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I always thought the noise at the beginning of Ghosttown was intentional, because it's too evident, even for a non-expert. Really unprofessional also for an amateur recording! Sounds like an old cassette tape! I akways wondered if it was intended as a symbol, like a leftover after the apocalypse...

His posts and his thread have been removed and he's been banned permanently. Not remotely ok to make sexual jokes about someone who JUST turned 18. Creep.

Please Help! Which Confessions pin should be the next?

If people are counting down to when someone will be legal then that means they're already looking at minors as sexually attractive. Of all things out there to sexualize, people are looking at minors? This reminds me when Madonna fans were making sexual comments about Rocco on Madonna's instagram account from the time he was 13. To be making comments like that on the very first day of his legality just shows creeps just couldn't help themselves. Liam asked members to keep this thread respectful and I just knew someone had to come up with some way to ruin it. It was inevitable. The banned user made a thread about his nudes leaking which is just the worst type of edgy useless trolling. There's absolutely nothing respectful about making sexual comments on someone's 18th birthday.

Also here is a pic of Madonna in the recording studio with Jellybean from the March 1984 issue of Star Hits (so taken at least a month or so before). So possibly this was during the production for the Vision Quest songs, but may have also been for the single remixes he did for Lucky Star and Borderline or both.

tru. or candy shop. MY SUGAR IS WHAT LOURDES?????

u mean spanish lession

she has an extra one where she puts her kids if they listen to anything that isn't La Isla Bonita

wasnt it melted to manufacture mdna skin?

*gets inside the CT disco ball in her garage and never comes out*

Why haven't you branded your own Rosé?

Why didn't make a Rescue me official music video? And why didn't perform Rescue me at your tours? Do you really hate Rescue me? And why?

Hope you've seen the outtakes..

SAME. The most gorgeous man she was ever involved with.

I agree with you, the mixing/mastering process was rushed probably because of the leaks and there are many many many mistakes in the production. Living For Love having horrible differences of vocal takes between the 2 verses (You've broken my heart - as you said), the 'Up' reverb cut on the 2nd breakdown, Devil Pray having different vocals bounced together in the 'But if you wanna save your soul, then we should/could travel all together" etc etc. I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing (I produce too so I notice literally every single mistake, and that's a problem). I use the leaked Living For Love-revised (used for the music video) and a re-mastered Bitch I'm Madonna without the wrong vocal cut intro instead of the regular album versions

There's messy editing on Unapologetic Bitch as well. But if I remember correctly, she said Diplo had lost quite a lot of the multitracks of her stuff so maybe that's why they couldn't even salvage proper edits.

Just read some of your posts and I like you so the idea of you being insufferable is cancelled but you could ask friendlier hypothetical questions

Brings me to my favourite moment in movie trailer history... ”what the heck are you talking about.... GET UP ON THE DANCEFLOOR!” hbd mister!

Happy 18th Birthday Rocco! I can't believe how fast he grew up. I'm glad he and Madonna are close again and you can see how much he loves her.

This tour is one of her best. The remixes were wonderful for the most part and it was quite refreshing after TGS and DWT. However, I think this tour could do with some changes, I believe: The Beast Within - Intro Vogue Nobody Knows Me Nothing Really Matters - this deserved a fucking live performance SO SO much. War Intro / American Life Swim - makes more sense thematically than Frozen and also bridges the gap between American Life's anti-war message and the positive message of Love Profusion Love Profusion (Headcleanr Remix) Burning Up I’m So Stupid - this one was a MUST. Material Girl was lame. Hollywood Intro / Hollywood - keep the interlude as intro but a full performance of this song was needed. Deeper and Deeper Take a Bow - It's a shame this has never been included on any of her tours. It was planned for RIT but scrapped in the end. Truly a shame. I think a jazzy rendition of this would have been awesome! Die Another Day Lament Bedtime Story - Interlude Nothing Fails Like a Prayer Mother and Father Papa Don’t Preach - This would have made more sense here and could have made this section a tad more interesting. Intervention - To close it all off, gives this song the amazing performance it deserved. Susan MacLeod - Intro / Into the Groove Express Yourself - Why was this version so LAME? Drop the Shep Pettibone Mix. This should have been a drum-heavy performance in Scots kilts YAS! Crazy for You Holiday Music

I disagree with you because I think she looked fantastic with that simple look. Sometimes less is better... Just look at the S&S incarnation of LAP which in my opinion was a total disaster.

