The Mistreatment of Madonna’s Legacy

[RinoTheBouncer 1,130]

One of the things that really bother me about Madonna and her management is their disrespect towards Madonna’s legacy. So much of Madonna’s past work is abandoned. There’s no cohesive effort to constantly emphasize on her as an artist and her name, and that is probably one of the reasons why she might be less popular now than she used to be and not as often mentioned as Michael Jackson for example, because for an artist that has literally created the blueprint for touring, theatrical music videos and meaningful, provocative albums and “appearances”, she and her management are always silent about her music and her previous works as a whole and even her name, her presence as a celebrity, unless there’s something new to sell.

When a new single drops, social media will feature posts, banners and new profile pics, her website will have some slight new redesigns, her app (which is a disaster), her fan club..etc. they do get updated but then once a week or two have passed on the era, they’re done and you’re left with this same theme for the next 3-4 years.

There’s no emphasis on past hits, no anniversary releases, no merchandise celebrating past eras and not even any future tours that feature songs from recent albums. Her last 5 eras had songs that only got performed on their own tours and never mentioned again, no small show appearances unless there’s a new record coming, no interviews, no magazine photoshoots, and when the miracle happens it’s either a cheap magazine or some foreign branch of a big one or a mediocre photoshoot or outfits, she also doesn’t give much attention or care for what she wears or the quality of her posts on social media.

Many artists have made each post on Instagram feel like a curated work of art or a professional new photoshoot. All these have a major impact to an artist’s image and how interesting they look to the public..etc.

Many artists, many of whom are indie with a fraction of Madonna’s budget or popularity, release beautifully packaged and designed color vinyls, box sets, great merchandise with original and very unique designs, even the clothes they sell feel like genuinely well-made and well designed pieces that you’d like to buy even without the artist’s name on them, but for somE reason, they only celebrate Madonna’s legacy with a tweet if we’re lucky or some random website releases a limited low effort re-release of an old record, or some cheaply made, badly designed yet over-priced apparel or objects are made.

Everything feels low effort, low budget and uninspired, like she and her label don’t even have a heart in it anymore. Don’t get me started about how terribly designed single artworks are and how this trend for bad photoshop is even affect her album artwork. Images are shot low quality or when edited, given high contrast to cover the details instead of proper airbrushing which ends up looking really cheap. The logo on her sewn mouth on the standard edition, what is that??? A drop shadow effect??? I wouldn’t do this to a selfie and I’m not even a celebrity or anything.

The website design is a disaster, the fan club is dated and clunky, the app had me spend 8 months emailing back and forth with the team to fix a login issue to no avail, not to mention outdated and hardly has anything interesting or extensive, only bits of info and a bad design and it crashes often or doesn’t feel stable even on the latest iPhone. Doesn’t she like to have a source of knowledge about her that matches her image? A comprehensive source of photography and info about her entire career? I get the excuse that she likes to look forward, but it’s not like she’s going to burn anniversary discs on her computer by herself or even design her own website by her hands. You can do both things especially when she has 3-4 year gaps between eras where she’s not doing anything and her team could be handling the legacy stuff.

Singles are released with minimum effort. There’s always a deal like Super Bowl or Eurovision or Grammys for the lead single and beyond that? It’s complete silence. They say she spent $5m on the Billboard performance. That money would’ve been much better spent on a visual album or more performances for the other singles or a better iTunes marketing deal like Beyoncé had the whole iTunes Store covered with her albums when she launched her self titled visual album or hell been a payola deal that everyone does these days. But no, you have one single and then a tour and now even the tour was plagued with cancellations, tardiness, embarrassing moments not to mention the lack of filming which would’ve been free promo for her. Everything felt so silent and the era was dead after Eurovision, not to mention she sang a promo single, a weird excerpt of an album track and a 30 year old hit on her biggest ever promo opportunity instead of some actual single... 

