We have uploaded the photo gallery to the Madame X releaseparty last night in Concerto in the heart of Amsterdam.
Check all the pictures out HERE
Joining Hughesy and Kate for her only Australian radio interview, Madonna revealed all sorts of details about her upcoming album ‘Madame X’ including the anger she wanted to vent in her work. Madonna also opened up about her personal family time with her kids and how she encourages them to be musical…
Madonna was na het Eurovisie Songfestival, waar ze dit jaar optrad, weer even wereldnieuws. Alleen niet op de manier waarop ze hoopte. In plaats van lof wekte de vertoning van de 60-jarige leedvermaak op. Wat één grote reclamespot had moeten worden voor haar vandaag verschijnende nieuwe album Madame X werd het tegenovergestelde. Dat dit haar beste in plaat in jaren is, wie had dat nog verwacht?
Hetzelfde kan gezegd worden over de portie reggaeton, cha cha cha en andere exotische dansstijlen die madam toevoegde aan deze plaat. Die stijlen zijn al een tijdje in zwang, dus het is enigszins achter de meute aansloffen, maar ze doet het overtuigend. Eerst al in Medellín, de eerste single die ze vooruitstuurde. Maar ook in nummers als Batuka, Faz gostoso en Bitch I’m loca. In die laatste zit de gebruikelijke dosis seks, voor wie er vandaag naar gaat zoeken. Politiek? Die zit in Killers who are playing: ,,I’ll be Islam, if Islam is hated. I’ll be Israel, if they’re incarcerated. I’ll be native Indian, if the Indian has been taken. I’ll be a woman, if she’s raped and her heart is breaking.” Ja, ze heeft nog wat te zeggen ook!
Maar waar Madonna dit keer écht excelleert is toch het waanzinnige Dark ballet. Letterlijk waanzinnig, want wat hier allemaal in zit is even onnavolgbaar als moeilijk te beschrijven. Het begint nog als een van vette beat voorziene popballad, over hoe ze zichzelf is gebleven, ondanks de razende wereld om haar heen. Vervolgens volgt er een geheel onverwachte klassieke piano. Het mafste moet dan nog komen, want dat is het flard uit De notenkraker van Tsjaikovski met een onheilspellend stukje spoken word via autotune. Ja, gedurfd! En of het mooi is, is ook weer de vraag. Maar het over dit knotsgekke experiment hebben is beter dan haar vocale capaciteiten live bespreken. Veel meer des Madonna’s ook.
Titel: Madame X
Artiest: Madonna
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Controverse over haar valse zang of niet, Madonna kijkt met een voldaan gevoel terug op haar optreden tijdens de finale van het Eurovisie Songfestival in Tel Aviv.
In het interview, naar aanleiding van het vandaag verschenen 14de studioalbum Madame X, vertelt ze verder over haar tijd als voetbalmoeder in Lissabon, haar gedachten over Donald Trump (‘Die moet de gevangenis in’) en haar nieuwe strijd tegen leeftijdsdiscriminatie. ,,Als vrouw word je blijkbaar geacht na een bepaalde leeftijd geen lol meer te maken. Het is simpelweg seksisme. Toen ik vorig jaar 60 werd, leek het wel alsof ik een misdaad had begaan. Tegen die houding wil ik vechten.’’
Madonna has said it would be “less challenging” for her children if they didn’t have her as a mother.
The Queen of Pop, 60, said her six children sometimes found it difficult having a world-famous musician as a parent.
Madonna has two biological children, daughter Lourdes and son Rocco, and four adopted children from Malawi – David, Mercy and twins Estere and Stella.
She also admitted to feeling anxious ahead of her upcoming world tour, which includes a string of shows at the London Palladium.
Asked if she felt excited, she replied: “Of course. I’m feeling anxiety right now. Every time feels like the first time.”
“I can see everyone (in London) and they can see me, which you can’t in a stadium or sports arena.
“I want to do something different. It’s very theatrical and intimate. I’m nervous.”
She also rubbished rumours that a biopic of her life is in the works.
She said: “If there ever is one, I’ll be directing it. I warn any director who tries to make one, there will be a mysterious death!”
The Like A Prayer singer is preparing to release Madame X on June 14.
