This is the introduction to my upcoming book covering Madonna’s discography (which will, of course, feature Madame X, hence the delay in publication):
“Why do you want to write a book about Madonna? So much has already been written about her!”, has been the frequent question and response I’ve received since I announced plans to pen a book about the reigning, undisputed Queen of Pop.
Well, Indeed, with good reason it would seem as there have been so many books churned out about her, the subject has been seemingly exhausted. So, taking these things into consideration, what were my motivations? And, what did I possibly hope to achieve and somehow make my book unique?
Well, in answer to the latter, I obviously can’t re-write her history, but, however, I do hope to offer my own personal opinion on her discography (often overlooked), and to highlight how she’s constantly being subject to ageism, sexism, misogyny, and, in some cases, ridicule. It seems no matter what she does, good intentions or not, there always seems to be a backlash.
As for the answer to the former, “Why do I want to write a book about Madonna? “Well, I’d have thought the answer was self-explanatory. She’s enjoyed such a long, versatile and hugely successful recording career, and I’ve been a fan for as long as I can remember.
I became alarmed and angry – as I’m sure her millions of fans across the globe equally were – at how in more recent years, she’s been literally blocked by major commercial radio stations on both sides of the Atlantic. I say alarmed as I still remember the old days when any new Madonna release would prompt a mass media event, and this has proven to still be the case. So, was it about the quality of her output? Some would argue so but I’d personally beg to differ.
This ageist backlash really seems to have come to the forefront more than ever from the time she was about to celebrate her fiftieth birthday and release the R&B-dance project Hard Candy back in 2008. The rants usually pertain to a woman of her age making such “youth-orientated” music, and how she continues to be sexually provocative in her image and stage shows. However, can you imagine Madonna being any other way, no matter what age?
“She should just give it up now”, “She’s over”, “She needs to act her age”, seems to be the popular opinions of some, especially from women. It was as this shift in attitude towards her seemingly happened overnight. One minute Madonna was at the top of her game, the next it seemed she was being diminished and disregarded by certain sections of the media. Now, don’t get me wrong, it goes without saying that she’s always faced adversity right from the very moment she began her career, but now it’s as though some of the media insist, to a point of obsession, that she’s no longer “relevant”, an often thrown around word applying to mainly women of a certain age.
While over-looking the facts that Madonna has continued to keep her finger firmly on the pulse, her shrewd instinct for knowing what musical genre is about to become popular, and the way she continues to update her musical style, and her evolving image, never once becoming complacent or resting on her laurels, many critics suddenly started declaring her as being simply “too old” now to be making pop music.
What seems to have been oblivious to those making such one-eyed statements is that Madonna’s actually just continuing to do what she has been doing (and still doing it better than most) for over 35 years of her career, and it’s something she has proven herself highly astute at. Contrary to popular misconception, in 2015, following the release of her thirteenth studio album Rebel Heart, Madonna actually scored some of her most praiseworthy reviews in years, many critics declaring this her best work since the critically-acclaimed masterpiece Ray Of Light.
Yet, what then occured would have ten years earlier seemed absolutely unthinkable: The premiere single from Rebel Heart was released, entitled ‘Living For Love’, and was swiftly banned from Britain’s leading commercial radio station, Radio 1, leading to an outcry from fans and celebrities alike, all standing up in unison for their support to Madonna and their outrage at Radio 1. Despite a rather thinly-veiled attempt by them insisting that age was not a factor, it was too transparent that ageism and sexism did run rife in this case, something that many male artists of Madonna’s age (or even older) have not had to endure.
Radio 1’s head of music George Ergatoudis said in a statement: “The BBC Trust have asked us to go after a young audience. We’ve got to concentrate on [people aged] 15-30. We have to bring our average age down. That’s something we’re very conscious of. The vast majority of people who like Madonna, who like her music now, are over 30 and frankly, we’ve moved on from Madonna.”
Really? Seems a shame one man can make such declarations – let alone decisions – and despite the large public outcry (all of whom were in support of Madonna) the radio station still failed to alter its rigid, unfair policy, leading to the string of singles plucked from Rebel Heart to perform only marginally well on the main international charts.
What is most infuriating is the quality of music wasn’t even taken into consideration, and there’s no doubt that some of her most recent batch of singles would have been huge hits had they been released just ten years before and had she been a younger artist. The music wasn’t the problem; it was this sudden obsession with Madonna’s age.
Yet despite all of this, when each and every one of her albums is released it still never fails to be marked as an event, always guaranteed to get the media – the world – talking, be it good or bad. Thankfully, the public had the last say and Rebel Heart went on to top the i-Tunes charts in no less than forty-two countries, and despite speculation that the end of her career is in sight, her work continues to be predominately acclaimed.
At the end of 2016 Madonna was declared, yet again, the year’s Highest-Grossing Touring Artist and she firmly retains the title of the Highest-Grossing Touring Artist of all-time. However, according to some journalists propaganda, you’d be led to believe her career’s dead and buried. What? When?
