Erotica and Bedtime Stories are better albums than Ray of Light

Agreed.

Totally agree and both albums sound less dated than Ray of Light.

I’ve been saying for years R&B suits her voice best and the Bedtime Stories album was the perfect example of doing fun music that was age appropriate without looking foolish. She had her longest running number one in the US with Take a Bow so you would think she would take a hint and go in that direction again.

I would love to hear unheard outtakes from the Bedtime Stories sessions as well as the songs she did with Babyface that were scrapped when she decided to work with shitty Orbit instead.

Ray of Light was her most musically consistent and fully-realised album.

It also is probably her most honest lyrically.

Nothing overrated about it.

In terms of songs liked, I liked every song on BS, except maybe one. RoL I only liked about 4 songs, the rest were filler. Like Nothing Really Matters! That song was fucking awful.

Agree - Ray of Light, the song, is like claws on a chalkboard to me.

R&B suits Madonna's voice best?! Nonsense.

Madonna has never made an album without filler.

I don't want to pitch Rain, Take A Bow and The Power Of Goodbye against each other.

[quote]R&B suits Madonna's voice best?! Nonsense.

Guess that’s why Take a Bow is her longest running number one in the US.

Secret, Forbidden Love and Love Tried to Welcome Me worked great for her voice too.

R4 Ray of Light was pretentious, lacked fun, had synthetic production and a lot of the songs had stupid lyrics (Candy Perfume Cunt, Swim, Mer Girl, etc). And the Earth Mother shit was so phony.🙄

RoL was still not as horrible as Music. That had probably the worst lyrics of any album in history. "Like a bird on the wingy wingy wingy!" Jesus fuck. Music was the only single-worthy song on that album. Don't Tell Me was average but just a gimmicky song.

R11 I will definitely agree with that. But the “Music” album wasn’t part of the topic. We’re talking about Erotica, Bedtime Stories and Ray of Shit.

R12 Fuck off. We will say whatever the fuck we want, fascist turd.

Oh come on. "Don't Tell Me" is all-time-top-10-Madonna. Jfc.

Impressive Instant, Amazing, I Deserve It, Nobody's Perfect are good songs. Even "What It Feels Like for a Girl" is decent.

You suck R11.

Take A Bow and BS is my all time favorite Madonna. We did this not too long ago, to me it represents "peak Madonna" in terms of her looks, singing, talent and popularity. I miss "peak Madonna" :(

Agree with erotica & ray of light. I don’t agree with bedtime stories: the awful babyface r&b sound , the toothless, sexlessness of it all. It screams mid 90’s. We saw her at webster hall promoting the bjork song - she read a children’s book (didn’t go over well) & danced around to junior remixes.

I think so, too. Also, I think Madonna looked at her most lovely during this period.

No. Madonna looked her best during the brief dark hair "Like a Prayer" period. The Jean Harlow brows years were a No.

I loved the long weaves she would wear in the early 90’s.

Erotica era:

Bedtime Stories era:

Draggy make up and horse hair. Cute bikini, good boody.

*body

That long straight hair does not suit Madonna's face shape.

Chichi LaRue was in the "Deeper and Deeper" video and says Madge didn't allow conversation.

Baby Face (Kenny Edmunds ) is a genius music producer, but I loved his voice when they duet on Take a Bow in 1995.... He co-wrote, co-produced, and provided backing vocals on Madonna's 1994 Bedtime Stories.

[quote]Chichi LaRue was in the "Deeper and Deeper" video and says Madge didn't allow conversation.

Are you surprised? Madonna is miserable, anti-social piece of shit who thinks she’s too good to talk to people she believes are “beneath” her.

I also agree with OP and a few other posters here. Some of the songs are still keepers ("Frozen", "Power of Goodbye", for instance) but some of the more BPM-heavy stuff sounds very dated and of its time (the title track being a very obvious example.) "Erotica" and "Bedtime Stories" have certain dirtiness to their sound, for the lack of a better word, the rough edges haven't been smoothed out to oblivion, and are all the better for it.

Her cover of "Fever" is so inessential. She obviously knew that Erotica was slim pickings for her usual our or more hit singles per album.

I don't know the other albums enough to comment but I listened to Ray of Light again recently and it did not hold up for me. Loved it when it came out but now I agree with the poster who said there was a lot of filler. Still there are some strong tracks and I still listen to the club mixes of Frozen, Ray of Light, The Power of Goodbye, Sky Fits Heaven and Nothing Really Matters

R29 You should listen to the other albums on YouTube when you get a chance. Personally, although I like Erotica, I will admit that the album runs out of steam towards the end and the last 4 songs are stupid. Still, only 4 filler tracks out of 14 is pretty good. And with Bedtime Stories, there are 11 songs, and the only song I didn’t like was “I’d Rather Be Your Lover.” Otherwise it’s a perfect album.

I absolutely hated Ray of Light the song! She sounds like a dying cat during the chorus and all the bleeps and blips sound effects are irritating. The video was just as annoying - the chaotic background and her jerky dancing.

"Madonna" (or "The First Album") only has two filler tracks (the non-singles). It is the best of her albums. There is no competition.

Erotica is an extremely uneven album, but the good songs include some of her best ever (Deeper and Deeper, Bad Girl, Rain), and interesting cuts like the vindictive Thief of Hearts and the poignant In This Life.

Everything else ranges from atrociously bad (the hideous title track, Bye Bye Baby and her disastrous cover of Fever, as R28 has already mentioned), to ridiculously pretentious (the lame social commentary of Why's It So Hard?, the pseudo-avant garde wannabishness of everything she did with André Betts), and clumsy (the bizarre production that ruins the otherwise great Words).

The thing that turned this album into a PR disaster and a massive pop culture event was the Sex book, which in hindsight was an incredibly tawdry gimmick that had the unintended result of turning Madonna into a moral pariah for a couple of years. Still, it's undeniable that some of the songs in this album are classics in their own right.

Bedtime Story was one of the few occasions when Madonna has been downright dull. Many of the songs are sugary fluff with deliberately conventional, nondescript lyrics (I'd Rather Be Your Lover, Inside of Me, Love Tried to Welcome Me, Don't Stop and the utterly lifeless Take a Bow), or else childish declarations of independence set to clunky R&B/pop production (Survival, Human Nature).

The only truly interesting moments are the funk-lite Forbidden Love and the simply gorgeous Sanctuary (which should have been a classic, in my opinion). As for Secret, its blend of faux-grunge instrumentation and R&B could have been peculiar, but the song is so repetitive and insipid that it's impossible not to end up hating it. Bedtime Story is a good complement to Sanctuary, but if we analyze it for what it is (yet another one of Björk's boring, tuneless and ridiculously pretentious heaps of shit), we'll realize that it should have never been a single.

As for Ray of Light, it was meant to be contrast very sharply with everything else that Madonna had done before, thus reinforcing the notion that she was the Queen of Reinvention. It did serve its purpose really well, but I agree that it was extremely artificial and hammy in the promotion of its 'Spiritual Goddess' theme. Also, most songs are just noise.

I know that we're not meant to mention this, but I think that Something To Remember is a good showcase of what Madonna can achieve in the studio when given good material and under the guidance of good producers (You'll See, One More Chance). I think that this was a good change of register for her, although her lack of vocal talent makes a more Adult Contemporary sound impossible - she would have never been able to pull it off while singing live.

I've always hated "One More Chance." Stripped Madonna just tends to highlight the effortful quality of her singing. "You'll See" is lovely.

What is so amusing in retrospect is how she went out of her way to dismiss her pop work during the ROL era. About how she couldn't bring herself to sing any of her older hits because she had "evolved" to such a more intellectual place and she was above all of that. Then came the English manor phase and quite a few hardcore fans I knew completely lost interest in her. My favorite was during the special where she went around old NYC areas, she said the most horrifying thing she could think of was to be 60 and still performing onstage. IF ONLY she knew.....

I wonder what ROL era Madonna would have thought of Madame X era Madonna?

Ray of Light is good, groundbreaking at the time but it's very dated now. Erotica and Bedtime Stories aged better. I also think Madonna's debut album aged well too, the minimalist synth sound still is fresh.

Confessions on a Dance Floor is also much better than Music and American Life. It's an album that can be listened to all the way through. I would put it on par with Ray of Light in cohesiveness.

Madonna's whole Goddess thing is kinda annoying just like Beyoncé's and Mariah's is. Some people like their pop stars to have some relatability and vulnerability. Part of their initial popularity was they were girls from humble beginnings who made it big.