Last month, she played a two-song set at the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel amid calls for her to boycott the event.
Madame X, her 14th album, was conceived in Lisbon, Portal, after she moved there so her son David could attend a football academy.
She said she had unexpectedly found herself becoming a “soccer mum”.
“I surprised myself,” she said.
“Barcelona and Turin were an option, but I couldn’t see myself living there. It would have been a lot easier if he’d liked music!”
Asked if she watches her son’s games, she said, “I admit I only watch when he’s playing. If he’s on the bench, I’m on my phone.”
The Graham Norton Show is on BBC One at 10.35pm on Friday.
– Press Association
Madonna’s ‘Madame X’ is so admirably bizarre, all you can do is stand back and watch the girl go.
Steven Klein*
Madonna albums from this century fall into two categories: the playing-it-safe ones, and the “WTF is she thinking?” ones. You might be tempted to assume the mega-weird ones are better, but nothing is ever that straightforward in the Madonna universe. Confessions on a Dance Floor was her totally safe execution of an obvious idea — why doesn’t history’s greatest disco mastermind just make a damn disco record? — but it was also brilliant. Whereas the certifiably flaky American Life was certifiably ass. That’s just one of the many reasons Madonna remains the queen of all pop queens.
Yet Madame X is so admirably bizarre, all you can do is stand back and watch the girl go. “It’s a weird kind of energy,” as she sings in “God Control” — a rare moment of Madonna understatement. She dips into a melting pot of Latin pop styles, complete with a reggaeton jam called “Bitch I’m Loca.” It’s for fans of her loca edge only — the wildest move she’s made since I’m Breathless, where she trapped “Vogue” in a maze of camp show-tunes. Every track on Madame X overflows with experiments no other pop star on earth would have the chutzpah to try.
“Madame X” is the name she says Martha Graham gave her when she acted up in dance class, and as she’s explained, “Madame X is back to her roots, OK? She doesn’t care. Zero you-know-whats.” She made it with Mike Dean, her collaborator on 2015’s Rebel Heart, and Mirwais Ahmadzai, who co-produced one of her best ever (2000’s Music) as well as American Life. She throws down with Quavo, Diplo and Rae Sremmerd’s Swae Lee.
Weirdest of all, there are truly great Madonna moments all over Madame X. Especially “Crave,” a love song with florid acoustic guitar where she plays down the accent and gets lost in emotion. “Come Alive” has that “Cherish” girl-group flair, while “Crazy” toys with old-school Massive Attack trip-hop. (“I bend my knees for you like a prayer” — hey, where have we heard that before?) But with her typical nerve, she buries the strongest songs deep in Madame X. To reach them, you have to endure disasters like “Killers Who Are Partying,” where she ponders political oppression: “I’ll be Islam if Islam is hated / I’ll be Israel if they’re incarcerated.”
Madonna has a long history with Latin America and its music, going back way before “La Isla Bonita.” Her first hits bubbled out of a Latina context — her debut was a New York freestyle record forged on the floor of the Fun House. On Madame X, she attempts musical languages beyond what she’s tried before. “Came from the Midwest / Then I went to the Far East,” she confesses amid the piano and tablas of “Extreme Occident,” the most touching and vulnerable ballad here. It’s a revealing moment — she’s always been a musical traveler, a Bowie-style lodger who’s roamed all over the world and left every place. (Or, as another great Detroit rocker once put it: she is the passenger.) No wonder she cops to “a mix of lucidity and craziness.” Her only roots are on the dance floor. But if she had any shame about making people cringe, she never would have made it to the Fun House, let alone where she went from there.
There’s something gratifying about the way the music on Madame X can trigger that familiar “worried about Madonna” feeling. Let’s face it, aren’t we proud of our Eighties mega-pop idols for still being willing to act up like this? Imagine going back in time to the Eighties and saying, “Someday, Madonna will chant ‘Bitch I’m loca’ the same week Bruce Springsteen releases his concept album about horses.” These two legends never let us down, in their very different ways. Time will tell if Madame X has staying power or not. But if you love Madonna for her shamelessness — bitch, she’s loca.
