Bandsplain - Madonna: Part 2 with Patrik Sandberg

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

Yasi is joined by writer and Bandsplain MVP Patrik Sandberg for Part 2 of the Madonna epic. This chapter follows Madonna from 'Like a Prayer' through 'Bedtime Stories' as she alchemizes religion, sex, fashion, and controversy into one of the most fascinating and powerful runs in pop music history. They talk about the history of “Vogue,” the groundbreaking Pepsi commercial, her major leap with 'Erotica,' the much-discussed 'Sex' book, and, of course, the backlash and what it meant for her creativity. Plus: the reinventions, the Cher beef, her acting career, all the incredible music and imagery of this period, and so, so much more. Episode PlaylistListen to the Madonna: Part 2 playlist here. CREDITS:Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalekGuest: 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 Bansplaine. I am your host, Yossi Salick. This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is part two about maybe the most iconic artist of all, Madonna. If you've never heard Madonna, A, I don't know why you're here, but B, life is absolutely a mystery, babe.

You guys, my guest today, repeat bandsplanar. Here she comes. Little Susie Homemaker. Patrick Sandberg. Hello. Welcome to the program. Welcome back, shall I say. Thank you.

I'm ready to go Patrick Bait Medmode. Are you ready to express yourself and not repress yourself? Because that's all I ask. I think when, like a prayer came out in 89, um, Madonna really came into her own commercially and artistically. So you have your full Ken Burns-esque takes ready to go. I love it. No, this is like I'm getting the nail gun ready to murder my secretary.

All right, you guys, before we dive in, I just want to once again thank all of the resources that I used to research this episode. And this might not be a complete list because there's also a bunch of Instagram accounts that I'm not going to remember. But today in Madonna history, Madonnapedia, Madonna Underground, Madonna Tribe, the Inside the Groove podcast. Stop. The Encyclopedia Medanica. Encyclopedia Madonnaica is legendary.

So major. Actually, we had it on the table. Webo Girl Instagram, incredible. One of my favorites, Madonna Burnett Instagram. It's really great. And obviously the 2023 Mary Gabriel Madonna biography, which is like Warren piece of Madonna's life. That's it.

That's it? Give a shout out. All right. Before we dive in, Patrick. Should we do a quick TLDR up until now? Yeah. Or actually. Who's that girl?

Who is that girl? Should we actually start with your entree into being a Madonna fan? Oh my God, like in life? Yeah. Well, on the day that I was born. Okay. Back to the beginning. Yeah, let's start at the very beginning.

The day that I was born, when I came into this world, the number one record, on the billboard charts was like a version. Incredible. The like a virgin album was over one. So I like to think that I was just hearing Madonna like from the second that I appeared.

Yeah. She was playing in the hospitals like on the cafeteria seaters or what have you. I don't know if it was hospital-friendly music at that time but you know. Maybe like a cool nurse who smoked Sigs

was listening to it on her walkman. Yeah, I guess times have changed. Like today would be playing at CVS, but maybe... 100%. It's like on K Earth 101, oldies station, but now is different than then. Like my earliest MTV memory as like a toddler, I do remember seeing boy George.

Okay. On TV and being like, who is that? You know? And then my uncle or someone being like, that's a dude. And it just blowing my mind as like a little child. Because I thought it was a beautiful woman. Was it karma chameleon? Would that have been the...

I think it was, do you really want to hurt me? Because I remember being like, why is she so sad? And my uncle was like, that's not a she. And I was like, what? So I do remember that. Madonna was just always there in the culture. So it was not... It was similar to like Whitney Houston, probably, in the 80s, all over TV, all over the radio.

And so she just was like a part of life. I never questioned it. Yeah. And then I think the turning point for me when I got into Madonna, which will cover in these years that we're talking about, is when she, the blonde ambition tour did an HBO concert special. Yes. Not to be confused with truth or dare, a completely separate thing. Totally separate. Confusing in my, like, younger mind, though, when I saw Truth or Dare later when I was much older.

But we were on vacation in Lake Tahoe. It was like my family and my parents' friends. their kids. It was like a bunch of kids, a bunch of adults. And we, it was like a snowstorm. We were just channel flipping in the cabin we were staying at had HBO. I didn't grow up with HBO. Okay, I wasn't rich.

HBO was kind of like a luxury. Yeah, it was like, it was just a thing that like rich kids had HBO, like we couldn't afford it. But the cabin we were staying at in Tahoe had HBO. And we flipped past it and this concert special was on and my older sister was really into Madonna.

And it was like, yay, like, oh my God. And then it was like really raunchy. And so my mom, like, turned it off and was like, you guys aren't allowed to watch that. Like, you need to go to bed. And so we went upstairs, but my bedroom had a TV in it. And we figured out that we could watch it on that TV. So we, like, barricaded the door. And we all watched the concert special.

So cool. And, you know, we talked about this when I came on talking about Hull. Yeah. When I was a kid, like, anything my mom didn't want me doing. I was just like... You were about that life. Yes. It became like, now nothing will ever stop me.

Yeah. So when you turned off the Madonna special, I was like, oh, Madonna's cool. I didn't realize. Now I get it. Now I'm deeply invested. I feel the appeal. Do you remember, like, the first Madonna album that you, like, purchased with your own money or, like, you know, procured for yourself? Because you were like, oh, this is, like, my thing.

I don't think I ever bought a Madonna album. Really? Because my sister bought them. them. Right. So I would steal hers. Yeah. Yeah. Like the one that was like in our house that was like the, the like pass around party bottom of compact discs was the Immaculate Collection. Of course. Yeah. So that was sort of like similar period. It was like there was the HBO concert film. Right. Immaculate Collection came out. And it was to me that was like my first Madonna album, even though it's not an album. It like actually kind of took me through every all of. Right. It was like,

a great primer. And if you didn't know about her previous albums or what came from where, because you're literally a child. Immaculate Collection, it was just like every song is a smash. You're like, this is the greatest No skips. Pop star of all time. Yeah. Yeah. Macular Collection was very big in our house too.

I said it on the other episode, but my mom was like a huge Madonna fan, so I also don't remember a time. There's like no pre-Madonna in my brain. It was just always Madonna. And like, my mom loved like dress you up and all these kind of like deeper cuts And so we would tape the videos off VH1 and MTV with like a, you know, VHS tape and watch them over and over.

It was a big deal. Okay. Well, the TLDR up till now that we covered in episode one, we did Madonna's upbringing, her move to New York, her postpunk new wave band girl passed. Okay. Yeah. Careful with that. Well, I guess it's true. It's totally true.

Babe. She was in a band. I'm a postpunk gatekeeper. She was in a band with the two dudes from. from swans. What's more post-punk than that? And dated Michael Gira. All right, fine. But you put some respect on my

girl's name. And then her breaking into the biz famously. She's gone on two world tours, the Virgin tour and the Who's That Girl tour. Three film roles, real film roles, Desperately Seeking Susan, Shanghai's Surprise, and Who's That Girl? And she has gotten married

to Sean Penn and filed for divorce and rescinded the filing. And now we're at end of 1987. That's where we're starting. Drama, adventure, what's not to love. Just let me backpedal on the post-punk thing really quickly. Good. I think you should, because you're wrong. I am wrong, and I immediately knew it. And here's the thing about it. And real goths know this.

If you go, like in New York, I would go to the pyramid bar all the time. If you go to these old 80s goth clubs where they play. play like a lot of chameleons or something yeah but even like I don't know like I would go dancing at the pyramid club in the basement and it would be like they would play insane like industrial like

goth music but they also it was like a lot of nine inch nails it was a lot of like alien sex fiend sure sure like bat cave bands like things like that Susie and the Banshee is like New Ward or Joy Division like all these clubs also play Madonna and it's like

they don't they don't They don't dip into motherfucking Debbie Gibson, okay? It's like... I don't be anybody anymore. I know, but you know what I'm saying? It's like, or Cindy Lopper. It's like...

Or whoever, like, these aren't like 80s clubs. Right, right. But there is like a fine line and like Madonna makes it over the line. Yeah. I mean, again, like if you listen to those Emmy and the Emmys songs, it's unmistakably like some songs sound like the talking head,

some songs, some songs sound like the pretenders. Like it's, it's, it's in that vein. Also, the thing I forgot to mention on the first episode, but I'll just use it here,

that Madonna opened for the Smiths at Dan Ceteria. Johnny Marr told my friend Chloe that, who's like, and I was like, you know what? This has been done, she's fucking done it all.

She and Morrissey should link up again. Honestly, where's, maybe he has a feature on the new album. How the tables have turned. Who would open for who now? This is going to come out later. And so if Morrissey does have a feature,

on the new album, just know that I predicted it with my psychicness. But I kind of don't think it. I doubt that. Okay. Before we fully dive in, because I think this is, you know, we locked in on it with Melottenberg in the first episode, but her first major aesthetic transition was in the Poppeed Don't Preach video. That was the first one of her, like, visually? Visually. Because she chopped her hair into that, like, bleached, like, Jean C.

You know, it was like the first, like, going from that sort of, like, boy toy belts and the more, like, highlight blonde hair and the curls and whatever to this, like, new looks. That was, like, her first big, like, here's a new, here's a new look. And obviously, we're going to go through several more here. She had this quote later in 1998 in the LA Times, as she said, I think that for many years now, people have been consumed with me. Choices I've made personally versus my artistic contributions. It's like people act as if I'm the first one who tried to use in. image in rock and roll. When is it new for people to create a strong image? What about Mick Jagger, prints? And you can go on and on. Besides, I feel that 50% of that image is what I put into it.

And the rest is what others put into it. Wow. It's good from Michelle and Drew. Because people did get very preoccupied with her changing her look. I'm rolling my eyes because she knew what she was saying. She knew what she was doing. Yeah. People are preoccupied with her look because she's gorgeous. Well, of course. She's like, why is everyone so obsessed? obsessed with the way I look. But again, unfortunately, my pink spicy hat is descending from the ceiling onto my hat, like a dunce cap. But I will say they don't speak about it the same way with David Bowie. They were like astonishing artistry, the change of look from the thin white, you know?

When we talk about Madonna, they talk about it as if it's very superficial, you know, as it's almost an indictment. And I think that is really interesting. Okay, anyways, we'll get into it. All right, 1987. It's November 16th, and we're putting on our first remix album. It's called You Can Dance. Yes, you can.

I mean, I obviously, we talked about this on text the other day that I was like, I would like for my birthday party to just be like a DJ play is only my favorite Madonna remixes, and I drink champagne and you taco bell. So I love that, you know, we're already starting strong with the remix album. My only thing that I need to say is that the first song on here, which is a new song called Spotlight, is absolutely giving we have holiday at home. And I don't know. I don't know why we put that on here.

Everybody is a star. Everybody is a star. I tend to agree. Yeah. It definitely feels like a B-side that was left over from True Blue. And it's obvious, she does this with all of her, like, releases that are compilations. She makes her to include at least one new, one, if not two, new compositions. But do you have thoughts on the You Can Dance remix album?

It's interesting because I think my obsession with like Madonna. remixes in general probably started in like 2010 or something and it's like more of like a gay thing

it's more like you're going to the beach and the Fire Island Pines with the JVL speaker and you're putting on just Madonna remixes. I didn't like get into the UConDense remix album as an album.

Right. It kind of predated my like Madonna awareness and then later on with all the remixes, they're like playlisted and they're streaming and it's all that, so you don't hear it in the same way. And people have really strong feelings about

remixes and their favorite ones. Yeah. And they're non-favorite ones. And there's a ton that are not on streaming. Yeah. Like you have to go digging for them. There's like zip files you can download. They're not official. Yeah. Tons of unofficial ones. But listening to it as a full album

in preparation for this, I'm obsessed with it. It's great. And a lot of my favorite remixes are on it. Totally. it's great. I mean, I think the first pivotal, and I don't want to miss it because I know people, like some DJ at home is going to be like, you know, fuck you, bitch.

To me, the first, like, meaningful, pivotal remix moment is going to be when we get to express yourself, obviously. But, and not that there aren't good ones before, but the one that is like, oh, shit, like, actually this remix has overtaken the original and is now considered the official, you know? Well, there's a lot of funny things that happen, too, where like some of the music videos are not the album track

they are actually a remix and things like that. And so like if you were falling in love with Madonna or even if you didn't like Madonna, but if you were seeing Madonna on MTV, you might think that the remix track is the track. That was the album track, totally. I wanted to talk about Shep Pettibone quickly. Sure, before we dive in.

Yeah. Yeah, which is that like he appears on this remix record a few times. He first worked with Madonna on a remix for, True Blue on a single release. I just wanted to point him out because he will come back later as a main character. Totally. We definitely talk about him a bit in the first episode because he was, I mean, he becomes obviously very important in our episode, but he worked with Africa Bambaata and he was a DJ at the

R&B station WBLS, which is the first station ever to play Madonna. So he's like an old long-term person in this. in this orbit. He's seen as like a godfather of like New Jersey club music. And he also came up doing mega mixes for Kiss FM in New York. And that was how he ended up doing all these remixes for Janet Jackson, George Michael, Madonna, Kathy Dennis, Lisa, Lisa. People don't remember Kathy Dennis, but I don't understand if you were, who are these

alleged people? In the 80s, you were big time Kathy Dennis. Still have. Kathy Dennis maybe once a day. Makes it through. But also tons of remixes later on for New Order of the Pet Shop Boys. He sort of is like, to me, like he is the 80s. Like, if you could give someone a better compliment, I don't know what that would be.

But then also, he, again, he plays a big part in our episode, which is largely the 90s. You know, I mean, obviously we're going to talk, we're starting with. like a prayer as the big release, but big chunk of this is the 90s and Shep Pettibone has a lot to do with this sound. He's on Game Out Rushmore. I feel they don't name people that anymore, you know? Like, well, I don't, doesn't anyone have cool names like this anymore.

Shep? I know that's a nickname, but it's Shep Hettybone. Okay. That's a fucking amazing name. He also, he bought the Empress. That's a Thomas Pinchon name, huh? The Empress Hotel. Yes.

In Asbury Park, New Jersey, where I like to go stay sometimes. It's giving like ironic elevated holiday end vibes. It's like very like beachy, gay. Like there's a nightclub in there called The Paradise that he owns, plays the best music. If you ever want to go to, if you ever want to fun weekend, go to Asbury Park, New Jersey. And stay in Shep Petty Bones Hotel. Stay at the Empress. Stay at Shep Pettibones Hotel. Anyway, we're on Shep Watch.

We're on Shep Watch. Okay, it's 1988 now, January. She starts filming another movie. It's called Bloodhounds of Broadway with the director Howard Brookner, who had also been a Paradise Garage regular and part of Andy Warhol Circle. So another kind of old friend from the crowd. He had made a documentary about William Burroughs that Madonna loved, so she was like very into his work and wanted to be in it. I don't know the exact timeline, but I'm pretty sure he was sick with AIDS almost the entire making of the film. and actually, I think, passed away before the film,

not before it was finished, but before it came out. So we got to see it to the finish line, but didn't get to see it come out. So after she wraps filming that, which we can talk about a little of the film. Did you watch it? I didn't watch it, but she looks amazing. She looks incredible.

It's based on a group of short stories, and then they're like intertwined. It's in the 20s. I couldn't really make heads or tails of it, but... Madonna loves the 20s. Yeah, and it works for her. Louise Brooks. She's giving this sort of like brunette bob.

She becomes good friends Jennifer Gray through that who becomes kind of part of her friend group. Yeah, I mean, if you have nothing else to do, watch it. Okay, then she starts rehearsing for her next project appearing in your favorite play. Oh, my God. I forgot to bring it. Brought to bring your book of David. Is it Mamet? Mamet.

David Mamet's Speed the Plow, directed by Gregory. Mosher, his first major stage work since Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. Incredible. She originated the role of Karen. Yeah. It was a critique of Hollywood. She accidentally finds her way into a bunch of critiques of Hollywood, which is interesting. I don't know this play. I'm sorry, I didn't have time in my month and a half of research to also read the David Mammon play. Do you want to tell us a little bit more what it's about? It's a critique of Hollywood. She plays a secretary to a Hollywood producer. It's like a lot of fast talking.

It's sort of poking at the hypocrisies of the industry. It's fun. Okay. I love that the male leads were my fucking guy, my dog, Joe Montania. Who she would later appear with in Body of Evidence. A movie that we love. Also, who is on criminal minds, a show I love. And Ron Silver, who I love.

Love Ron Silver. Again, Ron Silver is one of those things where I'm like, we used to be a proper country where this was a lead actor. It's a testament to her acting talent that she could be in league with these actors, in a play. You know, you can't hide too much. No, not at all. And she got good reviews. She got great reviews.

But the thing about Madonna that I think is so funny is that, like, she, and listen, people have talked a lot of shit. Yeah. About, let's just get that out of the way. About her acting career. love to talk shit about Madonna's acting career. She's an incredible actress. Her acting talent is also God-given. She did not study and toil, which is why people were annoyed.

