shit it's been 20 years? I kept thinking about her a lot today and how I would play her so much 20 years ago and she was my favourite artist ever at the time....had her poster on my wall, and remember mom sending me to my room cause they were about to show her on tv nekkid hahaha

words and why's it so hard are my favourites....where life begins is soooo sexy!

[Edited 10/19/12 22:52pm]

go2theMax said:

It wasn't just house. There's pop, some jazzy-infused hiphop (God help me with this), new jack swing, lounge. And even the house tracks, they have good lyrics and melodies. I agre that Vogue and Justify My Love influenced the sounds of Erotica, but just as much as Bedtime Story, the song, seemed to give a hint of what her next album would be like. Plus, this album was nothing like her previous ones..u gotta admit that.

None of her albums sound like the previous, regardless if she recycles current trends or not. None of what you listed were new in mainstream music, since all of that started a year earlier with Dangerous and Diamonds & Pearls.

You could make a connection between "Waiting" and "I'd Rather Be Your Lover" but Bedtime Stories sounds nothing like Erotica, it's a lot smoother listen, and in my opinion, walks all over Erotica.

Gunsnhalen said:

aardvark15 said:

Up there with Ray Of Light, Like A Prayer, and Music. LOOVE this album. My faves are Erotica, Fever, Deeper And Deeper, and Where Life Begins. The whole album is awesome though. Love the videos though

Starting with Justify My Love(Vogue is overrated imo ) Madonna had a good period from 92-99 where she made nothing but great videos.

This is why i am so blah on her 80's period... good videos(Blah songs ) her 90's videos where art, and had a vision.

Bad Girl look's amazing & look's like you are watching it in a theatre.

I see the 1980s vs 1990s comarison as a 20yrold vs 30yrold

Usually people in their 20s are still working thing out finding themselves finding their space

usually people in their 30s have mostly worked it out know themselves and know their space

Madonna in the 1990s is the 30 yr old

But I will say something about the 1980s output, it accompanied people thru their life journeys, doesnt need to be deep (I think thats part if the reason Lovesexy went over peoples heads because it was too deep and undefinable, vs SOTT which the lyrics and stories were touchable)

Angel Crazy 4 U, Dress u Up, True Blue, Like a Virgin, a lot of the songs as music should be, people can attach to relationship stuff thru their lives, it feels good, can dance too it etc etc

I became a fan of her in the earliest of the 1990s though

Erotica is one of my most favorite Madonna albums. it's just a great album. underrated imo

I also think the 90's is her most artistic period.

Mintchip said:

So what do you guys prefer: words, waiting, or thief of hearts?

"Words"....I like the dark feel of it and the desperation in the lyrics.Madonna's best songs are the ones that have sad,heartbreaking melodies and lyrics.

I don't think I ever gave any other album more spins than this one...I gave it a rest 4 a while, but this week it feels like 1992 again...the excitment I got when I first bought it. It's a shame we still don't have a remastered special edition of LAP, Erotica and Bedtime Stories...

go2theMax said:

I don't think I ever gave any other album more spins than this one...I gave it a rest 4 a while, but this week it feels like 1992 again...the excitment I got when I first bought it. It's a shame we still don't have a remastered special edition of LAP, Erotica and Bedtime Stories...

There were so many awesome remixes and unreleased songs from this period too. I hope we get something good for the 25th anniversary

Madonna
Erotica
****

BY SAL CINQUEMANI ON FEBRUARY 24, 2007
JUMP TO COMMENTS (2) OR ADD YOUR OWN

My relationship to Madonna's Erotica has been an ever-evolving one. Being just 13 years old at the time of its release, I was too young to relate to most of the music's sexual politics. But I played the album incessantly, maybe because I recognized something innately human beneath its icy surface, and, even if I couldn't articulate it, there was an honest rage behind Madonna's rebellious public persona; Erotica and its accompanying Sex book seemed to be a part of the most audacious public temper tantrum I'd ever seen. At the very least, I knew a good flamenco guitar solo when I heard one.

It wasn't until years later, as an adult, that I started to grasp the socio-sexual commentary implicit in the album's songs, and then only recently that I started to discover some of the more subversive, fringe ideas emerging in my own private life. The emotional states that lie beneath certain aspects of sexuality are universal—even if handcuffs and harnesses are not.