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More at RollingStone
She wanted to rule the world – and did. Madonna looks back on four decades of fame, why the music industry needs a #MeToo moment, and her still insatiable ambition
And yet it’s not just hindsight that makes the viewer realise something big is about to happen to her career. After she mimes to Holiday, the audience won’t stop screaming and cheering: Clark has to plead for quiet so he can interview her. Answering his questions, Madonna is funny and flirtatious and very, very confident. He asks her what her ambitions are. “To rule the world,” she answers.
Thirty-five years on, Madonna laughs when I mention it. “Yes,” she nods. “Sorry for saying that.” The thing is, she says, she wasn’t confident at all back then: it was all a front. “I may have been insecure, I may have felt like a nobody, but I knew I had to do something. If I was going to make something out of my life, I had to, you know, hurl myself into the dark space, go down the road less travelled. Otherwise, why live?”
Her unexpected, apparently unresearched and ultimately divisive plunge into the world of Ding-a-Dong, Dana International and nul points pour le Royaume-Uni notwithstanding, she radiates starry self-assurance. And why wouldn’t she? A list of her achievements in the intervening 35 years includes becoming the bestselling female artist ever, the most successful solo artist in the history of the American charts, the highest-grossing solo touring artist ever and, as she dryly notes, “still being alive”, her only real competition for the title of most legendary pop artist of her era, Michael Jackson and Prince, having both prematurely passed away.
Sometimes when she talks, she unmistakably sounds like a pop star forged in a different era. She is “dizzy” at the sheer turnover of pop in the digital age – “There are so many distractions, so much noise, so many people coming and going so quickly, it takes away the artist’s ability to grow” – and says the modern way of writing pop songs, where artists are thrown together with a rotating cast of random star producers and writers at songwriting camps, didn’t suit her at all. “Oh, I tried that on MDNA and Rebel Heart. I worked with a lot of talented people, but it’s too hard to have a vision when you work with so many people: there’s so much input. I didn’t enjoy the process at all. Sometimes it was great, but it’s very weird to sit in a room with strangers and go: ‘OK, on your marks, set, write a song together!’ You have to reveal yourself, you have to be vulnerable, and it’s hard to do that right away.”
Full article at The Guardian
Madonna’s latest album, Madame X, is due out June 14.
Steven Klein/Courtesy of the artist
Material Girl. Veronica Electronica. The Queen of Pop. Madonna has taken on many names and personas over the course of her career. Now, with the release of her 14th studio album on June 14, the pop icon dons yet another. This alter-ego shares her name with the record’s title: Madame X.
According to the artist, Madame X has multiple identities — a dancer, a professor, a head of state and a housekeeper, to name just a few. All of these identities are explored throughout the album. Madonna’s refusal to be pinned to a single role can be heard in the video for “Medellín,” the album’s lead single, a duet with Colombian singer/songwriter Maluma.
“I just feel like that’s kind of been my journey in life,” Madonna told NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro about the story of this album, which comes four years after its predecessor, 2015’s Rebel Heart, and breaks from past expectations in notable ways. In Madame X, Madonna sings in Portuguese and Spanish in addition to English and highlights multicultural influences that she’s encountered while she’s been living in Lisbon, Portugal. In addition to Maluma, the album features collaborations with Swae Lee, Quavo and Brazilian singer Anitta.
Garcia-Navarro spoke with Madonna from London about some of the creative forces behind Madame X, from experiences she’s had in Lisbon to her Catholicism-filled childhood in the Midwest. Hear the radio version of their conversation at the audio link, and read on for more that didn’t make the broadcast.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Full article at NPR
Though Madonna’s been called the “Queen of Pop” for the majority of her 37-year recording career, in a way she’s also strangely underrated. “People have always been trying to silence me for one reason or another, whether it’s that I’m not pretty enough, I don’t sing well enough, I’m not talented enough, I’m not married enough—and now it’s that I’m not young enough,” she told British Vogue recently.
