jayaredee said:

lol.....You are too silly!!!

gman1966 said:

wow your logic is so pathetic, judging an artist by their looks. it's men like you that who degrade women because you judge them by their looks, friggin mature for a mman over the age of 30, grow up dude

jayaredee said:

lol...You are killing me!!!

gman1966 said:

Is that the best you can do for a comeback, gimme a break.

jayaredee said:

Aww.Come on my man you are the silly fool that takes this shit personal!!! Go take a cold shower.....

gman1966 said:

I have never took you seriously, but i would like it if for once you could present a reasonable argument

May 17, 2003

Madonna fans sometimes like to bring up the fact that Madonna wrote some of her songs, or at least co-wrote a few. I will grant that the music, the melody, to some of Madonna's songs is catchy. But she is no musical genius.

Madonna: 'I hate my music'
9.21AM BST, 4 Apr 2003

Madonna has made the astonishing admission that she hates listening to her own records.

The Queen of Pop said she couldn't bear it when little Lourdes and Rocco played their mother's hit songs.

"My children sometimes listen to my music but I switch it off because I can't listen to it any more," she said.

source: itv.com


Madonna's current attempt at learning the guitar seems to be a pathetic attempt at gaining some sort of credibility -- with whom, I am not sure. One of the only things I can think of is that Madonna must realize that she is becoming an old hag who cannot rely on shaking her butt in music videos anymore.

After all, what young man would get turned on by either her (a) drooping or (b) overly-muscular, steroid- enhanced butt? And what young female would want to emulate a middle-aged woman with either (a) a drooping or (b) an overly-muscular, steroid- enhanced butt?

I vaguely remember the songwriting (and instrument performance) credits for her first 2 - 3 albums, and if I remember correctly, it was largely people like Patrick Leonard, Quincy Jones (on guitar), Steve Bra y, Dan Gilroy, Mark Kamins, and Reggie Lucas who wrote (or played instruments on and who produced) these songs.

One article mentions that

..."Like a Prayer," [was] written with the enormously gifted Patrick Leonard. (Leonard, along with her old friend from Detroit, Stephen Bray, are her main collaborators.) [source: Madonna Digest; originally appeared in Song Talk magazine, Summer 1989 issue (Vol. 2 No. 11)]

In the same interview we read:

Madonna: That's the great thing about Pat. I mean, Pat puts together these really strange chord progressions and these really great time signatures, and I'll listen to it and I won't even think about it.

I'll just put it on, and I'll just keep playing it over and over again; it's like free association. I'll start singing words to it and making them fit. I don't thing of structure. I don't think of first chorus, first bridge.

Interviewer: Did you come up with the melody for "Oh Father"?

Madonna: No, no, Pat thought of that melody.

Later in the same interview:

Interviewer: "Act of Contrition," the closing track of Like a Prayer, has backwards masking and other mysterious elements. Did he have anything to do with that one as well? The credits only say, "Produced by the powers that be."

Madonna: Yeah, he did. He played guitar on it. He also played guitar on "Keep it Together."

As we can see by Madonna's own admission, she gets a lot of help in writing her songs.

Some of Madonna's biggest hits, the ones that propelled her to worldwide fame, the ones most memorable, such as Like a Virgin, Material Girl, and Dress You Up, were not written by her.

Madonna fans need to pay attention because in the Song Talk interview, Madonna admits that

... [ Patrick Leonard and I] have a very good working relationship because we both come from the Midwest, and we both worked our butts off to get where we are. But, you know, he's the one who studied music. He knows how to read music, how to write music. I don't know any of that. I'm completely instinctual and he's completely intellectual. So it's a really good combination.

Madonna may not have meant to, but she has just admitted in that quote that Leonard is the real musical talent. He is the one with the know-how, training, and education. She is the trained monkey.

Elsewhere in the Song Talk interview, though, she laps up praise that the journalist heaps upon her, e.g., 'but Madonna, yes, you do play instruments when you said you did not! You just said that you played keyboards when writing Lucky Star!'

I took piano lessons for five years when I was a kid. I would love to point out to this journalist that there is a difference between actually being able to 'play the keyboard' and pecking out notes, making a simple melody, on a keyboard. Does anyone care to guess which category Madonna falls into?

I have noticed that Madonna's songwriting is not always original. I am surprised that she has not been sued yet.

