Angela

I was looking for the Prince/Madonna award clip which I'd seen before but I never realized this part: The AMA's having categories such as "Favorite BLACK single," "Favorite BLACK album" That just sounds so, so, so, so wrong. It's odd people weren't offended about it. Maybe they were. IDK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KZOGPkbNCc

Madonna/Prince "Love Song"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAIWd3Bul5M

ETA:

When did George Michael officially come out of the closet? I remember there being some public bathroom incident not too long ago. Okay, long ago but not that long ago.

Thanks for posting that. It always bears rewatching. It may be my favorite of hers. Such a great song and an amazingly shot video.

It's another terrific song.

I could swear I remembered seeing this video on American TV, but I may be confusing TV and YouTube.

MTV: Top 10 Transformations...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1kbXtQDcx4

Madonna presenting George Michael an award in a very Madonna-like way, heh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaZVQyTOBns

I'm currently reading "Madonna: An Intimate Biography" and the sexual attack references are a lot different than the Wiki one...

"I remember her saying something about it," her longtime friend Erica Bell recalls. "But it wasn't something I felt she wanted to discuss openly. I think it was a date rape, meaning I think she knew the guy. It was someone who betrayed her confidence, her faith. It must have been devestating."

Says another friend - a woman who still knows Madonna today and in whom she often confides - "The date rape was something she never wanted to talk about. But when it did come up, you could tell that she was deeply affected by whatever happened. She cried when she spoke of it, as if she had been traumatized. She said, "I wanted to call my father and tell him about it, maybe go home for a while. But he would have killed me.' I felt that she needed her father at the time, but she was afraid to turn to him. I know she could have used a mother, as well. These were lonely years."

Her former manager Freddy DeMann adds, "I remember a time, long after her first taste of fame, when a girl in one of her audiences was being pushed around by some guys in front, trying to get closer to her [Madonna]. Suddenly, the girl went down, into the crowd. It was as if she was going to get stomped. Then, a couple of guys went down after her, and none of them came up. Madonna was watching the whole thing. She stopped the show, stopped singing, and called security out and told them to help that young girl. 'I know what it's like to feel powerless,' she said from the stage. 'And it doesn't feel good.' I'll never forget that night. I felt that she had great empathy for that girl, and a certain amount of fear, too."

"I don't want to make it an issue," Madonna has said about the rape incident. "I've had what a lot of people would consider to be horrific experiences in my life. But I don't want people to feel sorry for me because I don't...It was devastating at the time but it made me a survivor."

Madonna also has a long, long history of serious flower-hating. When she was a very small child, a 2-year old neighbor went over to her with a daffodil as a sort of "lets be friends" gift. She knocked the poor kids a-- down because she hates daffodils.

Interesting read so far. One thing is evident from every source the author mentions so far, she had A LOT of anger towards her father after he remarried that never really left throughout her childhood into early adulthood. She felt he replaced her mother, and [Madonna] herself. I'm rolling my eyes when he's detailing some stuff though because he doesn't reference a source - such as the FIRST meeting with the president of Argentina concerning Evita. Yet it's as if he's in the room witnessing this all. Well, I think he references a person or two who was at the meeting, but still...

EricM, I think the really good performance in Evita was a several fold thing... I think Madonna plays characters she identifies with or "is" well. For some people Evita was opportunisitic and manipulative, for some she was the ultimate hero. Madonna sort of has that complex, she wants to be or thinks she is a hero but she also is full of this opportunistic and manipulative side in her issues with over-achievement. Then I think some of it was her own mother dying around the same age. I feel like she probably put herself in her mother's shoes. I do agree that Madonna performs well in her videos as opposed to movies which is just odd. I guess she tends to identify with music she helps write more than she does with roles when she actually has to play somebody different than herself.

The Bad Girl SNL performance from 1993 is is great in a subtle way.

Indeed.

In the last decade, I haven't been into Madonna's music as much as I was in the 80s and 90s - so I've been watching some of her 2000s videos. First, is it wrong that I think Revolver is great? LOL, it's very, very conceited (my sex is a killer, do you want to die happy?) but I love the sound of it. Die Another Day, I love the video for this:

I liked the small Latin portion of the Girlie Show tour.....

Thanks for posting. I always end up skipping over most of TGS when I'm looking at old tours on YT. I had only looked at the Rain clip, because it was Rain at the Girlie Show which at that time (and I guess still) I associated with nudity .

