10 worst missteps of Madonna´s carreer

[cutdec 143]

On 11/30/2024 at 5:17 PM, steady75 said:

I came here to post this exactly.

2. Bad surgery. It's 100% her choice ....but with that comes a disconnect.  It's the single thing that moved her from the kind of woman that everybody could sorta relate to even though she was a megastar (unlike Prince and MJ who were god like with obvious talents) Madonna always had that relatability because she had major brains, charm, balls and work ethic and did the most with what god gave her. The first transformative 2008 surgery was where I notice the women I knew in particular disconnect and a strange sense of betrayal in some instances. 

3. Social Media. It's really been an awful exercise in loosing the mystique and is the first time she's really come across as a caricature of herself. Sadly that's all been self inflicted. 

4.  Over long infrequent albums with short campaigns  Her process has seemed so laboured since 2008 and what else have we really got from her instead? In an age where content is king she gives less and less. I cannot believe we have only had three albums since Hard Candy in 2008. That's three album in the best part of 20 years. She really should have been working with so many new writer and producers. Banking on old collaborators for the best part of two decades is fucking wild to me. We should have had albums in 2010 - 2012 - 2015 - 2017 - 2020 - 2022 - 2024. Instead we've had less than half of that and a few good money for old rope compilations. Most of the work that brings to us is written and compiled by producers and other songwriters and she tweaks and curates and adds her spin and some lyrics etc. I think as time has gone on and the process has been revealed this has become even more apparent even in her biggest eras like Ray Of Light and Like A Prayer. She is the magic ingredient but someone else has already been to the shop, bought and made the pie and she adds to the recipe and decides the serving dish in more cases than we thought. I'd have loved a decade where we saw more experimentation rather than putting her eggs in three unsuccessful bloated album projects. 

5. Relevant by association: The tying yourself to younger stars thing is absolutely fine but Madonnas insistence to discount pretty much everyone her own age or anyone over the age of 25 is wild to me, makes her look older and twinned with her obsession to appear young undermines her wisdom and actually a lot of what she stood for. It's always irked me and I think it's also what made a lot of her original fanbase steer away from her. The Kim Kardashian thing is still wild to me. Younger men too. This is also fine but it also lays into the fact that she doesn't want to be questioned or challenged by her contemporaries and is only obsessed with youth. It plays into much of what I have said above. It's also clear she fetishes young black / latin men which I have no problem with but the optics are a little problematic socially.

 

6. Cringe Inducing P.A's : Not reading the room: Either where she tries to make it about her or misses the tone. Aretha Franklin Tribute, Grammy appearance, VMA's 2021, Eurovision, Maluma concert, Prince Tribute to some degree. I suppose the Brits too but not her fault. "come on Pharrel get up" etc. It's so try hard and it used to be effortless.

7. Losing her sense of humour. She used to be so funny and she's just....not anymore. She seems to take herself so seriously and she used to just brush things off and make me howl.  Her skits are infantile. 

8. Lack of Interviews: Her press and print interviews were a huge part of the Madonna magic for me. Watching her interact and spitball and give us her views on things. The way she would win the interviewer over. Magical. since MDNA it seems she's very keen to name drop or appear aloof or above things. Like it's an inconvenience being there or that. There's one decent interview with a young bloke around Rebel Heart where she seems pretty good. I can't think of a good press interview for eons. The Graham Norton, Jonathan Ross ones were bad. I suppose the last iconic thing she said was "look it up" and fuck all since. 

9. Legacy: This is two fold. The constant self referencing in material from the last 17 years from Hard Candy and Celebration song through MDNA, Rebel Heart and Madame X and not actually doing anything in terms of releasing expanded editions in the huge gaps between projects in that time. . A lot of Madonna fans are dead.

10. Yes men: I think most of the above folds into a general disconnect with real life. Her circles have frightened me at times. Pictures on her insta pot a room full of highly amended faces and a weird in club of odd balls. creepy. 

It's almost uncomfortable that I couldn't disagree with you 😕 The loss of her support system within a short period had a profound affect on everything (the divorce, Liz, Angela, her brother, her label, the Bergs, etc..). All of this while music sales were crumbling and turning 50, not easy.

[BADonna 27,216]

Missteps to me would be something that killed her career.  Nothing really has.  Most of the mentions are just merely things some just didn't like personally and that is fine to express that, but I just ''can't' when someone brings up EVITA or SEX/EROTICA era as a misstep.  While at the time, it's easy to think the Sex book and Erotica may have been something that could have cancelled her, but it didn't. In fact, they become career defining. It would be like saying, it was a misstep when she first fell to the floor and rolled around the stage at the first MTV Awards.  While at the time, even her manager thought she killed any chance of a career, but it ended up being a defining moment for her.  I even think her choice of trying to be an actress wasn't necessarily a misstep because without that she would have never gone on to be part of some notable roles such as Evita, Breathless Mahoney or Mae.  And as awful many think Who's That Girl was, I still loved her in it. I love Nicki Finn!

For me, if she was no longer active and had been cancelled, then I can see how some mentions could be "missteps" that led her there, but even the release of Popular was a moment that only helped her career to some degree. One could say releasing FEL was a misstep, but without that release, we may never gotten the Celebration Tour being that was when she decided to go on tour again. 

Sure, there are moments of bad decisions that weren't helpful to her career, and may have prevented some moments from being more successful, but even with HARD CANDY which some mentioned as a "misstep", she ended up scoring her biggest selling single in that era.  For me, it is what it is!  She's still going strong, and I don't see any of these mentions anymore than just possibly bad decisions which really didn't hurt her career.  Most people would kill to have just a quarter of the success she had in her whole career.

[littlestartman 380]

Weve been discussing some of these for 10 years lol

[wtg1987 10,945]

5 hours ago, littlestartman said:

Weve been discussing some of these for 10 years lol

well thats the problem when fans on here think up these random topics - its going to cover her 40 plus career - personally i hate it when people come up with these top 10, top 5 top 20 blah blah....

[ChrisK 9,902]

it's so subjective, I don't think she's had any mis-steps really - she's done exactly what she's wanted and the public has either liked it or not - but even doing something you think the public will like is no guarantee they will.

[BADonna 27,216]

1 hour ago, wtg1987 said:

well thats the problem when fans on here think up these random topics - its going to cover her 40 plus career - personally i hate it when people come up with these top 10, top 5 top 20 blah blah....

Hey I got an idea! Why not start your own threads to set the "exemplary" example since you seem to know what's best?!?! 

[Would You Like To Try 10,397]

11 hours ago, DoneGone said:

I love the "American Life" single, video and album, but commercially it was a disaster move after one of the biggest comebacks in pop music ever with "Ray Of Light" and then "Music". (But AL allowed her to have The Third Coming later with "Confessions" so hey).

The "American Life" video fiasco kinda ended her main artist seller career in the US forever.

Later, I'll always maintain the whole Gaga war in 2012 was unnecessary and below her - not to mention it stopped her from winning over the next generation of gays and girls for the first time, which made her a legacy artist instead of a current pop girl. She should have been smarter and played the game, it worked with Britney in 2003, she had a whole new generation on board during "Confessions" thanks to that.

I remember when I first was a mainly gaga fan I was like "Who is this diva?" And then I became a fan with Finally Enough Love

[ChrisK 9,902]

Ok, on reflection, I think American Life was probably the only mis step she made and only in America (*but one could also argue, she didn't care as she wanted to protest the war anyway).

 

[PedroNNA 7,801]

1 hour ago, ChrisK said:

it's so subjective, I don't think she's had any mis-steps really - she's done exactly what she's wanted and the public has either liked it or not - but even doing something you think the public will like is no guarantee they will.

Absolutely 

As mentioned before by @Adonnathese are such subjective lists of dislikes supported by low numbers in a Madonna scope of success 

Many things that have been mentioned here I truly love, and I haven’t said anything about any missteps, I truly don’t think that any of us has any insight into how decisions where made and why, if any of these “missteps” where successful or popular independently of our taste for them no one would would dare call them such as. 

Not every enterprise or artistic expression has to be a success to be valid and worthy life is a series of ups and downs and trials of errors and successes 

Im glad she has been able to have a extremely successful career and some of the statements from her fans expressed here are truly naive and presumptuous

Life is easy to judge in hindsight but not when you are living in real time 

[BADonna 27,216]

25 minutes ago, ChrisK said:

Ok, on reflection, I think American Life was probably the only mis step she made and only in America (*but one could also argue, she didn't care as she wanted to protest the war anyway).

 

She would have been crucified if she let that one be released at the time. In fact, the conservative media were already trying to go after her even when she pulled it.  Imagine if she just released it. That era would have been toast.

Her main concern were her children/family at the time.  People were threatening artists' lives over government/Bush/War resistance.  It wasn't a misstep at any means. It was her reading the room and being precautionary. She made the right decision for the time.  But what is hilarious, it only took just about a year before such resistance was no longer frowned upon.  She used the original video on the RIT and no one really gave a fuck!  In my eyes, she still won and while the AL era wasn't as successful, it probably was more so because she didn't release the video.

 

[BADonna 27,216]

8 minutes ago, PedroNNA said:

Life is easy to judge in hindsight but not when you are living in real time 

This!  Like mentioned above regarding the American Life video... at the time, it was the right thing to do to pull it.  Living in that time, it was very much lynch mob mentality.  In hindsight, it's easy to be more critical about it because many came around within a year to see, maybe a resistance wouldn't have been so bad.  However, living in that moment of time, it wouldn't have went over well.  No video is worth that headache.  The Dixie Chicks backlash lasted much longer still even when people were coming around. 

[mirtillo 2,751]

I think that after the end of Madame X Tour, the worst missteps are many.

[Pootz333 3,316]

I've never fully recovered from this.

We're now at my favorite part of the thread. She had no missteps. Everything was flawless. Those movies? All brilliant. The critics are just Janet fans. Etc.

[BLUE JEAN 20,913]

59 minutes ago, Pootz333 said:

I've never fully recovered from this.

Omg I swear she promoted MDNA Skin more than any album in her career. It was like it’s own era that just went on and on forever.

The climax was when she ranted at fans how it was “part of her art.”

And then she went on Instagram saying we needed to buy it to help fund her next tour 

[BLUE JEAN 20,913]

20 hours ago, Adonna said:

I just ''can't' when someone brings up EVITA or SEX/EROTICA era as a misstep. 

God me neither.

I also struggle that some of her biggest fans seem to hate half her catalogue. I really never disliked any song pre 2012. I mean each to their own but it always surprises me when I see people’s lists of what they don’t like.

[PedroNNA 7,801]

3 hours ago, BLUE JEAN said:

God me neither.

I also struggle that some of her biggest fans seem to hate half her catalogue. I really never disliked any song pre 2012. I mean each to their own but it always surprises me when I see people’s lists of what they don’t like.

For me the only thing I would say is Remaster MDNA, and I’m completely fine with everything else she has done, everything ♥️

[Would You Like To Try 10,397]

3 hours ago, BLUE JEAN said:

Omg I swear she promoted MDNA Skin more than any album in her career. It was like it’s own era that just went on and on forever.

The climax was when she ranted at fans how it was “part of her art.”

And then she went on Instagram saying we needed to buy it to help fund her next tour 

Did she just tell us our skin is bad? 

lol

[Would You Like To Try 10,397]

One big misstep was not making Celebration a one stop vault for all the rare 7" mixes and single mixes for all the hits included

And not using treble in the remastering.. 

Like sir Immaculate is everywhere, rare 7" mixes only included in 7"s or rare Warner compilations, or even exclusive to vinyl commercially or even reserved to the format are not so..

[Dom 72]

The biggest misstep of her career music wise is probably MDNA. It sucked.

