acolyte

Do we think she sported last night's look because that's what non-fans and TikTok people would recognise via the cover art for "Back That up to the Beat"? This is the first time since 2012 that she's gone for a completely different look at an event (MET Gala bob wig excluded) in general, isn't it? The more I see her with that hairdo, the more I love it!

I'm pretty sure that if Madonna wasn't a celebrity and instead worked at a pharmacy, most customers wouldn't stop gushing over how beautiful that 64-year old woman is who just sold them medical-grade skin care.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said!

While it's true that Botox only offers temporary tranquillisation of muscles that produce wrinkles, fillers are a lot more complicated to dissolve than people think. All of this is mostly speculation, but it's pretty obvious that she's undergone several different filler and possibly even fat transfer procedures through the years. It starts to get messy when filler is placed on pre-existing filler. After a while, some (old) fillers tend to spread which makes them difficult to localise and dissolve effectively using hyaluronidase. Combined with a fat transfer, it becomes nearly impossible to really control and "revert" someone's facial appearance. The result is a puffy and overfilled look. The main question, after many years of filler getting placed on filler after filler, is – even if it were possible – whether someone's skin is even in a condition that would aesthetically benefit from previous filler getting dissolved. Patients above 40, due to the natural ageing process, often encounter a significant loss of skin elasticity. If a significant amount of filler volume were to be dissolved, the face would be at risk to notably sag which isn't exactly what those who get fillers to compensate for natural loss of volume want to achieve. Her full face might as well, and I think this is far more likely, be due to natural weight gain. She's been through hip replacement surgery and months of pain leading up to it. Combine pain killers with an obvious lack of exercise and it is what it is. I don't doubt for a second that she will or probably already has undergone extensive physiotherapy and training in preparation for the tour. I'd be surprised if she hadn't lost two stones by the time the tour starts. Those images across the past one and a half years were just a coverup to hide her procedures if you ask me. It makes sense time-wise with regards to the tour as well. By the time she hits the road in July, she will look the way she’s "supposed" to look thanks to the nip and tuck. Facial surgery takes at least six months up to a whole year to settle in. Swelling, especially in older patients, can linger around for a very long time and it takes a while for the skin to reclaim its natural elasticity. Personally, I really don't think she's ever looked that different. Throughout it all, she always looked like herself, I think.

No offence to anyone, but "Christian non profit based in the USA" is always a bit of a giveaway, isn't it? 😹

This whole thing is incredibly disgusting, especially considering how those fake news accusations are spread across TikTok and other social media citing all kinds of "evidence" as facts. Quite a number of people seem to buy into it. Clickbait does what it does. At the end of the day, the root of all evil here is homophobia and hostility towards LGBT issues and gender equality – all of which the World Ethiopian Federation has a very long history with. Madonna isn't the first whose name they've linked to similar accusations due to their prominent conservative agenda. If it hadn't been for the relaunch of SEX at Art Basel in Miami, I doubt any of this would have happened anyways. But with images and quotations make rounds since, she's become an easy target. That said, no major media outlet has taken that petition seriously. Neither has Lazarus Chakwera, President of Malawi, who had been addressed directly. It's just a bunch of misogynistic and homophobic individuals doing what they do best: spreading hatred and reinforcing archaic world views. We've seen it before, but I admit that the nature of that position and its psychotic reasoning did irritate me immensely for a second.

I'm all for a pre-10PM start for sure, but each time I saw her, the opening act started just on time as printed on the ticket. I guess it's best to prepare for the worst and pray for the best... all I know is that I'm bringing an eBook reader this time around just in case 🤡 I haven't really shown any interest in drag thus far, but I know that Bob the Drag Queen maintains an international reputation, so I'm open to it and I guess a lot of time will be killed with some actual entertainment as opposed to a DJ doing what they do at 60 dB with the lights on. I also believe that bringing along an opening act that does provide actual audio-visual distraction will do wonders to keep the audience entertained regardless of when she comes on. I know very little about drag, but I do think that it's a smart move to have an opening act that brings actual bemusement and might perhaps literally warm up the crowd.

With most shows in Europe scheduled to start at 8:30 as "printed" on the ticket, it's safe to assume that she'll be on at 10, I guess. Opening act starts at 8:30 and will have people entertained for an hour (personally, I'm glad it's not a DJ), followed by a 30-minute interval.

I remember Instagram posts or stories from way back in 2018 (omg) that linked both Mike Dean and Lauren D’elia as mixing engineers during the final mixing sessions. There still isn't any official confirmation of that, but I guess that this is enough to solve that part of the mystery at least. When it comes to the mastering side of things, it's very likely that Mike did that, but we don't know for sure. I generally don't understand why such information hasn't been released officially or why they haven't bothered to include proper credits since 2015, but who knows...

It's all a tiny bit confusing, isn't it? I remember there were tweets back in the day that linked Mike Dean to "some" mastering job for Rebel Heart, but not explicitly to the whole album. Given the clusterfuck that album is, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't even one principal mastering engineer. When it comes to Madame X, we're completely in the dark. I've never heard a single song by Ariana, but I do agree that the mixing and mastering on Future Nostalgia is absolutely impeccable! By the way, according to Wiki, Colin Leonard was responsible for mastering Renaissance.

He did do production work on both albums, but are we 100% sure that he was the mastering engineer for either of them? Official credits on madonna.com unfortunately only list writers and producers but no personnel beyond that... which has been driving me crazy for ages.

What do you mean? Mike Dean hasn't been involved as a principal mixer or engineer in any other project besides Finally Enough Love. I think he did a fantastic job there...

This film is absolutely sensational. I am beyond impressed. Makes me so excited for the tour!

Posted this somewhere else, but I guess it's more appropriate in this thread: I simply can't imagine her doing a tour without a recent studio album at the heart of it, not to mention a greatest hits tour in the sense people are hoping for. Personally, I'm prepared for this show to be based on Finally Enough Love and her legacy as a dance act. She seemed really into the process of compiling and editing mixes for that retrospective and I can see her, for better or for worse, approaching the tour from that angle. As in the show being a continuous dance set drawing on her favourite mixes which might actually get her to play a crowd-pleasing selection of songs but not in the way casual concert goers would like to hear them. This will most likely get billed as a greatest hits tour for promotional purposes, but I'm pretty sure she's going to do everything she can to make this feel as un-greatest-hits-tour-ish as she possibly can. She's never really dipped into this walk down memory lane thing except for minor and singular moments. Then again, it's been almost four years since Madame X and we don't really know where she's at personally and artistically. Who knows what she's up to. Given the entire process, I don't think she'd agree to a tour unless she has something substantial to say. I don't think she'd put herself through a world tour for the money only.

I simply can't imagine her doing a tour without a recent studio album at the heart of it, not to mention a greatest hits tour in the sense people are hoping for. Personally, I'm prepared for this show to be based on Finally Enough Love and her legacy as a dance act. She seemed really into the process of compiling and editing mixes for that retrospective and I can see her, for better or for worse, approaching the tour from that angle. As in the show being a continuous dance set drawing on her favourite mixes which might actually get her to play a crowd-pleasing selection of songs but not in the way casual concert goers would like to hear them.