Roland Barthes

Well i'm sorry but filters are supposed to make you look better not worst. I'm not against using them, i don't understand using them to look uglier and it's not like she's making a statement like Cindy Sherman here. Her ornament looks more like Madonna than she does on some pics because that's the other point, she chose to not look the same on every pic and she's perfectly fine on some and like AI Madonna on others.

There was another rumour saying Donna de Lory sings on this and this is part of the many demos she recorded for various producers in L.A when she was a studio singer. I don't think it sounds like her either.

Her Christmas insta, on some pics it looks like a trans impersonator. Thank god she did the tour because you'd think she really looks like this. Does she really look at these and think " i look good" or even recognizes herself ? She looks a gazillion Times better without filters.

Hopefully the real reason for skipping it is an Asia and Oceania leg.

they expand like monkey pox but come from the same cluster.

He also did Fever, Frozen and the Sticky and Sweet tour dvd

The sour puss trolls are back, i see. Hitting the ignore button now. Don't feed 'em.

During research and interviews we also learn that at the height of his fame when he was too much in demand he had his engineers make the remixes in his name. All in all, there was a pattern with him to not give credit to others. I don't who (a very well known dj from back then) said, and i quote approximatively, that he thought Erotica was gonna be his Thriller. From interviews he did, one can see he resent the Sex book (like Niki, Sandra, Christopher and many people from her entourage back then or while making it). Like Niki he's kinfd of dismissive of her and like Niki, most of the time he misses the mark like when he told Billboard he copied his remix of True Blue on Jackson's The Way You Make Me Feel when Madonna's single was released more than a year prior to Jackson's and Bad. Lucas also said in later interviews prior to his death that he did not understand why she moved on from him (Stephanie Mills did too) same with Rodgers who thought they were gonna work together for years. If you go to Youtube and search for Siedah Garrett's interview about the Reinvention, you'll see that sweet Donna thought the same, that her position was set in stone. Same with Christopher when she did not ask him to work on DWT. Apparently Herb Ritts did not like it when she worked with Meisel....Even though Mirwais introduced her to Stuart and recommended him, he told her not to work with AIR.

Thhank you but it's not reason, it's my job to be as factual as possible (to the point of being boring when it' not work related hahaha). A few years ago we did a special on club culture for Trax (a french mag about electronic music a bit like DJ Mag) and Pettibone agreed to be interviewed then backed down at the last minute. One of the journalists working on the project got to interview François Kevorkian and asked him the question we wanted to ask Pettibone : why did he quit the music business ? And the answer was : Madonna. The journalist thought there was a big story there but no, it's only because she moved on from him while demoing songs for Bedtime Stories. Even though she thanks him for "understanding" in the credits of the album, he apparently did not understand and still does not but he still sees his DJ friends (mostly at his hotel in New Jersey) and they all told him through the years to let go of the anger and come back, that Madonna did this with Orbit too and he does not hold a grudge. He apparently wanted to prove himslef with the follow up album to Erotica which he was, apparently, not satisfied with. We still could not believe it, because he could not be that petty to turn his back on everything just for that reason but, apparently, that's the reason or at least the reason he gives to his friends and peers. It's crazy.

Initially the horns (and strings) appeared in Chicago Bus Stop (yeah the one Nikki, Donna & Madonna sing on Express Yourself in the Girlie Show) by Salsoul Orchestra. Then the band parted ways with management because they were not paid a fair share and they formed the band MFSB and released Love Is The Message featuring the same horns. In 1983, Pettibone was commissioned to do remixing jobs for the band but he came up with "Ooh, I Love It (Love Break)" instead which combines elements from both tracks and is considered a new track. That's why he won the case, they sued him for use of his own work on Ooh, I Love It, it would have been different if they sued for the use of Chicago Bus Stop or Love is The Message. It's also interesting to note that the person who sued Pettibone and Madonna in the name of Salsoul Orchestra was...Tony Shimkin, co-writer & producer of all the Pettibone tracks with Madonna and probably uncredited on Vogue which fueled his anger against Pettibone for years so when he was appointed administrator of the Salsoul catalogue, he went after him (Madonna was just co-lateral damage). They apparently were lovers, the tension during the Erotica sessions (Pettibone did not want him to be credited) led to their break up and Shimkin went to work with Junior Vasquez (Pettibone's once sound engineer too). Pettibone reused his Love Break track for Vogue because it was already the soundtrack to the voguing balls. José&Luis even sing bits of Love Break in Queen's English (and Love Break can be heard in some original remixes of Vogue). There you go. And Salsoul Orchestra did a funny disco album with "Coochi-Coochi" Charo in the late 70'S.

