What story is the show telling?

[Anapausis 5,914]

On 10/17/2023 at 10:33 AM, Honey Little said:

It’s about her career highlights and ups and downs and gays and transvestism. 

Much like this. ¡Gracias piojito!

On 10/17/2023 at 10:36 AM, Ivan Z said:

Great interpretation!

Could anyone explain why Hung Up is in the 90s section?

It's not a 90's section - it's a sexual unapologetic section.

On 10/17/2023 at 11:04 AM, rlittler81 said:

I took the inclusion of The Beast Within as her spiritual awakening with kabbalah. 
 

Actually TBW portraits the several conflicts here and there and the way people exploit people as explicited in the meaning of the Book of the Revelation and its selected versicles used to compose the song as well.

The explicit Kabbalah reference is in Die Another Day, where she and her dancers are located as the circles of the Tree of Life, which also appears on the backdrop. To my view M is placed where's the tiferet circle, the very middle one. Also Kabbalah preaches the immortality of the soul and their constant reincarnation, very fitting for a "Die Another Day" theme.

[Anapausis 5,914]

14 minutes ago, Justice said:

It has, but I hate it when people try to analyze every detail and pretend it has a meaning.

It has always been superficial. The show has a concept and some performances have a message, while other performances are just performances. 

So I guess you just don't get Madonna's vision of art at all...?

[Justice 326]

46 minutes ago, Anapausis said:

So I guess you just don't get Madonna's vision of art at all...?

I get it, but like I said it has always been kind of superficial. Every part of the show isn't that deep.

MDNA tour was called a journey from darkness to light and that's it, it was obvious visually. Although the third section was darker than the second section.

After all, it is the fans who analyze her stuff and make their own concepts. It isn't a fact.

 

The Celebration tour is about traveling through time and we see different eras (the 80s, the dark period...) and some performances like Live To Tell have obvious meaningful stories. There are deep stuff, but not every performance has a meaning. There are already fans who write that Hung Up represents Madonna's relationship to lesbian women. OK, it is an interesting opinion, but it isn't a fact and it is annoying when those fans act like "Madonna is intelligent, you don't understand her art."

 

[Debord 404]

1 hour ago, Justice said:

I get it, but like I said it has always been kind of superficial. Every part of the show isn't that deep.

MDNA tour was called a journey from darkness to light and that's it, it was obvious visually. Although the third section was darker than the second section.

After all, it is the fans who analyze her stuff and make their own concepts. It isn't a fact.

 

The Celebration tour is about traveling through time and we see different eras (the 80s, the dark period...) and some performances like Live To Tell have obvious meaningful stories. There are deep stuff, but not every performance has a meaning. There are already fans who write that Hung Up represents Madonna's relationship to lesbian women. OK, it is an interesting opinion, but it isn't a fact and it is annoying when those fans act like "Madonna is intelligent, you don't understand her art."

 

You're just describing art, though. Literally all art is interpreted by people and great art is interpreted by people differently as time moves on. It is pretty uncontroversial to say that Madonna is an artist and she presents her concerts as pieces of theatre, and this 'oh please stop trying to read meaning into it' just smacks of an attitude that pop music doesn't warrant it, an attitude Madonna more than most dispelled long ago.

[Anapausis 5,914]

14 minutes ago, Debord said:

You're just describing art, though. Literally all art is interpreted by people and great art is interpreted by people differently as time moves on. It is pretty uncontroversial to say that Madonna is an artist and she presents her concerts as pieces of theatre, and this 'oh please stop trying to read meaning into it' just smacks of an attitude that pop music doesn't warrant it, an attitude Madonna more than most dispelled long ago.

Well thank you very much for your words, Debord. Esp because, despite some fans think of her, she's an intellectual with a very layeled notion of art as a whole, with several art references received in her whole life. No wonder W.E. can be in the cathegory of "art film," since it echoes the European typical art film structure from the 60's to the 80's, but esp from the 70's. During her colleague times, and prior to it, she was fed to Godard, Costa-Gavras, Fellini etc. work. Their embrace of every single way to present art made her, more than an iconoclast, rather an Artist with capital A. Sorry if you think otherwise, @Justicebut as I got some much input from M through my fan and stan years, so many references from several worlds, I cannot say her art's just SUPERFICIAL. Not this word. Sorry my phlegma, but this word doesn't combine with Madonna. Never has been, never will. I love dissect every content of her art as it showcases a true message to enlighten the more people possible, as it was the purpose of the first, French Diderot's Encyclopaedia in the apogee of Iluminism. Knowledge is the true saviour; "you will know the truth and it will set you free." No less than that.

[Justice 326]

2 minutes ago, Anapausis said:

@Justicebut as I got some much input from M through my fan and stan years, so many references from several worlds, I cannot say her art's just SUPERFICIAL. 

I never said her art is superficial in general.

I was just implying that even when Madonna's show has a story, there will always be songs that are there just to satisfy fans and general public. If there is no context, we can't pretend there is a message. 

Her shows have always been like that. Some performances with meaningful messages, and some performances just for fun. 

 

[Anapausis 5,914]

15 minutes ago, Justice said:

I never said her art is superficial in general.

I was just implying that even when Madonna's show has a story, there will always be songs that are there just to satisfy fans and general public. If there is no context, we can't pretend there is a message. 

Her shows have always been like that. Some performances with meaningful messages, and some performances just for fun. 

 

Well, to me no one M performance is JUST for fun. Even the clownery thing from her hides food for thought. After all, we all know the concept behind the Latin "panis et circensis."

