Herfaceremains
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Posts posted by Herfaceremains
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That Forbes review is so badly written! Where do they hire these people?!
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3 hours ago, peter said:
I think your analysis is fair and objective, @Herfaceremains ... always enjoy reading your posts. I do think there might be a few moments the uninitiated might find off-putting, simply because they fail to understand her humor. I think there were moments that balanced it out, too, though — when asked if she was nervous, she pretty quickly turned to Danny Boyle and involved him in the conversation, asking if it were not the same for him when he has a film being released. That shows some humility and awareness that others are in the room, too, and was less egocentric than she might be accused of. Even with Glastonbury and Pride — some might think it was M making it about herself — but, although it was sweet of Sheryl to invite her, it is a little preposterously presumptuous to think M isn’t busy with things on the heels of an album release and the lead-up to a tour. (Still, I’m glad Sheryl made the offer!)
By the way, little moment, I loved when Lily interjected, “Because I stole it!” when they were having a laugh about Graham’s “missing copy” of the vinyl (which Madonna revealed as a fake)... haha! I thought it was sweet that Lily was basically indicating she was a fan and wanted to get her hands on a copy of the new album!
Thanks @peter!
I agree with you, but I always know when a Madonna appearance will rile up the peanut gallery. She’s Madonna. She acts how she acts, and no one will ever accuse her of pandering! That’s why many of us have loved and followed her journey so closely for so long.
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et la France! This is actually a great interview, but the French love a good dub job. The hosts all seem to have great respect for her. Nice to see considering how unengaged the American media has seemed.
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I’m quite sure Madonna doesn’t waste any time at all in the real housewives headspace of “who said what about me”. The only people “spilling that tea” around her are her hair and makeup team. They’re like her white modern permanent José and Luis.
She probably just laughs. Like she’s gonna care about Sheryl Crow!
At the risk of incurring the wrath of those who see no fault in Madonna whatsoever, while it’s always enjoyable to watch her in any capacity, this was not imho a particularly enjoyable or flattering public appearance. She is Madonna, and so, as she immediately stated herself, she is not used to sharing the spotlight, particularly when it comes to other celebrities. She talks over people and brings the conversation back to herself, which to many in the GP is experienced as egocentric and off-putting. Also, as she knows Norton to be a sarcastic queen, she goes into acerbic mode...I think a lot of us as fans enjoy this feisty instinctual aspect of her as it usually means she is less measured and is in many ways more revealing of her natural demeanor. However, to the GP this might come across as defensive and bitchy. They expect people to follow a certain decorum, and to show reverence and false humility, particularly the Brits who are obsessed with all things patriarchal and, more broadly, hierarchical, whether consciously or not. “She spoke over a knighted master of the theatre!”...the irony being, of course, that they also would have vomited all over him twenty or thirty years ago when they still imagined him taking it up the butt. B.G. (Before Gandalf).
Ah Society! Full of hypocrisy...or paradox and irony, to remain more Madonna-esque!
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don’t know if this was posted anywhere, but it’s a decent interview.
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I found the part when the booze kicked in and she spread her legs endearing. She was dying for a drink.
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I think it’s important to remember that traditionally music critics have been straight male, rock-oriented, unprogressive, and anti-pop. I don’t see much of an evolution in this, other than in the way we’ve see nerds transform into hipsters because they adhere to the uniform society has prescribed and they went to the gym thanks to the tech industry’s economic clout and subsequent cultural takeover! The very notion of genre-shifting gives these people hives, and so Madonna is mostly not seen as an artist, but as a pillaging, cultural-appropriating, mediocrely talented entertainer who has simply skated over the zeitgeist as if by sheer force of narcissistic determination. These, I believe, are the assumptions of the writers of each 3/5, and some of the 4/5 reviews we have seen.
There has nearly always been a resistance to the notion that Madonna is creative and original. Instead, the only explanation for her success has to come from her deft manipulation and deceit. It’s the very essence of the patriarchy and its pernicious misogyny, and while the popular genres are no longer rock and soul, critics seem to approach Madonna as if she were still defined by another era when that was the case.
