i dont get this whole reinvewnt thing either,some things dont need to be reinvented. somebody mentioned sade, the reason i like sade is because i love her style, she's mellow and calming, why would i want her to change that? same thing with maxwell,mary j blige,and just about all the artists i like. i dont agree with the person who said stevie wonder 'reinvented' himself,being diverse musically is not a reinvention imo.

Madonna hates the word reinvention! Her ReInvention tour was names by Guy Richie, to spoof that people always use this term about her.

However, like it or not (pun intended), reinvention will always be synonymous with Madonna. Show me another FEMALE recording artist of the last 100 years who has made an album of Sondheim and Sondheim inspired 30s/40s Broadway/Jazz music, published a book of herself naked and getting gang-raped, published a series of children's books, incorporated trip hop, R&B, soul, funk, country, house, hip hop and disco into her catalogue, had every color hair imaginable, played Eva Peron onscreen, humped the stage in a wedding dress, made a pop hook out of a yoga chant AND directed a documentary about AIDS in Africa.



She doesn't exist.

Changing with the times

badujunkie said:

thank god for that, we dont need anymore

lowkey said:

Christina Aguilera and Kylie Minogue are also good at changing sound though. I have a feeling the next incarnation of Lady Gaga will be different from the one we have now.

Harlepolis said:

I don´t think they failed at re-invention cause I still don´t know what it is so I can´t I say someone failed at something I don´t even know what it is. I don´t want them to re-invent themselves, if by re-invention you mean change. Do i care that Sade is all the same? No, cause she doesn´t release crap music. The reason why these singers are not what they used to be is not because they failed to "change", but because they started releasing crappy music. If their music was still great, we wound´t care about them being "the same or changing a bit". Maybe the reason for their failure was the desperate attempt to "change". If Mariah sticked to what she does best and did not switch to stupid hip-hop, it might be better.

dag said:

And that's why I said that I don't think that re-invention is a better or worse route than sticking to what you do best and keep doing it well. So I agree with you completely on Sade and on a number of other artists. I also agree with the person who said that Madonna stopped re-inventing herself. Yes we did get disco and R&B on the last two albums but it didn't feel like reinvention it felt like going back to earlier reinvention. However jumping from the pop/dance style of Like A Virgin to the bubblegum pop of True Blue to the semi-adult contemporary of Like A Prayer to the Sondheim big-band sound of I'm Breathless to the dance/club style of Erotica to the R&B style of Bedtime Stories then to electronic sound of Ray Of Light and then to the more experimental electronic that was Music is the definition of successful (maybe with the exception of Erotica) re-inventions for almost two decades.

P.S. I also prefered early Mariah than now. But her reinvention to R&B queen was pretty successful when it happened in 1995-1997. It was the failure to move away from that sound (not R&B in general but that special R&B sound of her mid-90s albums) and to keep making good music that hurt her. She did change a bit for the Emancipation album and was successful all over again
[Edited 12/31/09 18:29pm]

jiorjios said:

What I don´t understand is how jumping to different genres, meaning producers, can be a re-invention of yourself. She was just lucky in or knows how to choose the right producers at the right time which combined with her controversy and constant changes as a great attention-keepers might be her biggest talent actually and it might be what has kept her in the business for such a long time.
[Edited 1/1/10 5:57am]

dag said:

Well actually True Blue, LAP and I'm Breathless had the same producers for the most part and still sound like totally different albums. And with the exceptions of 'Hard Candy' and 'Bedtime Stories' Madonna never really worked with the hip producers/flavour of the moment. So yes you could say that she has a way to choose the right producers at the right time but if she didn't care to change her sound why should she look for them in the first place?
[Edited 1/1/10 6:45am]

It's not about the producers, they feed off each other, Patrick Leonard co produced both "Open Your Heart" and "Frozen" songs that sound like they come from entirely different artists, yet still have that Madonna spark in them. her reinventions aren't always obvious from one album to the next (Music and American life) are somewhat similar. but span it a few albums (American Life and Bedtime Stories) and you can see how much she really does change everything.

RKJCNE said:

Yeah, because an artist wanting to change things and grow is "re-invention".

ernestsewell said:

I would argue Madonna grows through her re-inventions.

RKJCNE said:

Every good artist wants to grow and change, but I've yet to hear the term "re-invention" applied to Prince, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Annie Lennox, etc etc. This is all covered in the thread already.

It's simply evolution. Changing with the times, a change in tastes, inspiration, style etc. Everybody does.

Look at The Beatles' image changes from 'Love Me Do' to 'Sgt. Pepper' and 'Abbey Road.' Their music and image reflected their lives at the time. I bet Lady Gaga will be the same in a years time.

I think Madonna has been labelled Queen of 're-invention' simply as her image has changed quite drastically over the years so people take more notice of it. Going from the scruffy disco diva to the sleek 'True Blue' probably shocked people as it was quite a transformation. Personally, it's one of the things that I love about her career. I can dip in and out of different eras depending on my mood.

It's the same with Prince, each new album brings along change.

re-invention = David Bowie

dag said:

Well, that's it in a nutshell. Madonna is praised for being able to do that, because a lot of her contemporaries are not able to pull it off. While on paper it seems to be simple to use a different producer each time, a lot of stars like Mariah, Janet and so on never had the ability to pull that off, they either stuck with their own hitmakers or the same kinda music over and over again. Madonna does write the majority of her songs and she is there in the studio with the producer, so it's not like she's just gets the "reinventions" handed in on a gold plate.

RKJCNE said:

Though Hard Candy was definitely a regression. The problem with Madonna is Madonna the person is not necessarily the Madonna we hear on record. Especially her recent records where she's sounding so desperate to appear relevant. She's an illusionist. I think her most radical departure musically or reinvention as you like was from Like A Prayer to Erotica. Look how much of her fanbase disappeared as they found the whole concept too much. The music was denser, darker and not as immediate. As for Madonna the person well Ray Of Light was obviously an album that couldn't be contrived and was remarkable in that sense.
[Edited 1/5/10 7:48am]

no matter what kinda music she does she's still madonna to me, how is trying differnt genres of music reinventing herself? i dont get it. i liked purple rain but i havnt really liked anything else from prince,the music dont sound the same but he is still prince, there is no mistaking who he is, mj was still mj,mariah,janet,whitney they are all still who i thought they was.reinventing to me would be something like george clinton going from this barber shop quartet type singer to the pfunk all-star he became,or if james brown would have somehow become smokey robinson or something, those are examples of complete transformations.

The tag "re-invention" is probably mostly a media thing. Like "masterpiece" or "genius". The media likes BIG words, and people will over time just adopt them as their own.

Madonna may have re-invented herself between Erotica and Ray of Light, going from the Mistress Dita from Erotica to "spiritual mum who cares oh so deeply" in Ray of Light, aka a complete overhaul of her image in the media (whether this "invention" was a construct or a deeply felt change, doesn't really matter). All the other "re-inventions" she's had I'd rather call image-lifts.

One pop icon that I could point at being good at re-inventing himself would be David Bowie. Since David Bowie in the 1970s wasn't "real" but more like a character he played to suit the music he was doing, you could say he re-invented himself between Ziggy Stardust, the glam years, and Young American, the soul year, and Low, the aristocratic years, and Let's Dance, the pop star years, through to the 1990's where he re-invented himself yet again. David Bowie's personality was very much a piece of fiction in the 1970's, so it was rather easy for him to "update", "change" and "re-invent" who he was for whatever next record he was doing.

Another re-invention was the one Prince pulled with Musicology. Prince had smashed the plate called Prince in the 90's, but by the time Musicology came out, he'd glued the pieces (sort of) back together, held up his plate and said "remember this?"..