Bandsplain - Madonna Mailbag With Fattaneh Salek and Patrik Sandberg

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Madonna Month (OK, six weeks) is coming to a close, and it’s going out with a bang! First, Yasi is joined by the original Madonna influence, her mom, Fattaneh Salek! It all started here, from picking Madonna favorites while still in a stroller to transcribing lyrics for future sing-alongs. Then, Patrik Sandberg is back to help Yasi answer all your burning Madonna questions. What was Madonna’s best hair era? Who would the dream Madonna alt-rock collab be? And most importantly, why isn’t Gen Z properly celebrating Madonna?! Plus, they rank their top five Madonna songs (but we still don’t agree with rankings)! Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalekGuests: Fattaneh Salek and Patrik Sandberg @patriksandbergProducer: Rob SundermannEditor: Adrian BridgesAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplain? Hello and welcome to Bandsplaine. I am your host, Yossi Solic. This is usually a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is a little different. Today is a listener mailbag about Madonna Month, Madonna Six Weeks, if we're being honest.

And very shortly, I will be joined by our... our guest from episode three, Patrick Sandberg, to answer your burning Madonna Month questions. But first, I'm a very special guest joining me for a quick little conversation about Madonna and the origins of another material girl, myself. And it is my mom, Fatana Salek. Welcome to the show, Mom. Thank you so much for having me. What a treat.

What a delight. Can you believe it? I can't. It's unbelievable. I'm so happy to be here. Mom, do you know what I do for a living? Yes, I do. Do you talk about famous pants that I don't know any of them? Yes. Okay, that's about right. That's so right. Mom, before we get started, tell me about how you first found Madonna. Because for those of you don't know, if for whatever reason you didn't listen to any of the Madonna episodes, I don't know why you would just random listen to the mailbag, but it's, you know, your body or choice. my mom is the reason that I was like a Madonna fan at one years old because she was obsessed with Madonna. She was always playing it in the car around the house. And it was like the first

artist I was ever even aware of as a tiny child with a forming frontal lobe. So now that we have that, mom. How did you find Madonna? Because you had only lived in America for a couple of years at that point. Yeah. Yeah. From Iran. Yeah, two years. She was exceptional artist to me.

She was a phenomenon to this day. Yeah. I think she was very special. She was beautiful and she was creative. And I liked her. I liked her. Just the moment you, okay, well, you, I think, I remember you telling me that maybe the first thing you heard was dress you up. Is that true?

No. Dresiobe. Derisiov, I heard years after, since, let's say, 87, 88. Okay. Yeah, until then, I saw it in a movie preview, not a preview, but it was the whole song before the movie starts. And I love that song. I didn't know why it became one of the best ones. I agree. There's a whole contingent of Madonna fans that agree that Dresioab should be held in higher regard. What was the first Madonna song you ever heard?

Do you remember? Like a Virgin. Oh, where did you hear it? Did you see on TV? Radio, radio. On the radio. I was listening to radio in the car and at home and like a virgin. And which one was started around those days, I think, or MTV.

Yeah, it was like 81. Yeah. And I'm watching it on TV as well all the. So you heard the song and then not long after you also saw the videos. you saw what she looked like. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the video where she's in Italy.

Italy, yeah. In Venice, in Venice. In Venice, with the bridal dress and everything. And I like her from now on. I liked her. I listened to her any time I had, you know, listen to radio. And it was unavoidable. Right.

Like even if you didn't like her, she was everywhere. She was everywhere. She was everywhere. And then something funny. that when we were in the mall, you were like eight and a half old in the stroller, and we were shopping, and then they were playing her song all the time. And you liked lucky star, and every time she's like, come, Mommy, Starline, Starline. See you guys? I'm not a real fan.

A year and a half. I'm an year and a half years old, identifying Starlight, Starbright. Yeah. It's a good song for a kid, too. It was, yeah. Mom, you loved Gugush or still love Gugush as well. I see, I mean, love with her. For those of you that don't know, Gugush is basically Iran's Madonna.

She is, right? She's one of the biggest and most successful and most glamorous. She's the only, yeah, pop stars from Iran. Do you feel that you saw any similarities between Gugus and Madonna? In a lot of ways. Yeah. But not in all the way. Right.

Because Madonna was really daring and she did things that nobody has done it until then. Gugush was, you know, compared to the society that we were living in Iran and all the closeness that we had. She was the same and she still is. You know, I look at her Gugush's video from 50 years ago. Yeah. And however she fixed herself. And whatever she wore, it's good to this day. Yeah.

She was timeless. Yeah. So advanced. Mom, do you think you have this blonde hair now because of Madonna? No. Even a little bit. No, I have blonde hair because all my hairs are turned gray. And I'm sick and tired of coloring it every two weeks.

Should I go blonde? Yours is not all white. It's getting there. It's getting there. The minute you get all white, you have to do it. It's your genius. So much easier and, you know, keep her, your hair healthier. I agree.

We'll see you next week when I'm blonde. Yes. Mom, I do have one listener question for you. Okay. Mrs. Salick, assuming you didn't keep your maiden name, apologies if not. Good job being a mom and teaching Yossi about Madonna. Now, I'm sure you have played other tunes over the years. And I want to know what music you like or hat on during Yossi's Yossi's.

youth that you see as influential to her. Michael Jackson. Yeah, big time. We loved Michael Jackson in our house. The first album I bought in America was Michael Jackson. Was it thriller? Yeah. Yeah.

Do you remember mom we used to put the VHS on and put on VH1 and MTV and tape the videos? Yes. So that we could watch it later. I've talked about this before, but I need to report it to the authorities, child services, because my mom put me to work, labor laws. When you would be like, this is obviously before the internet, there's no genius not come to look up lyrics. And my mom wanted to sing to the songs.

She would sit me in front of the tape player and be like, you sit and write all the lyrics onto a yellow pad of these songs that I like. So I'd have to sit there with a pen and pad and pressing stop every line. Kansas Dust in the Wind, all of these songs, I'll never forget it. it. It's illegal to make your child work like that. It wasn't. Because your English was better. Your understanding was better and you were faster than me. For me, it would take for weeks to write on one song because I like to learn the lyrics and sing along. We like to sing along.

Do you remember anything else besides Michael Jackson and Madonna? One more thing, one song from fame. Oh, I'm going to live forever. At the house. I would play that. I think I had this record as well or the tape. And during the day, I would dance with that song. And you really were... Like Irene Kara did it in the thing?

Yes. And then one day, one Saturday, the daddy was home. Radio was playing that song. And you said, Mommy's dancing. Mom is dancing. That's right. And I wasn't. But you were in the kitchen. In your mind.

washing dishes. In your mind you were dancing. And maybe that's why I wanted to be famous and live forever. Yeah. So yeah, these are right. Okay. And then before mom, I let you go, Patrick and I are doing this. Actually, Patrick's making me.

So I'm going to make you. Can you list your top five Madonna songs of all time? Dress you up. Okay, number one for you is dress you up. And the one that you gave me, I forgot the slow song. Oh, La Isla Bonita? No, no, no. Lysa Bonita is one of them.

Now, it's slow song. You'll see. You'll see. Yeah, I know you love that one. I love that one also. And that's on top of my mind because I haven't listening to radio for so long now. What about Cherish? Not really one of your favorites.

Cherish. No. Cherish, no. Vogue. You love Vogue. I love Vogue. Okay, Vogue is in your top five. That's four.

What about one more? You name it. We really, okay, we really liked the material girl video. I don't know if you love that song. Oh, your material girl was the other one. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so that's your top.

Not, like a virgin is not in your top five. Like a virgin, no. No. I mean, it could be. I like all her song. But the top five is those. I know for you, for sure, you love Laisa, Leibonita. You listen to it, like, every day of my life.

Yes, be the parties. Yeah. Yeah. When we were young. And if anyone's curious, also later on, my mom became deeply obsessed with LaBouche, be my lover. and that Hadaway song that is on S&L Night at the Roxbury. Yeah, these are good, yeah.

I know. You have a spirit. Not because you're a gay man in your heart. Probably. Probably. Well, Mom, thank you so much. This has been a real honor for me to have you at my job on this program. I made, I did okay in the end, right?

I know you were worried for a little while. You did better than okay. You did fine. Thank you so much for having me. I am really beside myself to be here. I'm going to brag to all of my friends, and they asked me to send them this video. They did. Well, we'll send it to them.

They all better post it. They better help with the marketing. Yeah, I'm going to ask him to do that. Okay. Yossi June. Love you. Love you, Mom. Goodbye.

Okay. Thank you to my mom. And now Patrick is here, my other mom. Welcome back, Patrick. Can't stay away. You know, I think you're actually. having trouble letting go. Of course.

It happens to me every time. It's like, I won't say Stockholm syndrome because I love it. Like this morning I was prepping again for this thing

and I was like listening back to True Blue and Immaculate Collection and I was like could listen to this every day of my life till I died. No problem.

Not an issue. It's not like that I think you aren't a Madonna fan because I know that you are. Some people have accused me. But in our lives before in the before time,

it's true. You weren't like talking about her all the time. You definitely seem more obsessed now. And I think that's like... It's a side effect of my job. Yeah, and I think it's the listeners as well. Yeah.

Which we found out from some of these letters are really getting into the groove, so to speak. My greatest happiness is the comments that are like, hello, 54-year-old death metal fan here, have never listened to Madonna in my life. I'm riveted. I've listened to every minute of every episode, and now I love her.

that's that's the lord's work that I'm doing in these streets for me it's the young people who are like I never knew who she was I know it's a thing there's a question about that which we'll get into Patrick you because you a you have Stockholm syndrome of being on this show yeah um you've volunteered to run right back I'm having trouble letting you're having trouble I just wait in the parking garage for you to call me and you're a masochist and because you're like oh we need to list our top five Madonna songs, which, yes, you made a good point. We have throughout the episodes perhaps said, this isn't my top five, 22 times. Yeah. And that the math is not mapping there. It's like every song we mentioned, we're like, it's a top two. You can't have

60 top two's. Well, I don't believe in ranking per se, but I'll do it for the purposes of this exercise, but you have to go first. Should we count down from five? I'd like go back and forth. I didn't make a list that way. I'm like flying by the same. of my pants. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, my number five was get together. Wow.

Yeah. Interesting. Okay. I didn't get to talk about confessions on my episode. It's a very important album to me. Get together for some reason, you know, as the singles came out from that album, like, hung up and sorry and jump and all of that. I love all the songs.

I'm a huge Stuart Price fan. I was a Stuart Price fan before Confessions. That was not my gateway drug. I was a huge fan of Zoot Woman, his band. Yes, correct. And also, like, a big fan of everything that was going on during, like, Electro Clash and Blog House and all his ShockluCant remixes that I would download from, like, I want to say, Matthew Perpetua's Flux Blog. I don't know if people remember this. I think people, people who listen to this show know about Matthew Perpetua's Flux Blog.

This was like maybe it overlapped with the LimeWire era. It was not the Napsir era. And like the hype machine. So I was very into all of that like French house stuff that was going on. And get together for me is sort of like the emotional high point of the album. Not jump. No, but I do. I'm going to get it to jump later.

Love jump. It's a very simple song. But it just has. has this, like, very sweeping emotional quality that reminds me of all of her best songs. Totally. So I had to include it. Oh, it's in your top five? That's number five.

No, not jump. No. Okay, yeah. Get together. Get together, got it, yes. Can we get together? That's gorgeous. Okay.

And now I have to do my fifth. Yeah. This is so stressful. Okay. My number five is Cherish. Love. I love Cherish. I don't care what anyone says.

I'll die on this hill. Give me faith. Give me joy. My boy. That's how it makes me feel. It gives me faith and gives me joy. I don't know if she's saying faith, actually. It's a low ranking for you considering how hard you go for cherish.

Because I don't believe in ranking. I'm just saying stuff. These are all in a good place in my heart. It's like Madonna's knack for writing a perfect pop song. It has an incredible little bridge, which we'll get into, because we have a great question about her best bridges. It's buoyant. It's like a little desperate, which also all of her best love songs are a little desperate.

it like it's fantastic love it that was the one we talked about when she was doing speed the plow right it was her like last dish I'm delusional on broadway I think I can make Sean Penn and I work the great love of my life like who hasn't felt such a thing and I mentioned on the other episode as well that meandering kind of verse melody I'm so obsessed with you can just keep going even though you don't like that song I love you're on record I love that song now everyone's Johnny come cherish lately over here. No, no, no. My real record killer is gonna, I'll talk about it later. Okay, so what is number four for you? Number four for me is crazy for you.

It's such a fucking, it's like, it just fucking, it's, it's not like the most obvious Madonna ballot. I don't know if it was her biggest one ever? No, I don't think so. It just kills me. Like, when you hear it, you're like almost like, I forgot about it and how good it is. It's so 80s. It's like the most. It's like 80s power ballad heaven to me. It has such like a sticky nostalgia heartbreak feeling for me. Like I always have this category of songs that are Sunday afternoon songs. You know the feeling of Sunday afternoon if and when we had real jobs?

And when you're like... I'm like, oh, real hangovers. That's where I went. Yeah, where it's like you're like, I want to die. I'm still in this. I'm still in Sunday, which is great. But Monday is coming and I have a bit of dread. But like a bit of beauty.

like, it's just, it's a Sunday afternoon song. It has a lot of, like, it also has desperation. All the best pop songs do. It's like, it's just like so emotional and like so histrionic in its own way. That's Vision Quest? Yeah. I watched it in preparation. A perfect song.

An very bizarre movie, but I did enjoy it. Really 80s. Talk about fucking really. I skipped that one. Matthew Modian, babe. Again, the type of, the type of leading man we don't have anymore. True. Yeah.

All right. What is my number four? The number four is Ray of Light. Titular track. Kind of like cherish. Just like God is flowing through me. Namaste. Namaste techno.

Yeah. Like it makes me happy when I put it on. I have like a playlist of five songs that are like Prozac. Like when I'm like really in need of like we're going to feel good right now and that's on there. Don't laugh. blues traveler, run around. Uh-huh. Carly Ray Jepson,

call me maybe. Wow. Swallowed by Bush randomly makes me happy. I don't know why. And there's another one that I can't remember. So it's on there.

Machine Head by Bush makes me happy. That's interesting. Got a machine head. It's like it has a driving intensity. It is a joyful song. Ray of Light to me was always very like smoking pot and Golden Gate Park situation.

Yeah. It reminds me of high school. It reminds me of like, probably doing ecstasy so that maybe that's why I think it's a happy song like doing ecstasy and going to like nightclubs in Singapore. My mom's gone now.

Where they would like play music like this and like be the meme by the way that the man made of Madonna doing the Ray of Light dance in the back rooms. She was really ahead of her time with that. It felt really of the moment when it came out like it was very trendy. It was sort of like

what like with the neo-spiritualism that was happening. Almost a Headshop. Prayer flags. Yeah. You know, I told you that I hated Ray of Light when I came out. I thought it was an Odwala album.

You were wrong. Is Audwala still around? I think it went out of business. No, but that's like a niche ref. Yeah, you guys, real heads are no. If you were there. Berkeley Bowl. I, of course, came around on it later.

And also, like, but that has never left. Like, no. We're... The kind of Eastern spiritual... Well, of course, because it... It tied in directly with, like... The erasure's not the right word, but the, like, waning in popularity of actual religion in our culture, which happened, you know, starting at the top of, like, 1990, around the turn of, like, 1991 and just kept plummeting down. And there is a vacuum. Like, people, this is one of my greatest beliefs. People need to believe in something or to feel something. Heaven's gate. Most people, yeah. So they took away, you know. Take me to the spaceship. And they were like, well, in the absence of.

regular Judeo-Christian values, we're going to put up some prayer flags and do some yoga and sort of like mish-mosh a bunch of... Hannah tattoos. Is it lightly culturally appropriation? A little bit. Yeah. Is it a little disrespectful to those religions that have a deep and, you know, long culture? Yes.

But... I'm going to say no. Was it fun? Because I think those religions want new recruits. Sure. So it's more like are you falling into their trap? Should be the question. Yeah.

I don't think Buddhism is like a recruiting religion, nor do I think it takes itself too seriously. You know, they're like, go off, sis. Do your way of light dance in the back rooms. So anyways, that's a long story short for my number. Number three, we don't need to talk about it at length because we have lived to tell. That's my number three also. Wow. Okay, perfect.

We're speeding through. Yeah. God to your song. It's a perfect. It's beautiful. Seven minutes of pure bliss. Kills you every time. I think it's the episode.

the film's episode. I talked about how, and in me and Paul's episode, we talked about Avita, how the reason that, not Andrew Lloyd Weber, but Tim Rice, Sir Tim Rice, Evita said of Madonna.