Unforunately, because Madonna mimics songs that are a bit before my time, I cannot always discern exactly who she is ripping off. In her song Like a Prayer, for example, there is a line, "Just like a prayer, I'll take you there!" that gets repeated many times over.

I know I have heard the lyrics "I'll take you there!" in a fairly well- known song by a black band; this song probably dates from the 1960s.

Off the top of my head, another example that comes to mind is Madonna's 'Cherish' song. There was some boy band back in the '50s, or maybe the '60s who had a line in their song that went, "Cherish is the word I use to remind me of our love." I do not think it unreasonable to conclude that Madonna was ripping off that band.

I do not have a problem with musicians borrowing phrases from other famous songs, doing covers of old songs, and what have you.

My problem when Madonna does these sort of things is that either

a.) she tries to pass the lyrics off as her own invention;

b.) fans think it was Madonna's idea first (and Maddy won't correct their thinking on this); and then there is the sheer extent of it:

c.) Madonna, as I point out in other articles on the site, has based an entire career of stealing material, fashions, trends, and whatever else from others

Madonna is not 'paying tribute' to musicians when she mimics their work -- she is blantantly profitting from their work, as she is largely incapable of making decent music herself. She is a greedy, money- sucking vampire who does not have a shred of true artistic talent in her entire body.

Madonna has gotten especially lazy with her newest release, "American Life:"

And in the lyrics, these swipes from popular songs: "This bird has flown," "Everybody's looking for something," "I got you under my skin," "Love will keep us together." Perhaps the point is transcendence through detachment, but finally American Life comes across as defeatist more than anything else -- as if to say, why bother writing new lyrics? [source: BEN RATLIFF
(From Rolling Stone 922, May 15, 2003) ]

What takes place [on the American Life record]are vocoderized expressions of departure and a lackadaisical desire to dazzle her audience. No surprise, though, that she often finds herself swiping titles of popular classics in her lyrics (“love will keep us together,” “I’ve got you under my skin,” etc.) that virtually questions the need to write new lyrics. [source: The Manila Times]

I am surprised that any Madonna fan would want to willingly admit that Madonna is responsible for writing some of her own songs, or to act as though this is a laudable thing or lends Madonna credibility, since some of Madonna's lyrics are just laughable and simplistic.

You 'fans' should be embarrassed for Madonna, not parading her about as though she has any musical ability, as this only encourages her to keep making horrible albums like American Life.

Really, what is so brilliant about lyrics such as these:

"My father had to go to work / I used to think he was a jerk" (from Mother and Father)

"In the midnight hour I can feel your power" (from Like a Prayer)

"I'll give you love, I'll hit you like a truck" (from Erotica)

"In my heart I know we've come apart and I don't know where to start" (from Bad Girl)

"Stop bitch now sit your ass down!" (from Thief of Hearts)

"Sugarplum fingertips kissing your honey lips / Close your eyes sleepy head, is it time for your bed" (from Dear Jessie)

"Siegmund freud / Analyse this / Analyse this / Analyse this, this, this." (from Die Another Day)

As reviewer Lehua Chong points out,

Madonna's strangely nasal voice [on American Life] kind of stings in your ears and that's before she starts rapping again. "My mother died, when I was five." The words just fall flatly, and you have to snicker. [source: Daily Pennsylvanian, Yoga, Pilates, Hotties! Brit wannabe tries to reclaim her Yankee roots ]

If anything, my cat could have written more in- depth, original, and meaningful lyrics.

And what of Madonna's over- reliance on the same rudimentary rhyming schemes and themes? I do not take it as evidence of Madonna reasserting the same themes for artistic merit but rather as her 'creative well' being bone dry.

The Same Rhymes Or Concepts That Madonna Has Used Time And Time again
power
The power of good-bye (from the song of the same name)
In the midnight hour I can feel your power (from 'Like a Prayer')
You got the power to make me feel good (from 'Cherish')
You can't make me cry, you once had the power (from 'Oh Father')
key / me / heart / open
Open your heart to me, baby / I hold the lock and you hold the key (from 'Open Your Heart')
You're frozen when your heart's not open (from 'Frozen')
Your heart is not open so I must go (from 'The Power of Goodbye')
learn / burn
How many suns will they have to burn? / Spanish eyes / When will they ever learn? (from 'Spanish Eyes')
I've learned my lesson well / Hope I live to tell / The secret I have learned, 'till then / It will burn inside of me (from 'Live to Tell')
You were my lesson I had to learn / I was your fortress you had to burn (from 'The Power of Goodbye')
door / more / before / anymore
They never laugh, not like before / She takes the keys, he breaks the door (from 'Till Death Do Us Part')

