Glindathegood
-
Posts
3,682 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Glindathegood
-
-
Here's a great video of Material Girl and La Vie en Rose. Around 5 minutes or so she talks about Prince.
-
Have a great show everyone. Someone on another forum reported they heard her rehearsing Don't Cry for Me Argentina as they walked into the arena.
-
The way I see it DWT has the fewest oldies and RIT had the most. To me both of those go too far in an extreme direction. All the other tours more or less have the same proportion of oldies to new material. So I think with the most recent tours the balance is good.
-
Great interview! Her interviews are the best. She's always very down to earth, honest and straightforward. It's amazing how with her fame she's able to stay so normal and in touch with reality.
I think she will do the stripped down acoustic tour at some point, but I don't see it coming next. She still has a few more grand tours in her.
To me, Greatest hits tours are more for artists who have taken long breaks from performing. She has always toured and has always done some of her hits. So it's not like we haven't heard the older stuff in a long time, albeit not all in one show.
If she were ever going to do a tour without new material, I personally would like her to dig more into the back catalogue and do a few more obscure or rarely performed songs, not just the obvious 80's hits.
-
I love Nelly. I saw her live years ago, when she had her first album. She's a great performer. She and Madonna are a great match. I wouldn't mind if they did something together in the future.
-
Maybe the crowd was bad because it was a Monday night. I always have a hard time getting in the party mood on a Monday night. Monday is a busy day at work catching up on stuff. Hopefully, tonight will be better.
-
I was surfing youtube and there's this guy Steve who has really great videos of the Atlantic show with great sound. I don't know what people are talking about when the said the crowd was bad because they seem really into it in his videos.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLe7efD6-rctGw0LpzXDNJg
I guess there is slightly less choreography but there's still a lot. I guess it's just an outgrowth of Rebel Heart which is less of a dance album than some of her other albums with more ballads and midtempos.
I do remember on various forums around the time of Sticky and Sweet and MDNA that people were complaining that she did too much aerobics and she should be more musical and do better vocals. Well, she did that on this tour but now some people want the opposite.
I guess whatever you do, people want something else!
-
Yes, it's probably made up tabloid crap. I hate how there's always this idea that Madonna is a super bitch that's impossible to work with which I don't think is the case at all. Whereas if a male artist has an issue with the people they work with, they are just being professional and focused.
-
I wouldn't blame her for being mad about that. Canada is notorious for being very uptight and strict about drug use. You think they are liberal but they really aren't. I've known people who were trying to go to Canada and they were given all kinds of problems as far as being allowed to enter because of some past drug arrest.
If you are going to smoke pot, don't do it when you are crossing borders. Not smart!
-
the 21 limit is for purchasing only and is enforced nationally, but there are many many states that have exceptions for consumption, i dont think Michigan is one of them tho
didn't bother googling itI did not realize that, until I looked it up. You learn something new every day! But you are right that 21 is the age for purchasing. Some states prohibit consumption to people under 21, but some don't and some of the ones that do allow you to drink if your parent is present. I looked it up and Michigan isn't one with the consumption exceptions even if your parent is present. So I guess it was sort of illegal. Oh well!
-
so lets turn it into a little game... lets say she is thinking about making an experimental/folk/acoustic record, should she go brunette or change her style?
even on instagram she seems a little more safe. no controversies on instagram yet lately (only the feet rub one but she obviously didn't see that coming and it was just the media trying to give her a hard time) she's also very charming and lovely on her rebel heart tour.
People get very worked about her changing her look, but that's not so important to me. I think she looks great blonde, and I prefer her that way rather than dark personally. I think she was more into changing her look when she was younger as way to find herself. Now that she is happier she seems less likely to change her look so radically. But then you never know!
I don't think she is sitting there saying I have to be safe now and not offend anyone on instagram. I think her attitude on this tour is just a natural outgrowth of where she is now in her life. But who knows how she will be feeling when she gets around to doing her next album? I guess she will direct a film next, so the next album may not be coming for awhile.
-
so this made me think
what do you guys think? should madonna go the RnB/funk style (Bedtime Stories) or folk/experimental/electronic? (AL/Music/confessions)
or just something very different and do a ROL or LAP (or even AL & erotica in a way) and surprise us ( creating musically something a lil "risky" which could be amazing?)
She's done quite a bit of R&B flavored stuff on the last three albums. I don't see her doing more of that next. She seems to really love her acoustic guitar these days so I see her incorporating that more somehow. She mentioned how much she liked James Blake so maybe something like his stuff. They should collaborate. I also would like to see her do something with Grimes so I guess I vote for folk/experimental/electronic!
-
well she is still a minor here. but in other countries you only have to be 16 to drink. But yes tons of college students drink she's going to be 18 this month I don't see why TMZ is making this a big deal.
Legally, you are supposed to be 21 in the US to drink beer. But everyone in college drinks beer and they aren't 21 yet. I did!!
I think Madonna has a good attitude towards drinking. She said she didn't tell Lourdes not to drink which would be a waste of time, but to do it responsibly and never take a drink that you don't see made in front of you and don't mix alcohols in one drink. So I think Lourdes will be fine!
-
Oh dear....
Madonna's Daughter -- Drinking At Mom's Concert Because ... Well, Her Mom's Freakin' Madonna!
http://www.tmz.com/2015/10/03/madonna-daughter-drinking-concert-rebel-heart-lourdes
She's a college student! What college student doesn't drink beer?
-
For more ticket sales, they should have promoted the fact that she is doing more of her older hits including some rarely performed ones on this tour. Some people from the name Rebel Heart probably thought the whole show was going to be almost all songs from that. For me as a super fan, I would see her even if she just did the new album because I like mostly everything, but a lot of casual fans might have been put off thinking she wasn't going to do older stuff.
-
The great reviews just keep on coming. Here's another one!
http://www.toddstarphotography.com/blog/2015/10/live-madonna-october-1-2015-detroit-mi
-
Really excellent well written review. If only all journalists wrote like this!
-
Motor City -- the home town girl is back!” Madonna declared near the start of her Rebel Heart Tour stop Thursday night, Oct. 1, at Joe Louis Arena.
And it was a proud home town girl at that.
The Bay City-born pop icon, who graduated from Rochester Adams High School, may have ruffled feathers earlier this year when she referred to the area as “provincial” on Howard Stern’s satellite radio show, but she was in Detroit booster overdrive during her action-packed two-hour and 10-minute spectacle. Acknowledging the city’s financial problems and bankruptcy she told the exuberant (though not sold out) Joe Louis crowd that, “You’ve got a lot of great things going on in Detroit right now,” noting her own involvement with entrepreneur and philanthropist Dan Gilbert in women’s empowerment and youth boxing programs as well as “some new schools we’re building.”
“Detroit is making a comeback people, so watch out,” Madonna said. “We got heart, baby. We’re in the heart of America. With all of its heart and all of this love we are gonna build this city back up. Believe that!” She also noted that “Detroit made me who I am today” -- and so did her father, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone, now a winemaker in Traverse City -- who was in the crowd on Thursday. Madonna thanked him “for making me so strong and instilling this drive in me to survive,” dedicating her performance of “Rebel Heart” to him.
She also gave a shout-out to her daughter Lourdes -- referring to her as Lola -- who’s in her second year at the University of Michigan and was also at Thursday’s show. “She’s the first person to teach me how to love,” Madonna told the crowd, and also credited her for inspiring Madonna to play the ukulele -- which she did on “True Blue” and Edith Piaf’s “La vie en rose,” which Madonna also sang in French.
So it was a happy homecoming, and Madonna certainly pleased her fans with her usual dazzling blend of intricate group dance routines, cutting edge fashions (six costume changes and about a dozen different looks), unrepentant bad-girl attitude and provocative physical and video imagery -- from scantily clad nuns and a carnal Last Supper scene during a medley of “Holy Water” and “Vogue” to plenty of sexually suggestive choreography and motifs set in an auto repair garage, a 1920s-style jazz cabaret, a bullfight and carnivale, and a Geisha-flavored routine during “Bitch I’m Madonna.” During “Heartbreak City,” which included a bit of Rose Royce’s “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,” she and one of her dancers created an arresting physical dialogue on a spiral staircase at the end of the ramp that stretched deep into the arena floor, while “Material Girl” was performed with a line of tuxedoed suitors who Madonna summarily dismissed, pushing them one down a sloped platform.
You’d hardly call anything Madonna does modest, but the Rebel Heart Tour show was certainly one of her most relaxed productions, less focused on an overarching theme or story arc and more about delivering a bunch of intriguing and, often, boundary-pushing performances. The night’s energy was front-loaded, with the latter third of the show more chatty and ebb-and-flow -- and, at times, dragging -- but thumping versions of “Music,” “Candy Shop” and the buoyant encore “Holiday” came along in time to regain any momentum that was lost.