Didn't he run with Hillary? Tim Cain. Tim Cain. Wow, we're really, the amount of brain damage in this room. When Tim Rice was, like, advocating for Madonna to be cast as Avita, his thing was that she is such an,

Too Latina. She's so Latina. She's spiritually Latina. No, that she's such a good actress within her songs. That she makes the lyrics so believable because she is both singing them and acting them. And I feel like Livetale is such a good example. Because Livetale is sort of a cinematic. I mean, obviously it was for a film.

But past that, like the lyricism is very cinematic. It feels like this drama. unfurling in front of you and the way she sings it, like, you're bought in. It's also like a requiem for her career that she put out at the beginning, which is the most dramatic thing you can do. You know, it's like she put out this song,

and I think on some level she must have known that she would be singing it for the rest of her life and that it would take on, like, added meanings. I mean, like, there's a question about grief that we got that we'll talk about later, but on the celebration tour, she did live to tell, and it was like this giant AIDS memorial. And it was like so like it's like this idea of like of you know we talk a lot about her being

relentless and her persistence and surviving in this field where no one's really done it like her before like the way that she keeps pushing forward and it's this notion of it's like I have to do it so I can tell the stories that no one was around to tell. Yeah. And she like knew that in some, you know, in some way so early on. But I just love that song. It's so high drama, of course. So I love it.

It's perfect. We got a little bit of pushback from the social clip of episode one where Mel says that, like, her first major stylistic transformation was in pop and don't patient people were like, actually it was live to tell. And I just want to say that's not entirely correct because that was not like, I think it was a signifier of the transformation. but that video I'm sorry did you ever see this woman put on a kneeling floral collar dress again? No, that was simply

a playing a role in this moment of the thing. Papadone Preach was like this is what I look like now. It wasn't heralding like this is who I am now. So, sorry, because I didn't want to fight in the comments. And you know, I think a lot of times musicians do that with soundtrack songs.

It's like if you have a song and it's not necessarily like the direction of the next record, it's a really good way to put some He was the lead single. And to try something. Yeah. She put it out as the lead single.

Well, if it does well enough, it ends up on the record, doesn't it? The label was like, why are you putting out a seven-minute sad song as the lead single of True Blue? And she was like, I do what I want. Okay. What's your number two? I'm stressed now because I'm running out of slots and I have like eight more songs that I need to put in this top five. This is when we're getting down to breast tags. This is like, let's talk about the most important songs that Madonna's ever made.

No, that's not the exercise. That's to me. Two and one. I'm ranking. My top five. for me personally. Well, no, for me. Yeah.

These are my favorites. But like, if I were listing, like, her most important songs or her biggest songs more critically and objectively, I would have different ones. It would basically be her Super Bowl playlist. These are my subjective favorite. Number two is Into the Grove. It's so interesting to me that it was a B-side of Angel. It was, like, only hurriedly put out because it only existed in the movie.

Yeah. She had this demo that she made with Stephen Bray in his apartment. And the thing that we hear today is the demo. They never did it again. And just like, she was like, oh, I have this song for Susan Sidelman for the dance scene. Susan Sitall was like, I need to have that song in the movie. And then people were like, literally DJs would like tape it from the movie or from the music video. Yeah.

There was a music video that was based on the movie. They would tape it and then go play it in the club. And then so they were like, okay, we need to release it. But it didn't have an album place, you know? It was like a parody of a song that turned into a song. I don't know. But like it, like, look at the like. of that song in her body of work.

Yeah. Like, she's still, she was dancing to it yesterday with someone on like a live stream somewhere. I didn't watch. But, you know, it's like she, she's never gotten tired of it. Yeah. And it has become like the refrain of her whole career. She'll shout it out in other songs, obviously causing a commotion.

She name drops it. We got the Chiconi youth into the groovy song, which is also a really important song for me. I just think it's like a. maybe her most classic early tune. Okay. Number two for me, even though Into the Grub is obviously my top five, so I'm not insane.

Is Like a Prayer. There. I'm sorry. Like I think Like a prayer suffers, maybe not for anybody else, but like I think sometimes for me it suffers the fate of like it's so major and so iconic that you forget until you sit

and intently listen to it again. how fucking incredible of a song it is. Do you know what I mean? Because it gets flattened by the repetition or whatever. The chorus is just like... When the gospel choir comes... It's just like... When you call my name...

It just does something to you. It does something to you. Like, do that at karaoke. That's a spiritual healing. That's a cleansing. Yeah, and I love it. And also it's just like everything that comes along with it. I'm iconic for a reason.

Yeah. How about it? My number one is Vogue. Oh, okay. He is like other roles. I did want to put what it feels like for a girl in here somewhere because I do love that song so much and that's like a vibey song that I have on.

I felt I had an alternate top five where I was like, what if I want to seem cool? Not seem, but like, what if it's like... More idiosyncratic and weird? Yeah, what if it's like candy perfume girl and like, you know, the other ones that are in that Impressive instant. Bedtime story.

I love ecstatic cross is kind of like a little bit better than impressive. But yes, that's like its own sort of caters. but we're talking like straight down the middle. Jen, we're talking popular. I went off about Vogue in our episode. I don't know if I'm going to do justice to what I said before, but to me it just feels like it was, it's her most important song to me for like every conceivable reason.

Okay. I think my number one, although I like I want to be a troll and say like rain or something, but I'll put rain in my honorable mentions. It's open your heart. I'm so happy you said that one. I ended up like landing. I remember Mel said it was his favorite, And I was like, huh.

And then I was like, man, in my mind, like a prayer is my favorite album. And I think for reasons it is. But I listen to True Blue the most. Like, that is so emotionally evocated. They're both. I think they both hold the number one spot for me. But just how about you? I know.

And that video is so cinematic. Talk about desperation. Yeah. You know, like chair dancing. Stalking. Like, it's such a good song. A few honorable men, cheese. I didn't make any, but go.

I agree with them all. No, you might not argue with this one. I would have, honestly, if we were going by how many, which song I listened to the most, mine is love song. Interesting. I love that song. Okay.

I wouldn't have said it maybe because it's not a prototypical Madonna song, and I think it would have felt really in place in my other top five. that I said, like, the cool ones or whatever. Uh-huh. Nobody knows me. I just love it. I just, I think it's so sexy.

It's so vibey. Obviously, there's fucking princes on it. Yeah. But it's like, it's still very hurt because it's this like girlish sexuality. It's also a little smoking pot in Golden Gate Park. 100%. It has, it's very your vibe. I totally get it.

I love it. And then I said rain because I love rain. And then I didn't know this is one for both of us, but like, bad girl's huge. Bad girl was fighting for a spot on the top. five, but we had to, you know, we had to name some other names. You know what my honorable mention will be because I was surprised it wasn't my number one song because forever, for a million years when people would ask me what my favorite Madonna song is, I would just say it.

It was bitch I'm Madonna. No, it was borderline. Oh, yeah. And I feel like after doing this podcast and listening to the other episodes that I wasn't on and reappraising all of her work, I feel different about borderline now. and it's not that I don't love it as much. It just doesn't feel like the most Madonna song. Yeah.

Because she didn't write it. Right. And it was originally for another artist. I just love it as a song. Yeah. And I love how she performs it. And it is one of my most, like, most sentimental favorite Madonna songs. But I couldn't rank it with these ones for some reason.

I feel, yeah, for me that would be burning up maybe also in that category. This is a fake exercise for me. Because I, that's my number. That was my mom's number one, by the way. Really? Yeah. That's her number one. Fashion song.

Of course I love it. And just so you know, I don't stand behind any of this because I don't believe in ranking. Don't yell at me deeper and deeper is in there somewhere too. Every Madonna song has a different time and a place and a special usage except for some of the ones that we won't talk about here. That I'll never listen to again. My least favorite Madonna song ever, I'll come out and say it. Go off. Is incredible, which is on hard candy.

That song is disgusting. It makes me sick. when I hear it. I don't know how she even allowed it to exist. Yeah. She must feel so cheesy. Well, she doesn't perform it for a reason.

It sounds a little like the music that, like, a team of songwriters writes for a reality show. It was written for like a bad rom-com or something. Yeah. It was like for, it's very suddenly I see vibes to me from Devil Wars Prada. Suddenly I see. It's very, this is my fight song. It's very, to me, it's,

very like sex in the city, the movie, too, or something. When they went to the Middle East. Okay. I don't have a least favorite. I mean, I'm sure I could pull one up, but nothing is coming. I didn't, like, heavily engage with the last three albums until I did this podcast. So. There's some good songs on there, though.

Make the Devil Pray. I love me. I went off on a whole thing, and you guys could already hear it in episode four, but, like, the Avici Madonna album that we didn't get is like one of the biggest tragedies because like I think Joe Henry and her were like such a magical collaboration

Jump and you know her brother-in-law she does great with like a little bit of guitar and a beat you know like these are good Madonna songs and I feel like Rebel Heart could have been mostly those and it just wasn't and that's fine

that's okay that's okay and famously I like Madame X. I think those songs could get another life I think that they could end up, like, remixed or done live somehow and fit right in. I agree. And I love Isaac, too. And I'm, and I talk to cared about it. I was like, well, I'm Middle Eastern.

And she was like, oh, now I feel bad. No, I'm racist for not liking Isaac. Isaac is not one of the ones for me, but maybe I need to reviz. I'll just find it enjoyable. Okay, let's get into the mailbag. Okay. Hi, Ossey, and Patrick. My question is, if you had to choose any 90s alternative rock band to,

collab with Madonna, which would it be? This is from Olivia. Of course this question sent me into a spiral. Yeah, same. I was like, not this being the first question. Because what is an alternative rock band? And what is the 90s? Well, I think the 90s at least has a shape and a contour.

But should we like put some parameters around what an alternative rock band is? Yeah. So the way I did it was I was like, I know my answer. Okay. A lot of my favorite bands in the 90s were also active in the 80s. They're also active after the 90s. They're not just 90s. Yeah.

And then also like, I don't know what an alternative rock band is or like how electronic it's allowed to be. Right. Like can it be porticide? Exactly. Yeah. Is that your answer? No, but I mean, it was definitely in my top three. That's a good one.

Yeah. And so there's like people that I've always wanted her to collaborate with who I think she still could. And then there's the ones where it would never happen. that's super confined to the 90s that could have been cool, but never would have happened anyway. Well, this isn't, this is like, you know, you're having dinner with people dead or alive.

You can do whatever you want. So the rules don't apply. I've always wanted her to do something with New Order. Yeah. I've always wanted her to do something with the Pet Shop Boys. Pet Shop Boys is my number three. Or whatever, in my thing. And I know there was like a Pet Shop Boys remix.

Yeah, where what's his name, sings on it? Because he said he always wanted to do a duet with Madonna. There's something very, and sympathico with them. Right. Although those are, I will say, explicitly pretty 80s bands. Yeah.

I mean, they did have like a life in the 90s. Well, Stewart works with the Pet Shop Boys, and so there's also like a thread there. But for the sake of going 90s alternative rock band, my immediate thought was 9-inch Nails. Interesting. Yeah. Okay.

Because I like what Madonna, I like Madonna as an electronic artist. And obviously Trent Rosner and Atticus Ross now. are like electronic giants. Yeah. And it's something that could still happen. I would still like to hear it. And I just think it would have blown my young mind

if like pop star Madonna and like coolest band in the world, 9-inch Nails did some, had done something together. So I guess are we trying, we're imagining right now. I'm doing it all kind of like back then it would have been cool and but now it would still be cool. Right. But if I'm doing just back then, like if I was going to put her with a rock band, like an alternative rock band, it would be a. Elastica.

Interesting. I love that. I mean, I know this is a crazy chaos, but my first immediate thought was whole. I was like maybe the fabric of the universe would tear, but I would like to see it tear. I knew you were going to say that. And I think it gives us an opportunity to speak a little bit about what we were texting about of Courtney and Madonna being almost like this like yin and yang. Yeah. Fun house mirror for each other in the 90s.

because I also wasn't here to talk about the VMA incident, which is so formative. Which could have its own episode, to be honest. Yeah, exactly. Could have 90 minutes on that. And I brought up how David LaChapelle created this MTV promo ad a year later that was like actresses playing Madonna and Corny Love as old women doing whatever happened to Baby Jane, which you can go look up as part of MTV Raw, whatever that is. And like they have, they're an interesting case study because I think that the two of them,

have like sort of circled each other. I don't think they've ever been enemies, but they've like been friendly and then, you know, they're not, but they're not super close. But I think that it's because they see things in each other that remind them of things that they don't like about themselves. Well, that's true of everybody, right? Yeah. That's like anything, anytime you are like triggered by anyone, it's because something in

them is reflected in something you don't like about yourself. because if it wasn't, you wouldn't give a shit if they lived or died. Or it makes you a little insecure in some way. Yeah, because it's something. Yeah, I wanted to bring that up so we could talk about Courtney and Madonna. But to be honest, my answer is one that almost happened but didn't, which was Massive Attack. Portisad is a great answer, but Portisad doesn't make as much sense because they really just had, it's like Beth Gibbons, you know? But Massive Attack constantly featured a different female singers.

You know, Tracy Thorne, Donner. She did one song with Massive Attack. She, they did, yeah, it doesn't count because they did a cover of the Marvin Gaye song. It sounds great, though. Yeah, okay, that doesn't count because they actually did happen. And it is an example of, like, what she would do on a Massive Attack song. Yeah. Can I still say it even if it happened?

Yeah. I would want it to happen again in an original track. I also said Apex Twin. It's really good. Which would have been, like a Chris Cunningham, AFX Twin Madonna video would have been insane. And I had another thought actually on the way over here, which is the Beastie Boys. I mean, long and storied history. Yeah.

There's something spiritually Beastie Boys about her. She has that in her. Like, I would have liked to hear her do a Beastie Boys rap on a Beastie Boys song. I mean, she took them on their first tour. Yeah. So they go way back. These are all good answers, I think. Okay.

You read the second question. Okay. This one, I think, is more for you. Yossian interns. Your entrance. Well, I took this one as not for me, so I didn't even look into it. Just curious if during your deep dive into Madonna, if you looked into the Blossom season two episode, Raccumentary, which, if I remember correctly, has a dream sequence like Truth or Dare, Justin. It's funny because I definitely watched Blossom.

Did you watch Blossom? Like, in real time? No. But I had no memory of this episode, and I did watch chunks of it on YouTube, and it absolutely does have. So the premise is that Blossom is sick with the flu. and her dad, coolest dad ever, rents her some videos, and he brings her like, Truth or Dare, the Last Waltz, like a couple of, like, iconic music documentaries.

And I think, you know, in her fever dream, she starts to, like, imagine her. It's actually a genius premise for a sitcom episode. And there are some really cool black and white sequences of her, like, as Madonna with the thing. And, like, it's pretty good. I don't have. That's funny.

So that was maybe a gateway drug for some people. Yeah, maybe. That's even knowing that this was a thing. Totally. Because Blossom was so, like, general interest, you know? like sitcom on national television. I think there was a lot of parodies of Madonna at that time. There was a French and Saunders special that they did in England.

That was where they, it was a parody of Truth or Dare, and they named her Medusa. But it was similar. So good. Definitely go find that. Well, just like that one was more for me, I'm going to go ahead and say this one is more for you. Did Madonna make more men discover they were gay or straight? Casey and Minneapolis. Okay.

Gay. And the reason is that straight is already the default. Right. So I don't think men or boys need to realize they're straight. Right. Maybe he's saying more like

was she, they're like sexual awakening or whatever. I'm going to get canceled for saying straight is the default. I don't think so. I think that's kind of, oh, right. Because no. No, like socially. And back then it's like it would be assumed that you would be straight unless you had to like.

I still think even to this day probably like that's the case. Demographically. It's like 95% or something. But also, you know, women are a dime a dozen and it's like, you know, boys are also looking at like Pamela Anderson and... Women are a dime a dozen. Oh yeah, there's a lot of you out there.

