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Madonna - new album coming soon. Queen teases on Insta


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4 hours ago, humanracin said:

I don't want Madonna anywhere near Ariana's new album, her latest single is total trash.

I quite liked a couple of her singles from the last album but this new single is awful.

I can't believe I saw it make some of the best of 2018 lists

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4 minutes ago, karbatal said:

What? This doesn't make sense. 

He's saying that Madonna has better instincts than the "execs" cos they talked her out of releasing ROL and CS as the lead single.

Although a counter argument could be that she insisted on releasing AL as the lead single..

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1 hour ago, Napoléon said:

He's saying that Madonna has better instincts than the "execs" cos they talked her out of releasing ROL and CS as the lead single.

Although a counter argument could be that she insisted on releasing AL as the lead single..

I know but it doesn't make sense that Nile Rodgers told her not to release LAV. 

Her instincts have been ON POINT many times, especially in terms of trends, music styles and of course songwriting. But must artist suffer from the same syndrome: after working hard on an album they lose perspective on songs. All need a sharp team to make the right decisions.

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7 minutes ago, karbatal said:

But must artist suffer from the same syndrome: after working hard on an album they lose perspective on songs.

I totally agree. I mean they might have spent countless time to come up with smth and think they have managed to pull it off and on the other hand: might have written smth brilliant in 5 minutes and might overlook it for that reason. For example I have a feeling M spent a lot of time on LFL and probably though she HAD to release it. Overlooking MUCH stronger songs.

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I guess it comes down to the fact that Madonna picks whatever she likes the most or feels more comfortable performing, whereas executives choose from a more commercial/success in the charts point of view

I can bet my head that she would have picked Human Nature as the first single from BS as a big F-you to all the detractors and the press rather then damage-control singles like Secret or Take a bow

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Here is what Nile Rodgers said:

At some point during Madonna’s meeting, Michael played her the song. After one verse and chorus, Madonna made up her mind: “She got it quicker than anybody,” according to Michael, “including me.” She was so buzzed that she decided “Like a Virgin” should be the first single—and title—of her next album. She made this decision in less than two minutes. Classic Madonna. Decisive—and right. Inspired, Madonna, Michael, and Lenny wrote a wish list of producers: The top two were Narada Michael Walden and me. Michael and Lenny didn’t know that Madonna and I had already met at her Roxy show or that we had friends in common. So why did Madonna ultimately choose to work with me? Good question. After our first meeting, our mutual acquaintances certainly continued to talk to each other. Knowing how Madonna makes up her mind, I suspect she’d already decided that I was her guy.

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13 hours ago, Nikki said:

from a member on mtribe

My friend who works at Apple Music has just told me that tonight there is an album listening party at one of the big labels in London and the queen herself is going to be there!!

So did it happen? 

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Well tbh Madonna has always been a bit hit and miss with single selection. I can just imagine her bringing in a quickly produced niche track to stick on the B side if Keep It Together with no idea.

But the execs havent always been that good either. Could have had more hits with physical attraction, where's the party, LDLHA (the first time around), time stood still, ....

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More from Nile Rodgers:

