lucasciccone

Over... for now? 
 

Mer Girl
Promise to Try
Oh Father
Live to Tell
Nothing Fails

Why do I think American Life is the Anti - Madonna album?
While I've grown to love the record I think it's a really hard album to digest. The music is spiky uninviting and aggressive. In your face. There's something quite punk about it. It lacks a certain musicality the same way punk music did.  It's her least melodic record for sure but as well as this the album lacks harmonies which I think is intentional as maybe Madonna felt she had none in her life at the time. Go listen again you'll be shocked how little there is even on choruses. There's a couple in the acoustic bit of the title track and Intervention. 
Instead of using traditional harmonies on most tracks, they opt for a quite aggressive double track lead vocal scenario. When you think of harmonising to any song on the album it's hard to think of any natural fits. Even on the acoustic ballad X-Static process. The few selected harmonies are presented almost like other thoughts she is having, happening at the same time as the main melody, rather than an actual harmony. They aren't synced and in one verse all the harmonies even waltz off into different lyrics, making it sound confused or distracted "i'm not myself myself right now"
I say it's the anti Madonna album because here was always a warmth to Madonnas music where it felt like there was a more positive resolution to the songs or record. American Life is so icy and cold and that's seemingly on purpose. It's a pure midlife crisis album and a major turning point in Madonnas career. She's miserable and in some cases moaning on pretty much every track. There's a sadness and bitterness about everything and the listen leaves you a bit depressed rather than uplifted or emboldened. I have always suspected that much of the album was driven by Madonna potentially miscarrying a child around that time, or being unsuccessful at conceiving again ? I don't know if this is true but she clearly wanted more children after Rocco, and David came very quickly afterwards,
There's lots of doom mongering negative language. Nothing Fails, Die / I'm So Stupid / Intervention / Nobody Knows Me / Easy Ride. The miserablism of the title track and Hollywood. There is so much confusion. There was a time I was happy in my life, Do You Think I'm Satisfied, I forgot that I was special too, 
There are so many questions in the lyrics or lines that hedge bets and leave room for failure or the inevitability of pain or loss or failure
Should I lose some weight? Do you think I'm satisfied? This type of modern life, is it for me? This time it's got to be good How could it hurt you when it looks so good? Oh, mother why aren't you here with me? I guess I'll die another day? Jesus Christ will you look at me? Don't know who I am , Don't really know if I should give a damn I'm gonna wake up, yes and no I want to let go of all disappointment, that's waiting for me The use of the word Don't & No. No-body, no-thing, lost and life / living happens often enough. Fear makes a few appearances or is at least a theme.
"Dont want my dreams adding up to nothing" "I lost my memory in hollywood" "And I know, I know, There is nothing to fear".. (the second "I know" almost trying to convince herself) "I lost my reputation bad and good" "I have lost my illusions" "When I get lost in space" "Nothing fails, no more fears" I've climbed the tree of life" "Nobody knows me" I'm just living out the American Dream, and I just realized that nothing is what it seems "I used to live in a funny dream" "I've had so many lives" "I've got to calm him down now, I've got to save his life" "cause I used to live in a tiny bubble" Now I'm gonna try to improve my life" "No ones telling you how to live your life" "say hello to your life now you are living" "Nobody else could ever take the place of you" "What I want is to live forever"  
Mother & Father is talking about the loss of her mother AND as a result of her mother dying she lost her father too. Intervention is about losing herself and sense of identity. Even the love song Nothing Fails is a double negative In its wording. "Makes me wanna pray you'll always be here" gives a sense of foreboding...Something doomed perhaps. The album is her most self reflective and self critical. 
The self reference with the use of the word "I" is phenomenal. Just look at the lyrics. American Life. Nobody Knows Me and Die Another Day pretty much start every line with I. The amount of songs that begin with I. If not the verse the chorus. 
Verse:
I Tried To Be A Boy I Lost My Memory In Hollywood I'm So Stupid I've Had So Many Lives I'm In Love With You You Silly Thing I Got To Save My Baby I'm Not Myself When You're Around I'm Gonna Wake Up Yes And No I Want The Good Life Chorus
I go round and round just like a circle I got to give it up find someone to love me I guess I'll Die Another Day and I know that Love will keep us together I got you under my skin and if it's not "I" it's "Me"
Lots of use of the word "don't" too, another negative phrase.
I don't want, no lies I don't watch TV Dont want my dreams adding up to nothing Don't know who I'm supposed to be Don't really know if I should give a damn Push the button, Don't push the button Don't try to tempt me I dont want an easy ride When you're around I don't know who I am I'm not myself and I don't know how Even the tracks that didn't make the album offer the same similarities as the above tracks
It's So Cool:
Do you realize you pay the price? Do you know the cost of all your vice? Do you really know God's intention? Do you ever ask what it's all for? Isn't this the best thing you ever had? Set The Right:
Don't push me to the left Don't push me to the right I have learned Nothing is for free gather top your dreams just to stay alive Many examples of duality of things. There's also lots of questioning, both sides of the argument, second guessing and evaluation. Analyse this indeed.
Push the button, don't push the button.  I tried to be a boy, I tried to be a girl I tried to be a mess, I tried to be the best I'm not a Christian, I'm not A Jew I've had a million visions bad & good I'm bored with the concept of wright & wrong How can it hurt you when it looks so good adding up to nothing There are too many options, there is no one solution Sometimes it's such a pleasure, sometimes I want to tear it all down I always wish that I could find someone as talented as you, but in the process I forget that I was special too nobody else could ever take the place of you, nobody else could ever hurt me like you did I'm gonna wake up, yes and no I want the good life, but I don't want an easy ride  
Some of these examples hold better than others but my point is it illustrates a picture of negativity. Which Madonna has never been about. She and her music have represented positivity, control, ambition, empowerment, life affirming and inspirational messages. This whole record is none of that. If anything is looking at the dark underbelly or drivers of the positive things in her life through the lens of fear and questions of self worth.
It's also the first time she ever refers to herself as a victim in Mother & Father
"I made a vow that I would never need
Another person ever
Turned my heart into a cage
A victim of a kind of rage"
This is unprecedented and a real insight in the mindset of her as a child and beyond. Madonna would never wish to be seen or to present herself as a victim. In fact for all the comparisons to Marilyn Monroe Madonna was once quoted as saying. 
"Marilyn Monroe was a victim; I’m not" or something to that effect.
 