Deeply flawed, hugely under-appreciated, and pounded into submission by the hype and controversy surrounding Sex, Erotica is the album Kurt Loder likened to an iceberg. Madonna, under the guise of her then-muse, '30s actress Dita Parlo, presides over the proceedings with whip in hand and tongue planted firmly in cheek. If Madonna's image seemed aggressive up until this point, her music was warm, inviting, and accessible (it was pop by definition—hell, she defined pop music in the '80s), which made her next-generation version of feminism a lot easier to swallow—or, to some, tolerable—in the era of AIDS and Reagan. By 1992, Madonna was an icon—untouchable, literally and figuratively—and Erotica was the first time the artist's music took on a decidedly combative, even threatening tone, and most people didn't want to hear it.

Of all Madonna's musical output, Erotica most resembled her acting: stiff, aloof, and seemingly contrived. Ironically, this came at a time when her films (Dick Tracy, Truth or Dare, A League of Their Own) were actually making money for the first time since Desperately Seeking Susan. Madonna's characters in films like Body of Evidence and Dangerous Game, both released on the steel-toed dominatrix heels of Erotica, were far cries from the defiant but likeable Susan, and though Erotica was a full-on dance album, Madonna seemed more interested in getting off than getting into the groove. Emphasis should be placed on seemed since few of the songs on the album are actually about sex. The ballads are all direct results of sex (the promiscuity hymn "Bad Girl," the AIDS dirge "In This Life," and some might even view "Rain" as an extended cum metaphor, though I don't subscribe to that knee-jerk interpretation), but most of the album is about romance and the loss of it.

That is, especially the loss of it. "This is not a love song," Madonna insists at the start of "Bye Bye Baby," but that's wishful thinking: One particularly vengeful line from the song, "I'd like to hurt you," takes on new meaning following her admission on the title track that "I only hurt the ones I love." The filter on her voice gives the effect of an answering machine message, the bleep that censors her final barb ("You fucked it up") doubling as the machine's end-of-message beep. A few tracks later, "Waiting," a veritable sequel to the steely, in-your-face spoken-word of "Justify My Love," addresses rejection and unrequited love in a more brutally honest fashion: "Don't go breaking my heart like you said you would," she sings despondently yet sincerely. Here's a woman who entered into a relationship after the man she loves told her he wouldn't be able to love her back. And yet she still took the risk, which is exactly what Erotica is about. Forget the whips and chains of the brilliant, otherworldly ode to S&M that is "Erotica"; "Waiting" is the ultimate masochism, one that's entered into with full knowledge of what the emotional consequences will be. The very first lyric, "Well, I know from experience that if you have to ask for something more than once or twice, it wasn't yours in the first place," which she utters with the same amount of interest a star of her stature might apply to buying a new pair of shoes, also happens to be one of the best opening lines to a pop song since "I guess I should have known by the way you parked your car sideways that it wouldn't last."

Speaking of little red corvettes, Madonna waxes erotic on the perks and pleasures of oral sex on "Where Life Begins," the album's most overtly sexual track, but also the only one to reference safe sex: "I'm glad you brought your raincoat/I think it's beginning to rain." Both "Where Life Begins" and "Waiting" draw heavily from Motown and were produced by Andre Betts, who cut his teeth as associate producer of "Justify My Love." But Erotica's chief producer was Shep Pettibone, who remixed Madonna's singles for half a decade before graduating to legit collaborator with the seminal dance hit "Vogue" in 1990. "Deeper and Deeper," with its juxtaposition of swirling disco synths, of-the-moment Philly house beats, and the aforementioned flamenco guitar (insisted on by Madonna, according to Pettibone, who objected), is both a product of its time and a timeless Madge classic. (The track even borrows a lyric from "Vogue," as if she'd come anywhere close to running out of ideas by 1992.) Madonna's rarely acknowledged harmonies glide atop the frosty beats, thunder-claps of percussion, and skyward drone of the sonorous "Rain," and then there's the inventive and sleek "Words." Madonna could have more successfully achieved the gritty, raw sound she wanted had she completely handed the reins over to Betts; time hasn't been kind to Pettibone's often-suffocating productions, while Betts's jazzy piano parts and hip-hop beats still sound fresh.

