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Did Madonna Become Cheesy?


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17 minutes ago, bedtimestory said:

cheesy? more like cringy. She used to be the queen of cool until 2015.

Totally. I don't think she has gotten cheesy, quite the opposite in fact. But this past decade or so, she has had her fair share of cringey moments... more so than normal, getting more frequent in recent years.

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I think about this stuff from time to time and I try to determine if:

  • She hasn't changed much really over time, but I've aged and maybe look up to her less as an idol and just appreciate her more for what she's given me over the years (and truly appreciate her output, certainly more during my adolescent years when I really needed someone to look up to) - and all of this is okay
  • Celebrity in general has changed. What used to be ROCK behaviour is now seen as silly or inappropriate, crass -- and her audience has shifted how they view her - but she's not been allowed to have the same adjustment or doesn't know what to do/how to adjust in response and when she does she's called out for it - maybe she can't win
  • Social media has made our relationship too intimate to the point that somewhere along the line she jumped the shark and stopped being the slick creamy smooth pop icon goddess and became my strange 60-year old aunt that never grew up and we can't see her the other way anymore? Like we used to call her our Queen, but now she calls herself the Queen. That's different. MJ calling himself the King of Pop always felt stupid. It's different when people call you that but you can't call yourself that .. 
  • The mystery is gone. We're part of every decision or it seems we're part of every step - so there's little surprise left. Remember when Girlie Show was about to start in London in 93? The world was WAITING to see what her HAIR would be like. HER HAIR. In some ways I wish her social media would simply be official statements from a version of Liz again. Madonna is removed from it. We don't get to see her bathroom or what she does with her kids during lockdown. 
  • I don't know. 
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7 hours ago, steady75 said:

She’s just not good at not being number one anymore. That’s all. She’s not sure how to act now she isn’t front and centre. She used to get ALL the attention and the truth is many artists who looked up to her have emulated and improved on her shtick. Because of age , changing times and opinions and just the need for something new. 
She’s part of the establishment now and that’s never as exciting as the upstart new blood or someone in their imperial stage. So she tried to crash the party during other people’s imperial phases. 
It’s a little sad to be honest and I think that’s why she is viewed as non essential now. 

I agree that the evolution of the marketplace and Madonna’s age are pivotal to how she is perceived, but disagree with your perception of her not being comfortable with her diminished stature in the world of pop culture. Yes, these are changing times, but every pop star in all genres still reveres Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince. It’s inescapable because they did everything so amazingly well. I’m not sure who you think has improved on her “shtick”, but I can’t think of anyone who has done this at all. Can you share?

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I think having children, growing older and having new priorities has played it's role. Madonna is not the trailblazer she once was, but then no artist can sustain that kind of dominance in their field - she had a stunning run. Maybe her chief mistake, if it is such a thing, is her current over exposure on social media. Ideally, she should have become a more elusive and exclusive legend (a la Barbra Streisand circa 1994), the queen of queens, jetting around the world with her billion dollars, buying art, helping charities and doing rare tours and new albums. But then that's just not Madonna, she is who she is, and she craves attention and controversy in a way that seems maybe a little passe to many in 2021. I do often wonder who is advising her at this stage.

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1 hour ago, DFTFLX said:

I do often wonder who is advising her at this stage.

Nobody but her kids and lover probably. By now, I don’t think she takes much advice from anyone easily. And she might not have ever done so very easily anyway, except by Liz Rosenberg perhaps when she was younger.

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23 minutes ago, NowRadiate said:

Nobody but her kids and lover probably. By now, I don’t think she takes much advice from anyone easily. And she might not have ever done so very easily anyway, except by Liz Rosenberg perhaps when she was younger.

I agree. I get the feeling Guy O has slowly backed away from her over the past few years. He’s become invisible when he was once always at her side. I really do feel that she has no one around her giving advice or feedback. I think “Extreme Occident” was about this. Maybe she feels she was given bad advice or forced to go down more commercial avenues (MDNA) and now she just wants to do what she wants (Madame X).

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I think her main issue is that she feels old, left out, and just not hip or relevant anymore. So, yes, to answer the question, I think she has become cheesy because she doesn't take her disappointments in stride. Honestly, she just needs to grow-up and realize that life - even celebrity life - is not all about her. I love her music, but I don't have much respect for her as a human being; she seems very immature and slow to accept that she's not a hot item like she once used to be.