Madonna on Nightline discussing (or justifying) Justify My Love. It's hilarious how flattered she becomes anytime he points out that she's a powerful woman. She's pretty annoying here though, she won't give an inch no matter how he comes at her. I had totally forgotten about the Juke Box channel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3yvKGQl6A4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUtMgR6tmwg

I like this interview. In this interview, she finally admits somewhat to desiring shock value at the time of her sex period and it being somewhat wrong that she was just forcing it on people without an alternative idea from her in the picture...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll-Lax1gfrc

Evita was kinda miscast just as it really is a belter's role, which Madonna can't do.

I think Madonna did a really good job in the movie in terms of overall performance, but she's sooo not theater (not to mention she can't belt) as a singer or actor and that's missing in some of the song performances - most evidently DCFMA. In DCFMA it was as if she was just trying so hard to get it right and that was more prominent than feeling the words.

Here's PSB (it's in spanish, but dammmmn, you don't need a translator):

A more appropriate name would be the U.S. Music Hall of Fame. "Rock & Roll" sounds so much cooler though but you definitely don't need to be a rocker to be inducted into this hall of fame.

I think Donna Summers was eligible the year Madonna got in. So they still haven't put her in? She was/is the disco queen. If Pop and Dance go in, Disco should as well.

The rape. I had read about that in Wiki a couple of months ago...

"During a late night, Madonna was returning from a rehearsal, when she was dragged up an alleyway by a pair of men and forced to perform fellatio at knifepoint. Madonna had later commented that "the episode was a taste of my weakness, it showed me that I still could not save myself in spite of all the strong-girl show. I could never forget it."

(Unauthorized) Biographers/Psychiatrists analyzing what made Madonna the person she became (Circa the Wiki profile):

According to Taraborrelli, "Almost certainly, the defining moment of Madonna's childhood—the one that would have the most influence in shaping her into the woman she would become—was the tragic and untimely death of her beloved mother." Psychiatrist Keith Ablow suggests that her mother's death would have had an immeasurable impact on the young Madonna at a time when her personality was still forming. According to Ablow, the younger a child is at the time of a serious loss, the more profound the influence and the longer lasting the impact. He concludes that "some people never reconcile themselves to such a loss at an early age, Madonna is not different than them." Conversely, author Lucy O'Brien feels that the impact of the rape is, in fact, the motivating factor behind everything Madonna has done, more important even than the death of her mother: "It's not so much grief at her mother's death that drives her, as the sense of abandonment that left her unprotected. She encountered her own worst possible scenario, becoming a victim of male violence, and thereafter turned that full-tilt into her work, reversing the equation at every opportunity."

As they grew older, Madonna and her sisters would feel deep sadness as the vivid memory of their mother began drifting, farther from them. They would study pictures of her and come to think that she resembled poet Anne Sexton and Hollywood actresses. This would later raise Madonna's interest in poetry with Sylvia Plath being her favourite. Later, Madonna commented: "We were all wounded in one way or another by [her death], and then we spent the rest of our lives reacting to it or dealing with it or trying to turn into something else. The anguish of losing my mom left me with a certain kind of loneliness and an incredible longing for something. If I hadn't had that emptiness, I wouldn't have been so driven. Her death had a lot to do with me saying—after I got over my heartache—I'm going to be really strong if I can't have my mother. I'm going to take care of myself." Taraborrelli felt that in time, no doubt because of the devastation she felt, Madonna would never again allow herself, or even her daughter, to feel as abandoned as she had felt when her mother died. "Her death had taught [Madonna] a valuable lesson, that she would have to remain strong for herself because, she feared weakness—particularly her own—and wanted to be the queen of her own castle."

That is one beautiful song and she does a great job with it.

Hall of Fame inductions...

U.K. Music Hall of Fame Induction in 2004 (Founding member. And she's doing the horrible British accent here that she caught, haha)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P_yAbHiuB8

U.S. R&R Hall of Fame Induction (Inducted on first eligible year, 2008):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7NNv215FK8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiTwqjefrUw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enA4OUzR2XM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZMdCRqQ3aQ

If Julie makes a new movie, she must not leave out the flower incident. I had only heard about the incident in passing (in one of the articles cheering the SB performance), but YouTube keeps us all up to date...

The "fan" is a reporter from some country...