Regardless of the producer, however, the album is sonically seamless, and almost every song is about a minute too long—an orgy that seemingly never ends, or maybe just the product of CD technology. And then there's "Did You Do It?," which, aside from the supremely over-the-top but ridiculously fun "Thief of Hearts," is the pockmark on Madonna's otherwise flawless, 35-year-old posterior. It's the houseguest who stayed the night and who looks much less desirable in the light of day. She could burn her sheets and sanitize the bedroom, she could write it out of her memory, issuing a "clean" version of the whole story without a parental advisory sticker—and she did, because Madonna wanting to get her pussy eaten isn't as offensive as a rapper talking about actually having done it. But the stink remains anyway. "Did you do it?" She knows she did, but she really just wants to get wifed and have a baby, feminism be damned.

Which brings us to, perhaps, Erotica's most personal, revealing moment, the unexpected jazz-house closer "Secret Garden," another Betts production. Most critics and fans are split between two camps: those who think Like a Prayer is Madonna's greatest album and those who believe Ray of Light is. (I happen to belong to the former.) And then there are those who claimErotica is her best effort. Had Betts produced more tracks like "Secret Garden," it may very well have been. Way ahead of its time, the track sets Madonna's yen for a child to shuffling drum n' bass, atmospheric synths, and a distant saxophone beckoning like an alley cat. Ever the control freak, and with motherhood still a few years away, she tries to dismiss her ticking biological desire: "I just wish I knew the color of my hair." It's unexpectedly the album's sexiest song.

Erotica's irrefutable unsexiness probably says more about the sex=death mentality of the early '90s than any other musical document of its time. This is not Madonna at her creative zenith. This is Madonna at her most important, at her most relevant. Pettibone's beats might be time-stamped with the sound of a genre that ruled a decade of one-hitters before being replaced by commercialized hip-hop, and Madonna's voice might sound nasal and remote, but no one else in the mainstream at that time dared to talk about sex, love, and death with such frankness and fearlessness, and, intentional or not (probably not), the fact that she sounds like she has a cold only adds to the claustrophobic stuffiness of the record. The drums of "In This Life" tick away like Stephen Hawking's Doomsday Clock, which, coupled with tension-building keyboard intervals inspired by Gershwin's blues lullaby "Prelude No. 2," creates a sense of dis-ease rarely found in a pop ballad.

Whatever words one chooses to label the album with (cold, artificial, self-absorbed, anonymous), Madonna embraces those qualities and makes it part of the message. "Why's it so hard to love one another?" she asks on the reggae-hued "Why's It So Hard?," knowing the answer lies within the dark fact that a society that won't even allow two people to love each other freely can't possibly be expected to love and care for perfect strangers unconditionally. Sexually liberated, for sure, but Madonna is a liberal in every other sense of the word too, and you didn't have to hear her shout, "Vote for Clinton!" as she was being whisked past MTV News's cameras to know that. It could be argued that Madonna lost her rebel relevance right around the time Reagan's regime ended; the waning of her popularity certainly coincided with the arrival of Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. But looking back from the vantage point of an administration far more sinister than Reagan's, it's clear that Madonna, her messages, and her music are more relevant now than ever.

http://idolator.com/7205621/madonna-erotica-20-anniversary-1992

If anyone in the last 30 years of American music knows how to grind artistic vision against the pop marketplace, it’s Madonna. But the fall of 1992 would be the first time her instinct faltered. With the trifecta of album (Erotica), coffee table book (Sex) and movie (Body Of Evidence), Madonna pushed as hard as she could against the public’s tolerance of sexuality in mass media. The effect was, at the time, wearying. Twenty years later, the Erotica album (released October 20, 1992), divorced from the book and (terrible) movie, stands as her most rococo album, layered in strange sounds, dark feelings and a pleasing defiance toward pop radio.

As the first full length follow-up to her worldwide hit album, Like A Prayer, Erotica is a bruised beast. Leaving behind the California life she’d been living, her new music was immersed in the sounds of New York, the city in which it was recorded. If Erotica was not a commercial success on the level of earlier hits — it peaked at #2 on the album chart — it’s triumph is that it has aged beautifully.

I’ll be your mistress tonight
“This Used To Be My Playground,” Madonna’s summer’92 soundtrack single (A League Of Their Own), was a red herring. The stylistic leap from that sentimental ballad to Erotica’s first single, the scratchy title track, is immense. Constructed on a sample of Kool & The Gang’s “Jungle Boogie,” the track was too gritty for the Hot 100, where it peaked at #3. The “Playground” video’s girl in a flowery field had been replaced by Madonna’s gold-toothed alter ego, Dita, who traded in sadism and provocation. (“I don’t think you know what pain is,” she intones, “I don’t think you’ve gone that way.”) Indeed, the bondage ’n’ boobs video was immediately banned from MTV.

