artlover

I have. Despite the accuracy I assume some events may have had, it still is kind of boring. They always paint her as this b**** that loves no one.

Crazy for you: how Madonna saved me Matt Cain, author of The Madonna of Bolton, on how the star gave him courage when he was bullied for being gay while growing up in the 1980s Madonna stood up for LGBT rights at a time when the HIV/Aids crisis had generated intense homophobia STEVEN KLEIN It’s 1987 and I’m 12 years old. I watch in awe as Madonna bursts on stage in Roundhay Park, Leeds, for the opening UK date of her Who’s That Girl tour. She is wearing a basque and fishnet tights and bounces her way through the 90-minute show with perfect precision and seemingly limitless energy. I’m in love. I also feel inspired. Because I know Madonna has experienced great pain after the death of her mother, but, although there is the occasional flash of vulnerability, my impression is of a strong, happy woman filled with self-belief and an irrepressible drive to follow her dream. As a creative, sensitive boy from Bolton who is the target of homophobic bullying, I want to channel this for myself. Growing up gay in the 1980s, I felt as if I didn’t fit into the macho environment of my home town. I wanted to follow Madonna’s example of escaping to the city to become the person she was meant to be. I didn’t know which city this would be or even what form my dream would take, but I’d listen to Madonna’s music and watch her videos and feel that she could show me the way. The Blond Ambition tour in 1990 REX/SHUTTERSTOCK When I saw her live for the second time it was 1990, the year of the Blond Ambition tour. This was the show that transformed the live pop experience from a visually dull affair to a multimedia theatrical extravaganza. My idol made her entrance on stage wearing the costume that came to define her: the armoured corset designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. She had recently emerged from a painful divorce and her smile had been replaced by a cold, steely defiance. The Madonna who stood before me now was a warrior and by the time she began to simulate masturbation to Like a Virgin, it was clear that what she was fighting for was sexual freedom, for her right as a woman to express and explore her sexuality. In case anyone missed the message, she went on to reiterate it in her subsequent Erotica album, the controversial coffee-table book Sex and the 1993 Girlie Show tour. However, Madonna wasn’t just fighting for the sexual freedom of women. She also stood up for the sexual freedoms of LGBT people, paying tribute in her earliest interviews to the gay men who had inspired her and proudly parading her gay dancers, friends and brother at every opportunity. This had a huge impact on me at a time when it felt as though the rest of the world hated me for who I was, when the HIV/Aids crisis had generated intense homophobia. When it felt as if nobody was on my side, it was a huge comfort for me to know that Madonna had my back. I also knew that she would understand what I was going through. Because, just as I was being attacked at school, she too was being savaged by the media. From the start of her career she had been accused of being fat, ugly and talentless, but by the early 1990s she was being called a whore and a slut with what now seems staggering brutality. Madonna became like a spirit guide to me, and the unusual longevity of her career only fuelled this. Through every aspect of her work she was always there for me. Whatever happened in my life — going to university, falling in love for the first time, moving to London to start a career in the media — I knew I could always rely on her. When I finally worked out what form my ambition would take and began writing fiction, my first project was a novel loosely based on my life; it was the coming-of-age story of a gay child struggling to survive in the working-class north of England. Yet when I completed the book I couldn’t escape the feeling that something was missing, something that would make it connect with a mainstream readership. I looked around and became aware of just how many people had, like me, drawn emotional support from their favourite pop artists during challenging and painful times. And I realised that what was missing from my book was Madonna. How could I tell the story of my life without mentioning the emotional support she had given me? So far, my strategy seems to have worked. The hardback was published last summer and became a bestseller, and the film rights have been bought by the producers of A Star Is Born. As if to hammer home the point that Madonna has accompanied me through every stage of my life, the paperback has just been published to coincide with the launch of her new album, Madame X. As she promotes her bravely experimental new music and prepares for her tour, she is still being criticised — witness the relish with which her enemies greeted those few bum notes at Eurovision, the same relish with which they lapped up her onstage fall at the Brits in 2015. And now they have added a new insult to the barrage, that she is old and refuses to “act her age”. Her critics may jump at every opportunity to take her down, but Madonna is still standing, unlike many of her peers. Her legendary drive remains undimmed; her inner fire is still burning. And I, for one, am still feeling inspired. The Madonna of Bolton is out now, published by Unbound Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/crazy-for-you-how-madonna-saved-me-qd69xb6vx

I think so. At least the standard editions.

From what I've heard both the 2-cd deluxe album and the boxset aren't available in the US. I'm from Brazil and I had to get it from a UK-based eBay seller.

If your laptop doesn't have any sound enhancers i.e. Dolby Audio or DFX it will make no difference from a proper iTunes Mastered .aac file.

It's actually Portuguese!

To me, Madame X is what Rebel Heart was supposed but incapable of being. It shows more than one side of Madonna, maybe pointing at too many targets at the same time at first, but once you give it a chance you can see some kind of narrative we haven't seen since her Confessions from a decade-and-a-half ago (to be honest, Confessions sounded much more uniform indeed, but it wasn't that raunchy, but much safer instead. If I had to, I'd pickup X's atmosphere). The album is made of much more highlights than lows. Surprisingly enough I consider the weakest of Madame X to be its previously released singles, such as the reggaeton-oriented Medellín, which features Colombian sex symbol Maluma, and an electro-dancehall with Migos' Quavo named Future that sounds like a Rihanna recording. The exception of the list is the unpredictable Dark Ballet, that can be called Madonna's Bohemian Rhapsody for its explosion of sounds and its abrupt changes. A masterpiece. Madonna has always been vocal about her love for afro-luso music, being a fan of the late Cesaria Evora since the 1990s, so it's very visible the influences of hers and fado singers like Celeste Rodrigues on Madame X, adding its chords (more visible in Killers and Come Alive and Crazy) to the percussion of the Batucadeiras of Cape Verde (hear Batuka), all mixed to trap and trip-hop beats, the sound that's very in at the moment, but Madonna, along with her long-time producing and composing partner Mirwais, make it sound fresher than never before. There are some good portions of Madame X that are spoken in Portuguese (I'm not sure if whether she's trying to sound afro-based or Brazilian), including the addictive beats of Faz Gostoso (which stands for something like Does it Good) with Brazilian funk carioca and pop's latest international effort, Anitta. That song is really close to the plot of Madame X, the 1966 quasi-noir starring the sweater girl Lana Turner, in which she gets in an off-marriage affair to a latin lover (Maluma?), and can be a hit down the Ecuador line. Madame X is as political as the infamous American Life, not aiming one governor like she aimed the Bushes, but all humankind and its history of oppression in general, without sounding very Michael Jackson-ish, and yet still pointy. Gun Control is self-explainable, and it salutes the only gun Madonna holds: her underrated brain. Her brain just might be the key to get to know the personas Madonna gets to be on this record - read again the manifesto: she's a cha cha cha instructor, a secret agent, a nun and a prostitute. All in one.

Very fado and ancient music-inspired.

Our funk carioca does that to people. Even with the risky lyrics "he knows I'm married and here in my house it can be dangerous, but he does it so delicious" it's a BOP to grind to.

And Maluma sounds A LOT like 90s Ricky Martin in B*tch I'm Loca! Fun to hear.

Extreme Accent have some of Fado but also of midwest/persian music, doesn't it?

This record is much riskier than American Life but they are somehow even when it comes to lyrics. It's a joyful mess, what exactly lacked in RH to me. This may sound weird at first but it invites you to dig. Typical and old school Madonna.