Madonna officially apologizes (kind of)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qlXMA0v-WA

I was just reading Carl's Wiki link on this. Julie on Madonna's reaction (warm, half-finished wine aside... I hope Julie is kidding about drinking it, Madonna probably drank the bottle and then pissed in it before having it mailed out. I would have, lol):

"At first I heard she really liked it. Then I heard she didn't like the scene where I rolled around on my dog's grave. She'd rolled around on her mother's — like that wasn't offensive enough? Then she didn't like the scene with the dancers suing me, because that really happened to her."

Carl, no idea. But it looks like she's up for more. I got to look up how Julie looks these days, it's been ages since I've seen her anywhere.

Weird Al's 1985 "Like a Surgeon" (I've heard Her Madgesty came up with the title and off and onwards the project went)...

Julie Brown doing "Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful." If you're under 14 ... uhm if you're under 21 DO NOT watch this.

"You should have done a volcano check!!!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYz8aXrzcPU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uJtG_DpPeE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNa_BPPE1wk

Part 4-6 is on YouTube...

The audio is pretty bad in this clip and makes her voice sound extra thin, but here it is:

I posted the studio version back a couple of pages in here. It's a beautiful song.

According to Brown, she drank the bottle.

Julie Brown was indeed the best non-Madonna eva, lol. It's been so long since I've heard her name.

but now I watch it and think Madonna was really cruel to her friends and completely to get "good video...

I still like the documentary, but indeed...

This is a completely personal take and deals with things I've had a lot of (maybe too much) therapy about, but I do think it's about sexual abuse, and I think Madonna was abused--partly in the ways she's "acted out" and some of her lyrical content.

I don't disagree. I do think she must have had some really fundamental issues with the men in her life, those close and those she didn't know (the assault she says happened). It's the same way I would feel about a man if he was being a little too volatile or too contolling towards women in his work too. It's very much "I will never be dominated by a man."

I do think like with a lot of her videos, she leaves it a bit ambig for the viewer to take their own message.

As a child for me, my first thought was sexual abuse when watching this video. Either by the father or from a father in the church. In terms of sexual abuse, I thought the mothers lip sewn together was a way of showing her silenced about the abuse. Then, for me, it became about a total screw-up of a father and its effect on the children. Me and my sister discussed the video years later and were like "that's the song of our childhood." It's just later on I learned Madonna and her older brother got to see their mother in her coffin and her mouth was sewn like that so my initial interps changed and I began seeing it differently, more from the father/daughter strained relationship dynamics.

and I also love Madonna's version of Don't Cry for Me Argentina...the original version and the upbeat Miami version.

I didn't love Madonna's studio version of DCFMA. It's really been done better. For me, this Spanish woman - Paloma San Basilio - sings it best. (Yes better than PL). I loved the remix though. I also loved Madonna's talking-singing performance of it in the movie. I think her performance of it here has the passion in it that it lacks in the actual released single and video.

The imagery in Oh Father, just damn... The mother in the coffin with the mouth sealed. I initially thought it was about spousal and/or sexual abuse. Then I thought maybe it's about the church. But over time realized it's her very autobiographical interpretation of her childhood thru Sean Penn. She doesn't feel her father abused her, but that he changed while her mother was dying and after she died, that pushed her away, and some of that allowed herself to open herself to being abused. In the end though she forgives her father. Great stuff.

The switch from the father being "abusive" to the husband slapping her, perfect in terms of the chain of abuse.

Toy Soldiers, another oldie but goodie. The singing public doesn't make music like pre-1995 anymore. They really don't.

The bridge between Oh Father and Dear Jessie (which was released in Europe) was epic on the album.

Such a contrast between the two songs and that bridge just highlights the irony.

Dear Jessie was so unusual for her too, and so different from most of this album. I think it's a great happy song.

DeMann was one of the best managers in the music industry ever.

No question.

I've read up on FD/Madonna/Michael. She tracked him down when she was coming up and got him away from Michael Jackson.

from Like A Virgin until Evita

Evita still makes me cry. I remember getting it on video tape as soon as it went to video, lol. WTF whipped her into this acting condition? She should have kept their name. Antonio was great, great in the second clip here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC-l9aluDKw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWkI0zhM6TE

Oh Father will always be a highlight for me, and the David Fincher directed video is a masterpiece.

Though the song wasn't really commercial and broke her string of top 10 singles when it peaked at #20.