Madonna — “Erotica”

The second single, “Deeper And Deeper,” nourished the masses in a more recognizably “Madonna” style. In his Erotica Diaries, co-producer Shep Pettibone reveals how much artistic control Madonna had during the recording of this disco classic. He wrote, “The middle of the song wasn’t working… Madonna wanted (it) to have a flamenco guitar strumming big-time. I didn’t like the idea of taking a Philly house song and putting ‘La Isla Bonita’ in the middle of it. But that’s what she wanted, so that’s what she got.” That flamenco-meets-house breakdown is now considered one of the album’s standout moments.

Madonna — “Deeper And Deeper”

Don’t mince words, don’t be evasive
If anything, Erotica’s legacy can be found in its album tracks. The bass heavy “Waiting” is the first of a thrilling triumvirate of deep cuts. Madonna, who sounds like she’s nursing a serious cold, delivers an angry riposte to a spineless lover. It boasts one of the most vicious put downs in pop music: “The next time you want pussy,” she snarls, “Just look in the mirror, baby.”

Equally quotable, “Thief of Hearts” is a swaggering bitch-fest. Like much of the album, the track — in which Madonna takes down “Little Susie Ho-Maker” — shifts between spoken word and sung vocals. From the shattering glass in the first seconds to the final command (“Stop bitch! Now sit your ass down!”), it’s clear that Madonna is channeling a new level of fury.

While much of Erotica is suffused with anger, “Words” is rooted in disappointment: “My friends, they tried to warn me about you,” she sings. “How can I explain to them, how could they know, I’m in love with your words.” Again, the arrangement is exhilarating, mixing huge synths and beats with a weird, repeating snake charm. It remains one of the finest songs of her career.

Everything strange, everything wild
Erotica’s balladry revisits the oceanic sonic landscape of her epic 1986 ballad “Live To Tell,” notably on the album’s sole expression of pure love, “Rain.” Again, it’s the details that count: the way the synths turbo-charge at 2:46 into a sleek middle eight that features dueling Madonnas reciting lines of poetry out of the left and right channels [play it on earbuds]. “By sheer force of will / I’ll raise you from the ground,” she says softly, “And without a sound, you’ll appear and surrender to me, to love.” The track is swooningly romantic, and the music is matched by an exquisite Mark Romanek-directed video.

Madonna — “Rain”

If “Rain” channels optimism, the dysfunctional “Bad Girl” is sound-tracked self-harm. “I’m not happy when I act this way,” Madonna sings, unable to control her own vices. Like much of Erotica, the sex is less sensual than lonely. The video, directed by a young David Fincher, drives the point home by ending with Madonna’s own strangulation.

Madonna — “Bad Girl”

A heart that will not harden
Madonna brought in another co-producer, Andre Betts, to plug the album into an underground New York vibe. He rooted their collaborations in the era’s fusion of hip hop and jazz. “Where Life Begins” remains Madonna’s most outrageously cheeky song (“a lot of people talk about dining in and eating out / I guess that’s what this song is about”), but it is “Secret Garden” that reveals her vulnerability. The whispery, spoken-word piece finds Madonna looking for “a rose without a thorn / a lover without scorn.” It’s less agitated than the rest of Erotica, bringing the album to a sweet, jazzy conclusion.

Erotica is a strong case for Madonna the Musician. Despite relatively weak sales, the album marks the point at which she went deeper and darker. The music still sounds bracing, cool, funny and sad. If it’s been awhile since you’ve played this, Madonna’s fifth LP, do it tonight, late. It’ll hit you like a truck.

go2theMax said:

My favourite Madonna album/era. The song 'Erotica' was so ahead of it's time. It's a shame the album was overshadowed by 'Sex'.

1993

From "Vogue" through "Erotica", definitely the best Madonna era. An era full of attitude, sex, and house music. "Thief Of Hearts" was the ass shaker.

go2theMax said:

Thanks U

I love this documentary

I love pieces like this that go back to a period of time and you can actually remember the feeling(if u lived it)

People who put her down as a entertainer need to see this

Love the part about Madonna(real life) vs Britney(imitation)

and I love the part about how the 1 guy was saying 'everybody hated the Sex book' and the other guy is saying it was $50 a book 1 million copies and the book sold out + $50million dollars

