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cosmic_system

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    Rebel Heart Tour press reports, reviews, videos & pictures

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    Madonna still playing by one set of rules: Her own

    It hasn’t been a great year for Madonna.

    The lead up to her March release “Rebel Heart” was a mess. A handful of songs leaked on the web, prompting an early digital release of half the tracks, robbing the project of its marketing momentum.

    The publicity campaign that built to its proper street date ran afoul, Madonna’s usual stabs at controversy drawing sighs rather than shock: She posted pictures of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. in bondage ropes on Instagram, and then co-opted the Charlie Hebdo killings for album promo.

    The result: “Rebel Heart” debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, her first album since 1998’s “Ray of Light” to miss the top spot, then sank like a stone.

    Things didn’t get any better from there. “Rebel Heart’s” three singles all flopped; “Living for Love” and “Ghosttown” missed Billboard’s Hot 100 entirely, while the third single, “B---- I’m Madonna,” peaked at No. 84.

    There was that weird make-out session with Drake at Coachella, which ended with the Canadian rapper wiping his mouth like he had just taken a swig of expired milk.

    And then there were Madonna’s comments about Michigan, when she remarked “oh, nothing” when asked what her favorite part about growing up here was.

    Collectively, the misfires led to the same chatter that has plagued the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer for more than 30 years — questions of her relevancy, complaints about her brashness, wishes that she would just go away already.

    Madonna has heard it all before and weathered it all before. And as she brings her “Rebel Heart” tour to Joe Louis Arena Thursday, the same wisdom applies:

    Write Madonna off at your own peril.

    People have been dismissing Madonna her entire career, and still she stands, the Queen of Pop. For her, the title is a lifetime appointment, the same way Aretha Franklin is the Queen of Soul or Michael Jackson is the King of Pop. Others come along, glory fades, the spotlight shifts. But no one challenges the throne.

    Yet the question remains: Are Madonna’s hitmaking days are behind her? For an artist who has been so entwined in the zeitgeist that for several decades she was the zeitgeist, her thuds of late are deafening.

    It’s not just her lack of album sales and single traction. Creatively, her last three albums — “Rebel Heart,” 2012’s “MDNA” and 2008’s “Hard Candy” — are her three least satisfying works, finding the one-time pop culture maven chasing trends rather than setting them.

    In the case of “B---- I’m Madonna,” she’s purporting to live a lifestyle — “we go hard or we go home, we gon’ do this all night long, we get freaky if you want, b---- I’m Madonna” — that sounds just plain silly coming out of her mouth.

    Pop is traditionally a playground for the young, and the 57-year-old has angled to buck that trend. Still, her last No. 1 single was 2000’s “Music,” which was released when current Billboard chart-topper the Weeknd was in 5th grade. (Madonna was 42 when “Music” hit No. 1, and no artist older than she was at that time has sat atop the Hot 100 since.)

    Madonna has fought back against the forces of ageism and sexism in the music industry, and if she wants to go on stage and make out with a rapper less than half her age, no one is going to tell her she can’t. But that doesn’t mean make it a good idea, and Madonna seems to have either A) lost touch with her ability to make smart decisions or B) stopped caring altogether about making smart decisions.

    She is playing by her own rules, which is something she’s always done, since she told Dick Clark in 1983 that she planned to one day rule the world.

    Madonna hasn’t changed, it’s our expectations of her — and of a performer of her age — that have. We want her to play nice, which she has never done, and she’s not going to start now.

    So here she is, still ruffling feathers, refusing to go down quietly. And the “Rebel Heart” tour is making plenty of noise: Rolling Stone called the show “a tour of everything only Madonna can do,” and it’s poised to make a killing at the box office. (Madonna’s last two tours, 2008-09’s Sticky & Sweet and 2012’s MDNA outing, are the fifth and 11th highest-grossing tours of all-time, respectively).

    Where does she go from here? She can keep touring as long as she wants to: She’s still sharp on stage, and artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney are proving musicians can still tear up the road well into their sixth and seventh decades. She’s not likely to settle down, and she’ll take risks that may or not pay off.

    Her legacy is intact, her influence is undeniable, her impact is immeasurable. True, Madonna hasn’t had a great year. But she’s still dancing, whether we like it or not, to the beat of her own rebel heart.

    http://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/2015/09/30/madonna-still-playing-one-set-rules/73085530/

    Happy 15th MUSIC!

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    I love that it's a very short album with no filiers (to me).

    My first memory of Madonma up close live is from The Drowned World Tour in Paris while she was singing Gone. I was crying like a baby and she looked ah me and smiled at me for a second (it lasted an eternity in my head). That song will always be special for me (and it's an amazing song btw).

    Doe She Prefer Hard Candy Over Confessions?

    in ARCHIVE - Madonna

    Posted

    Confessions is a flat-out celebration of dance culture. And a fucking amazing one at that: well written, sharply produced, insatiable, catchy and filled with drama. It is as cinematic as her records have come.

    Having said that, that's no slight on Hard Candy, which is thoroughly enjoyable and contains, yes, some of her best writing. There's not a song I skip. And many of the unreleased tracks are the best of her career -- so good in fact, one could argue the case of it deserving its own deluxe edition.

    +1

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