[quote] I know that we're not meant to mention this, but I think that Something To Remember is a good showcase of what Madonna can achieve in the studio when given good material and under the guidance of good producers (You'll See, One More Chance). I think that this was a good change of register for her, although her lack of vocal talent makes a more Adult Contemporary sound impossible - she would have never been able to pull it off while singing live.

I love You’ll See and One More Chance is fine, but how could you not mention the fabulous I Want You?

I laughed so hard when Prince made fun of her "I Want You" cover.

Erotica and Bedtime Stories aged well because there is such a warmth to them. Madonna insisted on lots of bass so that just adds to the lushness and warmth of both albums. And I think Madonna pushed herself and was challenged by her collaborators. I know she had a difficult time with BS because there were different producers and they were younger. But I think Dallas Austin, Dave "Jam" Hall, Nelle Hooper and Babyface brought some freshness to the collaborations.

Also, I love her vocals on both Erotica and Bedtime Stories. By 1995, she was in Evita-mode and she was trying to sound so mannered that I miss the vocals from 1982-1994. The rawness and the untrained vocals are what people fell in love with.

Madonna was never a great singer but she did express emotion and did a lot of work that was challenging. I give her kudos. I don't get the praise for Britney, Rihanna and Katy who sound the same on every song. At least Madonna tried to transform her limited voice.

"Secret" has aged well but that early 1990s R&B sound - pre Nu-Soul - hasn't really.

R31, I agree - she sounds terrible and the whole song is annoying and dated!

RoL is considered her best song. Your cunt is annoying and dated.

RoL was so out of her vocal range tho. I love Frozen and I love the video for it as well. Probably my top song by her as well “Live to Tell.”

Totally agree. Ray of Light really only has 3 good songs (Frozen, Nothing Really Matters, The Power of Goodbye...Skin would be in contention if it weren't 3 minutes too long). Meanwhile, Erotica and Bedtime Stories are albums you can listen to from the first track until the last.

Sadly, it represents her decline. Confessions on a Dance Floor gave us a glimmer of hope, but that was basically a last gasp of breath before death's cold embrace.

What album was "Don't Tell Me" on? I liked it because of the hot guys in cowboy hats.

R48 That was Music. It only had one good song: Music. The rest were garbage.

'Ray of Dalton's Light' was hyped as the biggest thing since Gone With the Fucking Wind already. Wasn't that just after she'd met Guy and she was imitating human emotions in order that he would marry her under the delusion that she had human feelings? It's all a bit of a blur to me. I stopped following her after Truth or Darte. Everthing after that seemed tawdry and pastiche.

(*for all the sics above. It's too early and I haven't had any coffee)

I can't believe that Madonna never performs "Survival" from Bedtime Stories. It's such a gritty, funky R&B song. I understand she wants to keep moving forward and not be like Cyndi Pauper singing the same three songs over and over, but some songs of hers deserve a second life.

I have all three of these albums and I like them all for different reasons. I think they’re all good albums but I like Ray of Light the best.

Madge has had a few reinvention albums. Like a Prayer, Erotica, Ray of Light and Confessions are probably the major ones. Bedtime stories was in many ways a prelude to Ray. She could have gone the Babyface “Take a Bow” route or the electronic route. I think she made the right decision career-wise.

People are hating Madonna right now, but this has happened in the past. Ultimately, people love a good Madonna reinvention and redemption story. She's just one song/album and makeover away from being worshipped again.

I think Ray of Light gets tainted because that's when Madonna got on that Kabbalah bullshit.

Vadge's fanbase has aged out and are becoming grandparents now. Vadge will never have another comeback.

We kind of love and love to hate Madonna, so Erotica is our favorite album. it's got some great, dark beats, some intended - and some very unintended camp. You can tell she was actually writing some of the songs and not just slapping her name on the publishing. She must use the world "blue" at least a dozen times. There's also NOTHING sexy about her look. She looks like that dykey friend of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct - all muscle and leather - while she rage screams EROTICA - ROMANCE!!!!! And the book? What wonderful rubbish! It's worth a perusal every few years! :)

Deeper and Deeper holds up, and how can you not love to camp fest of Thief of Hearts? "Stop Bitch! Now Sit Your Ass DOWN!"

Personally, the Confessions album is better than any of her 90s albums and is probably her most easy to listen to album from start to finish in her entire canon (the other being her first album). Erotica, Bedtime Stories, and Ray of Light have a fair amount of filler songs each, but of the three, at least Ray of Light has a more cohesive sonic thread linking the tracks together in a pleasing way thanks to William Orbit's spacey and ambient production.

Cyndi Lauper is much more than 3 songs. She had a lot of albums with good songs but they didn't sell. And she always tried to be progressive and put a lot into her music and singing. Two semi-recent songs deserved to be hits, "Shine" and "Into the Nightlife", but she's too old. Madonna eclipsed all music artists in the 80s but especially women, and especially Cyndi.

Yes, Erotica (album) sounds better than ever. I've always loved Bedtime Stories. I've never really liked Ray of Light or Music.

Cyndi didn't stop charting because of Madonna. What a silly suggestion.

By the time Ray Of Light came out I was tired of william orbit & the orbit sound. Beth Orton, caroline Lavelle, his solo work & work as Torch Song (Toward the unknown region IS Ray of Light) Otherwise Madonna was in fine form on it.

You disliked his All Saints hits?

R61, not as silly as you. Madonna's singles and albums were hyped by MTV and the general media, and Cyndi's were ignored. That translates directly into lower record sales.

Cyndi didn’t have the commercial appeal that Madonna did. She liked being an outsider and weird.

That implies there was only room for one successful female...

No it doesn’t. It implies that if Cyndy was willing to be more mainstream she would have had greater success.

"Into The Nightlife" wasn't mainstream? What was it? A Gregorian chant?

And Cyndi couldn't be more mainstream with her: "Here's my Standards album! ... Now here's my Blues album... My Country album is up next."

Cyndi ruined her prime years with all that world federation wrestlers bullshit.

I’m speaking more of how she came across as a public figure rather than her music. Besides she had a lot success with her songs. Much of it stands up today like Time After Time. Madonna has just been relentlessly ambitious as well which is why she endured longer.

It's not simply ambition. Madonna had her finger on the pulse.

Cyndi has a stronger voice that sounds better in concert than Madonna's. Wendy Wild told me that Cyndi was always fighting her record company. I watched an early Johnny Carson appearance and I believe Cyndi had schizophrenia from being sexually abused as a preteen.

The best part of Ray of Light is the photography by Mario Testino for the liner notes. Candy Perfume Girl has got to be one of the worst songs ever recorded along with Shanti/Ashtangi. Even in 1998 the trope of rich white celebrity seeking redemption through eastern spirituality had worn thin. She couldn't shock people with crucifixes anymore so she went to Jewish mysticism (which Sinead O'Connor had already studied and mentioned in the notes to I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got). Madonna is still pumping money into the shady Kabbalah Centre in LA ($160k donation in 2018) through her "Ray of Light Foundation."

Do you turds know how few dollars artists have received over the years from selling albums? Even someone like Madonna. Who really gives a fuck how many albums or units they sold. The artist doesn't get any of the money. Giving millions to corrupt suits in music companies should never be a sign that an artist is "successful". Cyndi still looks good today. She has always had an amazing four octave voice that the fucking suits never allowed her to use when releasing songs. She still tours and gets gigs and many still love her because she has always had integrity. Clearly Cyndi has always been the bigger artist over Vadge. Vadge is nothing but a huge fucking joke these days. Most wish she'd just drop dead.

If I have to hear fucking Time After Time ever again...

She ran that song into the ground.

EROTICA is Madonna's best album by far.

R67 Cyndi gave an interviewabout her decline in sales. She said it was the 3rd album - it wasn’t good & It did only ok. Then her fourth - which she loved - was a huge flop. So gtreateat hits time! Now she has the last laugh: mega bucks from the sucess of Kinky Boots.

I don't agree because I think the X > Y formula when applied to works of art often fails.

For all Madonna's concepts, Ray of Light brought together her genre-shifting MO and exploration of a new personal philosophy in a successful way. It was a true reinvention/re-presentation in a way that was provocative not because of shock value but because of thoughtfulness and what appeared at the time to have been personal growth stemming from motherhood and maturity.

Different people want different things from their music.

I also prefer Madonna's voice and the musical production of (especially) Bedtime Stories and Erotica. Madonna's early use of her voice made it seem like she couldn't sing well, and this era of her music proved that she has a delicious warm tone to her lower register, at least when produced in studio. It revealed her to be a recording artist and not only a pop star. Both Neller Hooper and Babyface made her voice radiate, and Babyface's high backing vocals are a perfect counterpoint to Madonna's tone.