Funny thing is that after 20 years, yeaterday I finally watched the uncensored version of "Erotica"...and I was like wow! I mean I've seen the version that it was banned from U,S. TV, but that was the same version we could watch on MTV Brazil anytime of the day...and I never understood the fuss about that one, so everytime I saw the title "Erotica (Uncensored Versio)" I never paid attention...but then out of nothing, yesterday I was browsing Erotica era - related subjects and I came across this other version with some nudity going on...it says the "european banned version" on the title...this one is the real sh*t! it is a bit shocking even in 2012 How she got away with that I will never know, but I'm glad she did

[Edited 10/22/12 8:10am]

I absolutely hate it how she acted like an ice cold arrogant bitch during those early-90s interviews

JoeTyler said:

I absolutely hate it how she acted like an ice cold arrogant bitch during those early-90s interviews

She's a lot more relaxed in this other interview

This is one of the best music videos by Madonna or anyone. And a beautiful song!

[Edited 10/22/12 13:31pm]

[Edited 10/22/12 13:32pm]

OfftheWall said:

This is one of the best music videos by Madonna or anyone. And a beautiful song!

I think it's her best video...even better than 'Like A Prayer'.

go2theMax said:

Funny thing is that after 20 years, yeaterday I finally watched the uncensored version of "Erotica"...and I was like wow! I mean I've seen the version that it was banned from U,S. TV, but that was the same version we could watch on MTV Brazil anytime of the day...and I never understood the fuss about that one, so everytime I saw the title "Erotica (Uncensored Versio)" I never paid attention...but then out of nothing, yesterday I was browsing Erotica era - related subjects and I came across this other version with some nudity going on...it says the "european banned version" on the title...this one is the real sh*t! it is a bit shocking even in 2012 How she got away with that I will never know, but I'm glad she did

[Edited 10/22/12 8:10am]

The red states in the USA were never ready for anything uncensored by Madonna. Good grief, you should've seen the uproar concerning the video for Justify My Love just a year prior to the release of the Erotica album.

TonyVanDam said:

go2theMax said:

Funny thing is that after 20 years, yeaterday I finally watched the uncensored version of "Erotica"...and I was like wow! I mean I've seen the version that it was banned from U,S. TV, but that was the same version we could watch on MTV Brazil anytime of the day...and I never understood the fuss about that one, so everytime I saw the title "Erotica (Uncensored Versio)" I never paid attention...but then out of nothing, yesterday I was browsing Erotica era - related subjects and I came across this other version with some nudity going on...it says the "european banned version" on the title...this one is the real sh*t! it is a bit shocking even in 2012 How she got away with that I will never know, but I'm glad she did

[Edited 10/22/12 8:10am]

The red states in the USA were never ready for anything uncensored by Madonna. Good grief, you should've seen the uproar concerning the video for Justify My Love just a year prior to the release of the Erotica album.

I see...here in Brazil Justify My Love would play anytime of the day...it actually spent 4-5 months on the daily MTV top 10 that would air at 6:00 P.M.

go2theMax said:

TonyVanDam said:

The red states in the USA were never ready for anything uncensored by Madonna. Good grief, you should've seen the uproar concerning the video for Justify My Love just a year prior to the release of the Erotica album.

I see...here in Brazil Justify My Love would play anytime of the day...it actually spent 4-5 months on the daily MTV top 10 that would air at 6:00 P.M.

There was a huge fuss over Like A Prayer too

TonyVanDam said:

go2theMax said:

Funny thing is that after 20 years, yeaterday I finally watched the uncensored version of "Erotica"...and I was like wow! I mean I've seen the version that it was banned from U,S. TV, but that was the same version we could watch on MTV Brazil anytime of the day...and I never understood the fuss about that one, so everytime I saw the title "Erotica (Uncensored Versio)" I never paid attention...but then out of nothing, yesterday I was browsing Erotica era - related subjects and I came across this other version with some nudity going on...it says the "european banned version" on the title...this one is the real sh*t! it is a bit shocking even in 2012 How she got away with that I will never know, but I'm glad she did

[Edited 10/22/12 8:10am]

The red states in the USA were never ready for anything uncensored by Madonna. Good grief, you should've seen the uproar concerning the video for Justify My Love just a year prior to the release of the Erotica album.

But that underground forbidden thing soooo gave Madonna another edge, I love that it wasnt easily accessible

I always wished Prince Black album era was real and had this kind of underground rebellious vibe

Goodbye to Innocence would be great in the place of Did You Do It?..I like both, the released version and even that more funk-driven demo that fans called Straight Pass.