Whether it’s longtime hardcore fans you’re after or new audiences, these things have a huge impact on maintaining an artist’s image. Her legacy matters and when a label emphasizes on that gold mine she has, they can always help keep her relevant instead of looking for the next rapper or sexy young talent to sing a mediocre song with and blame its underperformance on sexism and ageism. Bowie passed away but they find any excuse to release some anniversary edition or collector’s box for him every few weeks. Metallica does the same and they made two albums for MJ after his death lol.

Madonna is no less important and if she’s not as relevant, it’s not only because of ageism and sexism but also because of lack of intelligence in marketing her and maintaining her image. The decision-making process behind her releases and managing her appearance, image and legacy is really cringeworthy at this point and it doesn’t match the value and the status of someone like Madonna whose work made peopke easily define music as “before and after Madonna”.

Can we celebrate 8 years Girl Gone Wild with a vinyl? 5 years of Ghosttown with another vinyl or a piece of merch from set? Ray of Light with a box set? Confessions Tour? How about re-releasing those Celebration and Royal Box sets that we can actually get from her store instead of paying hundreds to eBay scalpers? Or a restock of MDNA, Celebration and Hard Candy vinyls that are now out of stock and selling for $200-$500? I’d rather that money go to her than anyone else.

Hell, even release the SEX book with new packaging or past tours on 4K Blu-Ray like thousands of movies that aren’t even true 4K being released in a better upscaling with AI Machine learning techniques, and past music videos that are still in SD.

They’re not even sending singles to radios anywhere but US, UK, Italy and few other places (to my knowledge), why? They’re underestimating her and their scope and planning for her career is so limited and they aren’t looking at how her legacy can be a huge investment. She doesn’t have to be dead for them to celebrate her...

[Brendanlovesu1 11,877]

Excellent post, we need more re-releases, heck even Garbage re-mastered and re-released their debut album for it's 20th anniversary a few years ago, they also did the same for their second album Version 2.0 in coloured vinyl and threw in some extra goodies as well, a poster, signed slipmat etc, but when it comes to M she's sitting on a goldmine of untapped potential when will she wake up and smell the coffee 

[PWCCA 2,498]

Regarding her back catalogue, the majority of the problems lie solely with Madonna, and not just her label/management. It's her tunnel-vision approach to her 'art' and her refusal to look back that is halting any kinds of anniversary releases or reissues, and that is very disappointing. She owns the rights to new releases, and the label is only able to release new versions of what has already been released (hence the many colour vinyl reissues). She is single-handedly sabotaging her legacy with this attitude. People are forgetting who she is, rather than celebrating her as the icon she should be. As for the promo of her more recent releases, well, Madonna / Management / Label can all take a share of the blame on that one. 

[Guest Nobody Knows Me]

If she’s back at Warner Records then we’ll probably start to see some re-issues being rolled out. 

[wtg1987 10,151]

I could talk all day about this but I can’t be bothered if M can’t be bothered ???

[deathproof 10,555]

1 hour ago, PWCCA said:

her refusal to look back that is halting any kinds of anniversary releases or reissues, and that is very disappointing.

What has she refused?

1 hour ago, PWCCA said:

She is single-handedly sabotaging her legacy with this attitude.

What attitude? When has she expressed this?

[Hari Beaux 108]

Madonna is very hands on with everything isnt she?

[Voguerista 11,738]

1 hour ago, Nobody Knows Me said:

If she’s back at Warner Records then we’ll probably start to see some re-issues being rolled out. 

I agree. She deserves so much better. 

And well said on everything @RinoTheBouncer!!

[vitoralmeiida 968]

56 minutes ago, deathproof said:

What has she refused?

What attitude? When has she expressed this?

she has said time and time again that she doesn't like to revisit past eras, she likes to focus on today, on her current craft.

[Semtex1 840]

Apart from the 'rare moment if self reflection' she made reference to during Madame X Tour, so when she's ready i'm hoping for the 'Self Reflection Tour'. I'll give her that one as a birthday gift

[Scottyx 8,757]

We know her legacy. Hold onto it

[MDNA22 1,166]

1 hour ago, Hari Beaux said:

Madonna is very hands on with everything isnt she?