Game of Thrones mag dan wel sinds enkele weken afgelopen zijn, Queen of Pop Madonna probeert haar troon opnieuw te veroveren met haar nieuwste album. Madge heeft zeker en vast haar stempel gedrukt op de muziekscène en liveshows voor eeuwig veranderd. Ze heeft zichzelf sinds 1983 verschillende keren heruitgevonden en gooide het regelmatig over een andere boeg. De ene keer had dit wat meer succes dan de andere keer. Madonna heeft naast het maken van muziek en grootse liveshows ook in vele films geschitterd. Evita en Desperately Seeking Susan zijn slechts twee films waarbij ze voor de camera stond. Bij de film W.E. was Madonna dan weer in de regisseursstoel te vinden. De Queen of Pop heeft ook enkele (kinder)boeken op haar naam staan en een eigen goede doel opgericht voor weeskinderen ten gevolge van aids in Malawi.
Toen Madonna negentien was en ze danslessen volgde zei haar danslerares op een dag: ‘Je komt elke dag naar de les en ziet er elke dag anders uit. Je hebt elke dag een andere identiteit en je bent een mysterie voor mij. Ik ga je Madame X noemen.’ Veertig jaar later heeft Madonna besloten haar nieuwste album Madame X te noemen en haar nieuwe alter ego diezelfde naam te geven. Op haar Instagram deelde Madonna dat Madame X een geheime agent is met vele identiteiten. Een danseres, een professor, een moeder, een heilige, een hoer en zoveel meer. Madame X heeft vijftien identiteiten en het toeval wil dat er net vijftien nummers op het nieuwe Madonna-album staan.
Op Madame X focust Madonna zich vooral op trap, een genre dat duidelijk in de lift zit. Madonna woont intussen enkele jaren in Portugal en liet zich inspireren door de mensen die ze daar ontmoet heeft. Madame X is een smeltkroes van culturen. Met invloeden uit Afrika, Latijns-Amerika en het Iberisch schiereiland lijkt Madonna een vrouw die van alle markten thuis is. Verder krijgen we onder andere ook een Portugees zingende Madonna te horen en Maluma rapt dan weer in hetSpaans op onder andere leadsingle “Medellín“. Over het album verspreid vinden we nog een handvol rappers terug, en daarnaast ook Batukadeiras, een koor dat zingt zoals de traditie in Kaapverdië dat wenst. Opgesomd lijkt het allemaal misschien wat veel, maar in tegenstelling tot Madonna’s vorige album is de samenhang tussen de nummers op Madame X een pak groter. De vele invloeden op het nieuwste album van de Queen zijn mooi verdeeld over het album en dat geeft een uitgebalanceerd resultaat.
Voor de albumcover liet Madonna zich duidelijk inspireren door Frida Kahlo. Hoewel haar mond dichtgenaaid lijkt te zijn heeft ze heel wat te zeggen. Op de tweede single van het album, “I Rise“, richtte Madonna zich al tot de Amerikaanse regering over de wetten in verband met wapenbezit. De verschijning van Madame X op het podium van het Eurovisie Songfestival bleef ook niet onopgemerkt. Naast een nieuwe versie van “Like a Prayer” zong Madonna tijdens “Future” dat onze soort, de mens, niet leert uit zijn fouten. Tijdens “Dark Ballet” had Madonna het dan weer over het feit dat ‘ze’ denken dat we naïef zijn. Op de discomuziek van “God Control” deelt Madonna ons mee dat Madame X onze wake-up call is. ‘We only got four minutes to save the world’, klonk het al in 2008.
Er is ook ruimte voor luchtigere nummers zoals “Crave“, “Crazy” en “Bitch I’m Loca”. Nummers over liefde vinden we terug op eender welk album van eender welke artiest en dus ook op Madame X. Tussen de trap door vindt Madonna ook nog wat ruimte voor een ballade waarin ze om genade vraagt. Madge zet ons aan het denken met teksten als ‘Can you tell the truth when you live lies?’, maar tijdens “Killers Who Are Partying” zoekt de zangeres dan weer de grens op met haar teksten. Wat begint met ‘I’ll be the gay, if the gay are burned’ evolueert tot ‘I’ll be the Islam, if Islam is hated’. Tijdens “Come Alive” haalt de Queen of Pop het zelf al aan: ze heeft geen nood aan onze mening. Al sinds het begin van haar carrière zegt Madonna haar gedacht en het ziet er niet naar uit dat ze hier mee zal stoppen. Om de Queen of Pop nogmaals te citeren: ‘Don’t tell me to stop’.