Because it was sort of like she was just floating from stardom into these positions that other actors had worked a long time for. Right. But she delivers. Like, we just rewatch most of her movies. And, like, every single one is surprising and different. She's versatile. Yeah. We'll get to it. some of them, but I didn't, of course, I was not of age to go see-speed the plow on Broadway,

so I can't speak to that performance. Madonna had a really hard time during the making of this. We won't get too into the weeds because as you pointed out, my document is really long and we'll be here forever, but. Broadway is hard. It sucks. Yeah. I think that is going to, this is a thread that I'm interested in in her acting career.

She, I think, envisions the characters differently than they are envisioned perhaps by the director or the writer. Many such cases. Right. But and but and again, the pink pussy hat babe, may I should just affix it to my head with some fucking bobby pins? Because it's often in a way that like has shades of misogyny. Of course. Where it's like, you know, she's like, I see this character, I see this, this character as a three-dimensional woman. Her actual quote was, I saw her as an angel and innocent and they wanted her to be a cunt. And I think that she had a difficult time with that and it was like a mind fuck of a script in her work. She said, Mamet is a stubborn man.

He is not interested in collaborating. I think he's interested in fascism. Which is quite funny. I would love to witness, like, the fights that would have happened during rehearsals. I don't know if... The Battle of Wills between the two. If anybody has seen Marty Supreme, David Mamet makes a cameo in that movie as the director of Guineh Paltrow's play.

He's yelling at Gwyneth Paltrow. It feels like... That was, like, fantasy fulfillment for me. I was like, this is like when Madonna. did speed the blow. So funny. So yeah, so she's having a rough go, but she makes a brand new girlfriend during this time. Sandra Bernhard, who she had met actually, I think, on an early date with Sean Penn.

She went to a party with Sean Penn early in the relationship, like third or third date or something. And Warren Beatty and Sandra Bernhard were both at that party. Isn't that interesting? L.A. Bam. Yeah. L.A. Tinseltown. Sandra was doing a one-woman show called Without You I'm Nothing at the Orphium Theater. She invites Madonna.

And they just fell into like a nice, close, easy friendship. I find that Sandra Bernhardt has been a little bit maligned, a little bit misunderstood. There was a Mariah Carey quote that circulated during woke mania that didn't go over. It didn't age so well. And the internet sort of seized on it and whatever she's back in the cult of. It's always like, remember what she said about Mariah Carey. But isn't she on the new season of, isn't she cast on the new season of White Lotus? I believe so.

I think I read that note. If you were there back then, she was the coolest. 100% funniest, gorgeous. Most glamorous. Yeah, totally. Like, most incredible celebrity. Like, they don't make them like that anymore. Yeah, she was like the warrior talent generous.

but in the cool way. Wow. I mean, also, watch her performance in the King of Comedy, incredible actress, like, just like... Also, just like a really cool face. Like, four... She's also on Game Mount Rushmore. Game Mount Rushmore is getting crowded

with Madonna's friends. So they hung out all the time. Madonna told Vanity Fair, I had a lot of evenings free, so we just started hanging out, slagging everybody off together. She was just what I needed. We became really good friends.

And then someone else said about their friendship, anonymous source. I think that's why she likes Sandra so much. She can be totally obnoxious with her and not worry about being a star. I think she just sort of looks up to Sandra. To put it bluntly, sometimes when they're together, they can be a nightmare. I mean, those are the best kinds of friendships. I agree.

When you're just like, your friend kind of gives you permission to be the most devious of yourself. Yes. But if you've ever been part of a two-headed monster, like I have, it's one of life's greatest pinnacles. Totally. Their friend group was called The Snatchezer. batch. Just need to put that in here.

That's so good. Pussy Posse found that in a ditch. Yeah, exactly. So Sean Penn is off. Remember, they're still married. So Sean Penn is off in Thailand filming casualties of war. Comes back in June. And Madonna's like full doing the play Snatch Batch mode.

On July 1st, she goes on a legendary appearance on David Letterman. With the white t-shirts and the blue jeans. So Sandra was the act. actual guest, like she was booked to be on, and Madonna kind of crashed the party, or, you know, she was invited to crash the party. But yeah, they're wearing... She was being a groupie. We're in the matching outfits. It's so 1988, like, little loafers and the... It's really cute. And they kind of play up the implication that they're dating. Let's talk about you two getting together over my dead party. Something happening here, and I'm not pleased. When she started hanging out with Sandra Bernhard, that was one of the lesbian rumors started. Yeah.

Which, I think, to a generation of lesbians, was a huge deal. I'm sure. Culturally. And again, Madonna is nothing, if not a fucking genius. So she was probably like, great. And also, I think she later said really cool things about it. I'm sure I have them in the doc. But it was the gist of being like, what if I am and what if I'm not?

Who cares? Yeah. Kind of like Lady Gaga did with that interview. who was like, do you have a penis? And she was like, so what if I did? You know, like, which is the best possible way to answer that. Yeah. It's also, it's a little bit Courtney Love, like, I don't think you should be impeached.

Shades of. We have our own opinions. You don't decide them for us. Shades of, yeah. Every bit of that was kind of genius from the, like, stirring the pot to how she handled it. I don't know that Jonathan Penn loved it that much, but I don't want to put thoughts or words into his mouth. I think that what's like really interesting about this period of Madonna's career is that, and we will get into the brunette of it all when we get into like a prayer,

but if you look at it, she reached like the peak of fame after True Blue. Or so we thought. And like, put out you can dance, which was essentially a greatest hits compilation. Yeah. Decided to go away. She did a play. She's doing theater because she's like interested in acting. This is when she's like...

She's married. She's like... Totally. Doing laundry at home when she's not doing the play and like kind of loving the blissful married life when it's possible. But there was always like kind of an eagerness with her. And like then there was a little bit of like... Her really soaking in the limelight, really enjoying all the attention she was getting

and knowing that she could be provocative and that... And, you know, she was like really kind of seizing all of that. And this feels like a turning point for her where she kind of was like... she had everything she wanted, she could do whatever she wanted, and she stopped caring. Totally. And, like, just didn't give a fuck. Like, she didn't care if people thought she was lesbian. Right.

She was just having fun and enjoying herself. And there's something about that ease of this period that I think means something in terms of her kind of personality and her approach after this. Yeah, I got what you're saying. Yeah, I think it's going to be really interesting to talk about. Also, I'm not an astrologer, so I can't cast her chart perfectly. but like she's 30 so at some point

around here she's had her Saturn return so I think it for some people it's after it's sometime between 28 and 30 but like I'm interested in that starts the second act of your life you know and this is obviously we're about to start the second act of her life

four days after she turned 30 Jean-Paul Busquiat passed away from an overdose her old flame and good friend the end of August her birthday is in August. She's done with the play. She goes back to L.A. to work on the next album.

And that fall, she meets with Warren Beatty to discuss the film Dick Tracy. And she gets the part. Of course she did. Of course she did. If you see that movie, no one else could have played breathless. They had, it said in the book who they were considering, but I can't remember who it was.

Also, I just had the thought that it's, like, very funny that each Madonna and Sean Penn had, like, their one best friend that the other one was like and Sean Penn's was Charles Bikowski and Madonna's was Sandra Bernard it's like very funny imagine the four of them in a room together so Sean is in a play Sandra and Charles going at it

keeking Charles Bikowski's blacked out he doesn't understand what a lesbian is never seen such a thing so Sean's doing Harley Burley the David Rape play at Westwood Playhouse in Los Angeles and there was some accounts that on opening night Madonna came late with Sandra and at the after party that Sean was visibly upset and screamed at her, how could you do this to me?

And they basically had a public screaming match. Still, she would come with the whole run of the play, take him home after. There's also some speculation that he was upset that she took the part of Breathless Mahoney and Dick Tracy. A lot of what I was reading was like everyone in Hollywood was like, you know what Warren Bady'd be doing. Well, duh. Can you blame him? He knew what Warren was up to. In Mary Gabriel's book, it says that he slept with 13,000 women.

And he's still with us. Okay, Walt Chamberlain. There's still time. That's so true. Actually, it's like one of those McDonald's clocks. I haven't checked it in a while. It's probably gone up since then. Sean Penn had also been hanging out a bunch with Hal Ashby at this point.

Sick. Yeah. The director, if you guys don't know. of Harold and Maude and being there. And he died on December 27th, 1988. You're like, why are you telling me this? This is why I'm telling you this. Because shortly thereafter, like within a day or two,

a sort of situation transpired at their home in Malibu. And according to Sean Penn's biographer Richard T. Kelly, he and Madonna had an argument over breakfast, and he asked her to leave. And allegedly, Sean told Madonna he would cut her hair off if she came back. and she I don't know what Listen, this is

I'm simply reporting the speculation The tabloid reports Well, I mean this is in his bio but regardless of what actually happened in that sense what we know to have happened

is that the police were called and the SWAT team came to the house and Sean Penn told Playboy 1991 Yeah Sean Penn was like She felt the responsible thing to do was to inform them there were firearms in the house, which is like so sick, honestly.

You're like, oh, you're going to cut my hair, bitch? I told the cops you have guns. Again, I don't know. I'm fan ficking. So she leaves and goes to Freddy Demand her manager's house and Christopher Schooney, her brother, flies out to be with her and get her a new place to live. That's basically, I bring that up to be like,

that was the last straw. I also bring it up, I said this on the first episode, but I want to say it again. I'm not interested For the purposes of this podcast I'm not really interested in gossip Or personal life stuff To the extent that it doesn't inform

The music or the creativity You know what I mean But I think this... We weren't there But this stuff does Like it's important to say it Because we're gonna... It's gonna inform what's coming next Musically and creatively

So she files for divorce at the top of 1989 In March, Rolling Stone Astor So there wasn't one single breaking point And she said it's been a slow breaking point all the way I can't say anything specific happened And this is while she's already kind of started working on like a prayer This is the like stew and juice

That she is creating this next album out of And she would say later on several times Like that she always loved Sean That she said he's the love of her life And truth or dare And so it feels like also like one of those situations where obviously love wasn't enough. Like the relationship

was very combustible and dramatic and it sounds like the right relationship. Again, to me who cares what I think, but it's like pretty clear like you can love each other the most but the things going on around you, the insane skyrocketing of Madonna's fame from when they met and started dating throughout their marriage and then

Sean Penn not being particularly in love with the limelight, you know, I think, and they had just like kind of different things going on. Who could sustain that, you know? I mean, a lot of celebrity relationships with other celebrities, I always find them a little strange because of my Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog theory of relationships, that there's always a Kermit and a piggy. Okay. Can you expand on that?

I just feel like in this relationship, it was two Miss Piggy's. Right. Right. Two Miss Piggies equals some karate. Yeah, some karate. I just, yeah. Well, okay. Sorry to get all woo-woo in Hollywood over here.

Regardless, this is why Like a Prayer is essentially a divorce album. This is a divorce album, you know? A few weeks before the divorce is actually finalized and before Like a Prayer comes out, Madonna enters into an unprecedented agreement. with the Pepsi Corporation. Hello. That she would release her new single, Like a Prayer, during a Pepsi commercial for $5 million and additionally tour support.

So we're going to spend the next several hours talking about the Pepsi commercial. It's an important commercial. This is the first time a single would premiere in a commercial. It had never happened before. And it was the first time a commercial would have a global launch. This commercial was going to go live in 40 countries at the same time. Spike Lee had done his first Nike ad in 1988, obviously that was like a watershed moment.

Absolute vodka had been in the game for a while. They had been doing those artist collaborations since 1985. They did the first one, I think, with Andy Warhol. And then Pepsi, since 84, had Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, David Bowie, Lionel Richie, and you guys, the Miami Sound Machine. Lest you forget the 80s were a thing, and there was the Miami Sound Machine. All pretty good. Pretty good, Tina.

Miami Stone? Machine had bangers. They asked her in Rolling Stone, why did you do it? You don't need the money. And she was like, no, but I do consider it a challenge to make a commercial

that has some sort of artistic value. I like the challenge of merging art and commerce. As far as I'm concerned, making a video is also a commercial, which should not wrong. The Pepsi Spot is a great and different way to expose the record.

Record companies just don't have the money to finance that kind of publicity. Bim, wait until you go, fucking the 2000s where they're like, oh, you want to make a music video, here's four grand. What I love about this statement is it started out sounding like bullshit and then she made a point. Yeah, totally.

I'm like, she got me. The ad was directed by Joe Pitca who did, this is your brain on drugs egg ad. Major. So major. A lot of great commercials, actually. Burned right into my brain, that one. And he had done the way you make me feel the Michael Jackson video. And Michael Jackson's Pepsi commercial.

And Michael Jackson's Pepsi commercial. Is that the one they caught on fire? His hair did. His hair caught on fire, yeah. And these commercials are extremely aesthetically significant, I would say. Also, very importantly, for Joe Pitca, he brings into the picture the choreographer Vincent Patterson, who's going to form a really lasting creative bond with Madonna and have a lot to do with what this episode's, and a little bit further, work.

So there was a very brief period that she had this hair, but I realized that it was actually memorialized in this commercial and in the interview magazine cover, which I forgot to bring. And one other. The original e-girl hair, babe. The bleached blonde front and the dark rest of it looks so cool. Sorry.

It was, I used a suspicion a lot on fans playing. It was the canary and the coal mine of the bruna and blonde. She was first. Hair tension and drama and conversation. That would take place over the course of the like a prayer record. Continue.

an album cycle, yeah. That is fabulous. I'm sorry, I'll say it. It's the bomb. It's the bomb. The through line is there's a young girl. It's meant to be Madonna as a child, played by Heidi Marshall. And there's Catholic school girls at a Catholic school.

There's a gospel choir and the church with Madonna singing. And it all kind of culminates with Madonna sitting in an armchair, talking to the TV where the little girl is pictured on the TV saying to her, go ahead, make a wish while drinking a can of peasant. And the little girl is drinking an old-fashioned bottle of Pepsi. It's a rear projector television. Okay. Okay. Which were, those were hot back then. That was a big, big... They're back in style now, but they were big back then.

Make a wish. I think it's a beautiful ad. Guess what? You can watch it on YouTube, but actually, um, they only aired it one time. So they pre-purchased $10 million of airtime for it. Ten million dollars of airtime. And they ran an ad for the ad. I've never even heard of such a thing. during the Grammys, they were like, no matter where you are in the world on March 2nd, get to a TV and see Pepsi present Madonna.

And March 2nd, 18, they aired it one time. And I'll tell you why. Because they had not yet seen the actual video for like a prayer. Whoopsy. So I just want to say that... The check cleared, though. The check cleared. And also for a commercial that has only aired one time, it's probably the most iconic commercial of my young, life? You watched it in real time? I didn't watch it in real time. No. But it was like clips of it would replay all the time on like MTV. Yeah, because they're talking about how it was. They would show clips from it when they were talking about how it was banned. It was like a Pepsi

commercial as ban. Like banning it was very stric end effect that blew it up into like a huge public spectacle. But they Pepsi themselves banned. They were like a well because, okay, sorry, we got ahead. Because the actual like a prayer video released March 3rd the day after with the single is for the time, I think you can definitely say, was pushing the envelope of a lot of causes or considerations that were not being talked about, especially not in a music video. So the story of the video is a woman witnesses a crime, that's Madonna, of a girl getting assaulted by a white man who runs off. And then a black man comes up to help the girl and he is arrested for the crime. The video basically follows Madonna's torment.

over what to do, what should I come forward. There's burning crosses. There's a gospel choir. There's a black saint who looks exactly like the man arrested, because they were played by the same man, Leon Robinson, who Madonna kisses the feet of the black saint. And then there's Madonna in a chocolate brown slip from the 50s that actually belonged to Natalie Wood at her name still in it.

As Gril Marcus, the god put it, you have blasphemy on about 10 levels at once. I don't think Pepsi themselves gave a fuck, to be honest, but there was like immediate outrage. Outcry. Yeah, from like, you know, the religious right. Totally, yeah. I think the Vatican weighs in at some point, but we'll get to that.

Vatican absolutely weighs it on Madonna a couple times. But guess what? It hit number one in 30 countries, including Italy. So I love this video. It was directed by Mary Lambert. Yes. Mary is a legendary director do a lot in part

to her Madonna videos but she also did nasty in control for Janet Jackson and the glamorous life and went to art school with the Talking Heads and that's how she came to direct Madonna videos

because of the Sire connection It was also shot by Stephen Postser the cinematographer who would go on to shoot Donnie Darko and Southland Tales Incredible. It's called Taste Madonna from this point Because as they said

With True Blue being such like An apex of her career And making so much money That they were like she can do whatever she wants Yeah And so she did whatever she wanted There's a shot in the video Where

Madonna is falling through the sky Yeah Out of the sky I close my eyes And the gospel singer Catches her And then throws her back into the sky. That is one of the most unintentionally hilarious and ridiculous sequences

in a music video I've ever seen. I love it. I love everything about it. It's actually the most insane video ever if you break it down. Like, okay, like clear your heads, everybody. What I'm about to say is going to, you're going to like freak out, but bearing in mind that it is like one of the most iconic videos of all time, like maybe top two. Yeah. I think about iconic pop videos, I think about the burning crosses and like a prayer. And I think about like Michael Jackson, Billy Jean and the street is lighting up. Totally. And for me, thriller, honestly. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, I'm not taking any of that away from it. But because it's so iconic and it like is so embedded in all of us so deeply, to go and rewatch it now, like from a filmmaking

perspective, from a storytelling perspective, it's a riot. Like, I'm sorry, it's like, I'm sorry. It's this white savior narrative of this woman who witnesses, who's like deciding whether or not to come forward as a witness to, what is it like a... I think it's like a rape or sexual assault, yeah. And in deciding whether or not to do the right thing, because she might not, it's a decision she's making. It's not, she's not like, I must help this person. She's like, should I?

