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Robyn- Love Kills (live in Amsterdam)
I got to see Robyn for the 2nd time on Saturday, and while the show may not have been as incredible as the Philadelphia show in August, it was an excellent performance. The setlist was mostly similar to that show, with the obvious addition of Body Talk Part 2 material as well as Show Me Love to close out the concert. Love Kills was my favorite of the new songs performed, although Hang With Me turned into a much more epic song than I was expecting live and was also pretty excellent. I’m still partial to the acoustic version though, so that colors my view. We Dance To The Beat was mixed with pieces of Don’t Fucking Tell Me What To Do for an interlude that was interesting but dragged on about a minute too long. Still, Robyn deserves some time to catch her breath after the high energy show she puts on with minimal tricks and no back-up dancers, something I can’t see the other pop stars of the moment pulling off (Madonna could, and has, though. Exhibit A, Exhibit B) so I can’t fault her too much for drawing out that mix.
The performance of The Girl and the Robot was noticeably better than before, a definite highlight of the night and a great way to lead into Dancing On My Own. In My Eyes live was an improvement over the studio version, but it’s still not a song I think I’ll ever love. The new mix of Be Mine that’s performed live also desperately needs to be released somewhere, it’s a great reworking of the song that adds a new dimension of anger to the song and takes it to an entirely different place. I do hope Robyn starts performing Criminal Intent live since that’s one of my favorites and it was MIA. I also was a little disappointed that Indestructible didn’t end the show, but I assume Robyn is saving live performances of that for when the dance version comes out. It wouldn’t have fit the mood of this show as well as Show Me Love did though, since it was a perfect sing-along ending that sent everyone home on a high note.
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auditorylove asked: Here's a loaded question: what would you pick for your ten "desert island discs?"
Hmm, this is hard but actually not as hard as I thought it would be. They’re not in order because trying to figure that one out would probably give me a brain aneurysm.
- Tori Amos, From The Choirgirl Hotel
- Tori Amos, Boys For Pele
- Fiona Apple, When The Pawn…
- Ani Difranco, Dilate
- Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker
- Donna Summer, The Donna Summer Anthology (This is two discs, so if that’s cheating, I’ll just take disc 1)
- Madonna, Celebration (This is two discs as well, but you’ll just have to let me cheat a little because The Immaculate Collection doesn’t have Dress You Up or Burning Up.)
- Hole, Live Through This
- Liz Phair, Exile In Guyville
- Neutral Milk Hotel, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Runners-up include: Patti Smith, Horses; Alanis Morissette, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (which used to be my 3rd favorite album ever, but which has tumbled in rankings as I’ve gotten older even though I still love it); PJ Harvey- Is This Desire?; Radiohead- The Bends; Emmylou Harris- Wrecking Ball
It’s kinda weird that 7 of these albums are from the 90’s and the most recent album came out in 2000, since I do listen to a lot that isn’t from that relatively small time period. The most recent album to even come close to making it was Ys by Joanna Newsom, and only Joni Michell’s Blue and Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks were even close to getting on the list as far as pre-1980’s albums go.
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Madonna- What It Feels Like For A Girl
This is one of Madonna’s best videos but it’s gone largely unseen, due to being banned by MTV and VH1 for its violence and only aired once. The Guy Ritchie-directed video utilizes the Above and Beyond (of Trance Around The World fame) remix of What It Feels Like For A Girl, making the viewer focus more on the video itself and less on the song’s lyrics and gives what was originally a ballad a much faster and uptempo beat. I think this was the last time Madonna released a video with some substance and meaning to it (remember, the American Life video I posted last week was unreleased). Yes, the video is violent, but what’s important is to note who the violence is perpetrated against: the sleazy, the rich, and authority figures. She’s taking Grandma out for one final act of revenge on all the men who’ve ever oppressed them and society in general before ending it all. And let’s not overlook how she takes her revenge: turning the all-american symbol of masculinity, the muscle car, against stereotypical men (sidebar: I really want a muscle car so badly, they’re awesome looking, and I figure it’s still cool since I’m not a douchebag or balding)
What most people don’t get about the video (and Madonna in general) is how much humor is in it. From the name of the nursing home to her adjusting Grandma’s glasses after the first crash to Madge shooting blanks at the cops, there’s a lot that’s amusing here and that provides some levity to the violence, making everything a little surreal.