Even though we never met before / We got to move before the sun is rising / And you'll be walking slowly out the door (from 'Physical Attraction')

If you wanna see me anymore / If you don't wanna see me walking out the door you better think of me(from 'Think of Me')

I gotta get out the door / If I don't do it now / I won't get anymore (from 'Over and Over')

I can see you've been hurt before / But don't compare them to me / 'Cause I can give so much more (from 'Shoo Bee Doo')

When you walked out my door / I knew you'd be back for more (from 'Stay')

But I never knew love before / 'Til you walked through my door (from 'True Blue')

So don’t come hangin’ round my door / If you’re not ready to give / You’re not gonna get much more (from 'White Heat')

You're always closing your door / Well that only makes me want you more (from 'Burning Up')

home
And I feel like I just got home (from 'Ray of Light')

I hear you call my name and it feels like home (from 'Like a Prayer')

kind/ mind
I’m not gonna hurt you, I’m not that kind / We’re not goin’ nowhere ‘til you have a change of mind (from 'White Heat')

I'd like to think that I could change your mind / Don't say that I am blind / I know all about your kind (from 'Pretender')




After surveying the above list, you should be asking yourself what I did: what would Madonna ever do without the English word "door?"

Notice, also, how Madonna apparently runs out of ideas later in her career so she has to rip of lyrics or themes she has already used on previous albums. I hope Steve Bray is getting royalties from Ray of Light, Erotica, and all the rest.

I wasn't the only one to notice that Madonna is rehashing her old themes:

'Mother And Father' [from Madonna's American Life album] pointlessly revisits the same old themes covered in 'Oh Father' and 'Promise To Try' from 'Like A Prayer' 14 years ago. [source: Playlouder Review]

... 1994's mediocre "Bedtime Stories" (a musical and thematic rehash of 1992's far superior "Erotica")...

And [with the track 'Mother and Father' on American Life] we've already heard way too much about her troubled relationship with her dad [in 'Oh Father' from Like a Prayer] and the loss she felt after the death of her mom. [source: Madonna sounds spent on this 'American Life']

As for the use of the word and concept of 'home' in her songs, I recall Oprah Winfrey, the talk show hostess, asking Madonna what she meant by the phrase "and I feel like I just got home" in her "Ray of Light" song. I don't remember Madonna's answer, and besides, it is irrelevant.

Oprah was operating under the assumption that Madonna actually expends deep thought and energy on her lyrics, which she does not. Not only will a simple listen to any Madonna- penned song reveal this, but Madonna has said in interviews that it usually takes her about ten mintues to write lyrics for a song.

Oprah was under the false impression that Madonna singing about 'home' is meaningful to Madonna, when, in reality, it is merely filler.

Incidentally, there are no less than five names accredited to the Ray of Light song: Madonna, William Orbit, Clive Muldoon, Dave Curtis and Christine Leach.

Additional observations about Madonna's idiotic lyrics:

Nobody Knows Me has embarrassing lyrics such as, "I'm not that kind of guy/ Sometimes I feel shy/ I think I can fly/ Closer to the sky."

And Mother and Father (which had the potential to be moving, given it's about growing up without a mother) gives us this bogus rhyme: "There was a time that I prayed to Jesus Christ/There was a time I had a mother/It was nice." [source: Madonna: American life Review, from smh.com.au ]

The following lyrics (from "Candy Perfume Girl") are stupid, yes, but they also just do not make any sense:

Candy Perfume Girl

Young velvet porcelain boy
Devour me when you're with me
Blue wish window seas
Speak delicious
fires
I'm your candy perfume girl
Your candy perfume girl
Moist warm desire
Fly to me
I'm your
candy perfume girl
candy perfume girl
candy perfume girl
Candy
Rush me ghost you see
Every center my home
Fever steam girl
Throb the oceans
Your candy perfume girl
you're a candy perfume girl
you're a candy perfume girl
Candy Perfume girl
Did I lie to you?
candy perfume girl
Did I lie to you?
Magic poison
You're a candy perfume boy
candy perfume boy
You're a candy perfume boy
Candy perfume girl
The sacred nerve is
Magic Poison
It's candy
It's candy
I'm your candy perfume girl
boy
girl
boy
girl
boy
Candy


When Madonna is not busy writing insipid lyrics, she is busy removing perfectly good ones from cover songs she performs. Read excerpts from a review of the single American Pie:

My other big complaint about the music is the fact that Madonna has massacred the song lyrically as well. She has cut out several verses, shortening the song and thereby making it more "radio friendly." The song doesn't carry the same meaning any longer. She rearranged the lyrics a bit as well, changing it so she repeats "I started singing" over and over and over and over.

