan. Do you ever not lie?

R214 Ignore the freak. It is fat as fuck, crying and life isn’t worth living for it. It makes shit up, or thinks Boy George quotes (he has since recanted) mean anything. OMG Boy George said it so it MUST be true! What a freak.

Madonna is a top 4 or 5, and top Female, artist of all time. No matter what she does now, that is set in stone.

R216 is for R213 & R214. There buttons are so easily pushed. LQTM

[quote]You asked where Madonna copied Seberg and Bardot. I answered that question. Don't ask if you don't want to see inconvenient proof.

Artists copy each other all the time, that's what they do. As has been pointed out countless times here. Frank Sinatra basically copied Bing Crosby. It doesn't negate the fact that he was a great and innovative artist. Seriously, you have no context of entertainment history.

Oh not another THE YOUNG DON’T CARE!

If you need validation of your diva from young people then maybe the diva you Stan just fucking sucks?

[quote]Yeah but wasn't this like 3 years after the film had already been out?

More like 21 months, maximum. The film was released in December 1988, got widespread buzz thanks to the Oscars (March 1989). Madonna did her Dangerous Liaisons "inspiration" at the VMAs in September 1990. Already mentioned is the fact she wore Glenn Close's costume from the film. That shows it was more copy/paste duplication than inspiration. No imagination required. Another example: during the last months of 1990, Henry & June got plenty of media attention and an NC-17 rating for its controversial (at the time) depictions of sex and bisexuality in the 1930s. In the June 13, 1991 issue of Rolling Stone, Madonna did a 1930s-themed photo spread with the same bisexual tone and lots of period lingerie, just like the film. How edgy! As I've said: piggybacking onto what had already been in the spotlight to augment her own image. Waiting a while before imitating makes it seem less calculating, don't you think? Reductive, indeed.

R195: You're right. Some of the things on that site are a stretch. There's another more detailed site that shows further examples of her plagiarizing and unoriginality (see link below). That's where I read the evidence that Sky Fits Heaven copied the lines from a 1992 Max Blagg poem, used in a Gap commercial, which I remember seeing on TV (where is GapPlaylistGuy?). I also don't agree with all of it and the writers take their dislike to really personal levels. But these 2 sites do show enough of her copycatting and her copyright infringements. It's a regular Madonna pattern of behavior, apparently.

[quote]I see the unhinged idiot trashing her is here with long winded diatribes. I didn’t read them past the first sentence. Madonna triggers like no other artist.

Madonna stans are triggered like no other fandom, except for the Beyhive. Not my problem if you can't handle more than a paragraph. Are you afflicted with a short attention span, boo? Do concrete examples give you indigestion? Your elderly and delicate fee-fees are obviously bruised, and your false assumption that only one person (ignore-dar proves there are several) is criticizing her reveals your emotional distress. What other lies will fanatics resort to, hmmm? That any critique surely must be the work of Janbot, that tired old excuse? Being gay isn't synonymous with being a Madonna fan. It's hilarious that two of you loons expect to be in an echo chamber at Datalounge, of all places.

R221 is blocked. I’m sure it is trying hard to drag Madonna. Dear, LOL, you aren’t changing any minds.

I’m sorry Lady G was born fugly. Not societies problems. You’re damaged like she is. You imprinted on her. Damaged mental freaks. The weak aren’t Madonna fans.

Madonna has frequently mentioned the gay men who have inspired and mentored her throughout her career. Madonna was one of the first big entertainers who spoke up for gay rights and also was not afraid to talk about AIDS. She raised a lot of money for AIDS research.

Here's a speech she made at AMFAR way back in the early '90s.

Let's not rewrite history.

Madonna may be a mess now with injections everywhere, a fake ass and bizarre social media posts, but for a long time, she really was the coolest pop star. She took risks and you had to admire her bold nature. I miss this Madonna.

Oh goody, I'm blocked. Tell it to somebody who cares, stan.

Weak, mentally unbalanced snowflakes block others because they can't handle people who hold a different opinion. Like blocking is some kind of threat. How pathetic. You've just confirmed your lunacy.

This thread made me happy. ROL. Wow. Fuck that blew my mind. Huge risk after her critical upswing from Evita. It shouldn’t have worked. It was not like anything in the mainstream. It worked. Only Madonna!

