Madonna again in studio with Pharrell?

[manoba 699]

I am glad he posted this pick because the amount of feedback he has gotten speaks volumes to the lack of touch he has as a manager. He is not in synch with the fans at all and is only interested in grabbing the youth market...you've lost them. Let them go. Focus on the fans you've had from the beginning.

 

Ditch Oseary. He has brought nothing but nonsense. Isn't he the one who forced U2s album onto everyones phone?

He deleted my comments from Instagram, small mercy seeing as Madonna blocked me years ago. Still haven't gotten over it!

 

Madonna lost a lot of my respect when she did Hard Candy and MDNA, not to mention the newer Bitch... song. Those albums are not worthy of someone like her. At almost 60, it's time to make something exciting and intelligent again.

[mrsciccone 2,145]

Pharrell is the worst collaborator ever and ruined the way she sings IMO her voice was heaven til coadf. Hc is the only album i cannot listen in full. And guy please go away already

[Enrico 15,788]

When she came up with Live to tell, it was really a change after Into the groove. Same for Like a prayer after WTG. But also with Justify my love and Erotica. I hope she will surprise me again.

 

Nevertheless, I think Rebel Heart is a very good album, beautiful melodies and beautiful lyrics, some bad arrangements and bad production. It doesn't deserve to be her worst selling album. And definitely Ghosttown deserved to be a no 1 hit, I wonder if this would have happened if Taylor or Adele sang it.

 

Still I think you have to accept the fact that when you are young you are more open and more creative. Ten years ago, in my thirties, I used to have a lot more energies and musical ideas than I have now. I think it is normal. It's not a matter of ageism, it's just that you are more mature but less influenced by new tendencies. I really can't follow the music as I used to do before, I rely more on the past, I think it happens to everyone and probably to Madonna too.

[mrsciccone 2,145]

Timeless music would be great again. RH was good in parts but too many songs (if 2cds why not rebel and heart lile her intention) and wrong production. Hold tight demo is amazing same goes for joan of arc but the finished ones no way. There was no need to change em like that only cause of the leaks. Other artists songs leak too and they dont do it. Joac reminded me so much on promise to try love both of em. I miss songs like STR album

[Fighter 28,797]

Possibly, though her last few releases are her lowest sellers in her entire career. Rebel Heart is still clinging onto just over a million in sales since it's release, being her lowest selling album in her entire career...and with MDNA not faring much better. I know the RH leaks had their own negative impact upon it all, but the blame cannot really be placed on those solely, it really is down to quality of the final product. Even though released over multiple formats, RH still sold so poorly... that is very sad to see from an artist of her calibre. And I know some will interject with the excuse that "records just don't sell like they used to", and there is a little truth to that, but when we see artists like Adele, Ed Sheeran, Beyonce, Rihanna, et al selling albums by the tens of millions, one must sit back and reassess the situation and see just where an long established artist like Madonna is going wrong. I feel a mature and more genuine artistic direction would have fared a lot better for her. Creating forgettable and throwaway tunes by collaborating with flavour-of-the-moment artists and producers just to attempt to appeal to current trends is not so productive, and this way, she will further alienate her more established fanbase. Madonna is an artist and a trailblazer.... its time for her to return to the fold.

Only Adele of the artists you mentioned sells tens of millions of copies. The others sell a couple million per release...

 

RH sales were shaky especially considering the different versions but honestly there was so much negativity during the making and release Im not surprised, plus many many other factors which are too many to list.

 

RH is full of "mature" and genuine music tbh.

 

I agree that her music should be nongeneric and intelligent but she has always chased new sounds so if her "established fanbase" cant or wont follow along anymore then honestly she shouldnt stop chasing new things, her age shouldnt matter...(for those who mention her age)

[Guest]

The demos of Rebel Heart made the album a classic, because it leaked they panicked and changed everything. Releasing different versions of the album also didn't help. Had to potential to be an instant classic but they lost their momentum in the new social media world of marketing etc

[Headless.Headphones 727]

I will defend Incredible until my death bed and I think he understood who Madonna is with Give It 2 Me, She's Not Me, Candy Shop and Heartbeat. Spanish Lesson is wretched but I just forget it happened. His demos for RH on the other hand retreads and not good but who produced Score? if it was him then don't go back because that is one of the worst things she's ever put to tape!

