Does anyone else think that Bedtime Stories is a really under-rated album? I think it's tied with Ray of Light as one of her best and most consistent albums.
I get everything wrong, (Starbucks? Who's going to pay $4-5 for coffee I said). So naturally back in 1983, I said that she would amount to nothing, told everyone Cyndi Lauper was the one going places.
And which one is the household name in 2020? Listening to Madonna's first album, you'd think she was just another pop fad, then she follows it up with Like A Virgin and instantly - even if because of the infamy, places herself in the pop pantheon of the greats.
Added to the list I have called " I get everything wrong!" It's a pretty long list! I really thought Cyndi was the superior singer, and her debut was fantastic and better than the first Madonna album, would have placed all bets on her.
I’m thinking the Like A Virgin era photo with underarm hair is photoshopped. I don’t remember any pictures of her with that besides the old “art photographs” that ended up in Playboy.
Of course! I do have the 12". For years I thought the cowbell was a crap addition to the Immaculate Collection mix then I heard this 12" mix and it originates through that. It's pathetic that you can't even buy Madonna's hit singles in their correct versions new anymore. A singles box set would be welcome.
I like the original album version more than either of these. I like them all though. Such a great song and my favourite Madonna single.
T The problem is that Cyndi burst onto the scene with two absolute classic singles, two that even outstream Madonna's biggest classics. She set the bar too early that there was no way she'd ever live up to that standard. It would've been like Michael Jackson releasing Billie Jean and Beat It as his first two singles or Madonna bursting on the scene with Like A Prayer and Vogue.
I thought she was going to be a new-wave Patsy Cline with a side of Betty Boop. She could do rock (Money Changes Everything) Pop, (Girls just want to), and she had impeccable taste to cover Prince so early on.
Cyndi's had a respectable career, but she just was never fully able to shake her early image compared to how Madonna became the queen of reinvention. Even when Cyndi was going through her serious singer songwriter phase in the nineties, it met a thud with the public at large because she was always going to be the "girl who just wants to have fun" to them. She deserved a much bigger career and I'm a fan but she perhaps debuted too strongly that people were wanting her to top herself and she chose not to.
Lines from the movie that still appeal to my juvenile sense of humour: - We did one of your things already. We killed the pimp and the fat man. Now it's time to do one of my things - Was the school Swiss? - Sure. It was the swissest - Oh my God. You stole that from Cartier. That's grand theft - You don't understand. They put these things out because they want us to steal it. It's a promotional thing. It's called a loss leader.
She we She went too all-in with the wrestling shtick. It was initially a fun diversion, but her team took it too far - and by the time True Colors was released, the general audience seemed confused - especially since the first releases from True Colors were somber and serious. I feel the wrestling bit definitely impaired her ability to career-pivot to being an artist with longevity. Cyndi did well for herself, and I still enjoy many facets of her career - but she should have been bigger.
I frequently find myself revisiting Rebel Heart, specifically the SDE. Despite the AutoTune on Madonna's vocals, I think the songwriting and arrangements are top notch. Unlike the SDE of Madame X, nearly ALL of the bonus tracks add something of value to RH. I've even come to appreciate the more raucous songs on RH (like "Illuminati," "S.E.X.," and "Holy Water"). They're not classics by any means, but the envelope pushing lyrics and risque subject matter IS classic Madonna. From an electronic/dance music standpoint, they're still at least interesting to listen to - even if the lyrics make me shake my head. As a whole, though, RH is a sold album with some pretty stellar songwriting. I spin it frequently - including those "Living For Love" remixes. LFL is such a powerful song, lyrically. Its positive message should've made more of an impact on radio.
You weren't alone. Pretty much all the pop music pundits figured Madonna was a no-talent flash in the pan, whereas Lauper would endure for decades. Which she did, in a way. But obviously Madonna held on a lot longer than expected!