Now I remember Satyricon and all its social conflict within the Babylonian Greek-Latin society disguised as the finest irony who could sound (and indeed it did) as just bad or merely funny jokes to the play audiences. M is actually a current representant of the Greek-Latin literature.

[Justice 326]

5 minutes ago, Anapausis said:

Well, to me no one M performance is JUST for fun.

She is an artist, but also an entertainer. 

Her messy performance of Music with Maluma was just that.

Lucky Star on Confessions Tour was just a fun performance  for public. Holiday has mostly been for fun. And so on. Like I said, the context matter. You can come up with a story if there is no proof.

If Madonna was on a stage with a blank canvas, you can't be like "Oh, she is referencing Frida Kahlo." 

[Debord 404]

17 minutes ago, Justice said:

She is an artist, but also an entertainer. 

Her messy performance of Music with Maluma was just that.

Lucky Star on Confessions Tour was just a fun performance  for public. Holiday has mostly been for fun. And so on. Like I said, the context matter. You can come up with a story if there is no proof.

If Madonna was on a stage with a blank canvas, you can't be like "Oh, she is referencing Frida Kahlo." 

The Maluma thing was a brief appearance at someone else's show. Whereas Lucky Star at Confessions was referencing Abba and disco and her start as a dance artist connecting to her recent mammoth dance hit. Which isn't Frida Kahlo but it's also not just knocking a song out for the hell of it.

[Anapausis 5,914]

23 minutes ago, Justice said:

She is an artist, but also an entertainer. 

Her messy performance of Music with Maluma was just that.

Lucky Star on Confessions Tour was just a fun performance  for public. Holiday has mostly been for fun. And so on. Like I said, the context matter. You can come up with a story if there is no proof.

If Madonna was on a stage with a blank canvas, you can't be like "Oh, she is referencing Frida Kahlo." 

I think you should read Satyricon to get my point. You will even see Medalló en el Mapa performance in a different way.

[Justice 326]

2 hours ago, Debord said:

The Maluma thing was a brief appearance at someone else's show. Whereas Lucky Star at Confessions was referencing Abba and disco and her start as a dance artist connecting to her recent mammoth dance hit. Which isn't Frida Kahlo but it's also not just knocking a song out for the hell of it.

I know that about Lucky Star, but we are talking about references. Any dance song could have been  performed instead of Lucky Star. The effect would be the same and the hommage to ABBA would be there. The whole show was a hommage to the 70s, disco and whatever.

Making a coherent setlist is a different topic.

[Debord 404]

27 minutes ago, Justice said:

I know that about Lucky Star, but we are talking about references. Any dance song could have been  performed instead of Lucky Star. The effect would be the same and the hommage to ABBA would be there. The whole show was a hommage to the 70s, disco and whatever.

Making a coherent setlist is a different topic.

I don't think any dance song could've been performed cos it was explicitly calling back to that era and to the start of her career. But in any case, those references and homages are themselves more than just "fun". I don't think anyone is saying that every performance has layers of hidden meaning to peel back, just the point that it's not silly to analyse the meanings of her performances.

[Honey Little 3,996]

There once was a gurl with a little curl. 
She went on stage and was all the rage.

the end 

[Pedro Beltran 4,296]

[Justice 326]

14 hours ago, Debord said:

I don't think any dance song could've been performed cos it was explicitly calling back to that era and to the start of her career. But in any case, those references and homages are themselves more than just "fun". I don't think anyone is saying that every performance has layers of hidden meaning to peel back, just the point that it's not silly to analyse the meanings of her performances.

She skipped many dance hits that could have worked, because the tour was also a celebration of dance music.

Everybody, Express Yourself, Into The Groove, Vogue... many songs could have worked instead of Lucky Star. She reinvents songs and with new arrangements other songs would work. Other dance hits would make sense, because Madonna made people go clubbing and dancing to those modern "disco" songs.

I never said references and homages are just for fun, I said she also does songs for fun without any needed explanation. You can't say that is incorrect, because we are talking about a concert, fans and general public that expect certain things. Her final sections have usually been about delivering bigger hits. It isn't a rocket science. 

Her setlists are not set in  a stone. There are always songs that could be replaced. She even rehearses many songs that don't make the show. 

There is no need to over analyze reasons why certain songs are on a setlist.

[Debord 404]

44 minutes ago, Justice said:

She skipped many dance hits that could have worked, because the tour was also a celebration of dance music.

Everybody, Express Yourself, Into The Groove, Vogue... many songs could have worked instead of Lucky Star. She reinvents songs and with new arrangements other songs would work. Other dance hits would make sense, because Madonna made people go clubbing and dancing to those modern "disco" songs.

I never said references and homages are just for fun, I said she also does songs for fun without any needed explanation. You can't say that is incorrect, because we are talking about a concert, fans and general public that expect certain things. Her final sections have usually been about delivering bigger hits. It isn't a rocket science. 

Her setlists are not set in  a stone. There are always songs that could be replaced. She even rehearses many songs that don't make the show. 

There is no need to over analyze reasons why certain songs are on a setlist.

And analysing is fine cos it's usually warranted. The end.

[kesiak 3,037]

Don't Cry For Me Argentina is about her becoming a freedom fighter - thus the images projected on screens, the rainbow flag being put on her, the lyrics ("so I chose freedom"), the "not fear" messaging.

Rain to me is the post-rave comedown, the song has always had a slightly new agey feel to it, it's a chill out track after the partying. 

And Crazy For You is definitely about her embracing her past self from that period.