Hard to know what's real and what's a perception of how involved she is. I think she used to be more hands on with everything related to her music/recording career even calling up DJs and producers personally she wanted to remix her singles but think the last 3 albums I am not so sure that she has not left more to the people around her and delegated more. With MDNA and Rebel Heart I feel she was probably less hands-on than previous albums and don't think she was heavily involved in the writing and production of the tracks as she would normally have been - most of the songs on those 2 albums don't feel like her and the remixes from those albums were so generally poor I can't think she could have been very hands on in their A&R. But suppose the 2 tour DVDs she seemed to be involved too much with those and ended up with an over edited version of both shows.  I think for sure she had a reputation for being very hands-on and maybe still is but wonder if she is less hands-on now at least with her recording work and promotion but do think Madame X feels more like her work and input than the previous 2 albums

[deathproof 10,555]

51 minutes ago, vitoralmeiida said:

she has said time and time again that she doesn't like to revisit past eras, she likes to focus on today, on her current craft.

 But she references her past quite often in her current work...

And has been more vocal in recent years of her rise to fame and rough beginnings...

She even mentioned in 2015 how she wouldn’t be against the idea of an unreleased/demo compilation.

Going further, she even talked about touring her costume/outfit collection around the globe back in 2004-2006.

This idea that Madonna is so against anniversary releases or reissues, is a myth.

She attended a 25th anniv screening of Truth or Dare.

[John Wayne 1,186]

I mean, have you guys seen her digital catalogue on Spotify or iTunes? It's complelety unorganized and incomplete compared to other pop legends like Kylie or Cher.  

[Piksel8 619]

4 hours ago, RinoTheBouncer said:

Whether it’s longtime hardcore fans you’re after or new audiences, these things have a huge impact on maintaining an artist’s image. Her legacy matters and when a label emphasizes on that gold mine she has, they can always help keep her relevant instead of looking for the next rapper or sexy young talent to sing a mediocre song with and blame its underperformance on sexism and ageism. 

By Madame X, they have toned it down by focusing on fans towards the end. Her music collabs with artists are actually pretty good, from Nicki Minah, Swae Lee, Maluma, and Dua Lipa whom fans we're appreciative and welcoming of her presence. So they may have a formula on how to get new audiences compared to her working with 20+ producers in one album. Her team is still a mess though, and I agree with the majority with her coming back to Warner guarantees us and her to revisit her legacy and finally present that the new age of music. You can't win new audiences until they understand and respect your legacy. Her team has to respect that first.

[deathproof 10,555]

6 minutes ago, John Wayne said:

I mean, have you guys seen her digital catalogue on Spotify or iTunes? It's complelety unorganized and incomplete compared to other pop legends like Kylie or Cher.  

This is something that needs to be worked on. Fans complain about it, as well as the remastering of her videos on YouTube, but it all does matter at the end of the day!

[Piksel8 619]

On 8/17/2020 at 2:47 PM, John Wayne said:

I mean, have you guys seen her digital catalogue on Spotify or iTunes? It's complelety unorganized and incomplete compared to other pop legends like Kylie or Cher.  

Its a total mess. You can't even listen to the album mix of Confessions. New listeners are missing out on the novelty that we got when we bought the cd.

Edited August 19, 2020 by Piksel8
grammar (see edit history)

[Redha DBL 7,273]

Once again, and i'm quite used to it (lol), my opinion will be different than most of fans, but you know what? And i really mean it ; i like it thay way. That way she stays current. When everything is well organised and every things from the past is being celebrated with anniversaries it feels like... it's over and what's left to celebrate is the past. In a way it feels tacky. Madonna is current, Madonna is still about Now and the Future, sometimes it's a mess,  sometimes it's amazing, IT'S ALIVE. 

