DuranDuran
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Muhammad Ali 1995
I have a funny relationship with Madonna.
My two best friends/biggest arch enemies (my brother and Tony R) are huge fans.
Madonna is one of my all time favorite artists alongside MJ.
Favourite albums are American Life, Erotica and Rebel Heart. I tend to find whenever her albums are less well received I usually love them and whenever she's going through a phase of massive commercial success, it's usually the albums I'm not so keen on.
Saw the Rebel Heart show at the o2 few years back... she's still a force to be reckoned with even approaching 60.
Madonna? One of the greatest popstars of all time surely! The most talented? No. The most consistent? Probably not in terms of brilliant albums, but certainly in terms of brilliant material throughout those albums as well as time and again delivering brilliant live show/tour after brilliant live show/tour. The hardest working pop performer over one of the longest periods in a career where youth and contemporary relivance seem to be the only things the matter? Absolutely. She brings it time and time again, reinvents herself and works hard. I would say most of her albums offer stellar pop! It's very hard for me to rate her albums as my favourite is The Immaculate Collection which frankly is the greatest sequenced Hits collection I've ever heard -also the biggest selling hits album if memory serves.
I loved Rebel Heart but felt it was a bit too long.
Have you heard some of the Rebel Heart outtakes? Beautiful Scars and Addicted are better than some of the songs that made the album.
i also love Intervention from American Life. Reminds me of a RHCP song.
I've never really rated her as a singer, but then many of the artists I like are not necessarily the greatest singers, their great communicators, and thats how I rate someone, their abillity to be able to communicate something to me, a lot of the time it's not even something I can explain, it's more a feeling. So what I should have said is 'She's not the most technically gifted' which is irrelevant in pop/rock anyway and to a large degree not really the point. With some of the artists I like I have a habit of putting a little disclaimer at the beginning of why I like them, probably from growing up and listening to different opinions; everyones a cynic.I think Queen is the biggest GH ever in UK & Eagles in America. It's biggest female one though.
It annoys me a bit when people say 'not the most talented' as it's normally the same that say 'it's down to reinvention' or keeping relevant.
Okay I wouldn't say she had MJ's genius. I wouldn't say anybody had. But if it was just down to sexuality & reinvention, she's have been done 25 years ago.
The reality is that she's kept making fantastic tunes that endure & last the test of time.
I never knew people considered Madonna a bad singer until I started using message boards and you hear these kind of complaints. I think unless you have a terrible singing voice, then a singer is only as good as the songs they're singing. Nobody complains that Paul McCartney isn't a technically gifted singer, so why do they bring it up with Madonna? Sexism?
Thats exactly what she brings! Stellar pop classics! And by the way, I agree with what your saying and that was the point I was trying to make.I don't know if it's sexism. I just think that with females everyone expects them to sound like Adele, or Celine Dion or Mariah Carey (when she ould still sing). But although there's a market for torch singers, with pop it's irrelevant to a degree.
And anyway, since she trained for Evita, Madonna's live voice has been really strong. Yeah, she'll never be Aretha Franklin. But at least she should be given some Respect.
You're welcome.
Also, like with MJ, take away all the frills (the controversy, live shows, great videos, attitude etc) and just listen to the music and you have some of the best pop songs of all time.
Like A Prayer
Holiday
Music
Don't Tell Me
Ray Of Light
Papa Don't Preach
Open Your Heart
Into The Groove
La Isla Bonita
Express Yourself
Vogue
Justify My Love
Take A Bow
Live To Tell
Hung Up
Borderline
Lucky Star
Crazy For You
and that's just a handful of singles...
At last. I've been waiting on this.
Did you go to see any of the RH gigs Tony?
I love the Confessions tour blu-ray! They did a superb job with that one, I'm hoping the RH show was filmed in a similar way, to really capture the excitement of the show.
I saw it at the O2, first time I've seen a show of hers in the flesh since Drowned World. It seemed lighter and airier than the denser and darker Drowned World Tour with it's goth punk, industrial, and cowboy aesthetics (I loved all that), but the setlist was fantastic.
Incredible tour and the only time I've seen her live. But the tour DVD/Blu Ray was way over the top. It's way too edited, ridiculously so. The fan-shot amatuers on YouTube capture the brilliance of the tour much better IMO.I think this will unfortunately follow the way MDNA was shot. Lots of cutaways, slow motion shots and massive crowd noise. Still looks amazing though. Great mix of over the top theatrics as well as some more intimate moments.
Hard Candy is possibly my favourite from her post-Music era. Rebel Heart yeah hit and miss but some great tracks on it, especially the Super Deluxe. The hate and backlash it got was harsh in my opinion, and predictable.
I really like the MDNA album, actually that along with Hard Candy are my 2 favourites from Music onwards. You make a great point about Rebel Heart; there's a great 11 track album in there! And I can't understand why one of its best tracks 'Rebel Heart isint on the standard album of it's namesake?Problem with Rebel Heart is that it suffered from poor quality control. It could have been an amazing 11 track album, her best for years. But some of teh best songs (notably the title track) were only on the deluxe versions.
Also, like MDNA, poor choice of lead Madonna-by-numbers singles. She should have led with a ballad. Ghosttown is her best single in years and best ballad since Take A Bow, but it did nothing. Then ****ing releasing 'Bitch I'm Madonna'? Jesus.
But some fantastic songs on there. I'd encourage anyone to stream Rebel Heart, Ghosttown, Devil Pray for starters.
The Tour is out in September I believe, massively late and if it's like the one that was on Showtime, then unfortunately again it's very over-edited. Looks like it was an amazing show though with lots of extras. She performed one very special different track each night, including Take A Bow, the only time she's sung it on tour so I hope that's included. Also hopefully the full 'Tears Of A Clown' show.
There's a few reasons to it I think, there's a need to stay relevant and put more of what appeals to a younger audience and there's also a need to give the long term core fanbase a few great reasons to buy the super deluxe. At the end of the day the tracks can be bought online via streaming so track sequencing on a modern pop album isn't as important today as it once was. Her fans will buy everything, the casuals pick and choose.
Was Rebel Heart her Invincible? The same thought crossed my mind about the lead single. The whole ageism thing happened also and yes, falling off the stage and her meltdown moment made everything a bit "out there". I look forward to watching the DVD though. You have to give it to her, Album, Tour, DVD! Every time!The issue is the reviews, Madonna has a lot of casual fans who will buy if they hear it's a great album (e.g. Ray of Light got amazing reviews & led to big sales), if RH would have got better reviews (it got good ones but not great) based on a great 11 track album then it would have led to better sales.
But I maintain that similar to YRMW for Invincible, if the lead single would have been better it would have made all the difference. Also you can't fall off stage to a ballad!