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Madonna- Mer Girl/Sky Fits Heaven (Drowned World Tour 2001)
For this performance, which was part of the geisha/anime portion of the Drowned World show (Madonna’s most artistic and least hit-heavy tour), Madonna took inspiration from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and staged an anime-esque dance battle with aerial stunts. I believe she was the first pop star to do aerial work like this, and it’s since become somewhat standard (see: the last two Britney Spears and Pink tours), but only Madonna has the balls to KILL two people in her dance battles. Mer Girl, performed in 2 parts around Sky Fits Heaven, has surprisingly intimate and dark lyrics/imagery for a Madonna song but its theme of running fits with the battle that happens, marking it as a dramatization of the internal battle in her head. That closing shotgun blast symbolizes Madonna choosing to stop running away, kill the demons in her head, and returning to her self, wonderfully dramatized with the ripping off of the black wig to reveal her iconic blonde hair.
This concludes my “Happy Birthday, Madonna” postings, at least for now. There may be more tomorrow, but then it’ll just be because I’ve fallen into a youtube hole tonight, not for her birthday.
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Madonna- Get Together (live at Koko Club 2005)
This performance is a bit rough vocally, but it’s really interesting to see Madonna doing a performance with such minimal choreography, letting her be much looser than usual. You can tell how much she loves performing here, that smile on her face while she’s doing those Wonder Woman spins from 3:40-3:46 is one of pure joy. It doesn’t matter that the vocals aren’t perfect, the beat and her presence are strong enough that the crowd’s in rapture and Madge feeds off of it.
It makes me sad Get Together was never a big hit, it’s one of the best tracks off of Confessions On A Dance Floor, and one of the best examples of the “future disco” sound Madonna was going for on that album.
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Madonna- Like A Prayer (Sticky and Sweet Tour)
I can’t believe I almost let Madge’s birthday go by without any sort of commemoration. She still puts on the best big show of any artist, and I think, more than anything else, it’s because she’s always had that special “it” factor where no matter what else is going on, your eyes are drawn to her the entire time. So many other acts get overwhelmed by the big stage extravaganzas they come up with, but that’s never been a problem for Madonna. No other performer has the level of charisma she does.
My favorite moment of the entire performance is at 3:01 when she sends the dancers forward with her arms raised like she’s some super-villain puppet master sending off an army of minions. It’s ridiculous and completely perfect.
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Madonna- American Life (original unreleased video)
“American Life” is Madonna’s most misunderstood song and album. The song is often derided for the ludicrous and awful rap in the middle, but what most people don’t get is that the rap is meant to be terrible. The radio edit cuts out Madonna’s “fuck it” in the chorus immediately before, signifying that she’s going from questioning American culture and why she’s done what she has (as in the other verses and chorus) to embracing its shallowness and vapidity. You’re supposed to be turned off by all the silly rhymes, the bullshit and bragging, because Madge wants you to realize its nonsense, like she supposedly has. As such, this makes the song a good lead-off track for a record largely about getting everything you wanted in life, achieving everything you’re supposed to, and finding it to be empty and meaningless, but does not make it a good single. The stop-start beats and acoustic guitar driven segments are interesting, but not effective hooks. Other than the rap, the lyrics are too direct and basic, but Madonna has never been the most poetic writer especially when she has a “message”.
The single was also hamstrung by Madonna’s decision to pull her excellent original video and instead release a content-less video of her singing in front of various flags. The original video (directed by Jonas Akerlund) adds another layer of meaning to the song, moving the internal self-centered battle in the lyrics to an external battle against the fashion world and the military industrial complex. In some ways, the song needs the video to really work, and without it, the message is lost. The video also makes Madonna’s look for this era make a lot more sense, and without it her co-opting of military garb and Patty Hearst imagery didn’t fit with the rest of the record. I don’t think this song is the greatest thing ever written, but it (and the album in general) doesn’t deserve 1/10th of the shit it gets from both critics, fans, and the public, even if much of that is due to Madonna’s own poor choices in doubly censoring the single and not marketing the album correctly. Releasing it would’ve been a ballsy political statement in 2003, but I understand why Madge censored it due to the environment for artists and anti-war sentiments at the time, even if I think it was a bad call.
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Lady Gaga- Bad Romance (live at Lollapalooza 2010)
Lady Gaga was THE main event at Lollapalooza this year. She’s the reason I managed to convince my sister (and thus my parents) to make this trip to Chicago for pretty much just the festival. We waited at the main stage from 4:30 to 8 for her. Needless to say, my expectations were sky high. Unfortunately those expectations were not met. Her show is one of the best in pop, but there are some significant flaws that keep it from getting to the level of Madonna, or even Pink (who really does not get enough credit for how good she is).
Dance in the Dark started the set with Gaga singing behind a white see-through screen and remaining mostly motionless while her silhouette was projected. It was a cool concept that only half-worked, but I’m sure that’s mainly due to it still being somewhat light out at 8 o’clock. Once the screen was raised and she really began dancing, the crowd went nuts and the performance seemed to feed off of that energy and dramatically improve. The live-only song “Glitter and Grease” followed, and was a silly trifle that helped move the “plot” of the show (Gaga and co are trying to get to the Monster Ball, car breaks down, they take the subway, end up somewhere scary, everyone abandons her, she fights The Fame Monster, and returns triumphant) forward. “Just Dance” followed, and was the first big crowd-pleaser of the night and one of the best performances with nice choreography and good vocals.
