harvie
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Post by harvie on Sept 30, 2017 22:03:44 GMT -5
Rolling Stone ranks "Justify My Love" the 3rd sexiest video of all time. www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-30-sexiest-music-videos-of-all-time-w504065/madonna-justify-my-love-w504136Madonna, "Justify My Love" "A four-minute homage to French cinema that snuck its way into the pop charts, the black-and-white clip for Madonna's woozy devotional "Justify My Love" featured bondage play and group sex amidst its dreamy tableau. "I didn't have any concept at all, except the idea that [Madonna] was arriving in the hotel tired, broken; and when she was going to leave the hotel, she was full of life, she was full of energy, full of everything," director Jean-Baptiste Mondino told Rolling Stone. Madonna's "energy source" proved to be so outré for 1990 that MTV refused to show it, leaving ABC's Nightline – and the revived concept of the "video single" – to pick up the slack. "Why is it," Madonna told The New York Times as the controversy blew up, "that people are willing to go to a movie and watch someone get blown to bits for no reason and nobody wants to see two girls kissing or two men snuggling? I think the video is romantic and loving and has humor in it." That's an overall great list! JML is def deserving of it's high placement. Great to see EY on there too! Wicked Game is an excellent number one..reminds me of Madonna's Cherish, such is one of her sexiest videos also! Also great to see Paula Abdul's Cold Hearted, TLC's Red Light Special and Janet's Anytime, Anyplace on there. Three very sexy, iconic videos!
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HolidayGuy
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Post by HolidayGuy on Oct 1, 2017 13:45:20 GMT -5
^Herb Ritts directed the "Cherish" and "Wicked Game" videos, as well as Janet Jackson's "Love Will Never Do"- as well as shooting the album cover for Olivia Newton-John's "Physical." He liked being on/near the beach, Water, etc. :)
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Dammn Baby
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Watchin' 'em all go...
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Post by Dammn Baby on Oct 1, 2017 16:51:02 GMT -5
^Herb Ritts directed the "Cherish" and "Wicked Game" videos, as well as Janet Jackson's "Love Will Never Do"- as well as shooting the album cover for Olivia Newton-John's "Physical." He liked being on/near the beach, Water, etc. :) He also understood the sensual impact of black and white, and of implied sexuality. Wicked Game is a great example of that.
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HolidayGuy
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Post by HolidayGuy on Oct 2, 2017 11:49:53 GMT -5
^Indeed. Great stuff.
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jumpb4uthink
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Post by jumpb4uthink on Oct 3, 2017 7:43:07 GMT -5
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SPRΞΞ
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Post by SPRΞΞ on Oct 4, 2017 17:11:16 GMT -5
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Post by areyoureadytojump on Oct 5, 2017 20:31:28 GMT -5
Madonna and "Borderline" were part of tonight's Will & Grace.
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Post by areyoureadytojump on Oct 7, 2017 8:02:35 GMT -5
ew.com/music/2017/10/06/madonna-35-best-singles/Ranking Madonna's 35 best singlesThe icon dropped her first single 35 years ago today byCHUCK ARNOLD POSTED ON OCTOBER 6, 2017 It’s hard to imagine music without Madonna. It seems like she’s always been there, changing the game and reinventing herself. But her pop journey all started 35 years ago when she dropped her first single, the dance jam “Everybody,” on Oct. 6, 1982. Since then, she’s never looked back. To celebrate the anniversary of that landmark release, EW ranks the 35 best singles of the Queen of Pop’s royal career. 35. “Ghosttown” (2015) It’s a shame that Madonna’s last album, Rebel Heart, didn’t spawn any real hits because it had two strong singles in “Living for Love” and “Ghosttown.” With its haunting atmospherics and lyrics depicting the “darkest days” in a post-Armageddon world, it was eerily prescient of Trump-era despair. 34. “Nothing Really Matters” (1999) This spot would have gone to another Ray of Light track, “Drowned World/Substitute for Love,” but that song was only released as a single overseas. Cowritten by True Blue/Like a Prayer collaborator Patrick Leonard — and featuring soulful support from longtime backup singers Niki Haris and Donna De Lory — “Nothing Really Matters” updated ’80s Madonna with an ambient soundscape. Inspired by her experience as a mother, it showed that the Material Girl had evolved into the Maternal Girl. 33. “Jump” (2006) After “Hung Up,” “Sorry” was the biggest single off Confessions on a Dance Floor, but “Jump” deserved better. With an empowering message set to a percolating beat produced by Stuart Price — and those echoes of Madge’s 1990 hit “Keep It Together” (see below) — it practically air-lifts you to the next level. 32. “Keep It Together” (1990) “Like a Prayer” may have given some gospel to Madonna’s 1989 album of the same name, but it was “Keep It Together” that brought the funk. Engaging in some family bonding over a groove that owes to Sly & the Family Stone, it’s her own “Family Affair.” Bonus points for being the memorable finale in her legendary Blond Ambition World Tour. 31. “Give It 2 Me” (2008) There were times on Hard Candy when superstar producers Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, and the Neptunes commandeered Madonna’s sound (see the JT collaboration “4 Minutes”), but the emphatic “Give It 2 Me” showed that she was still in charge. Even a bit of silly goofiness during that “get stupid” bridge with Pharrell can’t deny the insistent bounce. 30. “Dress You Up” (1985) Madonna may have been feeling all shiny and new on “Like a Virgin,” but on this LAV single she is clearly experienced in the ways of seduction. Vowing to dress her man up in some head-to-toe loving, she makes this throbbing come-on impossible to resist. 29. “Take a Bow” (1994) After the salaciousness of the whole Sex book and Erotica era, Madonna classed up her act in a big way with this sumptuous, Babyface-produced ballad, which, spending seven weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, is her longest-running No. 1 single. One of the most un-Madonna-sounding Madonna songs, it’s maybe the most elegant thing she’s ever done. 28. “Nothing Fails” (2003) American Life — probably the most divisive album of Madonna’s career — produced one of her worst singles in its title track. But the follow-up was a triumph — creatively if not commercially — that was one of the real highlights of her folktronica period. It goes from stripped-down earnestness to churched-up gloriousness. 27. “Don’t Tell Me” (2000) Madonna as cowgirl? As if any more proof of her powers of reinvention were needed, this Music single delivered it. With its acoustic guitar, country stomp, and stop-start trippiness, this song — cowritten by Americana artist Joe Henry and produced by electronica savant Mirwais — succeeds against the odds. 26. “Secret” (1994) Madonna went R&B on Bedtime Stories, and for the album’s first single she enlisted the services of Dallas Austin, a producer behind hits for TLC, Boyz II Men, and Monica. And while he brought some hip-hop swagger to “Secret,” Madonna is the one who revealed her soul. 25. “Lucky Star” (1984) With “Lucky Star” off her self-titled debut, Madonna hit the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time. One of five songs on her first album written solely by the singer, this radiant twirler feels as if it comes equipped with its own disco ball. 24. “Deeper and Deeper” (1991) Madonna took a deep-house dive with the second single from Erotica, produced by club-remix legend Shep Pettibone. Playing like a sequel to “Vogue” — it even quotes from that earlier hit toward the end — the track pours on the dance-floor drama and is complete with a flamenco breakdown. 23. “Human Nature” (1995) Long before Demi Lovato gave us “Sorry Not Sorry,” an unapologetic Madonna responded to her critics with this defiant declaration that makes a lyrical nod to “Express Yourself.” Produced with hip-hop soul flavor by early Mary J. Blige collaborator Dave Hall, it goes straight-up gangsta on you. 22. “Hung Up” (2005) The first single off Confessions on a Dance Floor marked a comeback for Madonna after the relative flop of American Life, becoming her record-tying 36th top 10 hit. (She would break the record previously held by Elvis Presley with 2008’s “4 Minutes.”) Built around a hypnotic sample from ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight),” it gets you caught up in a disco rapture. 