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No hating but...what happened to Madonna after 2007?


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2 hours ago, Jackie said:

Well, not so true. She did other stuff that she wanted to do, she directed three movies - I am Because We Are, Filth and Wisdom and W.E. 

I thought MDNA was a great album! So she didn't promote it, she promoted the fuck out of Rebel Heart - it literally made 0 impact! lol. 

How that's not true? She always did other things besides music, I was only pointing out things when it comes to her music career. 
Yes, she did promote Rebel Heart, 09 years after her last TV performance besides the Superbowl. :Madonna047:

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Why do people rule out a TOUR as promotion?  That's the point of a tour, to promote a new work or product.  In the music world, I agree that anymore the album takes the backseat, but that's for any well known artist. But the whole point of a tour is to promote one's music if not their latest release.  It still works that way with a lot of artists who aren't touring on a grand scale like Madonna.  Most local artists have to tour to sell their music. They don't have the luxury of doing talk shows or awards shows.  And while Madonna may have that luxury, it doesn't mean her tour isn't promotion.

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this is tough and everyone is going to have an opinion.  There is accuracy to everything you say but there's also going to be people who dont take issue with the examples you gave.

I think the biggest problem for Madonna is modern day all access to celebrities.  Madonna has always kept up with pop culture and usually at the head of that curve.  The problem is how accessible artists are nowadays.  Instagram, social and all other tools that bring us one step closer to our fave artist.  The Madonna of the 80's and 90's and even 2000's was an inaccessible pop goddess on top of the world who only let us in when she wanted, how she wanted, which helped build her mystique and this was perfect for her because she is highly calculated and knows how to manipulate her audience, give them just enough as was expected in the 80's 90's etc and then poof disappear.

In modern day pop era where all the top pop icons are constantly communicating with their fans and exposing themselves, Madonna is not having an easy time and/or her audience is not having an easy time with this side of her.  The social era has altered Madonna's mystique.  She's no longer that icon who has sharp witty comments, super sexy gorgeous 40 page spreads that she let us have in a very curated way.  She's now that awkward "pop" icon who takes these weird eye shots on instagram, over-pouting her very puffy large lips - the highly curated pics are now gone.  We get to see the real Madonna now because she's trying to keep up with the kids and her insta-poses and posts feel very 1-note and/or cringe-worthy, her comments are not always witty but awkward.  She doesn't seem bitchy and in-charge but more like rude.  What Madonna used to do just doesnt work anymore - being cold and calculated but also highly accessible on social is just going to be strange for someone who's personality isnt super authentic or open.  I think all of this bleeds into how we receive her music now and how the GP views her.  She hasnt had a hit since 4 minutes and that was over a decade ago which means she has missed an entire wave/decade of new music listeners to latch onto her music and so I dont think we should expect a big charting hit from her but she is a pop genius when she does things just right so here's hoping.

I think she should really get into the 90's nostalgia that we are in and look back on that epic era and give us 30th anniversary editions of her music from that period.  She needs to respect her back catalog just a bit more.  I would let her get away with not focusing on her back catalog if today's music was high quality but it just isnt bar raising.  I love the Madame X  album (not the tour or the promo performance) and thought this was a return to form for her.  I say less news, social, media shenanigans and more focus on music (Old and new) at this point in her career.  Thats all i want as a fan - the music.

 

 

 

 

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On 2/19/2020 at 1:36 AM, pourhomme80 said:

this is tough and everyone is going to have an opinion.  There is accuracy to everything you say but there's also going to be people who dont take issue with the examples you gave.

I think the biggest problem for Madonna is modern day all access to celebrities.  Madonna has always kept up with pop culture and usually at the head of that curve.  The problem is how accessible artists are nowadays.  Instagram, social and all other tools that bring us one step closer to our fave artist.  The Madonna of the 80's and 90's and even 2000's was an inaccessible pop goddess on top of the world who only let us in when she wanted, how she wanted, which helped build her mystique and this was perfect for her because she is highly calculated and knows how to manipulate her audience, give them just enough as was expected in the 80's 90's etc and then poof disappear.