Comparatively, I feel like the R&B era was very slick and refined musically, vocally and visually, while Ray of Light loosened up a little. Her hair was a little messy, her vocals on the title track are imperfect, lending a little more authenticity, and she seemed to be coming down to Earth from her previous haughtiness. Alas, it didn't stick.

I would agree that Ray of Light undeservedly overshadows Bedtime Stories (I don't appreciate Erotica as much myself.) but I wouldn't agree that one is "better" than the other.

Frequently, Madonna stopped herself when she need to go hard with the club sounds. Most of her best tunes in her career are ballads and dance tunes. But as dance music, her sound is so mainstream. Obviously thi made them huge hits. But I always wanted hard deeper more. A lot of the mixes sounded like shit, too.

Some of the best beats were on the first album.

Deeper and Deeper sounds good but the break isn't helpful. Also it should be 3x deeper and harder and driving.

Why's it so Hard is well made -not easily danceable, but driving. Madonna functioned well in that driving tempo Massive Attack style .

Bedtime Stories is a nice album. "Quiet Storm" style.

R76 Agree. Ironically, Cyndi and Sarah McLachlan recorded a duet of the song.

Both women are extremely talented vocalists (and Sarah M a multitalented musician), and both hit a wall and have spent decades since falling back on reissues of their early hit songs. It's very strange.

The lightning-in-a-bottle phenomenon is real. Sarah in particular had two extraordinary albums and then...never again. If that had been because (as with Cyndi) she was dependent on songwriters to compose her music and lyrics, that would be one thing, but no; she wrote her own music and lyrics, and so it just seems like she lost her magic after Surfacing.

Someone on DL recently mentioned Cyndi's ELECTRO album from 2008, Bring Ya To The Brink

I had never hear of it.

It's pretty good of course. Nice production on her voice. Cyndi has a great voice when she avoids twee.

It looks like they spent "10 thousand dollahs" on a million dollar tune. Criminal. Two years later this would have made a zillion bucks for a star like Gaga became. Cyndi could sing Gaga and Madonna under the table.

Your Honesty was recorded for Bedtime Stories. I think it would have been a better lead single than Secret and certainly would have done better on the charts than Human Nature and Bedtime Story. It was on a remix album that no one bought. It's a good song.

R84 interesting. Yes that is the midtempo driving sound she did well. That song sounds quite derivative of some of her other songs, though.

William Orbit was never really someone who pushed things forward when it came to electronica or dance music (or Mirwais, for that matter.) Both were kind of on a brief hot streak in the late 90's/early 00's, sandwiched somewhere between trance being huge and before the 80's revival/electroclash happened. Those productions were always going to have the shelf life of a dairy product. By the time Kylie strutted in that white slit dress singing "Can't Get You Out Of My Head", both of those production styles skidded down the toilet bowl of pop music. It's telling that the one Orbit single I still remember was his version of Barber's Adagio For Strings. Shep Pettibone and Stuart Price understood how the mold a great pop song into a lasting dancefloor monster much, much better. On RoL, it's also telling that the songs that have aged best are the ballads. To be honest, I barely remember anything of "Music" besides the title song which, as a song was pretty shit, but had Ali G in the video and "Don't Tell Me", which was better but even that wouldn't be in Madonna's Top 20. I'd take songs such as "Rain" or "Secret" over pretty much anything on those two albums, except for those couple of ballads I've already mentioned. Had she kept making albums as good as COAD, both RoL and Music would've been cast in much more realistic, harsher light.

^^ By the ballads, I meant "Frozen" and "The Power of Goodbye."

R84, that sounds like the type of song Lisa Stansfield would've recorded back in the mid-90s.

[quote] Madonna eclipsed all music artists in the 80s but especially women

The way you Madonna fans try to rewrite history. She didn't eclipse all music artists in the 80s, especially Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. The former totally outsold her with just two albums in the 80s, and the latter was right on her heels with her first two albums.

I swear Madonna fans are just as bad as the Beyhive, forever thinking their fav had no competition and she carried the entire music industry on her back. Ridiculous.

R86 I liked trance and house a lot when Ray of Light came out. (I was a big fan of BT, who is a classically trained musician and who often made classically inspired compositions with increasingly experimental electronic instrumentation.)

Part of me felt a little how I imagine voguers felt about Vogue, that Ray of Light was a version of an interesting genre that had been appropriated and watered down for mass consumption.

Another part of me liked the music and appreciated that Madonna's album brought some respect to the genre. I remember countless reviews and interviewers crediting Madonna for the alchemical feat of making "cold electronic music" feel warm and personal, and I took some offense to that. Trance in particular can be very emotionally evocative.

But honestly, although I do not regard Madonna as a strong lyricist (some are mortifyingly clunky), Ray of Light is successful and cohesive in that regard and her lyrics are better than most trance lyrics that preceded the album, as the focus in the genre was on the music production with vocalist hired to sing generally trite words for atmosphere.

Madonna didn’t “write” the lyrics to “Ray Of Light.”

LOL!!!

This is a “classically inspired composition?”

The BT Stan is as unhinged as the Tori Amos Troll, shoving him into a discussion that has NOTHING to do with him.

Oops, wrong video!

I meant “blue Skies” with the talentless Amos!

R75, the artist who gets co-write credit on the singles and other album songs can make a lot of bank on record sales. You know nothing about the biz, drag queen.

Can I just say how much I hated Sarah Mclaughlin's maudlin & twee dirges, pristine singing voice, and boring image and attire.

Oh, yeah. Publishing, writing credits and touring are where the money is in music. Artists don't make a lot off album sales usually, particularly in that record biz organized crime model in which the label "loans" money to the artist to record the album and it has to be paid back. This is one way a lot of musicians go broke. A tour that sells well is what makes artists rich if they don't have songwriting credits. Writing credits get the most royalties, and I believe that holding the publishing rights to popular music is where people can become outrageously wealthy.

R95 Sure. Go ahead and say it.

Ummmmm NO.

I have Erotica and it's nowhere near Ray of light, and the same with Bedtime stories

I can't understand why she simmered down her entire musical career to 45 iterations of Angel, including the dreaded ASPCA commercials. Not all of her music was dreadful hopeless songs about heroin overdoses.

She was never hip or cool, too much like a 4-H clubber, like Kelly Clarkson.

R99 Possession is simply amazing. But she had problems to break in the USA market (they already had Alanis), and needed Building a mystery to be a smash hit on Canada to do it.

With the new millienium tastes changed, Fallen was her last big song (great lyrics)

Pah! Ray of Light *is* an Erotic Bedtime Story if you do it right, BITCHES!

r33 can just suck the life and joy out of anything. Jesus Christ.

Secret is one of my top 5 Madonna songs, but it's pretty much forgotten now. A shame, because it's one of her best.

“Secret” is SO Madonna!

That and “Bad Girl” are better than any of the “Trance” drivel on RAY OF LIGHT.

"Come on and vogue! Dance to the music! Hey! Remember when Madonna was alive?"

R94 who doesn't know that, Janbot. Stupid cunt.

I know this is an unpopular opinion but I loved Hard Candy aside from the atrocious Candy Shop song.

Madonna should never be a guest artist on her own album. That's what she is on Hard Candy.

Ray of Shit was boring, weird, sterile, overproduced and quite frankly, creepy sounding. Most of the songs don’t even sound like real music - just a bunch of creepy computerized sounds. Songs like Swim, Mer Girl, Drowned World, Skin, and Shanti/Ashtangi are all creepy as hell.

RoL had three good songs. The rest were awful filler.

I listen to Nothing Really Matters, Sky Fits Heaven, Frozen and The Power of Goodbye.

The only Madonna albums I think are consistently good are her greatest-hits collections and Confessions (sans the mortifying New York song). Everything else definitely has some filler.

"Sky Fits Heaven" has some of the most ridiculous and pretentious lyrics that Madonna ever recorded.

"What the PROPHETS told me!"

Bilge.

I think Madame X, like Ray of Light, is musically interesting but it has more questionable lyrics, typical of Madonna. She's a sincere but clumsy writer and most of Ray of Light is less clumsy than most of her albums.

I will say that "original Madonna," up until around Y2K, made more palatable music and sang with her own voice and so she didn't seem to compromise herself. When she began the 'collabs' with Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj, et al., started wearing her stupid grills and singing with the bizarre bratty nasal affectation, she suddenly appeared to be desperately seeking relevance.