21. “Papa Don’t Preach” (1986) Dealing with teen pregnancy, this No. 1 single from True Blue found Madonna tackling a social issue for the first time — and she did it in strutting style. The string arrangement adds a classical gravitas just in case you didn’t think that she was serious about keeping her baby. 20. “Everybody” (1982) “Dance and sing, get up and do your thing,” Madonna chants on her debut single. And she would repeat that kind of party hyping throughout her career. Although it failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100, this squiggly electro boogie — a precursor to 2000’s “Music” — was ahead of its time. 19. “La Isla Bonita” (1987) Bonita is Spanish for pretty, and this island-breezy ditty is certainly one of the loveliest tunes that Madonna has ever done. Exploring Latin pop long before it became trendy, the song — a fixture on her tours — inspired everything from her own “Who’s That Girl” to Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro.” 18. “Frozen” (1998) Ushering in the ambitious Ray of Light era, that album’s first single was a real revelation, sounding unlike anything Madonna had ever done before. Creating a mystical forest of sonic enchantment — sweeping strings and all — “Frozen” possesses an almost operatic grandeur. It never fails to give you chills. 17. “Live to Tell” (1986) In addition to serving as the first single from True Blue, this song was featured in the film At Close Range, starring Madonna’s then-husband Sean Penn. Setting the moody tone for other movie ballads that she would do — including 1992’s “This Used to Be My Playground” and 1994’s “I’ll Remember” — this aching confession found her displaying greater depth and maturity than ever before. 16. “Borderline” (1984) This is one of six tracks on her Madonna debut that were produced by Reggie Lucas, who had previously worked with R&B artists like Stephanie Mills and Phyllis Hyman. And Madonna — who was getting played on black radio back then — has never sounded more genuinely soulful than on the divine “Borderline.” 15. “Material Girl” (1985) Like many of Madonna’s signature hits, “Material Girl” — which spawned her most famous nickname — is probably known as much for its video as the song. I mean, who can ever forget M doing her best Marilyn Monroe in that “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” homage? The single itself is ’80s synth-pop perfection. 14. “What It Feels Like for a Girl” (2001) This is, hands down, the most underappreciated single of Madonna’s career. Part of it is because the controversial violence of the video — directed by then-husband Guy Ritchie and featuring an Above & Beyond club remix — overshadowed the song. But the Music album version — the one being ranked here — is one of Madonna’s artistic peaks, inspiring an all-male Glee cover and hopefully some girls who needed the love. 13. “Open Your Heart” (1986) As much as Madonna may be known for her more titillating songs, she has also been capable of pure pop bliss. That can be heard on hits like “True Blue,” “Cherish” and, best of all, “Open Your Heart,” which updated a ’60s girl-group giddiness with an ’80s sheen. No doubt, she has rarely sounded more open-hearted than she does here. 12. “Crazy for You” (1985) Madonna had yet to prove that she could make a hit ballad until “Crazy for You.” In fact, the only ballad she had even done was a cover of Rose Royce’s “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” on 1984’s Like a Virgin. But this No. 1 hit from the Vision Quest soundtrack was a career highlight. Although she would become a better singer on future ballads, the raw, soulful yearning on this is something that they can’t teach you in voice class. 11. “Burning Up” (1983) Madonna’s second single from her self-titled debut is another shoulda-been hit that became a fan favorite after she made it big. The most rocking thing she has ever done, this self-penned song drew from the ’80s New York punk scene with its fiery attitude and passion. 10. “Erotica” (1992) There was a lot going against the title track from Madonna’s fifth studio album: It was released just before her scandalous Sex book, and its video was banned from MTV. But the single, which picked up where “Justify My Love” left off, was just about the boldest move she could have made at the height of her career. Playing like your dirtiest fantasy set to music, it also introduced the pop-diva alter ego: Before Mariah gave us Mimi and Beyoncé gave us Sasha Fierce, Madonna gave us the dominatrix Dita. 9. “Into the Groove” (1985) Madonna may have never truly conquered the acting world — Evita notwithstanding — but she definitely made some killer movie music. Case in point: “Into the Groove,” which was featured in her film Desperately Seeking Susan. Although the track — which grooves along a bumping synth-bass line — was technically the B-side to Like a Virgin’s “Angel,” it’s always been clear which of those cuts made the A-list. 8. “Justify My Love” (1990) Probably the most radical single of her career, “Justify My Love” went so far against the pop establishment that it is a testament to Madonna’s dominance that it still went No. 1. A spoken-word ode to releasing your inner freak that grinds to the sleaziest of beats is not supposed to justify such mainstream love. But this song — cowritten by Lenny Kravitz, who also moans orgasmically on backgrounds — was so hot that not even MTV’s video ban could stop it from climaxing. 7. “Music” (2000) Madonna’s music had been making all kinds of people come together throughout her career. But this, her last No. 1 single, was a full-circle moment that took her back to her beginnings as a DJ-loving New York club kid in the early ’80s and showed that, although now a mother of two in her 40s, she could still rule the dance floor. The weird, vaguely eerie electro-pop produced by Mirwais makes this one of her most eccentric hits ever. But whether you are the bourgeoisie or the rebel, the message is universal. 6. “Vogue” (1990) This No. 1 smash may not be the very best of Madonna’s singles, but it could be the most iconic. A lot of that has to do with the classic video, which brought the underground club culture of gay voguing balls to the masses. But this pumping house track — from the Dick Tracy soundtrack I’m Breathless — inspires everybody to be something better than they are today. All you have to do is strike a pose — there’s nothing to it. 5. “Ray of Light” (1998) Madonna may have already reigned over the pop world, but on the Grammy-winning title track of her Ray of Light opus she was transformed into a goddess of the universe. Based on “Sepheryn” by the English folk duo Curtiss Maldoon, the song was revamped into the ultimate trance dance with production by William Orbit. It captures the spiritual glow of Kabbalah Madonna, who gives us a little piece of heaven. 4. “Express Yourself” (1989) “Don’t go for second best baby / Put your love to the test,” preaches Madonna, making her definitive feminist statement with the second single from Like a Prayer. The original album version of the song — which she cowrote with early collaborator Stephen Bray — is a horn-heavy blast, but it’s Shep Pettibone’s housed-up remix that is featured in the epic video and that lifted the single to its higher ground. 3. “Holiday” (1983) Madonna’s third single became her first one to enter the Billboard Hot 100, making it all the way up to No. 16. But that chart position doesn’t do the song justice. This track — produced by her one-time boyfriend, ’80s New York DJ star John “Jellybean” Benitez — has remained her best dance anthem over a career full of great ones. It’s the prototype for everything from “Into the Groove” to “Living for Love.” To this day, whenever it comes on with Madonna rocking that cowbell, it always feels like a celebration. 2. “Like a Virgin” (1984) Produced by Nile Rodgers and written by the hitmaking team of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, “Like a Virgin” became so much bigger than the song — from the vintage video to that unforgettable MTV Video Music Awards performance — but the single itself stands as one of the best of the ’80s. While it may feel relatively innocent compared to “Justify My Love” and “Erotica,” Madonna’s first No. 1 hit paved the way for female pop artists — from Janet Jackson and Britney Spears to Rihanna — to be sexually provocative. No one had to act like a virgin anymore. 1. “Like a Prayer” (1989) From the moment Madonna sings “Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone” atop that solemn organ and the hushed tones of a choir, “Like a Prayer” goes on to achieve a spiritual transcendence that makes this her supreme single. Having grown up Catholic, Madonna balances the sacred and the secular here to ecstatic effect, with gospel great Andrae Crouch’s choir really taking it to church midway through. The whole thing takes you there again and again.