Naast de politieke teksten en muziek met invloeden van over de hele wereld is er nog een zeer opvallend iets aan Madame X. We weten al langer dan vandaag dat Madonna niet de stem van Adele heeft, maar zelfs Cher wordt jaloers als ze hoort hoeveel autotune Madonna tijdens bepaalde nummers gebruikt. Langs de andere kant past dit dan weer wel bij de sound van de plaat. Madame X is door die trapsound zeker en vast een album dat opvalt tussen Madonna’s andere werk. Net als Ray of Light (1998) zou je deze plaat een buitenbeentje kunnen noemen. Als we naar de inhoud gaan kijken ligt het album dan weer in de lijn van het ondergewaardeerde American Life (2003) en het overgeproducete Rebel Heart (2015).
Madonna heeft zichzelf opnieuw weten te vernieuwen door voor trapmuziek te kiezen. Dat en de invloeden van over de hele wereld weet de Queen of Pop mooi uit te balanceren. Madame X vormt ook een mooi geheel, in tegenstelling tot Rebel Heart (2015). Om af te sluiten halen we een deel van Madonna’s Instagrambericht er opnieuw bij: ‘Madame X is a secret agent. Traveling around the world. Changing identities. Fighting for freedom.’ Maanden geleden vertelde de Queen het ons al, maar Madame X neemt inderdaad vele identiteiten aan op haar album. Van nummers over liefde tot nummers over politiek en de de mensheid die zich in tegenstelling tot de ezel wel opnieuw blijft stoten tegen dezelfde steen: Madame X gaat geen enkel onderwerp uit de weg en neemt geen blad voor de mond. Sommige teksten zullen commotie verzaken, maar voor Madonna is dat gewoon ‘human nature’.
Madame X is zonder twijfel het beste werk dat Madonna in jaren heeft uitgebracht.
Meer bij Dansende Beren
Material Girl. Veronica Electronica. The Queen of Pop. Madonna has taken on many names and personas over the course of her career. Now, with the release of her 14th studio album on June 14, the pop icon dons yet another. This alter-ego shares her name with the record’s title: Madame X.
According to the artist, Madame X has multiple identities — a dancer, a professor, a head of state and a housekeeper, to name just a few. All of these identities are explored throughout the album. Madonna’s refusal to be pinned to a single role can be heard in the video for “Medellín,” the album’s lead single, a duet with Colombian singer/songwriter Maluma.
Full article at wbur
“Hey young people – you’re getting older every second. It’s what we do. One day someone will tell you to stop and you’ll be all like ‘fuck you’ just like Madonna.” That was former Savage Garden frontman Darren Hayes on Twitter the night of the Billboard Music Awards. Madonna and Colombian reggaeton star Maluma had just performed “Medellín,” the lead single from her new album, Madame X. In keeping with the project’s premise about a secret agent who travels around the world changing identities “fighting for freedom” and “bringing light to dark places,” the duet partners danced and sang amidst a trippy hologram display featuring multiple iterations of Madonna doing the cha-cha.
This was the sort of awards-show spectacle Madonna helped to invent — not as memorable as her iconic VMAs moments stripping out of a wedding dress and kissing Britney Spears, but entertaining and elaborate and cheeky in her signature fashion. She established many such templates during a good solid quarter-century of blazing trails and making hits. She almost singlehandedly carved out the modern pop-star archetype, endlessly reinventing herself and becoming a transformative figure in the sexual revolution. Before Britney and Katy and Taylor — and long before “nasty women” became a catchphrase in a presidential race that deteriorated into show business — there was Madonna, loud and proud and gleefully blasphemous.
She’s an undisputed legend who these days is just as often a punchline, largely thanks to her refusal to “retire with dignity.” That chorus of jeers picked up again the night of the Billboard Awards. Hayes had apparently encountered the usual chatter that accompanies Madonna’s every public action these days, the calls to hang it up and the jokes that imply as much, so he responded with an appeal for sympathy by way of the golden rule. Although his own moment in the spotlight was brief compared to Madonna’s peerless run, he surely knows what it’s like to be laughed at for having the nerve to continue your career when the zeitgeist moves on.
