errant said:

Good call.

I expect great pop music, at least ONE great video, and a great stage show. It's been awhile since she had ALL THREE.

Cinnie said:

A 3 disc set is the only way. Even her previous 2 greatest hits had some omissions so you'd expect to at least get songs like Dress You Up, Who's That Girl & This Used To be My Playground on her ultimate GH.

CrozzaUK said:

A 3-CD set would be most appreciated by collector fans, but I think this GH will be geared towards the general public who are more likely to buy a 1 or 2 CD compilation instead of an expensive box set. With no new songs and CD sales being so low, this compilation won't see much success and making it three discs will only make it worse...

Glindathegood said:

I wish she would put together a great band and record the entire album with them.That's what's missing from her recent albums....a "full band sound".And how come we never hear background vocals anymore? Wouldn't it be nice if she used her female background vocalists on the album? Remember how Donna and Nikki really brought alot of life to "Express Yourself" and other songs that they were featured on?




As far as I know,LiveNation has never done this before.This is uncharted territory,indeed,but it looks like they're actually gonna use a major company for distribution.So it's quite likely that Madonna's next album will appear on "Artist Nation Records" (the name of LiveNation's new label) but be distributed by a major like Universal or Arista.I guess this is similiar to what Prince is doing these days.

Madonna has indicated that she signed with LiveNation because she wants to explore new ways of marketing and promoting her music.Alot of the promotion will tie into her upcoming tours.They'll find new,creative ways to promote and sell her music,and connect it to her tours (which are always successful).I don't think she'll regret leaving Warners.That label is a sinking ship anyway.

SoulAlive said:

I can't really see that happening. Her last "full band" album was released exactly 20 years ago, since then she always needed some distinctive sound of a collaborator to get inspired. I have a hard time seeing Madonna suddenly writing "real instrument" music for a full album. I'm not saying she won't use real instruments, because I do think it's gonna have a rock-influenced sound, but I think she will look for something special thrown in there, not to sound like Avril Lavigne or something.

LiveToTell86 said:

What producer(s) do you think she should work with?

stickyandsweet said:

I'd be very surprised if this happened.She rarely ever works with producers from the past.




'Confessions On A Dancefloor' is an incredible CD,but I wouldn't want her to repeat herself.



I have a funny feeling that she will work with Pharrell again.Maybe not for the entire album,but for a track or two.

.
[Edited 1/7/09 5:39am]

well, you never know do you?

Whatever she does musically... I admit I like her doing the twenty year old girlie.

I love HC. I don't want her to work with PW and Timbo again, but I would not complain about similiar music.

Why do so many of you think she'd do rock music??

honestly, I cringe when I hear Madonna and rock music in one sentence. She doesn't have the voice for rock music.

And what do you think si rock music? I Love New York??

SoulAlive said:

I don't really have an exact request, I just hope she works with someone new. Whether that's an unknown producer or a superstar one, it doesn't matter. I guess U2's producer team (Brian Eno, Flood) would be interesting for an album that mixes rock & electronica.

graecophilos said:

Because she keeps playing the guitar in 2001 and especially on her last tour, she often reinvents her classics into rock versions. You can't deny that even when she does a hip hop/R&B influenced album yet she turns "Human Nature" (originally a song with a hip hop sample) into a Slash imitation and "Borderline" into some early 80s rock stuff. Not to mention "Hung Up"...

"I Love New York" sounded more dance/electronica on COADF but on Confessions Tour it was indeed a rock-tingled song, so yes, stuff like that.

I still say it's gonna be a natural step for her, just like collaborating with Stuart for an all-dance album wasn't that shocking, after working with him on her DWT & RIT tours and the "Hollywood" remix.

"Why do so many of you think she'd do rock music??"

Fans assume that,because her recent tour included ALOT of rock-styled arrangements,she will go that route on the new album.While I would love an aggressive rock album from Madonna,I don't see it happening.