Her song 'Crave' from Madame X is a really nice song that should have been one of her standard, non-gimmicky hits, but for some fucked up reason she decided to sing it like she's impersonating Ariana Grande, slurring her words like she is half drunk, and it just totally undermines a song that should have been a simple pleasure.

I like her cover of Fever and I Want you with Massive Attack. Nothing Really Matters is a stand out from RoL. I also loved the last few songs on her BS album they suited her voice

Madonna has always "written" at the level of a special needs 5 year old. Imagine poor Diablo, having to work with Madonna. Puke.

My mother died when I was five

And all I did was sit and cry!

I cried and cried and cried all day

Until the neighbors went away!

They couldn't take my loneliness

I couldn't take their phoniness!

My father had to go to work

I used to think he was a jerk!

—45-year-old award-winning singer-songwriter

The Tracy Young Dangerous Remix of "Crave" is fantastic!

This song was a big Adult Contemporary hit in 2019.

I respectfully disagree with you, OP. ROL is the most cohesive album she has ever done. It was brilliant because it has a because it has a narrative structure. Each track is memorable, sophisticated and compliments the other wonderfully. Her vocal was also on point max at its peak. Still in love with this album.

Some of you type words that promise to add up to insightful music and entertainment criticism. Then you go and ruin it by passive aggressively sprinkling acronyms throughout. A writing style for armchair music critic incels.

COAD indeed.

"MAGIC POIIIII-SONN!" is

[quote]memorable, sophisticated and compliments the other wonderfully

according to R119.

Don't forget the bleeps and the other computer R2D2 noises scattered throughout the album.

I don't like cities

But I like New York

Other places make me feel like a dork

Los Angeles is for people who sleep

Paris and London, baby you can keep

Other cities always make me mad

Other places always make me sad

No other city ever made me glad

Except New York

I love New York

I love New York

I love New York

If you don't like my attitude

Then you can F off

Just go to Texas

Isn't that where they golf?

New York is not for little pussies who scream

If you can't stand the heat

Then get off my street

Get off of my street

Get off my street

—47 year-old award-winning singer-songwriter

I respectfully disagree. Ray of Light was a great album from start to finish.

I do enjoy both Erotica and Bedtime Stories, both are VERY solid, but I'd probably eliminate two or three songs from each album.

Those albums and Music were the last run of music from her that was really great. I felt after Music she was trying too hard on all fronts - beginning with the dreadful American Music - and I haven't liked much more than a song here and there since.

Never forget how to dream, butterfly...

I will be gay, if the gay are burned

I'll be Africa, if Africa is shut down

I will be poor, if the poor are humiliated

I'll be a child, if the children are exploited

I'll be Islam, if Islam is hated

I'll be Israel, if they're incarcerated

I'll be Native Indian, if the Indian has been taken

And I'll be a woman, if she's raped and her heart is breaking

I know what I am (God knows what I am)

And I know what I'm not (and He knows what I'm not)

Do you know who you are? (Mm)

—60 year-old award-winning singer-songwriter

Critics pointed out that William Orbit didn't have enough tricks or bleeps to fill an entire album with RoL. That's why only three songs were good. The rest were derivative filler.

There has always been a child's backyard play battle in Madonna's artistry between good and bad taste but bad taste finally won the more control and isolation she choose.

The criticisms given here about Ray of Light really suit Music.

Yes, there was some innovative composition and arrangement, but most songs really were just whirrs and blips and bloops for the sake of sounding different. It was interesting at the time but it's mostly not very listenable anymore.

"Bedtime Stories" is the only post-1980s Madonna I still enjoy today. It has like 7 or 8 truly good tracks. As someone above said, it is peak Madonna.

R122 I wuv you! Keep em comin'.

Drowned World / Substitute for Love Song by Madonna

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 My substitute for love Should I wait for you, my substitute for love 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 Should I wait for you, my substitute for love My substitute for love Famous faces, far off places, trinkets I can buy No handsome stranger, heady danger, drug that I can try No ferris wheel, no heart to steal, no laughter in the dark No one-night-stand, no far off land, no fire that I can spark The face of you, my substitute for love My substitute for love Should I wait for you, my substitute for love My substitute for love And now I find I've changed my mind This is my religion

Source: Musixmatch Songwriters: Collins David / Ciccone Madonna L

R128 Blah blah. It's been said 50 times on here that Music was horrible. 50 times worse than RoL. Music, the song, was the only somewhat good or listenable song. The rest were horrible. "Like a bird on a wingy wingy wingy"! Andrew Lloyd Webber she was not. LOL.

I could be your sister, I could be your mother

We could be friends, I'd even be your brother

But I'd rather be your lover

What about Where Life Begins …the lyrics are shit but I love the tune

I'm drinking a Soy latte,

I get a double shot-ay

It goes through my bottay

And you know I'm satisfied!

I drive my Mini Cooper

And I'm feeling super-duper!

Yo they tell I'm a trooper

And you know I'm satisfied

I do yoga and Pilates

And the room is full of hotties

So I'm checking out the botties

And you know I'm satisfied!

—Award-winning, celebrated singer-songwriter, y'all!

Nothing takes the past away

Like the future

🥴

Truly one of Madonna's worst songs had to be: This Used To Be My Playground. Every single line is a cliché. Plus she stole the entire video concept from Boy George, who is a much better songwriter, used to be a great singer, and actual creative artist.

I'd Rather Be Your Lover and Where Life Begins are good Madonna songs and I don't think the lyrics from those songs are bad and are not a good (bad) example of Madonna's sometimes childish lyrics.

But, My God, that song from Madame X that r125 is fucking torture. And imagine she sang that in concert. Can you imagine having to sit through that when she could have easily replaced it with one of her classics? No wonder that tour bombed.

I'm living out my dream

I've made a lot of green

The press they are so mean

But I couldn't give a damn

You can love me or just leave me

Just don't act like such a weenie

Of the pop I am the queenie

I'm a woman not a man

I like to singy singy singy

(like a bird)

on a wingy wingy wingy

Leaked from her next album:

I'm a rebel that's full of heart

I love to love that is my art

You were there when times were tough

You knew me baby I like it rough

So what if you're twenty-four

Everybody out there acts like I'm a whore

But I'm the one baby with the cash

Who's paying for your love and for dat ass

I'm a rebel that's full of heart, Baby

I love to love that is my art

Stefani G can shove her art

And pop it like a big juicy fart, yeah

As much as I loathe Gaga, she has written a few great songs, and from an adult point of view. She wrote this song but gave it to Adam Lambert for his debut. Killer song.

Fever Lady Gaga Produced by Rob Fusari

[Verse 1] There he goes My baby walks so slow Sexual tic-tac-toe Yeah, I know we both know it isn't time But would you be m-mine? We'll never get too far Just you, me and the bar So in a ménage à trois sometimes Would you be m-mine? Would you be m-mine? Would you be m-mine?

[Chorus] Oh baby, lights on, but your mom's not home I'm sick of laying down alone with this fever, fever, yeah I want it all Now, I'm gonna get you alone Give you a fever, fever, yeah

[Verse 2] There it goes You stole my soul, and so 'Cause sweetheart, no-no-nobody a-no-no-knows They're occupied Tell me you'll be mine Let's get inside your car Just you, me and the stars Kind of ménage à trois sometimes Would you be m-mine? Would you be m-mine? Could you be m-mine? Yeah

[Chorus] Oh baby, lights on, but your mom's not home I'm sick of laying down alone with this fever, fever, yeah I want it all Now, I'm gonna get you alone Give you a fever, fever, yeah

[Break] Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah

[Chorus] Oh baby, lights on, but your mom's not home I'm sick of laying down alone with this fever, fever, yeah I want it all Now, I'm gonna get you alone Give you a fever, fever, yeah

[Outro] Fever, fever, yeah

It was Boy George who said years ago that Madonna's only talent was knowing when and where to buy the sound of now.

She did it well for many years, until others with more street cred bumped her from the front of the line.

r57 She never ever rage screams "Erotica ... romance". She speaks it in a sultry voice.

What the fuck does R142 have to do with Madonna's albums?

Contracting producers of the moment is not her only talent.

She's also an athletic dancer, and she has pretty consistently predicted what world music would catch on and incorporated it into hers. I realized a while ago that the only aspect of her music that has ever come across as borderline sophisticated is when she translates her elementary vocab into foreign languages, which she does a lot.

r123 [quote] with the dreadful American Music oh dear

It's weird, in interviews, Madonna is perfectly articulate and for a while she even came across as eloquent and extremely thoughtful. I wonder if she just can't think creatively on a sophisticated level or if she intentionally dumbs down everything to appeal to a broad audience.