[quote]Madonna stans are triggered like no other fandom, except for the Beyhive. Not my problem if you can't handle more than a paragraph.

No, your claims are being countered by people who know what they're talking about, and understand that artists always get inspiration from others. Have you ever heard of Andy Warhol, perhaps? Incidentally, he said regarding Madonna "she's going to be the biggest star in the world." That was very early in her career.

You're just insane.

You don't become the biggest star in the world if all you do is just copy and imitate.

I think the anti-Madonna loon is also the execrable "ancient white fags" poster using another account.

Madonna doing an aids PSA does not make her a gay icon. So delusional. There is no evidence of Madonna being a gay icon. She has never done anything for the community. An aids PSA means absolutely nothing. Madonna's fans are probably just as revolting and disgusting as their idol. Not a group I'd wanna know.

[quote] Madonna did a 1930s-themed photo spread with the same bisexual tone and lots of period lingerie, just like the film. How edgy!

That was one of the best photoshoots she ever did. Even Marlene Dietrich, Madonna's idol who was not really a fan, loved it.

R228: 22 comments here and counting. Damn, you are disturbed. Stay pressed, stan.

[quote]There is no evidence of Madonna being a gay icon.

Even someone like you can't be that ignorant.

R229: all anyone has to do is use the block feature and see for themselves that what you wrote is a LIE. Madonna stans are no different than cult members. Stay pressed, hunty.

Different accounts, r234. The language and hostility is the same. You're a loser freak who doesn't belong on a gay board.

This kind of thread always brings out Janbot and all her many psychotic personalities. It is funny and sad at the same time. She could never hide her extreme level of psychosis.

R235: You're at 26 comments now, loon. Listen to this bitch. Who died and made you queen? You don't get to decide who comments on DL, you oversensitive cunt. But you're a fanatic, so no surprise.

There's no limit to comments, and you're a fucking nutcase.

^Damn. you are dense. You put about this ridiculous pose that you are reasonable but you regurgitate verbal diarrhea here with your endless comments.

You're a stan who doesn't understand he's mentally unbalanced.

Goodbye r239.

^Have fun in your Madonna basement shrine, you pitiful fanatic.

Crazy r241.

^Weren't you supposed to be leaving, hon? You are a quarrelsome phony and a habitual liar. We see you.

Yeah, definitely the "ancient white fags" guy. What a loser.

^Not original. Try harder, Madonna worshipper (who doesn't even know of your sad existence).

Janbot can pretend and shreik about how she isn't Janbot as much as she likes. But we see the same language, themes, words and writing style and we know...

Janbot is tenacious but she never was smart about it.

^It's so easy to get you discombobulated, huh? It doesn't need a Janbot to achieve it. Forever pressed, it seems.

You seem to be so deeply emotionally invested in Madonna and obsessed with her R247.

Why is that?

Review your own words, R248. You and two others are overly invested in replying to everything critical of Madonna (and together have posted the most comments), displaying the tactics of fanatics. You care very much about what I've written, otherwise you wouldn't have bothered to continuously reply.

The hypocrisy of amateurs is amusing.

You seem to be so deeply emotionally invested in Madonna and obsessed with her R249.

Why is that?

Stop the fighting.

We need a RAY OF LIGHT!

Reading comprehension problems R248/R250 or are you off your meds? Don't answer, for I don't care. Carry on with lunacy, stan.

You seem to be so deeply emotionally invested in Madonna and obsessed with her R252.

Why is that?

You seem to be so deeply emotionally invested in Madonna and obsessed with her [253}. Why is that?

LOL! You are desperate now, but I can play your childish game.

Oh dear R254.

Your words: "Janbot can pretend and shreik. . ."

Oh dearie dear!

Hypocrite.

The Janbot troll (and his many other personas) has infested DL for years. We can't have a single thread about any female singer, no matter who they are, without him infecting it. He's always shitting on the female singer threads with his insanity.

^Awww, boo hoo you! You want cheese with that whine?

Go back to YouTube's comment section, where all thin-skinned fanatics belong. Your echo chamber awaits.