 

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22 hours ago, Alibaba said:

I agree that the evolution of the marketplace and Madonna’s age are pivotal to how she is perceived, but disagree with your perception of her not being comfortable with her diminished stature in the world of pop culture. Yes, these are changing times, but every pop star in all genres still reveres Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince. It’s inescapable because they did everything so amazingly well. I’m not sure who you think has improved on her “shtick”, but I can’t think of anyone who has done this at all. Can you share?

Literally everything Gaga did between 2008 and 2013 was better than what Madonna delivered in the same time period. Beyoncé between 2010 and 2013 is the same. Katy nailed the big pop singles market and Rihanna brought the cool factor and industry machine that Madonna simply tried to emulate. Gwen Stefani might not have been continuously at the top of her game but all of the above listed grown up pop, (not the Britney teen starlet style), they had learned from Madonna and did it better and fresher than the stuff Madonna was bringing at the time. She became... inessential for he first time. 
 

I can’t think of a time in musical history when anyone was doing it better than Madonna apart from her contemporaries. Janet, George, MJ, Prince, Whitney and in commercial and evolution terms on the mid 90’s even Mariah. 
 

 

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2 hours ago, steady75 said:

Literally everything Gaga did between 2008 and 2013 was better than what Madonna delivered in the same time period. Beyoncé between 2010 and 2013 is the same. Katy nailed the big pop singles market and Rihanna brought the cool factor and industry machine that Madonna simply tried to emulate. Gwen Stefani might not have been continuously at the top of her game but all of the above listed grown up pop, (not the Britney teen starlet style), they had learned from Madonna and did it better and fresher than the stuff Madonna was bringing at the time. She became... inessential for he first time. 
 

I can’t think of a time in musical history when anyone was doing it better than Madonna apart from her contemporaries. Janet, George, MJ, Prince, Whitney and in commercial and evolution terms on the mid 90’s even Mariah. 
 

 

Makes you want to hug her real good - not tear her down. To say it as plainly as that and to hear it must really hurt. 

And so where does that leave you if you've always been a commercial pop artist? And now people don't pay attention to the things you think they will, they only focus on your hiccups and falls and cringey moments you didn't plan. 

I don't want to tell her what to do or anyone else. 

But if I had her ear for a night over some wine, I'd want to express to her that she can cleanly walk away from the "expectations" she thinks the world has on her. 

She can work with the people she wants and put out the music she wants, when she wants and delivery it however she wants. To ignore charts, because she's conquered that and it's not her time for that now. It's time for her to tell us the rest of her story, without the pressures of commercial pop culture or social media or sales expectations or image, just look like Madonna. No gimmicks. 

Take us down the last few legs of her journey on her own terms. And get rid of the management she has and just work with people that want to nurture incredible music for the fans and allow an arm of her management to take care of her legacy releases with honour. 

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On 1/10/2021 at 12:29 PM, steady75 said:

Literally everything Gaga did between 2008 and 2013 was better than what Madonna delivered in the same time period. Beyoncé between 2010 and 2013 is the same. Katy nailed the big pop singles market and Rihanna brought the cool factor and industry machine that Madonna simply tried to emulate. Gwen Stefani might not have been continuously at the top of her game but all of the above listed grown up pop, (not the Britney teen starlet style), they had learned from Madonna and did it better and fresher than the stuff Madonna was bringing at the time. She became... inessential for he first time. 
 

I can’t think of a time in musical history when anyone was doing it better than Madonna apart from her contemporaries. Janet, George, MJ, Prince, Whitney and in commercial and evolution terms on the mid 90’s even Mariah. 
 

 

? Sounds like a matter of taste and perception to me. I respect your difference in taste as almost all of the artists you mentioned have made their own legacies worthy of attention...all except Gwen Stefani, who in my opinion has always been a joke; thoroughly lacking in artistic vision, and always a follower. Again, it’s a matter of taste I suppose. 
 

I disagree wholeheartedly that any single one of your examples outshone Madonna’s output in the equivalent time period. I thoroughly enjoyed the Hard Candy, MDNA, Rebel Heart and Madame X albums. They are fundamentally Madonna albums to the core as far as I’m concerned. I think each era was handled masterfully and in conjunction with her expectations in spite of the many hurdles that stood in her path. Madonna is the quintessential modern artist. She does what she wants because she can, and because she believes she must. I love her sense of artistic responsibility. I find her courageously authentic. She doesn’t pander at all. She just believes in herself. That’s what a true artist does. 

 

 

 

 

 

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29 minutes ago, captainjay said:

She can work with the people she wants and put out the music she wants, when she wants and delivery it however she wants. To ignore charts, because she's conquered that and it's not her time for that now. It's time for her to tell us the rest of her story, without the pressures of commercial pop culture or social media or sales expectations or image, just look like Madonna. No gimmicks. 