So nice to meet a fellow Rebel Heart fan. The bonus disc is indeed excellent. There are better songs on that than there are on the main album. I’ve said it before, but if you cherry picked 12 of the best cuts from the SDE, you’d have her best album since Ray Of Light. The autotune is evident on Rebel Heart, but it didn’t bother me like it did on Madame X...
It’s true. Nobody expected Madonna to last. She wasn’t the best singer or dancer, or even the most attractive pop gal around. But somehow she delivered albums that kept getting better and the hits wouldn’t stop coming.
No one back then understood how smart and canny Madonna herself was. Everyone thought she was just some pawn of producers and handlers. Though Britney's shown that you can be the pawn of producers and handlers and still have a long career!
Regarding Madonna's shortcomings as an actress. I think we have to assess the fact that a 4-5 minute long video vs. a two hour movie are different beasts entirely. Evita worked because it was essentially a lot of music videos compiled into one narrative story, very little dialogue between the musical sequences. Even Susan worked because for the most part, Madonna played an enigma figure who had about 30 minutes of screentime while Rosanna Arquette did the heavy lifting. Madonna mainly just played herself (or at least what her image in 1985 was) and got to look cool in a jacket. As we saw with both Susan and A League Of Their Own, she works best in a supporting role and I would've loved to see her in more roles like that. Center stage is where she stumbles. The difference between Madonna vs. someone like Cher, Barbra Streisand or Bette Midler is that those three were professionally trained actresses who worked on Broadway and the sort before their movie careers got off the ground. Barbra had won a Tony for Funny Girl long before she won an Oscar for that role, etc... Madonna was more a case of a red-hot pop star who had the look and the it factor suddenly getting acting gigs because people hoped her popularity in videos would translate to the silver screen.
It's pretty awful, but the nostalgia works in the favor of it. The fact that it's Madonna in the role makes it more of a curiosity I'd liken it to something like The Facts Of Life, those of us who watched it as kids still can enjoy the reruns no matter how cheesy it got, but those who were already too old for it in the 80s are still going to roll their eyes in 2020. The Brady Bunch, Full House, Boy Meets World, a lot of those shows have that same sort of nostalgia in their favor but those who didn't like them at the time aren't going to suddenly go back and decide Full House was an amazing show with time and perspective, it's still as bad as it was 30 years ago. It just provides comfort food to people who remember watching them at a certain age
This is true. The wrestling thing did serious damage to her credibility, especially come "True Colors" which was a more serious album than the predecessor. Honestly though, TC wasn't half as good as SSU (though the two big singles rank amongst her best) and I think she probably took a little too long to put it out, SSU having been on the charts around the time of Madonna's debut and TC coming out a few months after Madonna's THIRD album. The final nail was taking another three years for A Night To Remember, although the album was initially supposed to be released in the fall of 1988 but the failure of Vibes and Hole In My Heart (initially slated as the leadoff single but eventually pulled from the album upon official release) caused Epic to hold the album back. ANTR Is actually a better album than TC IMO, but I think Cyndi's time at the top had passed for various reasons, though at least the album gave her one more top 10 US hit.
I absolutely love Who's That Girl (the movie). It's a screwball comedy and it is very much aware of that. What most people don't get is that there are two layers to Madonna's character. There is Niki Finn who is acting badly to be somebody who she is not (a tough girl on a mission to find out who put her in jail) with a phony accent and all, and then there are a couple of scenes where you get the real Niki Finn without accent and bad acting, e.g. the scene where she is wearing the silver dress and also the end scene. It's been a while since I saw the movie though.
I've never noticed that before but you do have a point. I've seen the movie many times over the past 32 years and notice a change in her demeanor in those scenes, especially the scene in the high rise apartment where she was more glamorous and looking more like the Madonna we knew and loved from that era vs. the wild and wacky Nikki taking Louden through a wacky adventure through the streets of NYC. I've always thought it was a cute and charming movie with a lot of heart. Was it a work of art meant to sweep the awards? Absolutely not, but it's passable 90 minute entertainment for what it is. The kind of movie you might catch on tv in the middle of the afternoon and decide to watch if there's nothing better to do.
