otan said:

that is subjective. what isn't subjective is her accomplishments and successes in the business. that's what this thread was about.

My opinion of Madonna is this:
She is a one-time great who is now quite sad.
Her last good album was "Ray of Light", which came out in '97, ever since then, well, she's been a lost cause.
Then again, Madonna has been a media-whore from the get-go, why do you think she's so hot now? Because of her singing ability? Please!
That's the reason why everyone (except teenage girls and young guys) hated her when she first came out. They finally got off her back when they discovered she could make enjoyable music.
As far as influencing today's females, yeah, she has, that's why you see everyone dressed like a hooker.
Madonna gets what she wants by kissing ass and screwing people over. She's a great buisness woman and give her mad props for that, she can make enjoyable music, I own and like everything upto "music"
Now in her 40s, she has to put out childrens books and hook up with britney, to stay relevent she has to be "hot" with today's youth.
She was a one-time great who is now sucking up to stay popular, IMHO.

Now as far as the superficial stuff goes, she's not old, since when is '45' old?
Now as far as her looks go, I have NEVER thought she was pretty, and guys back then mostly liked her because of what was going on underneath her neck, now that she's older she needs to cover up, therefore she's lost that appeal. I don't buy into that Madonna's not pretty anymore, cause quite honestly she never has been, IMHO.

And I know A LOT of people who love "Mc Donalds", so she'll be around for quite ahwile, "tragic but true".

TRON said:

Yeah, you better explain that to us David. Gwen Stefani was also trying to say that she was releated to Madonna in a interivew a few years back. I don't buy it.

There have been times I've loved Madge and times I've hated her, and right now I just can't be bothered to give a toss one way or the other. She's just gotten boring and pretentious and chafing, and I think she's at a point in her career when she needs to get some stuff out of her system and come back when she wants to figure out how to appeal to the public again. I think every artist goes through this phase - identity crisis, burn-out, mid-life crisis, whatever - but the comeback can be delicious. I think Mrs. Ritchie has done a bang-up job of establishing herself as a pop culture icon, but I think in recent years she's lost the plot as to what made her intoxicating and fun. I miss her sense of irreverence - that attitude of "I'm going to take over the world, but at the end of the day it means nothing, tra-la-la..." These days, she seems like a humorless soccer mom who's been shellacked one too many times. Give me the Erotica-era Madge, smoking a cigar in the nude with Naomi Campbell and laughing like a goon because she accidentally choked on her gold tooth.

whateva, treva.

the "madonna is old" thing is older than madonna. why she is considered old is beyond me. nobody calls prince old. nobody calls cyndi lauper old. nobody calls chaka khan old. nobody calls david bowie old. the list can go on and on. she still looks great (if we are going to judge by superficial standards) and she is in better health than most of us who are sitting here on our asses, typing onto the org. her music is still, at worst, some of the best pop available. even 'music', which i really did not like, was better than a lot of what i heard on the radio during the same time period.

as for the mcdonald's analogy (actually, that's kinda funny)...regardless of anyone accepting it or not, madonna has changed the face of women in music. i'm not saying she created new sounds. instead, she recognized what she wants and the fact that she needs people to help her produce that sound successfully. if you can name one woman who has had more of an impact on pop culture or music history, please, hip me to her. other than ani difranco and natalie merchant, i can't even think of another woman who has her own label. even cher, whose been around since the middle-ages (j/k), hasn't had the impact m has had.

if madonna is mcdonald's, "i'm lovin' it!"

I hate it when people diss McDonald's!

I'm always kind of preplexed that people will go out of their way to say that Madonna is old (which someone pointed out wisely has been said about Madonna since she started) and washed up (another one that keeps coming back to haunt critics) when they hate her so much. That definatley says somehting about the power of Madonna. You hate her but you can't stop talking.

Now I've been a Madonna fan for a number of years and I must say that this has been a hard year for me. She is kind of pimping her self the Britney duet, Gap ads and kids books but the result has been on good album and an Ok remix ep. I must admit that it has been hard to be a Madonna fan this year but I do look forward to whatever she puts out next. I see the potential for a great album next year or the year after.

Hey, she did a damn good job of bouncing back after the Erotica fiasco. I hope she can survive this.

Musically she's amassed an incredible body of work over the years. "Like A Prayer" is the kind of stuff you just don't hear in modern pop today. And she was ruthlessly ambitious, determined, and didn't take bullshit, which I admired, but it's still something she gets a lot of flack for, primarily because she's a woman. She's either old, a whore, past her prime, or some combination of the three. BTW, I find it hilarious when, every time she releases a more "out there" record (like Erotica or American Life, both of which I enjoyed; Erotica ranks among her best IMHO), the critics pan it and claim her 15 minutes are up.

But she's still here.

lovebizzare said:

LOL... insert "Ray Of Light" for "Like A Prayer" and you could have written this in 1997

There have been times I've loved Madge and times I've hated her, and right now I just can't be bothered to give a toss one way or the other. She's just gotten boring and pretentious and chafing, and I think she's at a point in her career when she needs to get some stuff out of her system and come back when she wants to figure out how to appeal to the public again. I think every artist goes through this phase - identity crisis, burn-out, mid-life crisis, whatever - but the comeback can be delicious. I think Mrs. Ritchie has done a bang-up job of establishing herself as a pop culture icon, but I think in recent years she's lost the plot as to what made her intoxicating and fun. I miss her sense of irreverence - that attitude of "I'm going to take over the world, but at the end of the day it means nothing, tra-la-la..." These days, she seems like a humorless soccer mom who's been shellacked one too many times. Give me the Erotica-era Madge, smoking a cigar in the nude with Naomi Campbell and laughing like a goon because she accidentally choked on her gold tooth.

The last Madonna tape I bought was TRUE BLUE.

Have I missed anything???

Riding the jocks of younger acts is a pitiful sight.
MJ does the same thing. They both have whored their
souls for the next hit record.

Why not try working with older, more polished acts, like
Prince does?...Larry (bad example), Chaka, Mavis, George
Clinton, Patti, etc. It seems the young, talented
musicians gravitate towards Prince, he doesn't seem to
actively seek them out. I'm talkin' about musicians, like
Alicia Keys, Lenny Kravitz, The Roots, not the performers, such as Usher, B2K, Justin & Britney.

The last Madonna tape I bought was TRUE BLUE.

Have I missed anything???

Riding the jocks of younger acts is a pitiful sight.
MJ does the same thing. They both have whored their
souls for the next hit record.

Why not try working with older, more polished acts, like
Prince does?...Larry (bad example), Chaka, Mavis, George
Clinton, Patti, etc. It seems the young, talented
musicians gravitate towards Prince, he doesn't seem to
actively seek them out. I'm talkin' about musicians, like
Alicia Keys, Lenny Kravitz, The Roots, not the performers, such as Usher, B2K, Justin & Britney.
[This message was edited Tue Dec 2 15:18:20 PST 2003 by Revolution]

For the record,Madonna doesn't really WORK with younger acts.None of those acts you mentioned have appeared on any of her official albums.She did the VMA performance with Britney and Christina,the Gap commercial with Missy,and makes a cameo on Britney's new single.But she didn't actually feature these people on her albums,and she didn't rely on their producers either.In fact,for the most part,her albums rarely feature ANY "guest stars" period.

...
[This message was edited Wed Dec 3 1:18:05 PST 2003 by DavidEye]

AaronUniversal said:

"Ray of Light" & "Like a Prayer" are her masterpieces, I don't expect her to top them. I've liked EVERY album she's had out upto "music". which has nothing to do with the mentioned albums. In the now I don't think she makes good music, what's so bad about that?
this is all subjective, of course. What's one man's garbage is another's riches.
why does EVERYONE have to like madonna or get jumped on? I don't like her recent music, deal with it