My main point regarding critics and why I personally find them all essentially disappointing is that, as journalists, you’d expect them to seek a unique perspective on their subject. However, nearly every review is written as if based off of some version of a Cliff Notes bio born outside of context and the broader scope of investigation. This leads to a very monotonous, seemingly lazy approach to understanding the music, and most certainly to understanding Madonna herself; it’s as if the writer and reader require a revisionist history lesson in order to even begin to grasp who Madonna is and what she has done, the most irritating common thread in the collective narrative being that Madonna was once an iffy trendsetter by design, but has been assaulting the world with an uneven and mediocre output of trend-chasing albums since she was whipped into submission post-American Life. Ironically, you’d get the feeling that some of her fans agree with this narrative, thus reinforcing my theory that there are a good deal of masochists among us to have chosen to endure something they don’t actually appreciate for more than a decade! It’s as if Madonna has a requirement to be purely confessional, or limited to the naïveté of the anthemic disco-stomper. If her music and lyrics don’t address this need more obviously she has failed: she didn’t become Joni Mitchell, so how dare she pick up a guitar and write words that aren’t tantalizing, veiled confessionals; she didn’t grow grey, and become the wistful, nonchalant vagabond, writing enigmatic academic poetry like Patti Smith, and so how dare she manifest as a real sentient human being on a real human journey towards awakening and enlightenment. Oh! And we mustn’t forget that she is the only human being alive to wish to preserve her youthfulness. She should just stop investing in herself altogether beyond her past, acceptable accomplishments, and she should especially unplug from all technology because, well, she’s been old for over ten years and must stop challenging herself and the general public through this outrageous desire to invent, to innovate, to inspire and to be inspired. Otherwise, no matter how interesting it seems, it is “BIZARRE”.
Is it bizarre? Sure, it’s a narrative that deserves to be explored to a degree, but if you repeat something enough, it becomes the truth. “Madonna must fit into the quirky box now if she wants us to qualify this output”! It’s both disheartening and hysterical all at once!
I have read very little of value that deserves to become the truth in these reviews. I can make up my own mind about what is good and bad, and Madame X is quintessentially Madonna at her best. Whether or not that is good enough for someone else doesn’t interest me much at all unless they are able to tell me why with knowledge, passion and intelligence, which is what a music critic is paid to do after all! I’m still waiting.
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Wow...Confused that Looking for Mercy was not conveyed as a major player on the album in the majority of reviews. One of her career highlights! Absolutely gorgeous ballad that will stand up there with her greatest! The longing, and the triumph!
Flawed flawed by design, please please sympathize!
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If you listen to the first Tom Tom Club album, also on Sire Records, it’s totally obvious it had an enormous influence on Madonna’s early musical output. I think a lot of Reggie’s synths and guitars, as well as the Jellybean embellishments in general on the first album were inspired by that sound. When I first heard Mother and Father I thought she’d been listening to Tina Weymouth! I love that deadpan rapping style. No one got the irony of the American Life album raps, and so I’m glad she’s giving it to us all over with tongue further planted in cheek!
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You know...people talk about this stuff like it’s a new phenomenon. I remember hitting up Rebel Rebel record store in NY twenty five years ago to get my Madonna records a week before they were available at Tower. I remember buying import singles galore that had no impact on her sales in the domestic market. And that was in the days when Madonna shifted units big time. Those that think the album leaking a few days before impact will drastically change the outcome of the official release are dreaming! Holiday! Celebrate! It would be so nice!
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11 hours ago, slam3000 said:
You would just end up with fluffy PR pieces, that would very quickly become tiresome for the reader.
This thread started out with many people praising the article and was only when Madonna posted on Instagram that to some extent, the tide turned.
What's potentially interesting with a celebrity, is reading someone else's take on them and the place they occupy in pop culture, and that's what the NYT article sought to do. I still have fond memories of the Vanity Fair cover profiles in the early 90s - 'White Heat' and 'The Misfit' - neither of which would have existed in the form they appeared if Madonna had had full editorial control.
The tide didn’t turn. Her fans have been debating cause, context and consequence in light of Madonna’s response. Naturally as avid consumers and admirers of her work we would all be curious and enthralled to have such a monumental think piece on Madonna from a world-renowned publication. It was a fascinating read, but as many have contributed since their initial synopsis under the influence of the novelty of the scope of the article, there was a subtext to the journalist’s approach that seemed both lacking in focus and somewhat pernicious.
Personally, I drew parallels with the last Vanity Fair profile Madonna sat for. It seemed that journalist found her evasive and inaccessible, although in revisiting it now it is much more interview-driven in comparison to Vanessa Grigoriadis’ work. What I think has puzzled many of us is why someone would fail to take the opportunity to cull the experience of spending a great deal of time with Madonna to deliver something more insightful, and to instead focus her writing so much upon her personal feelings and inability to find ground for interest if it wasn’t limited to Madonna's relatability. It truly did seem as if she got no more than an hour to sit with her, and so many of the quotes she used were pre-existing.
