UnapologeticBear

Resurection....... A single point of light floating through the air.  Then.... a center stage light with Madonna's lifeless body.... The light goes out.... some thunder.... the light comes back on....  Madonna still breathless and  is still laying there motionless.  Excerpts of her biggest songs are echoing through the stadium as if she is circling the areana.  3D sound. More thunder... a lightning strike... Lights off and on again... then the swell of the song rain begins, this time from the stage and not the arena....  the single point of light moves closer and closer to her body and begins to multiply.... the light particles surround her and begin to enter her mouth and she breathes... in Rescue Me breathwork fashion.   Dancers come to help her up but the Warrior Goddess declines their help.  She makes her way to her feet and is unsteady for only a bit.  Then she goes straight in to a banger.

First of all I'm a treder too and I know what treders are looking for. Traders don't have to prove anything. You know traders got rare staff so stopi it with this shit they have to prove.I put my face here and I don't care if the setlist I shared as a rumors will not be the final setlist. I just shared what she rehaersed for sure. Do you think she teased all setlist on instagram? Or that all the songs she teased will be the final choise? Ok what's the problem?Believe or not believe at rumors.If the opening will be iconic I don't have any problem. I didn't say for sure it will be living for love.I'm not doing a competition with illuminatix (new user with a few topic all about tour)So, repeat: What I shared is a rehaersal. I think someone love to know what she was rehaersing. If she had the time to changed it I don't know. Let's see. 

Actually i didnt take all of them, i changed a few of them, im not into getting popluar posts and i had the same line of thought as you, hence why i modified it slightly, no hard feelings

REGARDLESS I disagree, I dont think collectors should leak anything. If they have it they can keep it among themselves. It's not the fans to have so they might as well do Madonna a favour and not leak this stuff before the tour.
 
I appreciate the information that stuff might be circulating because it's interesting though. 

We need those files.

Yes of course but I didn't say I got the material, but I'm into trading and I know some collectors so I know what is circulating amog them.It's not the first time I shared some rare material here on this forum.

And thank god for that. It's been nice having her plugged back in.

To be honest, I find it refreshing. I love having this kind of access to her, and she obviously enjoys having it.And besides, it's not as if she's wasting time. She IS creating hype for her tour in a way I haven't seen before, so props to her!

This makes more sense to me than the previous list that was being circulated. I like the idea of Veni Vidi Vici working as intro/interludes throughout the show.
 
And I'm absolutely sure she WILL sing Rebel Heart - it's a great song, personal and the title of both, the tour and the album. 

I would love it if she skipped Human Nature this go 'round. I really enjoy the song, but I've seen it the last two tours, and there are only so many ways to do it. 
 
I would really love it if she performed a huge medley of older hits much like Kylie's Everything Taboo Medley. It's very high energy, and covers so many songs in just 8 minutes. 

Madonna on Instagram - Did i say that?.................#rebelheart

http://www.gaytimes.co.uk/Interact/Blogs.aspx?articleid=14464&sectionid=760
 
Review: Rebel Heart by MadonnaThe most in-depth full review of the new album
We’ve counted down all 13 previous studio albums, but here’s the big one – an exclusive, and extensive, full track-by-track review of Madonna’s Rebel Heart...

MADONNA – REBEL HEART (2015)

LIVING FOR LOVE
The single chosen to kick off the Rebel Heart campaign deviates a little from the leaked demo. It’s a flashback to old-school, early 1990s Madonna and could have dropped from the mixing desk of one-time go-to-guy Shep Pettibone. ‘Took me to heaven, let me fall down/Now that it's over, I'm gonna carry on,’ she sings over Alicia Keyes’ pulsating piano before leading into a rousing chorus and a smattering of gospel house female backing vocals. It’s not a lead single with the oomph of Like A Prayer or Hung Up, but praise Jesus, it’s no Give Me All Your Lovin’ either.
Demo: ****
Final mix: ****



DEVIL PRAY
Not, as first assumed, an ode to the joys of narcotics, despite Madonna suggesting she and her beau could smoke weed, get stoned, drink whiskey or even sniff glue (are the kids still doing this?) The drugs mentioned are a metaphor for not giving into temptation of any type, set to a gypsy folk and dance beat echoing Don’t Tell Me. The opening flutes of the demo have been scrapped and producer Avicii reins in his usual balls-out default setting for a finely crafted mid-tempo melody. The end result is a chorus echoing The Animal’s House Of The Rising Sun and Avicii’s collaboration on Coldplay’s Sky Full Of Stars.
Demo: ***
Final mix: ****