In modern day pop era where all the top pop icons are constantly communicating with their fans and exposing themselves, Madonna is not having an easy time and/or her audience is not having an easy time with this side of her.  The social era has altered Madonna's mystique.  She's no longer that icon who has sharp witty comments, super sexy gorgeous 40 page spreads that she let us have in a very curated way.  She's now that awkward "pop" icon who takes these weird eye shots on instagram, over-pouting her very puffy large lips - the highly curated pics are now gone.  We get to see the real Madonna now because she's trying to keep up with the kids and her insta-poses and posts feel very 1-note and/or cringe-worthy, her comments are not always witty but awkward.  She doesn't seem bitchy and in-charge but more like rude.  What Madonna used to do just doesnt work anymore - being cold and calculated but also highly accessible on social is just going to be strange for someone who's personality isnt super authentic or open.  I think all of this bleeds into how we receive her music now and how the GP views her.  She hasnt had a hit since 4 minutes and that was over a decade ago which means she has missed an entire wave/decade of new music listeners to latch onto her music and so I dont think we should expect a big charting hit from her but she is a pop genius when she does things just right so here's hoping.

I think she should really get into the 90's nostalgia that we are in and look back on that epic era and give us 30th anniversary editions of her music from that period.  She needs to respect her back catalog just a bit more.  I would let her get away with not focusing on her back catalog if today's music was high quality but it just isnt bar raising.  I love the Madame X  album (not the tour or the promo performance) and thought this was a return to form for her.  I say less news, social, media shenanigans and more focus on music (Old and new) at this point in her career.  Thats all i want as a fan - the music.

 

 

 

 

I agree with some of this, like the part about not navigating Instagram properly

 

Maybe she should just switch to Tik Tok and post 15 - 30 second clips dancing to her old songs and other people's songs LOL

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That’s so true! She definitely changed after 2007... I would say getting married to Guy R is the turning point in her career & her personal life too. I’m thankful she got married to Guy, he changed her for good! Everything during that time was organized & well prepared! The level of inspiration during that time was to the max! I was so attracted to her back then. A strong/clever/beautiful/unique woman! A polite, respectful & professional artist! I remember during that time I was SO proud to be a fan! Another huge factor was moving to London. She leaned a lot & met very creative/professional people! When she got divorced & moved back to US she re-entered the ugly/plastic world. Everything in her current life is fake & temporary. Fake friends, fake lifestyle... I used the term “re-entered” because M was exactly like now before getting married to Guy! Not to mention that lately she’s not into Kabbalah which played great role in her life to the better. What majorities believe that M is a strong independent woman with her own believes & likes however in reality she’s a mirror to people around her. You can easily shape her the way you want.

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Also I forgot to mention that during that time “early 00’s” I become a fan so I guess it affected me! I’m not a fan of her since 80’s or 90’s so I can’t speak from that point of view but from what I lived by since “my days” I can say she changed ALOT! Now I feel she’s heartless & without emotions. So cold & full of ego. It makes me sad but I still LOVE her! ♥️

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3 hours ago, cake said:

Madonna was The Queen of MTV from the 80s to the early 00s. Then MTV started to lose influence and so did Madonna. She's still fabulous of course but not the powerhouse of the MTV golden era.

This is one factor of many. Like Blockbuster never caught up with the times of streaming and went out of business, Madonna didn't catch up with the times regarding YouTube and Spotify

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23 hours ago, dankpepe said:

This is one factor of many. Like Blockbuster never caught up with the times of streaming and went out of business, Madonna didn't catch up with the times regarding YouTube and Spotify

They did try but failed miserably. They had Blockbuster kiosks like Redbox and other inventions that were too late too late and they screwed over their customers so many times. It sucks since I miss renting movies and browsing aisles instead of limited options on streaming apps and services.

