Y&RWorldTurner

The thing about the American Life album to me was that it didn't know what it wanted to be. Was it supposed to be a commentary on then current political situations? Was it supposed to be a commentary about Madonna's personal life and her battle with fame? Was it supposed to be a fun dance-pop album? Was it supposed to showcase her then profound interest in acoustic guitar-driven music? What the hell was that album supposed to be? There's a few standouts on the album, but as an overall album, it just doesn't work for me. It just doesn't flow well. It seemed to be an introspective effort, but when you compare it to her critically acclaimed darlings, Like A Prayer and Ray of Light, which are her most introspective and humanly raw efforts, it doesn't stack up either. Confessions was a great return to Madonna's dance roots, and showed she was still capable of putting out a cohesive and inspsired effort. But it will be very dated production-wise in a few years, if it isn't already. That's the thing about doing dance music, it constantly evolves and things get dated fast, even if the music itself is still very good.

Gaga's starting to remind of Mariah Carey's delusionalness and that "lost little girl thing." It seems like Carey, she can't stop pointing out how many #1 singles she has in North America, and she wants to claim she has 6 US #1's, when she only has 2. The rest were #1's in the Dance/Club airplay chart, a chart where not surprisingly Madonna still dominated and has a whopping 40 #1 singles on. In other words, a pretty useless chart. And let's not forget Gaga's pet name for her fans - "The Little Monsters." which is similar to how Carey labeled her fans "The Lambs." I think she started off that way in 2008/early 2009, but by the latter part of 2009, it seemed like she got lost in her own hype and became the exact thing she spoke out against and parodied.

I don't think he has writing credit on Devil, but he did recently score her latest documentary about Malawi, so they're still friends at least. Yes, Patrick has always been best with Madonna. I think during Hard Candy, she stopped trying to get the best out of her collaborators, and just went with the flow, which turned out disastrous.

Do you mean it peaked in the top 10? It did peak at #4. I have the list of the best selling albums in the UK in 2008, and X isn't in the top 10. In fact is was the #100 best selling album of the year in 2008 in the UK. 2008 UK Best Selling Albums 1 Rockferry - Duffy * 1,684,944 2 The Circus - Take That * 1,446,135 3 Only by the Night - Kings of Leon * 1,181,641 4 Spirit - Leona Lewis * 1,108,369 5 Viva la Vida or Death and all his Friends - Coldplay 1,089,000 6 Good Girl Gone Bad - Rihanna 819,000 7 Day & Age - The Killers 693,000 8 Out of Control - Girls Aloud * 591,786 9 Funhouse - Pink * 587,983 10 Scouting for Girls - Scouting for Girls 575,000 The 2007 List: 01. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black 02. Leona Lewis, Spirit 03. Mika: Life in Cartoon Motion 04. Take That, Beautiful World 05. Westlife, Back Home 06. Eagles, Long Road Out of Eden 07. Kaiser Chiefs, Yours Truly Angry Mob 08. Arctic Monkeys, Favourite Worst Nightmares 09. Timbaland, Shock Value 10. Rihanna: Good Girl Gone Bad I think Stuart Price is a pretty unimaginative producer. His still is soo 2004-2005. But I am excited to see how well his work with Kylie turns out. At their age, they better be.

I assumed you meant you want her to do dance music with more string instrumentation? She hasn't even started working on her next album yet, though she was supposedly compiling stuff with David Guetta. Though, who knows if that will make the cut on the album, when it ever gets released. Madonna's known to change direction a lot prior to releasing an album. I almost feel like the next album is important in reconnecting to her core audience audience again, many of which (myself included) were alienated by Hard Candy.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1633818/20100312/lady_gaga.jhtml

In think her acoustic guitar phase is over. She incorporates it time to time on tour, but it hasn't been in any of her albums since American Life. All her albums have been dance oriented though, even if their influences came from different places. To keep things slightly on topic, here's Akerland with Madonna accepting the Best Director VMA with Madonna at the 1998 MTV VMA Awards, 1:03 in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siFUSq75Ons

She is a dance-pop artist, her roots have always been in dance music. But I want something lyrically mature again. I think her best collaborator was Patrick Leonard. They always brought out the best in one another. It's a shame the last time they worked together was writing songs for Ray of Light. Patrick Leonard and Madonna just worked so well off one another. I really wish she'd work with him again, even if it's just co-writing songs with him again and not production.

At this point, I think Madonna just needs to concentrate in making good dance music, and sometimes with her a serious undertone. She did start off in the New York club scene, her roots have always been in dance music, even as she's experimented a lot. Because of her age primarily, her commercial heyday is over. Now she just needs to do the type of music her target audience and core audience expects from her. I think Kylie too just needs to target the audience she has and stick with it. Though, commercially, it did seem like Fever was a bit of a fluke for her. The albums and singles since haven't generated much success for her in the UK or Aus.

Here's the funny thing, The Power of Goodbye was shot on the same beach where she shot the video for Cherish (Herb Ritts FIRST music video as director).

Fincher is a fabulous director, and I'm not surprised he's made it in Hollywood. And he's still very much proud of his music video roots. Add me to the list that hopes she works with him again before she dies. LOL!