It's about 50%. I think it roughly. So there are a lot of beautiful women that boys can be attracted to but for gay boys there weren't a lot of there weren't a lot of them wearing John Paul Gautier. Right. Iconic divas, if you will.

that wasn't yours though what do you mean Madonna didn't make you realize you were gay Susan Lucci maybe when I was like one I loved this that we just we talked about this

when I was at your house because you had the fake Susan Lucci book which is not fake it's a real book It's a fake character Her character wrote a book

called Having It All All My Children Which another woman That my mom My mom laughed When I said She was a Gain My mom was literally a gay

And these are also her favorite people I was raised on soap operas and there were all kinds of glamorous divas on those. And Susan Lucci, very important to me. Okay. Next question. Yossi. I'm a little hung up. I see what you did there. On the fact that you've never seen Madonna perform live, not even during the celebration tour. Respectly, how did this happen? And for Patrick, have you seen a perform? And can you please speak on that? Thank you. Bye, bye, baby. Love Courtney. Okay. I will go ahead and address this, even though it feels like a weird allegation. Okay, so when I was younger, we didn't go because that's not what my family did. We didn't have a daughter. of money. We didn't go to concerts. Like, my mom remembers going to Michael Jackson, which is so amazing and major. But that was because my aunt worked at his dermatologist. Did you go to Michael Jackson? No, I was like one, you know. But how cool is that?

So she worked for Dr. Klein, who was famously his dermatologist and where Debbie Roe worked. And so got tickets through that. Anyways, but we didn't. L.A. Baby. Yeah, but we didn't go to concerts. So like that didn't happen. And then I moved to Singapore for high school in like 94-ish 5. Okay, I'm not going to see Madonna in Singapore. No. And then when I got back to America, I was like broke. And in college, it was like, I couldn't afford to go to the drowned world tour.

Those were like stadium concerts. They were expensive. And then if we're keeping 100 and I'm totally, it's okay if people are like, you're not a real fan. I pretty much checked out, like, right after music. Like, I remember a little bit about American life. I remember hearing, you know, uh, holleyer. Hollywood and stuff, obviously. But at that point, I was like, I'm listening to this myth and doing drugs.

So that's so cool for you guys. I don't know what's happening here. And then by the time, I was kind of back in the mix. I'm like able. Celebration tour was very, maybe I'm bad. It was very difficult to get tickets to. And famously, Karen Gans was supposed to take me. So I was on the VIP list for the celebration tour.

Patrick, you know what? You could have taken me. Who did I go with? Obviously not me. Well, anyway, I want Cody As God intended That's a good one But I'm just saying

I would have loved to go Actually someone really came for me In the comments She's like she's seen Gaga But not Madonna She's clearly like As if I'm like a CIA operative Here sent by Gaga's team

To like We went to Gaga Because my mom's friend Had tickets By the way we had a ball My mom were a tutu Which Gaga show Monster Ball

Oh fab I wore fucking diet Coke cans Rolled up in my hair And we had the time of our lives because my mom and I also really like Lady Gaga. But again, that was full happenstance. Yeah. I've seen Gaga way more.

I threw Lady Gaga shows. That was more like in your... It was my job. Okay, so... To your question, can you speak to... Was celebration... That wasn't your first time seeing... No.

So I also didn't grow up going to arena shows at all. My parents weren't into it. Same. So they would have never brought me. And then when I was old enough to want to go, I would have had to like find someone older to take me and that was like a huge chore. We didn't have cell phones back then. You know, it was like, can you imagine the hoops?

I had a motora page or I was clear. Yeah. So I was going to local punk shows. Exactly. Like, yeah. Also, we didn't have, like, these are very cost prohibitive events. Yeah. You would do like a couple of year or something.

I would go to the film more and see like Rancid or no doubt or something. Yeah, which wasn't at like a massive stadium. No, it was at the film. film war and then the bigger shows even were at the warfield. This is all in San Francisco. Yeah. And then I would go in the summer to BFD, which was the Live 105 music festival, which is at the Shoreline Amphitheater, which would have like 30 bands playing. Or I'd go to Warped Horror in San Francisco. So I went to like big concert events, but it was never like stadiums to see pop stars. Also, it didn't really feel like that was such a thing growing up in that era for

some reason. Like it wasn't pop star-centric, like the music that we were listening to it. By the time I was out of high school, and this may speak to like her career. It's just like the career wasn't giving in a way that I was like, I need to go see like whatever tour followed Hard Candy. You know, and it's a kid and sweet tour or whatever. And that's my bad because the tour looked amazing. And I watched them all and they're fucking incredible. Yeah, they're all really good. So my first Madonna show that I went to was the Confessions Tour. Yeah. Good one. It was not even my doing. My friends were like, do you want to go? And I was like, yeah. And I was sort of like, I couldn't believe I had never seen Madonna before. Yeah. And that album really got me back into Madonna because I had a fallow period of sort of ignoring her.

Many such cases. For similar reasons you mentioned, it was just like not my vibe at that time. I'd grown up on Madonna. So I was like, you know, then I went into a punk phase and then post-punk and then electro-clash. And I was like, I was like too. cool. And then, I mean, I obviously paid attention when she kissed Britney Spears at the VMA started Hollywood. Like, that got my attention. Yeah. Um, then when confessions happened, I was like very much into gay adulthood. So it was like, it hit in a different way for me. And I'm so happy that was the first tour of hers I saw because it's like, I think it's her second most iconic tour behind one day mission. Again, I've now watched them all. It's so, it's so good. It was incredible. was insane. I think we have plenty of representation on this podcast of all, there can be all different

kinds of Madonna fans. We're, Patrick and I are texting about this. I hate standems because I feel like they like embody like Nazi Germany levels of like rules and fascism amongst themselves. And like it's, we're all on the same side here, babe, you know? You know what though? Like in terms of stadium tours and things like that, I'm not such a big fan of them as an experience. Like I can, admire them artistically, but there's something about... It's not fun. It's hell. You have to like drive an hour.

It's like $90 to park. Yeah. And you sort of are like, okay, they're doing this every night. It's very like militant. It's like going to see like a musical or something. Spontaneity. Yeah. It's not like going to a normal show.

Which is great. I would have loved. But I did go to see three, four Britney Spears tours. Because I thought, because there was something, there was an X factor with Britney Spears. like, this is going to be crazy and insane. Something's going to happen. And those were the most fun shows I've ever been to in my life.

Because I think that Brittany has a really special audience of, like, slutty drunk girls. And there's just a vibe. Like, I remember when Brittany played Madison Square Garden and we were walking down the street to go to the show, this is for the circus tour. Yeah. Like a pink limo drove by with, like, wasted, like, topless girls in it. And they were screaming out of the girls. car. It's Britney bitch! And we were like, oh my God, I'm so excited.

This is going to be the best night of my life. That must really sound amazing. And it really was. I'm so happy I did that. But, um, and then Madonna, I've seen live a bunch since then. Yeah. Well, all that being said, I'll go to the next tour and I can't wait. And she's always really good. Yeah. I didn't watch one single one. Even like tours that were attached to albums that I wasn't like the biggest fan of.

I was like, doesn't matter the tour fucking tour. She's amazing. at every turn to the main thing. Okay. If you had to put three of Madonna's work works into a time capsule, what would they be? Album or song, video, movie, book, photo shoot, et cetera. So it seems like kind of open undid. Yes. Anything from the uvra.

In a time capsule, what is a time capsule? This ruined me. You didn't make time capsules when you were in like elementary school? It's like, when the world ends, they'll dig it up and it'll be like, it will show them. Okay. Do you do what is like, um, academically rigorous? Do we need to collaborate?

Like do we have one time capsule and the two of us have to agree? Do we each have our own time capsule? Well, I wrote three. I wrote three as well. With a bonus. Okay, you have an honorable mensch. So let's see how much they sync up or don't. Okay.

And then let's choose three from both of ours. Do you have truth or dare? Yes. Okay. Great. Because I feel like that, it's a little cheating, but also it's like one of her most iconic, let's be honest, her most iconic film work.

It features music. Her most iconic tour. Her most iconic tour. It features music. It features her personality. It's got looks. It's got, like, you get a lot bang for your buck. Yeah. Even if you didn't, I think it's like. It explains a lot. Yes. I also

put the sex book. Okay, so I had that, but then I was like... I know what you mean. You don't even have to say. Yeah, I was like, you could put Justa My My Love video and cover a lot of the same ground. Also, like, it's a little, like, truth or dare, because it is also sort of a document. Right.

It is an artwork, I think. I do too. For me, it's a stand-in for her fashion work, you know, like campaigns. It's Stephen Mizell. It's Naomi Campbell. It's Tony Ward. Like, there's a lot happening there. But I'm okay for it to not make the cut.

But it was one of my three. It was definitely when I was brainstorming when it was up there. I have True Blue as the album. I don't know. We don't have to have an album, but I just feel like that album. I like it. Or, but or should we cheat and put Immaculate Collection? That was my fourth one of like, do we just put Immaculate Collection?

Is that cheating? No. I mean, you could put anything, right? We're trying to teach the aliens as much as possible. Okay, so we have two agreed upon, Immaculate Collection and Truth or Dare. We have to round out with a third. Okay, my third thing. is the like a virgin performance that the MTV video music was.

How, come on. Changed everything. Are we too, like, back half of career heavy? But yeah, definitely, it changed everything. We can put swept away in there if that's what you're hinting at. I mean, I'm all put swept away. Shout out Stephen Weber, by the way, who did get in touch and said that it was his idea for them to do Swept Away. And I said, so that's your fault then.

And Ariane Phillips got in touch and said, I love what you said about Sliped Away. You are one of one with that one. That included herself, by the way. She was like, not even me can ride for this film. Exactly. She's just she had fun making it. We just named her off. And I'm sorry, because this is the perks of the coal miner living experience of my job.

Is that every once in a while when I come up for a breath of air, I got a DM from Stephen Weber and I'm like, Wings? Exactly. Incredible. This is really hard. I mean, I guess. What other ones did you have? I had the bad girl video.

Okay. I think, I think like, like a express yourself video is also so major and like the David Fincher of it all and like the, I don't know. This is so hard. It's very hard. So we have truth or dare. and the Maculate Collection. Immaculate Collection. Macculation's great

because I think it really covers so much ground. I'm sticking with VMA performance. Okay. I can get behind it. Even though Truth Dayir contains live performance. Yeah, but that was singular. That was like... I don't know. I'm like, what about the Maria Antoinette? Well, like a Virgin, I think made her a huge star.

It made the VMAs a must-see event. Yes. It like kind of changed MTV. which changed everything. So. Okay. I'm with it. I can't think about it anymore,

so it's a fake question. Dear Yossi and Patrick, writing it as one of your clergy listeners, hell yeah, brother. Maybe I should have said, hell yeah. Father. Hell yeah, or heaven yeah, father.

We love to have you here. Second favorite demographic, whatever, top three favorite demographic is my clergy listeners. Catholic schoolboy over here. Yeah. He said, yes, it's true. Don't touch me.

At one point amidst the many hours of Madonna discourse, you question whether we were out there listening and I'm here to confirm that we are, or at least I am. God? God. I like Madonna, but would never have called myself a huge fan until I read Mary Gabriel's book a couple years ago on a whim. It actually inspired me to write a sermon about Madonna during Advent, no less, which perplexed many of my congregants and made a handful of them very happy. We are sermonizing about Madonna. It's such a coincidence. Reverend Hillary, if you have this on video, this story.

sermon. I would actually love to see it. Please send it over on email. Two questions. Maybe one will peak your interest. First, you touched on Madonna's activism and experience through the AIDS crisis a bit in the series, but I'm wondering. Manana had so many beloved people in her life die from AIDS. Almost all of them at one point. Her grief must have been so overwhelming, not to mention what that level of sudden unceasing loss did to her psychologically as she was also dealing with dot, dot, dot, dot, being Madonna. We see where she provoked the anti-gay Puritan Catholic system, where she raged against the machine and where she showed up as an ally. But where in her work do you see her grief?

Live to tell and Keith Herring homages. Do we ever just see or hear Madonna grieving or even just being sad? Okay, let's answer that before we go to the next question. I think that grief is an interesting subject in her work or in anybody's work because it's not like anything else. Like just as an experience, it comes and it goes. Right. It hits you and it subsides. and waves.

It has different contours, has different ways that it actually feels. It lasts forever. Right. So you feel different ways about it over time? I would make the argument that grief is like actually the main emotion of Madonna's work because her entire like shaping of it as an artist is sort of centered around the loss of her mother at a young age. And she's talked about this at length.

And it's what fueled and motivated her to make art and to become an artist. Promise to try. And so you could almost make the argument that any art she's made has been maybe not about grief, but powered by grief. You know, it's like powered by the need. And she's said this, so I'm not putting words in her mouth, the need to find love from the world because she lost the love of her mother. So it's like a driving engine. Yes. But that's underneath everything.

But even like on the surface. Yeah. I think very crucially for me is like she. often puts forward this notion of like catharsis and escape on the dance floor of like kind of dancing through tragedy and you can it's interesting because you can single out like literally what you were saying you could like single out any random song of hers and you can kind of find it in there sometimes 100% like vogue to me is the song about grief which so like kind of under

talked about maybe but you know it literally starts with look around everywhere you turn a heartache it's everywhere that you go you try everything

you can to escape the pain of life that you know holiday holiday is we could take a holiday take some time to escape like

the pain of the world it's what holiday is about right but I think also even more just like surface explicitly like she has a lot of really deeply

sad songs she said he's on love Oh, father is, why don't you take a fucking butter knife and spoon my heart out? Promise to try you. She said, that song fucks me up. Even like, this used to be my playground. Meregirl, ecstatic process, the power of goodbye, miles away.

I find rain actually to be quite beautiful and moving and have a through line of grief, you know? It's similar to Vogue because it's sort of about like moving through it. It's like the catharsis after it. It's like that you're going to keep living. It's also that song off erotica, which is. explicitly about losing people to AIDS in this life. And isn't Spanish eyes also less explicitly, but sort of in a like a fable way about losing friends' AIDS?

So she's also channeled it into a lot of her work in that specific loss of friends to AIDS. And that's the cool thing about pop music. You can take a song and it can mean anything to you that doesn't necessarily reflect what the artist even intended. You know, like there's songs that are about grief. to me that I know we're not written with that, but it's because it reminds you of something or you think of something.

But with Madonna specifically, she's always been kind of a genius with her lyrics and with everything she does in the way that she kind of puts forward this concept of like self-exposure and she hides her personal, her private emotions in plain sight

on all of her songs. And she confronts her audience with it, but more pivotally, more pivotally, I think she confronts herself with it. Yeah. The video will be out at this point. I'm excited for people to hear this song on her new record called Dance Ateria, which it's like an upbeat club song, but she's looking back at her early days as an artist and her friends from back then and telling the story of how she made it.

And she does it through this like rap and she name drops like Martin Bergoin. and Debbie Mazar and all of her friends. And it's like... Kind of like the rap that I wrote. We wrote. Great minds, actually. We wrote for my social media. And it's a fun song, but there's something that is so also sad and grief-laden about it,

but it's beautiful because it's like, even after all this time, she's never forgotten everyone who helped her. And it's, I think if people got into Madonna from listening to these podcasts, they're going to hear that song and they're going to fucking love it. Right, because it's like... I know all the references. and be like, oh my God, this is amazing. Yeah.

You're welcome, Madonna, that I laid the groundwork for you. We said we teed it up. Yeah. Stream it, get it to number one. As the people would like. Broadly speaking, though, that answer your question, like, how was she able to take on so much grief while being Madonna? I think she's so successful because of what we said a little bit earlier in this question. Like, she is able to transmute grief into ambition, into creativity, into art. And not many people can do that.

And like because she can, the more she got, the more she was able to put it into her work. And the more she talks about it. Yeah. Because she's like, this works. This is how you do it. Totally. You know? It's like, Vogue is like a triumphal song of gay survival.

Gay resistance. Mm-hmm. In the face of cultural genocide. You know what I mean? It was like, she was building up gay culture at this time because it was literally being. Which is why it's so annoying. People are like, oh, she just took this and like. Yeah.

It's like, oh, okay. Okay. The second question from Urban Hillary is, given her icon status, her talent, her radical activism, her love of provocation, and her one-of-a-kind persona, is there anyone out there who you would say is currently carrying forth the torch monotid. The answer is no. No. For me. Yeah. I'm really sorry, but the answer is no.