This is fantastic people singing Madonna songs while waiting for the subway after her show in Brooklyn

The delusion of that woman....No wonder Madonna never mentions her. First, she did not discover Madonna, Madonna discovered her, she went after for weeks. Then she did something Seymour Stein understood right away he should not do : she got in Madonna's way and tried to mold her. The Gotham tape is pure shit, only Get Up kind of goes somewhere and Jon Gordon who produced that tape agrees. He left a lenghty comments once on Webo8 saying he did not what he was doing and he saw Madonna plaing around with sound on her own and should have gone her way instead of Camille's. The Gordon version of I Want You and Love On The run ar terrible compared to the demos. Then she forced Madonna into signing a second contract after the first one expired, they were going nowhere. Considering the ties Camille had at Colombia records, Madonna should have been signed right away but she was not. Execs did not like the material and so did not Madonna. Camille had no clue about who Madonna the artist was, one of her first mistep was to fire Steve Bray (madonna had to sleep with the drummer who replaced him so he got the boot and Steve took his place back). When i hear her talking about Madonna having Phil Collins musicians, well that was David Frank of the System and it was before he worked with Collins (on Sussudio) and Madonna and Bray already knew him from the Music Building and already worked with him (he's also on the Otto Wehrnerr tracks). Then Jon gordon (whom later worked with Suzanne Vega on her two first albums) got so infatuated with Madonna that it ended in him and her headbutting on stage. The story Reggie Lucas told about Madonna telling him in the studio that she did not want a guitar on Lucky Star (which Jellybean later reinstated) because she had a fight onstage with a guitarist, well that was Jon Gordon (and not David Frank who was her keyboard player like some still believe and that would have been awkward anyway because at the time of recording the first album with Lucas, Frank was in Lucas's band Mtume). On top of that she was an alcoholic and it also got in the way. Madonna lost everything when she left Camille because her income depended on her, her apt was paid by Camille, he rehearsing studio as well and she was persona non grata at the Music Building. When Camille sued her, Madonna offered her a position at Warner which she declined. And what has she done since ? She presents herself as this great music manager when she's not, she had ONE chance offered on a platter and she blew it by interferring. Of all the Madonna tracks we have from her pre Sire years, the Gotham tapes are the worst. Madonna ran away from 3 opportunities before Sire because she wanted to do her own thing and then it meant running away from confort. First with Van Loo and Pellerin in France then Max's Kansas who wanted to distribute her first tracks, she declined and signed with Camille and she ran away from the second contract. And to cite trash Christopher Andersen as a source, my god...Had Madonna found Stein before Camille she would have break sooner. She got in the way but was good to provide a studio to rehearse and write, experiment and a roof over her head. That alone deserves a thank you, i agree.

From Europe to americans : enjoy your show, guys , for those going and enjoy the tour for those following it around ! Have a great time (i'm sure you will).

So, who's gonna be the guest judge tonight ? Jose Xtravaganza ? Anderson Cooper ? Ru Paul ? Lady Cagada ? Timothée Chalamet ? Jellybean ? Rosie ? Your mother ?