And then her should I creates a hallucination. Yes. where she's like a Messiah in a black church. Like she's like, I'm saving black people if I do this. It's crazy. I'm not sure that was the exact storyboarding of the format. It's so headless. Like, no one has been this headless or carried this much ever.

I think the like... And the performance of her with the gospel choir and she's down on the ground and bang her. Okay, I'm going to read her own words of what this video said. She said, a girl on the street when this is an assault on a young woman, afraid to get involved because she might get hurt. She is frozen in fear. A black man walking down the street also sees the incident and decides to help the wound. But then the police arrive and arrest him. As they take him away, she looks up and sees one of the gang members, okay, this is the part we miss, who assaults the girl, who had assaulted the girl.

He gives her a look that says she'll be dead if she tells. That's why she's struggling. And that is in the video. In the video, I don't know if it lands, though. Well, that didn't feel like a threat to me. No, I remember it. Don't you remember? And he was just like... He's just looking at her, but it's like, I don't really get that she feels threatened there.

I feel like she's just like... Why else would she not come forward? Because she's a narcissist. The girl runs not knowing where to go until she sees a church. She goes in and sees a saint in a cage who looks very much like the man on the street and says a prayer to help her make the right decision. He seems to be crying, but she's not sure. She lies down on a pew and falls into a dream

In which she begins to tumble in space Okay, she fell asleep babe, that was a dream Dream sequence Alice in Wonderland now Yeah and with no one to break her fall Suddenly she is caught by a woman who represents Earth and emotional strength and who tosses her back up And tells her to do the right thing Still dreaming she returns to the saint

And her religious and erotic feelings begin to stir The saint becomes a man She picks up a knife and cuts her hands That's the guilt in Catholicism that if you do something that feels good, you will be punished. As the choir sings, she reaches an orgasmic crescendo of sexual fulfillment intertwined with her love of God. She knows that nothing's going to happen to her if she does what she believes is right. She wakes up, goes to the jail, tells the police the man is innocent, and he is freed.

Then everyone takes a pow. And we say... The bow is also hysterical. It's very Shakespeare. It's all the world to stay is bad. I just like... Anyway, anyway. I love it so much.

Here are the parts that I love about it. Given that it's impossible to watch it now without the brain rot and brain damage that has transpired in the years sense, where nothing could possibly make any sort of emotional impact or, like, be, like, envelope pushing now because we live in a hellscape of memes where, like, the Iranian government is like, here's Donald Trump doing a little dance while we're at war. Thinking about that, go back and imagine a world. where, like, putting burning crosses on TV was insane. That people would watch that. It still is insane. Exactly.

Like, and then also to, like, I know you guys, you already know how I feel about spirituality. But I love the idea of someone bringing forth religious ecstasy. There was actually a saint. I think it was, oh, my God, I can't remember her name. She was so awesome. She's always depicted with all the swords going through her. Do you remember what I'm talking about? Yeah.

That old bitch. But her whole thing was also religious, like, kind of, like, sexual ecstasy of the spirit. She was fierce. I'm a fucking, I'm a major fan. I love like a prayer. I'm a huge fan. I just wanted to say. I'm not saying about this video.

And this song, by the way, we should talk about the song really quick. That guitar in the beginning is Prince, uncredited. Okay, cool. No big deal. The gospel influence is really, it's really, like, works. It does work. It works so well. And then also putting in, I think people don't like this, but I'm down on my knees.

I'll take you there. That's Madonna at her best, you know? Totally. This is like peak. This was like, but you can see why there was such an uproar at the time. Of course. And like, but that gets kind of, we get numb to it as time goes on as well. Exactly.

So for me, it's less about like, oh, if you look at it through today's lens, you can poke holes in it and find even more things to be offended about it. It's not even about that. it's like we actually like aren't offended by anything anymore. That's what I was saying. I think it's the opposite. I think everything makes an impact because you're just like. But you,

but you know, there was a huge reaction to it, which is similar, which of course we talked about with the Pepsi ad, but it made the song bigger, I think. This was like the example of like her provocations really doing their job. Yeah,

100%. So it's into that space that a couple weeks later the full album comes out. I also just want to say quickly, that I want to talk about her costume designer Marlene Stewart Yeah She did this video but she also did Material Girl dress you up

The Virgin Tour Papa Don't Preach True Blue Open Your Heart Las La Bonita Who's that girl? Like a prayer express yourself The costume designer on dangerous game

Yeah she's a costume designer on dangerous game She also has done videos for Janet Jackson Share Rod Stewart Erythmix She went on to do the feature films I'm going crazy on this because I'm obsessed with her. Yeah. She did The Doors. Oh, best.

JFK. Terminator 2. True lies. Two Wong Fu, thanks for everything truly new more. Space Jam. The Saint. The X-Files movie. The Saint was so good.

I know. Coyote Ugly, 21 grams. The holiday that Cameron Diaz... You don't have to explain who the holidays. I'm skipping a lot, but she also did Tropic Thunder, oblivion, top gun maverick, never nominated for an Oscar, which is insane. Totally underrated, giant of costume design.

Marlene Stewart, say her name. This is the sort of person that I feel like doesn't get the proper amount of praise. There's like three major fashion players in Madonna's look life, and it's Maripole, Marlene Stewart, and then Ariane Phillips, which we'll get to in another part. Okay. Like a Prayer. March, 1989, produced by Madonna, Patrick Leonard, Stephen Bray, and Prince has a little juge on it.

He sprinkled a little Prince dust on there. I suppose his production extends to just the one song, but I really liked this bit from Patrick Leonard. He said, we argued a lot during the making of this album. But one day she held up the true blue album cover and said, whose picture is this? The more feisty conversations stopped there. That's pretty amazing. She's like, oh, really? Who's, this is me? Pulling rank. Yeah. The ever impossible to answer, but everyone has their own because it's just a personal thing.

Favorite album question. This, I think, is mine. Like, every which way from Sunday I try to, like, parse it out, even though I think I recognize that, like, maybe objectively speaking through, like, a music critic lens, there are better albums. I just, this is my guy. Did Nell talk about the napkin? No, you know what? He didn't bring up the napkin. Wow.

We've talked about it a bunch in our group chat, though. Do you want to talk about the napkin? I'll start this off by saying, I think I'm in four Madonna-centric group chats. Okay. And there's a lot of overlap in them. It's all really confusing to me. It should probably just be one group chat, but we don't have the discipline. And sometimes you want to leave someone alone.

You know what I mean? It's like, are we going to pull? Karen Gans into every Madonna group chat. I know. She would probably love it. So, you know, we're trying to be respectful by like, how stupid the Madonna conversation is getting warrants a different group chat. There's like, it's like, there's levels happening. But there was a one night when a bunch of us were together.

I think we were at Julius Bar, I want to say, in New York. And we all got into a conversation about what is the best Madonna album. And it turned into a screaming fight that lasted for hours where we were really. ranking the albums on cocktail napkins. And then we finally came to a consensus of the Madonna album ranking, which Mel still has the cocktail napkin. Yeah, which, by the way, is like so incorrect. It's totally incorrect.

We look at it now and we're like, what were we thinking? It like hurt my feeling. Because we were like screaming at each other so much. Like a prayer is not even on the napkin. I was like immediate disqualification, you guys. Sorry, but like this napkin is null and void. Well, I do think that American style is number four. American Life?

American Life, sorry. American Life is number four. Cancelled. And no like a prayer on the napkin. American Life is a really good record. I agree, but like a prayer. Not even mentioned. But I think True Blue is number one.

I love to. I love, I love, I think that is my number one. I think it might be my favorite too. It's me neck and neck with, I'm just picturing. It's just like you get eight gay guys together and like try to get them to rank Madonna. It's like throwing like a raw meat into like a coyote cage and just like tearing each other. apart. Yeah, there were some lesbians too.

Friendships were ended. All right. Yeah. Back to this album. Huge album. Huge album. I think sonically what I didn't understand that I was like reacting to or have been reacting to all these years.

But once someone put it forth, I was like, oh, that makes sense. It has real drums almost all throughout. And synth bass. And there was a very cool. There's also sometimes that's inverted with other artists, but there's a really cool thing that happens when like the drum is real and the bass is synth or the drums are synth and the bass is real. It's just like a beautiful alchemy, I think, that makes these songs really pop.

That's interesting. The dedication of this album is to my mother who taught me how to pray. They asked her in Rolling Stone. You dedicated the album to your mother taught you how to pray. When do you pray? And she said constantly, I pray when I'm in trouble or when I'm happy, when I feel any sort of extreme. I pray when I feel so great that I'll think I need to check in with myself and recognize how good life is. I know that sounds silly.

We should start doing that? I pray a lot. Do you not pray? A bit in that instance? When you have to like check yourself and know how good life is. Yeah. Yeah, I think the act of making gratitude list, not to be like absolute Venice Hat Lady, woo-woo. But that to me is like a prayer of gratitude is when you like really sit.

Whatever she's doing is working. I'm just- you're doing, babe. Taking notes. Another, like, I think thing that informs this album is the year prior, Tony Shikoni, Madonna's father had given all his children copies of the letters their mother had written to him when he was in the Air Force before they were married. So they had all of a sudden all this, like, material, or she had all this material of her

mother to, like, kind of... That's so interesting. Right? Because this album does feel more about her mother than any have been up to this point. like to me like a prayer as an album like about loss right like it's about the loss of love in a relationship it's about the loss of your mother it's about the loss of maybe your like idea of what could be you know like she thought Sean Penn was that's it I'm for true blue baby forever you know and also the loss of like agency because a lot of this is about like pushing back against like

I'm sorry to say it, the patriarchy, fathers, husbands, people trying to control you and tell you what to do. And then I think just to like position it and so we can talk about when we get to erotica, I think that is the slingshot effect into erotica because erotica is an album about power. Mm-hmm. About taking power and being like, oh, really? Like, no. You thought you thought you could take, no, I'm taking the power, you know? But just like the emotion in this album, there's songs where you can hear that she's like, it feels like she's about to cry.

Like her voice is like cracking. It's so emotional. There's certain songs in here I can't even get through almost because like listening to it again recently. And I'm like maybe I'm just so middle aged now. Or like I've lost my mother so it's like things hit different. Promise to try. Promise to try. I will weep openly right now.

And she sounds like she's crying on that song. She sings sounds like she. Well, let's go through. But also, like, something else about this album is that it feels like her most rebellious album, which is so interesting because... Really? Go on. Tell me more about that. Up until this point. Because even though she was being so, like, rambunctious and wild and free and doing Papa Don't Preach and kind of pushing these buttons here and there.

And there's, like, intention versus what actually the result was and what happened because the album cycle didn't necessarily go according to plan for what she was doing. but she came into this album cycle Brunette. Yeah. Like she was kind of getting rid of the image that she created. This like pop icon image. She's like, it's like very 60s inspired. Yes. So there's like.

As you can see from the cover. Which has like a little, it has like a political undertone, but it has a little bit of like, I'm done being this artificial kind of bulletproof pop star and I'm like, I'm different than you think I am. Yeah. I'm just playing vulnerability. This is like her like. Also, we talked about it a little on the first episode, but like, it's not so true blue that she is so much taking over the, like, lyrical content as much. And even then, it's, it's a little fluffy. Yeah. It's great. It's true. Like, she's in love and, you know, Papa Don't Preach was already written, but, like, she embodied it. But here it's, like, her, like, she's in her Joni Mitchell bag. She's, like, I'm, like, mining my, my pain and my life to, like, pour into these lyrics. And it's very, it is like not your typical pop star moment.

But then also to come out with like a prayer as the lead single and do that video, it's the most boundary pushing thing she had done up until that point. And so it's also, but she's grounding it in this like introspective, religious thing. And then she does end up kind of going back to blonde pop star. Right. In the middle of things because of Dick Tracy. Yeah. And like.

But thank God. Imagine the Vogue video or the Express Yourself video without the Bleacherself video without the Bleachers. blonde hair? Listen, God works in mysterious ways. Things worked out how they had to. Life is a mystery. Everyone was stand alone.

So we started talking about the influences, right? It's the divorce album. Pat Leonard said that on some days she would wear sunglasses all day in the studio like she was going the fuck through it. Sean Penn told Playboy in 1991, you have to understand.

When Madonna and I got together, she hadn't even gone on tour yet. My understanding of the direction that Madonna was choosing was a misunderstanding. And the degree to which she would be choosing and chosen for such an intense spotlight was a surprise. A big surprise. I started to get the idea very shortly after we were together.

But by then, there's that heart thing that gets involved. You don't walk away so easily because something's a little difficult. And then here's like an interview with her about the marriage. Do you think the odds were stacked against this marriage from the start? It seemed people defied it to succeed. She said, oh yes, I felt that no one wanted us to be together. They celebrated our union and then they wanted us to be apart. There were rumors about us getting a divorce about a week after the wedding.

We fought that. And yes, it was difficult. I don't know if anyone can do it under those circumstances. And then they asked her, do you regret that you ever got married? And she said, no. Ultimately, I have twins of regret, but I feel more sadness than anything. Feeling regret is really destructive. I have learned a great deal from my marriage so much about everything mostly myself.

Please don't ask me what. I just couldn't say. What I thought was really interesting was the way that she talked about how Sean was very protective over her. her and was this big masculine figure in her life, which reminded her of her father and the way this record is trying to liberate herself from that? Yeah, 100%. It's like the patriarchy, the father, the son, the Holy Coast, whatever, the Pope, the, you know, everyone. She had said, keep it together and express yourself our tributes to like the sly and the family

stone style music. And she said, oh, father is her tribute to Simon and Garfunkel. Amazing. Wow. Love Simon and Girlf Uncle. There's so many things like that with this record that you sort of take for granted or like it's like embedded in our subconscious mind. But, you know, I was saying this about the album cover because I've just been looking at that album cover my whole life. It does not read as hippie or 60s to me, which actually is crazy because when you look at it, it is so.

No, but I agree. But to me, like, it was so 90s for some reason. Yeah, maybe it was the jeans. We're not in the 90s yet. But isn't that like so the foretelling of how the 90s vibes? is like cool, like faded blue jeans with like those kinds of beads and like head shop jewelry, you know, it's cool. Her Brits shot that. Sick.

Yeah. He shot everything from this record, pretty much. According to the biographer Lucia O'Brien, she said the cover was inspired by Madonna's mother who used to cover up her sacred heart statue with zip up jeans every time a woman came to visit. The zip up jeans. Wow. Yeah.

Here's something new every day. I need to point out. Italian customs. Italian custom. French Canadian, her mom. This album was packaged with the scent of patchouly into it, like church incense. So when you got it, it like burst a smell of petuli because, according to Warner Brothers at the time, she wanted to create a sensual feeling that you could hear and smell.

And there was a box set that is very well known among the Madonna fandom collected. It came with a cassette. Yes. A compact disc. A copy of Rolling Stone. The cover. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And there was a metal pin of that Starburst logo mark. Yes. And slide projector slides, because I guess everybody had those. Of course. We all had a slide projector at our home. Well, and don't forget the insert. The AIDS insert. The AIDS insert was the facts about AIDS and had a brief intro that

denounced anti-gay bigotry and violence and then laid out very clearly the ways in which one could contract AIDS, including the line, you can get AIDS by having vaginal or anal sex with an infected partner. Not a lot of people mentioning anal sex in 1989, let alone in marketing material. So this is kind of a big deal. Or enough on podcasts like Bansplain. It's anal sex. Say it.

We probably mention anal sex more than any other ringer podcast. That's definitely true. Yeah. I also just want to shout out Sarah Jane Horr, who I think did the styling on all of the Urbitts shoots, or most of them. Oh, really? During this time, she's a legendary stylist who I've worked with. So you think Marlene Stewart didn't do this one? I couldn't tell you, but from what my research has taught me.

Got it. It would have been Sarah Jane, perhaps. That's cool. All right. We talked about like a prayer song. let's get into number two. Second single, second track on the record. Let's express yourself, babe.

Oh, boy. Here's the one where I think if you've heard this song in any context, it's not the album version. Correct. Yeah, because the remix by Shep Pettybone became... The video. The video. Even though

they had already filmed the video to the original version, and that is why, So one of the things Shep Pettybone did to the album version is he removed all the horns. But in the video, if you watch, there's still a part where there's men playing horns, but there's no horns. It looks good, which is all the matter. We'll get to the video on a second. Master of editing, David Fincher, he can make those changes on the fly. I never noticed once until I listened to Inside the Groove podcast, and they mentioned it.