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jumpb4uthink
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Post by jumpb4uthink on Oct 7, 2017 11:12:58 GMT -5
^ there are so many good ones, I would add You'll See, Oh Father, The Power of Goodbye, Masterpiece, Bitch I'm Madonna.
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Post by areyoureadytojump on Oct 7, 2017 21:13:01 GMT -5
"Who's That Girl" is on Turner Classic Movies tonight at 3:45am.
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HolidayGuy
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Post by HolidayGuy on Oct 8, 2017 11:12:44 GMT -5
^For a channel with "Classic" in the title, they'll put just about anything on, won't they? :)
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harvie
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Post by harvie on Oct 8, 2017 13:43:37 GMT -5
^For a channel with "Classic" in the title, they'll put just about anything on, won't they? :) So true! I always had a soft spot for Who's That Girl. It's definately a "so bad, it's good" classic!
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Post by areyoureadytojump on Oct 8, 2017 19:29:23 GMT -5
I think they were honoring Griffin Dunne last night.
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August
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Post by August on Oct 9, 2017 8:04:59 GMT -5
I remember when Who's That Girl came out. I was supposed to see it opening night with my friend Michelle in the evening. However, I couldn't wait and saw it at the first matinee earlier in the day. Then saw it again that night.
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HolidayGuy
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Post by HolidayGuy on Oct 9, 2017 8:41:03 GMT -5
WTG has come cute moments, but not essential viewing. Been so long since I've seen it. But, at least I have- can't say the same for some other M film duds, like Shangahi Surprise, Swept Away, etc. I tried watching Dangerous Game, but fast-forwarded through most of it- it was difficult to watch, from what I remember. An EW writer did a feature ranking M's 35 best singles (as it's 35 years since the release of "Everybody"). He writes "EW," but it's his personal list. ew.com/music/2017/10/06/madonna-35-best-singles/
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Post by areyoureadytojump on Oct 9, 2017 9:25:58 GMT -5
^I posted that list above!
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August
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Post by August on Oct 9, 2017 10:25:01 GMT -5
I have seen all of her films except for Bloodhounds of Broadway.
I probably have not seen WTG in a good 20 years. However, when you are 17, it seems like a masterpiece. haha
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Juanca
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Post by Juanca on Oct 9, 2017 12:19:51 GMT -5
That list of 35 singles is good. It has some inaccuracies (I'm breathless is an album inspired but not the soundtrack to Dick Tracy) and some unexpected ranks (Hung Up outside top 10 but Erotica inside? Wtf?) as well as some debatable propositions (I don't see BU as the most rock song she's ever done... Candy Perfume Girl, or even Dress you up rock harder), but overall a good list and good notes :) Wonder how close our own Pulse RD will be....
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HolidayGuy
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Post by HolidayGuy on Oct 10, 2017 9:14:05 GMT -5
Whoops- didn't see, areyouready. :)
Rebel- haven't seen that one, either.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2017 14:10:39 GMT -5
Second evening I have Bedtime Stories album on repeat. Such a great album for evening relax I love songs from Human Nature to Bedtime Story. These 5 are highlight with Secret
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SPRΞΞ
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Post by SPRΞΞ on Oct 12, 2017 15:56:56 GMT -5
What is with Madonna and her IG? She posts terrifying pictures. She needs to get off that shit.
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🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾
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Post by 🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾 on Oct 12, 2017 21:21:27 GMT -5
What is with Madonna and her IG? She posts terrifying pictures. She needs to get off that s**t. I thought her ads for MDNA Skin were hilarious with the horror elements.
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Post by areyoureadytojump on Oct 15, 2017 21:43:47 GMT -5
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🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾
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Post by 🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾 on Oct 16, 2017 1:40:23 GMT -5
My cousin is a huge Madonna fan (particularly her 80s and 90s material) and her preteen daughter just discovered Madonna on her own while looking at YouTube videos one night and now they share their love of Madonna together. She was so impressed by all the videos.
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jumpb4uthink
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Post by jumpb4uthink on Oct 16, 2017 18:52:52 GMT -5
"There's always boys in her videos" "Is this really the same artist?" 😂
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Post by Resident_Evil on Oct 16, 2017 20:24:41 GMT -5
The only thing i got from this video was that some of these kids are going to grow up to be major assholes.
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August
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Post by August on Oct 17, 2017 19:11:27 GMT -5
Video used for MDNA NYC launch.