GHOSTTOWN
First heard when she rush-released six tracks on to iTunes following the ARTRAPE debacle, it’s a mid-tempo, radio-friendly ballad only tainted by the occasional and completely unnecessary first-verse autotuning. Later, vocally, she hasn’t sounded this warm since the Ray Of Light long player. ‘When it all falls down/ We’ll be two souls in a ghost town,†she promises, altogether more plausible than her last ode to the spirit world in which she offered to a sex up a spook in Supernatural. A rumoured – and deserved - second or third single.
Final mix: ****



UNAPOLOGETIC BITCH
Diplo’s knob-twiddling demo is a dancehall inspired, electropop reggae fused, shade tossing rant aimed at an ex Madonna has kicked to the curb. ‘It might sound like I’m an unapologetic bitch/ but sometimes you know I gotta call it like it is,†she chants, like she’s reading a chapter from Katie Hopkins’ diary. This new version is richer than the demo, but by the time you’ve heard the repetitive chorus’s mantra for the sixth time, you begin to wonder if the lady doth protest too much. It’s borderline whether gets away with going on a ragga tip or ends up a poor man’s Rastamouse.
Demo: **
Final mix: ***



ILLUMINATI
The shy and retiring Kanye West last collaborated with her highness for Hard Candy’s Beat Goes On (the single that never was but should have been). Now he parks his self aggrandizing arse in the producer’s chair for a track that name-checks everyone from Justin Bieber, Jay Z and Beyonce to pretender to the Queen’s throne, Gaga (but no Kim Kardashian, Kayne?) In a monosyllabic stream of conscience, she harks on about celebs not being the all-powerful beings the misleading media portrays them to be. The acoustic guitars from the demo have been tossed away and replaced with Kanye’s trademark dark edge and a sparser, slower pace. And while the demo loses its mojo towards the end, the album version gets better the further it travels. ‘Everybody in this party / Shining like illuminati,’ she sings about the shallowest shindig there is. We’d still like an invite, please.
Demo: **
Final mix: **



BITCH I’M MADONNA (feat. Nicki Minaj)
After 13 albums in 30 years, do we really needed to be reminded who Madonna is? More overuse of the B-word than Britney with Tourette’s, it’s another leaked demo that initially, doesn’t stray far from the original. Harking back to the days when the Black Eyed Peas had feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night, Madonna takes will.i.am’s baton and runs with it, threatening to blow off rooftops, get drunk, snog strangers and swim fully clothed. ‘I just wanna have fun tonight,’ she sings convincingly, and then just as the party starts to thin out, Nicki Minaj bursts through the front door with a bottle of Prosecco in one hand, scattering her two cents worth of diatribe with the other. Like Minaj, this isn’t a song to be taken seriously.
Demo: **
Final mix: ***



HOLD TIGHT
This mid-tempo track underpinned by a dirty bass bears little resemblance to the sparse, pedestrian demo. OneRepublic’s rent-a-hitmaker Ryan Tedder cuts and pastes verses, adds a bridge and brings in some ethereal synths that remind us of Confessions’ Forbidden Love. Vocals have been re-recorded, extras added and the empty breakdowns replaced with Faithless style euphoric instrumentals. Lyrically, there are clichés aplenty about dancing in the middle of the freezing rain, surviving the eye of the hurricane blah, blah, blah but at least there’s no ‘waiting, anticipating’. And when the melody is lush as this, she could be singing a recipe from Mary Berry’s cookbook as far as we care.
Demo: **
Final mix: ****



JOAN OF ARC
This began life as a delicate, guitar strung ballad about the punishment fame can bring, much like Drowned World/Substitute For Love did 17 years ago. She bares her soul about a life spent in front and behind the velvet curtain and how negativity retains the ability to quietly wound those who dare to be outspoken. From paparazzi photographers to journalists raking her over hot coals, it’s all too much and she admits she’s not Joan of Arc, claiming even hearts made of steel can break down. This is a vulnerable Madonna we haven’t seen much of since Ray Of Light. The verses of this version remain acoustic but the choruses now have added drums and guitars turning into a mid-paced radio-friendly pop romp, Like A Prayer style. Vocally and lyrically she could easily be channeling Eva Peron, so don’t cry for her too much.
Demo: ****
Final mix: ****