And while recent Madonna tours have gone relatively light on familiar material in favor of the then-new albums, Thursday’s show had a more fan-pleasing balance. A generous 10-song sampling from this year’s “Rebel Heart” certainly provided the framework, but Madonna nodded frequently to the past, albeit with new, often spare arrangements of favorites such as “Like a Virgin,” “Deeper and Deeper,” a medley of “Dress You Up,” “Into the Groove” and “Lucky Star,” and a hard-rocking treatment of “Burning Up” that featured Madonna on electric guitar. She performed “Who’s That Girl” acoustically and tossed in an unplugged version of “Frozen” especially for Thursday’s show.
After waving the Detroit flag for much of the night Madonna finished with an American flag as she was hoisted into the rafters at the end of “Holiday.” “My home town,” she said, “It’s so good to be home.” And you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone at Joe Louis whose feelings weren’t mutual.
-
After three decades of this, you thought Madonna might start taking it easy?
Certainly not this Madonna, the one who brought ageless energy, flamboyance and flash Thursday night to a packed Joe Louis Arena, homecoming stop on the pop queen's Rebel Heart Tour. These days, the 57-year-old star seems eager to drive home a point: In a world brimming with pop contenders, there's still only one of her.
With her father and daughter looking on, Madonna also served up the most Detroit-centric show we've ever seen from an artist who for years has been accused of spurning her roots. There were pep talks about the city's resilience, celebrations of the city's comeback ("Watch out!"), even a shout-out to developer and "incredible guy" Dan Gilbert.
The spectacle had started with a big helping of new "Rebel Heart" fare to go with Madonna's latest foray into erotic religious imagery, her male dancers costumed as cross-bearing knights and their female counterparts as pole-dancing nuns. From there on through the euphoric "Holiday" encore, the two-hour-plus show kept up the brisk pace — a whirl of set changes, outfits that quickly went from lavish to skimpy, and tight, intricate dance numbers that often found their way down the lengthy catwalk.
In a defiant assertion of her relevance, Madonna has long used her tours to emphasize her latest music, and Thursday was no different: The set was loaded with "Rebel Heart" material, and when she did tap the older stuff, it got unapologetically reinvented. She strapped on a guitar to dial up the riff wattage of 1983's "Burning Up," and turned "Dress You Up" into a colorful, festive number complete with some rumba and a conga line. She and guitarist Monte Pittman doubled on ukuleles for "True Blue," and teamed up again with acoustic guitars on "Who's That Girl." "Like a Virgin" was stripped into a spare, throbbing number in a rare scene that saw Madonna alone on the stage, a shared moment of intimate nostalgia between artist and audience.
Elsewhere, the classics got nipped and tucked inside other numbers, leaving fans with brief tastes of songs like "Vogue," "Into the Groove" and "Love Don't Live Here Anymore."
Thursday brought a lean-and-lithe Madonna who balanced seriously intense performances with a lighthearted, sometimes mischievous spirit. For all the sizzle — the dazzling set pieces, the splashy visuals, the eye-popping interludes by her supremely skilled dance crew — it was a show that planted some genuine heart in the proceedings.
That was certainly the mood as she deposited ample Detroit devotion throughout. More than a year after providing financial support to several community organizations, Madonna name-checked two of them (the Empowerment Plan and Downtown Boxing Gym) from the Joe Louis stage, and spoke enthusiastically about her working relationship with Gilbert, the Quicken Loans magnate and downtown developer.
"Detroit made me who I am today, so I want to say thank you with these next few songs," she said while easing into a stretch that included "Rebel Heart," dedicated to her dad somewhere out in the crowd, 84-year-old Silvio Ciccone.
She also veered from her tour's stock set list to present a Detroit exclusive: a gentle version of 1998's "Frozen." The Motor City is "the heart of America," she explained, thus transforming the song's open-your-heart lyrics into a plea to the country to unlock Detroit's potential.
Still, it's hard to suss out precisely where Madonna stands on the topic her roots, given her recent dismissive remarks about Rochester Hills, the town where she actually grew up. A cynic might say she's out to have it both ways: scorning her native suburban culture while embracing the concept of "Detroit" now that it's finally cool.