After Just Dance, the show took a turn for the worse though. Lady Gaga gave the first of her many speeches about how you have to love yourself, not listen to people who bully you or put you down, etc. etc. etc. I know she has a young teen audience, and I’m glad there’s someone out there spreading that kind of message to people because I know there are a LOT of kids out there who need someone like her to tell them that, but it’s done in such a trite way that it’s a real turn-off. I’m also not at that place in my life anymore where that would resonate, even though I think she really does mean it sincerely, so it really interrupts the flow of the show for me. It’s also a turn-off the way she comes out and directly states the message multiple times. If there’s some lonely and depressed kid out there who needs your message and needs to feel like there’s someone out there who “gets it”, they’ll figure it out themselves. As is probably obvious from my other Tumblr posts, the person who got that message about loving yourself and accepting who you are to me was Tori Amos, and that’s at the core of a lot of her music, but it’s not like she ever came right out and said “Accept yourself! Be free!” in this sermonizing way. At times Gaga’s speeches made her sound like a cult leader, and I was just waiting for her to say “Now drink the Kool-Aid!” (If she had actually said “Now drink the Kool-Aid!” I would’ve forgiven all the speeches because it would’ve shown some self-awareness and humor, two things that were present the last time I saw her but were lacking tonight.)
Musically, the set also hit a lull here. The material on The Fame really suffers in comparison to The Fame Monster songs, so stacking Beautiful, Dirty, Rich, The Fame, and Money Honey in the same part of the set drags everything down a bit, even if none of them are awful. Lovegame was enjoyable, but more so for Gaga’s latex nun habit than for anything special in the performance. This portion of the set was saved by Boys Boys Boys, which was a lot of fun and featured some ridiculous gay dancing by guys in jockstraps/tight white pants and dudes groping each other, and Telephone, which of course brought a surge of energy in the crowd and which Gaga nailed.
A quick word on the video interludes: Very very disappointing. I was hoping for something along the lines of Britney Spear’s dirty and awesome video to Marilyn Manson’s Sweet Dreams cover or Madonna’s Sorry, Get Stupid, or What It Feels Like For A Girl remixes (which are great musically and get across political messages), but Gaga’s videos were largely failed attempts to be “artsy” that felt dull and lifeless. None struck me as particularly memorable, and the music accompanying them felt like an afterthought. I felt like the videos from The Fame Ball were far superior, and those weren’t amazing either.
The piano portion of the set followed, with Gaga performing both Speechless and the new song You And I. Her piano playing style has changed somewhat since I last saw her, and is a lot more Elton John-esque (which is a negative for me, but your mileage may vary). Speechless was an improvement on the album version, although her dedications to her father were distracting, since I refuse to believe the song is about her father and not her ex-boyfriend. (Seriously, her father does not have long hair and wear tight jeans! How many bars do you go to with your father? He doesn’t strike me as the type to be hanging out at Death and Company either!) You And I seems to be about her reuniting with that ex-boyfriend, and is a good song with a very classic rock tone. It’s not going to be a huge single, but it was a nice change of pace in the set, although I would’ve preferred to hear Future Love or Fooled Me Again if she wants to do a mostly unknown piano song. Gaga playing the piano with one foot while hopping around on the other at the end of You And I was an impressive feat though. Before the piano set, Gaga also brought out her old friend Lady Starlight to perform a bit from their 2007 Lolla routine where they danced to Metallica. This made the show unique, and it was nice to see that Gaga hasn’t forgotten some of the people who helped her get to the main stage.
After the piano set, the show jumped back to Gaga’s best material: The Fame Monster and the big singles from The Fame. Monster is my favorite from the album (along with So Happy I Could Die, which unfortunately was cut from the set), and that got a very interesting performance with Gaga having her heart ripped out and fake blood all over her along with some great choreography, although the vocals were messier than I would’ve liked. Teeth followed, and was a nice stomp-along song that Gaga got very into. Poker Face followed and was another highlight, partially due to it getting the 2nd biggest crowd response of the evening. The song has been played out for me for a while, but the excitement in the audience made me appreciate it again and it really is a well-crafted pop song that Gaga does an excellent job with live.