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On 2/20/2020 at 4:47 PM, dankpepe said:

This is one factor of many. Like Blockbuster never caught up with the times of streaming and went out of business, Madonna didn't catch up with the times regarding YouTube and Spotify

Oh I think she caught up with Youtube, but for for legal reasons they removed a lot of her videos early on, only to re-upload and remove them again.  But yeah, I don't think she has done well with streaming.  Then again, fans like myself prefer the physical copies of her music. Also, she is an older artist, so she is hardly what the youngsters have on mind when streaming music.  Still, I think there's a slow resurgence with her music coming up.  It would be nice to see a bit more attention to her back catalog from her team.

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On 2/11/2020 at 1:35 AM, Tiago Lisboa Rodrigues said:

Let's sit down guys cause this is going to take a while and i'm about to vent a bit:

I was just watching Oprah's 1998 interview and then the Live Earth performance from 2007 for the first time in years...and i was thinking about how she looked like a completely different person back then. Not just physically, but her attitude as well.

I also realized...it was the last time we saw old school Madonna on stage with no major cosmetic surgery and before the drama hit her marriage, before Hard Candy, before S&S tour and before she was considered to be "following trends instead of creating them" as people say. She was just...so cool and confident on that stage! Amazing vocals, dancing 100% of the time, choreo on point. That's who i fell in love with.

A lot is said about how Guy Oseary taking over changed things...and even though i agree, it's also okay to point out how this was the point Madonna as a person changed, right? Am i alone in this?

What do you guys think happened at the end of that marriage that shaped Madonna to being the person she is right now? She literally went from being an english housewife that writes children books and has a british accent to excessive plastic surgery, dating boytoys, an overall less secure person than before to the point she's not even comfortable on letting her ego share a talk show with other people. I mean...her Graham Norton show appearances even from 2012 to 2019 are night and day honestly.

Career wise she always progressed in terms of ideas and you could feel an artistic evolution from her first album until American Life. Re-Invention Tour and the Confessions era was her "damage control" phase and worked for her. Why? She knew she had to deliver. Thinking only about herself and her artistic growth wouldn't get her anywhere and this IS a business after all. She was still modern, but doing 70's inspired disco music and that attracted multiple generations but everyone thought she was the coolest. i remember it so well. It was also the first Madonna era i was a fan of hers. My parents loved her, i was almost 18 and loved her. My cousins weren't even 10 and loved her.

How did we go from this to wearing grillz, dating boy toys, that Drake kiss, Bitch I'm Madonna phase, whatever she did at that VMA award where she told that Aretha Franklin story that went nowhere while dressed like...that. Going completely unprepared to Eurovision. How bad her vocal preparation was for that and even the BB Awards performances, and most of all...how unprofessional she became?

She was going through hell during S&S in 2008 and somehow she always kept it professional. Yes she could start a show like half an hour after its initial time...but nothing major.

How did we go from that stadium tour to  a theater tour that couldn't be worse organized, from that lottery program, to delayed shows at the start of the tour, then each city, then cancellations 3 hours before showtime, to Madonna saying she's being censored by the UK's curfew? Like...she's been performing there since the 80's. She always did her shows because she showed up on time. How can she not realize all this?

I always loved her, and i think i always will...but Madonna since Eurovision has been even harder to be...likable, even as a diehard fan. Never in a million years i ever expected Madonna to perform to an audience of over 200 million people completely unprepared like that. 

Is she really living in such a bubble that she doesn't realize everything bad she's doing to her career?

Has she been told so many times how great she is, she actually started to believe she was? She was always great at this business because she knew her strengths and lows...which right now...she doesn't. Speaking of which...i won't even mention the fact she went on doing a stadium tour in 2012 with basically album tracks (and hits completely changed from their original versions) from an album that didn't sell 2 million copies. Just 4 years before, she did a stadium tour and of course...she did hits. You NEED to know your audience. Somehow...she doesn't anymore. 

And yes she was always bitchy, sometimes cocky, always had a dry and sarcastic sense of humor, that's still there to this day. But she was always a pro. A hard working pro. And we could always count on her to deliver and she was always the best at doing that. 

Now she can still be...after waiting for hours...in venues with no AC on, after we stressed for months over lottery programs, canceled shows, reschedules, etc.