But it's hard to look a gift horse in the mouth, and if Madonna wants to dive into the comeback of Detroit — a place she continually referenced as "we" — she'll be met with open arms, and should be. A city that has taken a fall "can only go up," she said Thursday night, "and I'm very proud to be part of that going-up process."
Daughter Lourdes Leon, in her second year at the University of Michigan, got her own personal tribute from Mom onstage.
Addressing the 18-year-old by her nickname Lola, Madonna gushed as she sat down with a ukulele for a winsome performance of Edith Piaf's French pop classic "La Vie en Rose." Lola, she said, was "the first person to teach me about love," and to top it off, was better at singing and speaking French.
"Thank you, Lola," she said. "You are my princess."
-
I don't want to start rumors, but I will anyway! Someone on Facebook claims they heard Frozen being performed at soundcheck! They said they heard Ghosttown, Frozen and Rebel Heart being rehearsed!
-
http://illinoisentertainer.com/2015/10/live-review-photo-gallery-madonna/
Madonna’s concert at United Center found the singer as provocative as ever at 57, pushing buttons and engaging a sea of adoring fans. It also found her confidently supporting the relevance of her current work, and having fun in the process.
Although Madonna gave a dazzling and audience-pleasing show, she clearly remains determined to live in the present. Half of the set list was drawn from her new album Rebel Heart. Several earlier pop hits like “Vogue” breezed by as snippets woven into other songs.
A spiked cage descended from the lights for opening number “Iconic.” Madonna emerged in an elaborate Asian-themed costume with black bodysuit and red robes. She was beset by adversaries in the form of her dance crew, bedecked in black-and-gold samurai-inspired attire with crucifix staffs.
“Tell me I’m no good, and I’ll be great,” she sang. Madonna has made a career of challenging naysayers and winning the love of her people, and she succeeded again at United Center.
“Chicago, are you with me,” Madonna asked, to the response of unanimous cheers. She then tore into party starter “Bitch I’m Madonna.” The song has more shock value than melodic staying power, but Madonna took its bravado to the max.The show was divided into four major acts, and the first one presented Madonna as the boundary pusher. The song “Holy Water” was already a brazen ode to cunnilingus, but Madonna upped the ante with dancers in nun habits cavorting on stripper poles that doubled as more crucifixes. The piece was crowned by staging the song as The Last Supper, ending in a NSFW scene with Madonna lying on the table with her knees parted before a Christ figure.
“Devil Pray” blended religious imagery with a list of possible vices that could be tried in order to get high enough to see God. Close attention reveals Madonna’s lyrics as a cautionary tale, suggesting that a vocal minority in the room were willfully missing the point by cheering for those sins of excess and consumption.
The show’s remaining set pieces toned down the shock and amplified Madonna’s desire to connect and enjoy the moment. “Body Shop” featured innovative staging dynamics in a mock auto repair garage. Madonna then promised a prize at the end of the night to whichever side of the hall could sing the loudest to an old favorite (spoiler: it was a tie).
“It’s a subject that never gets old,” she said, sitting atop a stack of tires and leading “True Blue” while strumming a ukulele. “HeartBreakCity” was an emotional highlight, performed in the middle of the arena at the heart-shaped end of a catwalk. Upon a spiral staircase descended from the rafters, a dancer representing Madonna’s unfaithful lover threw himself into daring acrobatics just like our mothers told us never to do. As the song transitioned into “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,” the cad was thrown by victorious Madonna from the top step.
A stripped-down arrangement of “Like a Virgin” allowed the sound of every singing voice in United Center to carry as Madonna pranced and ponied youthfully along the catwalk. The pulsing “Living for Love” was Madonna’s answer to Gloria Gaynor’s disco classic and anthem of post-heartbreak empowerment “I Will Survive.” The set was bathed in red light with a bullfighter theme, with male dancers as horned bulls and female dancers as matadors.
The tone continued with “La Isla Bonita” and a flamenco treatment for “Dress You Up.” The latter included bits of “Into the Groove” and “Lucky Star.” The least guarded moment in the show was among its most compelling. Madonna spent a few moments talking about the unpredictable nature of her life and times. “It leads me to asking myself the same question again and again and again,” she said, before performing an acoustic guitar duet of “Who’s That Girl.”
