I'm concerned for madonna

[Poison ivy]

I don’t think she’s gone mad but I do think she has always had a terminal need for attention that was previously tempered by the work demands on her schedule.

It appears that because she is older (and with no radio play) she has much less outside work demands and is trying to overcompensate via other means, unlike in days gone by where media companies would come to her for content/ interviews/ exclusives etc, nowadays she’s simply no longer a hot brand and no-one is buying.

if she wasn’t generating her own content on her socials she wouldn’t have any coverage at all.  I think she is trying to embrace a punk ethos and value but to be honest, as a long term fan, every action she takes now looks superficial/ clout chasing and I’m over it.  I look at her approved images on her IG and none of them even look real.

I trace her questionable choices right back to the “Hard Candy” album, where for the first time her sonic direction (and association with Timbaland) felt like something that had already came into (and already gone out of) fashion.

Totally separately to this, Lady Gaga launched around that same time and speaking as someone who has followed Madonna from the beginning and watched so many other female singers try (and fail) to take her position in pop culture, it became undeniable to me (even as a long term Madonna Stan) that Lady Gaga was finally the one who had that same flavour of charisma and was fated to take her crown.

Madonna was successfully able to read the zeitgeist and stay on top of it for a considerable period of time longer than almost all her contemporaries in popular culture but ultimately with the dawn of the “Hard Candy” era, it became apparent her reign was over and she had been usurped.

However, if only she had a back to basics approach and made it her life’s mission (in the present) to identify her core brand and make a really good (most likely) pop/ dance album she could maybe win me back over and remind me of why she took pop culture to a whole other level in the first place.

Edited December 1, 2022 by Dax Diameter

[DiEEnE]

On 11/26/2022 at 2:56 AM, Dax Diameter said:

I don’t think she’s gone mad but I do think she has always had a terminal need for attention that was previously tempered by the work demands on her schedule.

It appears that because she is older (and with no radio play) she has much less outside work demands and is trying to overcompensate via other means, unlike in days gone by where media companies would come to her for content/ interviews/ exclusives etc, nowadays she’s simply no longer a hot brand and no-one is buying.

if she wasn’t generating her own content on her socials she wouldn’t have any coverage at all.  I think she is trying to embrace a punk ethos and value but to be honest, as a long term fan, every action she takes now looks superficial/ clout chasing and I’m over it.  I look at her approved images on her IG and none of them even look real.

It became apparent that in the space of time between the “Rebel Heart” and “Madame X” eras, that she had checked in to have a facelift.

I thought in time it would settle down and she had simply gone out and done promo too early without having given it a chance to heal and settle down, but at this point it has become apparent that is simply not the case.

Madonna has access to the best medics and best plastic surgeons on the planet, yet somehow she was still able to make the wrong judgement call and selected the wrong one!

I trace her questionable choices right back to the “Hard Candy” album, where for the first time her sonic direction (and association with Timbaland) felt like something that had already came into (and already gone out of) fashion.

Totally separately to this, Lady Gaga launched around that same time and speaking as someone who has followed Madonna from the beginning and watched so many other female singers try (and fail) to take her position in pop culture, it became undeniable to me (even as a long term Madonna Stan) that Lady Gaga was finally the one who had that same flavour of charisma and was fated to take her crown.

Madonna was successfully able to read the zeitgeist and stay on top of it for a considerable period of time longer than almost all her contemporaries in popular culture but ultimately with the dawn of the “Hard Candy” era, it became apparent her reign was over and she had been usurped.

However, if only she had a back to basics approach and made it her life’s mission (in the present) to identify her core brand and make a really good (most likely) pop/ dance album she could maybe win me back over and remind me of why she took pop culture to a whole other level in the first place.

Madonna will forever be a legend because she is the blueprint. She doesn’t have to win you over because everyone always comes crawling back. The ageism, sexism, and misogyny thrown her way is always going to be there by both sexes. I hope Madonna continues doing her thing because she hasn't changed one bit. So please continue bad mouthing her because she transitioned into the digital age where there is no such thing as mystery or privacy. I just want her to take the club kids to the future and deliver another confessions era takeover and everyone will love her again. To bad SOPHIE isn’t alive, they would probably be making music right now with Charlie Xcx.

[Poison ivy]

My relationship with Madonna is always going to be love/ hate (but ultimately love), because to take her message seriously is to be forced to analyse parts of yourself that wider society (at one time or another) has considered taboo and attempted to cast shame over.

We can’t all insulate ourselves in an enlightened utopia surrounded by cosmopolitan creatives and simply switch the unenlightened ‘off’ whenever we want (like Madonna can). To live in the real world is to be forced to interact with other peoples prejudicial views, sanctimony and messed up social conditioning (out with the construct of sit down media interactions and social media).

Madonna has achieved many things in her life and has pushed the narrative forward and used her platform in many positive ways that today benefits many marginalised societal groups in ways thought of as unforeseen only a generation ago.

I don’t know if the fortuitous (yet accidental) discovery by her A&R of an already written track, (not created with her in mind), “Like a Virgin” in conjunction to the enforced 1985 “Playboy” exposure of that former, naked, brunette, dance student from 1978 (a year after LAV Hit) - ultimately led to the taboo expressions of sadomasochism inherent in the “Erotica” era (though I suspect it did).

Is it selfish of me to NOT want to see Madonna basically re-inact the “Erotica” era, 30 years after she did it the first time?

I think it’s fantastic that she clicks her fingers and still has instant access to 20 something dick as a result of her visual manifestation of an outwardly sexual image - decades after society saying she should not be doing that.

Screw the patriarchy, screw gammons and screw mysogynist’s.

I’m merely saying I have a right to NOT pretend I’m watching her pull the same moves for the first time. By volition of her being Madonna, I expect her to come up with something new (not recycle the same old ‘go to’ tropes of the past).

Each generation needs that defining risqué artist who pushes the envelope forward and reflects the lifestyle values of a generation.

In a modern setting (for example), Is Taylor Swift really that person for now?  She appears to represent an entire generation but she also appears constricted, she can’t truly do anything with a “Wow” factor for fear of losing the right wing redneck portion of her fanbase in the U.S. southern states, where the genre of Music (“Country”), that brought her to fame, actually originates from.

Madonna brought many things to the table, she is a true innovator and culturally, western society is definitely in a more enlightened place than it otherwise would have been if she had not existed but in terms of being a “blue print” (within the framework of pop culture), I’m not convinced.

Since she entered the industry, she has always spoke of how influential Debbie Harry and Marilyn Monroe were on her psyche (and without taking anything away from Madonna), I put forth the case she was (through hard work and determination) in many ways destined to continue that evolutionary lineage of the blonde, pop cultural, archetype (in the same way that Lady Gaga) also now follows in line, which in itself is quite an achievement as many in the history of the entertainment industry would like to attain that position (yet between the actual dawn of pop culture and the present) so very few actually have.