I want to be careful how I say this, because I understand. Not because I don't think anyone's, like, great. It's just he just listed so many things. And I'm like, I don't see that in any one. pop star right now. Like someone wrote us an email that's not in this because it wasn't really a question, but they were like saying that like they think the closest comp for Madonna now is Taylor Swift in terms of complete cultural dominance. Yeah. Which sure. I can I can see that. But like provocation, activism, they don't live there. My thing is more that like the time we live in is so

different now. Right. So we often talk about these artists from the past. To have a provocative pop star, now they would have to be like fully right wing. It would have to be springtime for Hitler. You know what I mean? We can only dream. I mean, where is she? I'm sure there is

there is some country star up there. Her name's Lana Del Rey. But, you know, it's like I think that there's like a kind of we sort of put halos around these musicians from the past who are really bold and brave and spoke

up and were activists in their time when nobody else was doing it. And we now live in a time where everybody's doing it. And it's kind of like, it makes you a little suspicious at times, at least I do, I am, because it just feels like, you know, it can feel really performative or prescriptive or like cynical. Because we live in like a post woke timeline, you know. And like, I, which isn't to discourage people from speaking up about serious issues, but there's, it's a little bit harder to parse. And then, and then. and maybe it's also just a symptom of like the world going to shit that there's like so many more causes and reasons to speak up now

that everybody of course does it a lot more. But on the flip side, there's so much less taboo because people like Madonna and many other people like systematically work to dismantle it and so we don't like provoke against almost what, you know? Like what are the last existing taboos incest? You know, like I don't, you know,

There's a few hanging on, but like, I'm not sure a pop star is going to come out and be like, guess what I do? I fuck my brother. You know, like, I'm not really sure that would work. Angelina Jolie. Um, I'm not kidding. But like, you know, it's like, Billy Elish. It's sick. I'm more on the activism side of things.

It's like, it's just very ubiquitous now and for all sorts of reasons, not even just Madonna's influence. But I think that the way that Madonna did it back then was very frank. and no bullshit and honest. And it wasn't like insincere or coming from a place of like, I want to be like a politician. It was coming from like she, was sort of telling it like it is.

I do think Gaga did do a lot of this. I think she's the last pop star I can think of and point to that like provoked a next level. in her own way. People did like, you know, were like, what the fuck is this bitch wearing me dress? You know, like there was definitely like, she was able to like stir up controversy in a way that I don't.

And you know what? But she's not doing it now. And I think that there's a difference between when she started and now even because. Totally. Because that was quite a, quite a decade. What made Madonna so magnetic and why it was such a big deal

was because it was so candid. and it was like not rehearsed. Yeah. And it was, she was always very spontaneous in the moment. She was very funny. She would kind of give it back to journalists when they would talk to her. Yeah. And people just don't speak like that anymore publicly.

Everyone is very careful about what they say. Except with Chaparron. Mm-hmm. But her activism is about herself. Or yeah. Whatever. So it's a little different. It's like, leave me alone.

My personal space. Celebrities have rights. It's like, celebrity rights is a little. She does, you know, she's very vocal about. I think LGBTQ stuff and whatever. Of course. So are all the real housewives. It's like it's not special anymore.

It's just, yeah. I think Patrick, sorry. I think what you're trying to say and I think what the answer to this is is it's not possible. Yeah, it's just a different ecosystem. To be this person anymore.

Yeah. And then our favorite line from Reverend Hillary, great pod series. Thank you. Much less traumatizing than the one about Allison Chains. I don't know if you listen to that one, Patrick. I cried while we were recording it. Like I started crying telling the story.

There are many tales of woe. That one is rough, though. In the rock world. Hi, gang. Any thoughts on Linda Perry's latest comments? It did get me thinking about all the near collabs or shelf projects Madonna has worked on. In today's musical release landscape, what is the direction that could make a Madonna album relevant? Rude question.

I'm old enough to have worked in record stores when Ray of Light came out, and I saw what a huge impact that had. The last couple of albums almost came without me noticing, but perhaps this more. more to do with the current climate. I do kind of agree with Linda Perry, though. A new Madonna album should be an event from Passan. Honestly, fuck Linda Perry, first and foremost. No, just kidding. Okay.

Linda Perry, like, with all due respect, is not someone who should be working with Madonna, in my opinion. Right. I understand her comments and why she feels the way that she feels, and she's not wrong from her perspective. but I think from a sonic perspective, her production is not what Madonna should be doing. And also I think her comments kind of negated or ignored the primacy of dance music in Madonna's work.

Totally. Because that's not her thing. Yeah. And it is possible to have like a very beautiful, powerful ballad in the mix as Madonna always has. But I don't think we need a four non-blond's Christina Aguilera beautiful. whole nobody's daughter type of vibe for Madonna.

I just think her premise is wrong. Like, she says that she feels like Madonna's a follower. These are her comments, by the way, because we didn't say them.

She's following trends. She's trying to compete with Charlie XX and this and that. Which I don't, I mean, first of all, I think Madonna has always been

looked at the field of competitors. You know, like, and that's part of... I don't think it's to even, sees them as competitive.

Or whatever. Of like other chess pieces. Yeah. Other chess pieces. But yeah, I don't think she's trying to compete. I don't think she's following trends. I think she's had a feature of another very popular artist on her songs for the last like five albums, you know, like or four albums, like starting with hard candy. You know, this is like a thing she's done.

So I don't think that's weird for her to do that. I don't find, we've heard some of the music. I mean, I think you've heard all of it. I mean, she did the Prince song. She likes working with people. Yeah, and like this music, to me, that any was what I heard, doesn't sound anything like it's chasing a trend. It's like, if you were chasing a trend, this is not the music you would make. You know, you would like try to write like maybe like a Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams.

Like a Billy Eilish song or. So I just, I think the premise is incorrect. And in terms of like. I'm not. And like, who knows, maybe bad bunnies on the record. I don't know if he is or not. Yeah, because, you all mine. wouldn't surprise me.

You all mind if white girl speak a little espagnol. This can't be a Madonna album. There's all a Español. She had Maluma on that other record. He's hot. She's not going to meet him. She's not going to shake his hand. Say hello.

There's nothing weird about that for me. Also, like, this factors into the fact that Madonna still goes out. She's out. She's in the clubs. It's also just not, to answer more pace in this question, the last couple albums came without you noticing because we don't live in a monoculture anymore. You know, like. Even Madonna, who's one of the biggest artists that's ever existed, does not have a grip on the entirety of culture's attention.

Nobody does. Depends what your algorithm looks like. And that's fine. And that's fine. Not every album has to hit. I feel like Confessions 2, for whatever reason, is hitting more or it's gotten more attention. I can't know because I live in my own algorithm. What can I know?

Attention from who. Yes. My whole algorithm is Madonna, but obviously it is. I don't know what it is for like. for like... Maybe not streams, but I feel like people are excited about this record. Yeah.

And I think a lot of that has to do with how the record is being packaged and promoted. And like, she's changed up how she's dressing. There's like all sorts of things going on that are exciting and feel new about it.

Yeah. Hey, Queens. Gay-ass question here. She's had every hairstyle known to man. Blonde, brown, black, long, short, straight, curly, et cetera, all combined in different ways. What's your favorite Madonna hair era?

Personally, mine is blonde ambition. Not from the show per se, but all the public appearances surrounding it, slightly brassy blonde, above shoulder length, varying styles. Kind regards, Connor. This ruined me. Yeah, this is 1991. She's revisited it, though, at times. She's done this kind of look. She got the hyluronic acid.

Wow. This was really hard for me, honestly. Who's easy for me? Was it? What's yours? I have three answers. I do have multiple answers as well. Okay, go ahead.

One is that Conor has the correct answer. Okay. It's the 1990, 1991, Bleached blonde, blonde Ambition era. You and I talk about how that's her best look with the ripped up jeans, the leather jackets, but to me it's not that here. No, no, no, but it is.

That's just very done. But when it's undone... When it's undone, it's great. When it's very done, I'm just like, well, okay, that's just like old Hollywood. That's just Jean Harlow, you know, or Marilyn Monroe. or whatever. And then my runner-up for my answer is,

1986, Pop-I-Don't preach, Italians do it better, the blonde short. Third on mine, like kind of punk, the blonde punky short. That was like, like you well said, it was a big change from her previous look. They also did, they blew it out into the kind of Marilyn hair

and the dancing sequences of that video. So you get it two ways. To me, that was like, it cemented her as a pop icon, of course. But it would become very influential for a certain type of blonde woman in the 90s to have that like stick straight, short, shaggy. It was called the Garsohn that hairstyle. Did not know that.

Like the waiter? You would later see it on China Phillips of Wilford Phillips. Sure, of course, famously. Hold on for one more day. Josie Bissette on Melrose Place. It's in, it's everyone, the judge. Gen Z kids, go Google this hair. Because it's an incredible hairstyle.

If you can pull it off, which no one can. But that's what I was saying, no one can pull it off. Also, it's very much what you just described is like, you know, that meme that's like, the signifier becomes the whatever. Like, Madonna is like the actual. And then by time you get to like the Melrose Place girl, it's like lost all meaning. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm like, okay, it's not.

Also, Madonna's so fucking annoying because she's so beautiful and such a perfect like Fibonacci sequence, you know, whatever phase that any hair looks good on her. Like if I had that fucking popin on pre-chair, I would look like Nicknulty. But it's also a texture thing. Sure. Your hair wouldn't move like that. It's like it's

a whole... I got a keratin. That's why it's so like elite, that hairstyle. She actually has curly hair. Or like wavy. That hair, the hair from... That was... They treated the fuck out of that. Yeah, but the hair... When you bleach your hair, it loses its curl. I don't know if you know that. That's like a very... When I bleached my hair, like most

of the curl fell out. Okay. But, okay. the real answer, then I'm giving. This is the fourth answer. No, this is three. Three was his was right. Okay. Shout out to Papa Don't Preach.

Right. The fashion answer is the sex book because that's her most flawless that her hair has ever looked. And it's because Garin did it. Right. It's like, it's the Stephen Maisal. And it is like, it's like glamorous old Hollywood, but it's messy and slutty. And that's like what's so cool about it. Bad Girl was like that a little bit.

Okay. So my answer is Bad Girl Video. Mm-hmm. because of the eyebrows. I know it's not the question, but I think like the eyebrows are hair. Our hair, yeah. I just feel like it's not that different.

Like, basically like bedtime stories era in general is for me because she has the bleach blonde hair. It's a little less brassy. It's a little more white. And it's the same kind of length, but she has it with the super thin eyebrows. And the makeup is like, I'm also just partial to that because it's so 90s.

But like I think she just looks so perfect. in the bad girl video. I know. The bad girl hair might be her best hair, actually. But my, my,

my, like, secret in my heart, the rain pixie. I think it's really slept on that rain pixie. It's really good. It wasn't her real hair, right?

It was a wig, right? But it just, she looks so good with that hair. And we got the voice note from Chelsea Fairless. Yes. Saying that she's single white female

that hair from Lori Petty. This is a beautiful way to bring that in. Who she had just met because they shot a league of their own together. Right. And like, listen, unfortunately, it's not where you take it from. It's where you take it to. As Jim Jarmor said. And Lori Petty, we have all the respect for you in the world, Teng Girl, but Madonna did it better.

But she had the hair and the eyebrows. It is true. I really eyes popping like that with the, like... But one last thing. Okay. Part of the reason why I brought up this textbook is because I love when Garin would do that thing with Madonna where he would do the, like, high ponytail with the fall, the kind of like Brigitte Bardot, Sharon Tate, like, big hair. Like, it was a little like the hair she had at the time. The 96 VMAs, she did that then? Honorable mention is the hair from the Brit Awards.

Ooh. The like super long, like crazy extension blonde hair, which she did bedtime story? Is that what she put? That hair is crazy. Okay, so we had several answers. So, yeah, her hair always looks good. Sorry.

Also, again, like, original E-girl hair was also really cool when she briefly had that, like. Pepsi commercial. Yeah, blonde bangs, but brown hair, looked really fucking good on her. And this is the thing with Madonna, you can't pick one thing. You can't pick five songs. You can't pick the best hair.

It's like there's too much. There's too much. Hi, Yossi, I've been reading Mary Gabriel's tome on Madonna for months now. Admittedly, I'm a slow reader and can never focus on one book at a time. But when you announced Madonna Month and seeing your dedication to deep research, I knew that you'd read this book. And you did. So my questions are, how long did it take you to read this book?

Did you, with an exclamation point in that question. That's really long. This book is like 900 pages long. Yeah. Did you enjoy the reader? Is it more like prepping for finals? Most importantly, what are you reading as a palette cleanser? Thanks for all you do.

Really appreciate enjoy your podcasts and all your guests. Did you read it? The book? No. Okay. Thank you for seeing me, by the way, and seeing the toil. It took me about two weeks, but I'm a speed reader, and I don't always apply it, but I apply it for research because even Mary and Garibald with love and respect who's a good writer,

I don't care about the writing. I'm not, like, reading this for play. pleasure. I'm like laser beam searching for facts. So I'm speed reading and I'm like with my little book flag, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And I read every night before I go to bed for like an hour and I took this book to the Korean spa for an eight hour a day of just sitting there and reading it. And so I powered through. So no, I don't enjoy reading it. It's really like more like prepping for finals. But I got to do it. Yeah. I didn't really enjoy reading Christopher's book. A wealth of riches. Well, Christopher's book has a tone of voice that is just makes it special.

I read like four books for this, so I had to like get through it. Thank you for asking about my palate cleanser. I had exactly a little bit less than two weeks where I didn't have to read a book for work. And I squeezed in quite a bit. I read Allie Robottom's new book, Lovers, Triple X, which is, you would actually really like it. I think Patrick. It's set in 80, the world of 80s porn in Los Angeles. Fab.

Yeah. It's really, it's a great. It's amazing summer beach read. Mary Choi's book, Pool House, which is incredible. And I'm doing, actually, I think when this comes out, I'll have already done it. But anyways, I'm doing a conversation with her, so I had to read it. And this is my fucking love of my life. There's a new Eve Babbitt's book of her unsent letters and journals called To LA

that in the New York Review of Books put out and kindly sent me. Thank you, New York Review of Books. I really appreciate it. And it's just delicious. It's just like everything you, want from Eve Babitz. Like, she's so fun. She's like so gossipy, but like in the smartest, cuntiest, funnest way.

Every person mentioned is someone that's like opens up another world of like, I need to go look into this person. Like just magical, magical. I implore you if you like are into Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s. If you're into like a fun party girl who was the Mario. to Joan Didian. This is my, or the Wario, however you want to see it. She was like if Joan Didian was fun and liked to fuck.

Yeah. And did drugs. And that's what I read. Okay. Next question. Who should Madonna get to produce her next album and who should be the features and genres? It is a good question. And it's my favorite topic.

I talk about this a lot. Yeah. So I know what my answer is. Okay. But I also have a lot of answers. I know. Well, I think this is like, This is like a fun exercise where you could be like,

I'm, maybe I'm the producer in a broader Rick Rubin sense and then you get to kind of handpick like all of the parts of it, you know? Yeah. And I have tried to push some of this on her. My biggest one and like most important to me would be I really want her to work with Patrick Leonard again. I know it's like maybe some would see it as like going backwards in a way,

but I just think like, it doesn't have to be for the whole album. You know, it doesn't have to be an entire like wall to wall. 12 songs by Patrick Leonard, but I just feel like there's such a magic when the two of them got together. And like, I would, I would welcome a 20, like this decade version of what a song they would make or a couple of songs they would make together would be like, I would just really love to hear that. Yeah. There's a question coming up later where I want to get back

into that, actually. Okay, okay. So, you know, keeping in mind that I really love and respect and admire Madonna's stature and electronic music and keeping it a little bit dance floor oriented. I've always really wanted her to work with Jamie XX. Yeah. Which, you know, she's tight with Rumi. Like maybe it's, you know. It feels right to me.

Yeah. I also just love the way that he can kind of like take old records and work them in and make them feel new. Like I think he would have a lot of fun with her archives, like discovering that. and flipping them and it just feels like it would be spectacular. So I hope that happens. I was a little bit expecting that he might do something with her coming up. But the thing is, it's like, when it comes to Madonna and producers, like, I don't need her to be working with, like, the hottest new person or whoever's the coolest new thing.

I would love to hear, like, just from my own personal pleasure, like, her work with, like, draining. Like, a Madonna Blade song. Like, I'm seated. Yeah, like, the dare. I don't think that's the coolest. I just think it's, like, they're so kind of in a weird, occupy a weird space. And I feel like hearing those worlds come together, which is something she's done so amazingly throughout her entire career. I was like, what if this but with Madonna?

And then you're like, oh, it opens up a whole new thing. Exactly. So there's, like, I've had conversations with friends. we've had really silly names come up sometimes. Like, what if she made a record with Richard X? Why not? Features-wise, I mean, the one that came to mind and I would still really love to hear her,

this is Rihanna. I would love to hear her do, like, something with Rihanna. Okay, okay. This is also, I have a whole Rihanna speech coming up later. I just think it could be really cool, you know? You keep spoiling topics to come. But, yes, that would be incredible. Features I didn't really think much about.

I got very hung up on the producer part. Right. Well, because it's obviously so important. You know, I'm like Vaporwave Madonna. Is there Dan Lopatin Madonna? Is there George Clanton Madonna? George Clanton Madonna. Is there FCU cares Madonna? Or like Nina Jarachi.