One of the most tuneful and melodic songs from the wide-ranging Rebel Heartalbum was performed next. During “Ghosttown,” Madonna spun a tale of romance and commitment in a time when the rest of civilization has bowed to the rule of “every man for himself.”
The final set piece created the atmosphere of big city, jazz-era class. Dancers in top hats and tails teetered atop tall flexible poles, swinging madly over the crowd in jaw-dropping choreography. “Music” was recast as a smoky lounge crooner before transitioning into a mash-up of tap dance and sinewy disco. During “Candy Shop,” Madonna’s entourage of elegant hedonists included a topless dancer adorned primarily by her pearls and tattoos.
“Material Girl” was naturally slotted into this segment of the show. Madonna sang from a balcony set, and discarded her suitors one by one to the stage below. Afterward, she declared that really, “I’m married to you,” indicating the audience. “You’re who I give all my love to. You’re who I write all my songs for. You’re who I spend all my time with. We do everything together except …,” Madonna paused, suggestively stroking the neck of her ukulele before continuing, “… rub each other’s feet.”
“But that can change,” she added. The show concluded with an intimate solo performance on ukulele of Édith Piaf’s signature song “La Vie en rose,” followed by a rowdy version of “Unapologetic Bitch” during which Madonna pulled a Britney Spears-styled drag queen from the crowd. A boisterous romp through “Holiday” was the encore, with flags of all nations underscoring the song’s message of global togetherness.
“In order to start a revolution of love, you have to have a rebel heart,” Madonna had said before performing her new album’s title song. While noting the condition that it required the motivation of love, she said, “In order to change the world, you have to rock the boat a little bit.” If one statement could capture Madonna in a nutshell, that would be it.
-
This is a shall we say unique review of Boston. It's kind of academic but very interesting!
It’s a generally understood notion that songs are meaningless and trite, and that if one wants to be a productive member of society, avoiding music is a prudent choice. Songs are traps, or so goes this common wisdom, filled with, at best, fantasy notions and, at worst, dangerous and destructive ideas; even worse are artists, who attempt to peddle their songs as a means of stringing them together into a narrative arc which, by using a nice beat and/or a catchy melody, can fool an innocent passerby into conflating their own emotions with that of the artist. The master artists, the ones who amass fortunes with multi-decade careers, are experts at this storytelling, creating a proxy persona through the proliferation of recorded songs — often resulting in the creation of a phantom deity, plastered on t-shirts and advertisements and music videos, that speaks to society and culture conveying ambiguous messages within a framework of relatability and emotional resonance. The artist’s perceived drama becomes real within the psychic æther of our shared mental space, our aspirations and fears and fantasies.
Although music is a powerful tool of persuasion, this artist-as-locus-point-of-psychic-power phenomenon is a relative rarity; only a few individuals have managed to punch through the noise of our current electronic lifestyle to overlay their own emotional map onto the waiting cortex of society as a whole. One of the most powerful of these musical artists has entranced, globally, at least three distinct generations of susceptible media consumers: her name is Madonna Louise Ciccone, and she is not just a master musician but a grand wizard able to spin gold out of the dross that is the raw emotional flotsam burbling violently beneath the surface of her haughty persona.
Madonna honored the City of Boston with her presence on Saturday night, September 26, arriving with an intimidating crew of dancers and musicians to a staged piece of formal pageantry fitting to an artist who is a full two-and-a-half decades into the regal phase of her career. Where she was once a scrappy street urchin, a failed ballet student gnawing at the table scraps of late-’70s NYC post-punk culture, by the end of the ’80s she ached to be more than an ephemeral pop presence competing with the likes of Cyndi Lauper or Pat Benatar. Her first taste of fame on the heels of hits like “Everybody” and “Holiday” were narcotic for the budding star — asked at the end of 1983 by Dick Clark what she hoped to achieve in the years ahead, she giggled “To rule the world!” The perversity of our pop culture world, the way that our celebrity machine occasionally lets dream actualization occur through will-to-power, allowed this wish to come true.
On Saturday night, to the opening whump of “Iconic”, amidst a squadron of dancers decked out in samurai-or-is-it-warrior-from-300 uniforms, Madonna, in a cage made of enormous metal spears, was lowered from the rafters. “If you try and fail, get up again/Destiny will choose you in the end,” she lustily intoned, chopping the air with flailing limbs emerging from her red kimono-slash-warrior-outfit. As the first line of the show, it was also the first lie of the evening, sending the audience the message that not only was her ascent to stardom a preordained result of her lengthy incubation period of struggle, but that the obstacles she continues to face as the most popular female musical artist of all time can all be bested by dogged determination.