Paparazzi concluded the main set, with Gaga confronting a giant animatronic fish representing “The Fame Monster”. At this point, she yelled “You have to help me kill the monster by taking its picture!” and I thought, wasn’t this the gimmick in the Power Rangers stage show I saw when I was 6? Although I’m pretty sure they didn’t have the monster try to rape the Power Rangers, so it’s a little different. Still, that prop was completely ridiculous in a good way and led to the show concluding on a dramatic high note. The performance of Paparazzi was very good, far superior to the Gwen Stefani-esque studio version but not as good as the VMA performance. The encore was (of course) Bad Romance, and was probably the best moment of the night. It was epic and triumphant, everything I would’ve hoped it’d be, and it sent everyone home happy. On the way out, all I heard was people talking about how great she was, and I think it’s at least in part due to how excellent the closing moments were.
Although I was somewhat disappointed in the show at points, it was still worth the wait and I’m excited to see it again in September to see how different elements change in the regular production. All the flaws in the show could easily be fixed by the next tour (no filler Fame tracks, less speeches), and I think Gaga is far from peaking. That closing run of hits made me confident she’ll get to the level I want her to be at someday, but she’s not quite there yet.
I’m almost afraid to listen to this, because I NEED it to be amazing! I’ve been waiting for this mash-up my entire life. Just look at these titles: What It Feels Like For A Bad Girl! She Works Hard For Material! Heaven Knows A Prayer! My excitement, it’s palpable. Please please please let it be amazing.
Photo reblogged from Auditory Love
(via auditorylove, oohblahla)
Pictures like this are why smoking will always and forever be cool.
I miss the days when you could still see Madonna’s mole. It’s been in hiding for 15 years or so now.
Source: oohblahla
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I wish Madonna would kidnap me and take me to the roller-disco. And we could stop to have a cage battle dance-off on our way there, that’d probably be a good time too.
This video is also proof that Madge still has a sense of humor and that the leotards weren’t a TOTALLY awful idea.
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I hope Courtney Love and Tom Ford just continually try to top each other with ridiculous stories from their lives each time they talk. That Tom Ford manages to be friends with both Madonna and Courtney Love AT THE SAME TIME just makes my desire to be Tom Ford that much stronger.
Source: whatcourtneyworetoday
Photo reblogged from Marisa Marisa Marisa with 13 notes
(via koolthings)
Sometimes I like to think about what I would say to Madonna if we met, so I have something ready in the event that we’re, like, in an elevator together. I don’t think I’d be able to be charming or even normal on any level, though.
I’m pretty sure if I met Madonna, I would just babble and be unable to form sentences. She’s one of the 4 famous people who if I saw them somewhere I would lose my shit and not be able to even try to act cool, which breaks one of the cardinal NYC rules. Of course this would probably result in her getting annoyed and dismissing me, or having security take me away, so it’s probably for the best that I’ve never met her and most likely never will. Maybe next tour she’ll have some ridiculous $1000+ package where you can meet her, I’d have to write her a letter or whatever to avert the potential spaz attack.
After winning the top prize (a signed Madonna poster courtesy of Warner Brothers), Sihouette asks, “Why do I love Madonna? Because she’s beautiful, she’s sexy, she’s amazing.” His thoughts are echoed throughout the night by the other attendees, most of them in the tail end of their thirties. To this motley crew, Madonna is living proof that with enough guts and gumption, you can be whoever you damn well please. It doesn’t matter if you’re a mediocre singer and half-decent actress, if you want to be a pop icon, then you can be a pop icon. It doesn’t matter if you’re a forty-year-old man with bad skin and thick legs, if you want to be Veronica Lake, then you can be Veronica Lake. And here, at the Palace, if you want to be Madonna, you can be Madonna. A couple in matching Truth or Dare T-shirts claim that their love for Madonna is what formed the foundation of their love of one another. Two women in hotpants and red-sequined cowboy hats announce gravely, “As history changes…so does Madonna.
-Jessica Hundley, “Beautiful Strangers”
As dismissive as this article is, it’s kinda true that a big part of Madonna’s appeal is how she won out by sheer ambition and working harder than everyone else instead of having an abundance of natural talent.
If you like that article, Feed Magazine has put their archive up online, which has eaten most of my day.
Photo reblogged from SEX with 29 notes
(via sex-by-madonna)
You can see/read the entire infamous Sex book by Madonna on tumblr! (Don’t pretend you’re not excited.) I picked this picture not only because it’s an interesting image but also because it’s about the only SFW image in the first 30 pages. It’s definitely worth a look, it’s odd because it’s erotica that’s frequently not erotic at all because of how mechanical and cold it is, but I think part of the aim of the book was to de-sensitize people to sex and sexuality, especially more taboo actions and ideas, and it definitely succeeds there. Is there any other pop culture figure out there who would have the balls to do something as crazy, intensely pornographic and “perverse” as this? (Please don’t say Lady Gaga, I love her, but no.)
Source: sex-by-madonna
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