Like, I think there's like, there's so many nowadays. Or like Jay Lloyd from Jungle would feel very Madonna. There's so many incredible young artists doing like cool things with just like a laptop. and the, I mean, I'll say it. I'm brave. Grimes. Grimes, the Madonna would be very interesting. Again, could go either way. Yeah, yeah. It could be very wrong or it can be right.

Or it could be really right. And then my other idea, I know they're broken up. Daff Punk. Interesting. Why not? That seems like more like down the line. How bad could it be, you know? It could be good.

Could be an opportunity to get Nile Rogers back. Sure. Doing something. Yeah. Would be pretty major. Okay. it couldn't be bad well you never know but

true hi yossi and Patrick yostrick he gave us a couple name this is for our who's that gay that will be our wedding our wedding invite

okay my question is after 63 years on the planet the only Madonna this is a 63 year old man listening to our amen brother the only Madonna albums I own are like a virgin the Immaculate Collection but it is the royal box version with CD VHS and

postcards, hell yeah. Amazing. And songs to remember. I was not prepared for that. It was a random side of one. If I could only have one more to make my collection more immaculate, what should it be? I think we're going to have different answers. Well, thank you for still buying albums. Yes, totally. And

like the Royal Box version sounds incredible. This I think is, it's like, are we judging based on like what is an important vinyl? Or what sounds good on vinyl, which I don't know anything about that, honestly. Which vinyl has the craziest packaging Is like do you need the petulie from like a prayer

Right But they don't have that anymore I don't know why I said this I just said Confessions on a dance floor I knew you were gonna say that And Confessions Live Confessions Tour Live Yeah

I just think it's a fucking cool It's like a cool and weird album That isn't in the vibe of the things That he already has Great But there's no wrong answer Get both There is a wrong answer

It's hard candy just kidding Yasin Patrick your deeper and deeper PhD level dives on the Madonna epics have been giving me life one hour of viewing

every night before bed has been like the sweetest candy syrup treat oh my gosh I don't even know if I read this sticky and sweet I've been a Madonna forever acolyte for over 40 years

and this has been like reliving these formative years through a shadow biography thank you question Madonna returned to collaborate with Patrick Leonard for Frozen, but she rarely goes back as she has with Stuart Price. How do you explain this?

Simply the triumph of his work on the celebration tour or a return to her last significant commercial and cultural success. I like how Patrick referred to erotica being the prequel to Confessions albums. How does he feel about the styling and couture of the Confessions to Epac? Again, she's returning to previously worn looks. I don't think she's ever done that before. How would you either advise Mother on which creative direction to take after Confessions to? Oh my God.

With endless gratitude and your tremendous scholarship, sham, P.S., could you please tackle Janet and actually gave us so much this has been erased? I agree. Yeah, don't worry about the PS. I think we will probably do that.

Now that I feel like I could do a pop star, like I was worried that I couldn't do a pop star, but I feel like if it's the right pop star, I could because I do love Janet and I have a history, you know? For sure. A lot of questions in here. Okay.

So let's talk about Madonna and Stewart. I think his music with her is just incredibly significant. It's very significant to the fans. The Confession Tour is like a full remix album that is like holds up equally with confessions. Like if you're into Confessions, Confessions Tour is a big deal to you. I would tell everyone to go listen to the Confessions Tour version of erotica. It's like a really important remix that was just for that tour.

It's so fucking fab. Yeah. So Stewart came back and did the music for the Celebration Tour, where he kind of reworked her whole catalog and that was sort of the beginning of them coming back together to do confessions too. Right. So they have done a lot of music even if it's not all like multiple albums like she's done with some others. But what's interesting is she does go back to people. You know, like she went back to Mirway for Madam X. Right. Which was like 15 years after their work together on American Life. And then William Morbitt came back for MDNA after Ray of Light.

and that's like she takes these big stretches and then it's kind of like, what if I tapped him again? Right. And like that's what I think is so interesting about what you were saying about Patrick Leonard because I can see it happening. Totally.

She kind of like, she moves around and then she comes back to people. I think this was so smart to do the Stewart thing now. Like you said, the celebration tour obviously kind of set the stage in tone for it. And Sham, I think alluded to this,

but like Confessions was her last great master work, you know? and it makes sense that she'd want to sort of be like, hey, remember this, you know? But for me personally, I think if I was the creative director, it would make so much sense for the next thing to be then, okay, but remember, like, remember, remember, remember what I'm like really, like the bread and butter Madonna and go back.

Because also it's like, I think, like, how cool would it be to have, like, those two next to each other? It's like back in the dance or the club, whatever, and then back to, like, basics, like, reminding us of, like the OG Madonna with the Patrick Leonard music. And maybe it's a little updated. I think I just want to hear a little more like pop, straight up pop Madonna. Well, it's interesting to invoke Frozen because my thought on this was that now that she's

revisited confessions, and she did put out the Veronica Electronica compilation of Ray of Light era songs and versions, but almost revisiting Ray of Light the way that she's revisiting confessions now. Yeah. Like going from like the clubbiness of confessions to a more kind of like spiritualized. That would be a collaboration too. Oh, yeah. It would be great.

You know what I'm saying? So maybe she gets the gang back together, William Orbit and Patrick Leonard, and like does something with that. And some new people, but just like kind of doing a similar ray of light vibe. Because ray of light is like we think of it as being. this kind of techno record and this like euphoric kind of

you think of the song ray of light you know what I mean it's really stands in there but it has like just straight up pop songs that are bangers and ballads and like yeah I do still all triple down on my thing which is I think that the best Madonna songs

are made when it's just her and one other person just like time and time again that's like hung up I mean all of confi you know like it's by and large But my advice is also call Jamie XX. Yeah. Right.

Okay. You know, do a new record, new direction. He also asked you how you feel about the styling and couture of the confessions to Epic. I support it. Okay. It's, it's, you know, there's some things that are coming out soon that people will see more that will be very surprising, which I'm excited about. I feel like she's taking more, I'm not going to say risks, but it's a bit of a departure. Right.

For the last several albums, it became a little predictable. Like, she likes to wear all black. You know, she had the grills happening. She was, she likes to look like tough and hard and, like, badass. And she's like, she's comfortable being with these very, like, kind of strong looks. She likes a strong shoulder. She likes gloves, you know. Totally.

There's, like, things that you expect. And what I really loved about the Confessions 2 imagery was that she was going back to the sort of confessions look, but doing an updated version of it. And it was like pinks and purples, but she's doing it in this way that still feels cool. And it's like, I'm looking forward to people seeing the things that I know are on the way. Right. Because she dips into, you'll see that it's like she's not abandoning any of those things like that make up her personal style. They do come back.

She is wearing black a lot. There's like some very exciting, very pop star. Are there any fingerless gloves? Breast plate type things going on. Fingerless gloves? You know what? I don't, I didn't fixate. so I don't remember.

I love when she wears fingerless clothes. She has a really fun fashion editorial coming out that's like a complete left turn from all of this that I think is going to be a conversation starter. Yeah, I think that to me it feels like she's branching out more. And maybe she's being more collaborative with her stylist, Rita, who sells her. She's also working with some other stylists here and there. Okay, great.

I've probably said too much. I know too much. I can't wait to see it. I've been enjoying the looks that I've seen. so far, which is again, this is June 1st when we're recording this. So I think she looks cool. And you know what? I'm going to say it.

I'd like to wear fingerless gloves on this podcast. Do you think I could pull it off? Why? I just really like how they look. I think they're cool. See, when I see them, I'm just like someone doesn't like how their hands look and they're covering them. Well, yeah, I'm 44, so I'm also, but I just, I don't know. We need like moisture gloves.

There's, you know, the Michael Jackson of it all. I love a glove. I love a glove. Okay. The next one. first of all, thank you for the Madonna deep dive. It did for me what the Bible probably does for Born Again Christians. I'm 45, so I feel like Madonna has always been there, but except for a few moments, like in 2005, when I happened to be at the Roxy, and Madonna does surprise appearance, weren't hung up.

With one Karen Gans. With one caring hands. I've never been a student of Madonna, but your podcast has converted me into an obsessive. I'm revisiting old albums, movies, et cetera. I even got a vinyl of like a virgin. Hell yeah. Support physical media. My question is, what if any TV or cinematry?

of Madonna's life or career would you like to see? As I was listening, I couldn't help thinking this would make for an amazing 10-part Ken Burns-style documentary. Thanks, Alex. Well, famously, I am the Ken Burns of Dumb bitches. I've already pitched that documentary, of course. That's what I think it should be. I'm like real, like, please don't make a biopic.

I'm okay with all of it. I'm like a glutton for punishment with Madonna. I will take it all. anything I can get. I love the old straight-to-video lifetime movie about Madonna starring an actress who I'll never forget named Tarumie Matthews

whose career was built upon her impersonating Madonna back in the 90s. It was crazy. Wow. I'll watch it all. The unauthorized documentaries just like bring it on. You just want as much content as possible.

I will always be amused by it. Okay. For me, it's like I would like to see a sort of traditional music documentary series about her in the style of like, if you've ever seen Spike Lee's documentary about off the wall,

the Michael Jackson album. It's so spectacular. And like, I want that, but I want it for every Madonna album. I think, like, just a massive docu-series would be so cool

because I just, the thing about Madonna is kind of a little bit like what I said about the Michael movie when I went on the big picture, which is like the best parts of the Michael biopoeuvre, are the

cosplay recreations of the performances but we just the original ones are better so it's like I don't need to see

cosplay like I don't want to see cosplay of truth or dare I don't want to say I want to sit there and see the real old footage you know

and there's a Kylie Minogue doc that just came out on Netflix that's really beautiful that is another kind of example of how to do it

I think I really and this was crazy at the time because I didn't even watch basketball back then but I kind of became

so upset that I became interested in basketball, watching the ESPN, the last dance documentary series about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, because all of that old footage was so fucking stunning. I loved it. And it had this incredible back-and-forth happening

because they're all being interviewed for it. And you would want to see all of Madonna's clapwriters being interviewed. But what I love is like, you know, Michael Jordan wants to tell his version of the story. Right. But then you have Scotty Pippen over there being like, that's not what happened. Yeah, you could have like everyone in here.

And then it cuts back to Michael Jordan. He's like, what did he say? And like you kind of get them fighting over like what happened. And like I want all that drama. Totally. With Madonna. But you know what? I'm going to pitch something off dome.

If anyone here has a lot of money and wants to invest in Yossi and Patrick films, I haven't briefed this with Patrick so maybe he doesn't want to be involved. But if I were to make a biopick, if they were like Yossi, here is a bunch of money, gun to your head, you have to make a biopic. I would 100 percent, I would just need license. think of one song play it's just holiday. I don't need anything else. And I would do her life from the day she arrives in New York

until the day holiday comes out. That would be my biopic. Because A, you can't do a fucking cradle to grave biopic. They're stupid. They don't work. There's too much for her. B, you don't have the uncanny valley of like the actress. You know, like it's like this is a sort of an unseen era of Madonna.

Like obviously pictures of surface and stuff. B, it's a fucking really cool. period piece where like a lot of the stars of that biopic, not stars of people, but could be like what was New York like back then? And you have Dantiteria and you have like little cameos like Futura and the Beastie Boys and Jelly Bean. And like I just think there's that's such a rich part of her history that's actually really under explored. Yeah. Because it wasn't overlapping with her fame. And I just think it could make a really cool visual story. So if anyone wants to produce financially. It should be directed by Sean Baker

and it should star Telia Ryder. Okay. I've already We're in it. We're doing it. You know, call my agent. Like the church, babe. Like we like, we like show that whole like we get the breakfast club songs. We get Emmy and the Emmys. Like she's fucking opening for David

Johansson of the here. There's so much cool stuff. A punk movie about Madonna. Exactly. Perfect. Solved it. Get in touch you guys. We'd like to do that. Um, okay. This one we're going to talk about for a while, I think. So I think we should just go straight into it. One of the songwriting things that Madonna is best at, in my opinion, is bridges, modulations, and solos.

There are some super iconic ones, the rap and vogue, the jet sound and key changes and rain, the cherished bridges and breaks, the dramatic break and live to tell, all the modulations and like a prayer. Do you have a favorite, deeper cut example of these kind of secret sauce things that take songs to the stratosphere of pop? Well, yes. So let's stop there, because it gets. into Kenny Loggins and we don't need to get into that. From Adam, I get what he means, though. Yeah, yeah.

It's funny because this question is coming in before we do the film episode, but we actually totally talk about that in the film episode how she was the Kenny Loggins. Yeah, fully. Okay. So someone came to work today with this question. I don't like to pick favorites, but this might be my favorite question. Yeah. There's so many specific ones because it is a hallmark of what she does.

Patrick's not going to like this, but this will be a part where I'll be doing a lot of singing. And I'm sorry. It's my show. I know. I know. I already know. I already know. You came prepared

When I came I was like Here we go She got me Okay well for me Number one First and foremost It comes to mind I don't know if it's something

My number one favorite But it might be because it's the first That comes to mind The Bridge in True Blue No more sadness I kiss it goodbye The sun is bursting Right out of the sky

I searched the whole world Someone like you Don't you know It's just it's that no, it like bursts. It's like, it does what it's saying. Let's also just say these are not deep cuts. It's like, did he say we have to do deep cuts?

He said deeper cut and it's like, but you know what? I don't want to. Let's just talk about the best ones. Let's talk about the best ones. Yeah. That one is, that one's really, when I'm walking, I already said this on the first podcast, when I'm walking my dog and this comes on, I'm literally, people are like, oh, there goes that crazy lady, like, my arms out.

You have a certain, like, deep-seated love for like the Shoe-be-doo type. Madonna's song Do you want to know what song came to mine first for me And I can't even believe it And I don't even know why is jump Oh, okay, so that's why you were saying before I mean it's a fucking banger Because it's like, and it's so simple

It's very simple songwriting But she introduces in the first verse There's a lyric where she's like, I'm going down my own road And I can make it alone And then the second verse She goes, I learn my lesson from the star my sisters and me and then like there's that bridge toward the

end where she goes I can make it alone I can make it alone and then the vocoder comes in going my sisters and me it kills me it's so cool it's so cool uh you that's supernatural fucking good it's so good it's like

give Joe Henry his flowers it's a big one for me that's a really good one okay what do I have next well he's at the dramatic break and live to tell which yes God tier but the bridge bridge if I ran away. Oh, come on. I never have the strength to go very far. How will they hear the beating of my heart?

And then with the way, she's like, will I grow cold? I know. This is what I was saying about the melodrama. It's crazy. Will I grow old? Okay, but then. Okay. Since we're on the topic of ballads. Yeah.

All the world is the stage. The take about... Oh, no, how you are. Take a bow bridge into final chorus as she cuts the chorus short. To be like, guess you've always known. I literally just got the chills. Yeah.

Un-fucking believable. Okay, here's the left field. Light up my life. Okay. So blind I can't see. the bridge from Who's That Girl? That's a fucking good one. That's a really good bridge.

Yeah. That's like a lifetime bridge. No one can help me now. Who's that girl? Kianas, Estanina. We take these things for granted. It's just exactly. It's like, and you know,

a lot of people need more bridges like that. I agree. Some of you could use a bridge. Some of you couldn't even find a bridge. The one that... You couldn't cross a bridge. Maybe you should jump off of one. Pay the toll.

This one, which I read that she like fully ad-libbed in the moment, many such cases, into the groove bridge. Oh. Live out your fantasies here with me. Just let... That's one of the greatest bridges of all time.

Now I know you're mine. Now I know you're mine. Come on. It's just me screaming, actually, this whole section. Okay. And I want to say about Vogue, because I can talk about Vogue

for 100 million years. The Vogue rap, obviously, we've discussed. It's the bridge though, not the rap. Beauty's where you find it. Not just where you bump and grind it. Soul is in the musical.

That's why I feel so beautiful. Magical. Life's a ball. Come on. And then it goes into that chorus. That chorus on the song is where the song, because this is what I want to talk about. It's not just about the bridges or the modulations.

It's about, and this is a dance music concept. It's about the build. The way that the song builds and then breaks. And so like that chorus, of course. Which is what a bridge is for, right? Is the chorus in the video or Madonna and Olly Crum's the third. The two of them are cutting a fucking rug and changing the world forever and ever, and we're never getting over it as long as we live.

As long as we live. And you know, I couldn't let this question go by without me, the world's leading cherish fan mentioning the introlude and cherish. You're giving it. Giving it to me, boy. Crazy. Keep giving me all, oh, oh, you join.

She snapped. I also really like, I don't know what this is called, but her, like, sexual scatting in burning up. You know, that's, I don't know if he meant something like that, but I just, yeah. Like, she's, she went crazy with it. Like, I think, uh, what's his name? Reggie Lewis felt uncomfortable in the room.