[Alibaba 1,497]

Possibly, though her last few releases are her lowest sellers in her entire career. Rebel Heart is still clinging onto just over a million in sales since it's release, being her lowest selling album in her entire career...and with MDNA not faring much better. I know the RH leaks had their own negative impact upon it all, but the blame cannot really be placed on those solely, it really is down to quality of the final product. Even though released over multiple formats, RH still sold so poorly... that is very sad to see from an artist of her calibre. And I know some will interject with the excuse that "records just don't sell like they used to", and there is a little truth to that, but when we see artists like Adele, Ed Sheeran, Beyonce, Rihanna, et al selling albums by the tens of millions, one must sit back and reassess the situation and see just where an long established artist like Madonna is going wrong. I feel a mature and more genuine artistic direction would have fared a lot better for her. Creating forgettable and throwaway tunes by collaborating with flavour-of-the-moment artists and producers just to attempt to appeal to current trends is not so productive, and this way, she will further alienate her more established fanbase. Madonna is an artist and a trailblazer.... its time for her to return to the fold.

But you have to take into consideration that no matter what, Madonna's overall sales have dwindled in part because people just don't buy albums anymore the way they did 30 or twenty years ago. The downward curve is in exact correlation with market shrinkage. I personally feel touring and youtube views are currently the only measure of popularity that reflect anything close to accuracy.

 

And while the other artists you mention are big contemporary sellers, two of them haven't been around for that long, and Beyonce and Rihanna don't sell that well internationally. In fact, I am pretty sure Rihanna's albums have consistently underperformed. 

[sidney78a 2,236]

How about No. Enough of Pharrell, please. He has some good sounds but it's really repetitive and gets stale after a while. Daft Punk is still waiting for that call though, imagine how epic it would be to have a all Daft Punk-produced Madonna album. It would be a Confessions 2.0 no doubt

may God listen to this. PLEASE 

[Headless.Headphones 727]

Does anyone know who is confirmed to have done Score for RH?

[Guest ArthurBadin]

I am glad he posted this pick because the amount of feedback he has gotten speaks volumes to the lack of touch he has as a manager. He is not in synch with the fans at all and is only interested in grabbing the youth market...you've lost them. Let them go. Focus on the fans you've had from the beginning.

 

Ditch Oseary. He has brought nothing but nonsense. Isn't he the one who forced U2s album onto everyones phone?

He deleted my comments from Instagram, small mercy seeing as Madonna blocked me years ago. Still haven't gotten over it!

Sometimes truth needs to be told. #PleaseMadonnaFireGuy-O

[Guest ArthurBadin]

When she came up with Live to tell, it was really a change after Into the groove. Same for Like a prayer after WTG. But also with Justify my love and Erotica. I hope she will surprise me again.

 

Nevertheless, I think Rebel Heart is a very good album, beautiful melodies and beautiful lyrics, some bad arrangements and bad production. It doesn't deserve to be her worst selling album. And definitely Ghosttown deserved to be a no 1 hit, I wonder if this would have happened if Taylor or Adele sang it.

 

Still I think you have to accept the fact that when you are young you are more open and more creative. Ten years ago, in my thirties, I used to have a lot more energies and musical ideas than I have now. I think it is normal. It's not a matter of ageism, it's just that you are more mature but less influenced by new tendencies. I really can't follow the music as I used to do before, I rely more on the past, I think it happens to everyone and probably to Madonna too.