If this is understood to be at the very least a kind untruth, it is also a bedrock moral foundation of American popular culture — Madonna’s strength as a force and a brand can be conferred to her following if they just allow themselves to be touched by the mental persuasion of determination as a weapon for personal triumph. When an artist such as Madonna is seen as an ’80s artist, it fundamentally has to do with that artist’s adherence to this maxim — if the existence of the cesspool of culture that is the 1990s has taught us anything, it is that basing cultural mores on failure and dispirited ennui tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The lie of determination is the fist in the air that allows musical art to infiltrate our minds and poison our reason, if only by deluding us that we are masters of our own destiny.
Madonna, though, of almost any popular musical artist, should be aware of the fallacy of this outlook, if only because of her oeuvre’s focus on the tragedy of love. In many ways, the true power of the brand of Madonna rests in the authenticity of her resilience in the face of this tragedy, and so many of her greatest songs mine the territory of finding strength in, or in the aftermath of, failed romance. The lead single from her new album, Rebel Heart, “Living For Love”, is a prime example of Madonna’s mastery of this emotion — the song hits a fulcrum point between the sadness of a relationship’s deterioration and the life-affirming determination to make the magic happen again. If there is cognitive dissonance in the concept, it is obliterated by the swelling house beats, courtesy of Diplo, and the powerhouse vocal performance. Power, dominance, absolute faith in an abstract notion of heaven-on-Earth-through-love, all convincingly hammered into the audience’s collective craniums by a hair-raising act of songcraft.
Madonna has a long history of being obsessed with the occupation of matador, as evidenced by the videos for both “Take A Bow” and “You’ll See”, a logical conclusion to her infatuation with all things Spanish that likely itself resulted from her immersion in NYC Puerto Rican culture that permeated so much of her earlier work (a number of her early singles are said to have been penned while pining for various Puerto Rican boys she would spy around the city whilst in her above-referenced street urchin phase). The twist in her current tour, during “Living For Love”, is that finally Madonna herself is the matador rather than pining for one — a significant shift from loving someone with a dangerous occupation to having the dangerous occupation oneself, with the minotaur/bull of the tour production a stand-in for the existential horror that is “living for love” knowing that it may indeed be unattainable.
Prior to donning the jewel-encrusted matador pants for her triumphant runthrough of “Living For Love”, Madonna had just completed a run of tunes that in many ways represents the quicksand miasma that love has come to mean to her triumphant public persona. Sex, adoration, fidelity, falling so deeply that there is no light anymore: in Madonna’s vivid lucid dreaming, love is a cave that one spelunks into until the only options are escape or death. The mini-set began with “Body Shop”, another Rebel Heart number, wherein Madonna relates her own body’s sexuality to that of a car, a Dali-esque trompe in line with, say, Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” or Van Halen’s “Panama”. “You can keep it overnight/You can do whatever you like/Working overtime”, she growls lustily, with a bevy of dancers in greasy mechanic outfits, not unlike Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” video except she’s Christy Brinkley pretending to be a car. You can hear Madonna’s royal status peering into the tune: she is herself clearly a hard worker, but pining for someone who works overtime is a clear lust for crossing class lines in search of a working class paramour whose drab uniform she can get dirty with her automotive fluids — it’s almost like a J.G. Ballard concept of pop music, confusing crude machinery with raw lust.
Madonna and her crew didn’t stay in this fantasy for long — first she did an abrupt switch to the ’50s recidivism of 1986’s “True Blue”, a gorgeous ode to being forever in thrall to an ideal lover, written for then-husband Sean Penn before harrowing accounts of domestic abuse led to an acrimonious split a few years later; then a lengthy excursion into primo early-’90s single “Deeper and Deeper”, a heartfelt disco anthem that could be about almost anything: a lost weekend of romance, an unending spiritual quest for meaning in a shallow, venal world, coming out as gay, or really almost anything that involves being immersed in something deep and expansive. Next she indulged in the jilted psychodrama of “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”, basking in rejection and abandonment on an impromptu spiral staircase where she appeared to push a proxy lover off of a balcony.