Read full article at Stereogum
Here’s a little-known pop-diva fact: Madonna used to have nightmares about Whitney Houston. In a 1995 “Primetime Live” interview, she described a dream she had in which she learned that her greatest ’80s chart rival’s then-latest single, “Exhale (Shoop Shoop),” had replaced hers, “You’ll See,” at No. 1. Meanwhile, in another room, her music teacher was humming Houston’s hit. Cue cold sweat. (Dreams don’t always come true: In real life, “You’ll See” never made it past No. 6.)
If Madonna is still watching the charts like a hawk, even in her sleep, she’s clearly no longer obsessed with ruling them. In a 36-year recording career that has found the 60-year-old walking more tightropes than the average A-list pop superstar, Madonna has delivered her most uncompromising musical statement yet with her 14th album, “Madame X.”
The rebel heart she claimed to have in the title of this album’s 2015 predecessor is beating more loudly and passionately than ever before. Freed from the need to be number one with a bullet, Madonna finally has released an entire album that lives up to her reputation as one of pop’s greatest risk-takers.The first single, “Medellín,” is a deceptively lovely opening statement that only hints at the fire raging just ahead. The comparisons that have been made to an earlier Madonna single, “La Isla Bonita,” aren’t far off, but “Medellín,” named for Colombia’s second-largest city, has sharper edges, and its Latin swirl is more jagged. Colombian reggaeton rapper Maluma adds sexual tension to the mix, and when Madonna sings “Ven conmigo, let’s take a trip,” she sounds as inviting as she did cooing about the tropical island breeze in 1987.
After that, true weirdness sets in. “Dark Ballet” and “God Control” are ambitious and sprawling, the closest Madonna may ever come to her own “Bohemian Rhapsody.” “Dark Ballet” goes from piano ballad to electro-gospel dirge to something that could pass for Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” on mushrooms. It’s a pretty daring musical move to make only two songs in.
And then, re-enter Madonna, political rabble-rouser, the woman we first caught a glimpse of on 2003’s “American Life.” Although she never name-drops on “God Control,” which veers from mournful to hopeful to defiant in the space of its six minutes and 30 seconds, the song is emblazoned with the spirit of anti-Trump. “This is a wake-up call,” she sings under a shimmering strobelight groove, not long after admitting, “I think I understand why people get a gun.” Not that she’s really about to join the right-to-bear-arms troops; as she later raps, “The only gun is in my brain.”
“God Control” sets the primary doom-and-gloomy, politicized lyrical mood of “Madame X.” Her head may be locked and loaded, but that doesn’t mean she’s about to give Michelle Obama a run for her eloquence. Lyrically, Madonna’s political manifestos are no more sophisticated than they were 16 years ago. Her activism may be in the right place, but jejune clichés like “Open your mind” (on “Future”), “Life is a circle” (on “Extreme Occident”) and “Died a thousand times” (on “Rise”) go low when she should be aiming higher.
“Killers Who Are Partying” epitomizes Madonna’s trouble with words. “I know what I am, and I know what I’m not,” she sings, as if all too aware that she’ll be excoriated and nailed to the cross for swerving way outside of her lane with lyrics like “I will be gay, if the gay are burned / I will be Africa, if Africa is shut down / I will be poor, if the poor are humiliated.”
In her defense, it would be a somewhat unfair crucifixion. Madonna wasn’t always a rich, white woman. She came from nothing and triumphed, against all odds, in an industry ruled by predatory alpha males. Just because she now lives in the penthouse doesn’t mean she doesn’t remember what it felt like to be the girl from the gutter, or that she can’t express empathy and solidarity without pity.
Thankfully, the Midas touch of her old collaborator Mirwais still sparkes. He shares “Madame X” production credits with Mike Dean, Diplo, Billboard, Jason Evigan and Jeff Bhasker, and they’ve crafted solid state-of-the-art backdrops for Madonna’s musings. The electro gurgles, worldbeat flourishes and Madonna’s still-effective vocal presence (occasionally courtesy of AutoTune) make these 15 songs sing.
