Curtains

I really can't wait to see the show after its broadcast on saturday evening. Seeing her live was the greatest moment of 2023 for me. It's a moment that I will cherish forever and that I'm glad I'll be able to see this concert again in some way.

I don't think that there ever was a video that was shot and went completely unreleased. The only thing that comes to my mind is the unreleased S.E.X. backdrop video for the Rebel Heart Tour. Otherwise some alternate edits went unreleased like Dark Ballet, but that happens a lot with music videos in general. However, some tracks that were supposed to have videos never did, and some concepts were completely changed. -A music video was initially planned for "Angel", but it was later cancelled due to multiple Madonna videos already airing and competing for broadcast time. A montage of videos was made instead and aired in the UK. -"Bad Girl" was initially going to be the second single of Erotica, promoted with an X-rated video, but the singles schedule switched after the lead single didn't sell as well as they wanted to. "Deeper and Deeper" was instead released as the second single and by the time "Bad Girl" was released, the concept for the video completely changed. -"Be Careful (Cuidado Con Mi Corazon)" was planned to be the second single from Ricky Martin's album with a video and remixes to promote it. Since Madonna was too busy at the time to shoot a music video, the song was never released as a single. -Back when Warner wanted to release "Amazing" as Music's fourth single, they planned to use Madonna's live performance from the Drowned World Tour as the music video to promote it. However, Madonna wanted "Impressive Instant" as a single, so the song was cut from the setlist of the tour and neither of them were released. -"Nothing Fails" was heavily rumored to have a music video planned to be shot in Israel with Kabbalah imagery (which her representatives thought could have put her life at risk). At the end, no video was shot for the song. -The original video for "Hung Up" was set to be shot by David LaChapelle in a documentary style, similar to his movie Rize in which some of the dancers from the final "Hung Up" video appear. However creative differences between Madonna and him led this concept to be scrapped. The final video that we have was directed by Johan Renck. -Madonna really wanted Quentin Tarantino to shoot a music video for Gang Bang, but this never materialized. -During the time "Superstar" was supposed to be the 4th single of MDNA, Madonna was going to shoot a music video for it around October 2012. She was going to wear a "Terror Bride" costume in it, which she was really proud of, but was advised to not wear it as it would put her life at risk and at the end, no video was ever made. Superstar was instead released as a promo single. -"Devil Pray" was at some point considered to be a single during the Rebel Heart era (ended up being a promo single) and a video script was written by Joseph Kahn which involved a young Madonna and an older Madonna. No video was ever shot at the end. -After popular demand, it seemed that Madonna was on board to shoot a music video for "Faz Gostoso", with her putting the hashtag #waitingforanitta on many instagram posts, despite initially saying that she had no budget left for the Madame X era videos at the time. In the end, no video was shot.

Honestly I like it for once. It's a great representation of all the moments in the show.

At the time Shimkin was only allowed a credit for one song on the album and he chose "Deeper and Deeper". Years later, he was added by ASCAP as a co-writer to "Erotica", "Bye Bye Baby", "Bad Girl", "Thief of Hearts", "Words", and "Why's It So Hard". That represents basically every single Pettibone track besides "Fever" (for obvious reasons), "Rain" and "In This Life". So he indeed had quite a significant contribution on that album. "Goodbye to Innocence", "Shame", and "You Are the One" were also co-written by Shimkin.

My main issue with it is that there are some spots were her mouth isn't going along the dubbed vocals (on the beginning of La Isla Bonita it is very obvious and painful to see) making it look like she's lipsyncing very badly, while she was not during the actual show. There are also moments where her original unpitched vocals can be heard in the background as it echoes in the stadium, making it very obvious that there is some tuning / dubbing going on (notably the Human Nature and Hung Up pre-choruses). Also the Borderline vocals in general are very unrealistic. A shame because the DVD looks great otherwise.

But the case is different in the last few shows in Mexico. Everybody was playback during the choruses on all the shows but she was singing along the playback on the verses. Now she's miming to an autotuned pre-recorded vocal on the spots were she was previously singing live. With Ray of Light it's the same thing, she was singing live with the loud backing track, but now it is also an autotuned pre-recorded vocal playing instead.

It is indeed a common thing to do that in order to get the best vocal mix, especially if there's also a live album with it. The Confessions Tour DVD actually didn't use full audio from the London show, but a mix from different shows as well as parts from the rehearsal before the opening night. There is also some tiny pitch correction. This is why you can see Hung Up with pre-recorded vocals on the DVD although it was sung live in London. The Sticky and Sweet Tour had almost all the vocals entirely redubbed, and the few songs left with the live vocals had pitch correction (You Must Love Me, Don't Cry for Me Argentina, Like a Virgin and Hung Up). The list goes on.

I actually hear the vocals on the right spot here too, the distorted audio doesn't help, but the pre-recorded vocals are still there.

So many easter eggs, i love it a lot, TRULY!

There might have been a sound mixing issue on this night. At the very beginning the album vocals are super loud to the point we can't hear her (maybe her mic wasn't working and playback played). However, we can hear her real live voice as the song goes on, starting from the middle of the intro. Indeed when it starts it is weird to see the performance with the album vocals like that.

Yes a few songs in Mexico seemed to be lipped to pre-recorded vocals as far as I can tell, probably to be able to show more energy on the video release. This happened for the Sticky and Sweet Tour as well. A possibility is that it will help her protect her voice for the Rio broadcast coming next week. I didn't analyse all the mexico shows yet, but from all the snippets I saw, it seems that Eveybody was fully lipped, as was Into the Groove and Ray of Light. The breath control gives it away. Mother and Father was also partly lipped from what I could tell, it is pretty noticeable during the last section of the song. I really don't mind it though, she sang the show almost fully live during the entirety of the tour, and this will make she show look slightly more energic on the DVD, which i prefer than redubbed vocals on post-production. These new vocals also sound really good.

It's true that the way the singles for this era were released seemed very strange. 2003 American Life 2003 Hollywood 2003 Nobody Knows Me (promo only) 2003 Nothing Fails 2003 Love Profusion 2005 Mother and Father (promo only) It's highly likely that Nobody Knows Me was actually planned to be the third official single from the album, given how many remixes were done for the song. But when the previous singles didn't chart well in the US, they went for more radio-friendly options for the next singles instead and quickly released them in order to try to have a hit as soon as possible. But this failed and is probably one of the reasons why the American Life remix album (where the Mother and Father and Easy Ride remixes were likely going to appear) was cancelled and we got the Remixed & Revisited EP instead. Love Profusion was probably not planned as a single in the original schedule but seemed like the most radio-friendly song left to release after all the previous singles flopped.

It was for his project. Since they broke up and nothing was released before that happened, it's safe to say that this collab was shelved.

Wonder if the Madonna x Sickick original tracks will surface one day... This was posted almost 18 months ago.

Get Up from the Gotham demo tape would have made an interesting b-side. I find myself listening to it more than I Know It and Ain't No Big Deal. It's no masterpiece, but I'm glad it exists and leaked, as it's unlikely to appear on the first album reissue.