We also started to witness her victimizing herself more and more. Yes ageism exists...but you can't blame everything on sexism, ageism, etc. Look how she handled the SEX era. Watch those interviews from back then. She outsmarted everyone by being witty and confident. Now she cries on instagram. What happened?

What do you guys think about all this? And please, if you're pretending "this is the same madonna as always"...let's not fool ourselves. She's a totally different person and it's okay to admit. I love her and will always. That's why this is a bit hard to witness. Even harder to see her vocals being so amazing right now. Where was all that before Eurovision? Madame X album recordings (it's clear she had no vocal training before doing this record), etc?

Do you think all we need is a better team?

What's next for her? What do you still expect from Madonna?

I've always thought her divorce really hit her hard. 

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34 minutes ago, Alibaba said:

Sidenote: Recording music hasn't been a valid source of income for Madonna for well over a decade; she herself decided to use her records as showcases for her live performances. She approached her creative flow as a Broadway director does. The music is the soundtrack to the show. No one seems to get this. Look at how this has become a more cynical template for less successful legacy acts who all have some type of dreadful Broadway adaptation of their back catalogs in the works.

Ok, it is all well and good, but why did her music suffer? If it is indeed the soundtrack to a show, and she expects people to go to the show so she can profit, then the music should still be top notch, what happened is the question... her shows and their musical direction have also suffered. 

Obviously there's still been brilliant things here and there, but there was a change, maybe she lost interest to some degree. 

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6 minutes ago, Fighter said:

Ok, it is all well and good, but why did her music suffer? If it is indeed the soundtrack to a show, and she expects people to go to the show so she can profit, then the music should still be top notch, what happened is the question... her shows and their musical direction have also suffered. 

Obviously there's still been brilliant things here and there, but there was a change, maybe she lost interest to some degree. 

I honestly don't feel that way about Madonna's music at all. I think her music and her voice have only improved with time. She cannot help that a large majority of her fanbase and the general public associate the hits of the first 15-20 years of her career with an idealized version of her iconic legacy. At the end of the day, her fans want her to be loved, and it seems evident that when she isn't given accolades and adulation she is seen as a diminished version of her former self. I'm not stating this to be your perspective, but I do feel this is often the case for other fans, and in turn this becomes the collective narrative.  

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1 minute ago, Alibaba said:

I honestly don't feel that way about Madonna's music at all. I think her music and her voice have only improved with time. 

I really hate to sound like a cliche, but I did feel this way right up until COADF. That said, I absolutely adore everything she’s released and done post-Confessions, I just don’t think she’s progressively improved in terms of her music and voice. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that she herself has “deteriorated” or anything like that. That’s just my personal perspective.

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20 minutes ago, Alibaba said:

I honestly don't feel that way about Madonna's music at all. I think her music and her voice have only improved with time. She cannot help that a large majority of her fanbase and the general public associate the hits of the first 15-20 years of her career with an idealized version of her iconic legacy. At the end of the day, her fans want her to be loved, and it seems evident that when she isn't given accolades and adulation she is seen as a diminished version of her former self. I'm not stating this to be your perspective, but I do feel this is often the case for other fans, and in turn this becomes the collective narrative.  

To a degree that's true, especially during this album cycle, I think Madame X is a great album with a great concept but since it didn't do well commercially some people judged it harshly. However I do think that many people lost interest in her for a reason, and it's not just age. 

As a person, I know that she's a bit narcissistic, but I do miss the kabbalah days of a bit more kindness and introspection, and a message that came more from the heart rather than ego. To me her ego has exploded again in recent years, and while I'm not trying to tell a woman what to do or how to be, as a human being i do think that narcissism is the problem not the solution. I hope that I will still see a kinder, more open version of herself in the future, and more joyful too. 

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25 minutes ago, Nobody Knows Me said:

I really hate to sound like a cliche, but I did feel this way right up until COADF. That said, I absolutely adore everything she’s released and done post-Confessions, I just don’t think she’s progressively improved in terms of her music and voice. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that she herself has “deteriorated” or anything like that. That’s just my personal perspective.