Pretty sure this is exactly what she has done in terms of her actual artistic output. 

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13 hours ago, NowRadiate said:

Nobody but her kids and lover probably. By now, I don’t think she takes much advice from anyone easily. And she might not have ever done so very easily anyway, except by Liz Rosenberg perhaps when she was younger.

Why do we assume she requires advisors? I don’t suppose anyone wasted their time wondering who was advising David Bowie or Prince. 

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13 hours ago, Fontainebleau said:

One of the problems is that Madonna is the last iconic pop giant still standing, so there is no comparison. Michael Jackson, Prince, Whitney Houston, David Bowie and George Michael are all dead. From that perspective Madonna is still a trailblazer and she keeps on being fascinating. Not despite but because of her getting older. So has she become cheesy? I don't know. But how would Whitney Houston, George Michael and Michael Jackson have acted if they had reached the age of 62? Would they have been all over Instagram? Would they have been reclusive? There is no script for someone like Madonna. And yes, perhaps she doesn't know what to do at this stage in her life, but I believe she is still capable of surprising us. Her last 3 albums may not have been my cup of tea, but she is still the most interesting pop star out there. And I'm here for the journey.

I mean, we can make fairly accurate estimations of how MJ, Prince, Whitney, and those other icons would've acted on social media if they were still around today; MJ was a recluse and quite private about his life in general, so had he still been alive I highly doubt he'd be on Instagram posting embarrassing things about his private life or controversial opinions. Whitney was still around during  the days of Twitter's popularity boom, yet I don't remember her ever causing a big stir during that time. And to be fair Prince's death wasn't that long ago, yet much like MJ, he lived a rather private life and wasn't particularly active on social media iirc, at least not to the extent that he posted chessy material.

The same probably applies to Bowie and George Michael from what I know, so Madonna would most likely still feel like the odd-man out so to speak in the sense that she'd sometimes use social media to her  own detriment. 

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Not cheesy as much as foolish and elitist, less relatable but also less mysterious. Being a tight-arse with the fan club and legacy releases/box set, lack of any way for legacy fans to connect with her outside of the base that likes pillows and candles has gone beyond tipping point when she also entered the small and limited theatre tour and eye patch stage and forgot she was a global star

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On 1/10/2021 at 9:29 PM, steady75 said:

Literally everything Gaga did between 2008 and 2013 was better than what Madonna delivered in the same time period. Beyoncé between 2010 and 2013 is the same. Katy nailed the big pop singles market and Rihanna brought the cool factor and industry machine that Madonna simply tried to emulate. Gwen Stefani might not have been continuously at the top of her game but all of the above listed grown up pop, (not the Britney teen starlet style), they had learned from Madonna and did it better and fresher than the stuff Madonna was bringing at the time. She became... inessential for he first time. 
 

I can’t think of a time in musical history when anyone was doing it better than Madonna apart from her contemporaries. Janet, George, MJ, Prince, Whitney and in commercial and evolution terms on the mid 90’s even Mariah. 
 

 

Get together, Jump, the Hard Candy artwork / hair during the era, Give it 2 me and the Celebration video with white walls again... did more damage than what they expected. Gaga, Katy Perry and Rihanna had amazing videos on that time, so everyone wondered 'why Madonna is calling herself the Queen if her videos are so cheap'. It was so obvious that she only invested on herself when something had to sell and she thought that only her name will sell, even if the video was a shit. 

When she returned with good videos like Give me all your luvin', Ghosttown, and Bitch I'm Madonna, she was already a follower. 

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Interesting thread. When she decided to be Lady of the Manor, then shifting back to Popstar, but without the magic touch she once had ("Confession" being an exeption). And then there's Gaga, social media, the bathtub, Aretha Franklin, Nothing Compares, Eurovision, Drake (that fool).

Oh well, I think that to a certain point she's enjoying herself more these days. It's like she has this LIFE, and not just her career. God bless.

Edited by Erlend (see edit history)
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26 minutes ago, steady75 said:

Say what you like about Guy Ritchie. The music she made during those years was amazing. Obviously Hard Candy was made after they had mentally decided to split and were probably waiting til they’d got their respective products launched before public announcements. 

he was only good at getting boned by a purple dildo

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On 1/9/2021 at 3:21 PM, Nahual said:

In what world are Elton and Cher popular though? I mean in terms of non-fans talking about them? Who even pays  Elton any mind these days aside from maybe a passing comment about his biopic from a couple years ago?

His Farewell Tour has been a massive success. About 20 times more successful than Rebel Heart here in Australia.

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