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material_boy

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  1. Not all together true. I get what you're saying though.

    Like A Virgin by nature was controversial. A woman named madonna singing about being Like a virgin. Hard to think that now but it was. Sold gazillions.

    Papa Don't Preach was EXTREMELY controversial. True Blue also sold gazillions.

    And so on..

    For some reason it's really funny to me that you summed up that time she made out with black Jesus, got stigmata, burned crosses, and hit #1 in like 40 countries as "and so on ..." :lol:

  2. No, Reebok AND Nike actually :laugh:

    Madonna Gets the Boot Again, This Time From Reebok
    July 18, 1990|BRUCE HOROVITZ | TIMES STAFF WRITER
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    Reebok has stopped holding its breath for "Breathless" Madonna.

    The rock star, who plays the sensual Breathless Mahoney in the film "Dick Tracy," was dropped late Tuesday as a spokeswoman for the athletic shoe maker even before filming a single commercial. Reebok and Madonna, 31, had previously agreed to--but not signed--a contract that would reportedly have paid her nearly $6 million.

    "Madonna's availability and our need to get her weren't a mesh," said Bernadette Mansur, Reebok's vice president of marketing communications. "We needed to get some benefits out of it to continue with the deal."

    For Madonna, who is currently on a world tour that has received mixed reviews, the Reebok action must bring feelings of deja vu. Last year, Pepsi signed a $5-million endorsement contract with Madonna but aired her spot only once before yanking it from the U.S. market. The commercial was being confused by some consumers with her "Like a Prayer" music video that featured religious imagery that some found offensive. Pepsi later pulled out from sponsoring Madonna's planned U.S. tour.

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    At the same time, suits and countersuits have been filed between Nike and Madonna. Representatives for Madonna claim the singer and Nike had signed a $4.25-million endorsement contract for which she was never paid. And in May, her song "Hanky Panky" was banned from some radio stations that received objections to lyrics like these: "Some guys like to sweet talk and others like to tease. Tie my hands behind my back and ooh, I'm in ecstasy."

    Madonna, her manager and publicist were all out of the country and unavailable for comment.

    A Pepsi spokesman declined to comment on the company's short-lived experiment with Madonna. But spokesman Tod MacKenzie said, "Any time you get involved with a personality of that stature, there's always the risk of the unknown."

    One consultant who matches celebrities with sponsors said she is not surprised by the latest snafu between Madonna and Reebok. "Between her films, her concerts and her love affairs, I'm sure there would be a problem with most advertisers," said Noreen Jenney, president of Woodland Hills-based Celebrity Endorsement Network. "It takes a very special advertiser to take these kinds of risks."

    I'd never heard of the Reebok deal!

    "It takes a very special advertiser to take these kinds of risks." :lol::lol::lol:

  3. Doesn't ITG from Who's That Girl Tour just have that certain something. It's bloody brilliant

    Yes! :thumbsup:

    I still don't understand how you expect her to perform her electronic music from her albums on her tours using real instruments like guitar, bass, acoustic drums. It's going to sound totally different and not the sound she is going for. Electronic music and conventional instruments by their nature sound very different. It's going to sound totally different and while some think it sounds better that is not the sound she is going for.

    I don't mean this to be flip or rude, but I don't understand what you don't understand -- she's done exactly this sort of thing before. Just look at "Music" on DWT. "Music" is one of the biggest electropop hits of all time -- and she puts a percussion breakdown in the middle of it. And it's fucking phenomenal!

  4. Disney/Touchstone gave money for the tour hence why there was a whole dick tracy section in it, that was the deal. I bet they did not know about the nature of the show. Pioneer sponsored it too hence why we never had a proper video release because of rights being acquired by the company exclusively for i can't remember how many years.

    Reebok was rumoured to be involved until the deal was called off.

    Did Disney actually contribute financially? I thought they just allowed her to rehearse in their Burbank studio space.

    And it was Nike, not Reebok :order:

  5. It's in this interview that Gaultier says that the only song that was scrapped at the last minute was "La isla bonita" and so were the costumes he made inspired by his "skeletor collection". Sadly i did not keep the whole interview, just the cover and sketches. Oh and the sketch with the stocking suspenders were for the back up singers. Now picture Niki Harris in this outfit.

    I wonder where this was supposed to go in the setlist. The final section? Another encore?

