midnightmover said:

That's not what I'm saying at all. The songs that clog our charts but don't do anything in the rest of the world are just the same. I'm saying a true classic pop song touches people EVERYWHERE and Madonna has had TONS of them.

midnightmover said:

I know enough about MJ to know that he hasn't solely written and produced any of his signature songs. A real diehard music purist may dismiss his talent due to that fact, just the way some do with Madonna because she hasn't solely written or produced any of her songs.

midnightmover said:

I know enough about MJ to know that he hasn't solely written and produced any of his signature songs. A real diehard music purist may dismiss his talent due to that fact, just the way some do with Madonna because she hasn't solely written or produced any of her songs.

Tuls101 said:

What does that mean? You mean if it's not a hit in every territory then it can't be any good? Please tell me you are joking.

midnightmover said:

That's not what I mean. Were you suggesting that All Saints have better musical prowess than Madonna because YOU feel that a couple of songs they did with Orbit are better than his work with Madonna? You do know you are in the minority with that opinion. Most consider WO work with Madonna as his peak.

Tuls101 said:

I consider "They Don't Care About Us" a MJ signature song. It stirred up enough controversy during its release.

Moreover, he is in the Songwriters Hall of Fame for a reason.

Rodya24 said:

To a diehard MJ fan sure it may be considered a signature song. To me, Madonna's Get Together is better than Holiday. I consider it a signature Madonna song, Most probably don't even know it though.

Madonna is being inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame for a reason too. Not to mention she was a founding member of the UK Music Hall Of Fame for a reason to. I'd be willing to bet it's because of more than just her style reinventions, controveries and marketing smarts too! Go figure!
[Edited 2/11/08 15:08pm]

Tuls101 said:

No-one in their right mind would do that.

midnightmover said:

What's the difference though? Ultimately, neither one of them has COMPLETELY penned and produced their own signature song. Does that make their signature songs any less "them"? Madonna had absolutely nothing to do with the song Like A Virgin but could we imagine anybody else doing it like that? I'm sure there are some diehard James Brown fans out there who think MJ stole his schtick and don't do it half as good because after all James Brown did it ALL. Prince fans could say the same as well. Would they be justified in doing so?

Tuls101 said:

You need to calm down.

No one in this thread has denied her significance in popular culture, music, and entertainment. Some, however, including me, have questioned your assessment of her musical prowess.

midnightmover said:

That's not what I mean. Were you suggesting that All Saints have better musical prowess than Madonna because YOU feel that a couple of songs they did with Orbit are better than his work with Madonna? You do know you are in the minority with that opinion. Most consider WO work with Madonna as his peak.

Rodya24 said:

Well in fairness, there would be no debate in denying her significance on music, entertainment and pop culture. That has nothing to do with musical prowess. Perhaps the UK MUSIC (not pop culture, biggest star etc etc) Hall of Fames assessment of her work should be questioned too. Same with the RRHOF....now that she's in it many are going to dismiss it as being meaningless so...funny how that works. BTW....Madonna has won ASCAP Awards before for her songwriting.

Tuls101 said:

You do know that Like A Virgin was patterned after Billie Jean? That Madonna flourished in an MTV-dominated environment -- a channel propelled to significance because of Michael Jackson?

There is a difference between Michael Jackson and Madonna. One demonstrated prodigious talents as a child and as a teenager. Listen to his recordings of Big Boy, I Want You Back, and Who's Loving You. Listen to I'll Be There and Time Waits for No One. Watch him on the Ed Sullivan Show and the Motown 25 Special.

One is still admired for his musical and performance accomplishments despite all the shit in his personal life.

A number of people have become disillusioned and disgusted with MJ because of all the shit that has happened in the past decade and a half. But only a few have denied his talent. Whereas for Madonna...

And as for Prince, even with all the shit that happened in the 1990s, he is still admired and praised among music critics and fans.
[Edited 2/11/08 15:21pm]
[Edited 2/11/08 15:23pm]

Rodya24 said:

And none of that has anything to do with the fact that MJ still hasn't solely penned AND produced one of his signature songs. Nor has Madonna. But if you want to bring stuff up.....

How about the fact Madonna has pissed off just about every group of people there is to piss off, she's been threatened with ex-communication from the Catholic church, the demise of her career has been imminent in the eyes of many critics since 1985...Paul Grein of Billboard predicted that year "she'll be out of the music industry in six months." Madonna has never been the "America's sweetheart" type. MJ on the other hand in the 80's was hanging with the Reagan's and EVERYBODY loved him (not that he didn't deserve it). Madonna has never had that kind of "universal love" that MJ had at his peak. Yet something is keeping her around....luck? manipulation? Couldn't be her music could it?

Actually Madonna did demonstrate talents as a teen, the whole world just didn't see it since her daddy didn't beat her ass and make her go to dance class everyday. She did it on her own and got a scholarship to University Of Michigan, it was her dancing talent that brought her to NYC to begin with. Of course she went on a different path once she had been there a while. Comparing MJ and M's childhood is really pointless in this argument. Who's to say if Madonna had been pushed like MJ that she wouldn't have been famous earlier too? Apples and oranges there.

Just to enlighten Tuls101, MJ's biggest ever hit in Europe is actually "Earth Song", a track he both wrote and produced by himself.

Tuls101 said:

When did MJ take dance class as a child? And his father is the reason why his voice was so phenomenal as a child? I see. Poor Madonna. No wonder she has such a mediocre voice. No father to beat her.

It is called natural-born talent.

And as for all her controversies, I suggest you take another look at that article Dance posted.

Rodya24 said:

I was talking about Madonna taking dance class as a child. Perhaps if her father had beat her ass daily to "get out there and DANCE GIRL" maybe she would've hit the "big time" earlier to. Maybe she would've discovered her voice and cultivated her singing style earlier?? Who knows.....like I said the whole bringing up of his childhood is completely irrelevant.

Tuls101 said:

When did MJ take dance class as a child? And his father is the reason why his voice was so phenomenal as a child? I see. Poor Madonna. No wonder she has such a mediocre voice. No father to beat her.

It is called natural-born talent.

And as for all her controversies, I suggest you take another look at that article Dance posted.

Rodya24 said:

Madonna's controversies have often times done more harm than good because they divert the attention from the actual music. Like A Prayer is one of her best albums but it was her lowest selling album up until that point because she turned a lot of people off with her messages. The Sex book controversy is another example, people were so disgusted with her for that the music of Erotica got lost in the shuffle and it sold half of what Like A Prayer did. Not to mention her public image was in shatters.

midnightmover said:

I think in order to be considered a SIGNATURE song it must be a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. I can assure you, there is hardly anybody here in the States who remembers Earth Song. It wasn't even big when it was released.

Tuls101 said:

Again. Natural-born talent. Something Madonna does not have. I repeat: natural-born talent. Practice alone does not generate soul. There has to be talent as well.

Rodya24 said:

And none of that has anything to do with the fact that MJ still hasn't solely penned AND produced one of his signature songs. Nor has Madonna. But if you want to bring stuff up.....

How about the fact Madonna has pissed off just about every group of people there is to piss off, she's been threatened with ex-communication from the Catholic church, the demise of her career has been imminent in the eyes of many critics since 1985...Paul Grein of Billboard predicted that year "she'll be out of the music industry in six months." Madonna has never been the "America's sweetheart" type. MJ on the other hand in the 80's was hanging with the Reagan's and EVERYBODY loved him (not that he didn't deserve it). Madonna has never had that kind of "universal love" that MJ had at his peak. Yet something is keeping her around....luck? manipulation? Couldn't be her music could it?

Actually Madonna did demonstrate talents as a teen, the whole world just didn't see it since her daddy didn't beat her ass and make her go to dance class everyday. She did it on her own and got a scholarship to University Of Michigan, it was her dancing talent that brought her to NYC to begin with. Of course she went on a different path once she had been there a while. Comparing MJ and M's childhood is really pointless in this argument. Who's to say if Madonna had been pushed like MJ that she wouldn't have been famous earlier too? Apples and oranges there.

Tuls101 said:

Falling back on that old crutch, huh?

"It wasn't big in America. It doesn't count"

btw, this whole obsession with "signature songs" is childish. Surely what matters is the quality of the songs, not what ones are most famous. You are merely obsessing on "signature songs" as a way of dodging the point that Michael has written and produced some great stuff by himself, something Madonna has never done.

Tuls101 said:

But Michael has self-penned his most reknown signature tune; Billie Jean, followed by the likes of Beat It, Don't Stop till You Get Enough, Wanna Be Startin Somethin. These are reknown, world-wide hits self-penned solely by Michael, now he may have co-produced them with Q, but when it comes to the song writing royalties from songs such as Billie Jean and Beat It they are exclusively his.

And when you talk of Michael's career you have to discuss his childhood, that is part of why he is still relevant and partly why his musical legacy continues, inspite of his personal problems.

Someone posted a radio show on here yesterday about the legacy of the J5. A radio programme dedicated an hour on just the J5 alone without even touching on phenomenons like Thriller and OTW, that just proves how long Michael has been around and how unavoidable his talent was at such an incredible tender age. You can't say that about Madonna, because she has never been that talented in the first place. As I said if Madonna was a young, black woman back in 83 no matter how catchy her songs were or how far she pushed boundaries she would have been dismissed after a couple of years because of her lack of raw talent.
[Edited 2/11/08 16:10pm]

It says a lot that you have to cast your mind back to 1993 to remember the last time she was seriously brought to account. Even then it was on moral grounds, not musical grounds. Your explanation of why her crapness has been overlooked since then is that "lately she's been doing everything right". What you're basically saying is that she's handled her career well, which is irrelevant to this discussion. We all know she's handled her career well (although this shit-hop album looks like a disaster in the making if you ask me ). The point is that her music sucks. This is overlooked. Bitch cannot sing. This is overlooked. Bitch dances like a robotic dork. This is overlooked. Bitch is fake as hell and shows no signs of having a soul. This is overlooked. I wouldn't expect you to know this because you are lost in the sea of your adoration.

"The point is that her music sucks"

Take a look at that performance I posted above. What you see right there is an amateur. Someone who has no business being in music. People have been torn to pieces on American Idol for much better performances than that. That performance is from a British chat show devoted entirely to the vampire herself. It mixed an interview with 3 performances. Here are the other two dreadful performances.

http://www.youtube.com/wa...c9odeJfqSM

http://www.youtube.com/wa...S3FJg4ov94

The thing people forget when dissing Madonna is that she's created some of the most catchy, unforgettable pop songs of the past 25 years. She is unrivaled as a POP artist. No artist has had her hit streak. Dying your hair every other week, being sassy and sexy can only get you so far. The fact of the matter is, if the music was never any good nobody would care about her for this long. If the music wasn't good she would've been done in 1986 when she changed her image for the first time.Dismissing her as a "cabaret" act is just insulting to her as a musician. There has always been talk of Madonna can't sing, she doesn't have any real skills as a musician. As far as singing, that's a matter of opinion. I find her voice much more appealing than a wailing diva who is singing "soul" but really is just saying "look what I can do with my voice". Where is the soul in that? There is a reason that 9 times out of 10 whatever producer she works with, when they hook up with her, it ends up being their best work. There is one common denominator in those equations and that is HER. She writes hooks and melodies that stick in your head like no other. That's what a pop artist is supposed to do and nobody does/has done it like her. Anybody who isn't a fan of Madonna probably isn't a fan of pop music. So go listen to 30 year Funkadelic records for the rest of your life and dwell about the good old days and talk about how unless there is funk in it it's NOT real music...that's the mentality on this board a lot times.

Someone mentioned the media "backlash" against Madonna in 1993 over the Sex book and everything with her at the time. The media wasn't half as hard on Madonna as they were to Janet. If that was the case, why was Madonna still able to have her videos on MTV at that time? I remember watching the news with her and she was getting praise in the midst of the criticism. Janet. while I agree she was wrong in how the whole thing played out, didn't have the same kind of support Madonna had so I think the double standard really does come into effect.

I think a lot of the hostility toward Madonna that I hear is not really about her music, but because some people don't like her as a person.Some people have this idea she is a cold unfeeling person because she is so professional and organized.She's not the type to get on tv and cry about all her problems. She deals with her issues more privately.
Some people like artists that they can feel sorry for. Who can feel sorry for Madonna? She has herself together.