Word to the father, Oh Father was my favorite on that album. The song was epic. The video is epic. I think it was probably too heavy for some. It was commercial in sound, but it's so heavy in topic...

ETA: Give me a minute, I'll find one that embeds. Or not. Well, just follow Y&R's link.

Til Death Do Us Part was another heavy but good one. This was definitely less commercial than Oh Father. I strongly related to this whole album due to my home life when I was a child.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEEE0Tl1JX0

Sooner or Later won the Oscar for Best Original Song, and she perofmed it that night. Michael Jackson was her date to the Oscar's that year, lol.

Man, I'm just imaging poor Michael with her. He's so different (innocent) and she's so different (not innocent). I'm sure he initially liked the idea (he married Elvis' daughter after all), but...

I know he trash talked her a little after they're brief "dating" period because he felt she was trash talking him in the press. He was being kind of sexist and said she's jealous because she can't be a man and will therefore never have fans fainting for her like he does. On the dates, he said she told him straight out that they were not going to go to Disneyland or any s--t like that, lol. The she tried to take him to bar with cross-dressing people. I think she probably just wanted him to embrace his sexuality and grown up side whatever came with that.

I think you're spot on about LAP--I just wish she had realized to leave that Prince song off of it--awful, awful.

I don't hate the song. Even the worst songs on LAP are pretty decent. I do think that Madonna and Prince could have done something epic and did something meh instead.

Another Tour performance I really enjoyed, from Confessions. I think this was after she injured her spine after a horse riding accident. The symbolism of getting back on the saddle is great and her showing her x-rays amuses me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07DBz9ZUGcA

It's so cute in a Madonna type of way. She's so super hyped she sang it so well w/o a back up track that she kicks the chair, high fives her girls and grabs her crotch (like a man) in self-congrats.

I love this Tour performance of Rain (The Girlie Show Tour). She's simply sitting down and singing with passion...

For me,

I think LAP was the most important of her career. I think LAP solidified has as more than a passing pop princess. If she hadn't put that stamp on it with the Blonde Ambition Tour on top (that Like a Virgin, Like a Prayer, Live to Tell/Oh Father, Papa Don't Preach section? Damnnn, amazing, quite simple in a lot of ways but just made of awesome), I think she might have fallen under the radar.

ROL, second. If LAP was the "You Have To Take Me Seriously" album, ROL became, the "Seriously, You Have To Take Me Seriously" album. It's almost 10 years after her best original material (and over 15 years from her debut on the scene) and there she comes out with a great selling, highly critically acclaimed and respected record.

And as to Lady Gaga....I am so over her. I used to like her music especially her first big hit but now its just meh.

I'm not in love with Gaga myself anymore but one can't deny she was on the radio ALL THE TIME during the past 2 or so years (and I did enjoy the music for the most part during that time).

Ray of Light was Madonna's best selling album since Like a Prayer. I'm not counting the IC as it was the Greatest Hits and not so much a new outing. Not all the songs are commercial in this album (ROL) but I think most of them are quite beautiful in their own right.

I am not sure how well it sold though.

These are the worldwide estimates I've found compiled for Madonna's albums...

http://www.vanityedge.com/forum/

The Immaculate Collection: 28.6

True Blue: 23.5

Like A Virgin: 21.6

Ray of Light: 15.3

Like a Prayer: 14.1 <-- that surprises me, it was such a good album. It's good sales, but in my head that's a 20 million + album

Music: 10.4

Something to Remember: 9.8

Madonna: 9.6

Confessions on a Dancefloor 8.3

Bedtime Stories: 7.4

I'm Breathless 7.1

Erotica 6.8

Evita 6.6

Greatest Hits Volume Two 5.5

You Can Dance 5.3

Who's That Girl 5.2

American Life 3.8

Hard Candy 3.6

Lady Gaga has 12 #1 hits on the Dance Charts and 3 #1's on the Hot 100. Stats like that is why I still give it credibility, gays aside. I feel like Lady Gaga has had closer to 10 major hits from listening to the radio over the past two years, not barely 5. It surprised me when I realized just how much Rihanna and Katy Perry are trouncing her in terms of Hot 100.

Katy Perry and Rihanna success in particular surprises me. I enjoy most of their songs, but still... Rihanna needs two more #1 Hot 100 singles to tie Madonna, and 8 more to take over Mariah which is very, very doable at her age. It's not a question, Rihanna is so going to join Michael Jackson, Elvis, The Beatles, Madonna and Mariah Carey in those record books in terms of Hot 100 singles success at least in the US. It just feels weird to note that.