I agree that there was something extraordinary about those earlier Vanity Fair profiles, and they were not particularly biased in any way. They positioned Madonna as an almost unknowable, deftly self-aware object of fascination, and any objectification mostly stemmed from the analysis of her constantly evolving career.
However, the nature of celebrity has changed so enormously since then. Mystique and myth are not natural qualities for a star to hone in this era, and perhaps that’s what these more contemporary profiles seem to fail to grasp. Madonna is of multiple eras. She may always seek to present herself as contemporary, and we are all acutely familiar with her lack of desire to wax nostalgic in terms of her actual artistry, but one has to approach the task of interviewing her with extreme intelligence and self-confidence, something that Grigoriadis seemed to lack entirely. More irritating still was the fact that she was aware of this, and essentially made this the predominant focus of her article! To give her the benefit of the doubt and establish that maybe her editor chopped a much larger work down to this narrative doesn’t help to defend her either, as it implies she failed massively at accomplishing something distinguished and worthwhile: In terms of the measure of success of celebrity profiles, it is not the journalist’s role to conform to the rigid restrictions of a publicist, but to study, analyze and contextualize their subject in a way that piques the reader’s curiosity and offers him or her unique angles of insight. She may have accomplished the former just because it is Madonna and most Sunday Times readers will be glad to read the piece whether out of thirst for blood or genuine interest. However, the lack of the latter is an utter embarrassment of a misstep, and she should be held to account for that at least...not by Madonna, but by anyone who takes the time to read the profile. It doesn’t negate the value of the article. It just reinforces that expectation is always our worst enemy, and this seems to apply to both Madonna and her fan base. I’m hopeful that An Evening With Graham Norton will offer us more of what we would like in terms of a Madonna fan-centric profiling experience!
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I’m not sure I understand. @articunocc Are you sharing that you were raped? If so, I’m very sorry you experienced something so humanly challenging. However, as a person who has experienced such violation, isn’t it then up to you/us to extend the right to all victims to process their emotions and their subsequent stance as they see fit? A little empathy goes a long way toward understanding where other people are coming from. Perhaps her use of it makes you uncomfortable because you are still figuring out your own feelings? We all are. I too have been a victim of abuse. I choose not to define myself by victimhood any longer as it doesn’t serve me, but it doesn’t give me the right to tell someone else they are wrong for feeling what they feel. Peace.
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Here are some additional points I wanted to share:
1. “Liberalism” and the male patriarchy are not mutually exclusive.
2. The male patriarchy is not an exclusively male club. People often conform to societal rules in order to serve their own agendas, and in turn are quite happy to fuck over others of their own “tribe” in the process.
3. Often men stick together in order to get away with things. I’m not sure I’d view this is an admirable trait.
4. Madonna does not need to adjust anything about how she does anything because to imply so is to think she is not understanding something that you are. That is most probably preposterous as she is the most successful entertainer in the world. It could also be seen as an angle that supports the very concept Madonna is fighting against. The pernicious unconscious bias of the male patriarchy, which can filter into the views of even the most “liberal” of thinkers.
I’m pretty sure the corporate media is generally considered to be under the influence of the long-standing agenda of the male patriarchy. That includes moronic daytime television shows hosted by women such as The View. No one actually thinks anyone on that panel is expressing a raw, unfiltered opinion, do they? Who decided the rules they follow? Could it be the male patriarchy?
Also, it’s wonderful that everyone has their own experience, but no one is Madonna, which is why there isn’t a forum devoted to any of us. I trust that her response was justified, and that she will continue to provoke and thrive. The entire news cycle has taken to her every move in this promo cycle like flies to shit. So she wins again, even if it isn’t with the same former gleeful cynicism as, say, releasing the Justify My Love video 29 years ago. Profiteering is no longer acceptable to Madame X. Spreading your word is!
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3 minutes ago, Samo said:
Ok point noted. I see them from both perspectives, I'm a masculine bisexual guy, in a relationship with a woman for 4 years now, played sports (baseball and hockey) my whole life, was in a frat and have always had predominantly straight guy friends, men always support their bros , most women I know do not, in fact I know so many women that PREFER stereotypical gay guys as friends because they know they'll be a true friend and won't lie to them about how they look or plot against them. I CONSTANTLY hear women say "other women are bitches and are evil" etc
And these are Trump hating "liberal'" young women...
