Broadcast - My Review

[scion 3,116]

So I just wanted to share my thoughts and feelings having finally seen the show! Despite listening to a few bootlegs, and seeing a few very small clips, I decided quite last minute not to attend the show after spending months trying to decide whether to go for my birthday or not - eventually as somebody who didn't enjoy the album I decided to save my money! So I've been enjoying listening to the new release on Spotify and tonight have settled to cast my eyes on Madame X on MTV HD! Below is my song by song review

 

-"-

 

Intro (on stage)

 

Editing is beautiful. The black and white introductory footage is a beautifully shot piece of theatre. Editing is actually outstanding... colours are well presented and the angles capture the cinematic vibe of the show. Possibly a little drawn out.

 

God Control

 

Visually beautiful. It's a beautiful, moving sequences to introduce and then we reach the disco. You can see straight away she slowed down, I appreciate the outfit is very bulky, but something about this visually just doesn't work for me... it's very clunky. I'm not cringing, but there is something missing here. The abundance of playback and fixed live vocals might be what's not working for me here - some of the vocals match her mouth really well, some of them don't at all and are really out of time, such as the robotic introduction.

 

Dark Ballet

 

Very effectively introduced by the classic Rome speech, it's a very smooth transition and I'm impressed - adds context to the set. First sequence is brilliant... I'm not sure why she's miming along to the vocoder section though - it really doesn't work... why not do the 'They are so naive' part instead? And do it with a live mic? While it's a well shot and visually striking section - I find this pretty overall unemployable and can't imagine wanting to rewatch.

 

Human Nature

 

Unlike a lot of fans, I'm actually quite keen on this song. And this performance is... well, it's okay. I was pretty sure the sound you hear throughout was a saxophone - but apparently it's some form of trumpet? Okay. There really isn't very much interesting going on here visually or musically - but at least it's nice to hear a change to the typical instrumental we are used to by now. The outro is interesting... and she actually looks brilliant doing it.

 

Vogue

 

She looks incredible - suddenly the show suddenly has something about it - I'm not going to lie and say up until this point its been interesting because for the most part it's actually been very boring. This however looks beautiful, and the sound mix of the actual songs structure is so much better than any other version of Vogue we have heard MDNA onwards. Vocals are mixed so poorly though, you get the occasional harsh sounding word and then two words later she sounds like a robot again. Looks very, very mimed as the audio sync is again very poor.

 

I Don't Search (I Find)

 

Visually this is really something special. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly think it's a a brilliant performance but visually it's excellent. Again though again, the audio lets it down - just sing live for Gods sake... they should have called this I Don't Sing (I Mime)... because whatever has ever been live about this has been jammed through the RoboCopVocalMaster7000 and it's such a pity. With so many shows recorded you'd think they'd be able to create a cohesive live sounding release.

 

American Life

 

By far the biggest surprise in the set list, maybe even more of a shock than Rescue Me. I love how this looks setting wise, but she literally looks and sounds like she's faking both the guitar and the singing because of the sound mix , she looks gorgeous - but one again it looks like playback when actually she sang this one live with her natural voice over the track. The actual performance looks very very amateur, although I cannot stress how beautiful she looks here... at least the 'rap' section sounds live.

 

Batuka

 

Cape Verde is my favourite place on earth, so I love seeing that beautiful part of the world take centre stage here. She looks incredible here, so full of joy, and the ladies from my perspective deserve better in terms of audio representation. I love the visual, but there is nothing raw and authentic in the sound here to match the beautiful visual. The musical director has done a great disservice to these beautiful vocalists. It's such a shame. This should be the audio highlight of the show so far... instead we basically just seem to hear the studio version.

 

Fado Pechincha

 

It's so nice to hear her real voice finally... this is how the whole concert should sound. Any editing here that has been done has been done with care and due respect to the source material. I'm not going to pretend I enjoy the song because it's not my cup of tea, but it's authentic and it's raw. I much prefer this to everything I've heard so far.

 

Killers Who Are Partying

 

This stage setting is my favourite so far. It's stunning.. it's such a shame the autotune is back to take away any sense of warm to the atmosphere. Visually though it's like watching a beautiful evening in Cape Verde - the warm air penetrated by the Saharan cool breeze... it's warm enough to be outdoors but... there's a chill. This is so visually beautiful... it's such a shame.

 

Crazy

 

The same as above - except I really don't like the song... although this sounds far more live than it's otherwise superior predecessor.

 

Welcome to My Fado Club

 

Well... I love this. She sounds beautiful... and autotune aside she actually sounds like a singer. The setting is beautiful too. La Isla feels as cruel as the Open Your Heart (Swell) on DWT - at this point the show has absolutely no momentum - so tease a classic Madonna song that the majority of the audience would lap up compared to boring numbers such as Crazy and Fado Pechincha just seems like a waste of potential. Too short.

 

Medellin

 

Visually this is so gorgeous, it's like watching a music video and the spliced footage of the gorgeous Maluma is most certainly welcome. It's like watching a big beautiful party - I absolutely dig the vibe they've created it's just such a shame once again it looks like Madonna walking around miming during what is otherwise an audio-visual feast. I am however more than aware that the song was pretty much sounding like this in the show too.