Understood! I can't pretend to know what makes one person see improvement where another sees otherwise; there's personal taste at the forefront of the debate, and that being totally subjective makes for a weak argument, and so I won't try to elaborate, but I appreciate your point of view.

What I can say is that I have struggled with my own perception of Madonna and my admiration for her over the past decade, and so I know how to contextualize the perception of diminishing returns. I have spent many hours in potential disillusionment upon experiencing various new Madonna projects. That said, I grew up very aware that everything Madonna did was reviled or dismissed by at least some faction of society, and I learned to become one of her fiercest advocates in my youth. Eventually, at around the time of the emergence of Kabbalah in Madonna's creative vernacular I became more questioning and cynical myself. I became more private in my experience of Madonna. I wasn't the targeted demographic of the children's books, and I didn't enjoy her GAP jeans ITG, or her discomfort with the worth of her own music at times...Fortunately, there was always something much meatier and more intense and dense to keep me interested; American Life was the first time that I saw Madonna universally dismissed for something that I found profoundly futuristic and thoroughly enthralling; a subtler monument to her power, but one that matched her evolving maturity. I stuck to that narrative throughout the subsequent years of resurgence and renaissance via COADF and grew to love that version of Madonna; the spiritually political mother and wife. When she then reemerged with Hard Candy I had to readapt again, but this time I was excited to see Madonna's defiance regarding her age. She was so physically powerful...It didn't matter that my private conversations with fellow fans and friends revolved around "did she/didn't she?' plastic surgery analysis and circumspection. I didn't take to the music on Hard Candy in the same way I had to her previous albums. I, like many other fans, had enjoyed the increasing creative influence of Stuart Price, and had hoped for Eurocentric Madonna to prevail. But Hard Candy was Madonna's clapback to Guy Ritchie's English fantasy/nightmare, and I accepted that I was essentially two steps behind, something I have always assumed whenever Madonna has made me uncomfortable or when my devotion has faltered...I know for a fact with hindsight that Madonna and Ritchie had split long before their relationship was publicly dissolved. It made sense that the entire HC era was an act of implicit rebellion. I have reassessed my experience of that period of her career and my life in accordance with that understanding! 

And that is where I was going with all of this...Thanks for being patient enough to get this far! When I was growing up and Madonna was ubiquitous and omnipotent, the channels that delivered her message and her vision targeted the masses. Everyone was exposed to the mainstream. There were fewer choices, and therefore there was more opportunity for an established act to have a huge cultural impact. Madonna was hyperaware of that rare opportunity and she made it work for her no matter the consequences. That hasn't been true for a good while - for her and any other artist for that matter - and so I think it is impossible to have the same experience of Madonna as we were lucky enough to experience twenty or thirty years ago. Madonna has produced music that I find exquisite and deeply moving in the last ten years that will never reach the ears that heard Material Girl or Vogue or Into The Groove. It doesn't make it lesser in quality in my opinion, but I know the lack of cultural impact of a song like Masterpiece makes it seem a diminished work in many people's minds. That's how I perceive things in any case.

 

I love this debate by the way! Please keep it going! 

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On 2/13/2020 at 4:24 AM, ScottyX said:

Does anyone think Madonna is not proud of her albums? The way we talk around here is like we have no regard for her work. It would be entertaining to see some people sit face to face with her and boldly rip things apart as is done behind the guise of a computer or smartphone.

I would have no issue doing it, but I would not say "HC is garbage". I don't care if she does music I don't like. My questions would be "Pharell made you cry?" "You had to chase after Diplo to get him in the studio?" What happend to you? This just isn't Madonna to me, at least professionally, and it shows through her output from that time forward. Which is why I wasn't surprised when William Orbit complained about her lack of input in MDNA. 

It is a feel, not the quality of her work. I can accept Madonna doing things I don't personally like, MX isn't a fave of mine, but I appreciate that it seemed she was more inspired to do this album and seemed more invested than the period between HC to RH. My issues with those is the lack of control and investment that I feel from her, and yeah that is my personal feeling not a fact. 