We place a lot of expectations on our favourite artists and with somebody like Madonna, she’s always somehow seemed invincible, like nobody could touch her or take the crown she’s long since worn as the Queen of Pop. It’s almost like we expected her to never grow older and as soon as she hit her 50s, this is when some of this incessant (and tedious) criticism started. While her younger pretenders come and go frequently through the revolving door of pop, Madonna has more than proven herself ahead of the game and it’s common knowledge how she has skillfully adapted many underground music styles and intertwined them with a commercial sound for the mainstream.
Some may argue her work is no longer as innovative as it once was, yet, in all fairness and credit to her, she is still proving herself more than adept at keeping up with the latest trends and continues to throw herself into the game, always embracing new techniques and presenting something different with each and every release. At the same time, Madonna’s done it all and lived it all and has nothing left to prove, though thankfully her intense passion for the arts makes her reluctant to leave the industry. And why should she!
While I’m convinced Madonna would have pursued some sort of career in the performing arts world – she’s clearly a natural after all – it was definitely the loss of her mother which had been her prime motivator. As she once said, if she couldn’t have her mother then she was going to “make the world fall in love with me instead.” This is part of her story that should be applauded; she refused to become a victim, she worked excessively hard and turned her pain into art. You’d think, in this case, the media would be on her side, but from the beginning there were so many that dismissed her as nothing more than “another bimbo”, a “one-hit wonder”, the press were just waiting for her to stumble.
I can’t say her more sexually provocative works was a reason I became a fan; I was a big lover of Madonna’s music long before the controversy started. As has been proven many times with some of her songs, her work has often been widley misinterpreted and, more often than not, completely taken out of context.
However, I’ve always appreciated, respected, and enjoyed the fact that the sexual antics really were part and parcel of who she was. It suited her, and it suited her alone. When you see so many of her younger pretenders over the years trying to appropriate sexual gestures into their act just as Madonna had done, it all ends up becoming tacky, too contrived and gimmicky; Madonna’s already been there and done that and she, of course, was the pioneer. Others who have blatantly tried to copy her act (and there have been so many) end up becoming what Madonna once famously described as “reductive”. And, it’s true, methinks!
So, these are some of the many reasons that essentially motivated me to write this book, aside the fact that I – like the majority of the world – have simply found Madonna to be one of the most enduringly fascinating artists of all-time. And let’s give her props here: Nobody has played the game better than her and remained as consistently successful over such a long period of time.
Her combined sales of singles and albums are now in excess of well over 300 million worldwide (at the time of writing), and not to mention the several other records she holds, one of which was acknowledged in the Guinness Book of Records as being the Most Successful Female Artist Of All Time, and it’s a record which looks highly unlikely to be surpassed any time soon.
I wanted to write a book that mainly focused on Madonna’s discography, which is often revered and underrated in almost equal measure, and to also highlight, and draw comparisons to, the critical reaction to her work over the years, as well as by those who have studied her on an academic level and some of their own theories on her work (some of which is incredibly lofty and off-the-mark, while others make a succinct point).
Remember, where pop music’s concerned, it’s an extremely fickle business, and a youth-orientated one at that. The older she gets, the more some particularly bitter and sad critics try to disregard her outstanding achievements, revelling in putting her down and making her the butt of several jokes regarding her age. Many had said she wouldn’t last five minutes when she first began. How she most certainly had the last laugh on that count!
As there are so many books and countless articles already out there on Madonna, rather than repeat what other authors’ have already said, I wanted to draw comparison and embrace many of these other works here, including snippets that I both agree and disagree with.
It’s always interesting to hear other peoples take on her and I honestly believe that each and every one of Madonna’s fans could write their own book and that each and every one of them would be thoroughly entertaining in themselves. There are so many different opinions and perspectives on her, especially in regards to some of her more recent work, and it’s always interesting to compare these. Be it from a fan, a hater, a critic, or a scholar, her work always provokes a strong reaction to say the least, much of it positive but often shrouded in negativity from other quarters.
In all honesty, I have found this to be, by far, the most daunting book I’ve written to date. I had my work cut out to try and (hopefully) make it a worthwhile edition to the array of Madonna books already out there. I tried to make the book stand out in terms of information and facts about her, and I wanted to give it a clear narrative.
Mid-way through writing this, though, I kept on unearthing so many more fascinating stories of her career and my initial plan had been to include everything here, from the awards she’s collected over the years, her films, soundtracks, charity work but eventually common sense prevailed and I came to the more-than-obvious conclusion, after writing much more than a book’s worth of material, that I felt I couldn’t do Madonna justice in just one book.
I’d most probably still be writing this book now if I had wanted to cover everything in great length as to what Madonna has achieved. An endless road of discovery which warrants a whole volume of books. And, as much as this sounds a tired old cliche, it really has been a fascinating “journey”, listening to her music more closely and intensely.
So, the main focus in this book is her music via her main studio albums and compilations. Overall, my intention was for this to be fair, objective, informing, entertaining, fun, nostalgic and celebratory, as I trace back to the young, aspiring Madonna, through to where she stands in today’s culture. Her influence is clearly everywhere in the music industry today (as has been the case for over 35 years) which totally belittles false claims from the likes of Radio 1 that only those over 30 are still listening to, and liking, Madonna’s music.
Out later in 2019
Ian Phillips (Author): Classic TV Interviews + Music & Film 