For me Music was where I felt Madonna is losing the plot (aka her skill to come up with a great style gimmick to enhance the album's brand). She followed Ray of Light with ... well, bedazzled Cowboy costumes. To me the entire marketing of Music felt cheap. Mixing techno with country and Cowboy imagery was too much of a departure from the previous one.

Spot on R257.

A moment, R260. Let me retrieve the world's tiniest violin so I can accompany your butthurt lament.

Poor old strung out, unhinged, diaper shitting Janbot @ R261.

^Never mind about your hardon for Madonna. You're obsessed with ME. How sad.

Bless your heart, dear.

Are you sitting there desperately refreshing the page to see if anyone's said anything about you R263?

You must really be lonely and diseased.

Oh honey, it only takes me a few seconds to post a reply while I'm doing other things. There, there. The more you repeat your lies to yourself, the more it will seem true.

Carry on, lunatic fan.

Oh, and your sanctimonious pose is a hoot R264. You are guilty of the very things you complain about, yet are too dimwitted to see your own hypocrisy.

Predictably, you will respond again. What an obsessive little troll you are.

R266 = blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bah, blah, blah....

That the best you can do now? You type like a teenager.

Pushing your buttons is SO easy!

Janet Jackson is a fat tub of shit.

Are you [bold]STILL[/bold] desperately refreshing the page in case anyone has mentioned you or looked in your direction R268?

Sad.

Are you STILL desperately refreshing the page in case anyone has mentioned you or looked in your direction [R270]?

Sad.

Right back at ya, twat. You're hanging on to my every word.

Maybe everyone should stop responding to the anti-Madonna poster and just get back to talking about Ray of Light. This was a much more interesting thread when people were talking about the music and their memories of that time. Let it have the last word, what it really wants is to rile people up. Deprive it of that will be like depriving it of oxygen.

Now, children...

I’m not generally a huge fan of pop music but I love this album. It’s beautiful and artful. I wish she’d kept making mature music and not been so keen to stay ‘hip’ or whatever. All these years I’ve hoped of a Ray of Light 2.

Hoped *for a

I wish she'd kept making mature music too. She always seemed so interested in maturing up until a certain age, then everything went belly-up. I do think cracks began to show around Music, and with the Britney/Christina kissing stunt a few years later. But it really kicked in at Hard Candy.

I blocked that mentally ill janet fan.

ROL was indeed authentic, organic and free. She had finally dealt with fame and the result was this gem. I loved Music as well. She wasn’t interested in much but putting out a solid album. It was fun. They bungled the singles except for the first two which were monster hits. American radio became so corporate controlled and ageist at that point so her hits dried up over the next decade. She continued to be huge in the rest of the world including Canada.

Why are we talking about Janet Jackson? No one seriously cares about that 2nd rate Jody Watley wannabe anymore.

[quote]She was at her best when she was making fun pop and wasn't taking herself too seriously.

Exactly. Her biggest career missteps - Erotica, American Life, Madame X - were due to her wanting to make big "artistic" statements and it took her career years to recover and she fell flat on her face.

^^ AFTER she fell flat on her face

It seems Kylie Minogue is doing everything right. Interacts with her fans and makes music for them. Embraces her campiness and doesn't take herself too seriously. Acknowledges her past work and will even make remixes. Yeah she's a nobody in The US and people will say she's an Australian/UK Madonna rip-off but she knows how to please her fanbase and not alienate them.

Kylie is a doll and a worldwide treasure (not just an Australian one).

R22 gets it right. This was the last Madonna album that "the gays" unequivocally loved. She started losing her gay fanbase with "Music," and putting "Ali G" (SBC) in the video. It was like she jumped the shark with her gay audience. Suddenly it was cool in gay circles to bash Madonna and tear her down.

Is this the CD about the Jewish Space Laser?

WTF was she thinking with Ali G? That alienated a lot of her gay fans.

[quote] This was the last Madonna album that "the gays" unequivocally loved.

IMO Confessions on a Dancefloor was pretty popular with "the gays". At least I liked that one very much.

R282 Right. Gays have always attacked Madge for being the talentless *unt that she is. It didn't start w Music.