As much as I loved that era, the Ray of Light era was the beginning of Madonna taking herself too seriously and losing her sense of humour a bit. Though, as I mentioned before, she seems to be going though a rejuvenation process again and seems lively for the first time in ages again. Hopefully, it translates well into the music... But comparing the interviews and self-promotion of Madonna and Gaga earlier on in their careers, and there's a striking difference and memorable way that Madonna presented herself, which Gaga just doesn't have and just can't communicate the image she wants to communicate.

I LOVED the Drowned World/Substitute For Love video too. You, know, I heard Madonna HATED how The Power of Goodbye turned out. She thought she looked too pretty for the video and it was more like a hair commercial, she wanted to look more miserable. Though, Matthew Rolston directed it, and he was of course a renown fashion photographer and did a lot of commercial work. I loved that video too, though.

I don't get the big deal about the Frozen video, it's nice and the cinematography is great, but she has better. As Eric and I discussed a few months ago, David Fincher really directed some of her best videos. In fact, I would say her best video work was with him.

Tell that to the record companies who don't spend much on music video promotion anymore. If you look at the albums that are selling these days, and the recording industry is SUFFERING, very little is invested into music videos for these artists. They just aren't profitable anymore, hence why Gaga had to use all the product placement to pay for this video.

Madonna's entire career was based of of taking underground trends and bringing them to the mainstream. But unlike Gaga, Madonna has a more captivating personality and brashness, she was fierce and backed a lot of her image up. It's partly the image thing where Gaga fails miserably at, and where Madonna succeeded earlier on with. Compare the way Madonna presented herself in interviews and the way she promoted herself earlier on in her career to Gaga, there's just something, as that hack MAB said, that "popped" about Madonna. Gaga by contrast doesn't have that much personality or spunk.She's pretty much dead weight in her interviews and self-promotion.

Yes, William Orbit's production is VERY mid/late 90's. Though, I do think Ray of Light was the most important album in her career. It kind of proved she still had some relevancy after the 4 year break since Bedtime Story, and proved she could do another mature and soulful effort since Like A Prayer. Erotica is a sleeping pill for me, you're right it's too long of an album. I think In This Life is one of the worst filler songs she's ever included on an album. Yeah, I thought that was all very calculated by her. After the media backlash of the SEX/Erotica era, she almost had to show a softer side of herself following it.

Yes, it was Madonna who got his name out there. Apparently she saw the Smack My Bitch Up video Akerland directed for Prodigy and she just had to work with him for the Ray of Light video, which was, of course a massive critical success for her. Hard Candy was arguably her worst album. It felt like she was a featured artist on her own record. That type of Urban production just doesn't mesh with her. Either she did that album to be hip in modern times, or Warner wanted it to conclude her contract with them.

Do you get that from Mariah? To be fair, Madonna probably hasn't done that kind of an album since Ray of Light, and if we're want to dig deeper, since 1989's Like A Prayer (my personal favourite Madonna album, actually).

I think her last great video era was Ray of Light, though I did love the What It Feels Like For A Girl video. And of course, Jonas Åkerlund directed the Ray of Light video... But she used to be at the forefront of the music video, but I think she stopped caring about them as she got older and started focusing more on touring, where the actual money is. We also have to keep in mind, record companies stopped wasting money on music videos long ago. They realized they weren't getting anywhere or reaching the same type of audience they used to with them. I think the product placement in this Telephone video, for example, helped Gaga to cover the massive production costs this video entails. I know it all didn't come from Interscope or Universal Music... From a budgeting standpoint, they're right. Why waste all this money on a videos, when you can strictly promote a song for radio, and it will be a massive hit? After all, particularly in North America, if you don't have radio support, you can't have a successful pop career.

I won't deny the importance of YouTube, but the music video has been dwindling in importance even before YouTube came along. MTV, for example, moved away from music videos in the late 90's, and they simply stopped being the promotional tool they were in the 80's to mid 90's. I don't think Gaga's music videos had that much to do with her popularity. There's NOTHING interesting about the Just Dance and Poker Face videos, they're pretty generic videos, but yet, those were her breakout songs. I certainly can't claim there was any substantial buzz about those videos.

Her tours always sell out, and she's the most successful solo touring act, despite how overpriced her tickets are and the state of the economy. There's a nostalgia interest there, one that many of her contemporaries and people who started in the mid 80's don't have today, or at least on her scale. She's always been a huge bitch though. I think she's mellowed, if anything, in recent years. Since her divorce, I think she's been a lot more fun. I thought she always looked miserable and unhappy during the Guy Ritchie era. Funny that she's mentioned in this thread when she too worked with Jonas Åkerlund...

The music video is dead. MTV doesn't play them anymore, and they're no longer an important marketing tool in the music industry. It's not the 80's and 90's anymore. It's all about getting radio airplay if you want exposure. In a way, things reverted back to radio when it came to making it in the music industry, but radio importance never really went away anyway. Music videos as an important marketing tool ended about 10 years ago.

Thanks for posting that, dannigold. That was a very insightful interview into how things function on the EastEnders writing team.

Zsa Zsa Carter is an awful creation and I can't stand the actress who plays her. I've got to say though, I really like Peter, and I like Lauren too. I liked those two together and I think the young actors in those roles are pretty good.