One afternoon the doorman rang my intercom. “Mr. Rodgers,” he said, “there’s a young lady here to see you.” I overheard him ask her name. “Madonna. Tell him Madonna is here,” she said. “It’s Madonna, Mr. Rodgers,” said my bemused doorman. He’d obviously never met a Madonna before. I opened the door to one of the sexiest, friendliest, and happiest women I’d ever seen—and that’s really saying something. Any number of happy, friendly, and sexy women crossed that threshold in the eighties. She was dressed in her soon-to-be iconic street style with her hair tied in a bow and black rubber bracelets dangling up and down her wrists. She looked very young. “Yo, this is a nice place,” she said. My apartment was a combination bachelor pad and nightclub, with Art Deco and Japanese antiques, an old-fashioned jukebox, and a multicolored neon stork, inspired by the famous club of the same name. I offered her a drink. She chose something nonalcoholic. I was already nursing my top-of-the-morning bottle of Heineken. She knew a thing or two about art and commented on my posters and gouaches by Paul Colin and Van Caulaert that the now famous jewelry designer Loree Rodkin had sold me. We sat facing each other at the Ms. Pac-man two-player console table in my living room. We ran through a few of her demos, never listening to anything twice—I didn’t need to. My time at the Apollo and doing countless recording sessions had taught me to memorize entire songs in one listen, so one listen was enough for me. I didn’t show much emotion; I was only thinking about how the songs connected. In short, what was the album’s DHM? Everything she played was pretty catchy, but songs are just songs, and she had hired me to make an album. After I downed a few more Heinies, we listened to the rest of her songs. By the time we were through, the tone of the meeting abruptly changed. Madonna’s metamorphosis from a happy-go-lucky post-teenybopper to a hard-core career woman blindsided me. “If you don’t love all of these songs,” she said to me in a very matter-of-fact tone, “we can’t work together.” I was shocked. I hadn’t received an ultimatum since that crew of enforcers flashed their guns at me when Chic threatened to sue the makers of “A Rapper’s Delight” for sampling “Good Times.” I liked Madonna a lot, and I knew we’d work well together, but I had no choice but to speak the truth. “Well, to be honest with you, I don’t love all these songs,” I said, “but I can promise you this: By the time we’re finished with them I will.” I don’t remember if she laughed, but she didn’t break the deal. THE FIRST TIME I STOPPED BY Madonna’s apartment in SoHo, I was a little surprised by its modesty. Of course it’s funny today, because she’s a hell of a lot richer now than I am, but at the time I actually felt sorry for her. She was closing in on a platinum album but didn’t have much to show for it. Madonna clearly didn’t roll like my artist friends Peter Beard or Joseph Kosuth, who had spacious designer lofts a stone’s throw away. She didn’t even have a decent sofa for guests to sit on. The only furniture I can remember was a mattress on the floor, which reminded me of Woody’s Avenue C crash pad, where I bunked when I was a teenage runaway. I was raised in this area when my family was doing well and when we weren’t. Even by Beverly and Bobby’s heroin-chic standards this wasn’t making it. A couple days after my first visit, I told my handyman to bring her a leather couch from my Connecticut office. After he helped carried it upstairs, he told me he couldn’t believe that Madonna lived in a place that wasn’t half as decked out as his own suburban home.

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1 hour ago, karbatal said:

I know but it doesn't make sense that Nile Rodgers told her not to release LAV. 

Niles wanted Material Girl as the first single(never heard about him not wanting her to record LAV though)

18:50

 

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7 minutes ago, karbatal said:

Great read about Nile. Maybe I read it too fast but I didn't see the part where he recommended Madonna not to release LAV? 

Oh sorry I forgot that part. Here it is:

THINGS WENT SIDEWAYS ALMOST IMMEDIATELY. The demo for one of the first songs we were set to record, “Material Girl,” which was written by Peter Brown (author of some of the greatest dance-floor records of all time, like “Do You Wanna Get Funky with Me” and “Dance with Me”), was fantastic. Still, we had problems. To begin with, the song’s key wasn’t right for Madonna’s natural singing voice. She’s comfortable and very warm sounding between alto and mezzo-soprano (think of her voice on her song “Live to Tell” and the verses of “Holiday”), but this version forced her to sing as a mezzo-soprano going up to a B-flat, which was less than flattering, to my ears. She was singing it all with a slight nasal quality. Unfortunately, she’d learned the song that way and she loved what she was hearing. I tried to convince her to let me change the key, but strongheaded Madonna? She was not having it. I knew that it was the artist’s name ultimately on the cover of the record—not mine. I also knew that we were on a budget, and was committed, as always, to working fast and coming in on, or under, budget. In Madonna’s words at the time: “Time is money and the money is mine.” So I had no choice but to help her nail the vocal in the demo’s key. We worked long and hard to get “Material Girl” right. It wasn’t easy, but Madonna’s legendary work ethic immediately shone through—she didn’t mind putting in the time to get the song in shape. And we didn’t have auto-tune devices, the now commonly used studio tool that can make a hyena sing on key, to help us. The thing is, Madonna’s voice is actually very in tune. And even when it’s not, she still has enough control of it to make it sound like music. Pitch is important but expression and emotion make a performance. Remember, the artist is telling a story, one that we must believe—the ability to convey powerful, resonant feelings is the key to pop, not perfect technique. After toiling over the vocals for hours, we finally nailed the performance. “Material Girl,” as you surely know, went on to become a massive hit. But, as usual, it took some convincing before we could get it out to the world. At the label’s request, I turned over a rough mix. I also gave one to Madonna’s then manager, Freddy DeMann. Freddy was Michael Jackson’s former rep, and he’d just come off the biggest record of all time, Thriller. Freddy was a terrific manager and an even-keeled thinker, so he dealt me a major blow when he called to ask in a dismayed tone, “What did you do to her voice?” “I recorded the shit in the key she insisted doing it in. And I worked my ass off to get her to sound good. Don’t blame me for getting it right.” He didn’t exactly thank me, but he chilled out. Once I made it clear that I’d fulfilled his artist’s wishes, he must have taken another listen, because he never complained too much about anything again (which is good, because the vocal for “Like a Virgin” was even further out of the pleasant part of her natural range, in the key of F-sharp, and getting it on tape required the exact same arduous process). Our next battle was over song order. When I make a record, I always know the sequence of singles from the moment I start recording. I was positive the first single had to be “Material Girl,” which I knew was a smash. After all, I was hired to give her a smash. Madonna had an entirely different point of view. She wanted “Like a Virgin.” It’s funny: I’d worked with so many international superstars, but I’d never come across such an iron will before. On this subject, however, neither of us would budge without a fight. Of course, as I said before, I knew the song order was ultimately Madonna’s choice. It was her career and her record. The problem was, I couldn’t get over the powerful sense that she was making a huge mistake. In my quest to prove my point, I played both songs (“ Material Girl” and “Like a Virgin”) for everybody I knew, trying to gin up enough evidence to back up my gut instinct. I remember one colleague’s reaction as clear as day—that of my friend Gail Boggs. Gail was a real pro; she’d sung with Bette Midler and costarred as one of Whoopi Goldberg’s spiritual assistants in the film Ghost. I can still recall the day she sat in my car to take my musical version of the Pepsi challenge. Unfortunately, it didn’t last very long. Once I blasted “Like a Virgin,” I never got a chance to follow up with “Material Girl.” After one listen she uttered these prophetic words: “Nile, this record is going to be No. 1 for at least six weeks.” It was. Gail was right! And I, well, I had to admit I was wrong. Gail’s enthusiasm was so compelling that I could no longer deny that the song was something special. Madonna had captured its essence and put it right in my face. Already things were changing with Madonna: People were starting to follow her scandals, the guys she was sleeping with, and her outrageous fashion moves, but they were willing to pay for her music because it spoke to them. All true artists have this gift, and her delivery of what could’ve been a cute pop song with a provocative hook really touched people—especially young women. My young charge clearly had serious instincts. * * * IN THE RECORDING STUDIO, Madonna’s superintense let’s-get-down-to-business attitude sometimes rubbed people the wrong way. I