And I was like, oh, huh. Also, this single, there was a limited edition, 7-inch that came out in the UK. was a pair of jeans and the back of the single was the backside of the jeans and the titles were like embroidered on them and it was like a little play off of what was already. Send it to me.

Oh, and you can actually unzip the jeans and take the record out. So fucking cool. Why do the British people get everything? It's so true. Everything. They get everything. They're the coolest, that's why. Bring back Colonials.

Yeah. It was a mistake. Take us back. Actually. So this express yourself takes a little inspiration, shall I say, from the song Respect Yourself by Staples Singers. You've heard this song. The live drums on here are by a guy named John J.R. Robinson, who also drummed on a song called Don't Stop Till You Get Enough by Michael Jackson. Also a song called Ain't Nobody by Shaka Khan.

And I'm so excited by the Pointer Sisters. Ledge, babe. The bridge is a sinclavier, which is like the same thing they use on superstitious by Stevie Wonder, and that you'll never calm down. That's Stephen Bray, doing a weird little. And there is a version of- I'm available for those two.

So they wanted someone else to do it. Like I can't, I should have written it down. It was like someone famous, but it was just complicated. I was like, you just do it. And there's actually, I heard on the Inside the Groove podcast, there is her doing it as well. It's not included. I don't think of the thing.

but in this weird accent, it's very funny. Madonna said about the meaning of this song. The message of the song is that people should always say what it is they want. The reason relationships don't work is because they are afraid. That's been my problem in all my relationships. I'm sure people see me as an outspoken person. And for the most part, if I want something, I ask for it. But sometimes you feel that if you ask for too much or ask for the wrong thing from someone you care about,

then that person won't like you. And so you censor yourself. I've been guilty of that in every meaningful relationship I've ever had. the time I learn how to not edit myself will be the time I consider myself a complete adult 1989. I wonder when it will happen. Well, we have a couple of instances we can...

I have a theory on that, and it's like, again, venousality. But I think it's a ray of light. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense.

Let's talk about the video. I know. Directed by a 26-year-old David Dave Fincher. Love of my life. Do you think anyone calls him Dave? Yeah. Yeah.

If only to fuck with him. Right. So just a quick David Fincher's sidebar. Dave, will you take this? Dave, babe. He had been an apprentice at George Lucas's Industrial Lights and Magic visual effects company and a PA on the Return of the Jedi movie. I'm sweating. And then by the time we're here.

I'm from there. This is my, this is there. He was playing in my backyard. Can you believe? Skywalker Ranch, Marin County, California. By the time this video gets directed, he had done a bunch of music videos, including motherfucking she's like the wind, Patrick Swayze. I love how that's where you go.

Because I love that song, and that's a great video. Well, okay, Gypsy King's Bombolio, also really important to Yahuasie's life. That was the first concert I ever attended with my parents, Gypsy King. Paula Abdul straight up. Okay, you know what? I have to say there's more important Paula Abdul collaboration than that that he did. He also did Paula Abdul's The Way That You Love Me, which there are two versions of. For some reason, they released one video, and then a year later did another one.

And it's like, it's like the same video almost. It's just re-shot. Forgotten to time. Different lighting. And I'm like, was this Fincher being like, I don't like that video, I would shoot it different now? Let's do it over. And you know what? If you're Paula Abdul, you could because I think it's impossible to overstate how massive she was in the 80s.

Really massive. I think that both videos are extraordinarily aesthetically significant to David Fincher and his style. He's done some good videos. He also did the American Cancer Society commercial with the smoking fetus. He was in his Benjamin Button bag way back then. So Madonna links up with David Fincher and it will not be the last time, thank God. But she says she wants to do a video based on two things. a 1921 black and white

photograph by Lewis Hine called Powerhouse Mechanic and Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis. You'd probably recognize that photo. It's like a muscle guy. Yeah, yeah. And he's like pushing a big lever.

Okay. Yeah. She told Molly Belderum. Totally. She said, I definitely wanted to have that influence, that look. All the men,

the workers, sort of diligently, methodically working away. It's, I mean, it's so perfect. It was like, It looks like she's like the queen bee in a beehive, and all the men are just, like, hot and, like, working, toiling away.

There's a lot of this kind of, like, German expressionist play going on in the 80s. I think that there was something happening with, like, maybe it was, like, the rise of the synthesizer in pop music. And, like, you know, we talked about with Depeche Mode, like, we talked about this. Like, if, like, German sensibilities. Yeah, like, what is the Depeche Mode album come? that's like very that vibe. Oh, yes. It's a crazy album cover.

You know, there was like the Apple commercial for the Mac that Ridley Scott directed. There was like Sony ads at that time kind of had this vibe. It felt very like in the air. Brazil, the Terry Gilliam film. Yep. You're nailing it. It was like the right around the era of like kind of like postmodernist Bauhaus having like a big resurgence. Yeah, because the 80s had such that look of like furniture and style.

You're so right. this video really formative to young Yossi I was like when will I be in a gorgeous pinstripe suit dancing in a factory with a lot of hot men

I'm gonna crawl on all fours and drink the milk that was David Fincher's idea for her to crawl like a cat and like from the bowl of milk and pour the milk over herself I bet it was Dave

but it was Dave the tracking shot of Madonna crawling underneath the dining room table is one of the most important shots in the history of pop music videos. It is so influential. So many people have copied it or done other versions of it. Oh my God.

Just when you said that, I have had like 80 flashes in my head of future music videos. It's like drag queens on drag race. The crawling on all fours thing this is the birth of it. Totally. Pay some some motherfucking respect.

Respect on her name. And Dave. It's the blueprint. This video costs $5 million. And at the time was the most expensive video ever made. Yeah. They don't do that anymore. And that's without inflation.

Yeah. That's at the time. So it was $20 million. Got it. And we talked about this a little bit before. But the reason her hair is back to bleach blonde is because she had to change it for Breathless Mahoney and, Dick Tracy.

Yes. And right now we are in May, I believe, which is the time that the movie wrapped. So she would have just finished it. Yeah. And what's happening is like this is when Madonna's acting work is really starting to come into her pop music work and kind of like a new way, I feel like. And prior to this, like Madonna was always seen as like, she was definitely seen as a trend setter.

She had like her own look and then everybody would copy it. There were the like Madonna bees were what they would be called. were what they would be called. But this is the era that came to be called her chameleon era. And it's because her image, her shapeshifting image during this album cycle.

And what's funny to me... It wasn't planned. It was not intentional. It was circumstantial. Right. Because there's a couple singles from this album. I mean, somewhat intentional, but it was like, you know, she could have worn a wig. But she was like,

no, I'm doing blonde for Dick Tracy. That's going to be the look now. I think God Intervie. fears that, babe, because, like, again, I think Madonna is all powerful and can do anything, but I don't know if the bleached blonde wasn't happening if it would have popped the way it did. She knew on some level. People are really drawn to a bleach blonde woman, and it was, and it's started to give the, like, this is the first, like, glamorous Jean Harlow-esque, you know, vibes that really

start to, like, be the Madonna thing. And we have to give props to Peter Savick, who was Madonna's, who was Madonna's hairstylist at this time. I don't know how he did it. Can he do my hair because I don't know how to go from dark to blonde? He can. He lives in Los Angeles. He's still working. Sir, I want to go blonde so bad, but I've had so much black dye in my hair. I don't know if we're going to be a little bit. He's a legendary hairstylist. He did

Helmut Lang's first runway show. Wow. He created the hair in single white female. A movie that is about hair. He also did Winona Ryder's hair in reality bites. I know you love that hair. Say no more, fam. Say no more. Sorry, I know this is band-splained and not hair But when you invite a homosexual on the podcast, we're going to talk about hair.

And I could go on and on about Peter Savick. He's it, baby. He's a magician. Yeah. Because lifting that dark back to blonde so immediately. And then Vincent Patterson should be shouted out for this video because he did the choreography, which is obviously iconic. But also, he is responsible for the crotch grab, which heard around the world. The crotch grab scene around the world.

She had been kidding with him during rehearsals about Michael Jackson, who obviously was the big, you know, crotch-grabbing pioneer. And she was like, what should I do right now with my hand? And he was like, well, why don't you grab your balls? You've got bigger balls than anyone else here. And so she did. And it's a really great part of the video. All right.

The next song is, it's hard for me to say, but this is in my top five. This is sometimes number one, but it's absolutely in my top five. And it's a love song featuring Prince. I cannot get tired of this song. This song sounds like it was made yesterday. This song is so timeless, fresh, and modern. It is like, I'm obsessed with it. I don't think it's fair actually to put it as a favorite Madonna song

because it also is so Prince sounding as well. But it's just, I just come back to it over and over again. It's so simple. It's so sexy. They both sound so cool. I love it. To me, it's, a song that kind of exists.

It's on the album, but it could live outside the album. You could pop it out of the album and it just is its own thing or something. I agree. You know, I love that it's on the album. It definitely contributes to the kind of eclectic nature of the album and like this kind of like Boho. Yeah. The Boho.

The funky boho hippie vibe, if you will. It was supposed to be more Prince collaboration, but this is the only thing, this is the only actual song that they yielded. I said that it's like kind of a soundtrack song to me. Like I could hear this in a movie if it wasn't probably so expensive to license due to the billion dollars that are on the track between the two of them. It would be such a good, such a good score moment. Oh, it's so cool. Like if it was like the Ryan Murphy love story and it was a scene where they're like vintage shopping being really goofy, like that would be like a perfect needle drop.

You know what I mean? It's too, like, salt. It's like... It's so 90s in this crazy way. It's the most viscerally coffee house 90s. Do you really think so? Java, mocha. I find it to be so, like, I feel like because it's so simple, it's almost like doesn't sound of any time.

Her vocal harmonies on it are really amazing toward the end. It, like, builds. Yeah. Like, the way that they'll build it and stop. Exactly. That's why I find it very, to be a very sexual song. for that reason. It's like big, it's like so smart how it works on like a musical level

to sound sexual. It's a really dynamic. Yeah. A really unusual song for Madonna at this time, I feel like. Totally. It was really it's kind of a swerve. And I feel like it makes sense. It's like, if you're going to collaborate with Prince, like you should do something weird, you know? Yeah, she said she went to a studio in Minnesota and they worked on some stuff and then she was like, I hate Minnesota. I'm coming home. There was actually also a podcast to listen to and I can't place it,

But one of Prince's later girlfriends was like Madonna asked him to make a video and he said no. And I was like, well, you don't have any evidence of that. Well, considering that his other contributions are uncredited, it sounds like he is good at saying no. Yeah, he was like, no, thank you. They asked her in an interview, since Prince is the preeminent pop spiritualist, so the two of you have any discussions about religion, she said, we never talk about religion or politics. but Love Song does have a spirituality about it, the kind that exists between two people.

It's really about that push and pull of a relationship, the back and forth. I love you, I hate you, I want you get away from me. You build me up and tear me down, that constant rubbing. Religion and sex. I liked how Steve Bray said in an interview that they asked him to work on it, and he was like, I can't be a prince.

I can't do it. He was such a big prince fan that he was too scared. He was like not emotionally ready. That happens sometimes. Yeah. The next song is Till Death Do Us Part. Do-da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Okay, I love this song.

Me too. But within the context of this album, it feels a little behind pace of where she had gotten to with her sounds. Like, it sounds like it could have been on like the Who's That Girl soundtrack. Well, I think what's interesting about this album, it is a bridge album. There are, like, several moments on here that are like, like, we kind of talk about this. This is, like, somehow both an 80s and 90s album at one. At once.

Because it has elements of like, Tilda Athos part, Dear Jesse, keep it together as an 80s song. It has this tension and it's like reflected in the like, the blonde versus brunette, like the previous like pop star diva Madonna,

the like hippie, like deep spiritual Madonna. And it's like almost like it doesn't know what it wants to be, but that tension is what makes it exciting. Totally. And it's like she's all of those things. That's why it's cool, you know? Yeah, I love this song.

The fucking, the drama. of the glass break at the end. The melody is very seductive. I thought it was interesting that this song could be, you know, you could leap to the conclusion that it was at least partially inspired by her marriage.

Yeah. And that she told an interview. That was the selling point, for sure. She knew she had to have some song on the album that would be like, look, a breakup song. Like, till death's due its part, it's sort of, I don't want to say cynical, but she was definitely like,

Well, she must have been writing from that place, you know. She put the song forward as that. Right. And she said that she, Sean heard it before she put it out. And she said, yes, and he loves it. Well, where's the fun in that? I know. She said Sean is very keen on being brutally frank in his work.

Well, it's kind of crazy because this song is like the implication is there's domestic abuse. Right. So you're like. Okay, promise to try. Why don't you just take an ice cream scoop? and just fucking stick it right in my chest and strip my heart out and put it on the fucking table.

When I listen to Promise to Try, I'm like, this is what makes us different. You and Madonna and me. This is the only thing. This is the one dividing. This is, I pretty much am her, except I'm like, I really admire it that someone can be this

sincere and vulnerable. Yes, not really your thing. Yeah, I was just like, it makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, I understand. Not me. I'm like, where's the punchline? I'd be crying on pop.

podcast and stuff. I think it's really beautiful. Also, it's like the idea that we talked about a bit in part one and that she's talked about many times that like this wound, this like lack of a mother wound, you know, had a huge part in creating her entire personality and her entire what she wanted out of life because, okay, if I don't have my mother's love, I'll have the world's love, you know? And then sort of trying to return to that well to like understand yourself. Keep your head. I obviously haven't experienced. Thank God.

My mother is still alive. But to lose your mother at five years old, six years old, like the mythology that would build around how much of your life you've lived without that person, like they become an apparition, you know? Yeah. You barely have enough memories to, like, cobble together a person. And that's what the song is about is like, I hope I don't forget you, basically. Oof.

I can't. She is Lydiaeal. It's so beautiful. It's so sad. it's also like a really incredible top line melody like one of her

greatest strengths for a ballad it's so evocative it's haunting it's like it's hopeful but it's so fragile and like

that to me I'm like don't take this shit for granted like some people spend their whole careers trying to write a song like that this is a very rare type of song to make

and most people can't make this kind of song my brain I was like if she had just saved this one for a league of their own she would have won the original song Oscar honestly although it has literally nothing to do with the premise of

Right and they didn't she didn't get one for live to tell so it's like Get out of here One of the best songs of all time One of the most enduring ballads Yeah promise to try is God tier God tier song she It's just Pat Leonard playing the piano and her singing

And he said that the record the record button got pushed twice It's like really just like Wow She was very like that. Like, I've read many of our collaborators. They were like, she's a one track. She's a one take diva.

She's just like. That said, the song is too sad for me. You skip it. I will skip it. It's a little like on the level of the Sarah McLaughlin Humane Society commercial type of thing. I don't know if you do this, but we have an entire. I'm like, I don't need to be that sad. Oh, no.

It's not in this episode, but you guys get excited. I have an entire triangulation story for you involving the Sarah McLaughlin in the arms of an angel, adopt these dogs or you fucking will go brought in hell and a Madonna song. I'm going to bring it all together, but it's not till it's not till railways. We're on the same wavelength. Now we can get to your favorite song. You know what? I will not fucking have you come on my show and say a negative word about one of the greatest

pieces of pop confection ever put to track, cherish. There is something that is so throwback. about it that it risks being corny. Like, I compared it to, like, shares the Shoup Shoup song. Which is also a great song. Of course it is. But it's like, that's like a category of pop song. You love True Blue and all a great chunk of True Blue is that as well.

I know. I know. It's true. Why not Cherish is not allowed? Why come from my beloved Cherish? Maybe it's the horns. I don't know. There's some, it's, but. This man, Stephen Bray and Patrick Leonard, they love a horns.

But also, that was me, like, the way. that I conceive of cherish in my lizard brain and then listening to it, you're just like, it is a perfect pop song. There's no way she could have not recorded this and not put this on this album. It's like, when you're hearing it, you're like, it's irresistible. It sounds like a billion dollars.

I have to put it on 12 times in a row before I'm satisfied. One time is never enough. And like, for me, I really think that like, it's deceptively complex. Yeah. Structurally. Thank you. And lyrically.

And emotionally. It's really brilliant. Yes. And if you have... It's postmodern. It's referential. She's like, the lyrics are all referencing

like classic old love songs and she's bringing them up and bringing them back. Thank you. Burning love, Elvis Presley. Two hearts is Bruce Springsteen, but I'm going to say Stacey Q on that one. But like, you know, Cupid, Sam Cook,

you are my destiny. Like, these are like old standards that she's like kind of tossing out and making these references to. And I really think the melody on the verses is fucking incredible. It's amazing. And how it kind of moves around. Also, it has a thing that a lot of my favorite songs have, which I think you have to have a fine-tuned sense of emotion to really. grasp it. But it is a deceptively positive song that actually holds within it a lot of pain. Because this song... It's rich. Yeah. This song is about delusion. The song is like, she wrote it while

doing Speed the Plow when her marriage was in fucking shamboles. Okay. The shit is, the train is falling off the tracks. And she has this like last burst of Dululu to be like, But we're so in love. It could, you know, like, it's love. It's so funny. And you can hear it, you know. Like, in your notes, you have a quote from her. She says, I wrote it in a super hyper positive state of mind that I knew was not going to last.

But I wrote down, this is hilarious. And I wonder if she was on diet pills or something. No, she was high on who amongst this has not been high on the manic delusion that a love will last when you know it's not going to. She's like, I'm in love and I'm on Broadway. She's like totally deranged. And someone gave me some dexies. Sandra gave me some dexies. Also, we didn't even mention that obviously the Cherish part comes from the song,

the association song Cherish that starts, Cherish is the word I use. Cherish is the word I used to describe. And it's the same tempo as True Blue, which is why it has that same. I will not take any Cherish slander. Let's talk about the video, though. Directed by one, her.

Herb Ritz, his first video he ever did. Herbert Ritz was called up from the photography leagues to the moving picture. And I love this. Okay, I also, I'm sorry, I don't want to play into, like, the savior narrative, but I just love the fact that she had learned that he was HIV positive, and then this is, like, kind of her reaction was like, I think you should. Gay mermaids. Well, I think you should make, I think you should make a video.

Like, I think you should do this other, you know, like, not that, I don't. don't think moving pictures and elevated art from photography is not what I'm talking about, but like, she was kind of like, why don't you, why don't I give you this cool opportunity, you know, like, let's let's like let you get into something fun, you know? And he obviously was like, I don't know how to do that. I'm a photographer. But I thought it was very cool that he was like, okay, yes, I'll do it. And he was on a job in Hawaii, photographing Stephanie Seymour in a mermaid costume made by Sharon Seminare, who is the same woman that will make the mermaid tails for Cherish.

And that's what kind of got in his head. He got really obsessed with the mermaids and he was filming with a Super 8 camera. He was like, okay, I can do this. So he didn't run those photos. He... Yeah, what happened to them? I know he was doing the shoot. He was doing...

It was a shoot for the June 1989 issue of Vogue. Okay. Of course. I'm like, I have the info. Don't worry. Polymellon styled the shoot. The mermaid tail pictures are not in the shoot. They piggybacked it onto the shoot,

which is a term that we use in the biz. But he was... What does that mean? Like, you're doing a shit that someone's paying for. Right, okay. And then you're like, I'm going to do all these extra photos. I'm going to try something. I have Stephanie Seymour here.

I can use her. I'll just... And so I think the mermaid tail pictures of her were like a test for the Cherish video. He had that in mind when he was doing it. That's so cool. It's really cool this video. Like what he was able to do...

It's legendary. The tales weighed like something. something insane, right? And the way the guys are swimming and they're popping up is amazing. He said because they had to be carried into the water, but once they were in the water, they could move really well. And they were mostly, besides Tony Ward, fucking one of the hottest men to ever exist, they were water polar players from Pepperdine.

So obviously they were extremely good swimmers. Wow. And a murchild. There was a child. This is an affirmative moment to my young sexuality. It also makes sense why I would fall in love with gay men multiple times in my life. But hot, babe. Totally hot.

Part of the lore of the cherished video. Also is that Kim Kardashian was there. Excuse me? I don't know if you've heard this story. No, do go on. With Allison Azoff. So how old is she at this point? I don't know.

Ten adolescent. Yeah. No, nine. Eight. So I don't know. Kim Kardashian's only one year older than me. I think it was Kim's family's beach house. Okay.

Maybe it was the A-Sox. Robert Cardacians. Or Bruce? Was this the Bruce era? I don't know. Sorry, Kim. I'm sorry. I'm not a Kardashianologist.

I'm a band's plan. Well, anyway, they had a beach house at Paradise Cove in Malibu, and it was next door to Madonna's manager's beach house. Freddie Demand. And that was where they filmed the video. And Kim has told the story that she remembers sitting with Allison on the stairs from their beach house just watching Madonna film the Cherish video. like freaking out as a kid.

God, I see what you give to other people. I know, because I'm like, what did she do in a past life to have just the most blessed existence of anybody among us? It's crazy. She deserved it. Maybe I'll get that the next round. Okay, I'm going to go on to Dear Jessie, and I'm going to say something. I love this song.

I don't care what anyone says. Is it like a top ten Madonna song? Obviously not. Okay? Is it a little corn balls? The answer is yes. It's insane. But it's insane.

I love it. It's so crazy that you put this on here. And also, going back to the overarching themes of this album and the connecting with your inner child, the child who lost your mom. You know, here's a beautiful little song that Jesse, the titular Jesse is Pat Leonard's daughter. Actually, her name was Jesse. But she's just talking to herself. You know, this is talking to your inner child. You know, this is inside your heart.

It's a little delulu, heavenly creatures, fantasy land, Jennifer Connolly and Labyrinth. I'm a fairy princess. Pink elephants and lemonade. Dear Jesse, hear the laughter running through the love parade. Candy kisses on a sunny day. When you first hear it, it's a little bit shocking. Especially in the context of the album and where her career was and what she was doing. We were literally down on our knees going to take you there just like 12 minutes ago.

And now we're in the land of makes-believe. year old tea party. And when you read that it was being, that the reference was like the Beatles Yellow Submarine, you're kind of like, oh. Right. Got it. And then it hits a little different.

And it is a really smart, interesting song. I just like it. Also for the pacing of the album, I think it's pretty nice. Like, you know, you're going to cherish into your Jesse and then like it just smacks you in your fucking mouth with, oh, father. I mean, that's the thing.

It's essentially to me, the song is an interlude. Yeah. It's like, this is the part of the show where she goes off and a costume change. And then some kids come out and do this weird little play thing. And then it's like,

the way that it transitions into O Father makes the whole song major. Because it goes straight in. It slows down the, like the carnival music, right? And then it goes right into O Father, which my arm hair is standing up again. But also, like, I always loved O Father because of truth or dare.

I love O'F. But I wouldn't listen to it in the album context. And so you know that song so well and you know how it starts at that music at the beginning. Be like, And it's like that it comes off of dear Jesse. You're sort of like, holy fuck. This song?

I'm like, can I get a minute? My God. The melodrama that I would sing. I just need to picture me. I am 11 years old whenever I had this 10, 11 years old. The melodrama that I'm bringing to my bedroom that I'm oppressed by my parents. You're a nun. We're all joining the convent.

Yeah. But I'm like, my parents are oppressors because they will not let me go to sleepovers. and I'm singing, oh, father, like, with my full 11-year-old lungs, you can't hurt me now. I got away from you. Oh, my God. So what a banger, man. It hits different for girls.

Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think so. But I love the drama of it, of course. It's like one of her most dramatic songs. So another one where you kind of feel like she's in your tears singing it. It reminds me of, this is like a personal reference, reminds me of my niece, who's so dramatic.

She said she wrote this during a dark headspace. Say no. You don't say as they the time. And she was like, it was about her father, but it was about Sean. Yeah, I think so. It was about like men. Hurt people, hurt people. Somebody hurt you too.

She also said it was the second half of Livetal, which I thought was interesting. It's like a one package dealing with male. authority figures. Both sublime ballads. She said, I have not resolved my Electra Complex, the end of the O'Fother video. You've seen the video. Yeah.

It's bizarre. Mm-hmm. Okay, another David Fincher moment. I think David Fincher... The snowy hill. It's the Citizen Kane video. Yes. But, okay, so David Fincher wanted this to be a single, I think.

Is that correct? Is that your understanding? Because I remember later on she makes David Fincher do a last-minute video for her because this video didn't, this single didn't chart in the top 10 and she blamed him. The last minute video was for a song called Vogue. Vogue, yes. I was trying to build up some anticipation, babe. Okay, I thought we were, they would have, they would have, they would have to wait to hear

the answer. Thanks for spoiling it. This video is psychotic. I think it's a gorgeous video. It's gorgeous. I love it. It's one of my favorite Madonna song. So to me, I like how cinematic it is that it's telling a story.

It's like a film. It's a little like the Pepsi commercial Like when she loves to be like It's me as a child Right A perfect blonde child And it's like honey Yeah

It's really And she looks stunning Something's going on with her roots In which they're like four inches long And I think I guess that was on purpose Or maybe it was another time Where she was trying to go dark again The thing that I can't get out of my nightmares

The lips being stoned shy No The cherub statue That is a statue But the heads are real children singing. Yeah, it's the two little boys. So creepy.

It's so beautiful. I love it. I understand it. Fincher is like my guy. But I love the like, I love the scene with her in the, her mother's closet. And she's like wearing the pearls and gets caught and pearls go everywhere. And the dad is shaking her? Yeah.

Yeah. And then she's laying on, she's laying on the grave? Is that where she's laying on? The adult Madonna? Yes. Yeah. Keep it together. I fuck with this long heavy as I wrote in the dock.

Totally. I've got brothers, sisters too. Stuck in the middle. Tell you what I'm going to do. My association with that song largely comes from the Blonde Ambition Tour. Sure. The Clockwork Orange, John Paul Gautier will get there. But it's also like so autobiose. It's like you want to know about Madonna's like mechanizing principle.

It's I grew up in a house with 17 children and I'm going to get out of here. I'm stuck in the middle. I'm not getting enough attention. I need to get out of here. It's also the perfect vibe shift from O'Father. into that song. Totally. And then,

I'm sorry. I love pray for Spanish eyes. I will not apologize. I like it when Madonna indulges her idea that she is spiritually Hispanic. Latina. She is a Latin. I buy it.

She does say something about the barrio in this song. I just want to mention. I have no idea what the song is about. To this day, I don't know what she's talking. about. It's about Latin cock, honey. That's what you guys said,

but again, I feel like you have a different lens on things. I just like to be a little filthy on Batsdam's sometimes. How many lives will they have to take? How much heartache? Who's taking...

Is it about war? I don't understand. In the genius comments, which a lot of different kinds of people write on the genius comments, says it's about AIDS. Okay. Which, okay.

Go off. And I fuck. extremely heavily with active contrition. It's a perfect album closer. That is a Prince guitar solo reversed. Perfect title for the end of the album. She's reciting the Catholic prayer of forgiveness. But like over this like beat and then there's like an interpolation of the gospel

choir from like a prayer. There's the guitar by Prince kind of reversed. And then the outro is so fucking funny when she's like, I reserve, I reserve, I reserve, I resolve. I have a reservation. What do you mean it's not on the computer? That's the end of the album. Yeah.

It's amazing. I have a reservation. That's like a perfect capsule of what this album did to Catholic school children, including myself, which was like we all knew that we hated Catholicism because we were in Catholic school. We hated all the rules. We loved sinning. We loved sinning. We love sinning. We love Spanish eyes.

Yeah. We love confession because we love bragging about sinning. Right. But like... We love drama. We know that we like hate Jesus and priests. Okay, well, I don't know if Madonna hates Jesus. No, but you know.

She said she was very sexually attracted to Jesus. But then Madonna makes it all seem really like glamorous and cool and like fun. And then you're like, do I love being Catholic? Like, wait, is being Catholic fierce? It is fierce. And like how many pop stars since then have mined Catholic imagery like... Don't get me started on how I did this. conversation with a person I will not name.

And they were like a young person. And they were talking about pop stars and they were talking about Rosalia. And they were like the new tour. And they're like, have you, I've never seen a person incorporate this level of Catholic imagery into it. And I was like, I was like, you vomit. I did. I literally was like, can you imagine having the audacity?

I don't know if it's audacity or just they don't know. They don't know. All right. June 1st, 1989. Rolling Stone announces that Madonna and Warren Beatty are dating. Because that was their place. Rolling Stone announces, okay. Thanks for the announcement. Can you imagine that a world where Rolling Stone announced anything? It was so different.

It had been going on for a few months, though. And she said of him in Vanity Fair the next year in 1990, Warren understands the bullshit. He's been an icon for years. He's had a lot more practice at it than I have. Obviously, somebody who hasn't experienced it would be more threatened by my fame than he is. You can't understand being hugely famous until it happens. And then it's too late to decide if you want it or not.

Warren's been a sex symbol for so long. He's just not surprised by anything. That's really interesting because it makes you feel like she relates to Warren. Like Warren and Madonna are very similar personalities. You think so? A little bit. I don't know that much about Warren Beatty's personality. Well, they're both very charismatic.

Yeah. You know, he has sex symbols. Sex symbols, absolutely. You know, he's been referred to as something of a womanizer. She's been referred to a little bit as a man eater, if you will. It's like they both are very controlling. They're both directors and stars. Like, I just, you can see that she was seeing something of herself in him, I think.

Right. Or looking at him with a certain, because he was older also. like admiration and kind of... Yeah, he was quite a bit older. At this point, he's like 50. You really clock the age difference in Dick Tracy between them, and it's like, oh... I think it's smooth 20 years.

Yeah. This is like my cynical view of it is that, like, I think coming out of something where for better or for worse, she felt punished for her fame a little bit, or like that it was a detriment to Sean Penn, you know, this is the cynical part. I think Warren Beatty very much

wanted that part of her and that because it's desirable, especially in terms of promoting a movie. Well, it's funny what happens later in Truth or Dare when you get this window into their dynamic in relationship

where you can see him not liking it so much too. Well, I don't want to get ahead, but I hate that part so much because I'm like, it's so an actor being like, oh, when I do, do it, it's craft. But when you do it, like when you want to be on camera, it's like, fervilous and silly. And it's like, okay. Well, there's a difference. There's a difference between being an actor and being a musician or a pop star. Because when you're an actor,

you're portraying other people. Right. When you're a musician or a pop star, you are portraying yourself. You're performing yourself. And so there is like a certain openness that is maybe frowned upon by actors because actors like to. to be able to be in character and not have it, could be conflated with their own personality. And also, Sean, apparently later in 1981, called her dating him a cliche. Just briefly to touch on that issue of Vanity Fair,

it came out in April 1990, shot by Helmutton. Yeah, that's incredible. And interviewed by Kevin Sessams, who was like kind of a legend for doing celebrity profiles. And something I thought was really funny in that article is she lays out her business organization. Oh, yeah. And she says, boy toy is for my music.

Siren is my film company. And Slutco is for my videos. Slutco is for the music videos. Slutco. It's so good. Which she was like, if that's what you're going to call me, here I am making money off of it. Right. And at this point, the article states that she's made $90 million.

Yeah. And 1990. That's when that one comes out. Yeah. And it's like, so this is sort of the beginning of Madonna being seen as a mogul, which is somewhat new in terms of the kind of pop celebrity audience dialectic. It predates Maverick, but just by a little bit. She also has a great quote where she's talking about criticism that was leveled at her

for repurposing the male gaze. Like, I guess people were criticizing her at that time for like... You don't even repurposing my male gaze? That she was mimicking the way that men look at women, the way that she was looking at herself. Like that she would have the audacity to objectify herself the way that a man would. What did Kristen Stewart just say in that interview? It's so good. Where there were like, oh, women who like want to tell their stories are called selfish or whatever?

Yeah. And she's like, yeah, I'm selfish. Sorry, I wanted to have a self. Well, she says in it, it has nothing to do with whether I'm a man or a woman. I think I am a sexual threat. And I think, if anything, there is a prejudice against that. I think that it's easier for people to embrace people who don't frighten them and poke at their insides and make them think about their own sexuality. I don't do things because I may be afraid of what people might think.

The thing about me is what you see is what you get. I'm not hiding anything. That may explain my longevity. Amen, sister. Back to the Dick Tracy. The filming of it had been unpleasant for Madonna is what I read. I'm going to really try it not to laugh. Go on.

I know. I know. It's, if you guys watch Dick Tracy, like, she says she'll talk about how, like, Al Pacino was mean to her. Well, kind of, like, within the structure of the scene was kind of pushed to keep, like, laying into her in character, but, like, went really far. Yeah, yeah. But it's like, when you look at the scene and you see what Al Pacino looks like and his prosthetic makeup and, like, the, it's so funny. This movie is, it's like a caricature of what she's described. It's, if you have not seen this funny.

and you didn't see it as a youth, even if you saw it as a youth. Like I did, nothing will prepare you to watch it now in the cold light of day of 2026. You're going to be like, Phantasmagoric, nightmarish, acid,

PCP, angel dust. 100%. But it's so clearly like they were like, oh, we can do Batman too. You know, like, because Batman had just come out and been a huge smash success. Right.

And what they didn't understand is like, Batman is like a Norfolk. warish, cool, like, gauthy character. Dick Tracy is a really good movie. Sure. But, like, you put this man in a banana costume and you're trying to hit the Batman levels, the Batman notes. It's not giving Batman. Dick Tracy walked so the mask could run.

That's exactly right. That is exactly right. Mandy Patinkin, who's in the film, another one of my guys, babe. So hot. Go on. Also, in the first season of Criminal Minds, just so you guys know, Joe Montania and Mandy Patinkin. These are my main criminal minds guys.

He recalled a scene where Al Pacino's character, Big Boy, and Breathless Mahoney were in a fight over a song, and they'd done it over and over, and he said, everyone was tired, and I couldn't tell why we were doing it over again. And finally, Al started improvising. He really elaces into Madonna, and all of a sudden she just broke down.

