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The Mistreatment of Madonna’s Legacy


RinoTheBouncer
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My perception is that there was never an example of  her work catering for fans.  Someone mentioned Garbage here, a band that from day one create 'Trash' Items that were highly collectible. Björk that curates each work as a unique thing with formats, editions, collectable packages.

There few things in Madonna catalogue that have that sense of uniqueness or made for fans..few scattered ideas like the Royal Box, that bedtime stories digibox ..But everything else that was more exclusive were pricey items only made for the VIP, those who pay more.

 

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RinoTheBouncer

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 video

dylanlioncourt

No lies were spilled. Treating her catalog and hard work with the respect it deserves doesn't mean she's over and a legacy act. It's because most of her videos look like rips from the Immaculate Collection VHS and Video Collection: 93-99. It's about promoting and exposing your work to new generations and fans that will not track down those rare singles or even bother trying to collect them. Streaming seems to be the future so why would you be against Madonna having her remixes, remix albums, EP'

Raio_05

I'm sorry but sometimes I feel like I'm living in a different reality than some of her fans.  Everywhere I go, every time I watch something, every time I meet someone, Madonna is there. Just yesterday I counted 5 Madonna references in shows I've watched in the past week alone. My non-fan friends send me things they see of her all the time, like a t-shirt at a store or whatever.  The woman had a #1 album in several countries just 18 months ago, followed by a sold-out tour of very expens

Madonna should overlook how she leaves her legacy before its too late, or otherwise they will release things their way anyways. So she would be better off overseeing it all now and sorting stuff out. Besides, hello.. life is too short. The fans could use some treats.

Edited by Hari Beaux (see edit history)
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On 8/17/2020 at 10:53 AM, Brendanlovesu1 said:

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 

Thank you! Many artists have had their management celebrate their legacy without compromising their future vision. They're not mutually exclusives. I don't see why some people like to pretend that if she remasters her videos or gets a better website or has a professional photographer and designer handle her single artworks or celebrate the anniversaries of her album somehow means she's retired and has no music to sell. It's not like she has a new single every month.

On 8/17/2020 at 10:58 AM, PWCCA said:

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. 

I don't see why she'd think the two are mutually exclusive. Like you can still appreciate your past or have your management handle re-releases while she works on new material. It's like she's acting like she's gonna be remastering her albums by hand or something lol.

On 8/17/2020 at 11:19 AM, 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 sincerely hope so...

On 8/17/2020 at 1:46 PM, 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.

Having your label release an anniversary version in the 3-4 years breaks between her albums isn't really "revisiting" and neither is having music video quality remastered to today's standards.

On 8/17/2020 at 1:59 PM, Semtex1 said:

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

That would be great, especially if it's one global stadium tour or even a smaller one but focusing on hidden gems. I thought Madame X Tour would be that...

On 8/17/2020 at 2:09 PM, ScottyX said:

We know her legacy. Hold onto it

No one said we're gonna forget her, but it's nice to have access to official high quality versions of her music videos and tours or have them remastered with modern technology to today's standards. Nothing wrong with that and it doesn't hinder her progress.

23 hours ago, Piksel8 said:

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.

Amen.

20 hours ago, TonyMontana said:

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. 

I don't see the two as mutually exclusive. You can still focus on the future while have your team handle remasters of her past work. It can help keep her past work alive and constantly appreciated and therefore more relevancy, plus some extra money in the 3-4 years she spends in between eras.

11 hours ago, TonyMontana said:

She's not a legacy artist yet, thankfully. 

Having your team handle remasters (in addition to the many stuff I mentioned) does not mean she cannot be working on new material.

7 hours ago, scamper said:

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. 

Agreed 100%. They don't even need to re-release albums with extras or anything, just a new color vinyl of it, or music videos remastered or tours properly released in a box set or some special packaging celebrating older stuff can mean so much.

She has so many great gems that deserve more exposure, her music videos are literal works of art that made such a huge buzz in their time, why not capitalize on that to make sure she's always relevant? why not have more interviews? why not release those tours on BluRay? why not create professional photoshoots for single artworks? I feel like it's just the legacy but her overall image isn't given much attention to.

She used to be such a perfectionist with ROL and COADF, but now it's like anything goes... 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I get what the OP is saying, but at the same time I have to admit that I probably wouldn't have purchased any special anniversary/legacy merchandise, anyway. I don't want Madge to turn into Bjork by releasing a 100 versions of the same album or legacy boxsets every couple of months to make a quick buck. 

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7 hours ago, Ian said:

even U2 are getting great anniversary box sets ugh

what do we get? silly hashtags

Exactly. Hashtags and throwbacks and if by some miracle we got merch, it’s the cheapest and most uninspired and also most overpriced crap you could ever imagine.

5 hours ago, Nahual said:

I get what the OP is saying, but at the same time I have to admit that I probably wouldn't have purchased any special anniversary/legacy merchandise, anyway. I don't want Madge to turn into Bjork by releasing a 100 versions of the same album or legacy boxsets every couple of months to make a quick buck. 

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. She’s 40 years into her career. Some series of box sets for tours, singles, albums and vinyls can help a long way in boosting her name and presence. Even remasters or her music videos could mean the world to us. Her legacy is neglected and it’s like the world only hears from her when she’s got some tone deaf post or a new album every 4 years. It’s making people forget her...

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On 8/17/2020 at 10:29 AM, RinoTheBouncer said:

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...

.....but Madonna is so good at marketing herself. ?