ICONIC (feat. Chance the Rapper and Mike Tyson)
Nothing says female empowerment than a guest appearance from convicted rapist Mike Tyson. What next? Megan Trainor featuring Ched Evans? A crowd cheering Tyson banging on about how he’s ‘the best the world’s ever seen,’ kicks things off as over a deep bassline before Madonna lectures us about making our voices heard before someone does it for us. The verses build up and up and by the time the bridge arrives, it threatens to go all Celebration-like. You’re left expecting a soaring Calvin Harris style chorus; instead, it breaks down from EDM to r’n’b by the time Chance clocks in to do his thing. The finished product is wholly different from the demo and much more gutsy, getting better with every play.
Demo: **
Final mix: *****



HEARTBREAK CITY
The stand-out moment from the leaked demos was a dark, potty-mouthed soundtrack to a 1980’s film that’s yet to be made. This works as a companion piece to the Tarantino-esque Gang Bang from MDNA and uses a choir as an instrument (in particular a strong male vocal.) It’s a game changer for Avicci who helps Madonna coax out a venomous vocal about an ex who used her. ‘I let you in my house/ You helped yourself with everything/ And left me with your mess,’ she laments. This album mix retains the piano intro, but adds a shuffling marching band beat that gently gives it a foreboding pace and moves it forwards. Strangely, the demo’s final line, ‘And I still feel shitty,’ has been wiped from the finished product.
Demo: *****
Final mix: *****

BODY SHOP
The folkish original which relied on just South Asian style guitars and gentle percussion could very easily have been a leftover from her aborted 2002 musical project Hello Suckers. Heavily metaphoric lyrics compare her body to a car and she urges her boy to ‘zip up the hood to see what’s good’ and ‘take the wheel, I sit on top.’ Granted, it wont be up for an Ivor Novello award for songwriting anytime soon, but it’s playful, spirited and cute in the way that the nudge, nudge, wink wink, Hanky Panky was. The demo’s urgency is slowed down in the final mix but that does it no harm.
Demo: ***
Final mix: ***

HOLY WATER
If Body Shop was foreplay, then this is where the filth really begins. The demo sounded like Madonna had unearthed an old Rihanna track and tried to match her, whore for whore. ‘Bitch get off my pole,’ she hollers. Yes, really. And while the Queens will throw that line at each from now until kingdom come, it’s frankly just a bit embarrassing. If Where Life Begins was an ode to cunnilingus, then this is thinly disguised praise for lady moisture in the knickers department. ‘Baby you should get down low and drink my precious alcohol/ You look so thirsty I think that you need it.’ We’ll stick with the Evian, thanks. This mix is more pulsating than the demo and builds up Giorgio Moroder-style before sinking to yet another predictable r’n’b groove before inexplicably she starts quoting lyrics from Vogue. Alas it says something when the best part of a song is a 25-year-old sample. Again, Kanye helms this remix that would’ve been better suited to Hard Candy. And when it’s been preceded by Joan Of Arc and Heartbreak City, this is, well, just a bit reductive.
Demo: *
Final Mix: **

INSIDE OUT
Even just the leaked demo could have dropped straight from Erotica. In that version, dirty instrumentation in the verses leads to the guitar laden choruses before it gets coated in grime. Not any more. Instead, it’s a stop-start slow jam not that dissimilar to Waiting, Erotica or Push. ‘Let me love you from the inside out,’ she asks and ‘Let’s cross the line so far we won’t come back.’ Moments of the album track remind us of I Want You and Rihanna’s Diamonds and the longer it goes on, the better it is.
Demo: ***
Final mix: ***

WASH ALL OVER ME
Along with Rebel Heart, this was one of the first two songs to leak. In the original, swirling orchestration kicks off proceedings with Avicii’s stamp firmly spread across it. Here, Madonna sings about feeling displaced in a changing world that’s left her all of a muddle. Now with Kanye’s feet on the remixing desk, it’s gone from a full on EDM track to a more delicate piano ballad and thankfully it suffers little from the change in direction. Like Heartbreak City, it uses marching band style drums as it develops into something more dramatic and culminates with an electric guitar. Those who criticised the original may find this more to their taste.
Demo: ****
Final mix: ****

