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Aries

Elitists
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  1. https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/8507581/madonna-maluma-medellin-single-listen

    Madonna and Maluma Smolder on 'Medellin' Single

    A serendiptious meeting backstage at the VMAs last year has born some sensual fruit for Madonna and Maluma. The pop superstar and the Colombian singer released their single, "Medellin," on Wednesday (April 17) after teasing it a day earlier with a picture in which Madonna sported an elaborate wedding dress and glittery eyepatch while seated behind the "Clandestino" singer, who wore regal red.   

    The mid-tempo Spanglish pop track opens with Madonna doing a countdown and singing coquettishly, "I took a pill and had a dream (yo tambien)/ I went back to my 17 year/ Allowed myself to be naive (dime)/ To be someone I'd never be," as the tempo begins to pick up and Maluma steps up to sing in a raspy voice. With a skittery, electric cha-cha beat pulling up and back underneath, the pair flirt with each other, with Maluma promising to be Madonna's king if she'll be his queen, singing, "Excuse me, I know you are Madonna/ But I'm going to show you how this perro (dog) will make you fall in love." 

    Near the end, as the sensual dance heats up, Madonna asks her partner to, "slow down papi."

    Back in February, both superstars surprised their fans by sharing photos of themselves together in the recording studio. "I met Madonna during the VMAs in New York," Maluma previously told Billboard. "After that, I had the opportunity to spend some time with her in Los Angeles. She was in the studio and I joined her."

    Madonna's 14th studio album, Madame X, will be released on June 14, according to a statement from her label, with MTV slated to premiere the "Medellin" video on April 24 during "MTV Presents Madonna Live & Exclusive: 'Medellin Video World Premiere" at 4 p.m. ET. According to the release, the singer will be joined by British DJ Trevor Nelson and fans for a live event from London in which she'll discuss the influences on the new album, with Maluma joining in from Miami and additional events taking place in New York, Milan and Sao Paulo. 

    The 15-track album was inspired by Madonna's experience living in Lisbon, Portugal, over the past few years and feautures her singing in Portuguese, English and Spanish. Tracks include the "anthemic," "I Rise" as well as the "Jamaican dancehall vibes"-infused, Diplo-co-produced duet with Migos' Quavo, "Future" and the Mirwais-produced "Dark Ballet." The follow-up to 2015's Rebel Heart was recorded over 18 months in New York, London, Los Angeles and Portugal.

    "Lisbon is where my record was born," Madonna says in a statement. "I found my tribe there and a magical world of incredible musicians that reinforced my belief that music across the world is truly all connected and is the soul of the universe." The album title refers to a persona the singer adopted for the sessions, described as "a dancer. A professor. A head of state. A housekeeper. An equestrian. A prisoner. A student. A mother. A child. A teacher. A nun. A singer. A saint. A whore. A spy in the house of love.”

  2. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/apr/17/madonna-medellin-ft-maluma-review-a-shapeshifting-return-to-form

    Madonna: Medellín ft Maluma review – a shapeshifting return to form

    The disarming first song from the singer’s 14th album has some lyrical clunkers but acts as a potent reminder of her genre-mashing skills

    Wed 17 Apr 2019 13.51 EDT
     
     

    Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

    If any artist has shown her ability to code-switch between styles, it’s Madonna, who’s adroitly shifted from dominatrix to disco queen to earth mother with previous album cycles. Her latest reinvention is Madame X: the title of her upcoming 14th album (out 14 June), and also the name of a chameleonic character that she will play across the record. She announced it last week in a cinematic, enjoyably OTT video featuring a panoply of guises which included multiple eye patches and Madonna wearing a hooded bonnet as if preparing for Gilead.

    In voiceover she details 15 identities – dancer, prisoner, nun and whore among others – and explains: “Madame X is a secret agent. Traveling around the world. Changing identities.” And it seems that Madonna’s gaze is reaching just as wide for Madame X, which features the American rap artists SwaeLee and Quavo, as well as South American superstars Anitta and Maluma, who features on the album’s iridescent lead single Medellín.

    Co-produced by her American Life collaborator Mirwais, Medellín is quite unlike anything we’ve heard from Madonna before, and her most subdued lead single since 1998’s stately Frozen. The most initially disarming about it is its balmy sense of ease. “I woke up in Medellín,” she sings over airy synths, before slyly adding, “Another me could now begin.” A rhythmic reggaeton beat that kicks in for a fiesta-starting chorus, with lovey-dovey call-and-response between the duo. At nearly five minutes, Medellín’s pacing feels refreshingly relaxed, though it wouldn’t be a Madonna co-write without a few lyrical clunkers (“pain” rhymed with “champagne”). It doesn’t exactly do much to dispel stereotypes of Colombia either (“we built a cartel just for love,” she sings).

    But those are minor quibbles: Medellín is a potent reminder of Madonna’s deft history of meshing genres, while also a convincing addition to the roll call of western megastars like Beyoncé and Justin Bieber linking up with Spanish-language artists. And unlike the occasional trend chasing of her most recent albums MDNA and Rebel Heart, Medellín proves that she’s well equipped to weather the demands of today’s listening trends while bringing global styles into her own world. For Madonna, it seems that the streaming age may just speed up her shapeshifting.

     

    https://www.slantmagazine.com/music/review-madonna-and-maluma-drop-sultry-new-single-medellin-from-madame-x/

    Last month, Page Six of the New York Post published an article titled “How Madonna is using younger stars to cling to relevancy.” The infamous tabloid swiftly revised its headline to the marginally softer “How Madonna is using younger stars in hopes to stay relevant” after receiving blowback for what some perceived to be a double standard. But as the gulf between the 60-year-old pop queen’s age and that of the average radio star has continued to widen, it’s true that she’s increasingly leaned on collaborations with younger artists like Justin Timberlake and Nicki Minaj.

    You’d be forgiven, then, for assuming that “Medellín,” the first single from Madonna’s upcoming 14th album, Madame X, is an attempt to cash in on the ever-growing popularity of reggaton. While the 25-year-old Maluma is a huge star in Latin America, however, he’s yet to cross over beyond the Latin-pop market in the U.S., so the partnership appears to be a mutually beneficial one. And Madonna has lovingly appropriated Latin culture in her work for decades, as far back as 1986’s “La Isla Bonita,” and as recently as her torero-inspired music video for 2015’s “Living for Love.” In fact, one could argue it’s the single most consistent musical theme of her career outside of, say, dance music more broadly.

    Co-produced by Mirwais, who was previously at the helm of Madonna’s Music and American Life albums, “Medellín”—named after the city where Maluma was born—is a sultry midtempo track driven by a decidedly unhurried tropical rhythm and Madonna’s catchy refrain of “one-two cha-cha-cha.” The singer’s inexplicably Auto-Tune-drenched verses are nostalgic and wistful, nodding to the breezy escapism of “La Isla Bonita”: “I took a sip and had a dream/And I woke up in Medellín.”

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