It just felt like she lost her mojo and was letting others dictate her creative output more. Neither Pharell or Diplo were worth the effort. I feel like old school Madonna would have dumped both men and found others, but she seemed almost beholden to them and put up with shiz she should've shut down straight away.

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On 2/20/2020 at 10:48 AM, Ayham said:

That’s so true! She definitely changed after 2007... I would say getting married to Guy R is the turning point to her career & her personal life too. I’m thankful she got married to Guy, he changed her for good! Everything during that time was organized & well prepared! The level of inspiration during that time was to the max! I was so attracted to her back then. A strong/clever/beautiful/unique woman! A polite, respectful & professional artist! I remember during that time I was SO proud to be a fan! Another huge factor was moving to London. She leaned a lot & met very creative/professional people! When she got divorced & moved back to US she re-entered the ugly/plastic world. Everything in her current life is fake & temporary. Fake friends, fake lifestyle... I used the term “re-entered” because M was exactly like now before getting married to Guy! Not to mention that lately she’s not into Kabbalah which played great role in her life to the better. What majorities believe that M is a strong independent woman with her own believes & likes however in reality she’s a mirror to people around her. You can easily shape her the way you want.

All of this is complete projection. A place doesn't define a person. Neither does a partner. Madonna is an intuitively intelligent person. We know nothing of her friendships, or anything else for that matter. Anything we see of Madonna is what she decides to project of herself. What we see is probably a very artificial and condensed version of one tiny part of who she is. How the rest of her informs her future is what remains to be seen, and it's what remains exciting about seeing a true maverick navigate uncharted territory. 

 

We have no knowledge that Madonna became less involved in Kabbalah at any point. We only know she stopped talking about it in very controlled promotional press junkets and interviews, and we stopped seeing her heading in and out of the Kabbalah Center. Much of this probably had to do with the fact that Madonna has in recent years consistently lived in homes where the public never sees her enter or leave. 

The false narrative regarding Madonna's lack of input in projects the fanbase dislikes or likes less is another example of pure projection. In my opinion, also projection, William Orbit had a temporary lapse in judgment by going public with his personal frustration that Madonna did not make him the primary producer of MDNA. He wanted to have another immersive experience like Ray of Light, but Madonna was also into Martin S and wanted to pursue other avenues. 

While Madonna herself may be able to look back on her last two albums as periods of lesser inspiration, hindsight is mostly subjective too. Without those experiences, she wouldn't have come to the place of inspiration that led to Madame X. To me, Hard Candy is Madonna's least inspired modern album, but to others it's MDNA. I think MDNA is full of solid music and that it will undoubtedly eventually be reviewed with greater reverence. Her disenfranchisement over the Rebel Heart leak and its relative commercial failure was justifiable and understandably disappointing, but I think Madonna was very proud of her work on that album. Perhaps she is the worst perpetrator of her fans' failings in dismissing things because they weren't "big". Then again, she performed Candy Shop on three tours in seven years. :kitty:

And finally, I think it would be foolish to ignore that creativity is aloof and temperamental, and goes through a good deal of reformatting throughout a lifetime. If someone is lucky enough to be able to live from their art, they are going to still have periods when they question the purpose, the relevance and the trajectory of their work. Most people don't look at a Picasso or a Van Gogh and truthfully feel empowered and entitled to state that one period in their creative careers was vastly superior to another. One may appeal more to their sensibility, but the body of work is considered as a whole before it is dissected. Madonna is still alive and still creating. Therefore, I think her legacy is in a permanent state of fluidity. Only when she is no longer here will there be any solid universal reevaluation. She knows that, and that's why she now seemingly does whatever makes her happy. 

 

 

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7 hours ago, Fighter said:

Ok, it is all well and good, but why did her music suffer? If it is indeed the soundtrack to a show, and she expects people to go to the show so she can profit, then the music should still be top notch, what happened is the question... her shows and their musical direction have also suffered. 

