Madonna Made Lemonade!

Geez things move quickly! A very short time ago I complained about Madonna blasting negativity about her leaked demos instead of using her savvy to navigate the situation. Then BAM she surprised dropped a pre-order for the new album, Rebel Heart, with SIX tracks available for immediate download on iTunes! THIS is the Madonna I know and love! Whether you believe the "leak" was staged or not, it was a genius move that landed the album at #1 in 41 countries according to this wonderful new interview with Rolling Stone. Naturally, I pre-ordered the thing as fast as my fingers could log into iTunes. (And count me in for a physical CD when it comes out in March.) In one fell swoop Madonna took the attention back from the leaks and onto her music the way she wanted to present it and I'm quite impressed. The six tracks are pretty fabulous and you can read a nice overview from DJ Taj on his blog.

As for the original leaks, I began listening to them after purchasing the pre-order and for the most part the officially released versions are better. (However, I still enjoy being able to compare and contrast the versions and hear how the songs evolved.) I'm a giddy Maddy lovin' fanboy again and SO happy she decided to officially release new music so fast!

What can I say? Although I occasionally complain about Madge, I love her music and she always wins me back. Well played, Madonna. Well played...

Out of the groove with Madonna

I've been a Madonna fan since I was a wee young thing growing up in the 1980s. (One of my earliest memories is crying in a downtown Toronto record store because my parents wouldn't buy me all the Madonna 12" singles they had.) She's been there for all my major life moments and one of my closest friends said she was the one who gave him the strength to be proud of being gay. Her music has always spoken to me, inspired me and given me life when I've felt awful.

But nowadays I find myself rolling my eyes at her outbursts. Her latest statements on the leaked recordings from her upcoming album seem surprisingly out of touch for such a formidable businesswoman. It's 2014 - music leaks have happened to everyone for a long time, albums don't sell the way they used to, and any artist worth their salt needs to have contingency plans in place for situations like this. If Beyoncé could secretly record an entire album with accompanying videos and not have anything leak, maybe Madonna needs a new team. But what really gets to me is the negative tone of Madonna's statements and the way it sometimes feels like a slap towards the fans. After all, they're the ones who crave and relish her material and spend quite a bit of their hard earned money on her.

I'm not condoning the leaks, but as a fan, I LOVE to hear how Madonna's artistic process works. I buy all the officially released material, attend the very pricey tours and would gladly pay for "rarities" if she made them available. I very much consider demos and unreleased songs part of the tapestry that enhances my appreciation of her work. Her songs have leaked for a very long time (all the way back to Frozen) but now she's lashing out with a vitriol I've never seen. (One fan was even arrested a few years back after being accused of leaking an MDNA track.) These days, once an album leaks there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle, and people will be curious and listening.

Instead of lashing out in anger, Madonna could have called on her cheeky humour, brassy wit and gone in a whole other direction. Imagine if she wrote something like:

The songs that leaked are unfinished demos and I'd prefer all my loyal fans to be patient for the official release. But for those of you who chose to be "Rebels" and listen early, please find it in your "Heart" to donate $5 to [insert charity here] to repent for your sins! Next time I'll spank you! xoxo Madonna
Maybe that's a little too punny or cutesy, but with the sheer amount of followers and intense fans that follow her, she could probably get people to cough up some decent dough for a good cause. Instead we get negativity galore.

This is the same woman who has in recent years trashed Lady Gaga for allegedly ripping her off (something Madonna would never do), complained about "unfinished" demos being heard but released a career defining greatest hits CD with numerous errors, and charged exorbitant prices for her tours. (I've had better seats for Cher, Kylie Minogue and the Spice Girls reunion tour at a fraction of the cost.) My personal favourites were all the "special edition" CDs priced 3-5 times higher than the regular editions with nothing but slightly fancier packaging. (Ray of Light had a shiny slipcover and Hard Candy came with a bag of mints...) Sometimes it feels jarring to balance what I love about Madonna's music with her pithy attitude and cash grabs that take advantage of the loyalists. Especially when those commercially available products often times seem devoid of content worth the costs.

So, I'll go out on a limb and suggest the leaks sometimes help fans like myself feel like we're getting our money's worth because we support her career in so many other way$. (Don't even get me started on people who paid $250 to watch one of Madonna's workout classes when she opened a Hard Candy gym in Toronto!) Most of us will buy the new CD and pay through the nose for the inevitable tour, but still want to hear the leaks because of our voracious appetite for Maddy material. I'd even go so far as to say certain leaks have benefitted Madonna. Back in 2006, DJ's Loo & Placido used a leaked acapella of Into The Groove and mashed it with Cassius' track Toop Toop. The results impressed Madge so much that she incorporated the remix into her 2008 Sticky & Sweet Tour.

Again, I'm not condoning or saying it was right for this stuff to be leaked. I don't think we're entitled to them and understand Madonna has every right to be pissed and hurt about them being thrown out there. But once they've hit the net, they're essentially released to the world. I think Madonna should be flattered that her songs still merit this kind of attention and interest, despite being less polished versions than she wanted released. It makes me shake my head that Madonna couldn't try a more positive spin to this situation, because a woman with her savvy should be able to give us lemonade instead of sour lemons via Instagram.

Madonna Part Two! She's Not Me, and Wonder Woman can relate!