This cover is just bad and it should never have been made. [source: Duncan's Litterbox Madonna: The All-American Piece of Pie]

I have to disagree, at least a little, with one music critic, in his comments on the 2003 album American Life, who wrote:

Similarly, mocking her for writing about her own life rather than sticking to lyrics about picking up boys in bars and busting poses on the dance floor is fatuous. She isn't 20 any more; she has two kids and a bloke, and enough life experience to have acquired a few insights. [source: Madonna: American life Review, from smh.com.au ]

True, Madonna is now age 44 and it would seem silly to expect her to dance about in music videos in skimpy little outfits as though she were still 25 years old, and it would seem a tad unrealistic to have songs about the nightclub life coming from a middle-aged woman.

What this reviewer is overlooking, though, is that Madonna is being hypocritical on her newest album. She is now against the very culture that made her financial success possible.

All very well and good if Maddy wants to tackle serious issues on her current album, but why at the expense of Americans and American society? She needs to show some gratitude towards America, not disappointment or condemnation.

Secondly, her more 'serious' and 'introspective' songs are alienating her fans, or just the general public who otherwise might consider buying her records.

To put this a different way, even though I do not like Madonna, and even though some of the lyrics to her songs are idiotic, I still enjoyed some of the cute and bubbly songs she did in the past.

If I, who hate Madonna's guts, was willing to fork over some dough to buy Madonna albums but now no longer will buy them because she has changed her musical style from fun and catchy to dreary, depressing, and weird, then who exactly is going to buy them?

No 13 year old kid with extra spending money is going to buy a record with weird techno sounds backing some rich middle-aged woman singing about the emptiness of materialism and fame.

If anything, Madonna needs to get back to singing some of the same material she did in the 1980s. Just a few years ago, Cher, who is now over age 50, was able to sing a cute and perky dance hit, "Believe," proving that an older singer can in fact create youthful sounding, fun music but without looking pathetic.

The messages on American Life are dour indeed. Remember the old ecstatic catchphrases about reaching, about bliss? Getting into the groove, getting over the borderline, striking a pose, finding your lucky star, music making the people come together? Now there is only retreat and a halfhearted will to puzzle things out in public with a vocoder. [source: BEN RATLIFF
(From Rolling Stone 922, May 15, 2003) ]

Madonna's songs are simply not fun anymore (and unlike the following critic, I'm not a fan of Madonna's Ray of Light and Music era; I found both, like American Life, to be dull records and the electronic sounds were just weird, not cool):

Ahmadzai is back at the helm on "American Life." But neither he nor Madonna is having nearly as much fun with the grooves this time out. The 11 tunes are more mid-tempo, less energizing and much less joyful. It's hard to imagine any of them get the blood pumping on the treadmill or at the aerobics class, much less making a spirited party mix tape. [source : Madonna sounds spent on this 'American Life' by Jim Derogatis ]

As one Mr. Prindle remarks:

Now then, about Ray Of Light. It is EXACTLY what the ordinary everyday "critic" is looking for - "sincere, serious" lyrics oversung in a pretentious, emotional manner with "hip" '90s "electronic" sounds backing it up. But it SUCKS!!!!

I have been a Madonna semi-fan for long enough to vehemently argue that this is one of the biggest pieces of sh*t she has ever come up with.

First of all, did any of you notice that about half of the songs utilize the SAME EXACT ascending vocal melody? That sorrowful "I was in Evita and now I've learned the importance of love and selflessness through the experience of motherhood" melody?

...And finally -- oh, finally -- these "serious, introspective" lyrics are just more teen-level saccharine sh*t. Sample lyric: "I traded fame for love/Without a second thought/It all became a silly game/Some things cannot be bought."

I wrote better "poetry" when I was 15 and I'm a HIDEOUS poet. But what do you expect from critics? They loved the "mature" lyricism of Like A Prayer too. Me, I prefer a little fun and some actual melodies every once in awhile, rather than just a self-important ambient journey through the dark alleyways of no ideas.

[On Madonna's Music record] her voice has grown tiresome and annoying, mainly because she treats every song so goddamned seriously and sings them all in the exact same way. The "electronica" beats and noises on here are boring beyond words (the first song revolves around a repeated echoey synth tone - WOW!!!!), and once again there are close to ZERO original or interesting melodies on the entire record.

Before I delve into her poetry [on American Life], let me preface this attack by saying that I certainly understand why an artist might choose not to address depressing social issues in their work. Entertainment is entertainment, after all, and lots of us turn to it for an escape from the disturbing reality we're experiencing.

But that's not what American Life is. It is NOT escapist entertainment. It is Madonna presenting a series of dark, minor-key, UNHAPPY songs about how fake and plastic the entertainment business is and how it's not enough to make her happy. Hopefully I speak for the majority of Americans when I say BOO F*CKING HOO.

Let's start with track 1, "American Life." Aside from being almost inarguably the least catchy single Madonna has ever released, this song within the first thirty seconds makes it clear exactly how far out of touch Madonna is with real life.

"Do I have to change my name? Will it get me far? Should I lose some weight? Am I gonna be a star?"

THIS is American life in 2003? Who thinks like this now? Aside from the most narcissistic brain-dead failed actor, I can't imagine ANYBODY over the age of 13 seriously considering these to be important worries at this particular juncture in history.

How about "Will there be any available jobs for me when I graduate college?" or "Will I ever be able to get out of this ghetto without being murdered by 'gangstas'?" or "Where is my family supposed to live now that I've been laid off and have no retirement money because the executives of my company stole all of it?"

But it gets much, MUCH worse later in the song, during the first of many unbelievably poorly conceived and humiliatingly executed raps performed by Madonna in a quite racist fake negro accent.

"I got a lawyer and a manager, an agent and a chef," she brags. "Three nannies, an assistant and a driver and a jet, a trainer and a butler and a bodyguard or five, a gardener and a stylist..." before delivering the most horrifically thoughtless conclusion possible -- "Do you think I'm satisfied?" [source: Mark's Record Reviews]


Madonna's 'rapping' on American Life? Terrible! From reviews for "American Life:"

But too often the sounds are let down by Madonna's melodies (which are dull and predictable) her singing (which sometimes seems too remote given the personal nature of the lyrics) and her occasional rapping (which is stiff and unconvincing, like someone who has read about the craft but never heard it performed). [source: Madonna: American life Review, from smh.com.au ]

"I tried to stay on top, but somehow I forgot", [Madonna]. . . warbles in the opening title track. As if to illustrate what she means, she launches into a rap so weak, my toes curl into ringlets. It's not just that her flow is appalling, which it is. It's the risible nursery rhyme lyrics which must leave even little Rocco snorting in derision. I can't even bring myself to quote them, they're that bad. . .

Oh hang on, here comes another abominable rap. "My father had to go to work / I used to think he was a jerk". [source: Playlouder Review]

Here's a test [to see if you think you'll like American Life]: listen to the title track of Madonna's new album, American Life, and if you don't wince when she starts rapping, you're a true fan. Because as evocative as Madonna is known to be, there's something inherently lame about a 44-year-old mommy rapping, "I do yoga and pilates and the room is full of hotties." All you wincers may want to skip this one. [source: Daily Pennsylvanian, Yoga, Pilates, Hotties! Brit wannabe tries to reclaim her Yankee roots by Lehua Chong April 24, 2003 ]

Madonna's lyrics are so awful that they've got a music critic confused:

Madonna sounds spent on this 'American Life' by Jim Derogatis

...But the biggest problem is the lyrics.

It has always been a fool's game to look for undue meaning in Madonna's words--her music is supposed to be empty-headed dance-pop fun, after all-- but "American Life" is mixed in a way that thrusts the singer's voice front and center, virtually screaming, "Pay attention to what I'm saying!" (especially during the . . . folkie-acoustic passages).

So what does Madonna have to say? Unfortunately, not a damn thing.

The new age navel gazing is far more obtrusive here than on her last two albums, and it's much more confusing and befuddled. "I'm not religious," the singer insists on "Nothing Fails." Yet Jesus Christ and Satan pop up in several songs, and there are more empty feel-good aphorisms dished out over the course of the disc than there are in a month's worth of "Oprah."

Maddy's rap against materialism in the title track is hard to accept, considering she has always celebrated vapid consumerism in the past, while her rant against the film industry in the song "Hollywood" is hypocritical coming from a star with a filmography like hers. . . .

It all adds up to a confused and confusing mess, and Madonna admits as much. "I don't know who I am. ... I don't know who I'm supposed to be," she croons in "X-Static Process."


-----

What the heck is Madonna going on about in the lyrics for "American Life"?

Damned if I know, but maybe you can figure it out. Here is a sampling of some of her more lunkheaded lyrical utterances.

From "American Life":

"I'm drinking a Soy latte/ I get a double shoté/ It goes right through my body/ And you know I'm satisfied/ I drive my Mini Cooper/ And I'm feeling super-dooper/ Yo, they tell me I'm a trooper/ And you know I'm satisfied/ I do yoga and Pilates/ And the room is full of hotties/ So I'm checking out the bodies/ And you know I'm satisfied."

From "I'm So Stupid":

"Please don't try to tempt me/ It was just greed/ And it won't protect me/ Don't want my dreams/ Adding up to nothing/ I was just looking for/ Everybody's looking for something."

From "Love Profusion":

"There are too many questions/ There is not one solution/ There is no resurrection/There is so much confusion."

From "Mother and Father":

"There was a time I was happy in my life/ There was time I believed I'd live forever/ There was a time that I prayed to Jesus Christ/ There was a time I had a mother/ It was nice."

From "Nobody Knows Me":

"I've had so many lives/ Since I was a child/ And I realize/ How many times I've died/ I'm not that kind of guy/ Sometimes I feel shy/ I think I can fly/ Closer to the sky."




How any Madonna fans or journalists who ~(gag)~ admire Madonna can actually write that Madonna has any musical talent what-so-ever and do so while keeping a straight face have a special talent themselves, wouldn't you agree?

The next time you find yourself talking to a Madonna fan who thinks she's a brilliant composer, send him a link to this page.

jayaredee said:

I told you once and I am going to tell you again HomeBoy!!! If you don't like my post then.....

gman1966 said:

then im gonna tell you why your post is fucked up

jayaredee said:

It's all good my man..It's ALL good!!!! Hold on I'm going to post some more photos...I'm sure you will like

gman1966 said:

Be my guest

I guess the Madonna Brigade finds this sexy!!! What a feminine look!!!

I wonder where is my main man DavidEye...At least he has a sense of humour...This Jayjar or whatever the hell his name is take's these threads about ole no-singing Madonna wayyyy to seriously.....
[Edited 10/8/04 19:50pm]

jayaredee said:

Of course i do & it is totally relevant to the topic where u have people like Davideye knockin other artists for being un-original - when she is the queen of re-inventing using other people's ideas!!

kremlinshadow said:

Let me say it again, it is a site made by someone who hates Madonna, irrelevant and taken from the viewpoint of one woman. Sorry, it doesn't mean shit.

I can direct you to hate sites for Prince and Michael Jackson, does that make them relevant? yeah fuckin right

Madonna serves up dull inventions, from Washington Times

Excerpts:

The mother of reinvention seems more like a master of recycling these days. Madonna, the erstwhile Material Girl-turned-Britney-Spears-mentor, dropped by the MCI Center Sunday night for the first of two District stops on her Re-Invention Tour '04.

... What stood out for those who have tracked her career through its many phases ? virgin, less than virgin, bad actress and children's book author ? is that today's Madonna isn't exactly sure who she is.

The show trots out the singer's hit parade of shocks, from political swipes to erotica unhinged, but each came out as if sanitized by time or (gasp) good taste.

She no longer wants to titillate us, and her polemics always fall short of genuine insight.

... while Prince's tour finds the multi-talented musician winning fans anew with his craft, Madonna dazzles with pyrotechnics. The best she can muster musically is to strum an acoustic guitar while a crush of musicians perform behind her, mostly on the periphery of the stage, without a ray of light to illuminate them.

... Never mind her occasional British accent, which she should have left behind in her hotel suite.

The singer's voice, an able instrument but hardly her calling card, remained hale throughout the night.

... Helicopter sounds and footage of wounded children made it abundantly clear Madonna is against war, but it's equally obvious she isn't interested in mocking our troops. She probably realized she looked smashing in a military beret and olive green shades and took it from there.

Later, she sang an uninspiring version of John Lennon's "Imagine" that was saved only by reverberating guitar chords.

... One day it might occur to her to actually be herself, and see what happens. It could be the only reinvention she hasn't tried yet

-----

Top acts [including Madonna] now steal from [Vegas] Strip

Excerpts:

Sunday, June 06, 2004
MIKE WEATHERFORD

Madonna will have to forgive a moment of odd civic pride I felt at her expense while watching her Re-Invention Tour last weekend.

We all know a "Vegas-style show" used to mean something oily and sequined. Our main exports were summer tours by Wayne Newton or Liberace.

But the Strip has come so far, everything Madonna hit us with at the MGM Grand Garden provoked a sort of, "been there, done that" reaction.

The bombardment of video -- projected on four mobile panels -- was equal to, but not greater than Celine Dion or Elton John at Caesars Palace. The obvious difference is that the Caesars screen doesn't have to pack up and move, so it's larger and of higher definition. But give Madonna's production designers bonus style points for the way the mobile screens doubled as design elements, moving around to frame the singer and dancers.

The screens and their imagery would probably be exciting and provocative in the Midwest, if Madonna was actually playing anywhere in the Midwest except Chicago.

But there was nothing in the edgy-but-artistic sexual imagery that David LaChapelle didn't do for John's videos or that Cirque du Soleil didn't do in person with "Zumanity."

Cirque is perhaps the biggest reason we are permitted this jaded reaction. Pop tours have been lifting from Cirque for years. Remember when Paula Abdul was a pop star instead of a talent show judge?

[Article also mentions how Janet Jackson and Cher adopted the Cirque look for their concert dates in Las Vegas]

... Madonna was impressed by a Ricky Martin tour so she hired its director and choreographer, Jamie King, to stage both her 2001 Drowned tour and her current outing. The folks at Mandalay Bay were impressed by the same Ricky Martin show, so they too hired King to create their ill-fated "Storm" revue, also in 2001. (Too bad they didn't wait a year, they might have gotten Martin to star in it.)

"Storm" also used a swinging bridge to dangle performers over the audience, an idea that Madonna and others have modified for concert arenas.

You can argue that all these efforts would benefit from more human energy, and less video and technological eye candy.

-----

What is Madge Good For? [Her new tour is Lame]

Aaron Wherry
National Post
Monday, May 31, 2004

Excerpts:

The only thing Madonna provokes with her latest tour is sadness at how lame she's become

Those readers under the age of 18 may have to ask their parents about this, but, believe it or not, Madonna used to be quite shocking. Edgy even. Testing with each new album, video or tour the Western world's sexual, religious and political boundaries. Hers was an arsenal of burning crosses, simulated masturbation, virginal squeals, S & M, a black Jesus and a picture book about sex.

But this was long before jihad and Abu Ghraib became the stuff of family dinner conversations. Before the video of Nick Berg's beheading was put on the high school curriculum. Before gay marriage seemed less an outrage than an inevitability, and Michael Moore wasn't just a fat guy schlepping around Flint, but a fat guy swaggering through Cannes.

Not that Madge isn't trying.

Her latest tour, not-so-subtly- titled Re-invention, is apparently an orgy of burkas, Bush-bashing, Kabbalah and her greatest hits. Oh, and at one point she straps herself into an electric chair.

The centrepiece is her performance of American Life, the ridiculous title track to her last album, one of 2003's more dramatic disasters (Sample lyric: "I'm drinking a soy latte/ I get a double shot-ay").

It is, in all its clumsy glory (Mini Cooper is also rhymed with "super-duper"), an attack on the American ideal and the commercialism that used to define the Material Girl. On stage, though, it becomes a gaudy anti-war protest.

..."Starting as a runway show of couture army fatigues, the fashion show escalates into a mad frenzy depicting the catastrophic repercussions and horror of war," Madonna's spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg explained last February.

"This will be a stirring and extremely controversial piece of work from the artist who created the medium of the small film set to music."

But, before it could be premiered, Matt Drudge began to leak details of the Jonas Akerland-directed clip, including word of transvestite soldiers and Madonna tossing a grenade at a George W. Bush look-alike. The resulting outcry from Drudge's core conservative constituency convinced Madonna to do what she had never done: back down.