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15 hours ago, Nahual said:

I get what the OP is saying, but at the same time I have to admit that I probably wouldn't have purchased any special anniversary/legacy merchandise, anyway. I don't want Madge to turn into Bjork by releasing a 100 versions of the same album or legacy boxsets every couple of months to make a quick buck. 

Me too. But that’s my personality. I’m easily bored. I am always looking for something new and fresh whether it’s in food, music, books, fashion etc.  So buying something I already have is not exciting to me. 
The only way I would be interested is if there  was a new spin on it  such as an album of new remixes of older songs or an album of B sides and older unreleased material. 

Edited by Glindathegood (see edit history)
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We need RE-ISSUES. And not because we want the same stuff re-packaged but because her back catalogue is not up to date with current technologies(!)

We are not asking for 5k quality but at least some re-mastering of her songs and videos would be nice. Most of her videos were shot in film anyway so with some effort it’d be possible to bring The Immaculate Video Collection to Blu-Ray!

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10 minutes ago, thelioncourtheart_ said:

It gives me hope that maybe Warner will help along with the biopic to launch a lot of her work and remastered songs/videos to ride the hype and promotion of the film. It would do her more of a service than a disservice and she'd make a good chunk of change from it all. It would be nice to get bonus songs, demos, or even rare stuff probably not even heard of but having a decent online presence, your work in HD quality and moving along with how the world works will continue adding to her success rather than stubbornly choosing not to. 

This is what I’m hoping for as well. I really need to see some reissues and remasters.

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14 hours ago, Nobody Knows Me said:

This is what I’m hoping for as well. I really need to see some reissues and remasters.

Same! We've seen glimmers of it with singles being uploaded for anniversaries and tracks like Supernatural finally on official streaming platforms. Let's hope they all eventually make their way out there.

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17 hours ago, thelioncourtheart_ said:

No lies were spilled. Treating her catalog and hard work with the respect it deserves doesn't mean she's over and a legacy act. It's because most of her videos look like rips from the Immaculate Collection VHS and Video Collection: 93-99. It's about promoting and exposing your work to new generations and fans that will not track down those rare singles or even bother trying to collect them. Streaming seems to be the future so why would you be against Madonna having her remixes, remix albums, EP's and everything else? It'd allow for others to discover her work beyond the hits and see just how she's evolved and is an innovative force in music.

We've had endless reissues of vinyls, cheap undergarments and silly social media posts about "Where were you when this song/album hit? Share your memories!" but nothing worthwhile of celebrating the impact of these songs, records, videos etc. LQ videos are uploaded on her official channel and it seems a lot choose not to address the elephant in the room but seem fine with "This is Madonna. She doesn't look back like Cyndi, Cher, etc."

It gives me hope that maybe Warner will help along with the biopic to launch a lot of her work and remastered songs/videos to ride the hype and promotion of the film. It would do her more of a service than a disservice and she'd make a good chunk of change from it all. It would be nice to get bonus songs, demos, or even rare stuff probably not even heard of but having a decent online presence, your work in HD quality and moving along with how the world works will continue adding to her success rather than stubbornly choosing not to. 

Exactly this yes! Madonna isn’t just an indie artist who produces her work at home by herself. She has a team and that team can handle different aspects of her career. Just because part of the team is working on remasters and legacy content doesn’t mean she can’t focus on her future, especially when her new albums take 3-5 years nowadays.

And yes, all these remasters and releases better be ready to come by the time the movie premiere to get the hype going. There should be interviews and viral marketing too. 

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  • 4 months later...

Well written and a complete worry. Our friend seems to continually damage her legacy and not use it. She can't continue to go on about being the Queen when the rest of the world wants a Republic. Her recent rethoric is diminished, alienating and irrelevant. Madonna has become the dilusioned MJ of later years - only saved by banging on about his amazing legacy.

A recent gob smacking survey of top songs of the 80s , Madonna wasn't even mentioned. How can such a huge era be so forgotten?

Did you stay too long? Not really love. You just need to give us more of what we loved. 

Edited by stevan (see edit history)
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19 hours ago, stevan said:

Well written and a complete worry. Our friend seems to continually damage her legacy and not use it. She can't continue to go on about being the Queen when the rest of the world wants a Republic. Her recent rethoric is diminished, alienating and irrelevant. Madonna has become the dilusioned MJ of later years - only saved by banging on about his amazing legacy.

A recent gob smacking survey of top songs of the 80s , Madonna wasn't even mentioned. How can such a huge era be so forgotten?

Did you stay too long? Not really love. You just need to give us more of what we loved. 

What list/survey are you talking about?

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An artist who has recently released albums with new original material (which you may like or dislike) and went on tour with both does not HAVE TO prepare to be a legacy-oriented artist. She might launch that part with the biopic, however. We  will see.

Everyone’s an expert...

kaley cuoco penny GIF by The Paley Center for Media

PS: You do not “own” the artists that you admire. 

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9 minutes ago, NowRadiate said:

An artist who has recently released albums with new original material (which you may like or dislike) and went on tour with both does not HAVE TO prepare to be a legacy-oriented artist.

If she wants her tours to be successful again though she does.

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1 hour ago, Ignacius said:

I think she takes for granted everybody knows her past work but I don't think that's true for millennials or people under 35 or 30, in general

Exactly.  Everyone over the age of 18 knows OF her but are pretty clueless to her overall legacy and impact

 

The biopic will do wonders for her legacy

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