She's so down to earth and sensible here.

What happened to this woman?

Can a priest exorcise Madame X from her Instagram account?

[quote]Vadge's fanbase has aged out and are becoming grandparents now. Vadge will never have another comeback.

NO - but I will have a RETURN!

[quote]Vadge's fanbase has aged out and are becoming grandparents now. Vadge will never have another comeback.

Oh, honey - I know some white trash women like Vadge that are her age and are GREAT-grandparents now!

R151 LOL. I'm not going back that far to the Stone Age. I think Xers were her main fanbase. They are becoming grandparents.

Madonna was pretty much on the ball for the first 20 years of her career Madonna (1983) to around Music (2000). American Life is when she took herself WAY too seriously and thought she was Joni Mitchell, not a world pop star. Confessions had her in career-correction mode trying to rid the smell of American Life's lingering fart, and Hard Candy had her in career-crisis mode because she had turned 50, broke up with Guy Ritchie and then opted for a new face and younger sound.

The Madonna who had anticipated new sounds and instinctively knew where to go next lost her confidence and started on a sad decline.

R148 Madonna ain't pretending to be a moron. She excels at it. Not getting a pre-nup with that loser Guy Ritchie! Good fucking grief.

MADAME X has a wide variety of world music sounds, very of-the-minute for 2019.

Madonna obviously has relationship issues she will never get over. She's a histrionic personality type.

It's very telling that Madonna has very few celebrities who follow her on social media. And the one thing celebrities LOVE to do is follow and @ each other on social media (most times celebrities won't respond to their fans but only to other celebs).

And the ones who do follow Madonna are either has-beens or B-grade.

Hollywood hates her.

R156 Not everyone buys into that DSM garbage. Though I'm sure you think you have every one of them. LOL.

R157 Her posts are annoying, but she has 16.3 million followers.

Cher has 1.9 million and few people hate her.

Beyoncé has 199 million and I don't see a lot of celebrity @ commentaries on her boring picture posts. Lady Gaga has 49 million and I just scrolled through one of her posts and see people who appear to be "influencers" mainly as the verified people who comment, not talent-based celebs.

I'm not really a fan of Madonna's personality but I also would never use Instagram as a gauge of anyone's worth or value or even really their social currency. It seems to be mainly a place for photoshopped pictures of women with ducklips and men and women showing off worked out bodies and not much else. It seems like most celebs post promotional photos to make themselves look good, sometimes with platitudes about ignoring the haters and just doing you, and occasional publicist-authored personal statements as damage control when scandals break out. It's just a PR machine. The 'stans' who @ the celebs for the most part are fans or else they're influencers trying to get attention by showing up in as many comment sections as possible.

I’ve never understood why people claim the Confessions album is so amazing. Now don’t get me wrong - it was definitely her best album that she released from that decade, but it wasn’t groundbreaking, and Hung Up was a hit because of the ABBA sample and not anything original. The album also had plenty of filler: How High, Isaac, Forbidden Love, Let It Will Be, and Jump (which was a terrible choice for a single).

R159 Good points. Probably half of her "followers" are hate following or just following because she's a huge train wreck/dumpster fire. I've hate followed celebs before but usually they have nothing interesting or intelligent to say.

r157 Excuse me, I comment on and savor EVERY one of her posts!

I'll never understand the fuss over Madonna.

Some of her music was and is pleasant. But the decades long intensity of her fans and stans will forever remain a mystery to me.

R162 I’ve noticed that. It’s creepy!

Sharon Stone’s dumbass likes to comment on her posts too even though Madonna dissed her in a letter that was auctioned off and Madonna doesn’t even acknowledge her.

R147 Yes, I mistyped the name of the song.

But if you're going to "oh, dear" someone, maybe don't fuck up your ENTIRE post in multiple spots, dear. You look like a drunken ass who just passed out after telling me to go easy on the margaritas.

[quote]I’ve never understood why people claim the Confessions album is so amazing.

It's not so much that Confessions is amazing, as that it seemed like a viable way for her to keep making records at that stage of her life. It wasn't desperately youth- or trend-chasing (no collabs with Britney, Missy, etc). It wasn't overly ambitious, like American Life (I didn't think that album was quite the disaster that many others did, but the rap in the title track/lead single was never going to inspire anything but derisive giggles). It wasn't a move into stodgy adult contemporary territory. It was just a solid set of songs in a mode Madonna had mastered many times before. Unfortunately panic set in after the split from Ritchie and set her on the long slow decline into the creature we have now.

The Confessions Tour was amazing.

The opening with the horses, that mechanical horse for Like A Virgin, roller skaters, Music to the tune of Disco Inferno, a version of Erotica that made sense...

R168 The tour was as overrated as the album. In fact, it’s her second worst tour after Drowned Shit. Confessions tour was so dumb - the horse theme for the first several songs, showing X-rays as a backdrop, barely any old songs in the set list, lazy choreography. Just a mess.

R78 if Cyndi's third album is A Night to Remember, that is an excellent album. I Drove All Night alone is worth the price. It was a more mature production that fans maybe weren't expecting.

Hat Full of Stars did suck.

I LOVE R169!!!!!

You Thrill Me was a standout

"Erotica"/"You Thrill Me" mash-up.

Stunning song.

The Ray of Light demos are way more folksy, warmer and underproduced versus the album (which is overproduced).

[quote] Like Nothing Really Matters! That song was fucking awful.

The demo is so much better. You actually feel like she's being sincere when she's singing the song. The album version is just a bunch of techno blippy noises.

[quote] And Cyndi couldn't be more mainstream with her: "Here's my Standards album! ... Now here's my Blues album... My Country album is up next."

Lada Gaga really is like a more tryhard version of Cyndi Lauper.

[quote] she didn't eclipse all music artists in the 80s, especially Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston.

She did sell more than Whitney in the 80s but Michael Jackson was definitely two or three times more popular than Madonna, which is really saying something. Madonna was the second most popular artist of the 80s but Michael Jackson was two or three leagues above her in terms of popularity.

Ray of light has aged like a banana.

She has a long list of long-lost friends. Sandra, Rosie, GOOP, Guy, Britney, Justin. What's up with that?

I like Madonna's music and her voice (or at least how she uses it) sooo much more than Michael Jackson's. He did have good music, obviously, but his catalog doesn't come close to hers as far as music I actually want to listen to. And the hiccups are just maddening.

She has no friends because she's a CUNT.

She's one of those old people who can't bear to be around old people because she worries they make her look old.

R180, I guess it's understandable why Michael Jackson never did anything unique or interesting with his music after Thriller. I wouldn't expect someone with the mentality of a 5 year old to be very experimental with music.

He stole my hiccups.

Off the Wall and Thriller were MJ's only good albums. Bad was hit and miss and the one or two he did after that were awful.

Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna are still friends.

R174 She should have went with the demo versions instead because they would have aged better.

R187, totally agree. The demos are way more intimate and have they have more of a "singer songwriter" vibe than the album. The album is noisy.

Some of you are showing your age.

Look at svelte Madonna in that Confessions tour clip. R173. With her pert little butt. What a come down to today.

And I don't buy this shit that she was putting her body through "grueling" "destructive" years of dancing and training. She was very smart about the choreography in her shows, very economical and safe about stress on her joints, etc.

Sadly it seems she became a drinker and pill popper and crammed foreign matter into her body and it collapsed.

I do think the fall on the horse and then the fall at the Brit Awards affected her. But I think she was already putting shit in her ass before the Brit Awards. Her ass looked lumpy during MDNA.

She is a pill popper and god knows what else. She slurs her speech now and it's not just age.

She never recovered from the fact that Guy took her to the cleaners in their divorce.

One of the reasons she slurs is the botched lower caterpillar lip.

Wasn't the horse fall a cover for her first major PS?

Not only is "Sky Fits Heaven" a terrible song but she stole the lyrics from a fucking GAP ad that aired in 1993. The original poem was written by Max Blagg and Madonna was later ordered to include his name in the songwriting credits.

The creators of Magnetic Poetry also claimed Madonna used their product to randomly assemble lyrics for "Candy Perfume Girl."

OMG R195 that is hilarious

She also plagiarized Walt Whitman of all people for the song "Sanctuary" from Bedtime Stories

M's lyrics: Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice Him or her I shall follow As the water follows the moon, silently Who needs the sun? (With fluid steps) Who needs the sky? (Around the globe)

Whitman's poem: Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow, As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere around the globe.

