Pretender1978

I used my 0 and 11 for the first time. Just a warning, I'm sharpening my knives for if any of you treat my sis unfairly... I will not have anyone praising Concessions on a dancebore over this masterpiece

very messy rating my friends, as expected the horrible ghosttown was rated highest, which I really don't understand. It's such a non Madonna track, no good melody in the pre chorus and that mega bland power chorus is soooooo cringe. Give me Heartbreakcity any day over that bought drek. Unlike most of you who are losing faith in Madonna I'm losing faith in y'all ;-) just kidding of course. I rated Madame X the same day as I did this one and for the first time I will use the 11 and 0 button, cos if y'all love ghosttown you probably also live for LFM

Oh yeah and while you're on it, release Love Hurts as a tease single, mastered demo with new mixes please, thank you that's all

I just really really hope some extra attention is given to all the artwork, I ran across the CAC record day 12" and couldn't get myself to buy it cos it just looks so cheap and nothing compared to all my original 12"es. Someone better dig up those original files and give us sharp images and artwork

Actually releasing Erotica now would make sense given the current trends, add to the remaster, demo package and single ep's an added stand alone disc of new mixes by honey dijon, hercules and love affair, sault etc. and we're in business. Would love to hear what Mike Dean could do to Erotica as a whole though, deepening those basses and adding crisp to the higher frequencies and centering her gritty voice ughhhh, I need it now!

Funny I played this in our house yesterday (before putting on renaissance) and my bf immediately clocked her, saying there is no doubt that it's her.

Maybe style has changed and I am really not in the know anymore, but what strikes me most is the lack of balance and refinement in the design, I mean the fonts and the sizing and placement is sooo off since MDNA. The back cover for FEL is a new low, everything is out of balance and nothing makes sense with the cover of the 1 disc edition. The cover for this too is awful, is it really that much more work to actually handwrite the names and title and scan them in? This font is a choice lol

Voted! It was nice listening to this record again as I have never revisited it or the demos after, this was closest to hearing the record fresh and could appreciate some tracks more because I wasn't missing the superior demo. Still it remains a cluncky album with way too many songs and not enough memorable ones. I'm dreading that the number one y'all choose is my weakest song lol.

I'd say it's her, very Future and Crave vibes, there's something about her intonation that's so her

Fact! She wrote it for Patrick Hernandes when she was in paris, (there is also a version with a list of candies in French, a very low fi recording of her and someone on a harmonica exists, but it's being kept under wraps by the collectors) upon finishing it was clear the PH thing was not gonna get her anywhere and she knew how great a song CS would be so kept it for herself and headed back to NY

Yes Vogue was created while the promotion for LAP was still going on, Madonna however already moved on and had recorded the whole DT soundtrack by then. Vogue was to be a test to see if Shep and Madonna would be a good fit after his succesful remixes. I never heard that Madonna wanted to keep it as a B-side as it was indeed originally intended, I think she knew she had a monster hit on her hands. I think it's fair to assume that Vogue was put on IB for commercial reasons, it was her biggest hit but it had no home, had it been 10 years later a re-release with Shep's mixes for EY and KIT plus vogue would have made sense, but we weren't living in the bonus cd era yet. Suggesting IB should end with NIFYpt2 is funny as that song was specifically created to make the segue to Vogue less harsh, so without Vogue there was no NIFYpt2 to begin with. As much as I love Supernatural and think it fits LAP that song was originally created for inclusion on True Blue. To stay on topic ;-) I adore the Hanky Panky release, I think it was the first single where I owned the 5", 7" and 12", I think I aslo had the cassette but I'm not sure. But that sleeve was and is everything to me. Not sure if the remix has aged that well but I remember it being so much fun, and seeing her perform HP live in Rotterdam was a dream!

voted! it was kind of a surprising outcome to see how it has aged. It's a weird record, because for sure not one of my favorites by far it still has quite a few really fantastic songs on it. The main problem is what I also have with RH is that the mixing and mastering (and really mostly the EQ) is so far off it makes parts almost unlistenable. Take falling free, which I think is among her most beautiful and haunting songs/arrangements, but her voice and all the acoustics are filtered and sound hollow, as if all the midrange was filtered out, as if she is singing to a track they are playing next door. For the re-issues I would actually really hope that they can redeem some of the mess they created here and on RH (even though Mike Dean is also responsible for filtering WAOM into oblivion...) Back to MDNA, it's funny but none of it's three singles are in my top 5, even though GMAYL made a nice comeback for me