I think she felt threatened by the newer pop girls like Britney, Christina, Nelly Furtado, Pink and maybe J. Lo who were white and Latina girls doing pop music even though she didn't admit to it. She was open about her dislike of her black and biracial rivals like Whitney, Janet and Mariah in the 90s but she still had her own lane as the major pop white girl and Celine, Fiona and Bjork certainly weren't a threat to her. So she started becoming more desperate to get radio hits and appealing to the masses.

[quote]Gays have always attacked Madge for being the talentless *unt that she is.

How old are you? That was not the mainstream opinion in the gay community from 1982 until about 1999.

[quote]IMO Confessions on a Dancefloor was pretty popular with "the gays". At least I liked that one very much.

Well that really is just your opinion. I never said gays stopped liking her completely after RoL, just that her place as a fixture in the gay icon pantheon took quite a tumble starting around 2000 with Music. It was suddenly mainstream to hate on Madonna and be critical after years of treating her like our queen.

R282, though I don't think gays knew it at the time, I wonder if we subconciously picked up on the whole 'Guy Ritchie, homophobe' thing that her brother eventually mentioned in his book, and how subsequently that meant Madonna had made a certain choice that turned her back on the community? I do remember at the time some people wondering why Madonna did the whole cowboy shtick thing when she had said for years she hated the cowboy look because of its, what we would call today 'toxic masculinity'.

That was the beginning for me of realising that Madonna wasn't naturally coming up with concepts that felt natural to her, but coming up with a shtick. Which was confirmed to me after she refused to defend American Life, the way she had defended "Justify My Love".

[quote]Her biggest career missteps - Erotica, American Life, Madame X

And of those three, only Erotica is underrated. I know some people claim they enjoy American Life, but I can't understand that. So many other artists out there do that folk-y sound much better, those Madonna songs are either boring, or irritating on a level of a mosquito constantly buzzing in your ear. Mirwais sucks, he made that entire album sound so dry.

[quote] It was suddenly mainstream to hate on Madonna and be critical after years of treating her like our queen.

I believe what helped in that regard is that stories of her showing up late for her tour gigs (where tickets cost a pretty penny) became a common theme in reports and articles about Madonna. Fans didn't find her diva act entertaining anymore.

[quote] IMO Confessions on a Dancefloor was pretty popular with "the gays". At least I liked that one very much.

I agree with you--it was her last HUGE global album and she had a lot of them. And it was huge among "the gays" too. I was in college at the time in Chicago and it was played a LOT in clubs/bars in Boystown.

Confessions was an okay album but half of it was crap

She would win back a lot of people if she was more respectful of her past body of work and pander to that nostalgia. Remind people why they loved her to begin with. Stop chasing trends and pretending to be edgy. But that would involve growing self-awareness. Ray of Light was about her becoming more aware and conscious yet she regressed afterwards.

Her choice of husbands in general was poor. She would have done better to tear through a long series of men, casting them aside one after another like Elizabeth Taylor, with a dramatic centerpiece of smoldering Richard Burton stature.

To be fair, I woud think Madonna would have had 6 husbands by now but she only had two. I guess that's good? I don't see her getting married again anytime soon. That Guy Ritchie marriage really messed her up.

I just like her. No matter how much she tries to push us away, I do think she is a really good person underneath. She has pain in spades. She pushes people away but those who stay close like Debi or Rosie or Rita Wilson, say she is very, very warm and down to earth. I’ve heard that from journalists who have covered her for decades like Cynthia McFadden, Kurt Loder, Anderson Cooper, Liz Smith- they all say underneath her bravado and ice is a very warm, funny and whip smart person.

R296 Wrong. Everything you say is wrong. Clearly you're just as much of a monstrous *unt to defend such a *unt. You are as delusional as Janbot. She is in pain? As if. She has no heart, no way she feels pain.

Love her. Her music is so varied I can’t think of many artists who have this kind of catalog. Something for everybody.

Yep. I agree. She never stayed in one genre. Very versatile artist. Someone needs to confiscate her phone and force her to take an indefinite vacation. So the public can rediscover her discography.

I just got home.

I don’t get the criticism of her ways now. Every major artist has had a crazy period- Elvis, Whitney, MJ, Mariah- and most of the time their crazy periods make whatever Madonna is doing now seem tame in comparison. Her antics now are nothing compared to those of the people mentioned above.