The digital age has made it a bit easier to rack it up. You just have to connect a wire and press a button. Gaga, Perry, and Rihanna are the first fully digital age artists. The downfall of the digital age for all artists is it has really decreased album sales, everybody is just downloading whatever single they like and screw the album.

The Kylie polorization is interesting. I think it's more a reflection on the fact that Europe/Asia has always accepted dance music as mainstream in a way that the US hasn't ever since the disco sucks era. Kylie's early success too was based on the fact she was an Aussie soap star whose show was insanely popular in the UK, and that she was produced/written by Stock Aitken Waterman a team who had insane success in Europe during the late 80s, yet barely made a dent in the American music base (their biggest successes were probably Bananarama and Rick Astley in the US and their Donna Summer album).

Has Kylie sold well in the Asian markets? I know Japanese market in particular is not easy to crack too hard. Mariah Carey is the top selling American artist there ever and she's way down on the list of their top-selling artists.

---

Ray of Light really was Madonna's best album since Like a Prayer. If not her best album overall. I just recently discovered this song for myself and I love it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaInSMPLLFM

I *u***d Up (it's a bad word, yes, but she kind of make it sounds sweet in this song)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkgEJPSWRZY

Still surfing through YouTube..

Most Memorable MTV Video Music Award Performances. They'll be posted in chronological order:

1984: Like a Virgin. The First Major Performance on Television.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFiwFKDyp8A

1989: Express Yourself. Doing It Live and Kickin' Its Butt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pehMBaHgpWE

1990: Vogue. She Brings Performance Art to the VMA's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTaXtWWR16A

2003: Like a Virgin/Hollywood: "The 20th Anniversary" Performance (I do question if Madonna has the literal kiss of career death. Curses her younger rivals with her lips. I'm thinking of Britney barely being able to stand straight during her comeback VMA performance 3-4 years later.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJoCcs_rDtQ

ETA:

Courtney Love was already doped half out of her mind here, but oddly enough Madonna chooses to lay a kiss and not a bitch slap on her before leaving. The kiss of career death?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBTl611c9fs

Back. None of those songs sound familiar to me, but she does have a nice pop-dance friendly voice.

I'm reading up on Kylie on Wiki. Has there ever been such a border issue in pop music between the U.S. (she's relatively unknown) and the rest of the world (she rivals Madonna in popularity)? The very, very slight problem for Kylie here is the U.S.'s large chunk of the music buying market.

And to make this Madonna related, just found this on YouTube. This is a song Madonna wrote and gave to Kylie...

I'm not referring to that song in particular.

Junior's unofficially remixed Madonna's songs, without her or Warner authorizing him to do so. That's part of the reason she and him haven't been able to repair their relationship.

But do you really think they would have been able to repair it after the song IF he just didn't do the remixes (and/or asked to do them)? Or did the remixing issues start even before "If Madonna Calls"?

Soapsuds, the poster disallowed embedding Did she have any other release in the U.S. that came close to the two I mentioned? I SHould Be So Lucky is one? I remember the two I mentioned well (Can't Get You Out Of My Mind went on and on and on ON the dance music stations), any other I'd have to hear to jog my memory.

ETA:

My lazy ass went to YouTube, no - I don't have any memory of it. In the 80s it was Madonna, Michael, Prince, Whitney, George, Cyndi, Annie, Boy George, Paula and Bonnie for me.

Locomotion I do remember.

since he wasn't commissioned to do so.

No commission because of his very public response to her party cancellation.

Eric, you're dismissing the list "because even [your] Kylie can chart?" Hee, tough love Kylie's only had a little over a handful of #1's (DCP) in her 25 year career despite being able to consistently chart in dance.

I wouldn't dismiss the list for two reasons, one, because that Top 10 All-Time is filled with some of pop, dance and disco's biggest names ever. Though to your point there's one chick there that I have never heard of but I barely know who Kylie Minogue is either except for that song from the 80s (Locamotion) and that other one (Can't Get You Out of My Mind). And, two, some very popular singers have had minimal success in the Hot 100 and much success on the various Dance charts and vice versa (much success in Hot 100 and little love in Dance).

Billboard's Statement on #41: http://www.billboard...006488352.story