DELUXE VERSION

BEST NIGHT
That’s it for the standard version, because now we’re dipping our fingers into the mixed bag of the Deluxe edition. First, we’re thrust back into the r’n’b zone again with Best Night, a slow, sensual track with Arabic-style samples in which she and Diplo threaten to make this ‘the best night of our life’ as long as we lose our self control first and surrender to the pleasure. It’s a track that already sounds dated and might have been better slotted between Bedtime Story and Sanctuary on the Bedtime Stories long player. She also starts quoting her ‘Wanting, waiting’ lyrics from Justify My Love and last rehashed for Erotica’s Waiting. It’s a pleasant enough album track but not as good as the sum of its sampled parts.
Demo: ***
Final mix: ***

VENI VEDI VICI (feat. Nas)
Few artists can name check their own songs and get away with it, but Madonna manages it 15 times here. There are nods to everything from Like A Virgin, Power Of Goodbye and Ray Of Light as she runs through both her Wikipedia discography and biography. Set to - another - r’n’b backdrop she recalls how she came from nothing and became something; ‘I came, I saw, I conquered,’ and only a fool would argue with that. And there’s an appreciative and gratefully received nod to us in the line, ‘When I struck a pose all the gay boys lost their mind.’ Madonna has dipped her toes in the rap world many a time dating back to Erotica’s Did You Do It in 1992, but none have clashed so badly as Nas’ contribution. Off he trots with his own life story to mirror Madonna’s, but too frequently he lurks in the background, throwing in unnecessary words as she sings, making us want to scream, ‘fuck off til its your turn.’
Demo: ***
Final mix: **

S.E.X.
‘Tell me what you know about Sex,’ Madonna asks. ‘Here we go again,’ the world collectively groans. Let’s get the lyrics out of the way first. The ones in the demo, like, ‘Oh my God you’re so hot/ Hold my hair let me get on top,’ are tame compared to this version, where she now offers a ‘lesson in sexology’ (a little friskier than Paula Abdul’s lesson in Vibeology.) Added lyrics include a shopping list of turn-ons, including a string of pearls, Absinthe, Novocaine, soap, raw meat, strap-ons and golden showers. Try ordering that from Ocado. By the end, you’re longing for Patrick Leonard to burst into the studio and drag her away from the recording booth by her weave. Live To Tell, this is not. In fact it’s so bad, not even a defibrillator, let alone producer Kanye, can resuscitate it. Especially not the moaning porn film samples towards the end. To give him some reluctant credit, Kanye’s mix is far superior to its predecessor with strings, a deep bass and piano but it’s never going to be anything other than toe curling. We don’t care that Madonna is a 57-year-old woman babbling on about sexual activity, it would have been just awful if it were a 22-year-old Miley Cyrus. 25 years ago this would have been shocking. In 2015 it’s only shocking because she’s so beyond this kind of crap.
Demo: *
Final mix: **

MESSIAH
This sums up how schizophrenic Rebel Heart is. One song ago, Madonna was boasting ‘Yeezus loves my pussy best’ and now she’s knocking out one of the most beautiful tracks she has recorded in the last 30 years. She channels her inner Lana Del Rey for a sweeping strings and piano ballad that builds and builds and could have floated off the soundtrack to a Tim Burton movie. There’s some extra percussion and subtle tweaking in this version that adds to the drama. Gorgeous from start to finish.
Demo: *****
Final mix: *****

REBEL HEART
The first track to leak from this era was an autobiographical, Avicii produced folk and dance fusion with the most singalong chorus since Hung Up. Had it not spread across like cyperspace with the speed of Ebola, it may well have ended up here in its demo form. However, there’s been a rethink - not as severe as Wash All Over Me, but enough to make a difference. Now it’s less dancey, more poppy and acoustic and retains an equally anthemic chorus. The song builds and builds but ends about a minute and a half too soon. And making the album’s title track only available on the deluxe version is a highly questionable decision.
Demo: *****
Final mix: ****

SUPER DELUXE VERSION

BEAUTIFUL SCARS
Somewhere between the leaks and the final product, this has seen a radical overhaul. It began as a mid-tempo, guitar driven pop tune – a painfully honest appeal to be accepted exactly how she is, warts and all. ‘I wont apologise for being myself/ Take me with all of my beautiful scars,’ she sings. Here it’s been given a 90s lounge/house meets disco overhaul with sprinkling of Daft Punk-style robotic vocals towards the end. The autotune is a little overdone but the melody remains strong.
Demo: ****
Final version: ***

