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

[adirondak 1,586]

10 hours ago, Redha DBL said:

But no one forces her to to jump on the writers camp train. She can chose to lock herself for three weeks in a home studio with one producer and make an album the old school way if she wants to. Last week on stage when she mentionned, talking to Dallas Austin, how she loved the old way to make music and that it was real musicians and real music, i was like, girl, you can do it again that way if you want to. Some other big names still do it, so it's up to her. 

I think economics forces her too. She may be willing to do it on her end, but she needs a producer who also is willing to, and we already know what happened with Diplo. He had a multitude of other gigs and she couldn’t hold him down. He’s not going to give up money just to lock down with Madonna for an album. If she wanted his time solely for her, she would have had to pay out for it. Times have changed, and music is rarely made the way she’s been used to anymore. She’ll either have to discover someone who hasn’t broken through yet like Sickkick, or work with a producer who doesn’t have much else going on professionally like Mirwais if she wants the time and dedication she used to enjoy when album budgets were much higher.  

[I am madonna 56]

On 2/11/2020 at 9:35 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?

Unlike some fans who think there's no problem if you turn a blind eye to the existence of a problem like ostrich who thinks that if you bury your head in the sand you can't see the world and the attacker also can't see you... you've pinpointed and talked about the problem logically. 

I mostly agree with what you said, except for one thing.

It's that for me, it's 2016 and not 2007.

Towards the end of 2007, Madonna permanently ruined her face with the infamous ugly cheekbones plastic surgery. But I don't think she was as broken as a pop megastar at that time, even if it was sad. Of course, as you said, from then on she was slowly on the decline as megastar figure, and while her unpleasant divorce from Guy Ritchie had left her furious but she incorporated it into her album as artist and I like it and the way she showed at the concert was Madonna herself, still bursting with the confidence we knew she was doing. S&S tour was not my taste but it was great tour! And Take a look at the MDNA tour in 2012! It's been five years since 2007, but she still showed us the confidence and charisma of a megastar we knew! I think that MDNA tour is Madonna's last megastar tour we know of Madonna as a megastar to us.

For me, It was in 2016 that I felt that Madonna's self-confident megastar began to disappear.
That Rocco situation. sigh. Many people have already spoken about that, so I will not go any further. So She had to deal with her son's problems during the Revel Heart tour, and as anyone with the slightest sense would know, she started to gain weight midway through that tour. Perhaps because of stress? she started to gain weight and started to show from the tear of crown show that it wasn't just a show but that her mental state wasn't the Madonna we used to know. And after that, everything about Madonna started going down so fast.

From that ugly hideous Brazilian butt lifting plastic surgery to the heart broken performance in Maluma tour.

Before that, I never got tired of Madonna's videos even after watch dozens of times. But since 2016, it has become difficult to watch Madonna's video because it broke my heart.

It's not simply because she's getting old, as some fans keep trying to ignore the real problems. Apart from her getting old, she's completely lost her confidence. She has no confidence in herself at all. which is why she's hired an incompetent like Riccardo and making her photos's photoshopping bizarrely.

So I'm so grateful for this tour. After almost 10 years from 2016, I'm able to enjoy watching her tour videos many times again like I used to. That means a lot!

Madonna can not showing perfect megastar figure us now how she used to be like in her heyday, but at least she is showing a megastar's shadow. And I'm just so grateful for that shadow from the perspective of a fan who's had to watch the worst moment she's shown us for almost a decade.

 

[I am madonna 56]

oh I just realized that this thread open at few years ago! I wondering what op's opinion about The celebration tour.

[Debord 394]

I will never fail to be amused by this idea some have that if you're not writing essays tearing apart a woman's face and grasping at straws to psychoanalyse her rather than thinking "hey, maybe the issue is with me, my ageing and the things I get nostalgiac about", you're some loon fan who's in denial. 

[Anapausis 5,902]

I only read the first page of this mess and I just felt secondhand embarassed. And the people who had nerve to call me a "Madonna hater" and an "internet troll" because I just felt, in one word, REDUCTIVE all her behaviour during MDNA era - while Rebel Heart era were her redemption, what they have to say to the members who said worse stuff than me in this thread???

Ok, I really believe these people really had one thing or two to say in this thread - and naturally much worse things than I said here back in my previous incarnation.

Btw, I no longer find MDNA era this trainwreck of a thing to M (even if it actually turned into). She had right to express how fucked she felt after all the debacle we all know about. I'd have done the same if I were her - but I still would pick up a much better setlist for MDNAT. Even to slight, scalpelled changes.