[devilpray 2,386]

I love that she stays current but she's doing a huge disservice to her legacy. The way the 90s have been rewritten as if she wasn't around is so sad tbh. Remastering her videos, and making sure her catalog is accessible (and the correct versions in good quality) is key to not only gaining new fans who may look past her stuff because it mostly looks and sounds decent to bad in today's standard but to gain money on all those fans who are mostly into her older stuff. Yeah, we know she doesn't want them to be happy lol but make some money off them mom! 

[Guest Nobody Knows Me]

1 hour ago, devilpray said:

I love that she stays current but she's doing a huge disservice to her legacy. The way the 90s have been rewritten as if she wasn't around is so sad tbh. Remastering her videos, and making sure her catalog is accessible (and the correct versions in good quality) is key to not only gaining new fans who may look past her stuff because it mostly looks and sounds decent to bad in today's standard but to gain money on all those fans who are mostly into her older stuff. Yeah, we know she doesn't want them to be happy lol but make some money off them mom! 

Totally agree, and it definitely does make sense to start doing this sort of stuff now as well. This past year hasn’t been great for her with the general public, and I get that some people want her to stay current but the issue is that she isn’t at the moment. Remastering videos and reissuing albums would not only bring attention to her in a more optimistic way, but it’d also get her some coins whilst she takes a while off touring! But like I said earlier, if she’s with Warner again then I do imagine we’ll start to see some of this stuff.  

[gonna dress u up 185]

I think they should start organizing the spotify catalogue at least, put the original albums, not the reisues, there are songs in his 12' remix version instead of the original, like dress you up, the cover of "madonna" has a black stain in M's nose, Pray for Spanish Eyes has a glitch at the beggining, etc, Madonna doesn't deserve this

[Redha DBL 7,273]

She's not a legacy artist yet, thankfully. 

[Guest Nobody Knows Me]

3 hours ago, TonyMontana said:

She's not a legacy artist yet, thankfully. 

She’s not, but I don’t think her paying respect to her legacy makes her a legacy act. She’s an icon so I think her catalogue does deserve a lot more respect. Artists like Mariah and Kylie still pay respect to their back catalogue without becoming a legacy act. 

[scamper 1,977]

I think they can do more than what they make. I can understand that they don't want to re-release an album for every annyversary and things like that but I feel that the things they do are not good enough. I mean, just look at her youtube. The videos are in low quality, you can see videos that have nothing to do with her and things like that.

I know people that doesn't look her videos just because they look too old and most of the times is because the quality is not good. I said this in another thread but I'll say it again. My sister was watching videos from the 80's and when she started with "Material girl" she said "Wow, this video looks too old". She said that because she was watching videos from the same year of other artists and yeah, the effects and things like that were very 80's but the quality of the picture was much better. I show her another version of the video with better quality and she was like "Yeah, much better... Why doesn't they upload her videos in better quality? They don't look good. Madonna was always great because she gave quality. Doing this is like "Well, that was not good enough to spend time or money giving a better quality file, people won't visit the site so this is good enough".

That's what I feel sometimes, that Madonna's legacy is treated as if it had been made for some completly unkown singer but the general public right now. For example, don't know if you know the song "Wonderful Life" by Black. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't  remember she had a very long career with full of success. He was more like a "One hit wonder" and his video is in 1080 on youtube. Same with other artists... With Madonna is like "Ok, here's what you have and she's not important enough to give you something better".

I think today they could do lots of things to let people now what she had made for music, videos, concerts and things like that without re-realising albums, box-sets and things like that. Just giving the general public what they can get for free (youtube, spotify and things like that) something with at least the same quality as other less important artists. 

[wtg1987 10,151]

6 hours ago, TonyMontana said:

She's not a legacy artist yet, thankfully. 

Judging by the last 10 years of no significant hit songs - albums that barely made it to number 1 and having no staying power on the charts after week 1 and general lack of respect from non-fans she isn’t far off . I think she is too stubborn to accept this now though ?