‘Messiah’ absolutely. My favorite track on the album. It is so romantic and haunting.

Messiah by far

But I am a gold star one. ? Just kidding of course, that’s a matter of taste. I didn’t forget it, I proudly left it out to make “the album”. ?

I don't think she'd be opposed to it honestly. The thing is a lot of music channels have gone almost extinct or been taken over completely by reality shows and everything else. MTV especially. I think she's shown more fondness towards looking back (Howard Stern, RHT, TOAC) so I guess if the event called for musical performances and with a person she can vibe with a lot, (Molly Meldrum, Howard Stern, Jonathan Ross) I'm sure she'd let down her guard but I'd expect a lot of information to be incorrect with dates as it would with anyone. She's lived such an adventurous life. It'd be like trying to explain the Young and The Restless to someone from the very first episode to now.

Ooh I almost forgot about that one. I like it too but wouldn't consider it as part of the official tracklisting of something that's supposed to include the best of. Lyrics are ok til she rehashes the fuzzy dream thing (yuck!) and the production is literally Celebration Part 2. Obviously redundant. I wish Celebration was the only new song in the compilation so maybe the slot occupied by Revolver was filled with a more timeless but often ignored classic.

I think the Celebration tracks are definitely not better. I believe that Madonna's awareness of the EDM scene got stuck around 2010-2011 as MDNA's opening track and second single Girl Gone Wild sounded extremely tired and unoriginal by the time it was released, and in that sense I don't think any of those productions are higher quality than some previous works. Oakenfold's production in the Celebration track is fine to me but no more than that. His work on It's So Cool has never left me a good impression either and I understand why it was only a bonus track on the digital platforms and destined to be lost and forgotten. In my opinion, Revolver was never a sonically decent track: bad vocals, bad lyrics, bad mixing, bad everything. Did anybody have anything better to offer her at that time? It looked like the beginning of the era when she would only get the leftovers from other top producers... On a positive note, I think the MDNA album really offers some good stuff here and there like most of the Orbit productions and 20% of the Solveig tracks. Otherwise the rest feels like real fillers.

Sure she and her directors have used imagery from photographers/films/Etc on her videos because she's ... a pop artist. Referencing is kind of something in pop art. She's often talked about her inspirations, but I doubt she would've denied inspiration if she had been asked about something in particular The ROL video is just sped up footage, hardly something groundbreaking that someone suddenly invented. Madonna has never copied something and then denied it or gotten offended by an accusation. Pop stans trying to accuse Madonna of copying with the weakest receipts is tired.

Are we still at this? Isn't Gaga over or something? And importantly, who needs this war again? Also, Madonna has famously 'copied' numerous things in her work. Example, the Hollywood video was taken to court for plagiarism to photographer Guy Bourdin and Ray of Light to a music video by Italian singer Biagio Antonacci - in neither case had Madonna publicly credited the original sources, even though the similarity is obvious. Check these out. Facts. I love Madonna but - like many people in the industry - she appropriates other people's work and shuts their mouth by paying them up. Her ability to recognise what works is good and we love her for that.

I could've sworn I opened a thread about Vision Quest... Where did it go?

the only question that matters to be honest.

Celebration came out before the Spotify boom, but you're right, "best of" releases will be more and more rare since it's so easy for everyone and for every artist to curate a playlist with favorite songs and greatest hits.

Why didn't you include LDLHA in RHT dvd? Why didn't you include American life original video in Celebration? What happened to Hold Tight with the drums in RHT?

OUT 'Cherish' IN 'Rain'

That's on the DVD! I also forgot to say that the version of Santa Baby that it includes was recently recorded while she was wearing her grills

Don't forget the Candy Shop official music video filmed in her bathroom. What we've waited a decade for.

I'd cut everything and turn this into a Santa Baby remix album with this tracklist: 01. Santa Baby 02. Santa Baby (feat. Nicki Minaj & Diplo) 03. Santa Baby (Trap Remix To Annoy Some Fans) 04. Santa Baby (Spanish Remix feat. Luis Fonsi) 05. Santa Baby (Mambo Remix) 06. Santa Baby (Sung by Stella and Esther) 07. 15-minute-long conversation between Madonna's assistant, Stella and Esther 08. Home recording of Madonna complaining about the new Instagram update 09. Your Honesty

Yeah MTV wanted Lucky Star but M wanted to sing a new song, "Like a Virgin," to a full-grown, white Bengal tiger. The big cat was nixed. Instead, she decided to emerge from a 17-foot tall wedding cake and sing the song in a white wedding dress, a bustier and a BOY TOY belt buckle -- a classic Madonna mixed message. But as she descended, one of her white stilettos slipped off. "So I thought, 'Well, I'll just pretend I meant to do this,' and I dove on the floor and I rolled around," she later said. "And, as I reached for the shoe, the dress went up. And the underpants were showing." MTV viewers were treated to a full display of what Madonna was wearing under the dress and she stole the show." The rest is history!