In summary: If the "absolutely no regrets" //door slam// was the sound of Madonna 1.0 slamming the door (or coffin lid) and walking away from the fearless, bolshy incarnation of herself and first decade of her career (83-93), before her introspective decade (94-04), then American Life is the sound of Madonna exhuming the coffin, looking at the corpse of her former self and having a good think about why she did what she did, where it's bought her, why the fuck she did what she did, and what's next.
American Life is Madonna falling out of the centre of the whirlwind of her career, sitting in the quiet eye of the storm and looking at the madness she has created around her. She's going to war with herself, maybe she's tired of her self. (Army fatigues anyone?). Deconstructing, analysing herself, her past, her present and what she wants her future to look like, and she sits mustering the strength to throw herself back into the whirlwind again, but first  deciding if she even really wants to...but she will, and she does because she doesn't want an Easy Ride.  
Interestingly Easy Ride is the song that closes the album after she decided she'll Die Another Day. A joyless, droll, glitchy funeral march of a song. The sound of a never ending round and round of Madonna's Catholic guilt driving her to keep lashing her own back with a cat'o'nine tails. The female embodiment of Flagellant monk forming mortification of the flesh by whipping their own skin with instruments of penance. Fascinating really. I think she left a lot of herself behind before she jumped back into that Maelstom and for me it was the second death of the Madonna we knew and loved, submitted to record before the commercial backlash. An act of self sabotage?
It's a record that is so opposed to the Madonna brand musically and thematically. And in true ying and yang fashion it's the first album we saw her brand being exploited with the singles all being heavily corporately sponsored. Mini Cooper / Gap / Estee Lauder.
So yeah..that's why, (for me anyway)...it's the anti Madonna album.

LET"S GET FUCKING CONCIOUS!!!!!! 

If you guys are seated for a vynil with 6 demos that only a few fans on Earth will put their hands on then fine, nothing wrong with that.
But remember that when fans complain that these songs wont be accessible to nobody but the 20 people who bought a limited edition piece. Expecting fans and non not to be bothered by that is simply egoistic ad. We're not in the 80s anymore🚶

"Ive seen it once I know the cold she gives"
Live To Tell - (The Covid Remix)
 

I can't believe they had a huge opportunity to give Like a Prayer another big moment and then basically set everything to fail. Why did they even bother in the first place.  so frustrating 

I can't believe they had a huge opportunity to give Like a Prayer another big moment and then basically set everything to fail. Why did they even bother in the first place.  so frustrating 

ok but who chose Material Gwoorrll or whatever that one is named 

ok but who chose Material Gwoorrll or whatever that one is named 

The big $$$$$$ Marvel fee, which let's be honest, it's the most important thing here. No amount of streams will equal that, whatever the figure was (rumor says $31M which is crazy, not sure about that).
But in addition to that, it was the perfect opportunity to give the song a boost, her public profile a boost, etc.
It's depressing that a fucking defunct band like 'NSYNC, with a cancelled and hated Justin Timberlake, is getting all the flowers and attention, and also the chart re-entries, partly because their record company (and any team behind?) cares, while an active act like her, who could really benefit a lot from this to raise once again her profile for future endeavours (new music, her own movie, reissues) seems like she's completely detached from it.
It's not her own fault, but she should have a team and a label behind worrying about all these little but not so little things. It's literally part of their jobs.
Maybe it's time for Guy O to step aside. Not that he's helped much or at all in the last... 15 years? That's a whole lot.
Also Warner... guess they were too busy announcing yet another Cher project, a new greatest hits (at least she gets stuff done).

I can't believe they had a huge opportunity to give Like a Prayer another big moment and then basically set everything to fail. Why did they even bother in the first place.  so frustrating 

I can't believe they had a huge opportunity to give Like a Prayer another big moment and then basically set everything to fail. Why did they even bother in the first place.  so frustrating 

I found this version. It's NOT made by me but by Ayhan Music. Just wanted to share it with y'all.
I'm pretty sure it's not official but it's all we got (for now?)
 

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Those links just take me to her Spotify page. I am confusion. 

"True Blue" single is also on the way  https://m.lnk.to/TrueBlue

This could be a good time to merge all the goddamn versions 

Folding the posters for "LAP" silver vinyl.

This could be a good time to merge all the goddamn versions 

This could be a good time to merge all the goddamn versions 

This could be a good time to merge all the goddamn versions 

Leigha is on Emilys maternity leave cover. 

Not us reading the same complains 541 pages later 

Funny thing is this AI photo looks much human than That useless bitch Ricardo's disgusting poor photoshopped photos.