Warren said cut and gave them hugs. That wouldn't have happened unless he gave it time to happen. He's actually started crying from... In the scene, he's also screaming at her to keep rehearsing. And then he gets arrested. And as he's being hauled off, he's like, this doesn't mean you get to stop. Like, keep rehearsing. Come here.

Next time I take his fingers and I turn him into presents. I just might do the same thing to your face. Like, the idea of him being method with that big boy character to me is so, like, you're becoming Popeye the Sailor Man. Warren Beatty was like, oh, my character doesn't need prosthetics. But it's like, because he was like, he was like, he was like, all be beautiful. Yeah, he was like, I need to. Emote. Dustin Hoffman as mumbles is an incredible comedic performance.

He's incredible. It is a scream. Warren Beatty also, this is a quote from Madonna in the biography by Peter Biscan of Warren Beatty, that Warren wanted to pour me into my dresses. He insists that I get fatter. I gained 10 pounds. We were at Western costumes and he'd say tighter, tighter, cut it down lower. I felt like a mannequin, a slab of beef.

He would walk around me like a vulture, making me feel like the ugly. the greatest thing in the world. I was treated that way on the set, the lust factor. This is going to be now the theme, in my opinion, of almost every film appearance she does going forward with a few exceptions. Is what? That she is phenomenal, beautiful, talented? Yes, but that she is typecast. Yes. That she is cast because of the sexuality, you know, and push, to really be in that role in place, you know? In some cases, yes, but then there is a point at which she is taking control by producing. Yeah, yeah.

And doing things like that. I don't think it was against her will. I'm just saying it's interesting that, like, it's very much the thing that we talk about on here a lot, which is that people don't want you to be more than one thing. So she had a, in my opinion, seemed to have a really hard time. ever playing out against type you know

but I also feel like times when she played against type it read as a bit false because I mean we don't get into like the next best thing in movies like

when she was trying to do more like romantic comedy type stuff next episode but I'm not sure that movie would have worked on any level for any reason but but like

a later film that I think she really leaned into this typecast thing was swept away, which we also don't cover in our episode, which is to me such a phenomenal performance. She is so funny in that movie. She knew exactly what she was doing.

So I think when she seizes onto it, she always ends up deepening it. Oh, she does a great job. And just, anyways, she's always so savvy. She had agreed to get the part. She really wanted the part. So she had agreed to, like, scale pay, which is what, just like,

it's basically minimum wage for actors, right? Or for people. but she had negotiated a percentage of the proceeds of the film and the soundtrack, and that made her a lot of money. And the soundtrack, she had to sing three songs composed by Stephen's song. Which are incredible. It's incredible. It's crazy because this is like such a leap, I think, from like her traditional way of singing and making music.

Right. But I would say that when she was doing breathless, it felt like, felt very playful. Yeah. You know, it felt like she was playing at doing a kind of Broadway ragtime affectation. Unlike Evita, which changed her singing voice forever, which we also won't get to. I do think the skill set she had to develop to do these Sondheim songs was kind of a little bit the secret sauce that like kicked it up to like the perfect level when we're going to get into the next couple of albums. Do you know what I mean?

Okay. Because I do like, I love. I didn't think about that. But you know what I mean? Yeah. Because it's not, she does have a vocal coach on this and she does like, she has said that she basically like the songs were had such complicated rhythmic changes and melodic changes that she had to like have someone like kind of song.

Sim is so quick and agile. I assume she's like a sponge. She's always learning. I feel like that really like helped inform the music we get next. Which is why it makes sense to me like what a least. deep erotica is from like a prayer. Totally. On like every level, musically, vocally, you know.

And then so she did the other songs, the non-songtime songs inspired by the film. We'll talk about them when we get to the soundtrack. Okay, this shit wraps, babe. Dick Trace is over. She's hanging out in the snatch batch and her boyfriend Warren. They're taking him to Jules Catch One, which still exists. Warren was a showmance, I think it's safe to say. Yeah.

I love the idea of them taking him to Jules Kachman, which is a club on Pico. I saw someone call it South Central. It's not South Central. It's close to South Central, but it's above the 10. It's one of the oldest black-owned discos in the country. I think it was owned by lesbians, actually, black lesbians. And at the time, it was the largest dance club for gay black men in the world. And they brought Warren's ass right down there, and he just sat on a couch and watched them dance.

I've been in some situations like that with some actors, I'll tell you off mic. Yeah. And then in December of 1989, this is very interesting to me. Madonna won MTV's Artist of the Decade Award. What is that? I don't know. That exists? I don't know that they did.

Did they do it again in the 90s? I'm not really sure. Did she win it again in the 90s? She should have. Just point out to be like, she's already like, in the life cycle of a pop star, you could have been like, okay, she peaked, you know? When did she get her video of Engard? 86.

Very early on. Yeah. I think... Yes. Because, you know, they renamed the MTV Video Vanguard Award, the MTV Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Why? They decided to name it after him because it was the King of Pop. Got it.

They then took his name off of it. Okay, because of... Because of Scandal. Yeah. I think it should be renamed to the Madonna Video Vanguard Award. It's a great idea. Do the VMAs exist? And then you can give her another one,

so she gets the Madonna Video Vanguard Award. And then from then on, it's the Madonna Award. I just remembered we did watch them together actually this year, so they do exist. The VMAs? Yeah. Still going. Also, like, one of the coolest awards you can win just from a trophy design standpoint. Who doesn't want a moon man?

It's the only part of that award ceremony where I recognize anybody because it's the absolute hoompsed awards to me every year. I'm like, I know that I'm, like, checked out a little bit, but I'm like, I don't know who any of these people are. It's important to note that she had overtaken the Beatles from most consecutive top five singles, 16 in a row now. I liked what this guy Mark Rowland wrote in Musician Magazine at this time. He said, as the decade draws to a close, the votes are tabulated and the winner is Madonna. She, not Bruce Springsteen, is the biggest. She, not Michael Jackson, is the baddest. She, not Prince, is the nastiest.

She, not Pepsi Cola is the shrewdest. You can't argue with her triumph. It is complete. Even when her films blow dead air or her marriage, I know. Or her marriage breaks up or her records bomb. That has never happened. She is the winner. She won.

She won, babe. Also, it should point out the Pepsi Cola thing, this is why there was no tour in 89. Hmm. They were meant to underwrite it. Yeah. So I think that was kind of put on the back burner. Well, guess what, babe? Something happened.

Something happened. Something came up. And it's a little single, a little standalone single called Vogue. Vogue is something where I... We need six more hours just like. I will never understand how it happened. Because she does songs on I'm Breathless. Right.

That are not songtime, but they are still in that style. Yeah. This is like a standalone, what the fuck came out of nowhere song. So I was trying to piece it together. It's quite difficult. It's, from what I understood, the song came up sort of organically. Like Shep Petty Bone was like, do you like this or whatever?

And she was like, yes. And it was... Sometimes it'd be like that. And they made it as a... I might be wrong, but this is what I was like sort of able to piece together. They gave them like nothing, like five grand to make it. Because it was meant to be a B-side to one, the last single. And I think it is whatever.

It was meant to be the B-side of the last single of like a prayer. And she like recorded it in like a filthy broom closet in a basement. Yeah. In a basement in a slum of health care. Well, because they had no money because they were like, here's 5K to make this single and chef had everyone's like, okay, we're doing this in my friend's house or whatever. But then I think the

story that they told was like, oh, they needed another song for Dick Tracy, but I don't think that's true. I think they made the song and realized it's so fucking good that it can't be relegated to B-side. So then they were like, we have to put it somewhere. You didn't really do standalone singles then, right?

Or did they? Not really, right? Like, it was like, it's not like now where you can just put out a song. Right. They kind of wanted to anchor it to something. So they're like, it'll be the third song. And usually with those songs, it'll go to a film soundtrack or something like that. Yeah. So I think they made it an A-side single of the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy soundtrack.

But I think thematically, she did kind of try to tie it into like old Hollywood. Old Hollywood glamour or whatever. Do you want to explain the history of Vogueing? Everyone's dream is for me to do that. Okay, fine. I'll do it. I'll admit, I was on the Wikipedia page for the cakewalk. It goes back.

Yeah, which is 19th century Florida. It's not new. A dance in which enslaved people mimicked with subtle mockery, the formal manner dancing practiced by slaveholding whites. That's the cakewalk. Became associated with gay culture. So it was invented by slaveholding whites. No, it was invented by slaves.

I'm just kidding. Oh, I see what I was saying. Got it. Okay. I was like, what? It became associated with gay culture in the 20s and 30s during the Harlem Renaissance. But the fullest public expression came about at early drag balls in the 60s. And the Harlem Renaissance was both black and Latino.

So this also early drug balls, black and Latino. Here is a quote from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. As part of this ballroom culture, black and Latino vogers would compete for trophies and the reputation of their houses, groups that were part competitive affiliation, part surrogate family. named after the famous fashion magazine Vogue took from the poses in high school or sorry the poses in high fashion and ancient Egyptian art adding exaggerated hand gestures to tell a story and imitate various gender performances and categorized genres. There was a whole other side story that maybe you know more about that part of it came from Rikers where there was like a gay inmate who like I guess the inmates there couldn't have porn. but they would look at Vogue magazine to, like, get off. And one of, like, the images was like, oh, you don't need that magazine.

I can be that magazine. I can Vogue, you know? This is just, like, one of the tales. Invented gay sex in prison. I hope that that's true, because it's a great story. And then in May of 1989, shop owner, Suzanne Barch, invited members of the various houses to perform with the first annual Love Ball, the Roseland Ballroom to raise money for AIDS research. Much like the VMAs, the Love Ball is still kicking. Is it?

Oh, yeah. Oh, that's cool. After the Love Ball is when Vogueing became a thing. A thing, like in terms of like nightlife culture, all of that. Because there's, you know, it's, there's something magical about Vogueing. Okay. Where every generation thinks they started it. They started it, right.

When it's like 19th century slaves started it. And you just got to let them think it because, like, being pompous like that is sort of baked into the overall premise. Right. There's an audacity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's great. Malcolm McLaren, famously the manager of the Sex Vistols, who later made music,

and the Bootsila Orchestra released a song called Deep In Vogue. Yeah. And Keith Herring did a series of vogueing posters that fall. And in 1990, Paris is Burning. The documentary came out, directed by Jenny Livingstone.

That was from the 80s. Yeah, landmark documentary, very influential, often quoted, all the time in ways that you may not even know. It's fully in slang in the ways that you're on TikTok and some girl is saying a thing

and it actually comes from Paris's wording. The one that I say weirdly the most often, which is just me being a bitch probably, I'm always like, if you shoot an arrow and it goes real high, hooray for you. It's so good.

So good. Okay, so this song, it's actually really funny, speaking of hooray for you, the shade of Shep Pettibone because she's like, oh, you know, Vogue, cool, you know. And he goes, she came in the studio and said, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to call it Vogue. And Vogueing was almost kind of over at that point.

At least in the underground dance scene. Not over, but it had been done. He was like, okay, if you want to do that, it's kind of like over, babe. Everyone started it and it's always over. But it's very funny because if. But it never ends. It was Underground. Yeah.

Without Vogue, the Madonna Pop single. maybe still a lot of people would not know what that is. You know, it definitely brought it to the mainstream in a very immediate quick way. But you know what happened is like it, she brought it to the mainstream awareness. Right. But nothing really happened with it. Yeah, that's true. It's not like suddenly it was everywhere.

Yeah. You know what I mean? It was like she did it. Everyone was like, wow. And then everyone moved on. And it was like back to break dancing. You know what I mean? It was sort of like culture was not ready.

at all to take something that was that overtly queer and make it mainstream. It was like it didn't take off in the mainstream at all until much later. When do you think that happened? Would it be like when drag race went on the air? I'm going to say like 2016 or something. So even later like drag race had been on the air. Yeah. It was not even a big part of like drag race.

It like sort of came back like with fashion shows and things like that. It came back in a lot of fashion advertising and media. and then it started to be like you know there were like voking competition reality series that would come out it sort of it became mainstreamed in like

you would see people this is so horrible to say but like you would see people in like deodorant commercials vogue and stuff like like it felt like it hit mainstream so late that like there's always been a lot of attitude about it of like

who started it being over it being like It never got its moment. No matter what, the minute it's co-operated by the mainstream, it's going to be corny. That's just what happens. It doesn't matter how long it takes, it's always going to become deodorant commercial. So, like... Yeah.

But if you ever go to, like, an actual ball, it's not corny anymore. It's like when you're actually there and you're in the, like, real shit with that. I can't imagine it being corny, like, in actual practice. I mean, there was a party... During my time in New York and my 20s, all throughout my 20s, there was a party that was at Esquilita, I want to say, in New York. And it was called Vogue Nights. It was every Tuesday.

And that was just like where you would go to like watch the Vogers tear it in New York. And it was just so regular. And then there would be like the Miyaki Mugler ball, like white ball that they would do like every year. And when you're in those environments, it suddenly stops being corny and it's major again, you know, because it's real. It makes exactly. That's like not it being co-opted into some sort of. thing where it doesn't belong, you know? That's like, it's actual playground.

And there's also an element of probably, and I can't really speak to like the dance world and the dance community. But like if you're a dancer. I can't and I'm a dancer. And that's a huge community and it's a huge culture in and of itself. You get trained in different styles of dance. You know, if you're going to be a professional dancer, a backup dancer or whatever. So there are also dancers everywhere that can vogue, but they don't come from the ballroom

world. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. And there's a lot of weird, slippery shit with that. Very interesting. Well, back to the song. While Shep was like, okay, well, if you want to do this thing, that's over.

He is also the one that suggested the rap part. He said she had the choruses together and the verses together. And she sang those in place one by one. First take. For the middle part, I was like, how about if we do like a rap or something in here? Because we didn't have anything for that really. And she's like, what do you mean? I'm like, oh, how about you, you know, like bringing in movie stars and stuff?

So we just wrote down a whole bunch of names of movie stars, and that's how the rap came up. Amazing. I love how fast it came together. You know, it's like one of those lightning bolt. And the video ends up being the same way, which is crazy. The rap is really good. I mean, yeah. What are you going to say?

What can you do? What can you do? It's just Dietrich and Damage. Montembrando, Jim Dean on the cover of them. I just have a... It's just like forever looping around my brain. Again, they got back and they played this song

and everyone was like, we're not putting that on a B-side. This is a fucking stone cold hit. Went right on to number one. And with that, Madonna became the woman with the most number one hits in music history. At that point, the spot is now held by Mariah Carey. Let's talk about the video.

She called up Dave. Mm-hmm. She said, Dave, you fucked me. This is not what she actually said. You forced me into O father. Actually, what she said is, look, you wanted to make a video for, this is what David Fincher said. She said, look, you wanted to make a video for O father,

and no one liked the song. And I went to bat for you, and now I have to make a video by Tuesday. And I said, what's the song called? By Tuesday. What day of the week was this phone called? It doesn't say. And she said Vogue. And I said, okay, we'll get a bunch of stuff together

and we'll make a video on Tuesday. A little miscommunication there. They shot the video in 16 hours. What can you say about the video? It's iconic. That dress. What blows my mind is that they pulled all of that together so quickly in less than a week. It kind of worked out perfect because I'm like the timeline's getting a little mismatch.

She's preparing for the tour. She was preparing for the tour and had already cast the dancers for the Blonde Ambition tour. And the two boys who came from the like fame high school were really like skilled in that type of dance already. Yeah. It's actually interesting. Is that Jose and Louise? Jose and Louis. Stravaganza?

Yeah. Were they in the house before? They were only like 17. Probably. Yeah. So anyways. You start young. And that might have been how she even found out about fucking voking to begin with, you know?

But what's really funny about this video is that they had hired a tour choreographer, this woman named Carol Armitage. It was the punk ballerina. I had not heard of her. But Jose and Louise sounds iconic. We were absolutely beefing with her. They hated her. She's dead to me, get her out of here. Well, she quit.

Bye, bitch. And that's how... That's how Vincent Patterson became the choreographer of this video. Great. He was, like, in Cuba working on a Sydney Pollock film. And she was like, I need you. And he was like, okay. I love this video.

I love the... The Gaultier corset black dress. The white silky clamor, the hair. So the cone bra... Yes. That she wears in the video. was actually six years old at that point. It was from Jean-Paul-Gaults Fall 1984 show.

Patrick's Fashion Corner. Can we have a little jingle for this part? Patrick's Fashion Corner. Yeah, so that was sort of the introduction of the cone bra, which then he reinterpreted a lot for the Blonde Ambition tour. But you really... I'm wearing my Gautier in honor of JPG for this. But there's like that dance sequence that's with Madonna and Ollie in the middle of the video

where it really kicks into gear, we're watching that, and just knowing how fast they had to pull together the video really blows my mind. Yeah. That dancers can do things like that. Yeah, and then Madonna is a trained dancer. I'd never forget it, you know?