It is very simple distinguish from hommage and plagiarism. Hommage is do not afraid to tell to people what is inspiration. When Madonna hommage Marilyn Monroe look from flim gentlemen prefer blond. She clearly said that her Material Girl Music video look inspired from that movie and Marilyn Monroe look at a lot of interviews. That's the hommage. But copycat always afraid to tell what is real inspiration to people. For example People all knew that that copy cat song which very reductive copied Madonna's song and it copy Madonna's looks but it tell to the people it inspired from Whitney houston. LOL That's the we can call copycat and copied.

Thank goodness she went with LAV.

THIS. I LOVE AL. [Damn, i look quite younger in there LOL, i think i took it in 2013 marking AL's 10 anniversary...]

Which are more annoying, fan questions or press questions?

‘Holiday’ - The first hit ‘Like a Virgin’ - The first controversial song & the first US #1 ‘Material Girl’ - The nickname ‘Into the Groove’ - The first UK #1 ‘Live to Tell’ - The first single off her more mature era ‘La Isla Bonita’ - One of her most signature songs ‘Like a Prayer’ - One of the best songs ever recorded & one of the most controversial videos ‘Express Yourself’ - The ultimate “girl power†song ‘Vogue’ - Again one of the most signature songs, so iconic ‘Justify My Love’ - The beginning of the “sex†era ‘Rain’ - My favorite 😛😛 ‘Take a Bow’ - Her biggest ballad in the US ‘Frozen’ - The herald of the “new†Madonna and again one of the best songs ever recorded ‘Music’ - One of her biggest singles, the single that made her one of the few artists who scored #1 singles in three decades in a row in the US, her latest US #1 single ‘American Life’ - One of her most controversial singles ‘Hung Up’ - Her most successful single and the manifestation of her comeback ‘4 Minutes’ - Her latest UK #1 single ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ - The shittiest single ever

Borderline Like a Virgin Crazy for You Into the Groove Live to Tell Papa Don't Preach Open Your Heart Who's That Girl Like a Prayer Express Yourself Vogue Justify My Love This Used to Be My Playground Take a Bow Frozen Ray of Light Beautiful Stranger Music Hung Up 4 Minutes

Dear Madonna, do you remember I Can't Forget or did you forget I'll Remember?