QUEEN
Another brand new song that escaped the hacker’s clutches. A companion piece to GhostTown, the middle 8 is a glorious, rousing, uplifting highlight but it’s hard to see where this might have fitted in with the standard and deluxe versions. ‘May God bless you all,’ ends the song. ‘Long live the Queen,’ we respond.
Final version: ***

BORROWED TIME
This has been given a different beat and more synths. It echoes the message back in 1986 with True Blue’s Love Makes The World Go Round and more recently, the Live 8 giveaway Hey You, that we should be making more love and less war. ‘We’re only here to love like there’s no tomorrow/ Our time is only borrowed,’ she reminds us in re-recorded vocals. It’s a pleasant enough song worthy of its place on this version.
Demo: **
Final version: ***

GRAFITTI HEART
This brief, two and a half minute demo was a throbbing, fast-pace pop stomper with a ‘woah woah’ chorus. Lyrically, there’s little change on the final mix (there’s a few re-written lines) but the production has a much slicker, rebuilt arrangement. There are more synths and more of a sense of urgency as it rattles along like a Disclosure offcut.
Demo: **
Final version: ***

AUTOTUNE BABY
One of the most original of the songs here – and another not to have leaked - kicks off with a sample of a crying baby, then autotuned and used as an instrument. And as the chorus begins, the gentle piano turns it into a cute and catchy song and very different to the starkness of its verses. Not that dissimilar to the vibe of Nelly Furtado’s Loose album.
Final version: ****

ADDICTED
One of the strongest of the demos to leak, this ode to a bad boy boyfriend it strangely relegated to this super deluxe version. It’s a pretty fantastic track with an instantly familiar chorus and there’s very little difference between the original and this, with the exception of some new vocals. The production is very David Guetta like which isn’t a bad thing.
Demo: ****
Final mix: ****

Verdict:

After two years of globetrotting, Instagraming, hashtagging, working with some of the biggest names in songwriting and production and then the largest music leak the pop world has ever seen, we have the final product.

Was it worth the wait? Much more yes than no. It’s an uplifting album, sometimes tongue in cheek, sometimes playful, other times confessional and for the most part highly enjoyable. And you hear something different each time you play it. There are no other commercial artists out there who, 30 years into their career, are so willing to embrace experimentation and push the envelope like Madonna does. Hard Candy and MDNA felt phoned in, this does not.

There are moments of utter genius on Rebel Heart, from the title track to Messiah, Heartbreak City, Iconic and Joan of Arc. But too many times they are offset with the jarring electro r’n’b and juvenile lyrics of S.E.X, Bitch I’m Madonna and Holy Water.

Her hybrid of styles often works, with elements of Erotica, Confessions, Bedtime Stories and even the better moments of MDNA. But with too many producers at the helm, we wonder if bringing in one executive producer to oversee everyone else could’ve been a wiser choice to give it more cohesion.
However, the joy of iTunes means you can create your own tracklisting and an album that takes some beating.

GT rates Rebel Heart: 4/5
Rebel Heart is released on 9 March. The single, Living For Love, is released on 2 March.

Words: John Marrs

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/cdreviews/11431568/Madonna-Rebel-Heart-review-shes-in-the-game-again.html
 
“Who do you think you are?†demands a screeching voice on the self-explanatorily titled B*tch I’m Madonna. If anyone in pop has earned the right to assert herself so rudely it is surely Madonna Louise Ciccone, an iconic A-List superstar for over 30 years. It helps that the track in question fizzes with bright energy, a handclapping rave anthem powered by a fantastically wonky synth line that sounds like a vintage arcade game played on an electronic kazoo, and topped off with a snappy Nicki Minaj rap. Madonna delivers the melody like a playground nursery rhyme, chanting about bad behaviour in a butter-wouldn’t-melt sing-song voice.
It could almost be a riposte to the BBC Radio One playlist committee, who have apparently decided the 56-year-old Madonna is no longer relevant to their demographic, relegating her current single, Living For Love, to the middle-aged ravers of Radio Two. It is hard to age gracefully in the competitive field of chart pop. Rock offers different models for the older star: dedicated muso, serious singer-songwriter, nostalgic purist. Pop demands the energy of youth, eternal engagement with the subject matters of sex and courting and a wide-eyed fascination with novelty: new sounds, new styles, new effects. Madonna has been such a trend setter over the decades it has been dispiriting to see her struggling to keep up, like an ageing hipster misusing contemporary slang. Her last two albums were over-pushy, over-sexed and overly reliant on importing chart styles from hot production teams. Rebel Heart is much, much better and the key to the change seems to be Madonna herself. For the first time in years, she doesn’t sound desperate. Indeed, she sounds like she might be having fun.
It is slightly surprising under the circumstances. Her 13th album has been aggressively targeted by hackers and beset by a series of leaks, with mixes and demos popping up all over the internet, leading Madonna to complain, somewhat histrionically, of “artistic rape.†What early versions revealed were numerous collaborators reworking and reshaping every track, including such adventurous hit-makers as Kanye West, Avicii and Diplo. There is, nonetheless, a quality of coherence to the finished album and it really does centre on the star. The tone switches dramatically between dynamic contemporary electro groove adventures, singalong pop and lush synthetic ballads, while veering emotionally between introspective vulnerability and strident defiance. Yet every track adheres to robust, classic songwriting principles, a kind of melodious elegance of structure gleaming through no matter how inventively deconstructed the arrangement. And Madonna sounds relaxed and confident, singing with the sweetness and freshness of her youth, yet with much greater technical accomplishment.
 