Yeah. You would have to be. It's just how important this video is. Yeah. Like, cannot be overstated. It's, like, one of the most important pop visuals ever made. One of David Fincher's, best works. And it's crazy knowing how David Fincher works and what a perfectionist he is that he was

able to do this in such a short amount of time. It's almost like that instinct of the way that they put it together was such that they didn't have to maybe put so much thought into it, but it ended up being so profound. Well, I think what it is, it's different than maybe some of the other Fincher videos. There's not really a story, right? It's just like some really iconic shots. It's, it's In the song, and it's also in the video, that everything is about surfaces. Yeah. It's about the body. Totally.

It's about sculpture. It's lighting. It's contrast. Yeah. It's like, it's sort of like a crash course and indulgence and irony, arrogance, spectacle, which is paying tribute to the ballroom community who are often kind of embodying this like grandiosity and these like Hollywood legends. Right.

It's working on both levels. It's like it's that ballroom, it's like a gesture towards that ballroom audacity. And it's also going back towards the source material, which is the old Hollywood glamour, the Gene Harlow, all the people. And it's aspiring to this level of grandeur. And it's the same aspiration that Madonna had for herself. Yeah. And it's happening at that precise moment that she's starring in these Hollywood movies and actually living it. So it's like you get this, this like manifesto of.

like, I'm dreaming this and I've become it. And it's like all happening in this one video at this one time. And it's like this shock of glamour and melodrama. It's camp. It's fashion. It's gay. It's embracing artifice. It's celebrating image.

It's myth. It's a fucking monument this video. If you can imagine being like a gay child and seeing this on TV, the impact. I can't even talk about it. It's like I had never seen men behaving effeminently and gesturing like that. Totally. In my life, I didn't know that was possible. I didn't know that was like it like opened a window.

Right. Like you had your boy George moment where you were like, oh, that's not a girl. But this was like something totally different. This was like faggots exist. Like it was truly like the most magical important thing. that happened to so many of us. So I just had to say that. No, thank you.

I think it's impossible to, to overstate how powerful this video was and how, like, it cut through the public consciousness at the time that it came. It was everywhere, you know, like. And the way that it's so cinematic because Fincher is directing it. Yeah. And the way that the song itself builds and has so much momentum and drama. And it, like, crescendos in this insane. way. It's just the most

major thing anyone's ever done. We would be remiss if we don't mention it's one of the first real celebratory moments of Madonna's perfect breasts. Because she has the most perfect breasts that have ever existed. The sheer top. The sheer top, the sheer lace top where you can just like

because I know she's been a seximal for a while, but she's not really been despite popular belief she wasn't really showing a lot of skin. It was a lot of like midriff and stuff, you know, but But it's, this is the era that she starts to be a little more titillating with like how she's dressing. She's doing femme queen realness.

And that hair. Again, as I said, I have that same haircut. And on me, when it's curly, I look like George Washington. It's full founding fathers. And on her, she looks like in a Hollywood siren. Call Peter Savick. I know. Call Peter Savick.

I don't want to look like George Washington anymore. Can you help me? Yeah, it's, what a, what a jam. What a fucking. Vogue. A few days after they finished filming the video, Keith Herring died of AIDS. So this is now

two, three of her best friends that have died of AIDS. Because Martin Burgoyne has passed away. I think Christopher Flynn has maybe already died. I'm not sure. He's definitely sick. So when Pepsi was still involved financially, the tour was meant to be called

the Like a Prayer World Tour. And when they pulled their sponsorship, Madonna and Christopher, her brother, decided to call it blonde ambition because there were so many articles that referenced her blind ambition. They thought it was like a fun play on words. And it is a fun play on words. Totally. It's become like a...

It's iconic. It's a phrase that we use now. She elevated Christopher. She promoted him to art director, although he still had to dress her. Can I just say? Yes. There was, I think in the previous year she was on the cover of O. and the photos in it were all about like Madonna's house.

It was like Madonna at home and Christopher had designed her house. He designed all her houses up until a certain point. It was gorgeous and it was major and her gym was insane. I love that cover with the brown hair with the pool. So good. Anyway. Christopher exquisite taste. Yeah.

I mean, you can't. There's no way to look back on May he rest in peace. look back on what he did and be like, oh, this is not an unrecognom. This is like an obvious talent. The blonde ambition tour alone, you were the art director of the blonde ambition tour. Yeah. Obviously, Madonna is very involved. Listen, we don't know.

We weren't there, but we don't know what she would have been like, how cool she would have been without Christopher. Well, we definitely don't know how cool she would have been without her many gays. Yeah. There are pivotal gays along the way. Starting with Christopher Flynn, including Martin Burgoyne, Christopher Chaconi, there's plenty. So they decided on this tour to go like theater, okay? It's not just one stage. It's five different worlds.

Would you say this is the first of its kind in that sense that sort of created the blueprint for what every pop star kind of does now? Or do you think it had sort of some antecedents before it? I don't, I'm not really like that. I don't know. And like maybe someone else did it to like less fanfare that we don't know about. Right. But it feels like impact-wise, this changed. It's very associated with her, though, I think, with the idea of taking something that had been a stadium tour without the theater of it, without the, like, insane, like, backdrops or, like, hydraulics or moving parts of the stage.

And it has become very associated with her, which now every pop star kind of has to do. that, right? Because if you don't, you're, it's boring. Yeah, I think that there were like certain things that people had done, but not on this level. Yeah. And not with this level of design. So one of these worlds was Metropolis, like they express yourself world. One was a religious cathedral. Of course. One was Dick Tracy Art Deco vibes. Then it was the camp section. Then we get really serious again and we go into our clockwork orange cabaret set. Patrick Leonard could not go on tour because he had a family. So she got Jai Winding to serve as the musical director.

Nikki Harris and Donna DeLoree, who we talked about in the previous episode, who you obviously know who they are, Patrick, are back as the backup singers. Huge celebrities in Madonna World. Huge celebrities. Vincent Patterson has been, again, called back from Cuba and replacing the punk rock ballerina who was fired or quit. I'm not sure. I also love the choreography of this tour. It's incredible.

Vincent Patterson said, Madonna said I want you to break every rule you can think of. Then when those are done, make up some more and break those two. So that is how I went into the tour with complete artistic freedom to do whatever the fuck I wanted. There was some Fossi in there. There was voguing in there. There was a lot going on. The like a virgin bed choreography? The bed thing?

The impact of the bed. I know. And the bed being on a slant. Yeah. So you could like. And then even little details like. During Keep It Together with the clockwork orange like Gautier, like cage harnesses and the little derby hats. She loved the bowler hat.

And they're fucking with the chairs and picking up the chairs on the underside of the chair. It's mirrored. Yeah. So it became like lights. So she wanted eight dancers and she really wanted them to have personality. Above all. That's how she got 19-year-old Luis Camacho from the Lower East Side and his best friend from LaGuardia High School of Music and Arts, Jose Gutierrez. Here's how she described their audition.

I loved this. She said, Luis came and Luis will try anything. He was not so great at everything, but he was willing to try it, and I loved him for that. Jose wouldn't do a goddamn thing. Jose sat in the back with his hands on his hips. He was just like, the fuck I will. So, of course, I loved him for that. I thought now this guy has balls.

Love. Then there was Saleem, Slam, Galus. It was 20. My number one crush. Oh, Slam? He's so hot. They're all really hot. Beautiful.

Yeah. 20-year-old. It's like a Bruce Weber model. Yeah. 20-year-old Kevin Stay, a half-Chinese student at USC, who actually wasn't initially hired to be a dancer. But they loved him so much in the auditions. They asked him to be an assistant choreographer to the punk work ballerina who obviously no more. But then they eventually were like, why don't you be the dance captain and assistant choreographer?

And the other dancers were Carlton Wilborn, 26 years old. He came from a professional company in Chicago. and actually already had a tour offer from Whitney Houston. Oliver Crumbs, a 17-year-old from Compton with bleached hair. Love Ollie. We were watching it the other night, and my memory was like, that man can be on the street in Bushwick right now. And I was like, 100%.

The crazy part about this tour and also truth or dare is that there is no time. It is yesterday. It is today. Nothing looks dated. Like, it's crazy how the sensibility was just like, set in amber that day and has not gone away. Like you, the way these people dressed,

you could, any person to be, still looks good. Still looks good. Still like, as opposed to, and I was talking to Melma, the fucking, who's that girl tour,

which I love. So 80s. Right. Gold lemme blazer. You know, like, it's like, it looks so dated.

Maybe it's also because certain things are coming back, you know, like I was looking at Melissa, her assistant in Trutherdale. Yeah. Who has her, she has this 90s hair. cut.

Yeah. And it looks so good. And I'm like, that's because, like, girls want that hair again. Right. It's, like, back. Is it the... She just had, like, a big bang. Oh, yeah.

And it was, like, volume. It was, like, hairsprayed, but it was, like, messy. Yeah. And I was just like, fuck yeah. Amazing. Okay, sorry, the last answer is Gabriel Truppin, a 20-year-old who becomes her favorite child of the tour, who was hiding a secret babe. He was HIV-positive.

He was the little angel. Carlton and Salim were also HIV positive and they were all secret not telling anyone it was really sad Carlton had this quote that he said he moved to L.A. because I thought if I'm going to die in a year I need to make my life as amazing as I can

right now. That's really where I was. You did it. Okay, we need to talk about the hands free mic. Okay. Well, because this was kind of the first... That was the first one. No, the first one was actually Kate Bush who like... Sick. Rigged a cradle for her mic

of coat hangers because she wanted to do it. Fucking legend. But that was like an oddity. Like it was like no one really, it was like, oh, I'll do that too. But when Madonna did it, it was like, it became called the Madonna mic. And so many people started doing it afterwards. It's funny because that makes sense. They're both such vocalists.

And you can see how they both insist on singing live. And moving the whole time as well because Kate Bush was also such like, you know. All right. And the costumes. This is Patrick's Fashion Corner is open. Oh, God. Well, you know, the costumes were designed by Jean-Paul Gautier. What more do you need to say?

I do think it's really crazy that they made 358 costumes because they needed everything in triplicate. Oh, yeah. Tor is no joke. Yeah. It's sort of like film. Film you need duplicates as well for the same reason. I thought it was funny that when Jean-Paul went to New York to meet with her, she was in her hotel room with cabaret playing in the background. and she was reading a biography of Louise Brooks.

It's like so on the nose. It's like Betty Boop answers the door. I was like, oh, hi, come in. Yeah, I don't know. The costumes for the Blonde Ambition Tour are so well regarded and so iconic that it's like a huge part of Jean-Paul Gautier's legacy. A lot of them have been recreated, reissued, re-editions. Shout out Aaron McGee, who owns the peach-colored dress. Yes, with the cone bra.

With the corset? Yeah, that she comes with the ponytail. There's the incredible polka dot number. Yes, which I'll be honest. I think only a few people can pull off polka dots as much as these girls are trying to make it happen again. Addison Ray and Madonna. A little bit of a Latin flavor to that look as well.

She's spiritually Cuban. Spanish, maybe. Oh, we didn't even say it. Remember I was going to save it for this episode? I forgot to say it on the first episode. What? La Isla Bonita. Yes. A dream of San Pedro.

Uh-huh. Was actually initially written for Michael Jackson. Oh, right. Patrick Leonard said, and he turned it down. His loss. So we got to have a white girl. You mind if a white girl speak a little Spanish. You know, a lot of these clothes really started underwear as outerwear.

I mean, we can fall down the rabbit hole all day all night. But suffice to say, the costumes are a huge deal. There's another part of this that I didn't write down, but I think Gautier had What was his partner's name that they started the company together? Do you remember? Okay, anyways, that was like the love of his life and he also was sick and I believe with AIDS. And I think there was like a huge, like he was like very emotionally driven around creating that underwear as outerware as some sort of like I might be mis-buttering this. But it was like he really wanted the expression of like not hiding your sexuality or pleasure, you know, like putting it out there.

Just very like Sympatico with Madonna. Totally. So many ways. So sorry halfway through him starting to make these 358 costumes, Madonna lost those 10 pounds that Warren Beatty made her gain,

and so he had to remake them all. While also prepping for his own runway collection. Great. And then after all that, kills himself to get it all done. Yeah. Night one in Japan, he's there ready to see his beautiful costumes, and it's a fucking monsoon pouring rain,

and they just wear tour jackets and, and, like, boots, remember from the... True Thurderder. Yeah, and Truthair at the beginning, it's like, they meant to start filming it all then. And they're just like, well. Guess we're wearing. They look cool as hell because they're wearing bomber jackets. Those bomber jackets, which have also been reissued.

And I have one technically. It's being held for me in New York. Okay. What I really want is there's a crew jacket for desperately seeking Susan. And it's sick. And I want it. You know what? I also really need to get my hands on were the security t-shirts from the blonde

ambition tour, which you see in Truth or Dare. It's good. A few times. It's also important to know, like I said, her voice had become stronger and better because of that Sondheim Dick Tracy sort of training, so she was able to do some older songs. Here are the songs in order in the Blonde Ambition Tour.

Express yourself. Open your heart. Causing a commotion. Yes. There's a part where either Nikki or Donna, when they're in like the van, and she's like, Madonna tour 2025, and then she's like an old, acts like an old lady.

Because she's talking about like, oh, we're going to still be singing this song? Yeah. And so now Madonna won't do it. I think there's probably other reasons. It's not that. I'm going to say that's the reason. Okay.

In my mind, that's the reason. That's the funnier version. She still thinks Donna's laughing at her. Yeah. Then where's the party? Which I fucking love. Where's the party? Like a Virgin.

featuring one full minute of simulated masturbation with epileptic lights. And there's like a sitar playing or something? Yeah. Like a prayer. Live to tell. Papa don't preach. Set change. Hanky-panky.

now I'm following you. These are the Dick Tracy songs. Set change. Material Girl, cherish. I believe the one and only time it's ever been performed in concert. Into the groove, Vogue, Holiday, and then keep it together. The finale with Madonna singing the last lines alone for a full five minutes. Keep it together.

And they all drop down. She's saying goodbye to them. My arm, hair. It was important. If there's any, I think this is maybe the thing I'd want to see the most. If I could like just... Tour? Yeah, if I could go in a time machine.

It's hard to say, but this is on the top of the list. I agree. She once again donated all of the New York slash East Rutherford, New Jersey shows to Amphar's, $300,000. And she dedicated that show to Keith Herring. The second Rome show was canceled because the Catholic Church came out against it. And the unions threatened to strike if she put. performed and the Pope, John Paul II, called Blonde Ambition, quote, one of the most satanic shows in the history of humanity.

Love. Do you feel there is a modern? I would kill for a quote from the Pope like that. Can't buy that publicity. Can't buy press. Liz Rosenberg was like, yeah. Shooting guns is there. We got the Pope.

She also received death threats on this tour, not the first time. I think it's in truth or dare, right? The press conference she holds. Yeah. Yeah, where she's like. They cut into it. You have the full text here. The full quote is, my blood boils when I'm misunderstood or unfairly judged for my beliefs.

My show is not a conventional rock show, but a theatrical presentation of my music. And like theater, it asks questions, provokes thought, and takes you on an emotional journey, portraying good and bad, light and dark, joy and sorrow, redemption and salvation. I do not endorse a way of life, but describe one. And the audience is left to make its own decision and judgment. Perfect statement. Should we talk about the L.A. Tour Stopper, Warren, Bay. shows up and gives her a $30,000 ring, which she puts on her middle finger,

conveniently just in time for the Dick Tracy premiere. That is the show where she is pissed off and she's fighting with her team and saying everybody looks like a goddamn William Morris agent. So mad that the, she hates one in the front row is industry people because they have, which is so true, actually, if you ever go to, wait, remember we went to Depeche Mode and the floor was the weirdest mix of people?

It was like industry people and then like 58-year-old goths who were like getting their best. life and you were like, this should, this is, this is who should be here. Yeah. It's a very LA experience. Totally. Okay. So it was originally supposed to be, now that we're getting into the truth or dare moment,

it was supposed to be an HBO documentary, focused on the tour's performances, and she had asked David Fincher to direct it. But he had to drop out last minute because he was hired to direct his first feature film, Aliens 3, which you say is a good movie. I've not seen it. I love it. Okay. It was panned, though, wasn't it?

Didn't... Alien is a classic, of course, directed by Ridley Scott, the sequel, directed by James Cameron, aliens. You will get people in the aliens versus alien camp of which one is the best.

Alien 3 gets a bad rap, partially because it was using new CGI that was like very cutting edge at the time. We hate CGI. That does look bad, but it actually has aged well. It's the kind of bad CGI that I think is charming now.

Okay, you like it. it got worse before it got better. Right. Like it started kind of really cool, actually. Okay. I think Alien 3 holds up personally. Okay. I also just love David Fincher, and you can see so much of his style in it and the casting

choices and certain things that just would come to define his work later, that it's... It also is very much God works the mysterious ways because if David Fincher had directed truth or dare, we wouldn't have truth or dare. We'd have something else probably. Totally. And I think it worked out how it was supposed to. Right. which is that she went with an unknown 25-year-old director named Alec Cashenian.