“Madame X” is best, though, not when it goes all CNN on us but when it plays primarily like a musical travelogue, taking us to magical mystical places so fascinating that we might not even notice the stormclouds overhead. The electronic cha-cha swing of “Medellín” sounds like it was sun-kissed on the Cartagena coast before taking the love train south. “Batuka,” one of the album’s highlights, kicks off with Burundi-ish drumming and settles into a tribal rhythm that beats like Paul Simon’s “Graceland” relocated from Africa to South America.
The lyrical conceit of “Killers Who Are Partying” might have stopped it dead in its tracks if it weren’t for the fado flourishes that flutter over it like a ribbon of darkness. No one will ever mistake Madonna for fado legend Amalia Rodrigues, but if she were singing in Portuguese, “Killers” wouldn’t sound so out of place on a Madredeus album. She’s been spending a lot of time in Lisbon, and the Portuguse influence is all over “Madame X.”
She and Brazilian pop superstar Anitta perform “Faz Gostoso” mostly in Anitta’s native tongue, and the reggaeton jam is the best of the album’s five vocal mash-ups. Anitta offers a far more interesting female counterpoint to Madonna than her previous distaff collaborators Britney Spears (on “Me Against the Music”) and Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. (on “Give Me All Your Luvin’”).
Despite frequent forays into foreign languages (Spanish and Portuguese), “Madame X” isn’t all musical exoticism. The white-girl hip-hop of “Crave” wouldn’t sound out of place on Ariana Grande’s latest album, and if it weren’t for the line “I’ll bend my knees for you, like a prayer” (one of several musical nods to the 30-year-old smash), “Crazy” could be a lost J.Lo ballad, which is not a good thing.
“Like a Prayer” is the strongest musical antecedent here, but “Madame X” is packed with meta-Madonna moments. In addition to the lyrical “Prayer” nod on “Crazy,” “God Control” and “Batuka” feature backing choirs right out of the “Prayer” outro, while “Future” quotes “Don’t Tell Me” from 2000’s “Music.” “Extreme Occident” moves the self-referencing inward, chronicling Madonna’s journey from “the far right … to the far left” and “from the Midwest … to the Far East.” It’s a tad clunky, but then the singer’s trajectory has been, too.
Not surprisingly, when introspective Madonna gives in to the dance diva within, “Madame X” is a smoother ride. If pop radio were more hospitable to galloping robo-pop techno punctuated by mariachi horns and sung by women over 50, “Come Alive” might be an anthem of the summer. And for those who miss her confessions on a dance floor, “I Don’t Search, I Find” is pure ’90s disco bliss, the album’s only non-stop party.
But you likely won’t hear any of this playing on a radio near you. That’s what makes “Madame X” Madonna’s best album since “Confessions on a Dance Floor.” She’s confessing again, but this time, she’s not interested in editing herself for mass consumption. “Bitch I’m Loca” she announces on the album’s second Maluma duet (not to be confused with “Bitch I’m Madonna” from “Rebel Heart”). She’s not kidding, and her crazy is an incredible sound.
More at Variety
Thank you all for coming to the Dutch Madame X release party at Concerto! There was a huge turn up and therefore we ran out of posters very fast (sorry), but I hope everyone got their desired item(s).
Will write a full report tomorrow along with a photo gallery. Here’s an example of the exclusive Madame X goodie bag that was only available for this event.
If you want one, stay tuned as we soon will be offering one through a giveaway!
Contents of the bag are:
Paul Nolan runs the rule over the excellent Madame X, on which the pop icon successfully incorporates political and social commentary
Madonna’s latest reinvention finds her taking on the guise of Madame X, an embodiment of female empowerment who, in the singer’s own words, acts variously as “A dancer. A professor. A housekeeper. An equestrian” – and more.
There is a notable political dimension to the album, with Madonna regularly alluding to the tumultuous times in which we live. On ‘Killers Who Are Partying’ – half acoustic ballad, half skittering electro workout – she champions a variety of progressive causes: “I will be gay if the gay be burned… I will be Africa if Africa is shot down”.
On up-tempo disco-pop number, ‘God Control’, meanwhile, she says simply, “Honour democracy” (she also sings the striking line “That dope I don’t smoke it’s true”). Musically, Madame X boasts a variety of infectious electro grooves courtesy of a production team that includes Diplo and Madonna’s long-time collaborator, Mirwais. There are also a variety of Latin and world rhythms throughout, an element influenced by the singer’s relocation to Lisbon, where her son hopes to become a professional soccer player.