tried to protect the musicians on the album—after all, they were my secret weapon—from her tougher side. Their loyalty to me drove her crazy, and she tossed off some fairly insulting stuff. When they were directed at me, I could laugh her insults off because we really did love each other. Much like with Nard, we’d developed a relationship that allowed for the constant hurling of insults. It was how we entertained ourselves during the lengthy methodical process—but it was supposed to stay between us. Unfortunately, other people weren’t so comfortable with her verbal abuse. One day Madonna’s insult slinging went too far. Our assistant had the temerity to go to the bathroom, and she freaked out on him. “Where the fuck is he going?” she said, loudly enough that he could clearly hear. Unsatisfied that she’d made her point, she then let off a fusillade from her usual arsenal of one-liners: “Time is money, and the money is mine,” etc. But today her tone was laced with a cruelty that I hadn’t heard before. She was being mean. So I confronted her. “Madonna,” I said, “you can’t treat people like that. He’s just a guy trying to help you make the best record he can. And he needs to go to the bathroom.” “Fuck that,” she said, “he didn’t ask me if he could go.” And with that she and I got into it. This was not the Madonna I knew, and I didn’t appreciate it. Our exchange got so heated that I actually quit the record. I got up and said, “If you are going to treat people who are working for you that way, I can’t do this anymore.” I promptly collected my belongings and stormed out of the studio door. I was seething with anger, waiting for an elevator that couldn’t arrive quickly enough, when she ran out. “Nile!” she yelled. Once she realized that she had me cornered, she pivoted and said in her best girlish voice, “Does that mean you don’t love me anymore?” I looked at her and smiled. The smile then turned into a full-out laugh—her transparency was comical, but she was also right: I couldn’t fight the affection I had for her. With that I went back to work, ending what has to be the shortest producer strike in history. That would hardly be the last of the blowouts we’d have before the record was finished. Some of the scuffles were my fault: Sleep deprivation and too much partying probably made me act a little crazy. Meanwhile, my crew was doing lots of drugs, too. They’d show up late or even miss a session, and I had to lie to protect them from Madonna’s wrath. I once made a call to the police in front of Madonna to convince her that Nard had gotten into a traffic accident, even though I knew exactly where he was. Deceptions were necessary to keep the project, my people, and myself on track. SPEAKING OF CRAZY: One day, as I was leaving the studio at the end of the workday, Madonna asked me out of the clear blue sky, “Hey, Nile, do you think I’m sexy?” “Madonna, is that a serious question?” “Yes.” “You have to be one of the sexiest people I’ve ever known.” “Then why don’t you want to fuck me?” “What? Well, er, um, because I’m your producer.” “Well, that never stopped any of the other ones.” She turned her back and stormed into the studio. I was left standing there with a silly look on my face. She never made clear what the point was. What made her question even weirder was that I knew Madonna was never sexually attracted to me. She only went for great-looking guys, the kind that girls obsess over and then end up getting treated like shit by. If Madonna went out with a guy like me, it would’ve been as confusing to the public as when Julia Roberts married Lyle Lovett. And even if she had found me attractive, as a few other girls I’ve considered out of my league have over the years, I wouldn’t have taken the bait. No, I’d learned a massive lesson much earlier in my career: Don’t shit where you eat. The last thing I wanted was to ruin what I thought would be a long and fruitful relationship with an artist I believed was going to become an Eternal Pop Superstar. RIGHT BEFORE WE WERE about to wrap up the record, I got a phone call from Michael Ostin, Madonna’s A& R exec. Michael was my sole contact at Warner on the Madonna project, and by now we’d become very close. We had an honest relationship and could discuss anything about her and the record with complete candor. I could tell from his tone we had a problem. Michael was in a pickle. “Nile,” he said haltingly, “I know you guys have finished the single and Madonna is chomping at the bit to put it out, but ‘Borderline’ is taking off like a rocket ship. No one expected it. It’s killing the charts and burning up at MTV. What would you do if you were us?” Without dropping a beat, I said, “When ‘Borderline’ starts to fall off the charts, follow it up with ‘Lucky Star.’ It’s one of the best songs on the album.” “But that could put you back months—and Madonna is itching to put this new record out.” “Michael,” I said, “you already have the product in the stores. And you’ve got another single on the album that’s smoking. You’d be a fool not to try and take it all the way.” Michael is a smart exec. He was probably going to do this all along but was just being courteous. It was smart, respectful, and correct. IT MAY HAVE SEEMED like I was on the label’s side, advocating holding the record I’d just completed in favor of milking Madonna’s previous album. But by now I knew every song on that first record, which meant I knew those tunes had a lot more shelf life. If her first album had a chance at a second life, why wouldn’t they jump at it? And it would only increase the anticipation for the new album. “Like a Virgin” would now have to wait for the earlier singles to fade. Such an embarrassment of riches is almost inconceivable now, when whole careers come and go in a few weeks, but Madonna suddenly had a backlog of hits because she also had a few hot songs from films she’d recorded. We knew that, as a general rule, the marketplace only affords an artist one single at a time. So we waited. And we waited. And sure enough, both songs were hits, which meant that Madonna’s first album started to move some major units. So we waited, and we waited some more. The wait lasted many months, during which time I made a ton of records and Madonna promoted her first album like crazy. We worked very hard. And we played even harder. I wound up spending more time socializing with Madonna than recording with her. She joined me at La Samana, a luxury resort in St. Martin where the clique I was hanging with spent every Christmas. Despite the growing success of her first record, Madonna still hadn’t become the fully realized Madonna, but she was in good company with my extended crew. Back then, my top pals were Daryl Hannah, her family, and her boyfriend, Jackson Browne; NBC bigwig Dick Ebersol and his actress wife, Susan Saint James, and family; Oprah Winfrey and her boyfriend Stedman Graham; politician Vernon Jordan and his wife-to-be, Ann Dibble Cook, and family; music mogul Marty Bandier and his family, including wife Dorothy, an ex-model who was connected to my best friend from the Black Panther days, Jamal Joseph, and his wife, Joyce, another model/ actress; and my main man and closest friend, publishing mogul Jann Wenner and his then wife, Jane. Our crowd also included Bob Johnson, who was just starting BET (Black Entertainment Television), and with whom I regularly played tennis; and Harry Belafonte and his daughter Gina, whom I loved debating with (we were on the same side—it was just stimulating to have another ex-street-level lefty to shoot the shit with in this super bourgeois hedonistic resort). There was also my then girlfriend Nancy Stoddart, who single-handedly introduced me to this lifestyle. Though I’d become financially well off, I had never had a true vacation until I met Nancy. In fact, the very first time I did, I went kicking and screaming, but to my surprise I actually wound up having a good time. By now I had to have coke everywhere I went. Every day. Most of my friends and colleagues never knew the extent of my addiction. (At least I don’t think they knew.) I remember the day we arrived in St. Martin, Madonna, Jellybean, Nancy, and I lunched on the resort’s terrace. Though coke accompanied most of my meals, I hadn’t flown down with any. But I wasn’t worried. It was the eighties and I knew I could find drugs anywhere. Or more correctly, the drugs would find me. The rest of my party never suspected a thing. But in the drug world, word travels fast. A high roller had landed. The moment we passed through customs, I was on a local drug dealer’s radar. Everywhere I went on the island, I had someone laying in the cut to keep my nostrils filled. I gave the word that I’d happily pay extra if they didn’t step on it too much. The baby laxative and sugar they cut it with ruined the intensity of the high. I’d become accustomed to close-to-pure stuff back in New York. But none of my friends seemed to notice how deep I was into the drugs. I was still at the top of my game professionally, and my work ethic powered me through the days. They have a saying in recovery programs, “God protects drug addicts and fools.” I was both, so I was especially well protected. Really, everything had worked according to our Chic master plan. My music was well known, but for the most part, my face wasn’t. This unique blend of anonymity and affluence was all very convenient: I could go anywhere and do anything I pleased. As Oprah said when I appeared on her Season Two “Rags to Riches” show, “You are one of the richest people I know,” which is sort of funny to think about, given that Oprah is now probably the richest person I—or anyone—knows. Money wasn’t my goal, just a yardstick to measure success. On New Year’s Day 1985, my situation was near perfect. Life was fantastic, almost blissful. We’d finished Like a Virgin in just six weeks. We knew the record was great, and we now had time to relax in the sunshine. Meanwhile, my relationship with Madonna continued to grow. When her promotion schedule opened up, she joined me on Martha’s Vineyard.

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4 minutes ago, windsor67 said:

🙁 I have reached my copy limit for the book on kindle. 🙁

there were several more pages about Madonna, live aid, the launch of like a virgin and the vma’s

Thanks for the texts!

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2 minutes ago, dollhouse said:

she wanted candy shop as the 1st singe but was denied

Not true they renamed the song CandySoon and it s gonna drop 2niiite , can t wait

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