Dear @@Enrico ,that was totally Interscope's fault. Warner would push Ghosttown to hell to AC radios around the world (such as the Latin American and European ones), just like they did with STR singles and other ballads of hers (I can still listen to some of them on radio today). Interscope was the worst decision made by Live Nation, not by Madonna. I bet she was begging to left Interscope if she could, hence the reason behind original double-CD feature RH project. And let's not fool ourselves: Rebel Heart was very indeed very disappointing, very antiMadonna. It sold what it was able to do. But of course we can blame it all on mass leaking and frenzy and messy mastering and packaging. After all, too much anticipation on Instagram and that damned 64-or-something folder with RH demos from every stages plus the leak of finalized album three months in advance (even before her Grammy's performance), what could result?

[Enrico 15,788]

@@ArthurBadin Rebel Heart is in my top 3 of Madonna's favourite albums, I think. We can blame many things:

- definitely the leaks

- the ageism, the fact that people who are not young don't get played much on radio (same for Paul McCartney or Springsteen and others, even Bowie before he died)

- Interscope politics: but for this I blame Madonna who made the wrong choice in her record deal with Live Nation!

[Guest ArthurBadin]

@@ArthurBadin Rebel Heart is in my top 3 of Madonna's favourite albums, I think. We can blame many things:

- definitely the leaks

- the ageism, the fact that people who are not young don't get played much on radio (same for Paul McCartney or Springsteen and others, even Bowie before he died)

- Interscope politics: but for this I blame Madonna who made the wrong choice in her record deal with Live Nation!

I know, dear @@Enrico, but Rebel Heart looked really so promising due to the several demos recorded in its sessions. However, the final result (the mastered and finalized songs), well, oh well...

Of course there are amazing songs on the released CD, but even for those their demo versions were better (cannot be said about Ghosttown though for obvious reasons).

Question of ageism: this is a fact, I agree, but many people who listened to the released RH songs considered them as pure refreshes of her golden treasures, i.e, Living for Love (although was praised by many) was accused of being a warm copycat of Like a Prayer, and if that is said about the lead single, about its weakness compared to her past jewels, you can understand that the CD would have a big rejection. So there was a problem: people here and there were complaining about RH being another pale revival of her past exactly after MDNA, with was, believe it or not, more acclaimed than its following. So, we can blame ageism yes, but RH was seen since the beginning was weak and unable to compete with another albums released by the same time. If Madonna surprised the world as usual (well, before 2007), surely the CD wouldn't be played on radios, but would be seen with a better eye.

And Interscope: please, don't blame her for that. She wasn't aware of that deal between Live Nation and Interscope. That was the ruin on her artistic quality pattern (this and Oseary). Madonna never shas signed directly to Iovine's label; it was a deal signed by LN inside the God-damned 360 deal. Interscope has never known what to do with her since she doesn't even belong to their catalogue, but instead the label has only the rights to distribute it and to develop the marketing for it. Of course after the commercial disaster of MDNA (minus the first week sales), Madonna realized for who she has been sending her art to be sell for the audience. She had an idea to release RH as a double-disc featured album just to fullfill quickly her contract. It didn't work, however.

I have a theory about the sale of that big folder of RH demos on the market of M collectors and its following mass leaking, but theories are only theories, without any further comprobation. The fact is with the leak of "Iconic" (the "album"), M felt in despair and saw herself obligated to push hurry/messy the album via iTunes. The rest is history, bad history.

It's pretty evident RH wasn't planned as we listen to it. At the time of leaks, she was yet working on edition and selection of demos to be mastered, hence the half-baked whole album. Probably, for instance, we would have a different tracklist, and a different arrangement for most of the songs. The big rush was the most guilty on it. Releasing all the singles months in advance before the whole album has seen the light of the day, without nothing else to support them, such as MV's or even LV's, and suffering from bad criticism since the very first beginning, all ruined it.

The main problem is: the actual Rebel Heart is the whole of bad decisions from several people, bad luck and bad reputation gained due to the main problem about from who Madonna should be targeted after 30 years of music career. For all those things, it can be faced only as a consolation prize after years of major dissapontments. Rebel Heart cannot compete with Ray of Light, Like a Prayer or even with COADF. If someone sees it as a very good album, it's both due to be a Madonna product (after all, even when she's weak she's better than everyone else) and to be much better than her previous material after 2006.