She is a great songwriter. She wrote all the lyrics to two brilliant songs- Live To Tell and Like A Prayer. Those two alone qualifies her in history as one of the greats. We know she wrote all the lyrics, and had a hand in writing the music, to many more.

This below:

R301 she was always one of the biggest *unts in history, hated by almost everyone. Women, both straight and dyke, gays, straight men. She is one of the worst "songwriters" and "singers" in history. Most of her writing contributions are just cliches. Her mind is not advanced or complex enough to come up with anything original.

R302 Suuuuure. Okaaaaaay

R303 Throw yourself into a wood chipper, Janbot. Just because some sycophantic nobody asshole wrote an article on Madge's shitty songs will not convince the billions of us who rightfully hate her + Janet + Whitney + MJ. Choose any of these washed up 80s assholes. Their time is thankfully over.

R304 LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL you sound, triggered. I love it

Brian Elliot has said Madonna wrote the bridge to PDP and added the “please” before the chorus plus wrote the end of the song.

Live to Tell” is pretty much my favorite song by Madonna or anyone (some days it’s tied with a future Madonna #1) so this is the highest 10 I can give. Madonna has always been coy about what she’s singing about here, hinting that it may or may not be autobiographical. The subject doesn’t really matter: what matters is the atmosphere of desolation that it summons. From the opening line, “I have a tale to tell,” Madonna sounds absolutely haunted and completely alone. The striking thing about “Live to Tell” is how internal it is. It’s a long monologue by Madonna over stark keyboards and a lone guitar. During the bridge, she goes even more internal, and breaks my heart with admissions like “If I ran away/ I’d never have the strength/ To go very far.” Somewhere in the instrumental sweep of the synthesizers, Madonna makes her decision: she may not be able to escape but will instead endure. The song returns to the chorus, going round in circles, her pain not salved. That Madonna reveals just enough of herself to tantalize but does not answer every question we have is part of the song’s art (and part of the art of her career). “Live to Tell” came together quickly. Pat Leonard (who would cowrite many of her best songs) played Madonna the demo and she wrote the lyrics down on a legal pad on the spot. Then she recorded the vocals in one take in a lower register she hadn’t really shown us before. She’d done a few ballads before but not like this; not expressing this much pain. Madonna got a lot of attention for the controversy she courted but I always thought she deserved more attention for the creative risks she took. “Live to Tell” should not have been a hit. It’s an introspective, six-minute ballad with a long bridge and it sounded like nothing else on the radio. The label told Madonna she would wreck her career if she released this as a lead single, but she believed in the song and released it, and it hit #1. Nobody expected “Live to Tell” from Madonna in 1986. It was a huge leap forward for her.

Yes. Madonna is annoying and narcissistic but worked hard for her success and is intelligent. She put passion into her work and despite her limitations, she learned to sing and play instruments. She's a jack of all trades but master of none type.

[quote] Does she not care she had a primarily black fanbase and gay fanbase before she became super mainstream?

She was super mainstream pretty much from the start. By the time of Like a Virgin most of her fans were teen girls all over the world. And, I mean seriously, what the hell are you even claiming here? I've noticed this weird anger coming from certain gay men saying she used us and then ditched us. Yes, she's taken inspiration (or stolen) from various sources and she's collaborated with tons of people during her career, many of them gay. She's done great work for gay visibility and raise money for AIDS work, and in my eyes that's enough. In the end she's mostly a straight woman and an ally, and doesn't really owe us anything.

An ally is a friend who stands up for others. Madonna did that in the past (like in homophobic Russia where it is forbidden to even mention gays).

Elton John at one time was said to have raised 100 million (probably more by now) to fight the aids. I doubt Madge has given even a dollar out of her own pocket. So fuck your bullshit claims that she helped fight the aids.

310 posts of which Vadgebot has contributed 290 of them.

R311 You “doubt”. Well case closed then.

R311 Hi Donnie. Sorry Twitter banned you. Saying “at one time it was said” or “I doubt” is the same thing as “people are saying, so I hear”. I won’t cut it here.

Janbot and her single digit IQ is so tiresome. She comes from 7 generations of brothers fucking their sisters. Inbred for 7 generations, Janbot is.

Living Legend