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🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾
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Post by 🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾 on Oct 20, 2017 1:28:37 GMT -5
Madonna's 'Erotica,' 'Sex': Why Musical Masterpiece, Defiant Book Still Matter
How the icon's 1992 projects (her own 'Lemonade') tackled homophobia, AIDS hysteria and female, queer desire, and set the blueprint for modern pop By Barry Walters In 1990, Madonna was as astronomically popular as a boundary-bulldozing, unapologetically bacchanalian performance artist could get. Drawing from Harlem drag balls, "Vogue" went Number One nearly worldwide. The tour showcasing it, Blond Ambition, mixed spectacle with social commentary so sharply that it reinvented the pop concert and yielded the smash documentary Truth or Dare. And that year's The Immaculate Collection, her first greatest-hits set, would eventually rank among the world's biggest-ever albums, despite MTV banning its gender-blurring and cinematically exquisite "Justify My Love" video. Some loathed this classically trained dancer/DIY provocateur – a megastar peer of Prince and Michael Jackson since her 1984 blockbuster Like a Virgin – with a venom reserved for successful women forging their own path. But for her vast audience, she was nothing less than liberating, and her uninterrupted string of hits defined pop for a decade. What some considered violations of taste made her more commanding: Even the way she toyed with ordinarily unflappable talk show hosts like David Letterman was more rock & roll than actual rock stars. Nearly everything changed two years later with Erotica and Sex. Released respectively on October 20th and 21st, 1992, the first fruits of her multimedia Maverick entertainment company weren't flops; her fifth studio album, Erotica racked up six million sales worldwide and yielded several hits, while Sex – an elaborate coffee table book created with fashion photographer Steven Meisel and Fabien Baron of Harper's Bazaar – sold out its limited 1.5 million printing in a few days, an unparalleled success for a $50 photography folio bound in metal and sealed in a Mylar bag to evoke condoms. It remains one of the most in-demand out-of-print publications of all time. But both record and book, despite a few positive reviews, inspired widespread vitriol. "There's nothing erotic about it, unless one finds the idea of a singing death mask sexy." That was Entertainment Weekly's take on Erotica's rendition of "Fever," but it summed up many assessments of the entire album. Others appreciated Sex's forthright presentation of LGBTQ sexuality and S&M even less. "Of course, some of us actually like the opposite sex; some of us believe it is possible to have great sex without whips, third parties or domestic pets," groused not some reactionary macho windbag, but a female film critic for The New York Times. Why did projects Madonna intended to open minds shut so many down? As her stardom snowballed through the Eighties and early Nineties, AIDS decimated the scene that helped birth Madonna. Taking music and fashion cues from lower Manhattan's punk rebelliousness and midtown's disco hedonism, pre-stardom Madonna was a fixture in the bohemian underground chronicled by photographer Nan Goldin in her autobiographical The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, a likely Sex influence, along with the severe stylization of Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin and Robert Mapplethorpe. By 1992, AIDS claimed Goldin's subjects, Mapplethorpe himself, much of the art world (including Madonna's friend Keith Haring), and a growing chunk of Madonna's audience. It also killed and would go on to kill her cohorts, including Blond Ambition dancer Gabriel Trupin. Just as racism and the Black Lives Matter movement shaped Beyoncé's Lemonade, AIDS and ACT UP – the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, the direct action advocacy and educational group whose motto was "Silence = Death" – yielded Erotica and Sex. Madonna previewed both works with the lead single and video for "Erotica," which boldly picked up where "Justify My Love" left off, and is narrated by Mistress Dita, her Sex dominatrix alter ego. "Give it up, do as I say," she growls over gritty funk that combines the clatter of R&B's New Jack Swing with house music's heavy bottom. "Give it up and let me have my way." But in much of what follows on the LP, the woman behind the vixen doesn't get what she wants: Her relationships fall apart as she awakens from spells cast by deceptive lovers ("Bye Bye Baby," "Waiting," "Words"). Booze, chain–smoking, and anonymous sex can't numb the pain ("Bad Girl"), and a friend steals her man ("Thief of Hearts"). Meanwhile, comrades die ("In This Life") while kindred outcasts struggle ("Why's It So Hard"). "I'm not happy this way," she sings in "Bad Girl." Sensuality was merely part of the picture: Erotica is Madonna's concept album about love and intimacy under the shadow of plague. In excerpts from his studio diary, Erotica's co-producer/songwriter Shep Pettibone – a skilled remixer who helped Eighties dance grooves evolve from disco to house music – archived the singer's feedback on the album's early slick mixes. "I hate them," she said. "If I had wanted the album to sound like that, I'd have worked with [earlier collaborator] Patrick Leonard in L.A." Instead, Madonna demanded rawness, "as if it were recorded in an alley at 123rd Street in Harlem." And so her "Vogue" collaborator reverted to the rhythm-intensive immediacy of his remixes as he reworked much of the album until it boomed, banged and sizzled like his increasingly popular remixes: Pettibone's version of "Express Yourself" was the one heard in Madonna's massive video. Instead of composing a radio-targeted album later reshaped for the clubs, Pettibone, together with Madonna, and André Betts – a newcomer who co–produced "Justify My Love" with Lenny Kravitz – made Erotica resemble an alternately party-minded and private collection of 12-inch singles. Even ballads like "Bad Girl" take arrangement cues from club music; in this case, a somber, slo-mo slant on Black Box's piano-pounding house anthems. Unlike Erotica, which contrasts moods and tempos but maintains a deep and yearning sonic continuity, Sex is varied in style and content. Some shots are straightforward, such as the introductory snaps of Madonna cavorting with two tattooed and pierced lesbian skinheads. The authenticity of her playmates accentuates the fastidiousness of her makeup and the newness of her fetish-wear, which makes Madonna look like a tourist. There's little less sexy than that. RELATED 12 Reasons This Is Madonna's Best Performance Ever: VMAs 1989 Queen of Pop, then 31, earns title as she does Roger Rabbit, publicly vogues for first time in mesmerizing take on classic feminist anthem Other photos are open to interpretation: One features four masculine figures standing at urinals with Madonna superimposed in pink. The clash of iconography and grain of the image means it takes some staring to notice one has a hand on another's ass – and even more scrutiny to realize these two apparent dudes are actually women; probably the same butches in the earlier tableau. Here Madonna looks like she's visited that same seedy men's room, and the double exposure insinuates it's on her mind. She's not alone: When bigots obsess over transgender folk in public restrooms, this is what they're imagining. They'd deny the compositional beauty of the image, but there it plainly is, contrasted and highlighted by the sleaze. Clearly she intended to instigate more than that era's version of the far right: One of the most realistic photos depicts her in a gymnasium under a basketball hoop with books tossed about and a school uniform half off. One guy holds her between his legs, and another guy's hand is poised to explore her naked crotch. There's more than a suggestion of struggle: Only her strained smile signifies consent. Penned by Madonna, the text also varies in tone. Sometimes she's acting out scenarios likely avoided in real life. Elsewhere she's clearly speaking her own mind, yet with the disclaimer, "Nothing in this book is true," which, to follow her logic, might be a lie. So when she wrote, "The women who are doing [porn] want to do it: No one is holding a gun to their head," critics lambasted the musician. Given that Madonna posed nude in 1978 when she was broke and couldn't stop Penthouse and Playboy from publishing the results in 1985, this statement comes across as atypically naïve. Photograph by Griffin Lotz, (spread Steven Meisel) Because Sex and Erotica launched Maverick and her renegotiated $60 million contract with Time Warner, speculation over the Material Girl's earnings framed nearly every critical analysis. But Madonna's moxie has never been just about profit and fame. As her charities and donations have attested for decades, she also aims to make the world a better place: She just opened a pediatric hospital in Malawi. Back then, she taught soft-core sex ed. "I think the problem is that everybody's so uptight about [sex] that they make it into something bad when it isn't, and if people could talk about it freely, we would have people practicing more safe sex," she told Vanity Fair at the time. "We wouldn't have people sexually abusing each other, because they wouldn't be so uptight to say what they really want, what they really feel." Maybe that's a little simplistic, but it's genuinely humanitarian. At a time when the straight media essentially characterized all sex as dangerous, Madonna tried to illustrate that it could be safe and stimulating, particularly if we open our minds, free our bodies, and try something besides standard intercourse. Nowadays, S&M and explicit LGBTQ imagery is never more than a few clicks away, but the internet was in its infancy in 1992: Photos of sexual activity were exclusive to specialty bookstores until Robert Mapplethorpe's headline–grabbing 1989 retrospective The Perfect Moment, which placed S&M and interracial gay sexuality onto museum walls. The resulting controversy – inflamed by North Carolina's obstructionist Senator Jesse Helms and his attempt to