Obviously there's still been brilliant things here and there, but there was a change, maybe she lost interest to some degree. 

I think it's partly due to lack of inspiration. She said it herself that her past few releases lacked inspiration and were done just to fulfill contractual obligations. Not saying she didn't put effort into them, but they lacked passion.

With HC, it didn't sound like a Madonna record and the visuals seemed odd (an old fashioned boxer in front of images of candy??). MDNA - she sounded bored and half of it could've been a throwaway Britney Spears record. RH - had some great beats but too many cooks in the kitchen leaving some tracks too "busy".

Compare any of the songs on those records to her previous output (i.e. Hung Up, Get Together, Don't Tell Me, Beautiful Stranger, Frozen, Secret, Bedtime Story, Erotica, Deeper and Deeper, etc) and they don't stand the test of time. They're all throwaway pop songs. If she ever did a farewell tour, we all know which tracks fans / non-fans would want the most.

So I think it's just a lack of passion / inspiration mixed with ego of nothing left to accomplish. She knows she's Madonna and knows she can do above average sales figures on tour for her name value alone. So I think she just doesn't have that sense of urgency to make a big record anymore.

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4 hours ago, dankpepe said:

So I think it's just a lack of passion / inspiration mixed with ego of nothing left to accomplish. She knows she's Madonna and knows she can do above average sales figures on tour for her name value alone. So I think she just doesn't have that sense of urgency to make a big record anymore.

I think with MDNA she may have gotten a bit cocky but I do think she tried very much with RH, its just that it was too much and too chaotic. i think she succeeded quite well with Madame X though. She made fleshed out, perfectly produced songs and a tracklisting that isn't too long and flows well, like a true Madonna album, with a lot of interesting and varied ideas that somehow fit together despite the different elements. i'm still really happy about this album. 

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5 minutes ago, Fighter said:

I think with MDNA she may have gotten a bit cocky but I do think she tried very much with RH, its just that it was too much and too chaotic. i think she succeeded quite well with Madame X though. She made fleshed out, perfectly produced songs and a tracklisting that isn't too long and flows well, like a true Madonna album, with a lot of interesting and varied ideas that somehow fit together despite the different elements. i'm still really happy about this album. 

Madame X definitely felt like a return to form for me, and I just hope the next album also feels like a true Madonna album. I do think RH had potential and could have been superior to MX if it wasn’t so chaotic and the mixing and tracklist were better.

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12 hours ago, Fighter said:

I think with MDNA she may have gotten a bit cocky but I do think she tried very much with RH, its just that it was too much and too chaotic. i think she succeeded quite well with Madame X though. She made fleshed out, perfectly produced songs and a tracklisting that isn't too long and flows well, like a true Madonna album, with a lot of interesting and varied ideas that somehow fit together despite the different elements. i'm still really happy about this album. 

I agree that there was a lot of trying with RH but with the amount of tracks recorded she didn't really get a chance to devote herself to a small number of tracks. Sort of spreading herself too thin with many tracks that should've been shelved. There was something there when listening to some demos but then everything got over produced leaving some tracks feeling flat from their demo versions (WAOM, Inside Out, RH, Joan of Arc, etc). Then there was talk that she wanted Disclosure to come in and rework some tracks even after Avicii, Diplo, Kanye, and others dabbled with them. There didn't seem to be a clear direction with RH.

Personally, I know we'll disagree on this, but I don't think Madame X was a success in its delivery. The concept sounds good on paper but wasn't fully fleshed out. She could've done so much with the idea of identity and the different personas but never fully went that route (random VR Madonnas at the BBMA - what is this supposed to be?? Accordion playing Madonna doing the funky chicken?)

And the sound on MX wasn't anything new in my opinion. IDSIF sounds like Runaway Lovers. Bitch I'm Loca, Future, Crave, and I Rise could've all been RH tracks. GC sounds too disjointed.

I think many fans are still in the honeymoon phase of MX since its new which is why many see it as a return to form and innovative. But that's my view, I know we'll disagree.

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