This is the second part of my Madonna Sticky And Sweet post-orgasm concert report, and this time I'm focusing on the magic of She's Not Me. This song was performed with a sassy Madonna taking on her own former iconic personas. I loved this not only for the tongue-in-cheek playfulness of the number, but because it reminded me of Wonder Woman's latest struggle against her own previous personas. The song began with Madonna singing in front of gigantic backdrops that flashed some of her most famous images. Below is a pic of little Madonna (Sticky & Sweet Tour) versus Giganta-Madonna (in a still from the Hollywood video).


But then the performance gets really interesting when four Madonna doppelgangers rise up on to the stage and Madonna does battle with them! In the pic below you can see the first three of the four imposters! On the left is Open Your Heart Madonna, the middle is Like a Virgin Madonna, and the right is Marilyn / Material Girl Madonna!


Below, the pic shows Madonna starting to fight with the Marilyn / Material Girl doppelganger, and if you look at the far right you see the fourth wannabe, the Vogue / Blonde Ambition Madonna!


For comparison, look at the below image lifted from the recent Wonder Woman #25 (Nov. 2008) written by the awesome Gail Simone. You can see the current Wonder Woman in the middle being lassoed by the George Perez Wonder Woman (top left), Golden Age Wonder Woman (top right), Cathy Lee Crosby Wonder Woman (bottom left), and last but not least Lynda Carter Wonder Woman (bottom right.) When I first saw this page I shouted "Oh my God!!!" I loved seeing the previous Wonder Women represented in the modern era, and loved that Madonna used a similar idea for her own show!


So what have we learned my Frothy friends? A true Diva icon shall never escape her previous incarnations, but she will rise to the top by battling them! Take a few minutes to reflect on that one.

Madonna Is Freaking Phenomenal

Greetings my Frothy Folks! Today's entry is simply to gush about attending this past Sunday's Madonna concert, her second night in Toronto as part of her Sticky And Sweet Tour. Let me tell you, getting to that day was a journey in itself! Sometimes very sticky, and definitely not that sweet at times. When tickets went on sale in May, I was determined to get a good floor seat. In the process, I ended up with two single tickets. One, for the Saturday show, was a so-so seat just above the floor level priced at $350. Then, when the second block of tickets went on sale, a sweet pair of pals helped me grab an INCREDIBLE floor seat for the same price. I figured I could sell the first ticket to someone without any problems. After all, it's Madonna, right? Yet, I soon realized not many folks wanted to shell out $350 for a not-so-great single seat. One acquaintance insisted I meet him downtown so he could buy the ticket, and after I trekked all the way down there, he then revealed he couldn't afford it due to an emergency. (How real the emergency was is, at least according to some friends, a tad suspect.) He did, however, make time to drag me into the backroom of an adult video store for a sticky and sweet session of our own. (I guess we were recreating the Erotica era.) It was hard to be angry that a delicious hunky tart wanted to lure me into sex, however, I was still stuck with the ticket. I then attempted to sell it via craigslist and nearly got swindled in an "overpayment" scam that would have bilked me out of $2850. (Not to mention the hilarity of one "Anita Baker" trying to pull the same scam on me via Facebook. Isn't she famous enough to get tickets for free?) Losing that much dough would not have been sweet, and I really didn't knead all that stress. Eventually I sold it to a friend at a loss, but for a very real $250.


The stress, the sticky, and the sour gradually melted into the sweet as I sat in my floor seat Sunday night. My seat was 18th row, seat 41, which was only about 7 or so seats to the right of the MAIN catwalk Madonna would be using during the performance. My legs got jittery and my Heartbeat was palpitating. I met a nice fan who sat beside me and had gone through similar attempts to get a great floor seat. We were both excited about seeing our icon that close. Highlights were many, and the performance was incredible. (I was also thrilled that, unlike her previous tours, there were no restrictions on picture taking during the concert. As a result I've peppered this entry with some of the better shots I got!) But what really solidified itself to me was how much joy came across from Madonna when she performed. When pointing out to the audience during "Like A Prayer" she very well could have been referencing herself and the fans when singing "I hear you call my name, and it feels like home."


No matter what is true about her life off stage, or who gets ordered not to look at her, or how cranktacular she can appear, you just "get it" when you see her live. She thrives on the energy of performance - that temporary, yet completely absorbing connection between the audience and herself. Her banter with the audience was especially cute when she took requests in the middle of the show to sing an old song acapella. A whole group of fans held up homemade signs that read "Causing A Commotion", but instead she chose to do "Dress You Up." (She complained about one song that a fan shouted out, and I couldn't tell whether she was referring to Commotion or another track.) Later on in her final number, "Give It 2 Me", she held the mic up to fans in hopes they'd sing the chorus. More often than not she got "Give it to me....I LOVE YOU MADONNA!!!" To which she snarked "Um, those aren't the lyrics."


The other hightlight was my newly made Madonna buddy pointing out that Avril Lavigne and her Sum41 hubby were there right in front of the catwalk, and I snuck a few "paparazzi" shots of them. (Look closely in the middle of the pic above and you'll see half of Avril in the middle of an Air Canada Centre security guard at left, and a Madonna security guard at right.) That's the clearest shot I got, the rest are harder to make out.


Long story short, as frustrated as I can be with the way I feel Madonna sometimes treats her fans, she is still one of my major icons for a reason. She is an incredible performer and it was an absolute thrill to be able to experience her like this, and I don't even think this blog entry can capture what the moment was like! There are times when it felt surreal to be that close to a woman who has been a part of my life since I was a kid, a woman who has inspired so much in me and millions of others. Maybe this will trigger a series that traces my love of Madonna back to its roots and explores all that I adore in her!

Signing off for now, with a few more pics that I took during the Tour: