Raaaptuuure... :LOL:

about Bedtime Stories. i think it is a pretty good album, and has aged better than some (though much of her material has aged well, considering it screams of its period, a lot of it has a timeless quality). i think that Bedtime Stories actually sounds better to me now than it did in 1994.


Bedtime Stories, for me, is one of her transitional album.s

It seems like, about every other album is her re-inventing herself... hell, re-inventing the standard for what a pop album should be. Perhaps I've posted this before, but I don't remember if it was here or elsewhere.


Her first album was fairly revolutionary for the time. It's post-disco, but not new-wave or new-romantic, which much of the music of the time was. It is, for all intents and purposes, good and bad, the birth of (modern) dance pop.

The follow-up, Like A Virgin, was very much a water-treading exercise, and neither the songs nor the production stand up to her debut. The two lead singles, however, were just enough "out there" to catapult her to superstardom, but she was on the track for that by the time the last single from the first album came out. In fact, Like A Virgin may actually be her worst studio album. Yes, actually it is.

True Blue was another revolution, both for Madonna and (dance) pop music. Live To Tell is ver startling. There weren't songs like that on the radio at the time, especially from people pigeon-holed as post-disco fluff. Papa Don't Preach took the sexy, thought-provoking moments of LAV, and turned them incredibly serious. This was Madonna's first foray into real, palpable controversy, instead of just grabbing attention for sexual antics. Open Your Heart took what she was doing with LAV, and made it arty. La Isla Bonita is spanish-tinged pop, that even the only other competition for it at the time (Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine) couldn't even dream of coming up with.

The followups, Who's That Girl and You Can Dance, taken together, are obvious water-treading, but even the singles from those rank among some of the best pop tunes of the decade.

Like A Prayer was another huge step forward for both Madonna, and pop radio. Lika A Prayer? If hearing the word "virgin" in a #1 song was a bit of a shocker, then hearing someone referencing religion and God in a #1 song was even moreso. And along with it came a very controversial video, and her second major controversy. The album, too, was, for the time, incredibly introspective. You just didn't get this on dance-pop records at the time (and you still don't, really). It hasn't been surpassed in that aspect.

Again, taken together, I'm Breathless is water-treading, while Vogue and Justify My Love are another, smaller step forward, that everyone would be imitating on the radio for another few years until gangsta rap and grunge (for lack of better terms) became mainstream.

The entire Sex/Erotica era was a huge envelope-pushing experiment, never seen or heard by another major pop star before, and never likely to be heard again. And even though her reach may have exceeded her grasp, there's no denying that much of the sexual openness in pop music today owes a debt of gratitude to Madonna and this period of her career.

The last couple of singles from Erotica, then I'll Remember, and finally Bedtime Stories, led the way to the kinder, gentler, repentent Madonna that culminated with Evita. Nearly all of her own songs (ie, those not part of Evita) are outstanding, if a little subdued in production and promotion, and that's for a reason. Bedtime Stories was Madonna pulling back, both musically and publicly, from the cliff that she had hung herself over in 1992/93. It is the epitome of a star knowing they crossed the line and asking the masses for forgiveness, from the use of mainstream "hot" r&b producers, to the plethora of out and out love song type tracks that she released during the period.


Ray Of Light was another step forward, this time without controversy, and was better for it. She used an electronic producer that was little more than a glorified remixer (and who most had thought was pretty much over and washed up) and created the best pop album of the year, the decade, and maybe one of the all-time best out and out pop records ever. She did what Bowie and U2 had been largely unable to do, and introduced "electronica" (again, for lack of a better word) into the pop mainstream. The rest of the pop world quickly bounced on this.


Music was more water-treading, but pointed the way, with several tracks by a new producer, to the next major statement. For now, she was happy with an update on her updated sound, but she would wait to put it to artistic use on the next album. Music is mostly fun and love songs, and is more of a collection of tracks than an album that hangs together like it's meant to.

American Life is that latest. It's the spirit of Ray Of Light and Like A Prayer, filtered through the sounds of Erotica and the updated Music.

One of the most overrated artists of all time in my opinion.

JDINTERACTIVE said:

does everything have to be about Prince around here?

AaronSuperior said:

:FALLOFF:

JDINTERACTIVE said:

One of the most underrated artists of all time in my opinion.

I love Madonna and I do also think that her new album is brilliant.
People don't hate MJ because he's been in the music industry so long, they hate him because they believe lying paparazzi.
I also believe that MJ is not just an entertainer but also an artist.
Fab live, he can sing, dance, play a number of instruments (as someone has already said), writes his own music too.
A beautiful person, with a very kind heart.

There will never be another Madonna! We should all be thankful to have lived through such an entertaining career, because she is a great entertainer. Even if we can not stand her, we still look at her when she comes back out with her ever marketing crazy self. She has something, its hard to explain. How many people do you know of that everyone knows by name? If she was not so great why when someone says MADONNA, you know, enough said. Love her. Give in! Its not that hard.
[This message was edited Tue Sep 2 22:36:13 PDT 2003 by LemonPiE]

LemonPiE said:

it oughta be a law...