prevent the National Endowment for the Arts from funding "obscenity" – engaged viewers in a moral debate. Accordingly, Sex was never about pretty pictures. Twenty-five years after publication, it's easier to differentiate between Sex's weaknesses and strengths. The sequence with pop rapper Vanilla Ice – Madonna's then-boyfriend – was always tacky, and the section in which she sandwiches herself between hip-hop's Big Daddy Kane and supermodel Naomi Campbell is more stilted than ever. Actress Isabella Rossellini – who appears in a man's suit caressing Madonna and her female friends with an emotional intimacy missing from those celebrity shots – nailed the book's major limitation when she told The Huffington Post in 2014, "Madonna was almost too beautiful, too perfect ... to have that vulnerability or the sense of shock that a regular, more normal, not-so-professional fitted body could convey." No matter how many personas the icon tries on like a pop-art Cindy Sherman, Madonna is Madonna when she takes off her clothes – maybe even more so. Madonna's SEX Book Party Oct. 15, 1992 Berliner Studio/BEI/REX/Shutterstock And yet I recognize her intentions. Madonna and I are of the same generation, and before she was a star, we'd party at the same NYC clubs like Danceteria, where her career began. I lost my dad to cancer when I was young just as she lost her mom at age five, and so I know all too well how grieving reactivates that original deprivation, like when my very first lover died of AIDS 30 years ago. After that went co-workers, mentors and friends until the mid-Nineties, when combinations of antiviral medicines slowed and then ultimately stopped HIV's progression for many patients who followed their medication regimen with military precision. But until then, if you lived in a major city and were gay or an intravenous drug user, sex worker or among their intimates, you were an endangered species. There was no cure, and our government was indifferent. Breaking their silence was essential to our survival and sanity. So when Madonna launched her business with Sex and Erotica, LGBTQ people knew she wasn't exploitative: She was trying to save our lives by politicizing her anger. The frustration of Erotica that critics of the era bemoaned, we applauded because it was our own. Sure, she borrowed some of our fabulousness, but she also gave back plenty. Accordingly, Erotica is also filled with love. The album's steamiest – and funniest – cut, "Where Life Begins," celebrates cunnilingus with cheeky wordplay, but also sweetness and warmth: Crooning over Andre Betts' hip-hop ballad beats, she beckons the listener, "Go down where I cannot hide," as if to suggest her womanhood is this chameleon's constant truth. The album's most driving dance track, the hit "Deeper and Deeper," revels in romantic surrender. But LGBTQ people interpret it more specifically about embracing same-sex attraction. "This feeling inside, I can't explain/But my love is alive, and I'm never gonna hide it again," Madonna belts in the concluding verse, hitting that declaration harder than anything in her catalog. Set in a pansexual nightclub much like Danceteria, its video pays tribute to Andy Warhol, here represented by actor Udo Kier – a Warhol graduate who also plays Sex's dungeon master. But it also tips a hat to Madonna's late mentor Christopher Flynn, who introduced the straight-A student and cheerleader to the gay discos of Detroit. RELATED The 30 Sexiest Music Videos of All Time From the risque to the raunchy to the banned, we count down the hottest, kinkiest, most talked-about clips from Beyonce, Prince, Madonna and more "I always felt like I was a freak when I was growing up and that there was something wrong with me because I couldn't fit in anywhere," she told director Gus Van Zant in Interview in 2010. "But when he took me to that club, he brought me to a place where I finally felt at home." Her elegiac "In This Life" offers gratitude to Flynn and her late roommate Martin Burgoyne while addressing AIDS head-on. "He was only 23/Gone before he had his time," she sings of Burgoyne; "He was like a father to me ... taught me to respect myself," she croons about Flynn. Like "This Used to Be My Playground," the similarly mournful League of Their Own chart-topper released four months before Erotica but written and recorded midway through the album, this lament reveals the wounded child concealed behind her workaholism. Her fragility makes the singing stronger. This sincerity spills into "Rain," the sunny single that revived sales eight months after the album's release, and the final track, "Secret Garden." Madonna ponders her feminine essence as a hidden paradise of pleasure, a Garden of Eden, and she reveals insecurities ordinarily concealed, hoping they'll blossom into self-knowledge. "I wonder if I'll ever know/where my place is, where my face is/I know it's in here somewhere," she whispers over a thrusting bass line, a gyrating breakbeat and breezy jazz piano that wanders with her thoughts. When she does sing on the chorus, she's not the ballsy belter of her hits, but an aching, affectation-free spirit waiting for "a place that I can be born," as if the true Madonna hadn't yet arrived. Pop Star Madonna's Book 'sex'. REX A quarter century after Sex and Erotica, the era's lingering image of the superstar is the shot of her fully naked – tresses teased and face painted like a Fifties starlet, a cigarette in her lips, and her feet in stilettos – thumbing a ride on a bucolic Florida street. Her nude femininity is perfectly sculpted, yet she exudes the assurance of a suited male bureaucrat. It's the book's most transgressive image, for it presents a woman self-objectifying, calling the shots instead of following them, sharing her amorous dreams with the pluck usually reserved for straight white men. There's no submissiveness; instead, its carnal opposite, flaunted while politicians and religious leaders preached abstinence as the only civilized response to a virus spreading throughout the world and claiming millions of lives. Instead, Madonna cast herself as Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Bunny. This defiance flipped out men and women alike. "I divide my career from before and after the Sex book," she told Spin four years later. "Sex was my fantasy, and I made money off of it. That is a no-no." Her bravado lingered through Body of Evidence, a BDSM-charged thriller, and the Maverick-produced, straight-to-video drama Dangerous Game. Both were widely panned, as well as her 1994 Late Show appearance in which she asked David Letterman to smell her panties, smoked a cigar and said, "fuck" 14 times. In between, she staged her Erotica-centric Girlie Show World Tour, which furthered Blond Ambition's fearless exuberance, but only played three U.S. cities. Madonna's sound and image then softened substantially with Evita, motherhood and wistful serenades like "Take a Bow" (her longest-running U.S. Number One) before she regained her audacity via 1998's soul-searching Ray of Light and 2000's experimental Music. And although some of her subsequent output has followed trends rather than setting them, she still puts on a rarely rivaled live show by foregrounding her body as the primary site of her art. That was daring in her Erotica/Sex period. Doing that today, as a 59-year-old woman, makes Madonna even more radical. Watch her fiery acceptance speech last December at Billboard's Women in Music shindig if you think she's lost her edge. "I was called a whore and a witch," she recalled of that epoch. "One headline compared me to Satan. I said, 'Wait a minute, isn't Prince running around with fishnets and high heels and lipstick with his butt hanging out?' Yes, he was. But he was a man. This was the first time I truly understood women do not have the same freedom as men. ...I [felt] like the most hated woman in the world." Two iconic women discuss men, marriage, mothers – and share stories about god, death, ecstasy and spankings Today, Erotica's melancholy desire is all over the boldest substantial pop from Lana Del Rey and Father John Misty to Frank Ocean and Beyoncé, and its dirty house grooves animate chart divas from Katy Perry on "Swish Swish" to underground rappers such as Zebra Katz on "Ima Read." Let's not forget that Grace Jones and Debbie Harry made Madonna possible. But there's an even more direct line between Madonna's unrepentant and emphatically female sensuality – particularly in this incendiary phase – and what followed from Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Ariana Grande, Tove Lo and now Cardi B. Without Madonna, modern pop as we know it would be unimaginable. Meanwhile, Sex's provocations have permeated advertising, which was hardly the point. (Meisel's wood-paneled 1995 campaign for Calvin Klein evoked teen porn so brazenly that the Justice Department got involved and CK pulled the ads.) However, popular music and art are no longer thoroughly defined by a straight white masculine perspective. Nearly everything is more sexualized, and that's not entirely positive, but alpha male artists and submissive female subjects don't dominate as much as they've done for centuries. We've finally hit a tipping point when popular culture is offering more viewpoints and voices: That's why there's a rise in fascism to suppress them. Sex and Erotica's greatest contribution remains their embrace of the Other, which in this case means queerness, blackness, third-wave feminism, exhibitionism and kink. Madonna took what was marginalized at the worst of the AIDS epidemic, placed it in an emancipated context, and shoved it into the mainstream for all to see and hear. www.rollingstone.com/music/news/madonnas-erotica-sex-misunderstood-masterpieces-w507057
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Glove Slap
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Post by Glove Slap on Oct 20, 2017 1:53:13 GMT -5
Happy 25th to her best album! And a hilarious book! My favorite part is probably the shot with the dog. The first time I actually remember seeing her was this: I didn't know it was her, even though I learned who Madonna was very soon after, but that image is one of the first I remember from a video. I'd have been 3, gotta love European programmers.