As the staircase disappeared and her dancers scurried away, we heard the throbbing pulse of her breakthrough 1984 smash “Like A Virgin” — pounding and predatory, Madonna flung herself to the floor during the chorus, humping and rolling, microphone in hand. Just minutes before she had been flanked by some of the finest backup dancers in the world — but freed from the intricate choreographic mousetrap that is her typical stock-in-trade, she enthusiastically bounced around the floor, gyrating and thrusting in a way that was singularly liberating. Even in the middle of a hockey stadium filled to capacity with nearly twenty thousand screaming fans, Madonna so clearly relishes being able to close her eyes and dance as if she is the only person in the room; she never really seems free-er than when she can let it go in her own private world.
And what’s odd about that is that Madonna doesn’t seem like much of a private world person — among musical artists of her stature, it really is remarkable just how transparent she is about her life, her feelings, her loves and her struggles, especially in her songs. Saturday night’s show couldn’t help but spotlight the melancholy ambivalence the superstar clearly has about the realistic possibility for her to find a way to unite her strong desire for love with her eternal yearning for spiritual enlightenment. Which, put into layman’s terms, means that she has become, at 57, a decidedly cynical pop diva.
After a rip-roaring run-through of “Material Girl”, staged kind of like a 21st century Cotton Club, which featured Madonna in wedding garb tossing a bouquet into the audience, Madonna singled out a married couple near the stage, adressing the husband: “When you married this woman, I hope you gave her the three rings, did you give her the three rings of marriage? First, the engagement ring, then the wedding ring, and after that, a lifetime of suffer-ring.”
Later in the show, Madonna would emerge in a spotlight, solo with guitar in hand, to sing a plaintive run-through of Edith Piaf’s 1945 standard “La Vie En Rose”; a melancholy number about love having the ability to temporarily blind one to the sadness of the world, “Rose” is thematically similar to “Like A Virgin”. If Madonna seemed to come alive when able to focus inward on her solitary self, perhaps it’s because her career-long message, of the joy and sadness of choosing to live for love, is one that has oftentimes left her alone with nothing but her faith in that love. “Les ennuis, les chagrins s’effacent/Heureux, heureux à en mourir”, as the Piaf song goes: “My troubles, my grief are removed/I’m content enough to die.”
Edith Piaf lived an all-too-brief life filled with enough horror, sadness and tragedy to neuter her ungodly fame and the world’s adoration; and although Madonna’s life has in many ways been a walk in the park compared to Piaf’s war-ravaged mortal coil trip, it’s clear that she sees, in Piaf’s defiance in the face of romantic tragedy an inspiration. On Saturday, Madonna chose, more than usual, to indulge in her bittersweet romantic muse; after an opening salvo that saw her and her troupe conflating Catholic ritual with sexual fire in a manner that seemed utterly Madonna-esque to an extreme, she shifted gears, dialed down the attempts at shock and awe, and put her heart on display to a capacity audience ravenous for blood.
“I want to start a revolution of love!” Madonna proclaimed, positioning herself, as she has so many times before, as the ultimate erotic politician, aiming to mobilize the powerful force she has over an audience to evince some kind of change. What is her ultimate goal here: Awareness? Activism? To rule the world? Perhaps… or maybe it is just to find a way to universalize her own narrative, to use her power of song and dance to, at least for a brief time, quell the naysayers while also proving that love is possible even if not easy for her on a personal level. Even if mass art is mind control and music is but a tool to coerce human beings to work harder and in tighter rhythm for the benefit of their overlords, it is still occasionally possible for a genuine human message to come through even on the large bandwidth signals of mass pop culture. Madonna’s campaign for human dignity through spiritual pain and the ecstasy of dance is one such missive, and it’s clear that she will continue sending through this message until she finally merges with the infinite; we won’t know how lost we are until we no longer have her shining light to guide us.
-
I know. It makes me wonder now what she can possibly do as a follow up.
We say that everytime though. I thought what could she do to top MDNA with all the theatrics and controversies. And she did it by going in the opposite direction, making a more intimate, less controversial and more human and warm tour.
She always tops herself but not in the way you expect. That's why I love her so much!
-
I don't know know about that. I think you are reading a little more into it than even Madonna is on this tour. LOL I really think she is trying to have fun and do something for the fans and not being so wedded to themes. Themes are great, but at the same time they can be a bit limiting too.
St. Paul, MN 10/08/15
in ARCHIVE - Madonna
Posted
Anastaza, I love your outfit too! That was a great read. So glad you had a great time.