I dont want her to go rock. It would sound so forced.
I think she does rock versions of her songs on her tours so that she can play guitar and slow down abit, because otherwise she has to dance her ass off and well no matter how perfect her body is she is 50.
As for Pat Leonard: she used him in 86, 87, 89, 90, 94 and last in 98 on ROL. He is the only one she actually returned to 4 times in a period of 12 years. They wrote together her best hits: La Is La Bonita, Like A Prayer, Cherish, Whos That Girl, I ll Remember, Frozen etc. Actually I think their work is what we call classic Madonna.
As for Stuart Price: I think unlike Mirwais he isnt one trick phony.

stickyandsweet said:

Classic Madonna is more like a great Madonna song and she had a lot more without Patrick Leonard.

Patrick came back in 1994 for one song and in 1998 he co-wrote 4 songs on Ray Of Light but they were all reworked by William Orbit. Plus I always thought "Nothing Really Matters" was just filler and definitely not "classic Madonna". The pre-1994 collaboration does not count because Patrick & Stephen Bray were her main collaborators, the good old days when her fans didn't demand Madonna to "discover a new sound and an unknown collaborator".

Madonna did work with him after American Life for a musical based on 1920s-inspired songs, which I always thought proved that they are in still good terms, but Madonna knows she can't use someone as Patrick these days to score a pop hit. Even if they will work together, his tracks will be produced by someone else to get an contemporary sound.

Patrick Leonard did the score of the Malawi documentary I Am Because We Are, by the way.

You do have a point of rock performances, but on Sticky & Sweet Tour they are spread all over the show while on the previous 3 tours it was 1 or 2 songs together in one segment.

I'm saying rock because I don't know what's left for her. After an European and then an American-influenced dance album, and previously British downtempo techno, French electronica and minimal-folk-acoustic, I can't see her doing more dance stuff, or more simple ballads...

Stuart Price is definitely a one trick pony, have you heard his songs with Seal or The Killers? I keep on hearing "Forbidden Love" & "Get Together" in them. Oh and I always thought Mirwais was unfairly labeled as a one trick pony because it was Madonna who wanted to use the acoustic guitar to death, and songs like "Hollywood" or "Nobody Knows Me" had nothing on Mirwais' work on Music. The only rehash he did was the strings in "Nothing Fails" (which was Michel Colombier in fact) and "Die Another Day" that sounded like "Music", "Don't Tell Me" & "Impressive Instant" combined.

And working with Stuart after getting a new tour musical director seems impossible anyway.

LiveToTell86 said:

well, I think the thing is: her voice is too weak for rock. when she shouts it sounds awful.
Her voice is best when she's doing easy to sing melodies or dramatic ballads.

LiveToTell86 said:

Hmmmmm. Personally Madonnas work with Pat is her best and I really could see them working together even with a third person: producer. They could co-write.


Yeah orbit put some tweeks on but the core was a perfect pop melody, as always when he and she collaborate. It was great pop song in the end that would ve sounded great even stripped of Orbits production.


I strongly disagree. NRM is classic Madonna at least for me.

Yes but one fact remains: if there is one collaborator from the beginning that returns it is Pat. Why? Maybe because she undersands there is chemistry there.Even LAP is enough justification for new collaboration between them.
I think if Madonna wants another masterpiece lp she would call Pat Leonard, Joe Henry and Stuard Price to help her next time.


Was it Hello Suckers? I think that if they write a very strong pop song it would be enough for it to chart. I could see them just writing songs though and later producinh them with somebody else.


Exactly. She is getting older and strangely her dance moves move closer to the BA ones and get heavier. I think she just needs more slow downs, because she tries harder these days.


But she was never a rock artist. There is nothing rock about her. She was always dance/pop star and even she never did 1 album twice she managed to remain a dance/pop star. I could see next lp as being a little slower, few melodramatic ballads (ala You ll see, I ll Remember), some dance stompers and some midtempos.


I was tired of Mirwais with Music and AL was just stripped down and minimalistic and boring music. No wonder AL bombed. Stuard brought the fun back.

.
U are right. But one may hope right?
[Edited 1/7/09 12:54pm]

LiveToTell86 said:

I'm not as eager for her to go back to Patrick as some fans, but I think they could write songs together and as you said have someone else produce to make it sound more contemporary. I do think as you said he's not in touch with what works on the radio these days.
I agree with you about Stuart Price. Some Madonna fans raved about his work with the Killers but it didn't impress me that much.
When I said she should incorporate rock, I didn't mean she should make a stereotypical rock album like Nickelback or Metallica, but incorporate some rock feeling and electric guitar into her music while keeping it pop and Madonna sounding in the same way she has incorporated electronica and R&B into what she does over the years.

stickyandsweet said:

Pat is an actual songwriter who wrote lyrics and melodies with Madonna. He doesn't provide Madonna a beat, an instrumental demo which inspires Madonna to write lyrics on top of it, which is how her last 20 years of work have been (from "Vogue" to "4 Minutes"). She cannot write 10-12 songs with either Pat & Joe Henry and then take it to Stuart and put some dance beats on it. It works for a few songs, but I can't see how can that be a "masterpiece", she never even attempted to create a full album with that method. I wouldn't be against them writing a few songs and a new producer doing the music (like "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You") but I don't believe Madonna & Pat can come up with a full album at this point. Face it, LAP was 20 years ago and Madonna is certainly not the one to try to recapture the glory of old albums, she moves forward.

And it's not like ROL is regarded as a masterpiece because of the 4 Patrick Leonard tracks, some of the best ones had nothing to do with him. I'd even go as far as saying his role on ROL is overrated because songs like "Frozen" are made by the fantastic vocals and the instrumental. Of course its melody is amazing too, but it needed that cutting-edge sound and her new way of singing to make it complete.



That doesn't actually explain the rock versions. She could be doing most of AL or the 90s ballads instead of those 4 guitar songs if she wanted to. "Hung Up" was done as a rock song because it had to be reinvented.
And compared to the CT, on this tour when she put down the guitar she was really dancing a lot (apart from "Devil..." of course) while CT included a couple of numbers were Madonna was just posing or walking without an actual choreography ("Futuve Lovers", "Jump" "Forbidden Love", "Lucky Star"), so it is possible to do the dance songs without actually dancing, so I can't see Madonna relegating the electric guitar stuff as pure "tour filler" or "breaks".



She flirted with a lot of styles, but her song structures remained pop. Can't see why she couldn't do the same with a bit of rock instruments? She did it with jazz, hip hop, R&B and folk already. I agree with Glinda that rock is a broad definition and you shouldn't immediately think of heavy metal or the cliche stuff.
Those melodramatic ballads seem to be past her though.



AL bombing because "Mirwais sucks" is laughable. It might not be your cup of tea but many fans appreciate it up to today. Maybe you consider the minimalist music boring, but others would say the same about Stuart's "sampling" of various artists on COADF to make up an album. Others want the fun Madonna to go away and prefer "honest" Madonna, so impossible that everyone could be pleased when it comes to Madonna.



But why hoping that? She got the best out of him with COADF, the new project would be compared to that one and I doubt they could top it. I guess it's one of your favourites so you'd want more of that, but Madonna is not going to stay in a certain style to cater to part of her fanbase. Many people keep wishing for William Orbit to come back as well because ROL was their favourite, but it's not going to happen. Why can't you just look forward to her next effort without having expectations and hopes? She's likely to surprise you with something new anyway!

A rock album would definitely divide her fanbase.Some will like it,some will hate it.Whatever she does,it's gotta be geared to the dancefloor.Dance/pop is what people expect from her.

LiveToTell86 said:

Yep, which is the main reason why the 80s remain (and will always remain) her best period. She let professionals do more of the songwriting. Her only great melody after 1989 was "Frozen" which of course was written with you-know-who. Partly though, Madonna's move away from real songwriters reflected a general move in the industry away from songwriting. Publishers stopped signing pure songwriters. It became more about producers and singers. As a consequence, the standards for lyrics and melodies plummeted. Thus, Madonna's mediocre writing was not frowned on as much as it would have been before.

P.S. Just put "Hung Up" or "Vogue" (the most overrated song in her cannon) next to "Who's That Girl" or "Like A Prayer" and the decline is embarrassing.
[Edited 1/7/09 14:59pm]

midnightmover said:

Erm, no. She has some of her strongest melodies on COADF & Hard Candy. Sorry but "Who's That Girl" was nothing more than a rehash of "La Isla Bonita", I take "Hung Up" or basically any of her 00s songs (apart from a couple on Music) over it any day.

And I disagree about pure songwriters being neglected: what about Babyface or Diane Warren who flooded the 90s with their safe ballad stuff, or Linda Perry who keeps working with every female artist these days.

Oh and Madonna wrote all the lyrics of Like A Prayer, just like COADF.
Patrick only helped her to put them in a melody and things like that, because she never learned to read notes or compose music on a piano etc, her songwriting role has been underrated since day one.

And personally, Madonna was a singles artist in the 80s (until Like A Prayer) while in the last 10 years she released great albums with strong singles and album tracks. Some of her 80s fillers are her worst.

Anyway, here's an interview from 1989 where she describes her process with Patrick:

Interviewer: How does your writing process work? I know that many of your songs were written with Pat Leonard. You've mentioned that sometimes you'll come up with a melody and bring it to him and let him figure it out--

Madonna: Yes. In my very retarded fashion I will sing it to him. Or hum the melody line to him, and he will put it into a chord progression and we'll come up with the song that way.

Interviewer: These are melodies that just pop into your head?

Madonna: Yeah. And I start singing them just from my head. Or if I think of a lyric, like a hook or a line, I'll just put it to a melody and he'll bang it out on the piano for me.

Interviewer: You must have a great working relationship to be able to connect with him at that stage of the process.

Madonna: We 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.

Interviewer: Does he every give you a finished melody to write words to?

Madonna: Yes, he does. But inevitably we fashion it to me. I don't think he's ever written a melody that I just took and said, "Okay, that's finished, I'll just slap some words on it." It always needs to be worked.

Interviewer: One of my favorite songs on the album that you two wrote is "Oh Father."

Madonna: Isn't that great?

Interviewer: It's beautiful. And it's one of those songs that has a near perfect marriage of words and music.

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.

http://allaboutmadonna.co...k-1989.php

I reckon Joen Henry has taken Pat Leonards place. I love all her stuff she does with Joe, and id like to see her expand her songwriting with him. As for producers - she needs one who can write songs also but who will give her something sonically. I think some of the problem with her recent music has been that its been production rather than song led - i think if she wrote with Joe for an intensive period it would yeild some excellent stuff.

The stuff she has done since the 80's has not been melodically void - its simply hasn't been as obviously pop as the stuff prior to that. I do think there's been a decline in this last decade - her melodies have become less instant and interesting - but that could easily be the same kind of declining scale of creativity alot of pop artists experience (see Prince & MJ).

Pat Leonard isnt the beginning and end of her good songs at all. I for one feel part of her problem is that her private life has obviously been in a place of stability for the last 8 years, and there's been very little to inform her work. Maybe that will change now - who knows. I for one feel her best record is Erotica, yet that was written very much in the same vein as Ray Of Light or COADF (ie with a previous remixer of her songs).

I do agree with midnighmover that she reflects an industry wide change away from songwriters to producers. Hard Candy could be the turning point for her. The realisation that big name producers dont guarentee big success could force her to write proper songs & lyrics again.

Dont get me wrong I love the last couple of albums, but im ready for something different now. Something with a little more soul.

CrozzaUK said:

I'd love to hear the rest of the hello suckers.
we've got
Hung Up
How High
Jump
and the Devil Wouldn't Reconignize You

what else could there be?

Remember those two unreleased songs that leaked recently ("The Game" and "Is This Love")? There's alot of lyrical depth in those tunes.I'd like to see more of that from her.I want the next CD to have at least four ballads on it! Well-written,lyrically deep ballads.With her recent divorce and all the other changes in her life,she should have ALOT to sing about.

LiveToTell86 said:

Only a few sentences into your post and your credibility is already shot. "Who's That Girl" used some of the same instrumentation as "La Isla Bonita", but as a SONG it is nothing like it. Totally different structure, tune, theme, etc. It's important to recognise the difference between production and songwriting. You seem to be confusing the two. For instance, "Hung Up" as a SONG is a complete and total disaster. Lyrically it's an EMBARRASSMENT. Melodically, it's predictable and uninspired. What makes it work (for some people) is the Abba sample and the production. Take that away and there is nothing there. Judged from a SONGWRITING perspective, it's cringe-inducing. The fact that it's seen by many as one of the best songs on COAD speaks volumes about how far she has fallen this decade.