Yes. Because the women you refer to have been conditioned to put men at the top of the hierarchy and therefore they need to compete with each other to “win”. This is essentially the very definition of the patriarchy IMHO. Madonna was raised with those values, and she rebelled against them subconsciously, then consciously, and then intentionally. I take my hat of to her on this one. She has enormous courage knowing that most thinking, liberal men have the same perspective you just shared. Again, I do not want that to seem like a personal attack. I just think that maybe because of your life experience that you very kindly and openly shared, you have also been conditioned to see things in a particular way.
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3 minutes ago, Samo said:
I do? I love Madonna, I'm just pointing out things she said IN THE PAST, I get that she may not feel this way in 2019 but from my own personal experience, women generally don't support and hate on other women. Men ALWAYS stick together and have their buddies back no matter what, third wave feminists need to look at how they treat fellow women before blaming the "patriarchy"
One could argue this is a result of said patriarchy. I think that’s M’s entire point, isn’t it? Even if we don’t agree with her, it’s her experience and her decision of how to address that, no? And doesn’t it make more sense to seek to understand her rather than dismiss her, considering this is a Madonna fan forum? I don’t mean that as a dismissal of the validity of your fandom. I’m just playing devil’s advocate.
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4 minutes ago, ursula said:
Only to an extent? I wouldn't expect any objectivity from a "founding father of the patriarchy" (btw there is a timing issue there - no pun intended. I'm not sure how early within our civilization the nyt was established...)
You’re harsh. 1851. One could argue it was the founding father of a certain type of intellectual patriarchy. I always give Madonna the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise you’re just playing to the peanut gallery.
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3 minutes ago, ursula said:
Oh I know the answer to that one! She always uses it when she is caught in a contradiction : "humans are full of paradoxes"
Well, aren’t they?
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Isn’t Madonna’s point that many of her most fervent detractors have been female precisely because women have been conditioned to serve the patriarchy? Obviously this is a generalized perspective, and there are plenty of women who, like Madonna, have taken it upon themselves to challenge that system, but there are also many women who do not support other women because they have been disenfranchised and disempowered through patriarchal education systems, media representation, ease of societal conformism...It shouldn’t be such an indictment on either side of the argument, and I think the more I observe the situation and how it is being viewed, the more I am inclined to feel that Madonna would have perhaps benefited from using a publicist to funnel her rebuttal more succinctly and with more of the ingredients she was expecting from the journalist. However, I feel Madonna is rarely given room to show cracks in her veneer, which is why she appears caustic and thin-skinned in her choices to address these matters more recently. She obviously feels her identity is easily misconstrued and misrepresented by women due to the very restrictions she feels she has fought to liberate herself from, and we must assume this comes from her experience. I think it’s safe to assume she’s not mindlessly paranoid...she deserves more compassion than she will get from the general public, and also from some of her fans from what I am reading. It’s an interesting topic, and there are lots of opinions that are in my humble personal experience reinstating my faith in the power of forums and a fan base to give greater context to Madonna as a vibrant cultural figure.
That said, holding her accountable for what she said or did in 1991 or 1996 is a little too easy. Everyone evolves, and if there’s anything we should retain from Madonna’s expression of personal opinion it’s that she retains the right to change her mind.
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These assessments are all over the place. Madonna would not have been entitled to direct the nature of an editorial. The NY Times magazine supplement has never been a straight interview outlet. There is always room for journalistic license, otherwise it is propagandist and unethical. The NY Times isn’t there to serve Madonna’s promotional agenda.
This doesn’t mean that we aren’t entitled to judge the work of the journalist whose focus seems to have been on rendering a slice of life personal essay on the experience of being given access to Madonna in 2019.
Madonna’s issue with the piece is perhaps more difficult to define without her doing so more clearly herself, but her clapback rape comment is what personally seems to be the source of what was problematic and incendiary for her...because the condescending tone the journalist took in assessing how she handled Madonna with kid gloves lacks courage and conviction, qualities Madonna perhaps mistakenly felt were guaranteed from a NY Times journalist who happens to also be a woman and her societal peer.
She can and most likely will take matters into her own hands by giving a straightforward lengthy interview to another traditionally respectable publication where by simply answering questions, she can neither be misquoted nor depicted outside of her own words and the way they are received by the reader.
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Madonna knows exactly what she is doing. And in owning the word RAPE and using it as she sees fit is one of the uncomfortable controversies she has always gravitated towards. When she said she would be a bad feminist, this is exactly what she meant.
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13 minutes ago, MLVC82 said:
Don't you think QUEEN MADONNA isn't thrilled by how the "rape" comment was portrayed in the article? basically making it seem like MADONNA is not entitled to speak like that....not knowing it's significance....and chastising her for it in the article? or how she mentioned how short she is and needs her pictures lowered......there are so many things about this article that made me stop reading half way through.