Madame X kicks off with the hypnotic electro/Latin pop number ‘Medellin’, which finds Madonna establishing the album’s upbeat, optimistic tone: “I took a pill and had a dream / I went back to my 17th year / Allowed myself to be naive”. ‘Dark Ballet’, meanwhile, pretty much does what it says on the tine, musically speaking, with Madonna giving ‘The Nutcracker Suite’ a synth-pop makeover influenced by Wendy Carlos’ celebrated score for A Clockwork Orange.
Other highlights of this hugely enjoyable outing include the skanking reggae number ‘Future’; the afrobeat-influenced ‘Batuka’; the electrifying dance workout ‘Fez Gustovo rev 1’; and the celebratory ‘I Don’t Search I Find’ – the title of which could be a manifesto for Madame X.
The album comes to a close with the stirring ‘I Rise”, on which Madonna defiantly states “I rise above it all”. To promote the record, this autumn Madonna will be playing intimate theatre residencies in a variety of American and European cities.
She’ll no doubt be including a generous helping of material from this wonderfully accomplished and eclectic effort.
More at Hotpress
Madonna opens up about motherhood in an interview with Harry Smith.TODAY
She may be best known the world as the Queen of Pop, but back at home, Madonna is better known as mom.
The 60-year-old superstar recently took out time from her busy schedule — which, in addition to being a mother of six, includes preparing to release a new album “Madame X” and delivering a highly anticipated Pride Island performance — to talk to TODAY’s Harry Smith about that important part of her life.
And it’s a part that just keeps getting better.
As far as she’s concerned, that just makes sense.
“Of course, but it’s like everything,” she added. “The more songs I write, the better I get as a songwriter.”
So if Lourdes, 22, Rocco, 18, David, 13, Mercy, 13, Stelle, 6, and Estere, 6, have all helped her improve her parenting skills, the question is, would she like to get even better at this whole motherhood thing by having a bigger brood?
“Um … not right this second,” she said. “But never say never.”
Evidence of that can be seen in the look she sports in the interview — with sleek pulled back hair and a sparkling eye patch. It’s all for her current performance persona, Madame X, who is part globe-trotting secret agent and part everywoman.
Fans of the “Crave” singer will have a chance to see more of her alter ego on her “Madame X” tour in September, but they don’t have to wait long to hear more.
She’ll release her new album of that name this Friday — the same day her full interview airs on TODAY.
Full article at Today.com
LONDON (Reuters) – Gun control, poverty and the marginalized, Madonna’s new album “Madame X” sees the Queen of Pop wanting to “fight back” in what she sees as a frightening modern world.
In an interview with Reuters, Madonna also said she was horrified by moves to restrict LGTBQ and women’s rights, namely in her native United States.
“If you’re talking about the far right and the rights that are being taken away from, say the LGBTQ community or women’s rights … obviously I am traumatized and horrified,” Madonna said.
A longtime campaigner for the LGTBQ community and known for her charity work in Malawi, Madonna, 60, said she would keep fighting for those causes.
“There’s still an enormous amount of poverty in Malawi and the rate of HIV has gone down considerably but it’s not disappeared,” she said. “(There are) all the problems that are recurring in America because of new legislation so I am going to have to keep fighting for the same things.”
On her 14th studio album, Madonna addresses U.S. gun control laws and uses a snippet of a speech by school shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez in the rousing single “I Rise”, a song she says aims to give a voice to marginalized people.
“Dark Ballet”, a piano ballad infused with electronic pop, was inspired by Joan of Arc and references a world “up in flames”, while in “Killers Who Are Partying” she sings about the poor, exploited children as well as a woman raped.
“It’s pretty frightening, yes, it’s pretty scary … There is stuff going on everywhere in the world,” she said when asked how she felt about the state of the world.
“When you think about the amount of people who have died, been killed, have been wounded, whose lives have been changed irrevocably because of the lack of gun control in America, it’s such a huge, huge problem.
“I care deeply about it so I couldn’t not write about it,” she said.
Full article at Reuters
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