Wanna know how Steve Bray sounds in 2023 ? Well he co-wrote and co-produced most of the soundtrack of the new Color Purple musical (adapted from the musical version he already had his hands in) here's the playlist and credits

Kylie already blew it twice with Madonna (canceling Alone Again & Rebel Heart Tour in Australia)

DAD, her last single where all the remixes were good (i still can't say which one is my favourite) Causing A Commotion Keep It Together The other ones don't have remixes or they are just uneventful. Maybe Cherish, just for Supernatural and because the mixes (including Supernatural's) were done by Kate Bush's sound engineer. Love Profusion only if it includes the only interesting remix in the pack, Headcleanr rock mix, which was, in fact, on R&R but we can have hope for an official lossless file of it, finally.

Is Guy back ? Or is it still just Sara doing the job ?

Michelle Visage should be the judge in London.

And i adore these fan videos, i mean it's incredible to go on youtube and have the show you saw live with her live banters specifically for every show, i mean even the bad ones (due to tech of the time) from Virgin (we wouldn't have BU, BOrderline and ANgel without it), WTG and Ba....they have a special something....especially since she started over post producing the official releases that are unwatchable more than once as she removes anything live from them.

The problem with George, and from the very start, it's he's bitchy about everybody. Dissing people was his main occupation. And in the early 80's it was manadatory in the british teen magazines. Last summer i read all the Smash Hits and Number Ones available online from the 80's (for research) and every single popstar was pushing to diss other popstars, it's absolutely unbelievable nowadays since everybody is so beige (except towards Madonna) and lame. they even had popstars reviewing other popstars releases and trashing them and their character.G. Michael, Neil Tennant, Robert Smith, Morrissey (whom made a parallele career out of it)....it's all on (digitalised) paper. So George comes from this culture which is popular brit culture at the time (hence the tabloids because people enjoyed trashing celebrities). For George it must also come from lack of self confidence and tht is really a shame because behind the costumes and the makeup, the vile words, there's a fantastic songwriter, brilliant lyricist and singer (contrary to some other one) and it's a shame that the best of Boy George is not out there or so fragmented that you have to dig deep to find it but in th 90's he was at his peak as a musician, sadly, for lack of focus, ambition, laziness...i don't know, it's all lost. And he does not seem interested in making the wrongs right now by releasing this stuff (we're talking about more than 200 songs and alternative versions). He enjoys more being a b-list celebrity i guess. He said himself that when they met at her birthday in 87 she invited him to go running with her and hang out in NYC but he was condescending and regretted it. He also said that, and the editor of Smash Hists Australia related it on Insta a few months ago, that when she blew the candles of her bday cake she said "Easiest blow job i did all year". Keep in mind that George was on top of the world in 83 by 84 a bad CC album and drug problems plu fame going to his head ruined his career (he was in his early 20's only) just like Elton John was finally having a hit after a long string of flops (and before a few others), Cher was making Cher albums (aka duds) etc...and Madonna blew them all out of the water. She finished their careers at that point. the only one that was not mean to her was Olivia Newton John. All the other ones were awful, that's one of the reason why Prince admitted her in his Revolution circle in early 85 because he saw the rejection from the industry and peers. She was not welcomed with open arms at all. I guess that's why she never really got into that fake public showbiz celebrity friendship thing that some adore so much like Elton. George is a big fan but George is George, he "only hurts the ones that he loves", he can say whatever he wants about her but he got his claws out more than once defending her on Twitter....just like us, just like family in fact. I just wish he would focus on being a musician and not on being a celebrity.

stands for Highly Deplorable format. (I can't believe how bad it is)

I remember when i went to see Confessions, when she emerged from the disco ball, the whole venue lit up with the thousands of flashlights from cellular phones, i wrote a review in the press for it and i said "Madonna, [all the names of the french providers then] welcome you to Paris !". And it only got worst from there, i remember how annoyed i was at l'Olympia for the Hard Candy promo show because some guys in front row had Ipads to film her and they were blocking our view, people were insulting them but it was not only at Madonna's, all concerts became like that. If you are a bit remote in the back, you can see the screens of the smartphones and the artist's image replicated a thousand times in the venue. It's like having a multiangle view. They know about it, Celebration was conceived for social media as La Horde said. And she asks people to show their "lights" at one point. You can't fight that in an arena or a stadium. You can't hold 10000 or more people's phones. It would need extra staff to pay for it.