Exactly. The journalist was rather condescending, almost implying Madonna was so removed from reality that she wasn’t aware that modern women post-ME2 have a new set of standards that she needs to adhere to. I’m sure that irritated the fuck out of her, and rightly so.
Also, Madonna is not a pop star. She is a cultural juggernaut who has defined the zeitgeist in some shape or form for over 35 years, and continues to do so. That is so extraordinary that it should make anyone profiling her give some form of historical context beyond contemporary pop and age.
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1 minute ago, Geiger83 said:
Thanks, I am sure it is great. I am hoping for a clean production (mastering etc.) though. So far I am very happy with the 4 releases and how they sound clean (Future is an small exception, but I think it is intentional)
This is about as clean and crisp as it gets. I’m pretty sure I hear the twins join her in blowing at the very end before she takes her final gasp of air at the stake.
It’s one of those rare pieces that leaves you feeling despair and loss; the loss of life rather than romantic love. It’s extremely effective. One of her best...the boy/girl juxtaposition feels like a throwback to American Life as it’s presented here, and the vocodered second act to Tchaikovsky is simply brilliant in its execution. The distortion draws you in to decipher her words, which is what makes the return to the minor chord death march outro so devastating.
Im in
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It isn't an interview. It’s a journalistic reflection on Madonna at 60, both in how she is perceived, how she chooses to be perceived, and the chasm that exists between the two. I found it jarring that everything was written in past tense, but realized afterwards that this was a stylistic choice to emphasize the piece as a historical one. Madonna isn’t interested in being relatable, and yet the journalist manufactured her entire gauge of her subject based upon how she makes her feel. Ultimately it is a journalistic fail, but a fascinatingly revealing one nonetheless. She should have chatted with Ruby Wax before taking on such a rare opportunity fearfully and blindly!
Most of us realized, as we aged, that we couldn’t make the puzzle pieces of our lives fit and made peace with that. Madonna kept reaching into the past to discover more and more about herself. There was no one truth, only the deepening of your own understanding. At one point, she said to me rhetorically: “What is the truth? Your truth when you’re 18 is not going to be your truth when you’re 28 or when you’re 38. Life is not black and white. It’s gray, and one minute you’re going to feel so strongly and believe in something so strongly, and then maybe you won’t in five years.”
This was the most relatable part to me, and the one that seemed most revealing about both Madonna and the journalist. It contains clues as to why Madonna is so elusive, timeless and also sometimes unpopular; to relate to her means to feel in awe and in the shadow of her work ethic and her insatiable curiosity about life. It means you have to work harder. You can’t be lazy, or regurgitate. You will have to feel your way through inadequacy, and that’s not what the modern consumerist-friendly entertainment world is about. I love that Madonna is unfocused on this. It would be great if those who measure the success of her accomplishments by chart positions, positive reinforcement and critical validation could truly reflect upon this and also let that go once and for all.
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One thing to remind ourselves of from just the first reviews we have is how we already see that one critic elevates Dark Ballet when another dismisses it, and Crazy is peak Madonna for Rolling Stone and filler for another. Thus far, aside from RS, these are all British too, and there is a unique angle in the British press when it comes to Madonna! Misogyny seems to rule. It’s all fascinating!
Madonna @ NYC pride - CONFIRMED !
in ARCHIVE - The MADAME X Forum
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I’m laughing and my eyes have rolled so far up they will flip shortly! Some of these posts...Madonna hasn’t lost the ability to do anything. She simply isn’t doing what her hordes of backseat managing fans feel would either benefit her or them better...and that’s a whole lotta opinions pulled out of a whole lotta asses that she honestly clearly has no time for. You’re finding commonality in her making poor choices, and yet aside from some inexplicable hatred for Future, which is an amazing track and has universality to it through the language of reggae and a message of hope and awakening, you’d be tricky as advisers because you all want different things!
Like A Prayer is a bore. The Save The Planet Leo DiCaprio show is a good template. She only wants to sing the bad songs from her brilliant new album. 
I’d never assume I know better than the most successful pop star of all time how the game is played. We don’t know, and in truth, how can she either? The landscape is so impossible to map out at this point. There are no precedents! She has this massive fame and legacy, she wants to keep challenging herself creatively, and yet everyone wants to stick her in the legacy artist box. It’s literally The antithesis of her artistry!
Maybe it’s the Pitchfork review that has made its way into the collective conscience? I’m sensing a lot of revisionist opinions will follow not too far down the road claiming that Madame X wasn’t really that good after all.