R195, that's not true...

[quote] Upon viewing them, Madonna contacted Blagg for obtaining permission to use the poem in her new musical material. While composing her 1998 album Ray of Light, Madonna and Blagg reached a deal which would allow the singer to include excerpts of What Fits? within her song "Sky Fits Heaven"; in exchange, Blagg would receive no credit.

I remember when Ray of Light turned 20, all the articles about the album celebrating its anniversary discussed how Madonna basically stole songs from other people. It was so disappointing and so disheartening.

For years, it was marketed as the introspective Madonna album, but she actually wrote very little of the album. Seems she truly fucked over Susannah Melvoin on the track, "Swim".

Suck it up, buttercup.

r200 Speaking of Buttercup, who is "Thief of Hearts" on Erotica about?

R199, you're exaggerating. I mentioned in some other thread that I tracked down the demos for Swim, ROL, and Candy Perfume Girl. Based on what I listened to the only song she didn't deserve any credit for was CPG. The lyrics for the 2nd verse of ROL weren't on the demo, so Madonna must have written those. None of what Melvoin wrote to Orbit's instrumental for Swim is on the final album.

The problem with Madonna’s haters is that in their mind, everything relates to the name Madonna is bad and inadequate. Ironically, she’s the most successful and popular artist in music history

She's not the most successful nor popular. Maybe most on lack of singing talent though Rihanna and Britney are up there. Madonna is an icon and huge cultural force. An incredible performer with a range of music videos. But The Beatles, Elvis and Michael Jackson are the top three artists worldwide. Madonna is in the top ten.

I've never thought she was an incredible stage performer. Poor vocals and she's a cold fish. She has excelled as a music video artist, though.

I have never personally known anyone Gen X who is a big Beatles fan, never mind any Millennial. Gen Z don't even know who the Beatles were. It must be old Boomers who keep the Beatles sales going.

R206, On Spotify, the Beatles are the most streamed legacy act, more than even Queen. Most people who use Spotify are Millenials or Gen Z.

I believe Nirvana replaced The Beatles honestly in cultural relevance as the rock band that Millennials and Gen Z love.

No, as mentioned above, The Beatles on streaming shows their continued relevance.

Maybe relevant to Boomers, but honestly I don't see other generations being all that into them like they are with Nirvana or Prince.

Bedtime Stories is a really good album and I say that as someone who hates Madonna.

I didn't buy it but I did find it among some set dressing on a project I worked on and took it to listen to because it had Take A Bow on it.

r203 you are deluded about her being the most popular and successful in music history. By the time you are dead, assuming you live out your lifetime into old age, no one will care about her.

r197 I love those lyrics and they are the reason Sanctuary is my favorite cut on that album.

The problem with Madonna is that she continues to destroy her legacy with her horrible, disfiguring plastic surgery and her lack of humour and self-awareness. She has NO likability factor left anymore. She's not funny or interesting on social media, like, say, Bette Midler or Dolly Parton or Dionne Warwick, who have all won over new fans with their witty tweets and humour.

This doesn't make new generations seek out her albums or vast catalogue or stream her music because she casts such a negative pall over everything.

People don't want to seek out the material of someone who looks like Gollum.

[quote] People don't want to seek out the material of someone who looks like Gollum.

I know, right?

[quote] Maybe relevant to Boomers, but honestly I don't see other generations being all that into them like they are with Nirvana or Prince.

Boomers are not the main demographic that use spotify--not even close. Prince doesn't do well with the younger generations at all.

The same anti-Madonna troll is making one stupid comment after another. Just stop.

R216 exactly 👍 . She’s called the Queen of Pop for a reason. No amount of cuntiness here from the jealousy can change the FACT

Jealousy? Are Alisha and Regina posting here?

Ugh, it's not anti-Madonna trolls. Many of us were fans, but she has alienated her own fans with the shit she's pulled over the last 10 years (and 10 years -- that's being generous).

I remember at the time Hindus brought up that on “Shanti/Ashtangi” she isn’t even pronouncing the lyrics correctly!😂 How embarrassing.

r215 Prince doesn't do well with younger demographics but the Beatles do? Where are you getting your info?

I can't imagine anyone younger loving the Beatles, their music must sound so ancient compared to modern trap, hip hop etc.

Nirvana does well with the younger generation. Who are the other artists from decades ago that Gen Z are listening to?

This is why they hate us.

The Beatles catalogue is super melodic. Melody never goes out of fashion. Their sound is also diverse.

But they're not as popular with younger generations.

R221, as posted a million times, on spotify, The Beatles are THE most popular legacy artist followed by Queen and Michael Jackson. Prince is nowhere near the top 25. The majority of people who use spotify are either Gen Z or Millenials.

Prince threw away his career.

I don't know anyone younger than Boomers who have ever been obsessed with the Beatles.

More proof...

[quote] Spotify research shows that of the 1.7 billion streams, 18- to 24-year-olds account for more than 30% of Beatles listening this year, the largest share among all demographics. After that, 25- to 29-year-olds come in next, with more than 17% of the Beatles listening.

Maybe it's a regional thing with the Beatles.

Are you white?

I am not white and I no plenty of non-white people who listen to The Beatles. The Beatles are popular in tons of non-white countries to this day. I am not a huge fan but I do like some of their music. Great popular music really does stand the test of time.

*I know

Yes I'm white. Never have known anyone Gen X or under who has been really into the Beatles. This is in the Northeast.

So we're arguing that nobody listens to Madonna anymore but people under 30 are crazy about the Beatles? Ok.

R236, actual proof of The Beatles popularity among younger generations has been posted on this thread. To be honest, I can't say I know any gays under 35 or so who listen to her music. Except for me, I'm 34 lol.

[quote] actual proof of The Beatles popularity among younger generations has been posted on this thread.

I'm just saying I've never seen any real-world evidence of it. Maybe it's regional. Are the Spotify numbers from the US only?

I listened to Erotica more than any other Madonna album. It is so much fun mand ade me just want it more.

BEATLEMANIA!

R238, nope, global. I think a lot of kids in high school--not the "popular" kids obviously--end up discovering The Beatles around that time.

Global explains it. In the US the Beatles don't really have a lot of cultural relevance anymore amongst non-Boomers.

Madonna was much cooler in the 80s when she was a tough and street smart NY girl. She mixed art and trash wonderfully. Had a sense of humor She got boring when she became more and more delusional about being sophisticated.

R243, the nadir of the "sohpisticated" thing was her trying to write a children's book.

She released several children's books that she wrote.

R245, I only remember one...but I guess that's the point

Madonna may have been desperate to wash her hands after the Sex book scandal and after Erotica, she tried to de-sex herself. Her children's books that she slapped her name onto was part of that image rehab probably.

R243, that's one of the reasons I love The Virgin Tour. Madonna seems so chill and goofy in it. She had the ability to laugh at herself. I think that ability died when she was humiliated over the Sex book.

R241 how the fuck would an 85 year old queen like you have any fucking idea what the kiddies are listening to? Fuck you're deluded.

Personally, I agree with OP. Ray of Light gets a lot of buzz (at least it did at the time) because it was the "new" Madonna album; the "mature" album. I remember her on Oprah promoting it and Oprah gushing. Not that I think it's a bad album, it's good, but Erotica and Bedtime Stories are better, IMO.

I find it amusing to read all this discussion on what amounts to a bunch of derivative shallow pop music as if it's some sort of important "art".

If people are listening to it decades later...

Even though Madonna's 90s work is critically acclaimed by her fans and music reviewers. She will always be associated with the 1980s. Her colorful, kitschy, goofy and youthful music is still played on radios. Everyone knows "Material Girl", "Holiday", "Like A Virgin", "Like A Prayer" and "Cherish". Her 90s work is far less known. She just needs to accept this already.

And r253's not sorry.

[quote] Fuck you're deluded.

Apparently you're too stupid to understand numbers. Being deluded beats being uneducated and stupid.

[quote] I remember her on Oprah promoting it and Oprah gushing

Oprah went wild!

I love the sound of Madonna's 1990 to 1995 material. All that BASS. So much warmth and lushness to the production. Both Erotica and Bedtime Stories have such a warm sound.

With Evita and Ray of Light, Madonna strained to be so respectable that everything sounded too pristine and it lacked the warmth and spontaneity of her earlier work. They're not bad, of course, but a little staid for my tastes.

R257, I recommend listening to Bedtime Stories with a great pair of headphones, ones with an emphasis on mids. Take a Bow sounds incredible on a great pair of headphones.