Sometimes you got to take it there. And she didn't, she's amazing. Um, I don't, I, I'm stupid, so I don't totally know what a modulation is. A modulation is like key change. Oh, okay. Yeah. So when I say a key change, I'm doing theater because I also don't know. I, like, obviously I know in theory what it means when a key change is. Yeah. Could I point it out for you? Probably not.

A bridge tends to fuck me up more than a key change. Personally, key changes are high drama and they're really good for live performance. Like, because you really want to like bring it home. You do the same chorus three times in a live show. It's like you want to kind of do something a little. Give the people a little drama. But Bridges, man. Yes, you really is one of the best to ever do it.

Okay, the next question. This is such a Yossi question. I'll read it to you so you can answer. Okay. Yossi, love the show. Thanks for everything you do. After listening to your Brilliant Madonna miniseries, I've been going back and relisting to songs.

hadn't heard in years. As someone who listens to a lot of trip hop, caveat, I know everybody hates the term trip hop, but it's a useful phrase for categorizing a certain sound. I was surprised to notice that Justify My Love contains a lot of the musical elements associated with that subgenre, slowish breakbeats, sultry vocals, etc. Making this connection leads me to some questions I'd love to hear you explore. Do you consider Justify My Love as proto-trip-hop? Did Madonna inadvertently create slash influence the genre? related do you consider cruel by Tori Amos to be trip hop. Are there any other trip hopie songs from non-trip hop artists that you can think of?

Thanks, Liam O'Donohue. Hi, Liam. Hi, Liam. Well, no. Okay. My answer was yes. No, like, okay. Sorry, let me, I'm like, I'm like melting down.

It's not proto-trip hop because it does not predate trip-hop. Right. I think that was kind of what he was getting at. But trip hop is like 88, really, if you're going to like, again, tripop doesn't exist. But like the Wild Bunch, which was the DJ group that yielded massive attack, put out their first single, actually maybe I want to say 87. And that's kind of like a place that I would pin as like one of the earliest. versions of what has been come to call trip hop, even though nobody likes to associate with that term or whatever.

And also the first massive attack single came out in 1990. But that's, so that's almost contemporaneous, you know? But I do think it is. It is. I mean, I'm like a trip hop neophyte. I never got into it that deeply. I kind of, I don't dislike it. It's in my vocabulary of music I listen to.

but it would always kind of sneak in the side door for me, you know? Like, these Madonna songs, they give me that vibe. I was listening to Modern Rock Radio when the sneaker pimps were big. Totally. I'm going to blank. But there's a sneaker pimps remix of a Madonna song that I really like. I was watching MTV Amp when, like, they were showing, like, tricky and goldie videos and Portis Head and all that stuff.

But it's not like my thing. So I, myself, don't always know when something is Tripop. I think it's definitely like obviously sounds like it to me for sure. But because of the breakbeat and the fact that she's essentially rapping. Yeah. So those are kind of the elements, right? Like it needs to have a bit of like a hip hop influence and that's there. Andre Betts though, like was not a trip hop person, right?

Like that's not. But yes, if we're just talking seriously. So that sound became so ubiquitous. It was like everyone was using those sorts of beats on songs. Like the smashing pumpkins were doing that on Ador. You know, it was like... I love Ador. But you know what I mean?

It became like kind of just a new sound that flooded the marketplace. Yeah. And I thank you for bringing up from the Choir Girl Hotel in this chat. I love that Tori Amos album. It's my favorite Tori Amos album. I love the production on it. cruel is an incredible song. If anyone doesn't listen to Tori Amos,

go listen to it, it's good. This is like really got me spinning this just for my love question because I'm like, Madonna's so tapped in. This is kind of something I wanted to say earlier when the person was talking about Linda Perry's comments where like, oh, she's like chasing the trends or whatever. I'm like, Madonna has always been so tapped in and interested

in what's going on in subculture and in the zeitgeist, you know, like back to this. So it's like, you know, like, you know that she knew about, I'm sure, what was happening. You know, like. Yeah. And like, of course. Tripop comes from the same shit that she came from, which is like wild style type music of like early, you know, like, that was like, that was like, that was like, that was what spurred that off, granted in England. But like, she also, so it makes so much sense to me.

Then there's like a bit of a prince of it all, you know, like, because Just My Love's comes from. from Ingrid Chavez's letter to Lenny Kravitz, and it was supposed to be, like, a song that, like, Prince was going to work on, but never did. And then she got with Lenny Kravos, and Lenny Kravitz took her. Like, it's a whole, this whole thing is, like, a, the red string. But yes, the answer is yes. She's not, like, a static person.

No. You know, and it's like, I think that there are conversations that have happened around her, for sure, but also other artists that are really big of, like, oh, you're, like, being a vulture. You're, like, taking from these cultures. you're doing this and that. It was all coming from a place of like genuine enthusiasm and fascination and like also proximity and access.

Totally. It's like she knows who all these producers are. She meets them all. It's like she's in the scene. She hears the music. Yeah. And like she's always looking for like a new sound that excites her that she hasn't heard before.

And so that's like kind of those spaces where that happens. What's really interesting is that I have a lot of friends that are songwriters and producers and they when they talk about Britney Spears they talk about this because they're just like Britney's always ahead like of electronic production

of dance production like her records when they come out sound weird because no one else is doing what she's doing and it's because like her stature in the industry is such that

when producers are doing something really groundbreaking they'll bring it to her first so she kind of hears it before everyone too which is part of the whole I just this just like Cement. Justify my love

like just cements for me how much like Madonna is in the same river of influence as a massive attack was, right? It's just expressed different. Like she also knows about like the, you know, these are the breaks

and Curtis Blow and the Africa bombada and stuff because she was like partying with those people. And so she's obviously going to end up having her version of that because she's tapped into the same inspiration sources that massive attack was. She may not have been a crate digger herself, you know, but I think it was a good question. I mean, I don't think she created trip hop, but I do think she was.

And also, she was there when it happened. She was there when it happened. And it never ceases to blow my mind that 1990 is a psychotically early year that this song came out. Because no matter what, I have a- It does sound so ahead of its time. I have a Mandala effect where I'm like, this is on erotica, and it's not. Yeah, I know. It's a song that she's stuck on Immaculate Collection.

It was the single off of Immaculate Collection, which is so crazy. Okay. Bonge, Yossi and Patrick, bange. Fongge. I'm a huge bandsling fan, and Madonna Month has been my favorite thing since the episode about the replacements, way back in the early days, JK., but also please do another maths episode. Like a lot of elder millennials, Madonna is one of the formative pop culture figures of my life. But I've noticed over the last 10 to 15 years that while Gen Z has embraced lots of acts before their time, Abba, Fleetwood Mac, et cetera, they don't seem to revere Madonna. Quick question, does Gen Z revere Abba?

I might just not know about this. I know, you know what? I just took that completely at face value and was like, if you say so. Flew & Mac, I remember because of the guy skateboarding video that, like, made it go viral on TikTok. Yeah, cranberry juice, exactly. Or like Kate Bush, stranger things. Exactly. Abba, I'm not, I trust this person.

I just don't know about it. He said, they don't seem to revere Madonna. I'm sure her appearance at Coachella with Sabrina Carpenter and her upcoming album will change that. I don't know if it will. I'm not sure. I'm not sure it will. But would love to hear you all discuss why Madonna has not caught on yet with young people. Do they find her cringe?

Has she just not had her moment with them? Or have I got this all wrong? They love Madonna. I don't think they love Madonna. They don't. Yeah. And we got some letters that were not questions. I don't know if we're going to read them because they're a little...

Just to like gas ourselves? Yeah. Just to like jerk ourselves on. They're all just so nice. Yeah. They're too complimentary. But there were letters from Gen Z listeners who really had never engaged with Madonna's music before. We're not familiar with most of her work.

Yeah. So that's real. I have some working theories. Me too. Yeah. Okay, well, I think they do think she's cringe. Okay. Like, or a lot of them do, or some of them do.

Or there's a fear that she might be, so they don't want to go near it. Right. Like, she's someone that is like, I think every pop star has spoken about Madonna's influence or paid homage to her the way Sabrina Carpenter is doing now. There's like, I think there's an awareness that she's a big deal. but they think that she's old and they think that she's like maybe trying to stay relevant and that it would be corny

to get into her current music because this is the thing with Madonna, she stays current. Yeah. Like there is a new Madonna record before that there was this Madonna tour. There was like remixes dropping. There's songs that go really viral on TikTok

like Frozen had those remixes that were really big. Like she does have these moments where these old songs come back and these things happen. there hasn't been like a wholesale embrace of her. Yeah. I think because there's some kind of,

there's like a lack of understanding and maybe like a little bit of hesitation and fear associated with it. But also it's like if they really knew they would not be embarrassed to. 100%. And they just don't know because no one's telling them. There's not like a moment that happens

to look back at Madonna's career because she hasn't died. The 10-part dockey series that we just pitched hasn't come out. Yeah, there hasn't been like some unifying cultural moment. Yeah. It's also like, I guess my theory is like maybe twofold. One is that like, I think a good counterpoint back to our favorite Yinen Yang is

Courtney, right? Because Courtney Love is very much in the zeitgeist. Gen Z does think she's cool. Yeah. And I think it's because she pretty much only existed in the, in the forefront of culture in the decade of the 90s, right? Like she kind of didn't put much... There's less work to parse.

There's less work to parse. And she's... It's legible because it's just this one thing, this one version of her that was so cool. And like, changes a little, like from the beginning, from, you know, but not that much. And obviously she has so many amazing sound bites and stuff. But so does Madonna.

But Madonna just the dearth, like, you know, she spans... It's more pronounced recording because it's more focused. It's more focused. It's more dense into one thing. Madonna spans four decades, you know? Like it's impossible. And the second thing is that she kept going. And if she had not kept going, she might exist in that space of nostalgia where people

are like, man, how cool. And she would be frozen in Amber as like whatever bad girl video as expressed yourself. But she's not because she has, and fucking God bless and she should, she has continued to be visible in public in every iteration and every age. And that is a difficult thing I think for Gen Z or any like. generation that's like three generations behind you to be like, that's cool. Yeah. And it's interesting that we got so many letters bringing up Janet Jackson.

And I think because that is starting to happen with Janet Jackson, there's like a reappraisal going on. She's had little ones every few years. Like when people reinterrogate the Super Bowl incident or what happened to her career. But like none of them have so far been like really like her work is so spectacular and special and meaning. full. You know, it's like, it's been really more focused on like, this was unfair. Yeah. But like.

The classic apology tour. Yeah. Like, we don't, we don't need it. But now, now I think people have a genuine interest in her sound and her look and what she was doing all throughout the 90s and early 2000s. And I can feel the Janet wave coming a little bit. But that's also because Janet is a little less visible. A little bit less visible. Also a little bit less deep and long of a career still compared to Madonna.

You know, like 2000. Well, long, maybe yes, but dense, no. Yeah, yeah. So, but I agree with you. I think, like. I'm also surprised no one's re-evaluated Aaliyah, really? I think there was, like, when Aaliyah died, it was so sad. Yeah.

And then there was, like, a long period of time where her music was not available. It was on streaming. And there was, like, all these sorts of things. I feel like there's an Aaliyah resurgence that needs to happen to, because she was such a huge deal. Incredible. I mean. But I think we answer that okay. I don't know that like,

I don't know what's going to happen with it. Like, I don't know that like this album will, you know, bring all the boys to the yard or whatever, all the Gen Zey to the yard. But listen, she's always going to do huge numbers. Her old songs continue to do big numbers. Like, I think I saw something on Twitter, but you know what, I don't know if it's real or not.

Could be AI. I'm a boomer. But that was like she's the number one top selling female artists of all time. Yeah. Which it sounds right. Because if you're counting tours and stuff, like, you know, every time she did a tour, it broke a record of like, that was the biggest tour. Mariah Carey always had some record like that, though.

Yeah. So I am curious. She was on the list. I'm curious about the fine print. Again, I didn't look into it. I said, yes, yes, AI image, whatever you say. But, like, you know, like lately I've noticed beautiful stranger getting traction. Hell yeah.

It's been going viral and not, like, we talked about it, or you and Paul talks about it. Yeah. But even apart from that, it's been kind of brought back because people are like, look how amazing she looks. The song is so good. Like she does have these songs that kind of get dug back up. Yeah. Die another day needs to happen soon, I think, because that song is so good. Hollywood has had a little bit of a resurgence.

Amen. Like, these songs do come back in an interesting way, and that will continue to happen. There will always be like randomly a Madonna song goes viral on TikTok and starts charting again. it's almost like she has too many hits for that not to statistically be the case that that will keep happening. I know. I guess I just like, I'm like, I don't know what Genzi likes because I'm too old. So I'm like, is it, are they just used to a different kind of pop star?

And this is like outside of that understanding. Does Gen Z like Lady Gaga? Yes. Okay. Let's get into it with the next question. Because this topic continues for a minute. But, you know, do you want to read this one? Yes.

Hi, Yassie and Patrick. First, things first. as a 24-year-old capital G gay guy, I'm equally ashamed and thrilled to admit this podcast was my entry point into Madonna World, which is, I know, I don't, this is going to sound not homophobic, but something next door to homophobic.

It blows my mind when I'm like, okay, Gen Z doesn't like it, but Gen Z gay guys don't like Madonna? This is what I'm talking about, and it's not their fault. Right, okay. I'll keep reading the thing. I'm equally ashamed and thrilled to admit

this podcast with my entry point into Madonna World. The song snippets would play a while y'all talked and suddenly I was sitting at my desk, doing a full listen of True Blue, adding almost every sound to my playlist and calling my mom, so cute, to ask her opinion on Papa don't preach. With that said, my question is twofold. I'm like, how did this 24-year-old gay guy get to bands playing to begin with? Because it's like, I'm not a Madonna guy, but like Pearl Jam got me. I don't know. Okay. With that said, just smile because it happened. With that said, my question is twofold. Number one, I'm both a pretty

online person and pretty enmeshed in real life gay circle. goals, but I feel like my generation is not, exclamation point, talking, exclamation point, about, exclamation point, Madonna, exclamation point, enough. Three explanations. Correct. I wonder if you have a theory as to why. I don't want to act myopic. I know people talk about her, but I basically had to beg my algorithm to start showing me Madonna content. I wonder if you share the same feeling that young people have lost these ancient texts, so to speak.

They have opened the fucking schools, is what I keep saying. Beautifully put. Does it have to do with the streaming hell we live in, or is it simply because the pop girls ripping from her playbook aren't citing their sources. Why is it that Joni Mitchell, Fiona, and Courtney Love, all mothers, to be clear, are referenced in interviews and not Madonna. Kind of like what we were saying before.

Yeah. Should we answer that one first and then get to the second question, just so we don't get too confused? Women are vicious. Okay, like there's a, there can be a fear. I mean, you definitely saw it with like, Nikki Minaj and Lil' Kim. Sure, sure.

Nikki Minaj versus the world. Right. It's like... You don't want to be supplanted. You don't want to say this person influenced me and is a big deal to me, and then they're not nice to you. or they don't embrace you.

Right. So there's like a lot of that that happens. But then there have been girls who are very open about it. And Madonna does end up embracing them one way or another. Addison Ray is a big Madonna, huge Madonna fan. I think of Ariana Grande back in the day because she was a big Madonna fan as well. And she, there was like, I remember she got on stage and performed with her at some concert because Madonna invited her to it. But then Madonna kind of like said something bitchy to her or something like went viral.

but she loves Madonna, you know, it's like... I would have loved an Addison feature on this album. On the next, like, a ray of light revamp. Oh, yeah, perfect. That's actually perfect. Better for the ray of light one. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

So, like, and it's interesting because I don't occupy necessarily just, like, the spectator position because of where I am in the world and who I talk to and what I know. Yeah. So I can be a little bit oblivious to that. Like, I think that they all do talk about Madonna. or I assume that they do because it just seems so clear but maybe they aren't.

But the thing is, like, I don't know that they talk about her but because I know the ancient text, I just see it. I'm like, Madonna, that's Madonna. That's your inspiration. That's your influence. But yeah, if you didn't know the ancient texts,

you just think they made that up. And maybe it's just too obvious. Like, it's cooler to be like, oh, I'm into this niche person. Right. So I seem not so obvious that I'm obsessed with Madonna, but everybody should be obsessed with Madonna.

It seems to be the message of this podcast. It shocks me that young gay men don't love Madonna. Like, it's like they don't know what they're missing. I mean, I guess it is the streaming hell. Like if he's not being served Madonna content, that's one thing. But I think that going back to what we were saying about the breadth and the scope of her work, that it can be a little bit like, where do you start? Which is why we did this podcast.

