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“Dark Ballet” thread


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This song and video take on so much more significance after the release on Monday of a document by the Vatican stating that gender is and can only be binary. Madonna taking on the Catholic Church all over again. Talk about timing. Does Madonna have a mole in the Vatican? Lol 

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I’ve only heard the released tracks waiting for the 14th but i have this song on replay.  I can listen to it 10 times in a row. Bloody brilliant.  

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4 hours ago, rebelheart said:

A true highlight of MX, absolutely bonkers in the best way

Yes, artful. It's a bit of an abrupt departure from Medellin, but it certainly gets your attention. I absolutely love her narration at the end. And the fire blowing! 

 

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Billboard named Dark Ballet one of the 20 best music videos of 2019 so far!

 

Quote

Madonna, "Dark Ballet" (dir. Emmanuel Adjei)

It's not hard to see why Madonna has long been obsessed with Joan of Arc, a fiercely independent warrior persecuted for heresy and cross-dressing, and eventually burned at the stake by the patriarchal Catholic Church in 1431 (and later canonized by the church). Madonna cast queer, black  HIV+ rapper Mykki Blanco as Joan in her "Dark Ballet" video because, as Blanco tells Billboard, she told him, "'If you had existed as you in her time — you would have been burned at the stake as well.’” The dark, sumptuous cinematography emphasizes the sinister, shadowy quality to Catholic imagery, and the scenes of Mykki/Joan burning don't shy away from the visceral pain of death by fire. Much like the song, the video itself goes totally bonkers at the halfway point, with rapid-cut editing as Blanco ballet dances to a synth-heavy interpolation of Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Reed Flutes" from The Nutcracker Suite. - JOE LYNCH

https://www.billboard.com/amp/articles/news/list/8516848/best-music-videos-of-2019-so-far

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Guest jamesshot

The song is.....nuts, amazing, bonkers, brilliant. I prefer the song played without the video. The video interrupts the flow. The song is stunning. After all this time, I've only commented on it right now, and I am still left almost speechless. Only Madonna!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I love this video. I love that she put a queer person of color as the main character instead of herself. I love that Mykki said only good things after. And I love how haunting it is. I just wish it were longer!

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4 hours ago, BitchImLoca said:

i wish we could have a real video for this song. The one released is invalid

Sorry but you should read more and come alive , I smell ignorance .

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Can’t get over the haunting piano lines, the amazing change ups between sections, and the gritty vocals in the first part.  Love the lyrics of the spoken word passage.  

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On 6/14/2019 at 1:29 PM, IsaacHarris said:

This is ART.

PERIOD

I know what you mean. It goes beyond being just a song. It’s an artistic landscape.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Batuka thread with the put him in a jail discussion got me thinking about Dark Ballet

When she says

They are so naive. They think we are not aware of their crimes.

is she talking about Trump and/or Putin? Considering the nutcracker is Russian and she says it when the sample happens

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18 hours ago, sillynate said:

The Batuka thread with the put him in a jail discussion got me thinking about Dark Ballet

When she says

They are so naive. They think we are not aware of their crimes.

is she talking about Trump and/or Putin? Considering the nutcracker is Russian and she says it when the sample happens

both!

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On 7/10/2019 at 10:17 PM, Shane said:

Can’t get over the haunting piano lines, the amazing change ups between sections, and the gritty vocals in the first part.  Love the lyrics of the spoken word passage.  

It’s brilliant yes. It’s ethereal!❤️

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From The Irish Times Article


The power of vocal manipulation lets stars break free from human form

What is art about if not breaking free from unremarkable human form? Botticelli envisioned Venus emerging from the sea fully grown. Max Shrek’s face was twisted into a ghostly visage to play the title role in F W Murnau’s Nosferatu. Madonna used auto-tune on her album Madame X to alter the pitch of her vocals into something different. Something superhuman.

The record plays like a straight-up museum piece. The way Madonna digitally manipulates her voice on the edgy high-end pop number Dark Ballet encapsulates the cerebral nature of her approach. Over spotless piano keys and a heavy electronic beat, the singer is a creature transformed. When the vocal effects fray at the edges of lyrics like, “‘Cause your world is such a shame/‘Cause your world’s obsessed with fame’/Cause your world’s in so much pain,” it suggests the erosion of our species’ righteousness, the erasure of our humanity.

Madonna later uses a vocoder to switch into a more discernible retro-futuristic robot voice, programming such lyrics as, “I will not renounce my faith in my sweet Lord”. Then there’s a rendition of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite: Dance of the Reed-Flutes. By uniting sci-fi tech, classical music and ancient scripture, Madonna creates a jarring juxtaposition. Her methodology highlights what using vocal manipulation techniques can achieve in pop performance.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/the-power-of-vocal-manipulation-lets-stars-break-free-from-human-form-1.3964938%3fmode=amp

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