You've misunderstood the term. By "pure songwriters" I mean people who aren't also producers. Of the three people you mentioned only Diane Warren is a "pure songwriter" and she basically established her brand in the early '80s. She became an industry in herself and so was able to continue no matter how much dreck she produced, but take a look at the writing credits for some of the biggest hits in the '80s (including about a dozen Madonna hits). You'll see a long list of obscure names writing fantastic material who faded away in the '90s and, most importantly, were NEVER REPLACED. Music publishers got lazy and started only signing people who doubled up as producer/songwriters or singer/ songwriters. This still produced some great results, but in terms of actual SONGWRITING (lyrics and melodies) it lowered the bar substantially. Madonna's career parallels that shift quite neatly.


Yes, and she wrote some really good lyrics on LAP. It's a shame she went from that to some of the godawful dreck she's written since. Anyone who can't hear how terrible Madonna's lyrics have become is not quite right in the head. And btw, most of Madonna's songs with Pat actually began with melodies Pat had already written. Madonna put lyrics to his melodies. Naturally, in her interview Madonna tries to emphasise the rarer times when she had loose ideas in advance, but mostly Pat would get things started and Madonna would write lyrics to his tunes (as she illustrated when asked specifically about "Oh Father").


Yes, and what's wrong with that? If the singles are GREAT, then I see nothing to complain about, and let's not forget, most people still agree that Like A Prayer is her best album by a mile. And please, let's not kid ourselves that she's now a serious album artist. The truth is Madonna has become an extremely lazy recording artist. She's still as prolific as ever, but she's riding other people's coattails more than ever. It's like Madonna now is just cramming music into breaks in her workout routines.

Remember those two unreleased songs that leaked recently ("The Game" and "Is This Love")? There's alot of lyrical depth in those tunes.I'd like to see more of that from her.I want the next CD to have at least four ballads on it! Well-written,lyrically deep ballads.With her recent divorce and all the other changes in her life,she should have ALOT to sing about.

CrozzaUK said:

He didn't. He only contributed to 3 Madonna songs in 8 years, "Don't Tell Me" is basically a cover of one of his own songs ("Stop"), it wasn't a collaboration and "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" was in fact written years earlier as a 1920s torch song before it was turned into a Timbaland-ballad.



The marriage problems were obviously reflected on Hard Candy ("Miles Away", "Incredible)...



They don't? "4 Minutes" became one of her biggest hits and Hard Candy did very well (#9 best selling album of 2008 worldwide). Plus record sales are irrelevant now, especially for Madonna whose tour grosses are now legendary.

ehuffnsd said:

"How High", "Hung Up" & "Jump" are from another musical that was written with Joe Henry, Mirwais & Stuart for a Luc Besson screenplay that was scrapped as well. "Keep The Trance" is from this session that later became "Hey You". Hello Suckers! is really vintage jazz music, the other musical had disco and other "musical timeline" stuff if I remember well.

"Voices" is based on the song "Is This Love (Bon D'Accord)" which is from Hello Suckers! and is a simple acoustic songs. Several fans believe it was written with Patrick Leonard but I don't believe that because unlike Joe Henry, he did not receive writing credit on Hard Candy.

LiveToTell86 said:

Pat could have written the music orginially but it was probably scrapped for Timbaland and JT's production.

the problem with hard candy is that beat goes on was not released! If she had released that at some point, sales would have soared

alphastreet said:

"Beat Goes On" should have been the second single.Some radio stations on the East Coast were actually playing it.

SoulAlive said:

I thought Is This Love was fantastic...she probably didnt use it because she didnt want to give away the writing credit....hence recycling the lyrical portion. Its a shame because i prefer it in a way to Voices, despite its demo production.

I agree a ballads heavy album would be wonderful. As ready as i was for an all dance album when COADF hit, im ready for something more sedate now.