And then this podcast, I think for people like Kyle, it is like, here, we're introducing you. let us leave the way. Yeah. We'll show you everything and it will all make sense. I told you I did like a little thing with this like music TikTok journalist type person

game man young, Gen Z. And we were talking about Rosalia and he was like, you have never in my life scene like Catholic imagery embraced to that level. And I was like,

my neck vein. I was like, but, but, shrill. Okay. So I don't know if we really answer that question, because I'll be honest. I just don't know.

It makes no sense to me, but also, like, how can you know what hits it? I just, I don't know what it's like. I have no understanding of what it's like to grow up in this world of culture. Whereas, like, I grew up with a monoculture. I grew up with MTV. Like, I know how things were fed and farmed to me. Like, I don't know how, I don't know how things are fed and farmed. The ancient texts are not being lost.

There's a lot of preservation going on. She did her whole reissue project. The videos are now on YouTube in 4K. It's like, there's no excuse. But it does take a little bit of enterprising spirit to like go back probably and dig through it. I would equate it with like, you know, I don't know, growing up I knew Liza Minnelli was a thing or like Barbara Streisand. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that's like generation right back.

Or Cher. Yeah. Like I knew Cher because she was in movies and she was still in the culture. But it was like or Elton John you could say someone like that. It's like there comes a point. He's 24, babe. 10 years ago, where were we at? Madame X is in the culture, he's not knowing about that.

He's not caring about that. But when we were in our early 20s, we weren't maybe familiar with, like, all of Barbara Streisand's work or someone that was, like, a generation removed like that. You kind of, you find your way to it later and you're like, this is genius. Oh, this makes so much sense. She's like three generations removed. That's the thing. You know, it's not one.

Right. Gaga is one. Mm-hmm. This is more than one. Correct. So I think that's what... But she's still... It's different if they're still active.

Of course, of course. Yeah. You know, I just get involved. Yeah. And he's right. Like, I, and you'll relate to this because you loved like punk and alternative music or whatever. Like, we learned about so much stuff because it was name checked by bands or in liner notes. So if the girls are not mentioning.

But it was because of the radio too and MTV. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a thing of like. TikTok is the radio. And I never thought of this until just now. but when I was in high school, my favorite band was The Cure.

Right. I was in high school in the year 2000. So it's like this was not like the Cures heyday. It's like you're listening to the Smiths in college. Like this wasn't like... I guess people don't do that with pop though. Like we did that with rock. We followed back to the ancestors because we're like,

but I don't know that people do that with pop. But on modern rock radio, you would hear a sublime song into a 311 song into a cure song. An old Cure song. You know, like they would keep it like present. So it was sort of like it felt current even if it wasn't. Okay, part two of this question is with that in mind, if you had to come up with an EP of Madonna for dummies born after 2001, what would you put on it?

I don't know if this question feels out of touch. It just find it interesting that a few weeks ago I never had a conversation about Madonna with any of my queer friends and I still get blank stairs when I try to bring her to the table. I used to think it would be a daunting task to do my Madonna homework considering the depth of a catalog. It's been anything but laborious. Man, Kyle, the best Gen Z. I know. Kyle, the president. We need you.

This was really hard. it was easy for me because I'm not making an EP for him you're handing him the emaculate clock I'm giving him an assignment

and to everyone in their 20s who's just getting into Madonna especially gay guys this is where it's on you it's your job to have your friends over on a Friday night

getting drunk doing whatever kids do now I don't know if they drink these days crat them Yeah, ayahuasca, I don't know. Pull out your little jewel pens and puff on them and do what is colloquially known as gay guy music video night. Right.

Okay. YouTube surfing. You need to do a YouTube playlist of Madonna's most iconic videos. It's more fun. It'll bring everyone into Madonna's world. It will check off many boxes at once. Yeah. You're able to spot the visual influences and be like, oh, Lady Gaga never would have done this without this.

Totally. You know, you can, Miley Cyrus is referencing this. Whoever you, you know, you kids like these days. And so old. So that playlist includes, open your heart, express yourself, Papa Don't Preach, Material Girl. Right. Bedtime story. Nothing really matters.

Nothing really matters. It was a music video on Gay Guy Music. video night? Forget it. Especially on Cratham. Oh my God. On Cradham. Crazy.

Pull out the wigs while you're at it. Ray of light, music, human nature, beautiful stranger, what it feels like for a girl, Vogue, bad girl, Hollywood, deeper and deeper. All the VMA performances. I like how you were like,

and hung up. What I am giving you as a double album. It's a music video playlist. It'll give you two hours of and arguing and talking shit and watching the video and talking about the video.

Like, it's more engaging. than just listening. Right, right. I think that's wonderful. I would also add that I think this is almost where maybe I would do the five songs that we were mentioning earlier that like what's the cooler ones that like what it feels like for a girl, that kind of stuff here. Also I would be like get into the fucking remixes, man. Like if you don't, if you can't get into the remixes, especially around, I mean, they're all good, but like bedtime story error remixes, erotica remixes. like there is a dearth of like the coolest shit you've ever heard.

And like if that can't get your friends involved, you know, like if that, to me, like, that's like the clearest indication of how cool these Madonna songs are is when you hear them remix and you're like, Jesus Christ. You know, like. Put the Confessions tour up on the TV when you're having a party in the background. Everyone will slowly just only start fixating on it. You know, that's what you do. Have a Madonna party. That sounds great.

A Madonna education party. Hi Yossi, hi Patrick I'm Anna, Gen Z listener from Berlin I love it I only recently got into Madonna like obsessively

also thanks to the podcast I did attend the Confessions Tour because I felt like I couldn't miss out and it was incredible although the Berlin crowd was super lame

She had to flex on me She was like I wasn't even a fan and I went to confession tour And you're Gen Z did she mean the celebration tour She must have meant celebration tour because she would have been too young to go to confession

As an infant she went to the confession store Number one Obviously Madonna is the most influential pop star of all time and her influences everywhere, but I'm curious in what current pop star do you see her blueprint the most? I'm vaguely aware of her beef with Gaga, and now that I'm more educated on Madge,

I kind of see her artistry with a little less admiration because Madonna kind of did it first. When it comes to the modern pop girl, Janet Jackson, is often named with Madonna in tandem as the mother of all pop girls. I think that's especially evident in Brittany. How do these two compare to each other? Did

they ever interact? How do you think of their respective careers in terms of how similar or indifferent they are. What's one aspect that one of them maybe had more influence than the other? Number three,

do you have a favorite piece of Madonna memorabilia? What would you kill someone to own? Love the podcast, et cetera. Thank you. Anna. Thank you, Anna. Anna.

Let's start with Janet. Okay. Janet is an interesting parallel to Madonna to me because they came up at the same time. Yeah, Janet, like slightly later. Later, she's younger. But she also started very young.

Yeah. she didn't hit until... Right. Like, first it was Madonna Prince, Michael Jackson, as like the top three of pop music. And then as Janet came up, she kind of joined Madonna. Because the Jackson's had a whole like system happening there. Star System, Child Star System. Factory.

Factory. They invented K-pop. And I think Madonna and Janet are both in different ways by products of Michael. In terms of... Yeah. him setting this model for a pop star and them looking and seeing what he was doing and applying it to themselves. Yeah. And obviously the Freddie demand of it all for Madonna.

Brittany is very interesting to me because I think that Brittany almost is like a perfect hybrid of Madonna and Janet Jackson. Is that kind of what that person was saying? Yeah. I think that is like, I never thought of it that way. And then once I read the sentence, I was like, damn, boom, that's so good.

Like Britney's personal style is more Janet. It's more like Janet influence. And Janet is also a little more bubbly, like, smiley, like, had kind of... I mean, Madonna's sexy, but... They're both sexy, yeah, but Britney is more in the, like, giggly, you know, Janet. It's more like, let me show you my abs. Yeah. It's also, like...

Madonna is a dancer. She's a serious dancer. Don't get me wrong, but Janet is a dancer. And Britney is a dancer in a different mold. Right. Britney's dancing is more... I think they're dancing style. Yeah, they're, like, they come from a different, like...

Madonna comes from more of, like, a ballet and... modern dance and they come from more of like a Paula Abdul. Paula Abdul, like almost like drill march dancing. Yeah. I don't know if that's real thing I made that up. But Brittany's thing is that she also really loved Whitney Houston. And you can kind of hear that in her vocal performances and how she, like, especially if you go to her early, like, Star Search and like Mickey Mouse Club.

She was trying to belt it out and do like Whitney Houston thing. Which she could. She had it. Yeah. And she like, there's, it's fun to like, trade. all these influences with these people. In terms of like their interactions, Janet and Madonna, I feel like there were not any.

I couldn't think of any. I was hoping that you might know one, but like I didn't come across anything in any of the books I read or any of the interviews that I think I would have noted it down because I would have found it interesting and I didn't. I saw maybe a couple of comparisons being made, but nothing of them like talking or knowing each other. They must have.

I mean, they were huge at the same time. And they were definitely... I'm sure they crossed paths. And obviously, Madonna was friends with Michael. So, like, she must have had some... They were coexisting and they had... I feel like they must have had some crossover. Did they have no crossover production-wise?

Did Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam ever do anything for Madonna? No. I don't think so. Yeah, it's really interesting. And there are so many parallels you can draw. I was saying to you the other day, like, I feel like the velvet rope is Janet's ray of light. A hundred percent. You know?

Yeah. It's like, you can see their careers take similar trajectories. And I think maybe they were just... kind of mutually respectful and kept a distance from each other because they were both kind of serving a different thing. Yeah, maybe serving a slightly different audience, but also a lot of overlap. Like, I love Janet, you know? I'm obsessed with Janet. I think also what's kind of nailed here in like the mother of all pop girls is they both came out of an R&B tradition. They were the first. Madonna was first, really female pop star to kind of come, but obviously Janet the same. And like,

all modern pop music is now rooted in an R&B. and B-Worj. It wasn't for them, you know. This is mirror the blueprint, you know, like, where do you see, what current pop star do you see? It's a bit mirroring question that came before it. I just don't, I see shards of her in every pop star, obviously. Yeah. Like, pieces of her exist in every pop star. Like, obviously you can see what Sabrina took in terms of like the bomb shelly, the lingerie,

whatever. You can see even Rihanna. The kind of campness and theatricality and the winkingness. and like the... I think Rihanna took kind of the high fashion, the art kind of, you know, like, I look at like, like, even like Taylor,

Taylor with the ambition and the world domination. And, but Gaga for me and maybe because she was, again, one generation closer, seemed the most in her footprints, but also still doing something different. Yeah. Like, I think with the, I think Madonna's influence is very obvious and present

in Lady Gaga, but Lady Gaga, but Lady Gaga, Gaga also really loved Michael Jackson. Wasn't she the first major pop star to emerge after Madonna's domination? Because when did Gaga come out, like, 2005? Eight? Yeah, later. It was like 2008, maybe.

And Madonna was... Well, maybe on the early side, but she sort of broke through... The fame was... Wasn't the fame not 2008? No, it was like 2008 to 2010, probably. Yeah. That was sort of like that era. Fame era before Fame Monster.

Yeah. That was 2008, the fame. And the fame was huge. I mean, that's poker face. You know, like... Prior to that, I feel like Madonna kind of had the fucking chokehold, you know, like... For white girls. Yeah, for white girls.

I can't think of another... I'm sure they existed, but I can't... Britney. Britney, of course. Yeah, Brittany. Duh. But even when Gaga came out... It wasn't clear that that's what Gaga was going for, though.

Because there was something that was, like, different about it. And part of that is, I think that, like, you know, Lady Gaga has a very big rock influence in what she does. Yeah, totally. In a way that Madonna does not. And I know that Madonna loved Blondie and David Bowie, but Gaga's also very informed by Alice Cooper, Elton John, Judy Garland, Freddie Mercury, and like Ozzy Osbourne.

Oh, yeah, she's obsessed with him. She's named after the Queen song, right? Radio Gaga. So it's like, I don't always love when people compare Gaga to Madonna because I think they're both singular and doing something very different. Yeah. And I think that when Gaga came out,

these were these like super electronic fun club songs, which is very Madonna, but they were very not Britney-ish songs. Yeah, they were like way harsher. Harsh is not the right word, but you know what I mean? Like, had more edge.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I respect Lady Gaga. I think she's a unique figure in the gay imagination and the pop ecosystem, which is like worthy of her own curriculum. And I know she's not for everyone,

but I think she's like a very, layered and psychedelic type of pop concern in her own category style. But I think that in terms of Madonna's influence, we talked about Addison Ray. There's like, I know Sky Frera loves Madonna. I mean, there's just, there's not possible. I'm sorry. There's not one single pop star that has come in her wake that isn't influenced by her. I don't believe it.

I have a whole list. I wrote a list. It's like Troy Savon, Sabrina Carpenter, Chapel Roan, Kim Petrus. but then there's also Gaga and Brittany Katie Nikki, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Duleleepa, Beyonce

Even Charlie. Even Charlie, but you know what's... We'll talk about that later. Yeah. But I just... Maybe not as much as people would think. Maybe not in the most obvious ways, but like more of like walked so she could run

kind of situation. It's like having a like an overarching thematic campaign that was Madonna. You know like... Well, she changed like the mob of what that type of artist does. You know what I mean?

She, like, created the modern pop tour. Yeah. Like, there's so many things that she pioneered that everyone does now that we just take them for granted. And I'll say it before and I'll say it again. Charlie and Taylor are both, like, I think, what, 30? They're around the same age.

Taylor's a bit older. Taylor was like 37. I think Charlie's, well, like, 35. I don't know, something like that. Don't ask me to do math. That didn't exist. You didn't have a 35-year-old pop star before Madonna.

They were literally beating. down her door being like you're too old, go away at 35. Yeah. She made it so that you could. No one even, no one thinks one second looks at Charlie and is like she's too old to be a pop star. It's never crossed that mind. But that's because of Madonna. There's a whole like other side of it too, which is like alternative underground indie

artists that are also very inspired by Madonna. Like you look at people like Roshin Murphy or Robin or ARCA like all these like female fronted electronic projects. Imagine he. Imaging Heap. Fake mink just put out an album and there's a song on it called Like a Virgin and another song called Hard Candy.

It's like she's everywhere. She's lurking behind every corner. Kanye West could probably lock you in like a geodesic dome somewhere in Calabasas and talk to you about Madonna for six days without giving you food and water. You know what I mean? It's like...

Yeah, she's... It's the blueprint. It's the curriculum. Yeah. Okay. But, wait, my big thing. My big one, I'm going to do my big one. which is someone that I've always connected the most with Madonna

and I don't know why and who I really feel like is the new Madonna if anyone ever was is Rihanna. Babe, I kind of feel the same way and except that she has not the ambition. Yeah. And in the best way possible, I'm not saying she's like, like, Rihanna's like, I'm so sad, babe, I'm a billionaire.

I have a hot husband. But this is the thing about Rihanna that people now forget because she takes such long breaks between music. She has the most hits of everyone we just mentioned. No, she has the most hits. She all say, I mean, Gaga, too, I think, in a different way. But, like, to me, Rihanna was the one that was, like, changing the game. Yeah.

As she was going. And it's about attitude and it's about style. Vision, yeah, executing something. Like, yeah, and, like, her fashion looks that, like, the most out of all the people we mentioned, okay, except for me as Gaga. She's the coolest one. who's doing it the biggest, which is very Madonna. And it has had the most memorable looks that are not memorable for the wrong reasons.

Yeah. Like, I'm sorry, Melbert Ottenberg, you fucking snapped in half with that CFDA look that I'll never, ever forget. That sheer, oh my God, with the head. Like culture defining moments. Oh, my God. Like, yeah, like, I just like so much of, like, I thought, just the way I thought Madonna was the coolest woman that ever existed when I was younger. When Rihanna came around, I was like, this is the coolest and most beautiful woman that's ever existed also. But also if you look way back at when Rihanna was starting out, she had this kind of like, she wasn't like cool yet, you know, but she had this.

She did have the ambition back then and she had so much like energy and like spark and was like doing these like fun songs. And there's something about those old songs that do feel really Madonna Pond to replay. I don't know why. Totally. Also, I'll say it. It's actually provocative and edgy to not be ambitious in the day and age. Like that's the opposite. Like her being like, I don't give a shit, I'm not doing that.

Or like doing the Super Bowl pregnant. Yeah. But also like kind of going away because you're having kids. That's the last taboo. But doing the Super Bowl pregnant, that's fucking cool. Yeah. She tore that. We never mentioned Beyonce.