But for sure, we need no more Interscope and maybe no more Live Nation in her career (no more Oseary would be welcome too), so we have one more year to this sin of a deal expire. Probably this will not end well (most for LN than for Madonna), so next time she will have the record deal she and we need. No more MDNA and Rebel Heart eras please. Even Hard Candy era was extremely successful compared to those two. This is saying too much about Interscope years of M's career.

[Guest ArthurBadin]

And to say a last thing on Rebel Heart (at least from myself): the fact Madonna had failed to name any single credit on physical booklet and chosen to put "2014" as the year of copyright and production of it speaks volumes about her frustration with the whole beginning of the era. Although she said she was very pleased to send to us a product she approved, instead she was very angry and p*ssed off with such experience. Probably we won't see again such a massive anticipation with several title hashtags on the social networks months and months before the final result.

[dance2nite 34]

Does anyone know who is confirmed to have done Score for RH?

Martin Kierszenbaum & Natalia Kills. 

[madgefan 10,137]

Please no more Nickis, Kanyes, or Pharrells... I'm not being racist but Madonna working with them has become annoyingly redundant.

[Fighter 28,797]

Probably we won't see again such a massive anticipation with several title hashtags on the social networks months and months before the final result.

 

 

fingers crossed. the least speculation leading up to a release the better...then it will be received with a cleaner slate

[Headless.Headphones 727]

Martin Kierszenbaum & Natalia Kills. 

 

Not Natalia   I love her as an artist plus she wrote Holy Water, Score is such a messy song.

[theblessedjoker 529]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Madonna, forget this fuckin idea 

 

call to the daft punk, georgio morooder

 

but pharrell no :(

[Headless.Headphones 727]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Madonna, forget this fuckin idea 

 

call to the daft punk, georgio morooder

 

but pharrell no :(

 

[MadMark 117]

They had good chemistry. The songs they did together were very good. They also aged perfectely. Still sound fresh today. The demos they did together for the Rebel Heart Album were also great, better than some stuff that landed on the record. They definately should work together again !

[brank000 2,145]

I don't see how her putting 2014 as a copyright means anything negative. Look at the credits on the Like a Prayer album.. you'll see 1988 repeatedly...

[Guest ArthurBadin]

I don't see how her putting 2014 as a copyright means anything negative. Look at the credits on the Like a Prayer album.. you'll see 1988 repeatedly...

Dear, the question is that LAP songs became full finalized back in 1988, so there was a reason to date the copyright and production of them to that year.

With RH was different: only the first 6 songs (the ones first available on iTunes) were full mastered and mixed till the end of 2014.

The process of ending the other songs was done in the first weeks of 2015 (even if I can't have to prove it there was an improvement in the mastering and mixing of 6 first songs when the following 3 were made available - check the first 6 songs when downloaded in Dec 2014 and then in March 2015).

I understand that there wasn't able time to end the process with the RH songs before 2015.

So, as Tribe posted by the occasion of revealing the RH booklet, M herself demanded the copyright and production of album were dated from 2014 - when we know it wasn't the actual year when it happened. So there could be a reason (and I do believe a negative one) for this intentional "mistake" of hers. Maybe dating them as "2014" would give her a way to solve her Freudian repression as ignoring all work she had to do in 2015 between the iTunes announcement and the leak of finalized album before even her first performance to promote the album and Living for Love.

[luckystar 727]

In many cases she invites people from previous album to work on a new one.

 

But why did she invite Pharrell for RH sessions? It would have made sense if she brought him to MDNA.  What did she expect?

 

He isn't Patrick Leonard, a producer who is able to make timeless music and maybe not fresh, but who cares.

 

 

Madonna herself could have seen that Pharrell had no new ideas when he released his solo stuff.