  6. It's very possible that these early sketches were not intended for the Blond Ambition Tour as we know it. Bear in mind that Pepsi announced in early 1989 that they would be sponsoring the 'Like a Prayer World Tour' that was to take place that year. I can't remember exactly but I think that tour was scrapped or pushed back due to her signing on for Dick Tracey. I believe the sketches with the brown hair (which is very reminiscent of the LAP video hair) were for costumes intended for the scrapped 1989 tour. I don't believe there was ever going to be a Blond Ambition Tour with a brunette Madonna. Also the sketches for what would become the BA Tour that have been widely circulating for years now all featured a blonde curly haired Madonna and were obviously intended for that tour.

    When you weigh everything up that went down in '89 my theory kind of makes sense but it's just my own personal theory once again.

    "Dick Tracy" was not the reason for the tour's postponement: Madonna signed on to play Breathless Mahoney in December 1988.

    The Pepsi deal -- including Pepsi's sponsorship of the "Like a Prayer World Tour" -- was announced in January 1989. The tour was simply said to be "later" that year. Obviously it never happened, and Blond Ambition was announced in November 1989.

    I believe the tour was postponed / canceled due to a lack of sponsors. No one wanted to end up as the next Pepsi -- paying her millions only to get tarred and feathered by the religious right after her next controversy.

  7. Good trackis in the album are Give it To Me, Beat Goes On, Incredible and She's Not Me.

    Then there's Devil, Miles Away and Candy Shop, that aren't that bad

    I like Heartbeat a lot, but i understand those who abhore it. I just love it for no reason.

    And there's the rest.

    But the problem, always in my personal opinion, is the overall feeling. The same happens with MDNA. There's something robotic in the feeling of the era, the atmosphere, i can't explain it. But that feeling is that something that shouldn't be that way.

    For me Madonna is about the emotion she gives me. When i heard COADF for the first time, i cried with Get Together, and I can't explain why. I got goosebumbs listening to American Life, i was stunned with Music, i cried with Swim... Always was a magical experiencie a Madonna album. Until HC and later MDNA. You can name at least 5 good songs on MDNA and others aren't that bad either. But the album is... off.

    Celebration, the song, had a bit of the old magic, but only when I heard Living For Love did I feel the very same magic again. That invisible magic is all over Rebel Heart.

    That divorce really, really affected her inspiration.

    I missed this before, so I have to add: Yes!

    This is really a nail-on-the-head post for me, including -- and especially -- the "I can't explain it."

    I have struggled for years to describe my lack of excitement for both "Hard Candy" and "MDNA." I've used words like "bored" and "uninspired" to describe "HC" in earlier posts in this thread, but I think -- after reading your post -- the better way to describe it would be "emotionally disconnected."

    There's a lot of appreciate musically on these two albums -- I very much like the melodies on "Hard Candy" -- but they don't make me feel anything. I don't feel urgency or frenetic energy that I feel when listening to her earlier work, or the deep sadness or joyfulness that comes through her deeper works, or the audaciousness of some of her more controversial and experimental work. These albums just feel ... disconnected.

    I think this explains why so many of "Hard Candy"'s tracks come alive for me on Sticky -- I feel something when she sings "She's Not Me" and "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" live.

    I can feel "Rebel Heart." I lit up when she released the first six tracks to iTunes. "Living for Love" and "Ghosttown" became instant classics for me, and "Bitch I'm Madonna" has become a personal anthem. "RH" felt like a return to form for me and I couldn't place why til now.

  8. Candy Shop was the single that never was. It'll be in all future tours and her next GH :lmao:

    Even though I'm one of those fans who doesn't particularly like the album, I've never understood the hatred for "Candy Shop." Pharrell's tracks are the only bits worth listening to -- "Candy Shop" included. (Though I do skip "Incredible.")

    It's the Timbaland / Timberlake stuff that I skip when listening.

    Oh, and something annoying about the Hard Candyers is that they alwys defend the album in terms as "those who don't like it they weren't ready for MDolla" "they wanted ROL part II". Errmmm, nope. I love the unapologetic songs in Rebel Heart, BIM has more creativity in two beats than the whole 4 Minutes song. If you take the horns of 4 Minutes you get such a void that will turn to a black hole one of these days!

    But one thing is true, though: HC isn't as bad as other people want to believe. It has really good tracks there. Once good thing about Madonna is that no matter what she releases, you know that at least 5 songs will be soooo great.