If we can overlook ludicrous techno folk song Devil Pray, in which Madonna informs us that drugs are bad, she has (mostly) checked her tendency to hectoring self-justification and holier-than-thou lecturing. Dance pop tracks like Illuminati and Iconic reflect a contemporary trend for fast, furious and funny mash ups of conflicting ideas, constantly teetering on the edge of collapse but pulling out another beat or hook to keep things moving. Body Shop has a bubblegum lightness that harks back to True Blue, the epic synths of Wash All Over Me recall Ray of Light’s rich depths, while oral sex slow burner Holy Water manages to be sacrilegious and ear-burningly naughty. She may be chasing the pop zeitgeist rather than setting it these days but at least Madonna sounds like she’s in the game again.
 
*************************************************************************************************************************************************************
 
http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/02/24/op-ed-madonna-still-has-message-are-you-listening
 
I know I’m not the only gay man to have a secret special connection to Madonna.
My identification with the singer began out of an obsession with her 2005 song “Hung Up†in high school. Between ninth-grade history assignments on the World Wars and my class book report on Lord of the Flies, I secretly looped “Hung Up†on my Discman most nights as I studied.
Being a 15-year-old closet case in an all-boys high school meant that I was only allowed a nightly dose of queer transcendence with the thrusting beats in Madonna’s Confessions album. It was an addictive rush and a brief respite from schoolyard bullying and homophobic bullshit.
Fast-forward 10 years and Madonna’s 13th studio album, Rebel Heart, is due for release next month, as her return to the center stage begins. Madonna is now all about something new: With a recent performance at the Grammys and a new identity as a Spanish matador, new photo albums on her Instagram account (what ever happened to coffee table books? Sex, anyone?), and a new sound via her Rebel Heart record to no doubt recruit more fans to her dedicated army of followers.
But after her Grammys performance, Madonna became the butt of jokes across the Internet, in news reports, and in magazine fashion op-ed pieces. The “Living for Love†performance, which saw the singer don a matador outfit and tame a band of wild and ferocious “bulls†as she sang about needing more erotic satisfaction, was not received with the warmest welcome.
If we flash back to the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s, Madonna was regarded as a transgressive and chameleon-like icon of music and pop stardom. She was someone to be reckoned with. Madonna would invent and reappropriate trends, styles, and sounds in an exciting and transformative way, earning herself the title of “The Queen of Reinvention.†However, the Madonna of today is commonly a parody of her former self, seen to be clinging on aesthetic and musical narratives designated for the younger pop star and rejecting the traditional timeline of “aging gracefully.â€
For me, as a loyal but discerning fan of the legendary songstress, I can straddle both sides of the fence and see why the backlash against the Queen of Pop persists today. Madonna has always thrived on subverting and complicating the gender and sexual narratives for women. She was supremely popular in the 1980s and 1990s because her music, including such choice tracks as “Like a Virgin,†“Papa Don’t Preach,†or “Express Yourself,†offered us an image of a woman unapologetic and direct in desire for sexual satisfaction.
Madonna told us she wanted sex and she knew how to get it.