Wanna know more about the early days ? Watch the docudrama Madonna & the Breakfast Club. It is not the whole story though, it's very fragmented, it's only the parts people interviewed and portrayed featured in it witnessed but it's still a pretty good one .

So, Madonna did not perform Burning Up at CBGB's. When she first played CBGB's it was with the Breakfast Club (original line up minus Bray). She wrote Burning Up later while in Emmy. There are tons of videos where Dan Gilroy explains how he taught her how to play guitar and how she wrote her first songs with basic chords, hell, you even have these recordings online because the Shamrock reels leaked. She played rhythm guitar when she left Breakfast Club beause she wanted to lead and they did not want her to. She first had her drum kit but it was too heavy to carry around so she got rid of it and focused on playing guitar instead. she moved into the Music Building where she lived illegally but she went back to the Gilroys in Queens for a few onths after she left because she was homeless in new york. She formed her first band "Madonna and the Sky" and yes, there are recordings besides the receiver records 4 tracks ep that was released, you have the "demos" of her on a tape recorder, playing guitar and singing the songs and sometimes just playing guitar, yes also available online. DO THE WORK. The band became Emmy when Bray moved from Michigan to New York. They played Max's Kansas City which was the other punk joint on the Bowery, Gary Burke, the band's bassist (and with Madonna since Breakfast Club) secured the gig by hanging out with the guys from the band Suicide. The gig was such a success that they got invited back and Max's wanted to sign them on their label (they had their own) but Madonna had other ideas, she had invited Camille to see the second gig. Meanwhile she had no place of her own, crashing at friends or at the Star Motel when she had enough money. One day her electric convector set the room she was in on fire. She had to leave and at this point she was so destitute she had her first breakdown and was close to moving back to Michigan. Steve Bray said she could have made a career out of being a rhythm guitar player. She did not like the direction Camille wanted her to take, Jon Gordon, the producer of the Gotham demos (and later Suzanne Vega) said that she was always playing with her guitar and keyboards and testing sounds, that's how he found out she was not happy with the direction she was forced to take and he did not like what he did with the demos either. Madonna was already doing dance music with Bray and hanging out at clubs in Manhattan, she wanted to make the music she was dancing to at these clubs, punk rock was 2 years ago for her and yet New Wave and dance music in New York at this time were derivative of punk rock in terms of being DIY. Camille managed to lure her into renewing her contract by securing a gig to be the open act for New York Dolls singer David Johanssen at his Xmas show for newly launched MTV. So she signed that contract but Camille did not know Madonna had also secured a new agent from CAA so after the gig she told camille the contract was over but her new agent left her (it's that second contract Camille sued her for when Madonna signed with Sire Records). She was on her own again with no place to live because Camille was paying for the apt. she lived in. She was back to the Music Building. That's when she shopped the demos she did with Bray around the clubs she was already hanging out at. She then moved in with her friend from UoM, Janice Galloway (whom later married Madonna's first a&r Michael Rosenblatt) and worked at the Lucky Strike bar occasionally with Erika & Martin under the supervision of Haoui Montaug. Montaug was also doorman at Danceteria and had his own night their "No Entiendes Cabaret" (he was in Martin's room with Madonna when he died and in 1991, terminally ill with complications in connection with being hiv positive he organized his suicide, Madonna was on the set of A League Of Their Own but was there via phone, his portrait also appears during Live To Tell). And on and on and on. It's ALL out there. If you are curious and interested in the truth and not letting ignorance spread like a substitute for knowledge. It's all out there. You have biographies, including the new one, youtube files, websites etc....and most of all the incredible work of Webo1958 on Instagram. If you are interested in Madonna's roots and past and you are not already following this account, do it, it's a goldmine and you even have Madonna's past collaborators correcting or adding things in the comments like Jon Gordon, Jellybean, Gary Burke etc...