I actually had Candy Shop in my top 5 (which included 2 celebration tracks) so I guess M's relentless pushing of the track has paid off lol But hurray for celebration, it comes from such a faulted release but the track itself is utter bliss

voted, but what a stinker, by the time I got to celebration that sounded like a masterpiece lol

His reaction is evidence how these people start believing their own bs, that madonna? just no, not visually and most def. not her voice. Alanis though, she nailed, but in fairness to Alanis, she has such a typical way of singing that it is more of a parody

This all feels a whole lot like yet another 5 color pack of Calvin Klein jockstraps

Yes I agree, but stating it like that would have been so much stronger than inventing this she's a politician, she's a equestrian bs. Stating that you can be a 1 percenter and stand up for minorities, be provocative and sexually liberated and a romantic, and a whore to the dancefloor all at once is so much more interesting than this eyepatch girl, even though I love the eye patch. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, not more or less people would have tapped into the album had the promo been different. An all that really matters is that MX lovers, like myself, have the album FOREVER!!!!! LOL

The irony is, is that for the era a true persona was missing. So yes there was Madame X, but even the promo couldn't get clear who she was, there was the "manifesto" which clearly didn't tap into the first session with Steven Klein with all it's Handmaid's tale vibes and is generally more dark and has nothing to do with the spy story. Then there is the Medellin 40's spy person, then (this is my favorite) the worldly, literature loving brunette of the vogue shoot and the special shot in Lisbon, but wait we also still have the Eurovision mess with the blond hair, big dress and crown which made the least sense to me. Then the videos introduced even more characters. So Madonna's role in all of this became a bit confusing. From a marketing point of view it could have been interesting to just see Madonna in natural brown hair and being a vehicle for all these colabs, and it would have been nice to mention the non signed artists too ;-) that way almost every song has a feature

exactly this!!!

like all albums after HC it's a bit of a mess in terms of tracklist, but designed for streaming everyone can lift a perfect 10 track album, mine ommits FG, BIL, LFM and BTU. I hate Jeremy Scott for giving Madonna the idea of Madame X, I feel the character took so much attention away from the album and how it came to be. The few people that were interested knew she was a housekeeper and a whore and a moving target but few knew how she tried to embody a different persona for each song, sing in a different voice and be influenced by different parts of the world. In my opinion it is really the first real Madonna album since AL where she is interested in making music and makes the music she wants to make. In part it's super experimental, in others just daft. Is it all good? Hell no, but where it is it is great. No matter what some might think of the lyrics, Killers is soooo good, it's emotional, beautifully sung (yes you can still hear it through the autotune) and musically impressive. So are Batuka, GC, CB and more. I'm less of a fan of the non Mirwais tracks even though Crave is a jem! It does seem that moving further in the process the album was becoming more connected to everyday pop which I think is one of its few flaws. Adding too many guest vocalist and mediocre tracks/production, all still ok, but not always neccesary. And then the videos, God Control, Batuka, Dark Ballet, damn all so strong, when was the last time we got videos like that? I just hope that Madonna again will find the creative freedom and need to make another masterpiece like this, if not I can also live with MX being the total creative comeback after 15 years

This is the one big highlight for me! together with maybe FL and Jump

I know I should vote, but I just can't get myself to listen to this record. Funny really because it's not even that bad, it's just the first time I was underwhelmed with a Madonna record and ended up skipping through it mostly and not listening to it again for days. It has grown on me a little bit, but it's all a bit too Kylie for me, you know, everything you think you want but then when you get it it leaves you totally unsatisfied and bored lol

Drew is giving me life!

I Know right!!! It's my number three, after XSP and MAF, In my parralel universe the record was called Hollywood and it's first single was Intervention, be it in a slightly different mix that has a continious beat from the start for the single version, the second single Hollywood would be released the same day as the record and would be the first track of the album followed by Nobody Knows Me...

Lol, X-Static Process is my no. 1!, Bye people