I think it was also a big mistake to sign a 360 deal with Live Nation. They were clearly only interested in making money with her as a touring artist. Everything went downhill musically after she had left Warner.

healthwise…Madame X tour shouldn’t have happened. It ruined her health. 
on the same note….her butt implants. Not because I personally think something‘s wrong with plastic surgery, but because they almost killed her.

Edit: Her being on social media didn’t really help her brand. Trying to sell herself as a lifestyle/skincare/perfume experience about 20-30 years too late in the early 2010s was also a strange move.

if the same energy would have been invested in preserving her legacy by uploading decent versions of her videos on YouTube for example I feel like her career would look different now.

Edited December 2, 2024 by Dom (see edit history)

[Dita 3,278]

I would say the main and probably only misstep I’d really grant her is not adapting to the internet age fast enough. Once the streaming era took off, she’s really struggled to stay current with marketing strategies and promotion, favoring strategies that worked for her in the 80s and 90s over adapting with the times. I don’t even think this is entirely her misstep, but rather her team’s. But I guess the buck stops with her, and she could easily hire people who are more savvy. 

[Roland Barthes 7,330]

I focused on career, surgeries are personal choices. Making movies with her husbands and her friend Rupert were professional mistakes. 

Hard Candy is not a bad album, i really love some songs on it but it felt calculated to regain the american market after American Life and Confessions that felt punished in the USA when it was so huge globally. 

MDNA on the other hand is a total failure when she should have come back with a bang. Imo it's what sealed her downfall and some older fans left the ship right there for good. What followed was chaotic but i like Rebel Heart and Madame X. 

She should have toured in 1999 instead of making that shitfest TNBT but she may not have made Music and it's one of her best album so...DWT would 't have been so heavy because she put like 8 years of ideas into one of her most theatric but coldest show. I saw it twice and it left me angry, not because of the lack of hits but because she was so distant from, it was more like watching a play than a concert.

[MDNA22 1,414]

1 hour ago, Dom said:

The biggest misstep of her career music wise is probably MDNA. It sucked.

I think it was also a big mistake to sign a 360 deal with Live Nation. They were clearly only interested in making money with her as a touring artist. Everything went downhill musically after she had left Warner.

healthwise…Madame X tour shouldn’t have happened. It ruined her health. 
on the same note….her butt implants. Not because I personally think something‘s wrong with plastic surgery, but because they almost killed her.

Edit: Her being on social media didn’t really help her brand. Trying to sell herself as a lifestyle/skincare/perfume experience about 20-30 years too late in the early 2010s was also a strange move.

if the same energy would have been invested in preserving her legacy by uploading decent versions of her videos on YouTube for example I feel like her career would look different now.

So true 

[Mer Girl 1,290]

MDNA and letting Pharrell & Timberlake & Timbaland basically own Hard Candy. Nothing against them, but the beat is… generic. After Confessions, it was kind of a let down.

[Boombox90 7,456]

7 hours ago, Dom said:

The biggest misstep of her career music wise is probably MDNA. It sucked.

I think it was also a big mistake to sign a 360 deal with Live Nation. They were clearly only interested in making money with her as a touring artist. Everything went downhill musically after she had left Warner.

healthwise…Madame X tour shouldn’t have happened. It ruined her health. 
on the same note….her butt implants. Not because I personally think something‘s wrong with plastic surgery, but because they almost killed her.

Edit: Her being on social media didn’t really help her brand. Trying to sell herself as a lifestyle/skincare/perfume experience about 20-30 years too late in the early 2010s was also a strange move.

if the same energy would have been invested in preserving her legacy by uploading decent versions of her videos on YouTube for example I feel like her career would look different now.

Rebel Heart and Madame X are both worse than MDNA. 💅🏽

[Dita 3,278]

4 hours ago, Boombox90 said:

Rebel Heart and Madame X are both worse than MDNA. 💅🏽

I may be in the minority but I love Rebel Heart, and half of MDNA.