As her image solidified and her popularity grew, Madonna continued to push boundaries. In her infamous coffee table book, Sex, she was photographed performing sexually explicit acts with men and women alike. Not only was she exposing her body — especially in a time when titillating sex and nudity was the key, not necessarily full exposure — but also playing with the categories of sex and sexuality. Her fluid erotic exchanges with men and women between the covers confused and excited fans and foes alike, galvanizing her transformative and transcendental potential to mind-fuck with America and its values on sex.
But as is often the case with icons of music, people say, what’s she done recently that’s good? It’s all well and good to talk about the “old Madonna†but what about the Madonna of today?
For me, her 2012 album, MDNA, was Madonna’s return to top form. In the three music video she released from the record, Madonna played with three modern and popular aesthetic types — Technicolor or “airbrushing†culture, black-and-white, and Instagram filters — and challenged three identities she has been labeled with as a woman and star: mother, gay icon, and media spectacle.
In “Give Me All Your Luvin’,†she embraced the iconicity of Marilyn Monroe and maternity to demonstrate her ability to move between these identities and not only retain an enduring sex appeal, but play cheekily in all these roles. She shows how her sexuality and her femininity are performances, just as the image of Marilyn Monroe is as manufactured as Madonna’s own.
Then in “Girl Gone Wild,†Madonna plays the singular female with a band of (presumably gay) male dancers worshipping her prized body. This may be a convoluted cultural studies analysis but to me the video demonstrates Madonna’s enduring appeal to the gay community and many queer fans desperate to experience, touch, and “wrangle†(as takes place in the video) the iconic singer and savor the sublimity of “the Madonna.â€
For years, Madonna has exploited her name, her femininity, and her womanhood to underscore culture’s socio-political construction of all three. By continuing to release music — whether it’s good or bad, that’s up for the New York music press to decide — she is actively rejecting the narratives around woman and aging. Madonna is saying, I’m still here and I still have aesthetic, musical, and cultural challenges and concepts to share with the world. If you don’t like me, fuck off.
Madonna remains an easy target to mock and joke about. Many continue to mock her age (56), her histrionics on Instagram (yes, she smashed an iPad and called it an “iPodâ€), and her seemingly grueling fitness routines, which are often spread across the scandal sheets. But because she is the best-selling female artist of all time and has had a lifetime of achievements that are undoubtedly never going to be replicated, her status as an icon is unquestionable.
Although the music for each forthcoming record may have a sound that some fans (or foes) don’t like, the very act of releasing another album is an exciting and important prospect in itself. She is rejecting the expectations of female pop stars of a certain age and saying that since I’m Madonna I can continue to break the rule.
As for me, during my time as the young confused queer, Madonna offered the excitement of knowing that I too can gain self-sufficiency, independence, and knowledge. I too could mock and subvert the cultural and social stereotypes pushed onto me as a gay male.
Ironically, one of those stereotypes eventually become that I should like Madonna’s music. And still today, I proudly do.

Red Nose Day is march 13th.    could she be.....
or is that the little elephant?
 

oh I hope so.... I would love a return to the story telling video instead of dancing with (hot) men.   although I'm not above that either.  