I did, but I just, it was in passing. But Beyonce is like acknowledged Madonna, of course. And Beyonce is hugely influenced by Janet. And they have a relationship. Okay. The last question is, do you have a favorite piece of Madonna memorabilia? What would you kill someone to own? I mean, listen, I obviously just started

Recollecting Tiny Milan and thank you to Andrew Gerritson once again. I'll thank you on every episode for the sex book and putting that in my hands. It's definitely one of my favorites. Yeah. I just got that 2003 W magazine with the 44-page Stephen Klein spread

that they made the art show out of and it's pretty phenomenal. I like magazines now, I think. I think for me it's the Justify My Love VHS. Oh yeah that you brought in here. Because it was banned from TV so you had to buy it. Yeah. That's really good

cover too. I love VHS tapes. I love like objects like that. Same like physical objects. And I have that other Madonna one that's like the scandal like the maid for you know like the page 6 unauthorized. Yeah. I'll take anything. I also have a vintage poster from bedtime stories era

that I got because some awesome gay guy on Twitter got one and posted it framed and I was like, I want one too. I will say my friend Nicole Albino and Aaron McGee. I don't know whose it is, but Nicole wears it, has the best Madonna T-shirt I've ever seen, the coolest one. I would steal that from her. I feel like Aaron in particular has like an insane collection. She has great. stuff.

Yeah. Hello, friends. Love the Madonna Month pods. I want to double-click a little more into Evita. You guys talked about the film media adjacent acclaim and critiques on a performance in the film on the soundtrack. what was the music media and music adjacent industry and Madonna fandom reactions to her work here? I think her Don't Cry for Me, Argentina is hauntingly beautiful

and doesn't deserve the hate given by artists like Patty Lepone. Thanks, babe, to Jennifer S. I don't know Patty Lepone hated. Is it because she was the original of Vita and she's like, no one can touch me? I think Patty Lepone hating Madonna is like a great bit for her, you know? It kind of keeps her relevant and it brings her back into the spotlight. It's fun for divas to feud.

Yeah, totally. It's harmless, pretty much. I think Patty Lepone is jealous of Madonna. Yeah, I mean, a Broadway star is just never going to be as big as a pop star. It's just not possible. Also, Patty Lepone was never considered for the film version of Avita, which I think is probably a bee in her bonnet a little bit, because it was always supposed to be like Meryl Streep, I think.

Yeah, but they said she couldn't sing enough. It went through different iterations. Yeah. And different people were in the mix. And even the original, the actress who originated, the role of Evita was Elaine Page in England, like on the West End or whatever it's called over there.

I'm not a theater person. I think it is called the West End. And she went in Olivier for it. And when they first were going to make it into a movie with Ken Russell, he wanted Liza Minnelli and the studio wanted Elaine Page. And so that's why Ken Russell dropped out of the film and it was first set up.

So it was like, it's gone through so many. If you go on the Wikipedia page of the Evita movie, the whole decades of development section is insane. A decade before it even got made, like vying to be in the role or whatever. And she won the role over Michelle Pfeiffer, Merrill Streep, Glenn Close, and Jennifer Lopez in the Alan Parker version. Yeah. Because Merrill was doing it, and then the project fell apart when Oliver Stone was directing it. Right. And then when it moved studios and then Alan Parker took over, Merrill came back and was like, wait,

want to do it, but then they wanted Madonna. Allegedly, I wasn't there. Supposedly. I don't have a lot to say about this, because I famously am not a big Evita fan. I will just say, like, in terms of the Madonna arc, I think Vita was very pivotal for her career.

It was, you spoke about this on the Vita episode with Paul, but it was about like, oh, I finally got this thing I always wanted. Yeah, like I... To be taken seriously to start in this big movie. She won her Golden Globe. She did amazing.

She's a great actress. And it cleared the decks for Ray of Light in a way. Right. And which you guys talked about a lot. What I think is, like, interesting about it for better or worse, a lot of the fans talk about this that her voice changed after her video. Because of the... Intensive vocal training.

So she kind of never went back to her more like... She's doing it now. She does it sometimes. Yeah. But she didn't go back to her, like, nasely, like... Like pop voice she had before because she wanted to always be, like... I can sing. Yeah.

I'm a singer. And it works better in some places than others. But there's, it's a fun part of her biography to me. I always really like how it hung up. She says, don't cry for me. Yeah. And she kind of references it. So.

I think she did a good job in the songs. I just don't like the song because I'm not a musical theater person. Yeah. So this one says, have so loved Madonna month and wish it could just continue for the rest of the year, quite honestly. same with Yossi. She's having trouble letting go. Patrick doesn't leave this studio at night. He just waits for me to come back.

And he's like, can we do one more? Yeah, when we leave, we keep talking about it. It's just like, it's never ending. It has been a bomb during a weird time. Totally. My question. She's a living legend and icon and one of the last of that peak MTV generation of pop stars. And yet, why after all this time and all that she has accomplished,

does it still feel like she doesn't get the general mainstream critical reverence that Prince, Bowie, Michael, etc. get? Well, Michael, I don't know. I still feel like mentioning her and polite conversation with Normies often prompts a cheap joke or an eye roll. Does she have to die? We all have to die, Richard. Is it ageism, sexism, her proximity to the queer community, all of the above? Oh, it's interesting.

Or is it something else? I feel like people are much kinder to Beyonce and Gaga than they ever have been to Madonna, even though Madonna set the template. Thank you, Love the Pod, to listen to a podcast that has somehow referenced both Mandalay and Rachel Stevens in 2026 makes me feel very seen. Richard Gold. Madonna must die. For her to be critically re-evaluated.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, not to be like pink pussy hat right here, but yes, I 100% think it's largely because she's a woman, the people that were just listed, there are men. But secondly, I think it's because she didn't make like an entire like song and dance vaudeville act of I'm a song. like some other people do, which is great.

Like, some of these pop stars like need you to know and campaign nonstop that they write songs. And for that reason, they're taking more seriously. Madonna never did that. I am smart. Exactly. Miron

seemed to never have any interest in that. Even though, like, every collaborator says it, like it's fact that she is a brilliant songwriter. Honestly, exact same extent, if not more than Michael Jackson. Like, if you're, if you call Michael Jackson's songwriter, you better call Madonna's

a songwriter. You know? Yeah, is she prints? No, she doesn't play 22 instruments and like, whatever, like, you know, but. I do put Mariah Carey in a special category as well. Sure, of course. Yeah. But it's a different thing.

That's, that's, that's, and even Taylor Swift, I'll say it. Yeah. Yeah. Taylor Swift, like, does it in a little different way. But does it mean Madonna's not a songwriter, you know? I, yeah, I just think, and I hadn't thought about that, but like, is it that her fan base is largely gay that doesn't... Yeah, of course.

But people take Gaga seriously. I think that for like, like the general public, when something's gay adjacent, it becomes seen as like not very serious. Like frivolous, yeah, yeah. Again, except for Lady Gaga. People take Lady Gaga seriously.

Because we have senses of humor and we enjoy our lives. Right. We like to have fun. Yeah. I mean, we don't ever want Madonna to die. I hope she loves forever. I hope she cryogenically freezes herself and brings herself back to life or whatever.

But in the instance that she does, God forbid, I do think there'll be like a massive sort of like re-reckoning of like what how important she was in every sense of the word. I think it's also important to remember that at the time of Michael Jackson's death and at the time of Prince's death, both of them were severely ridiculed. Totally. Austricized. Maybe Prince not quite as much as Michael, obviously. Prince was like everyone

If Prince was going to play a show again Even like everyone would want to go You know Michael maybe not by the end of his career But I think that he was seen as like an oddball Michael Jackson was planning a huge world tour right Right before he died No it's not that they weren't successful But it's like they definitely got made fun of

And like people weren't super reverent toward them I also I do think when I think People have a really hard time Taking things that are things people that are positioned as sexual, also seriously. Like, it happens with actresses, you know, that's just a thing. Like, it's, like, somehow not possible to be, like, fun and down DTF and also, like, a serious artist.

Yeah. I think Cher has the same thing happening. I don't think that's really a problem. Like, my argument is, like, you don't have to give her, like, this reverence and this do, because these people, this is like maybe I'm being a little edgy with this, but they exist for our amusement. You mean pop stars? Yeah, they're here

to entertain us and we have fun with it and it's like making fun of them is sort of part of the love affair of following someone like this. I think there's an element, at least on the gay side. Yeah. I can't speak for like the wider world, but it's like, you know, if they weren't confusing and like bewildering us

and like making us talk, they wouldn't be who they are. And so I don't think you ever really get that kind of full scale, like, embrace of like what they did until they die. And I think that's fine. And I'm sure that they know that on some level. Yeah. You know? Like, I feel like we kind of, they're like our punching bags and our pin cushions and whatever, these people, because they exist there as like avatars. They reflect things about ourselves back to us. It's like, it's a very kind of tricky position to be in. And it's also not seen as cool, really, to, like, give someone their props to their face all the time.

It's like, people will praise you behind your back before they'll do it to your face. Because also you're like, oh, you're a rich celebrity. You have so much. Right. That's what the money is for, as Don Graper would say. But mark my words, I think when Madonna goes, I think that she's going to be considered more monumental. I kind of think so, too. I mean, because she had a way longer career.

She did way more. And she was a woman. And she was a woman. She broke so many barriers. Yeah. It's like the, it's math. It's science. It's simply math.

Also, like, I'll say like, again, I don't know. It's going to be like the fall of Rome when she dies. I don't know her heart in mind, but I think that if Madonna wanted to be taken more seriously, quote-on-quote, she would be. Because whatever she wants happens. She knows. She doesn't care. She knows what she has. She knows the numbers don't lie.

Exactly. She's like, okay, well, I'm the highest selling. You know, like, all good. And the thing was, like, with Michael Jackson, I'm never going to forget when Michael Jackson died because, like, I was, you know, I have a tendency to be fascinated by people and a bit of a grave digger in that way. Totally. So, you know, like, ambulance chaser. Yeah, like, I went to this, there was, he was in a period of, like, desperation. That last nose was, like, nothing I've ever seen.

I mean, seeing him his court case dangling the baby in Berlin Like all the... Yeah, like it. Put some respect on Lincoln's name. The insane kind of circus around him Right. Was really riveting to me.

I know a lot of people chose not to pay attention to it at the time. I couldn't look away, but there was a moment where he was selling everything he owns. Yeah. And he had this massive auction in Beverly Hills. And then he decided to pull the auction like the day before. He was like, wait, I'm not selling anything. But it stayed up for, like,

like one more weekend. And so I went and I got to look through all of Michael Jackson's possessions. That's amazing. Which was the best day of my life. I think about it all the time. And like, it wasn't because I was a huge Michael Jackson fan. Yeah. But it was like he was someone who I thought was so unique and fascinating and not like anyone else on earth. It was just so, I was so gagged by him. But then when he died, I was stunned by my own reaction to it. Like your own, like, I was devastating. devastated. I had deep and profound grief. And it wasn't like because I think he was the greatest person or like without getting into the accusations and all of that. But it was just,

it was the blunt force magnitude of him and what he was. It's about the cultural impact. Like how big of a place they occupied in our minds and hearts. Yeah. Without, without us even realizing it sometimes. I agree with you. I'll just read the nice PS because it's really nice and we're not going to read all the other nice ones. This is from Richard who asks the above questions. Also, having just gotten to the end, I also want to thank you for having the balls to talk about her plastic surgery in a fair, honest, non-judgmental way. These days, I find that you either have the diehard Madonna fans who like to pretend she has never had any work done whatsoever and that she's all natural, which feels delusional to me. Or more often, you have the critics who make fun of her or feign disgust at her appearance.

Thank you for just having an objective and honest conversation about it, as it's hard to not think about as a Madonna fan in 2026. See also Tori Davis. And it's something I sometimes struggle with and go back and think. forthwith, even though it's obviously none of my damn business. Looks Richard. Yeah. Oh, that was nice. It was, it was, I felt, it's a tricky subject.

It's a tricky subject, but I also felt it was, like, important to talk about because it's, like, very, I agree with, I think it's strange to completely ignore it. Uh-huh. But I also think there's ways to talk about it that aren't, like, I think people don't, and I don't want to retread what we said, if you want to listen, it's in episode four, but, like, I think people don't realize how much, like, the patriarchy is coming from within the house. You know what I mean?

Like when they talk about that kind of stuff, like how much they are being the cops of a beauty standard that has been imposed beyond their will and that only some people are allowed to do it and some people aren't and you can do it a right way and a wrong way. And all of that is sort of like an extreme level of fucked up that like if you zoom out, that's the thing to talk about.

There's no option. And there's no... You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Exactly. I think like, honestly, I respect it because much like her whole life and career, she has provoked thought through it. Hopefully. I mean, except for the people that are just like, you know, going to.

But she also does what she wants. And it's whatever makes her feel good. Exactly. And she prioritizes herself. And that's what she's doing. And she looks great. This one's so much. It's like, it's like, so broad.

I'll say it. The question is, I love to you, Eliza from Manchester. It's not that it's a bad question. It's the most important question. But basically the question is like, also another Genzi listener, thank you, that what are the cornerstones of Madonna's artistry? What are the moments that shaped her as an artist? And I would say you just start at episode one and go through, because we do literally,

that's basically what the Madonna series is about. We talk about. Endless cornerstones. It's the through line. The through line, I think, of the podcast, Madonna month, six weeks, is what are the cornerstones of our artistry? what are the major moments and what does she mean to culture? So there's no way to just like...

If I had to like try and... synthesize? Synthesize it. And it becomes very broad. It's like expressing herself. I know. Sorry. It's voguing.

It's getting into the groove. It's being like a prayer. No, truly it's like she's always been very unapologetic and expressing how she feels, what she thinks. And every... Even during times where people told her no or told her that she was wrong and she didn't listen and she kept going. Like that's sort of it. For me, like in the most broad sense of it, you can get into the degree. Catholicism, sexuality.

I think you're right. I think it's what we talked about before transmuting grief into art and into career and into like fuel. And it's self-expression and it's reinvention. It's the continuous reinvention of the self, all of Frida Kahlo, to like, continue to be every version of yourself that you have access to, you know, which I think is a really cool thing to be able to do and to give other people license to do. We spoke about that Norman Mailer quote in our episode, which go back and listen. I'm with Norman.

I stand with Norman. Unless he was racist, which I think he might have had some racial allegations, so I don't stand with that part of Norman Miller. I stand with Norman Mailer on Madonna at the time that they did that story at us choir together. Also, the New York Times did this amazing feature on Madonna. The one Karen did, the 60 times she changed. Madonna at 60. Well, there was a Madonna at 60, which was a profile by Vanessa Gregoriatis.

Who's a legend, who's incredible. Hi, Vanessa, if you're listening. I hired Vanessa to interview Prince when we did Prince back in the day. And then 60 times Madonna changed our culture, which was edited by Karen Gans. It really gets into it's a fun story. It's like interactive. It has everything. It's a fun thing to dig into.

I would say it's like a little companion to this. Totally. And I think that's our last question. Wow. What a time. How can that be? You know, I know your, again, don't cry because it's over. Smile.

Don't cry because it was weird. Smile because it happened. Was it weird? I thought we had a nice time. Such a nice time. This is like, I hope that everyone. everybody listens to these podcasts, I swear. After reading these letters and finding out how many people were not so familiar with

the body of work. I mean, I, my, I'm just so happy that any young people, not because I like, not because I care that they like what I like. I don't care. I don't mean my own taste validate. It's that I think they would genuinely derive a great deal of pleasure and joy because it's so incredible. It holds up.

Truly something, this is like Stefan voice, there's something for everyone here. You know, like she's done it all. And whatever kind of music you like, I promise you there's like 10 Madonna songs you'll like or love, you know. And that's it. For real. Thank you. Patrick, thank you so much. Did it.

Nothing's brought me more joy than our movie posters that I made with my own hand with oil paints. You cast actors and shot them. Yes. Practically. It was beautiful. And we did it without Celsius. Today we did, yeah. Come back next week for a new episode of Bansplaine, not on Madonna.

If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bansplaine. Our guests today were my mother, Fatana Sallek, and Patrick Samburg. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Jacob Corbett. Executive producers for Bansplaine are Gina Delvac and me, Yossi Solic. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethanyi Cousentino and Jennifer Clavin and graciously recorded by Carlos Delagher in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Sean Fennessee and the television program, Widows Bay.

Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Tim Rice, Sir Tim Rice, of you know, said of Madonna, didn't he run with Hillary? Tim Cain. Tim Cain. Wow, we're really the amount of brain damage in this room.