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Post by areyoureadytojump on Oct 20, 2017 9:52:33 GMT -5
www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/8006663/madonna-erotica-album-sex-book-oral-historyMadonna's 'Erotica' Turns 25: An Oral History of the Most Controversial '90s Pop Albumby Joe Lynch October 20, 2017 Twenty-five years ago, Madonna changed. Sure, Madonna was always changing, but with the release of Erotica on Oct. 20, 1992, she fully shed her ebullient '80s pop skin, donned a leather cat mask, and kicked open a rusty back alley door that previous chart-toppers only dared to scratch at. You didn't need to pick up a copy of her celebrity nude-filled coffee table book, Sex, to realize it. You didn't even need to see Madonna Veronica Louise Ciccone, whip in hand, mugging for the camera in the video for the title track. All you needed to do was press play on the album and let the impossibly thick, libidinous bass line of "Erotica" start vibrating throughout your body. Forty seconds in, the sampled horns of Kool & the Gang's "Jungle Boogie" flare up, but instead of sounding reassuring and familiar, they seem disembodied and eerie. Then, Madonna's latest alter ego addresses you, low and firm: "My name is Dita / I'll be your mistress tonight." If her earlier work was an invitation to celebrate sexuality without shame, Erotica was a challenge from Dita Parlo – Madonna's unashamed, unflinching dominatrix persona – to witness and perhaps even indulge in society's sexual taboos. Madonna may have addressed the male gaze before, but on Erotica, she wasn't just staring back – she was making the world her sub. Erotica occupies a watershed place in the pop pantheon, setting the blueprint for singers to get raw while eschewing exploitation for decades to come. For its 25th anniversary, Billboard spoke to the players involved in Madonna's most creatively daring release. Here's what producer-writer Andre Betts, backup singer Donna De Lory, producer-writer Shep Pettibone, producer-writer Tony Shimkin and Living Colour bassist Doug Wimbish recall of the writing and recording of Erotica, the insane release party for the LP and book, and the collective societal pearl-clutching that followed. The seeds of Erotica trace back to 1990's The Immaculate Collection, which included two new songs: "Rescue Me" from Shep Pettibone and his assistant Tony Shimkin, and "Justify My Love" from Andre Betts and Lenny Kravitz. The gospel-house of the former hit No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, while the hip-hop-inflected latter – which scandalized the world with its leather-clad, ambisexual music video -- reached No. 1. For Erotica, Madonna reteamed with Pettibone and Shimkin for 10 tracks, and Betts for four. Tony Shimkin: After doing The Immaculate Collection and "Rescue Me," she let us know she was working on a new album and wanted us to be involved in the writing. Seeing I was a musician and writer and Shep [Pettibone] was more of a DJ and remixer, we collaborated on the writing of the tracks for the Erotica album. We went up to meet with her in Chicago, post-"Vogue," when she was filming A League of Their Own. So we met with her and started to get to work on some music, and sent it to her as we were working our way through it. She would come into New York and have a book full of lyrics and melody ideas and we started working together in Shep's home studio. I believe the first time she was in New York for an extended period, we were working on "Deeper and Deeper" and "Erotica" and "Bye Bye Baby." She's very driven. There's was never a period of feeling it out -- it was diving in headfirst. Doug Wimbish: I remember Madonna when she used to go to the Roxy before she got really put on. I'd see her at the Roxy when Afrika Bambaataa was down there or [Grandmaster] Flash, and she was down there jamming out. And not just being a spectator, but being engaged in the scene. Madonna's association with the dance music and the gay scene and the hip-hop scene merging in the downtown clubs in New York City, and her coming from Michigan, she got it.... And she knew Dre had something special. A song like "Where Life Begins" is right up his alley. She had a relationship with Dre for his rawness and realness. You gotta be around someone in this business who tells you, "No, I'm not digging that, that's why." And also keep the window open to listen. I think that's what Dre did. Andre Betts: "Where Life Begins" was the first song we wrote on Erotica. I started working on the track and she started writing lyrics. She called me a few weeks before and asked me over the phone, "I'll be in New York in two weeks, do you want to work?" I'm like, "Yeah of course." She's like, "Find a studio, I don't want to work in a popular studio, I want to be low-key." [The studio I picked] was a hole in the wall for real. She came in, started writing, she's like, "What do you think about this direction and these lyrics?" I was like, "That sounds like something I'd write." Our session got interrupted because a big rat ran across the floor. I'm the only one that got the feet up so at first I didn't think she saw it, and she goes, "Dre, stop being a bitch, it's just a rat." [Laughs] She said, "I'm from Detroit, I'm not worried about a rat." Shimkin: She really holds fast to a general rule, which is that she's in charge of lyrics and melody, and you're in charge of music. While she has her say in the music end, it's more about the arrangement and how it works with her vocal. She'll still be open to ideas you have about a vocal. One is her dominion, the other is yours, and they don't meet that often, but it's not unheard of to be able to comment either way. Donna De Lory: She would completely just hear it in her head. Especially when we're doing vocals. Sometimes [backup singer] Niki [Haris] and I would be like, "How 'bout this? How 'bout that?" And she was like, "Nope, this is how it's going to be." And it ended up being great. She was open to other ideas, but I really respected that. Wimbish: [My first day in the studio], she rolls up and she's got a box with these Playboy magazines from like the '60s. She comes in, Dre sees her and she's chilling, Dre's like, "Yo what's up Mo how you doing?" They start having a conversation. Dre says, "What do you got here in this box." Before she can say anything Dre takes one of the magazines and opens to the center section, is like, "Damn these old babes had some titties back then!" Dre's real straight up and down with her. She's Madonna, she's got that alpha female vibe -- and no disrespect. I'm like "yo, let me see that." She's like, "No, no, I don't want you to see anything 'til you play some bass." Our relationship was broken in based on Dre, that moment and Playboy magazines. Dre's looking at the centerfold, Madonna's doing her Madonna thing, saying, "no, no," and I'm like, "I'm not doing anything until I see some titties and ass." Shimkin: I was 21, 22 years old at the time. While I'd worked on a lot of major artists' records and spoken to some of them, it can be intimidating at first. When we worked on "Vogue" I didn't speak to her that much, but when we started working in [Shep's] house [on Erotica] and you're there every day, you realize somebody is just who they are. One time, she was asking me if I was done on the computer. She asked me a few minutes later and I was like "not yet," and I started getting more nervous. The next time she asked me, I lost it and I thought it was the end of my career, I said, "I'm not done yet, make some fucking popcorn and I'll let you know when I'm ready." And she was like, "Ah-k." I think she appreciated someone not being a sycophant and kissing her ass, and just being real. It became much easier as time went on. I think she enjoys having people around her who allow themselves to be themselves. She's really no different than what she puts out there to the public in a movie like Truth or Dare. There's not a persona and she doesn't hide who she is. The first single and title track, "Erotica," set the tone for her album and the Sex book (a Middle Eastern-flavored version entitled "Erotic" was included on a CD with copies of Sex). But unlike many of the other tracks on Erotica, "Erotica" underwent numerous radical changes during the album sessions. Shep Pettibone: "Erotica" was four different songs throughout the process. She loved the groove. She would sing it one way, background vocals harmonies and all, then decide to erase everything and start over again. Every version was very good. Shame she made me erase stuff. Shimkin: The original version of "Erotica" wasn't as slinky and sexy and grimy and dirty sounding until we were in the mixing process of the record, [which was] more toward the final stages. It was experimentation. When we realized it was going to be the first single and started working on the remix, it took on a different, darker vibe. That's when the character emerged, this Dita, when she ad-libbed the speaking parts. Then the character became something that took over. Pettibone: At one point this was a finely tuned album. She scrapped that and wanted it dirty, murky and not polished. De Lory: She was more grown up; she was more mature. She had her statements to make and you were there supporting her. If "Erotica" was a bold sonic departure for Madonna, the second single, "Deeper and Deeper," found her in more familiar disco and house territory – it even featured a lyrical shout-out to her No. 1 hit "Vogue," which "Deeper and Deeper" producers Pettibone and Shimkin also worked on. Shimkin: The music [for "Deeper and Deeper"] was fairly complete when we handed it to her, with the exception of the middle break bridge section, which took on this Spanish flamenco feel. It had the disco-y feel, the chorus and the melody was all intact, but when we were in the studio transferring the demo elements and adding new elements and getting ready for the mix, I was sitting on the couch in the control room with a guitar and started futzing around with the guitar line in the flamenco guitar section. And she was like, "Yeah, let's do that." Then Shep came up with the idea, "If we're going to go for it, let's go for it – let's add castanets and really take it there." It was an odd thing -- it's not what you normally think of doing in a disco song or club song. But it was a creative process and a lot of fun. [Ed. note: Originally, "Deeper and Deeper" was Shimkin's only credited co-write on the album; he's since been officially credited as co-writer on six other tracks.] De Lory: All the records with her, you'd show up at the session and you just couldn't wait to hear what she was doing now. By then I'd gotten to know the fans really well, and I thought "the fans are going to love this," especially when we did "Deeper and Deeper." Niki and I loved those songs because we wanted to belt it out. We had so much fun. I remember the brilliance of her vocal arrangements, how she'd wait 'til the end to bring something new in, and you don't want it to fade out, but it is fading. Shimkin: We were in the process of adding background vocals [to "Deeper and Deeper"]. Most of the vocals came from a Shure SM57 and a quarter inch tape from the demo session, but we did recut some of the vocals. And Shep, while recording, was singing the "Vogue" line over "Deeper and Deeper." She heard it and emulated it, and it just made it. It's happenstance when the melody and key of an original song meld with another one. I think Shep may have suggested [keeping the "Vogue" reference] as a joke and she did it, and we decided to keep it. Pettibone: Yes [that's what happened]. For as dark as Erotica is, there's actually quite a bit of humor on it, from the cheeky "Vogue" shout-out to the ridiculously boastful "Did You Do It," a rap freestyle set to the music of another album track, "Waiting." It wasn't originally intended for the commercial LP, but it's the reason there are two different official versions of the album. Betts: What happened with "Did You Do It" was, we used to snap on each other and make jokes. Madonna and I used to talk a lot of shit to each other – a lot. The guys used to always ask me, "the way you guys talk to each other, I know you guys are doing something." They would ask me, "did you do it? Did you have sex with her?" I'm like, "helllllll no." And they're like, "you're lying, you're lying." One day she had to go somewhere, and I'm almost finished with this record, I'm mixing "Waiting." While she was gone, I was just like, "what are we gonna do now?" Everybody's laughing because it's the song "Waiting" and we're waiting for her. And I said, "give me a mic, I'm going to freestyle something." And as a joke, I told them, "guys I need you to sing this part, yell, 'did you do it,' and I'll do the rest." So when she came back she was expecting to hear "Waiting," but I didn't know she was going to come back with the guys from the [Sex] book. So she comes back with four guys in suits, and the song is cued up, ready to play. So I told my engineer, "play," and he goes "uh, no man, this is not the time." And Madonna goes, "stop being a bitch, play the freaking song." He wouldn't do it, so I hit play and sat back down. I'm thinking, "man I don't know how this is going to go down, but it doesn't matter, I'm already paid and this is the last week." So this is going to be one of the worst jokes of all. When I hit play, man, she leaned over behind me and she literally had tears in her eyes and goes, "You are fucking crazy." Not long after that I was with Doug [Wimbish] in Massachusetts working on Living Colour's Stain album, she calls me and says, "Dre, I'm using that song on the album." I said "what? Hell no, I'm not a rapper, I didn't even write those lyrics, I just freestyled them," and she's like "I don't care, I think it's brilliant, I love it." Freddy DeMann [her manager] gets on and says, "What if we gave you 75/25?" And I said, "Shit, put that on the record. I don't care what I sound like now." [Laughs] That's really what happened. Wimbish: Dre helped pave the road to making her explicit. Betts: Then she called me back to blame my ass: "You know you're the reason I have to have an explicit sticker on my album." I was like, "okay, how you gonna blame me? You decided to put it on." I was like, "You guys want to go through all the trouble for this song to put two different records out?" Because Kmart wouldn't sell records with explicit stickers on them -- they wouldn't even put them in the store. Erotica wasn't all libido and leather, though. The reflective, regretful "Bad Girl" is one of her most affecting lyrics, and "In This Life" is Madge at her most existential. Meanwhile, songs like "Bye Bye Baby" and "Why's It So Hard" find her experimenting with filtered vocals and reggae, respectively, and on her cover of Peggy Lee's "Fever," she marries chilly club music to a torch song of yesteryear. Taken together, the album shows Madonna's growing willingness to expand her horizons in terms of subject matter and studio techniques. Shimkin: "Why's It So Hard" is really funny, because it was midpoint writing the record, and we were all a little burnt out. Everybody went on vacation, and Shep happened to go to Jamaica and I happened to go scuba diving in the Cayman Islands, and both places are heavily reggae-based culture. That's what we came back having listened to, so we decided out of nowhere to do a reggae track. And then my vocals appeared on it. Going to see the Girlie Show live and see my vocals lip synced and coming over the loudspeakers at Madison Square Garden was surreal for me. De Lory: The song "In This Life" was very serious. It was just nice to go into the studio and share our own voices on that, which we could all relate to with what was going on, losing friends to AIDS. Shimkin: "In This Life" had a really deep personal attachment to her, and [it has an] uncluttered nature to allow her vulnerability to come through. Obviously ["Bad Girl" was] a highly personal lyric. There's a raw element and simplicity that lends itself to a vulnerable vocal and lyric that she puts through. You really hear the emotion in her voice. Pettibone: never thought about [whether "Bad Girl" was autobiographical]. It was just a good song that I'm sure many people can relate to.
Shimkin: "Bye Bye Baby" was committed to tape with the filtered vocal – it wasn't an afterthought, it was how she heard herself when doing the song. We went to tape with that effect, there was no removing that. Sometimes you apply treatments like that in the mix, but that was committed to tape. There were no restrictions. Everything was tried that was wanted to be tried.
De Lory: When I heard "Bye Bye Baby" and that vocal effect, it had a lot of attitude. There's a bit of girl power in there and that attitude to be able to say that to a guy. You can hear how ahead of its time it was.
Shimkin: We had a song called "Goodbye to Innocence" but that turned into a cover of Peggy Lee's "Fever"; it was something that evolved with the project. There was a song called "Shame" and "You Are the One" [from the sessions that didn't make the album]. I think "You Are the One" fell into what "Thief of Hearts" was feel-wise, and "Shame" probably could have made the record, but it had a happier vibe, it was a little more playful, so I see why it didn't. But they're sitting there in the vaults somewhere. Maybe one day the Basement Tapes will be dug up. Some of it can be found online. People, I think, went into Library of Congress, played demo tapes and somehow copied them. Madonna has such a rabid fan base, they're so interested in knowing everything she does.
De Lory: Niki and I recently did a cover of "Rain," we both love that song and love singing it live [the two still record and perform together]. When I listen to those records I'm so proud of her for being so innovative and being fearless, and to be part of that was incredible. To be on a recording that will be around for as long as forever will be for us humans, I'm so proud. Niki and I were really taken care of, we were paid well and respected and had a great time with Tony and Shep, and I think that comes across on the records.
While Madonna's turn toward transgression wasn't apparent to everyone during the sessions, her collaborators eventually realized the through-line that connected Erotica, her Sex book and the erotic thriller Body of Evidence. At the very least, they were certainly aware of the controversy that engulfed the album upon its release.
Wimbish: She knew how to deliver with shock and awe. The industry had a flow, she got it, and I'm not brownnosing her.
Shimkin: I'm 99.9 percent certain she had this [overarching theme] envisioned ahead of time. It wasn't as obvious to us before when we were doing songs like "Rain" and "Bye Bye Baby" and "Why's It So Hard," but as it slowly came together, it became more obvious as we saw things alongside it. The Sex book, that was being worked on, and she was shooting the [Body of Evdience] movie with Willem Dafoe.
Pettibone: She kept the book very secret from me. It probably would have been a bigger album without all the controversy. But, after 25 years it still sounds good. Better than her newer albums actually. Whatever the matter, I'm still proud of it.
Wimbish: There's all this controversy going on. Here's the deal. From "Borderline" going on, she's a teenage pop idol. And now all the sudden them titties is out. Middle America and everybody else giving their daughters that $10 to buy that record are like, "hey, wait a minute…" Having a record come out with explicit can take sales away from a label. It's all bullshit. People start freaking out and people are starting to cockblock. It's a business we're in. Anybody sees a possibility to shut stuff down, and it starts in the industry itself. But you wouldn't have some of the lanes that are there now without her putting that record out. Fact.
For the book/album release party, Madonna doubled down on the BDSM imagery and threw an infamous party at Industria Superstudio that (to paraphrase Morrissey) would have made Caligula blush.
Betts: Walking in, just showing up out front, is Hulk Hogan standing there trying to get in. He eventually got in. I walk up with my dreads and about three four people, they look at me walk in, I look back at Hulk Hogan like "shit…he could probably whoop my ass." I'm thinking this will be regular party, whatever. The first thing I saw was a naked person suspended in the air on chains, and I say to myself, "oh shit, this will be one hell of a party."
Wimbish: That record launch party she had, oh my God, that was one of the best record release parties ever. By the time I got there it was way past full effect. She had folks behind glass, strippers, and she was like, "this is the way it's supposed to be done." This is no kissing and cuddling – I want to scare you. All y'all know what you're really doing behind closed doors, so let's get it on.
Betts: When I saw the sushi come by with two tits on the tray and the sushi surrounding the tits, I was like, "oh man." Then I saw this big tub of popcorn but the popcorn was moving because this naked woman was underneath the popcorn. I was like, "this is getting crazy now." My friend goes "what's all those doors over there?" So he looks in the first one and goes "oh shit Dre come here," and there's a girl playing with herself. And I go "wow, okay." So then he moves to the second one, there's a couple in there having sex. And he goes to the third one, and it's two guys. And he freaked the freak out, he's like, "oh shit! I've never seen that before." And there was two doors left and he goes "hell no, I don't know what I might see in those doors." The whole point of the party is you didn't know what you're going to see.
Wimbish: The record was one thing, but that party, in my opinion, changed the game.
Betts: She herself didn't do anything crazy that night. She was like, "I've had enough, I want to chill."
Erotica netted four top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including two top 10s ("Erotica" went to No. 3; "Deeper and Deeper" rose to No. 7), and hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200. It's sold 1.9 million copies to date, according to Nielsen. Even so, the album received mixed reviews, especially compared to the raves she got for Like A Prayer three years earlier. But Erotica has quietly grown in stature over the past quarter century, with critics and artists frequently citing it as a pivotal release in pop and one of her finest efforts. Perhaps the best postscript for Erotica comes from Madonna herself in this 1992 interview with MTV's Steve Blame: "A lot of the things I deal with in my music and the book are, in particular, with the repression that's going on in America right now.…There's a lot of really narrow-minded people. If I can change the way 1/100th of them thinks, then I've accomplished something."
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