    + 1

    The idea that people who don't like "Hard Candy" are only into electro music is wildly overgeneralized and perhaps a bit too desperately defensive of the album.

    I don't care for the Timbaland half of the album, but I liked Timbaland from the late-90s to mid-00s. He was cutting edge with Missy and I loved what he did on "Loose." But his stuff here is all just a bit uninspired.

  9. "Hard Candy" was just a bit boring, to be honest. It had some good moments -- I still love "Heartbeat" -- but the most of the album was lifeless, especially the Timabland tracks.

    Someone upthread pointed to "20/20" and "Blurred Lines" as proof that "Hard Candy" was ahead of its time, which is crazy to me since "20/20" sounds like someone "FutureSex/LoveSounds" in a microwave and "Blurred Lines" is absolute shit. Since when did "played on pop radio" become synonymous with "good?"

    Also, Timberlake was just the worst during this era. I think it was on the Ellen show where he tried to take credit for writing "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" -- said he saw the line in a book of her poetry or something and thought it would make a good song. Bitch didn't realize that the title had been floating around the internet since the Reinvention Tour. There's probably an acoustic demo of the track from 2004 too.

    Thank God for Sticky. Crow vocals be damned, some of these tracks came alive on stage. "She's Not Me" is near the top of my list of songs where a weak album cut became a classic live perf.

  10. I think The Girlie Show band was her best band.Those guys were great!

    Yes! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

    Did she use the same band in the early-1993 promo tour? She had a great band for SNL and Arsenio too.

    Confessions definitely had the worst band. A black mark on an otherwise perfect tour. But the shows since CT have all at least felt a bit more real, whether they are or not.

    I'd love to see her do another tour like the GS, with the big band and live rearrangements.

  11. I think to remember that it has been reported that her contract with LN says that she gets 90% of the revenue from ticket sales and LN gets the other 10%. And why not? If she is the sole producer (financially) of the show, sure she gets the biggest chunk. But this is just the revenue side of it all. We don't know about the costs and therefore don't know about the profit that is generated. Based on ticket sales only. Merchandise is a whole different matter. This is even more tricky since those revenues are never reported and we certainly don't know what the costs for printing a tour book or producing a coffee mug or t-shirt are. I'd assume it's highly profitable. From what I remember this is split 50/50 between Madonna and LN.

    I think you're confusing revenue and profit. M taking home 90 percent of the revenue is financially impossible.

    Still, though, suggesting that M takes home 90 percent of the profit is absurd. There are other financial stakeholders, including Live Nation and Citi, and they're not going to settle for a combined 10 percent.

    Here's a good example : the Bercy Arena price is 300K€ ($350K) for one night (source), so we can assume it's the same price for arenas in major markets.

    Now, I doubt the tour costs 1 million per show, it's too much! The dancers and technicians and truckers are not paid 10K a month :smile:

    The costs are far more than just renting the venue, though, and they include more than just the production of each individual show. Millions of dollars are spent before the tour even starts, and those costs are spread across each show in the "per show" cost.

    Just off the top of my head, pre-tour expenses would include:

    1. Salaries for show director, tour director, stage director, accountants, and various assistants
    2. Rent for rehearsal spaces -- including renting a major sports and concert arena for two full weeks
    3. Costs for stage and set materials
    4. Consultant fees for stage and set design
    5. Labor costs for stage and set assembly
    6. Salaries for band
    7. Costs for instruments, speakers, etc.
    8. Salaries for background singers
    9. Consultant fees for costume design
    10. Costs for costume materials
    11. Labor costs for costume fitting and assembly
    12. Salaries for the wardrobe staff after the costumes are finished
    13. Salaries for make-up artists and hair stylists
    14. Costs for make-up and styling materials -- combs, hair spray, make-up, etc.
    15. Salaries for video directors
    16. Consultant fees for video design, production and editing

    There were dozens of full-time employees for at least three months of rehearsals. When combined with other major cost items -- rent, video production, costumes, stage production -- tens of millions of dollars had probably been spent before opening night. Once the tour begins, there are dozens more non-venue costs -- labor costs for the crew to break down / set up the stage every night, trucking costs (literally the cost of renting tractor trailers, plus the fuel expenses), flight costs between four continents, six months of hotels and food for dozens of traveling cast and crew over, etc. etc.