Exclusive Interview with THRILL http://drownedmadonna.com/exclusive-interview-thrill/20150214 We had the opportunity to talk with Joshua Hill a.k.a. DJ THRILL who recently did one of the official remixes of #LivingForLoveâ€, Madonna‘s brand new single from the upcoming album “Rebel Heart“.   MG: First of all congratulations for your work on Madonna‘s new track “Living For Love“. The remix you crafted sounds awesome! I thought it would be very hard to get this interview but after we talked on twitter I think you are so cool! THRILL: Thank you so very much for your kind words. I appreciate you wanting to take the time to talk to me.   MG: THRILL is your artist name – Why THRILL? THRILL: The name came from a play off my real name which is Joshua Hill.  I had a friend start calling me J-THRILL and I just dropped the J and there it was.  I like to think that I am a pretty energetic guy both in the studio and on stage so it worked well and it stuck.   MG: We would like to know more about the process! How did you approach each other? THRILL: Well, the story is quite amazing.  My manager works with her on the remix and promotion side of things and obviously, Madonna is a trendsetter.  She understands the remix process and does such a great job of giving her fans different ways to connect with her music.  I have had numerous productions of mine do very well in the house music world and remixed a few other artists and she heard some of my music and gave it the go ahead.  I was at home for the holidays with no studio access, just a laptop and a small midi keyboard- which is really all you need to get started.   I still think I am in disbelief of the opportunity that I was given and it is a testament to my incredible team and the people who believed in me and supported the vision.  The old saying is very real that hard work pays off.  Just do the work, keep your head down and keep believing in yourself no matter what and keep doing the work.   MG: How much time did it take you to make this remix? THRILL: The process all in all took me about a week and 3 countries lol- when you are working on an opportunity this big you want to give it your all and obviously there were some nerves remixing such an icon.  The initial production started in Texas where I am from then went to Los Angeles where I live now.  It then carried on down to Mexico where I was celebrating New Years with my family and then was mixed in London so the track was already international so to speak before it was sent out.     MG: How did you feel when you learned that you were chosen as an official remixer? THRILL: I did not know that my remix was going to be on the EP automatically so it was an exciting but definitely a nervous time for me.  I felt very confident in my work but obviously there are many more opinions than mine.   I was eating dinner with a close friend when my phone rang and it was my manager.  When he told me the news, I fell to the floor and literally began crying.  My PR agent who without this nothing would be possible also called and we just all celebrated this huge accomplishment together as a team…and that was what this was- a team effort.   MG: Since the beginning of her career, Madonna showed great interest in DJs as they manage to get the live feeling of the crowd. Do you like her music? THRILL: Madonna is one of my favorites and I play her music pretty much every day in some way.  She is so diverse in terms of her music that there is something for everyone to relate to.  My favorite tunes of hers are some of the big ones- Like A Prayer, La Isla Bonita, Lucky Star.  Lesser known perhaps (if that is possible) are some of the club mixes she has done in the past with Peter Rauhofer, one of my major influences sound wise.   MG: Have you met Madonna in person? THRILL: I have not had the pleasure of meeting her but I would love to be able to have that opportunity if it presented itself.   MG: Do you think this achievement will help you boost your career? Are you looking forward to collaborating with M again in the future? THRILL: YES AND YES!   MG: The living for love remixes EP will be released on Feb 9th and we wish you best of success! What are your upcoming plans? THRILL: Thank you for the well wishes, it means so much to me.  The support I have had from Madonna and her fans has been like nothing I have ever seen in my life…just amazing people and true fans.  I am so pleased to have had the privilege of sharing my sound with you and everyone else.  Thank you for all you have done already to support me.   Next up are more remixes and original productions and planning out my gigs for the remainder of the year.  I will be playing around the United States, namely Miami for Winter Music Conference as well as some European venues and of course Ibiza!   My next release is called You Gotta Werk and should be out in March and we have some other exciting projects in the works that I am really looking forward to!   Other than that, studio, studio, studio and developing other artists on a label I own called Migrate Or Starve Records.   MG: Some of your favorite artists or DJ whose work you like? THRILL: Erick Morillo, who was also a remixer of Living For Love so that in itself was another thing that I have not wrapped my head around.  Also Junior Vasquez, Peter Rauhofer, Chus & Ceballos and I could go on and on- so many amazing influences I have had.   MG: Some fans love off the record information. Are there alternate versions of your remix? THRILL: At this point, there is not an alternative version of this one…other than the instrumental.     MG: Thank you very much for your time, we really appreciate it! THRILL: Yes, thank you so much!

Kissfm in la and z100 in NYC both played this morning!

On a lighter noteLFL was just played on USA radio between taylor swift and ed sheeran! Go figure!

well, you'd be kinda lost on GrindR 

I hope this guys wins!
 
https://twitter.com/boyg0newild/status/565991169981968385
REBEL THOT 3.10.15â€@boyg0newild I hope @Grindr picks me to win the Madonna contest. #LivingForLove #MadonnaOnGrindr
 

 

 

 

oh I hope so.... I would love a return to the story telling video instead of dancing with (hot) men.   although I'm not above that either.  

They're right about Ghosttown though.... Akerlund have been contacted to direct

http://drownedmadonna.com/madonnas-next-singles-rebel-heart-video-director/20150214 Madonna’s next singles from Rebel Heart & video director After revealing Living for Love as the first single from Madonna’s Rebel Heart, we are now happy to tell you what we learnt about the next singles.   We at DrownedMadonna.com heard that Madonna would like Ghosttown and Devil Pray to be released as singles. And we are excited!   We also learnt that tentatively the video for Ghosttown will be filmed by Swedish director Jonas Ã…kerlund.   Keep in mind that at this stage nothing is definitive yet!