... At the time we still believed in weapons of mass destruction. Support for the President and his war was high. And Madonna had sales to worry about.

A year later, critics have turned and that album has tanked, as has the popularity of the President. More importantly, several hundred thousand concert tickets have gone on sale.

So here (again) comes Madonna the anti-war agitator, seeming not so much brave as desperate. Odd all the more because her original inspiration for the military fatigues was reportedly Moore, specifically his rant at last year's Oscars.

Since using his moment at the podium to discuss America's "fictitious President," Moore has made Fahrenheit 9/11, which includes embarrassing footage of President Bush and graphic images of casualties and prisoner abuse in Iraq. . . [Moore however did not air footage his crew had of Nick Berg.]

Which is where Moore differentiates himself from many an American high school social studies teacher.

Approximately a dozen such educators in Texas, California, Oregon, Oklahoma and other states have been suspended or disciplined for showing their wide-eyed students the video of Berg's beheading at the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists.

The video, widely available on the Internet after release by the perpetrators, has been among the most searched-for items on the World Wide Web for weeks now, besting the war in Iraq and even, speaking of gruesome video footage, Paris Hilton (high school sex-ed teachers take note).

There is little Madonna can show us that we, or our Internet-literate sons and daughters, haven't already seen. So what is left to slander?

The Catholic church? That wee little sex scandal has left little to add. Global warming? Sting tried that and we all know what happened to him. The evils of commercialism? Hard to battle when you're asking several hundred dollars a ticket. The sins of excess? Those in glass houses, etc, etc.

So while it might be easy to conclude Madonna has lost her edge, it seems reality has, in many cases, simply outpaced her. Even homoeroticism, an old Madonna stand-by, seems tired at this late date, same-sex marriages in Massachusetts dominating the headlines on the rare day Berg or Iraq does not.

Consider, for a moment, how different a conclusion we'd be making today had she gone ahead and premiered the inflammatory original video for American Life. Some sort of boycott would have ensued -- likely by Wal-mart -- and the usual conservative suspects would have raised their voices in hyperbolic protest.

But months later, with the American public forced to confront the violent, inhumane and homoerotic images from Abu Ghraib, she might be basking in the same anti-war afterglow that now surrounds Moore.

Lone salvation for the Kabbalah convert might have come, oddly enough, in Israel. Tentatively scheduled to play several dates there, Madonna backed away citing security concerns.

If there was a way to ensure the safety of her audience, shows there, especially in light of cancellations in the Middle East by other pop stars (most recently Missy Elliott), would have sent the sort of defiant message she now so desperately seems to be seeking.

Until then, any buttons Madonna had left to press have been hammered harder and faster by more-willing provocateurs, if not reality itself. And Madonna is a ground-breaking artist in need of new ground.
[Edited 10/8/04 20:43pm]

jayaredee said:

yep sorry it is relevant still - to this post anyways ..... dont get ure panties in a knot, just coz everyone dont lick M's hole, I put up with enough of stupid ppl's tirades of negativity of other artists - why cant Madogga take turns eh

jayaredee said:

No need to swear Jarjar dude...I would like to see the anti MJ and Prince sites...What are the url's?

jayaredee said:

Hey... I did a search for anti-Prince sites could not find any but did find several Madonna's..lol

For an woman who is supposedly old, boring, and talentless she sure has a lot people discussing her every move. Even those who claim to be uninterested in her.

jayaredee said:

That is sooo disgusting, what is it? E.T in a thong?

twink69 said:

thinkin the same thing

Why waste time and engery on someone you don't care for?

ehuffnsd said:

Im bored , it's fun and got nothing better to do at the moment!!
Besides makes a change from MJ JJ etc etc bashing!!
[Edited 10/8/04 20:40pm]

kremlinshadow said:

Yeah and especially seeing knuckeheads like that jayjar whatever dude get all worked up..lol

twink69 said:

it's a pregnant woman. i'm sure you're mom looked like E.T. in a thong too. what's wrong, not enough Mariah-style cameltoe for you?

bashing is good i guess... but don't forget karma...

GrayKing said:

LMAO

ehuffnsd said:

Karma!!! Man what are you talking about...We are just talking Madonna here...Not wishing anything bad on the woman....

Chico1 said:

you know what's even funnier than that? this thread was started by someone who lists Chaos & Disorder as one of their favorite Prince albums