I'd ask her how she manages to stay strong through everything

Legacy Critical Acclaim · Entertainment Weekly's Nicholas Fonseca felt that Like a Prayer marked "an official turning point" of Madonna's career, which earned her "a long-awaited, substantive dose of critical acclaim". · Mark Savage from BBC noted that the album's release "marks the moment when critics first begin to describe Madonna as an artist, rather than a mere pop singer". · Glen Levy from Time stated: "Madonna has always been a keen student of pop-culture history, and her creative powers were probably at their peak in the late 1980s on the album Like a Prayer." · Hadley Freeman from The Guardian opined that Like a Prayer shaped "how pop stars, pop music, music videos, love, sex and the 80s were and should be". · Jon Pareles, from The New York Times, said that " [Like a Prayer] defiantly grabbed Christian language and imagery". · According to the list of "All-TIME 100 Albums" by Time magazine's critics, Like a Prayer is one of the 100 greatest and most influential musical compilations since 1954. In 2003, · Rolling Stone magazine named it the 239th greatest album of all time. · The album was also featured in the "Women Who Rock" list made in 2012, at number 18. · Like a Prayer is also featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. · In 2006, Q magazine placed the album at number 14 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s". · In 2005, a poll of half million people on British television network Channel 4 placed Like a Prayer at number eight on list of "The 100 Greatest Albums in Music History". · In 2012, Slant Magazine listed the album at number 20 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s", saying: "By the late '80s, Madonna was already one of the biggest pop stars of all time, but with Like a Prayer, she became one of the most important". · Taraborrelli: "Every important artist has at least one album in his or her career whose critical and commercial success becomes the artist's magic moment; for Madonna [...] Like a Prayer was. [Madonna] pushed onwards as an artist, using her creative wit to communicate on another level, musically." · Kenneth G. Bielen, author of The Lyrics of Civility: Biblical Images and Popular Music Lyrics in American Culture, wrote that with the album Madonna began to be seen as a serious artist; "Five years earlier, she was a dance-pop 'Boy-Toy'. With Like a Prayer, she proved she was an artist who could think with more than her body". · Thomas Harrison on the book Music of the 1980s, documented that Like a Prayer pushed boundaries by addressing "uncomfortable song topics". · Annie Zaleski from The A.V. Club, praised the album for "starting a conversation about religion—which remains one of the most incendiary topics a musician can address. [...] All of this pointed to Madonna establishing herself as a serious artist (emphasis on the "art") who had significant things to say. The album's sustained run at No. 1 buoyed her self-assurance and bravery, and validated that people were willing to follow her even as she transitioned into adulthood. And even today, Like a Prayer remains provocative and progressive: The racial tension alluded to in the "Like a Prayer" video is striking, while the album's themes of religious and sexual oppression still feel all too relevant. Madonna dictated pop's future direction while also being firmly in control of her own fortunes.†· Christopher Rosa from VH1: "Like a Prayer was the first pop album to evoke what female artists explore today: sexuality, religion, gender equality and independence. It was pioneering, and no woman in music has come close to doing something as groundbreaking." He believed that the album was her peak of cultural and musical influence, saying that "Madonna went from bubbly pop act to a serious artist who received her first bout of universal acclaim. Like a Prayer will be always more influential than the "definitive" albums of contemporary female artists, such as Blackout (2007), The Fame Monster (2009), and Beyoncé (2013).†· Madonna tried to experiment with different forms and styles with the videos and in the process constructed a new set of image and identity. With the release of Like a Prayer, Madonna's impact culminated during the 1980s, and many publications named her the artist of the decade. · LA Weekly's Art Tavana opined that "Like a Prayer was the moment when Madonna went from being the voice of America's teenagers to the worldwide high priestess of pop". · According to Douglas Kellner, the album and its singles were particularly influential on the music video field. · Taraborrelli wrote that the song and its video also served to enhance Madonna's reputation as "a shrewd businesswoman, someone who knows how to sell a concept." · Stewart M. Hoover wrote that the music video pushed boundaries by "bringing traditional religious imagery into the popular music context". · Daniel Welsh from The Huffington Post, wrote that the video "catapulted Madonna to the ranks of music video heavyweight, and proved to the world she really meant business". · The music video for "Express Yourself" was also noted by critics for its exploitation of female sexuality and came to the conclusion that Madonna's masculine image in the video was gender-bending. · Authors Santiago Fouz-Hernández and Freya Jarman-Ivens commented that "the video portrayed the deconstructive gender-bending approach associated with free play and self-reflexivity of images in postmodernism." · Author John Semonche explained in his book Censoring sex that with True Blue and Like a Prayer, Madonna pushed the envelope of what could be shown on television, which resulted in increase of her popularity. Like a Prayer · "Like a Prayer" is considered to be one of the best songs of Madonna's career. · It was ranked sixth on Blender magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born". · In 2004 Rolling Stone included it in their list of "The 500 gGreatest Songs of All Time", at number 300 (when Rolling Stone updated the list in 2010, the song dropped to number 306). · For NME's "The Greatest Pop Songs in History" list in 2011, the track was placed at number three. Priya Elan from the publication noted it as Madonna's "calling card", bestowing the singer with a "legendary" status. · In 2003, Madonna fans were asked to vote for their "Top 20 