Correct, r257

R255 OMG I'm so scared. Granny is all angry. She might fall over and break every bone in her body. I could crush you with the snap of my fingers.

After all this time, I don't even think Madonna LIKES music all that much. She was always a product, something manufactured and soulless.

R261 fuck off already. What do you know? You sound like an idiot. She’s no Britney Spears. Stfu

R262 Exactly. Madonna has had quite a bit of control over her image/career over the years. Britney also has the magic touch for knowing what sells. They are both rich so by that measure have always been successful.

"I find it amusing to read all this discussion on what amounts to a bunch of derivative shallow pop music as if it's some sort of important "art". "

So, it's not? Pop music can't be art? Even if we say it isn't art, it can't have value? Isn't there value in enjoying music? We're not supposed to talk about music we enjoy, or explain why we won't like something other people enjoy? Jesus.

[quote]"I find it amusing to read all this discussion on what amounts to a bunch of derivative shallow pop music as if it's some sort of important "art". "

99% of the population would slit their fucking wrists if all they had to listen to was classical music and opera.

God I hate that Ray of Light song! Britney cannot sing, People! She is all producer studio magic. Madonna can sing a little bit.

Britney definitely would not have survived in the 1980s when there was no autotune. Madonna sang well enough for vinyl recordings.

If Bananarama could, Britney could.

OMG. Bananarama have aged as well as all white girls, that is badly.

Siobhan is a beauty.

R269, they are so beloved on this site. I get Cruel Summer but the rest of their discography is forgetttable.

Their singing is forgettable. They have some very strong songs. "Love In The First Degree" is the best Supremes crib.

R270 that is beautiful! Puke. She looks like the most boring, forgettable mannequin or porcelain doll. No texture.

Porcelain doll is not a pejorative, hon.

R274 Looking porcelain means she doesn't look human, dumb twat.

It means unblemished, dearie.

R276 Whatever, LauShawn.

I met Bananarama a few years ago when they did their reunion tour. They all looked fantastic. They had their original bone structure not the lumpy fillers Madonna has in her face.

[quote] Oprah went wild!

Oprah also went wild over Josh Groban, Sarah Brightman, Kenny G and other elevator music makers who purchased time on Oprah's show to sell their products to the masses.

Oprah did self-help shows that ended up being platforms for the Oprah-endorsed gurus whose books and TV shows she profited from (Suze Orman, Dr. Oz, et al.), and then she did celebrity interviews that were all selling a movie, an album, etc. Her job was to gush because she was basically an infomercial host.

This thread must have gotten inside my head. I woke up this morning with Take a Bow playing in my mind while thinking "this lyrical concept and the words are way too sophisticated for Madonna. I wonder who wrote it."

Compare:

[quote] Take a bow/The night is over/This masqueade is getting older/Lights are low/The curtain's down/There's no one here/(There's no one in the crowd

To:

[quote] True love/you're the one I'm dreaming of/your heart fits me like a glove/oh, baby, I'm true blue/baby I love you

[quote] You're frozen/when your heart's not open/mmm/mmmmm/if I could melt your heart/we'd never be apart!

[quote] open your heart to me, baby/you hold the lock and I hold the key/open your heart to me, darlin/I'll give you love if you you turn the key

[quote] express yourself/don't repress yourself

[quote] don't go for second best, baby/put true love to the test/you've got to got to/make him express how he feels/and baby then you'll know /your love is real

[quote] time goes by so slowly for those who wait/no time to hesitate/those who run seem to have all the fun/I'm fed up/I don't know what to do

[quote] don't tell me to stop/tell the rain not to drop/tell the wind not to blow/cause you said so/mm mm

Even the word 'masquerade' alone seems five or six grade levels above her lyrical capacity.

Her songs are so consistently well engineered and polished sounding despite the producers she uses, more than a lot of pop music. They sound high quality and sophisticated in that sense and I feel like she must play some role in that because of the consistency. But most of her lyrics could have been written by a third grader. It's really kind of crazy.

R279 R280

Hmmm... don't know if I can agree, OP, I tend to think Ray of Light is her best album full stop, but I also have to say, I kinda love all of her 90s output. It was the period where she was both pop and veering into alternative/underground music too, so it's still interesting today (ie, it sounds 90s but not in such a grating way as some of the 80s production sounds). "Vogue" to "Beautiful Stranger", there's very little that's shit between those, even though she had reached her peak in 1991 in terms of popularity. She was still creating interesting stuff.

It was a complete 180 for me when she released "American Pie" and then "Music". All of a sudden I wasn't interested in what she was doing anymore. She got me back briefly for Confessions, and that was it.

Good is bad/And bad is good/Say the Ashkenazi/Mystics/Love is had/And hate is good/Say the haters/In D.C./mmm mmm/mmm/lo siento/a tout à l'heure/mmm mmm/mmm mmm/Japanese bowl/healed with gold/I'm not a Jew/But I'm a convert/I'm not Italian/But I am/Don't keep your love/Locked up in Japan/I'll be your lover/Just like a man/mmm mmm/mmm/They'll never understand/mmm mmm/me"

Madonna, please hire me. I can crank out at least one new song for you every day. They'll never be able to ignore you if you bombard them with music!!

I did like Impressive Instant and Don’t Tell Me

[quote]But most of her lyrics could have been written by a third grader. It's really kind of crazy.

That's why I think it's funny when some people say she hasn't helped write any of her songs and just slapped her name on them. Back in her heyday, when people were buying music, she was so successful that she could have used her influence to buy songs with better lyrics.

R285 And she did...from Gap ads! Hahaha. I never knew that and I really love it. I can't imagine seeing an Old Navy ad on TV and deciding to offer a fortune to the person who wrote the words to give me credit for writing them. Madonna seems legitimately creative. I don't know why she would have to resort to such a thing, especially when she could lift similar ideas from all manner of spiritual texts. Almost any Gnostic literature could translate into something that would fit into Ray of Light, and there's no copyright on any of it.

R286 Vadge has famously plagiarized from hundreds of artists/legit writers over the years. She has enough money to fight and win in court.

Madonna like most musicians had a lot of help in writing her songs. She co-writes which makes it difficult to discern how much involvement she had in the writing process. I believe only her debut album is where she wrote most of it by herself. And the lyrics back then were not sophisticated or complex, they were goofy and unpretentious but charming nonetheless. Her best skill is finding producers who crafted high-quality sounds for each album. Madonna is a dance artist at her core, her output is heavily producer-driven and she always pulled from alternative, underground, gay and ethnic subcultures and brought them to the mainstream. That's why by the 2000s, she got stale because we've seen everything and the internet made all the different music and party scenes visible. That's why I always considered Madonna more of a shrewd businesswoman than an artist. OK, maybe she's a commercial artist but not a musical artist in the purest sense. She's more hands-on and active though, so she avoids being a product like Britney or Beyoncé which I give her credit for.

Thank you, GOD @ R288. LOL. Good fucking grief.

Madge, Janet, Banarama and Paula aren't good singers by any stretch of imagination but they could carry a tune and had some sense of rhythm. Madonna and Janet had versatility at least. I like Britney and all but girl is completely tone-deaf. They had to pull out some advanced studio magic for her as well as with J. Lo, Rihanna and Hilary Duff to make them sound listenable.

Madonna did not write most of the first album by herself. Do not mistake sole writing credit for actually writing solo.

Ain't no big thing, uh uh uh uh!

Madonna is a wonderful songwriter.

R291 She wouldn't be the first. A lot of artists in the 50s, 60s and 70s would get credits that weren't deserved. Led Zeppelin was infamous for tweaking old and obscure songs and taking credit. Many times bands also shared credit even if it was only one or two members actually writing the songs. The modern copyright laws are far more transparent about things. Though there's still cases of artists stealing or bribing for credits and getting sued.

[quote] Zephyr in the sky at night I wonder/Do my tears of mourning sink beneath the sun

A zephyr is a gentle breeze. A gentle breeze in the sky? A gentle breeze in the sky to which she is adderessing a question?

Dear Gentle Breeze in the Sky, Do my sad tears sink beneath the sun?

I mean, it sounds OK in the song, like it might be poetic or have some kind of deeper meening, but those lyrics are actually nonsense.

Madonna had zero clout to steal any songwriting credit from anyone with her first album. Some of you anti-Madonna loons are just as bad as some of the Madonna stans.