 

Extreme Occident

 

There's actually more layers to this than there is on the album - and I'm quite fond of the way it's been built upon.... this is so visual, it's the most well conceived and perfectly realised part of the show so far. I don't like the song - never have - but whoever envisioned and choreographed this performance is a genius - it's really stunning.

 

Frozen

 

The words don't match her mouth at all in the first verse. 'If I lose you' she literally sounds like a robot, it's been vocally destroyed in post production... visually it's incredible but I'm presuming most of this comes from the reshoots because the way this is presented doesn't look at all like it was filmed in a theatre but literally looks more like a full backdrop. It's a weird performance because it doesn't naturally follow on from what preceded it... it just sort of feels very standalone - for me this would have been a brilliant encore.

 

Come Alive

 

What an absolutely stunning visual - this is literally the most joyous moment in what is a pretty miserable, flat show. I won't even bother to dwell on the obvious miming here, I'll just say that the gorgeous visual here makes up for the lack of any musical authenticity. It's evocative of such a euphoric time, as though all that is joyous on earth is celebrated, every happy aspect of life is demonstrated on stage. Also, the outfit is the most gorgeous of the entire show. Wow.

 

Future

 

The close up shots here are just superb... this should have been a music video because it's gorgeous to look at. I don't believe for a second she played the piano, I'd take it for what it is... a piece of super produced stage art. Bizarre how she mimes to some of the backing vocals but doesn't mime the next bar of the exact same vocalists. Is it me or does this sound a little faster than it did in the actual shows? Compare to the bootlegs this feels slightly faster.

 

Like a Prayer

 

What an odd transition! This is also faster to my ears than it was on the bootlegs! Gorgeous visually, the whole stage looks so beautiful... it's very 'vegas' but it's well fitting... and while it's most likely a studio take, this is actually passable as an auto tuned live vocal and it does actually look/sound in places as though it's a live concert... of course to balance out the equation a few seconds later it sounds like she's about to short-circuit. The soloist has a spectacular voice - she's second for me to Siedah Garret. The vocal production on this performance has resulted in a very MDNA style sound. It's obvious she struggles with this song - it's a very taxing song and the strain in her voice has always been audible in her performances of this. Im content with how this has been presented even though I'd prefer more raw.

 

I Rise

 

My goodness she looks fantastic. Again it looks/sounds totally mimed. The message is strong and clear and the impact is there. A celebration of the progress of humanity and erring on the right side of history, and the anthem of the resistance of prejudice and adversity, overcoming evil and rising above it all. It feels like there should be an encore.

 

Show:

 

I was never going to love this show because I simply didn't enjoy the album much. There are moments where the show really hits the mark such as Come Alive, Future and Welcome To My Fado Club - moments where you're taken on journeys of Joy, Disaster and Mystique which elevate the show to such heights you'd expect of Madonna, whereas other moments of the show fall explicably flat such as Dark Ballet (painful and self indulgent, while lacking the depth to really enable pretension), Crazy (where the visual doesn't adapt to the song much from its predecessor and you can't help but feel the song isn't good enough for a performance) and I Rise (which is an incredible performance but lacks that wow factor because it sounds taped and just abruptly ends with no real build up).

 

1/4 of this tour is brilliance, the renaming 3/4 feels like you're watching the slow moribund state of Madonna's performing career. Sluggish movements, low budget looking sets and phoned-in audio cleverly but not quite successfully or convincingly presented in a way that papers over the cracks - the signs of wear that anyone would come to expect. Madonna is in her 60s, she doesn't move the same, her voice isn't at its best and she's probably not enthusing the crowd by the looks and sounds of it quite the same with her newer material. But that's okay, there's no need to pretend it isn't reality.

 

Video:

 

The footage is predominately well presented. Very soft focus on a lot of shots and it gives the impression that a lot of detail has been scrubbed from the footage in order to achieve an airbrushed feel. Colours are well saturated on the whole which creates an almost cartoon like visual at times which compliments the Madame X era pretty well, while the colour timing of the bluer scenes early on and during the Fado Club section does lend itself well to the electric, robotic audio. Her best release video wise hands down. It's a shame the image isn't sharper but that will certainly be something that fans can artificially alter with their TV sets.

 

Audio:

 

A real travesty. The speeches are mixed from various sources, some appear to come from audience mics (eg. Boom mics to capture the crowd noise), while other parts appear to regularly flit between Madonna's microphone and the microphones of inferior recording devices. The mid range audio is crystal clear during musical numbers, but the bass is a mixed bag... it's a far better release quality wise than the last few tours but the overall mix quality is vastly inferior to the 5.1 DTS Mix on DWT, CT and S&S. Meanwhile Kevin Notunes' musical direction has done nothing to bring out the best of the band, the choir or Madonna herself. Very little in the audio mix is real, live concert audio. Disappointing.