Madonna singles of all-time", by Q magazine. "Like a Prayer" was allocated the number one spot on the list. · In 2014, La Weekly placed the song at rank two on their list of "The 20 Best Pop Songs in History by Female Artists". Art Tavana from the publication opined that "'Like a Prayer' was the moment when Madonna went from being the voice of America's teenagers to the worldwide high priestess of pop." · At their ranking of the best songs from the 1980s, Pitchfork Media listed "Like a Prayer" at number 50. · Campbell noted that the popularity and the media mayhem around the song and the video, helped introduce the concept of free publicity. · As author Judith Marcus explained in her book, Surviving the Twentieth Century, Madonna used the church to make her own point on victimization. For Marcus the main impact lay in the fact that the clip ultimately portrayed an empowerment message, questioning and "attacking" the Church's male prejudice and continuous female subjugation throughout history. · The song was noted by Campbell for the mix of choir and organ, which according to him paved the way for gospel music to be more mainstream than before. · In 1999, the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance held a seminar on the different implications and metaphors present in the song; it was headed by professors Martin Katz, George Shirley and Michael Daugherty. The main topic discussed was the fact that there can be different metaphorical meanings of the song, as the word "like" can be taken in separate contexts. · Taraborrelli commented that "in the end, the events surrounding 'Like a Prayer' only served to enhance Madonna's reputation as a shrewd businesswoman, someone who knows how to sell a concept." "Madonna the pop star was going to do it her way, no matter what Madonna the businesswoman had agreed to do".She maintained all along that the Pepsi commercial and the music video were two different commodities and she was right to stand her ground. Taraborrelli noted that after "Like a Prayer", the recruitment of pop stars and athletes to sell soft drinks became commonplace. However, none of them generated the level of excitement on par with Pepsi's failed deal with Madonna. Express Yourself · "Express Yourself" is noted both for its song and its accompanying music video, both of which are considered feminist odes to freedom. · As author María José Coperiás Aguilar wrote in her book Culture and Power, the release of the song was in context of the anti-feminist or the "backlash" ideology dominant in the U.S., since the rise of the “New Right†in the 1980s and the government of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. · Aguilar went on to explain that the 1980s and the 1990s were characterized by a conservative reaction against the ‘excesses’ of the 1960s and 70s. This reaction was channeled mainly by the media's strong attacks against feminism, generally describing activists as "tortured people with hairy legs", "radical, bitter, man-hating, separatist and lesbian", accompanied by messages advocating a feminization of women that turned them into beautiful ornamental objects, and tended to increase the cultural differences between the sexes. · "Express Yourself" appeared as a refutation of some of these reactionary premises. The title, Aguilar noted, seemed to raise the question of the urgency of a feminine voice to develop and emerge—a concern that recalled the tradition of French feminists like Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray. · The video stood out conspicuously to Aguilar for its chaotic texture through the rapid editing of the multiple shots that constituted it. Since chaos has traditionally been associated with the female ontogenetic principle as opposed to male principle of order, the video in turn came to be associated with duality between order/chaos, male/female, good/evil, light/dark etc. · Aguilar also drew parallel between Metropolis and the music video. Madonna borrowed different phallic symbolism from the film, including the smoke-billowing chimneys, the tall skyscrapers and the oppressive environment of industrial work. However, unlike Metropolis which portrayed repression of a rebellious proletariat, the chaotic nature of "Express Yourself" video showed freedom instead. · Caryn James from The New York Times added that "asked about the video, [Madonna] made a distinction that any honest feminist would respect, however politically incorrect it may seem. 'I have chained myself', she said. 'There wasn't a man that put that chain on me.' You don't have to buy Madonna's next loopy bit of symbolism—'I was chained to my desires'—to believe the feminist subtext she finds in the video. 'I do everything by my own volition. I'm in charge, O.K.' Madonna in chains, though, is far removed from those unfortunate women who don't know that they have options.†· Madonna also complained about the feminist criticisms of her "crotch-grabbing", saying that "if male singers like Michael Jackson can get away with it, why can't women?" According to theorist Douglas Kellner, Madonna deliberately appropriated traditional feminine images in the beginning of the video, but contrasted them with her "crotch-hugging" male poses near the end, and discordant images of women assuming the male position. · Feminist author Susan Bordo pointed out, "it is the postmodern nature of the video that has most entranced academic critics, and its various ways of constituting identities that refuse stability, that remain fluid, that resist definition." · "Express Yourself" has also influenced numerous music artists. Spice Girls member Melanie C said "Madonna was doing the girl power thing a long time before the Spice Girls... 'Express Yourself' is one of the routines that I know and I used to really like doing that one because it is where she shows her bra and holds her crotch." · In 2010, singer Christina Aquilera paid tribute to "Express Yourself" with the music video of her single, "Not Myself Tonight". She commented "One of my favorite videos ever is 'Express Yourself' by Madonna which came across as really strong and empowering which I always try to incorporate through my expression of sexuality... I love the direct reference I made to Madonna with the eye glass moment and the smoke and stairs. I was paying tribute to a very strong woman who has paved the way before."