    All these costs are spread out over the life of the tour to get the "per show" number. It's actually pretty easy to imagine this costing $1m / show.

  12. What we know is that she gets 90% of the revenue from the ticket sales. A number so high that I assume she is producing the whole show on her own. Considering she has the financial resoures and a vast business experience the risks seem relatively low for everyone involved. And I don't see why she should share any profits at this point.

    Madonna does not bring home 90 percent of ticket revenue. That's not financially possible.

  13. "Iconic," hands down.

    The whole RH era and everything building up to it -- secretprojectrevolution, Art for Freedom, RH, RHT -- feels connected. Everything she's done over the past two years touches on freedom, expression, rebellion, self-acceptance, triumph, hopefulness ... and "Iconic" really ties all that together with the video, the voiceover, the song's lyrics. It's almost like a culmination of Madonna 2013-15, all while introducing (and somehow pulling off) a samurai Joan of Arc look and without being preachy. It's perfection.

    "Girl Gone Wild" is visually stunning, but it simply doesn't have the thematic importance that "Iconic" does.

  14. Everyone should take all the numbers we see with a grain of salt. Other than the accountants and others directly involved in the process, no one really knows. That means the press reports could be relying on sources who aren't as well-informed as they think they are and her own PR.

    The two numbers that I've seen most consistently are the rumored $1m / show production costs and M's own $1m / show minimum fee guarantee. So, for the MDNA Tour (88 shows), that's at least $176 million of the tour's $305 million gross -- leaving $129m unaccounted and profit.

    I have never seen any numbers regarding advertising and promotional costs of M's shows -- which are never included in production costs in the entertainment industry, and probably something we'll never know (promotional costs are a desperately guarded secret in the entertainment industry) -- and we don't know what percentage of the total profit M's contract guarantees her to, though I'd guess it's in the 25 - 30 percent range since that's a number I've seen associated with other legacy acts.

  15. This would have been so easy before "Rebel Heart" -- "Like a Prayer," "Ray of Light" and "Music" have been my top three albums since 2000. But now ... I'm not sure what three I'd pick :scared:

    Not the "I'm breathless is a studio album" none sense again! It is not people!

    Well, it makes sense that people can't agree since Madonna's team included in her studio albums catalogue before 2004 and then dropped it in 2005. All the promotional material for "American Life" referred to "AL" as her 10th album -- and then, after "AL" flopped, all the promotional material for "Confessions" referred to "COADF" as her 10th album.

  16. 1. She rushed the release of the album itself because of the leaks but the bulk of the work was finished already. Those demos we heard in December had been in the hands of others 4-5 months before we ever heard them. I highly doubt during that time frame she was just sitting around twiddling her thumbs. Not sure why it was ever assumed any of the leaks were going to be the final versions when most of them clearly sound like demos.

    2. I think she had more than a couple days with each producer. She had chunks of time with one, then she would have another chunk of time with another, then the cycle would repeat. It's not like all work on the album stalled for any significant period of time over the course of that year. The process may be different than what she's done in the past, but that doesn't mean it was detrimental to the work itself. Considering that a lot of her diehard fans and critics consider a lot of these tracks to be some of her best ever, maybe she should work this way on the next album too.

    3. She tries many different directions with most albums.....we just don't always get to hear every single thing recorded for those sessions as we did with RH. BS started as an extension of the Erotica sound......ROL started as another R&B flavored album with Babyface.....the "COADF sessions" include songs like If You Go Away, ILNY demo, Keep The Trance, Triggering etc, all of which sound nothing like COADF actually turned out. I don't see how experimenting with an array of different sounds during the recording sessions for an album can be considered a bad thing. If anything, it shows how deeply involved in the process she is.

    Neither "If You Go Away" or "I Love New York" came out of the "Confessions" sessions. "IYGA" came from the aborted musical project and "ILNY" was something Stuart and Madonna worked out while rehearing / on the road for Re-Invention.

  17. Yikes. How has someone's comment two pages back about how they want to see her work with different / unknown producers has escalated into people bashing fans of particular eras? How is shitting on "Ray of Lighters" or "Confessioners" any different than being a Ray of Lighter who's shitting on "Rebel Heart?"

    How about we all just stop judging each other's level of fandom and stick to talking about the merits of the work?

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