Madonna had no power to falsely claim solo writing credits for her first couple albums. She was locked in a lawsuit for a decade with her first manager over ownership of some shitty demo songs, but you think no one would have stepped forward to demand credit on a hit album? Stephen Bray and Dan Gilroy have both confirmed that she wrote a lot of songs back then, even after they each had bitter fallouts with her. Whatever money she theoretically would have shelled out to get solo writing credits would have been dwarfed by the potential residuals after the fact.

It's believable she wrote a lot of her debut album. It's not like it's Shakespearean writing. It's very simplistic and crude actually but catchy nonetheless. Her later work, she obviously relied a lot on collaborators who could have written the songs. But she always seemed like such a control freak that she would get heavily involved in every song right done to the arrangement and lyrics. Which is how she got songwriting credits.

[Quote] Madonna had zero clout to steal any songwriting credit from anyone with her first album.

She didn't steal, in fact she gave Reggie Lucas the credit for "Physical Attraction" when it wasn't his song. This enabled "Burning Up"/"Physical Attraction" to be released as the first single from the Reggie Lucas sessions ("Everybody" was pre Reggie Lucas). Madonna and Stephen Bray co-wrote but exchanged sole credit depending on the song. "Ain't No Big Deal" was in the running as her debut single. It eventually was credited only to Bray.

Once a star, Madonna got lead writing credit by changing a line here and there. Check out the Jem demo of "Stupid Thing" AKA "Nothing Fails."

[quote]Check out the Jem demo of "Stupid Thing" AKA "Nothing Fails."

That pink haired no-talent doesn't have squat on a real talent like Madonna or the Misfits.

[quote] Check out the Jem demo of "Stupid Thing" AKA "Nothing Fails."

Just checked it out. It's truly outrageous. Truly truly truly outrageous!

Make that "Silly Thing."

Here's some unintentional irony from the Wikipedia page for 'Nothing Fails':

[quote] "Nothing Fails" was released in the US in hopes of attaining sales from American Life. However, it did not chart on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it the second single from the album to fail

R304, that is funny.

They didn't even try to make "Nothing Fails" a hit. There was no music video, no promo appearances on TV.

R299, Reggie Lucas says otherwise. And he's another example of someone who had a falling out with her but still credits her songwriting.

[Quote] Reggie Lucas says otherwise.

He would hardly admit that his credit for "Physical Attraction" was purely business. OTOH, "Borderline" is his writing.

Madonna herself has admitted she wrote a lot in the early part of her career (first two albums) then she got lazy.

She probably figured that she needed a strong producer to shape her ideas.

The thing about Madonna as a songwriter and producer is that she does indeed collaborate, which was her problem in movies -- she doesn't collaborate (ie. improvising, working out scenes). She just comes in, recites her lines and leaves. I think she's much more comfortable in the studio than on-set (unless it's a music video).

Thanks for the link r207. Lucas still sounds very bitter. I think he's still pissed that she went with Jellybean and then Rodgers.

* sorry - didn't realize Lucas had passed away

And meant to credit r307

[quote]But she always seemed like such a control freak that she would get heavily involved in every song right done to the arrangement and lyrics.

Everyone who's worked with her has always said that in the majority of cases she writes the lyrics and works on the vocal melody at the least. Shep Pettibone, I think it was, spoke about how he tried to make some lyric suggestions once and she snapped at him: "that's MY job!"

Even Justin Timberlake said that he tried to get her to write different lyrics for "4 Minutes" and she refused (saying, funnily enough, she was "too old" to write songs with lyrics sounding like she was a teenage girl, oh how things have changed!")

Nobody cares about this untalented ugly has been cunt.

R312 quit talking about yourself. No doubt anyone unfortunate enough to know you thinks that way.

People (I think Guy Oseary) used to always "correct" me on here when I would say that Madonna was a smoker.

They would say "oh, no she doesn't smoke...never would."

On Insta, she's puffing cigarettes ALL the time lately. When working on the script, when partying with her ugly broke boyfriend, etc.

I hope she gets it together.

Madonna was a social smoker in the 80s and 90s but was never a daily, habitual smoker. Maybe now she's just said "fuck it" and she's smoking more than she ever did in the past.

She's more fleshy now. Maybe she smokes to avoid going full chunk.

It really is sad how she's still trying to be so edgy and down with the kids. Bitch, you're old enough to have adult grandchildren!

Her voice has lost a lot of the sweetness it used to have. I know that's partly (or mostly) due to age, but I think smoking has also diminished her voice.

and her songs don't have the spark they once had, they don't sound like hits, and didn't become hits.

R319 types like a retarded four year old. Jesus fuck. DL these days.

I earned my living as a typist in NYC for over thirty (30) years, tired drag queen.

And I'll bet you don't know who said of Jack Kerouac "that's not writing, that's typing."

Reading retarded four year olds is just fucking sad.

R307 thanks for the Reggie Lucas link

"Ghost Town" would have been a hit for someone else. Kelly Clarkson, maybe.

Bitch I'm Madonna is an incredible song. Should be a classic. A forward-thinking pop masterpiece.

Nonsense.

I've been listening to early Madonna lately. Like a Virgin has a lot of hits. Underrated are Stay, Pretender and of course Angel.

I always thought Like a Virgin was great up until those last two songs which have always seemed subpar to me. "Pretender" is a bit better than "Stay" though - I was watching a reaction video to this album just the other day and I had forgotten about the "you lied, you lied, you lied, you lied" part. That bit is kinda cool.

Her thin voice did work well for 90s chill house and laidback R&B style music. She sounded the most sensual during this period. Ray of Light just didn't age well. Not just because of the production but considering the fact she became the opposite of what the message was in ROL.

This was her best era.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

OMFG. GrandMADONNA. Those inflated funbags have seen better days. Nobody wants to see 70 year old teats. Where is the puke emoji!

I bet if she had wanted, Madonna could haveparlayed Ray of Light into a widespread cult New Age-by-way-of-kabbalah self-help movement à la Oprah and become a multibillionaire. If she were more of an entrepreneur and less of an artist. She could have franchised gurus and taken a cut of their books, DVDs, seminars, retreats, merchandise—red string bracelets, etc.

Madonna regardlessly of bitchiness. Never struck me as an evil opportunist who would lead a cult and preach prosperity gospels and misinformation to the uneducated that could damage lives. She at least has some integrity compared to Kanye and the Hillsong celebs. Madge mentions Kabalah but does she even practice it?

R335 She took kabbalah classes and she reportedly adopted a Jewish name (Esther) as part of it, but I think it's more of a philosophical/gnostic pursuit than a religious practice—I do think there are some affiliated practices, but I don't think it's the sort of thing that brings the masses together at weekly services. Traditionally, I think, only rabbis over age 40 were permitted to learn it and it was rumored to drive people under age 40 mad because the concepts were too worldview-shifting.

I really like Erotica, the album. Just listened to it the other day for the first time in forever and it still is enjoyable. I think objectively it is quite an uneven album in some ways though, so I can understand people not liking it as much. I like the unevenness, but that's just me. I think honestly, even I would say that "Deeper and Deeper" and "Rain" are heads and shoulders above every other track on the album for a start - as in, they really are the only two obvious singles. I am sure I read Shep Pettibone say that the first batch of songs done were "Erotica", "Deeper and Deeper", "Rain" and "Thief of Hearts" and I think you can kinda tell that.

I kinda wish it was a bit more sleazy in the sound too, that would be fun.

On the other hand, I listened to Bedtime Stories for the first time in forever the other day too, and I think it's a bit more coherent, despite the mix of styles. There is some strong music on there, so by the time you enter the trip-hop of the last couple of songs, the album has earned the switch. I mean, yeah there's the silliness of "Don't Stop" (sing la-dee-da-dee? really?), but the album in general, works.

But, I like Ray of Light too. I can understand what people mean, but honestly, there's not much I don't like of Madonna's '90s output, from "Vogue" to "Beautiful Stranger", I find it really enjoyable. But once "American Pie" hits, well... it was all down hill for me then.

Even with all the annoying interludes and breathy vocals, the Velvet Rope was a more compelling examination of sex and intimacy. As with Erotica, though, the best parts came from producers, songwriters, and guest vocalists.

She went overboard with the acting. She was likable in the beginning, then just kept staring at the jury like they were her audience. It felt coached and rehearsed. The weird spells of tearless on cue crying were also too much. She didn’t even need a tissue!

Hahaha! Wrong thread. Not sure how that happened.

r340 Actually, it applies just fine to Madonna.

I like Words, Where Life Begins, Erotica - you thrill me, better version, Deeper and Deeper, the rest are throw aways

Madonna performed “Erotica” in a shed last year.