 

Overall Consensus:

 

A mixed bag. If you took the five best performances here out of the show, and put them into a small EP or mini concert and left the sound natural, it would be incredible. But unfortunately it's more filler than thriller. I just don't understand the desire to sound like a robot either. Personally I won't watch again, but I'll listen to a few performances again!

 

 

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[MonsieurX 1,290]

I think you would have slightly different views if you attended a show live as well. The use of auto tune in my opinion is well balanced. It is a HUGE improvement over the disaster that was the Sticky and Sweet Tour / MDNA DVDs.

[sidney78a 2,236]

alright but me wants SODADE da minha terra São Nicolau - this should´ve been a (serious) duet with Cesaria Evora. What a delicate voice she had 

[MartineX 569]

boring...review

[scion 3,116]

I think you would have slightly different views if you attended a show live as well. The use of auto tune in my opinion is well balanced. It is a HUGE improvement over the disaster that was the Sticky and Sweet Tour / MDNA DVDs.

It's present on every single song, I can't by any stretch of the imagination consider that balanced... but I do agree it's better than the last two DVDs


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[scion 3,116]

Last three in fact.


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[cosmic_system 3,154]

She used outtune and another software live too, there is no re-recorded stuff on this new live album/film. It's pretty clear if you compare it with the bootlegs.

It was recorded, as the album tracks said, during many Lisbon shows so the audio it's not from just one show.

[thegoldencalf 12,579]

37 minutes ago, cosmic_system said:

She used outtune and another software live too, there is no re-recorded stuff on this new live album/film. It's pretty clear if you compare it with the bootlegs.

It was recorded, as the album tracks said, during many Lisbon shows so the audio it's not from just one show.

Even though I like the show I feel like the use of several filters and backing tracks ruined the intimacy aspect of it. I’d prefer imperfect vocals. And a reinterpretation of the songs with a full live band. 
And unfortunately God Control was in my opinion one of the worst numbers in the show. 
She should have opened with strong live vocals like LAP during blond ambition. And from there it just got worse. The bulky costume, the unconvincing choreo, the uninteresting projections, the lack of drama of the police dancers that really weren’t doing much, the prerecorded choir… it was her weakest opening number ever. And it could have been amazing. 

[scion 3,116]

She used outtune and another software live too, there is no re-recorded stuff on this new live album/film. It's pretty clear if you compare it with the bootlegs.
It was recorded, as the album tracks said, during many Lisbon shows so the audio it's not from just one show.

Oh there definitely is re-recorded or heavily re edited stuff here. God Control was normally a bit flat, Like a Prayer never sounded like this either on any bootlegs, especially the intro and outro. Even though she used a milder autotune for Frozen in the actual venue, she sounds far more robotic on this release.


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[cosmic_system 3,154]

39 minutes ago, scion said:

Oh there definitely is re-recorded or heavily re edited stuff here. God Control was normally a bit flat, Like a Prayer never sounded like this either on any bootlegs, especially the intro and outro. Even though she used a milder autotune for Frozen in the actual venue, she sounds far more robotic on this release.


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Ok. I was at one of the Lisbon shows and she sounded just like on the live album. 

[scion 3,116]

Ok. I was at one of the Lisbon shows and she sounded just like on the live album. 

Well... the boots say otherwise. I don't think there was one recording of Like a Prayer I heard where she sounded anything like the beautiful polished version. Especially on the first and last verse which always sounded very flat.


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[bedtimestory 758]

Itw as perfectly shot and edited, great camera quality and angles too! The only thing that I didnt like was that they showed random speech clips of her being a brat and bit rude on stage.

[scion 3,116]

Itw as perfectly shot and edited, great camera quality and angles too! The only thing that I didnt like was that they showed random speech clips of her being a brat and bit rude on stage.

Some fans find the rude stuff funny, as though it's some bad ass persons, but I must admit I just find it unpleasant but horses for courses...


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[Lucky90210 741]

WORST TOUR EVER! 

[RUADJAI 14,945]

On 10/11/2021 at 10:28 AM, Lucky90210 said:

WORST TOUR EVER! 

Always a pleasure reading your posts. 

[madonnaultimate 961]

On 10/9/2021 at 5:44 AM, MonsieurX said:

I think you would have slightly different views if you attended a show live as well. The use of auto tune in my opinion is well balanced. It is a HUGE improvement over the disaster that was the Sticky and Sweet Tour / MDNA DVDs.

I was STUNNED at how good her vocals were on Lisbon 14th . I was shocked and I remember saying to myself that the last time I loved the vocals on a tour from start to end was DWT. It was awesome !

[robder 368]

On 10/9/2021 at 3:44 AM, MonsieurX said:

I think you would have slightly different views if you attended a show live as well. The use of auto tune in my opinion is well balanced. It is a HUGE improvement over the disaster that was the Sticky and Sweet Tour / MDNA DVDs.

I attended - three times.

The show was amazing in person - loved it every time.

The autotune however? Unforgivable/cheap/crap sounding...Robot sounds create distance - especially during community numbers like Batuka. I want raw vocals.