Cachishian. Sorry, Cachishian. She had seen his senior thesis from Harvard, which was a pop opera version of Wuthering Heights. And she loved it, and she followed his career from then. I don't know if he had much of a career, but. And then didn't she try, or they were going to maybe try and make it an actual feature of Wuthering Heights? We'll get into it, because there's actually a song. I can't remember if this episode or next episode, but there is a Madonna song that was meant.

to be for that. It's rain. Can you imagine? Wow. So because he wanted to film, which I think is really genius to have all the BTS be black and white and all the performance be in color to just kind of have that differentiation. But because of the black and white element, New Line Cinema was like, well, we're not putting, we're taking our money out. We don't want any black and white.

And then Madonna was like, I don't care. I believe in his vision. I'll pay for it. Four million dollars. Best investment. Yeah. Oh, my God. Imagine.

The black and whiteness, like, is, it makes it. We're looking at our. It's over there. Or Patrick's VHS copy. I have it on Blu-ray. Liz Rosenberg said, I was totally against it because I don't think the world needs to see what goes on backstage. In some ways, the best show you're going to see is on stage in front of the curtain. I'm an old.

I know. I'm old-fashioned and feeling protective and wanting everyone to see the best of Madonna. I worry that it might not have been in her best interest to show the underbelly of the tour. This was in 2019, so she was just like reminiscing Right, right, right. And then there was also the HBO Blonde Ambition World Tour Live Special directed by David Vallett

Which became the most watched non-sports event In the channel's 18-year history. I would love to revisit that. Yeah. Anyways, truth or dare is amazing We could probably have an entire four-hour conversation about it, but... It comes back later in the docket when it's released.

Yes, yes, okay. So we can wait until that. Put a pen in Truth Air. So Truth Air is being filmed. Yes. Unfortunately, now we have to... No, unfortunately. I'm sorry.

I don't know why I said that. Neutrally, we now have to talk about I'm breathless music from and inspired by the film Dick Tracy. Okay, I'm going to be honest. I'll put my whole heart on the line. I don't go back here very often. This is not a town I visit. But you know what?

Listening to it was a fucking joy. It was a joy. It was a joy. It's really good. I'm going bananas is a crazy song. He's a man. So good. sooner or later, obviously, won the Academy Award. It's just insane that there's like all these like,

bum, bum, bum, songs, and then it's Vogue. I know. It's like, mea, see? And then Vogue. It's like so funny. It's weird because Dick Tracy, the film was a hit. Yes, it was. Commercial hit.

And the soundtrack was a hit. Why was it never adapted for the Broadway stage? I saw a quote that said that a film executive afterwards was like, I don't, this made me not want to make big budget movies like this anymore. Because of the experience making it? I'm not sure. Or maybe like it didn't, like, while it performed well, it didn't like make a ton of money for how much cost. She got some first dollar grosses on the movie and she also got the...

The soundtrack went double platinum. And the soundtrack success was because of Vogue. Yeah. Because at that point you have to remember that's besides probably the single. The single. It's the only place you could buy it, you know? And then in September, this is where Patrick's really about to shine. It's the MTV VMAs and the first live performance of, not the first, I guess, should have done it.

Okay. The performance of Vogue at the VMAs. Let it rip it. We talk about the VMAs. It's really hard because. Yeah, it depends what age of person we're talking to right now. Like people our age understand. It's like we're dismissive of them.

Everyone's like, why don't they just end it? Why does it still happen? But they were so important. It's so part of like the pop vocabulary of like what is the VMA performance. Yeah. I think not enough anymore. I think people don't really think about it in the same way. But there was a period of time where because of Madonna, you could go back to the like a version VMA performance, which is like kind of started at all.

And that kind of legitimized the awards show. where you're like, okay, certain VMA performances are so iconic that it's like a huge part of a pop star's legacy. Totally. And the Vogue performance is definitely one of those performances. Yeah. It's like, you know, they're dressed like in 18th century Baroque, French garb. So amazing. She took the idea of like what we were talking about before, this like aspiring tour.

mythos and grandeur, and she just, like, injected steroids into it and was like, you know, Louis XIV. I mean... It was perfection. I can't prove it, but Sophia Coppola would have been about 18 or 19 years old. Just saying she probably solved us. Totally. You know what I mean? And it probably embedded...

And she gravitated toward Madonna, as we will see later. Exactly. Because she popped up. She pops up in a music video. In a little music video. Anyways, while this is an incredibly iconic performance, she does not win video of the year. She loses that and best female video to Sheenaid O'Connor. And she also loses Best Dance Video to MC Hammer.

Rude. So rude. Homophobic. And Best Choreography to Janet Jackson. Fair enough. Art direction to B-52s. I mean, it sounds like a situation where the B-50s. has had the most art direction. Yeah, probably a lot of art direction going on. Like, kooky, colorful, blah, blah, blah.

You know, Jenna Jackson's choreography was just so rigid? Would 1990 have been Rhythm Nation? I think so. Yeah. I mean, it has so much precision. It's such a good video. But I think that in terms of the legacy that Vogue's choreography means more. Yeah, yeah.

But that's just me. It did win Best Director for David Fincher. That's right. Some taste in the director's branch. And editing and cinematography. Whatever the director's branch was. The Director's branch of the VMAs. The Directors' Guild of the VMAs.

Well, even when the VMAs became like the public voted. Yeah. Like they weren't allowed to vote on director, art direction, choreography. They're like, you guys are too stupid. They're like you're not experts on that. We are. Okay. So Christopher Flynn, like I said before, sorry, I'm mistakenly said he had already died, but he died here this fall, about a month after the...

He saw the Vogue performance and was like, I can go now. I can go to. I trained her well. She did it. Of course, it's so sad. Does she rest? No. She somehow whips together a new single within a month or two.

Unbelievable. Justify my love. Yeah, a little song. It's so, again, I'm just like, it's so crazy to. It's like, where did it come from? What? What? Like a prayer to Vogue to justify my love, right?

Yeah. We're like shooting up in terms of like, leaps and bounds of like artistic development. It's like what everyone's saying that AI is doing now, where it's like it's a certain level, and then it just viral, snowballs into something ungovernable. So we're at that point, the inflection point, the explosion. I am obsessed with Justify My Love.

Me too. Band. The single cover alone. The leather hat, the sig. Yeah. Cubbyhole. For a cup. Full cubbyhole.

This was like those nights at the cubbyhole with Sandra. Really inspired. Meanwhile, she probably never set foot in that cubbyhole. She was maybe at the eagle. She went somewhere. Fascinatingly. So this is the lead single from the Immaculate Collection, which we're going to talk about.

The story behind the song, I'm obsessed. Starts with a woman named Ingrid Chavez, who was briefly the girlfriend of Prince. She was known as the Spirit Child on his 1980s. Love Sexy album. She does the outro on Alphabet Street, amongst other things. Prince was like, look,

why don't you write some poems and we'll make a poetry album together? And they start, I guess, doing this in January of 88, the poetry session at Paisley Park. And Prince is like improvising on keyboards and Ingrid's slam poetry, I guess. But they were like, we need to, sorry, we need to stop

because we have to go film graffiti bridge, the sequel to Purple Rain. And somehow through the filming this, movie Ingrid Chavez meets Lenny Kravitz and they start dating and he takes her she has a type she has a type he takes her to Andre Betts the producer to make a song and so she's like well I have this letter that I wrote Lenny but I never sent him those will be the lyrics and they lay down this song and Lenny Kravitz is like okay I'm going to try to get you a deal with this demo it doesn't work out they break up then they're at the premiere of graffiti bridge and Lenny Kravitz goes to Ingrid oh by the way

way Madonna's going to record that song. And that is Justify My Love. So is she credited on the song? Yes. Still hurts. Your ex-boyfriend takes her song. I gave it to Madonna. I gave it to Madonna.

Behind your back. Also, the lyrics are me writing to him. What Madonna is reciting in that is this woman's unsent letter to Lenny Kravitz. You know Madonna was not leaving Lenny alone either. Well, who knows what was going on there? She wasn't not playing with that. Let's just say that.

Sorry I know this woman. I mean, they're both gorgeous. I hope it happened. Same. But like, I want to kiss you in Paris. I want to hold your hand in Rome. I want to run naked in a rainstorm. Headless.

Lenny's moaning on the track. That's Lenny moaning. And there's also a six-minute track under, like, in one of the tracks. And it's just Madonna heavy breathing is part of the layers of the track. Love when she does that. Yeah. Here's Yossi's Musicology Corner. The repetitive drum loop that goes throughout the song is a sample from the public enemy song, Security of the First World from 1988. Okay. Which itself was built from a sample of the song Ashley's Roach Clip, 1974, by the soul searchers.

Although some people say the breakbeat was copying James Brown's funky funky drummer, which has been used in a lot of breakbeats. 70 other songs have sampled that public. I was going to say it's the kind of drum loop that seems like a preset that comes with every type of recording software. It's so iconic. It's so classic. Yeah. It's so good. The video.

Okay. We mentioned Tony Ward as one of the hot mermaids. He has become Madonna's boyfriend. I'm going to say it. I'll go on record. To me, he is Madonna's hottest boyfriend. Of course. By like a country mile.

I love Tony Ward. In saying that someone looks like that. He looks like Spartacus, but like Yossified. He's like Yossified Spartacus. He's like Yossified Spartacus. Tony Curtis. He has such a beautiful profile. Oh, sunny.

Everything. His jawline. Here we go. His tan. Everything. His complexion. He's also an actor. An actor.

An actor. He was also roommates with Esteban Oriole in L.A., which is one of my favorite tids of him. information. Okay. It's just great. Love. Okay.

So, I brought that up because Tony Award is in this video, as well as the models Wallace Franken and Amanda Casale. Sort of gender bending, if you will. Brazilian actress Luciana Silva, Debbie Mazar, who had just shot a little movie called Goodfellas. Debbie's on the way up. And Jose and Luis from the dancers from Bonavission. It's shot in black and white at the Hotel Royal Monceau.

In Paris. Scourge. It's giving Knight Porter homage. It's, you know, earlier we spoke about, you know, we spoke about the Express Yourself video, the crawling under the table, seeing being so influential. In Vogue, there's a shot that's like a horsed pea horse recreation where Madonna's like this, the hair falling to one side and you see the reflection that a lot of people have mimicked.

This started a trope in music videos that was just like, The, like, fun, sexy running through the hallways of a hotel. Right, right, right. You know? Yeah, yeah, totally. You get it in, like, there's a Pet Shop Boys Bruce Weber video for being boring that has, like, that same vibe. Yeah. It was, like, anyway, very important.

I also feel like it has some, like, call back feeling to the Open Your Heart video because of the idea of going and seeing what's going on in each room. Yeah. Well, like, kind of, like, how you would see what's going on in each of the booths that was watching. There's, like, a little bit of voyeurism and dangerous. of like, and when it's like, when you shoot in a hotel like that, it has this vibe of like that there were probably people staying in that hotel when they were shooting. They did rent out the entire floor, but... What are these people up to?

Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure she accidentally laughed. Do you know that part where like it's, I think, is it, Jose and Luce? I can't remember. And they part and you can see her in the back just like she starts laughing. It's like so perfect. I'm so glad that he included in the video because it's like this really moment of like joy and like humor, you know?

There's a moment where she laughs in truth or dare that we don't need to. to get into it's so like the most inappropriate moment to laugh that is also so funny when you catch real shit like that that's the best. I like when she laughed here though because and this is a little presaging of

what we're going to get into with the sex book and all of it. She's always approached sexuality with a winking humor that most people miss and it's I think to her endless chagrin you know and I like that it's in here already like it's always kind of been

there you know. This is also later in 1991 they talked to her about this video and the advocate it's a very famous interview where she's pretty like open um and she said even though i dealt with some other than heterosexual themes and justify my love unfortunately some people just saw it in a superficial way and didn't really want to deal with what it and the guy says deal with what and she said the sexual themes in it it wasn't just about me it's about life about human nature i think everybody has a bisexual nature that's my theory it could be wrong early adopter of the everyone's gay philosophy. MTV said

no. We will not be airing this. Thank you so much. And that's why I have a VHS of it. They sold it because it was banned from television. You would have to buy the video. They're like burning crosses, yes. Gay people? Homosexuality? Yeah.

Glancing homosexuality? Absolutely not. I do believe there's some nipple in it. Not hers, but... Maybe. I'm going to tell you how easily manipulated I am that I watched this video twice and then spent $600 at Ajeant Provocator. As if there's like any, as if I'm going to look like, you know what I'm going to look like,

you know, but now I have $600 of Agen Provocator. And there's nothing wrong with having beautiful lingerie. No, you've got to be reminded sometimes. Exactly. What a bizarre single for the Immaculate Collection, given the Immaculate Collection is just holiday lucky star borderline. It's all her kind of like fun times old songs, you know. Was there another single or was that it?

That was the one new song? That was the one new song. Oh, Rescue Me. Which I think is criminally underrated. I love that song. It's good. Her vocals are crazy on it. Weird, the same year as D. Light, Power of Love, just saying.

There was something in the water? Yeah. Yeah, the Immacula Collection, just an indelible artifact of my youth. Everything is contained within this CD. Yeah, that was it. I think I got like a prayer and this in the same. year from my beloved BMG music club. I taped that penny

right onto that postcard, checked a few boxes. Yeah. Mailed it off. Columbia House, I think, is where my sister got it from. Six CDs came in the mail and I was like, surely I will never have to pay the piper for this. Oh, yeah. We had 12, I think. Including like... I mean, it was 12, yeah. Probably Tony Braxton. This is how cheap CDs were back then that they could

afford to just literally dole out dozens of CDs. Oh yeah. Use your illusion. 100%. But as a gateway drug to Madonna, the Immaculate Collection is pretty insane because it's just like so many smash hits in a row.

Including Cherish, I'll have you notice. Including Cherish, of course. It is on there. Crazy for you? Let's fucking go. Borderline. Yeah, it's phenomenal. So in 1991, this is just a fun tid.

for the heads. She told Jonathan Ross that Michael Jackson had called her about doing a song together for his album Dangerous. Also, I'll go ahead and say it. A fucking phenomenal album

Walt to Wall-to-Wall bingers. A great time to revisit this album on the occasion of the acclaimed new film. By the time this podcast comes out will have come and gone. Okay, so Madonna said, so we got together and he played me the music.

It was very unfinished the track. And he said he wanted to call the song in the closet. And I said, really? You want to call this song in the closet? And he said, yeah. And I said, do you know what that implies? And he sort of giggled a bit. And I said, well, you know I like to deal with these kinds of ironic innuendo things. So if you want to go that way and he said yes. Apparently she wrote some lyrics, but he didn't like that. She went that way and he said no. And he was like,

she said ultimately he didn't want the content of the song to live up to the title. I need to hear what she wrote for that song. Release, leak the Madonna version of in the closet. Oh, my God. Okay, so in the meantime, she's preparing for her first Oscar performance, singing sooner or later, the song from Dick Tracy. Let's talk about it. This is like... The look. She's in full Hollywood glamour mode.

She's got... Incredible. The gloves up to the elbow, dripping in $20 million of diamonds, the first stole. And she goes with... Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson. And I had not remembered this, but... when I went back to look into it, I was like, oh, it's true.

None of those photos are from the red carpet because they were banned from the red carpet because they were too famous. And they were like, no one will look at the actors. You guys cannot. You're too nuclear level of famous, especially together. So all the photos we have are like paparazzi photos of them like coming from the limo and going in the back door of the shrine auditorium. She's like, she's like diamond covered basically.

Yeah, $20 million, babe. He's in white. He's, of course, dressed by his Michael Bush and Dennis Tompkins. He's wearing cowboy boots. Fashion designers. Black cowboy boots. Snake skin pants.

Yeah. You don't really see the lower half of his look very much unless you like look for it. Anyways, a real moment. A really incredible belt. They look so, it's so like acid trip celebrities. There you go. 100%. Crazy.

If that was posted now, you'd be like AI made that. That didn't happen. We don't have two people this iconic that could even go to an event like that together. I can't think of who it would be. Taylor Swift and Kanye was. That's so not as fabulous as this. It's not, but it would really like, the glamour is gone. It would make as much waves.

True. Maybe infamous is the word, not iconic. Right. Her performance of sooner or later. Yeah, please go on. At the 1991 Academy Award. Yes. One of the best musical performances ever on the Oscar stage.

If you have not seen it, go. Run, don't walk. Go watch it. it perfectly showcases like her sheer star power because she's alone on stage. Right. And she's hamming it up from stage entrance to stage exit. She doesn't quit. It's like it's a little bit comedic.

She's doing a sort of burlesque nod. It's old Hollywood. It's Marilyn Monroe. It's ridiculous. But it's like so brilliantly conceived and choreographed. Because in the movie she performs the song In a little bit of a more like sultry Serious way

This is like definitely For the stage Or it's like bam, bam You know Like she's doing these like crazy gestures Hamming it up It's crazy It's like a cartoon

She's Jessica Rabbit Another formative Feveron icon for me She won but she didn't win actually It won because she did not have any She performed it didn't write it, so she didn't win. All right. In May Truth or Dare is released.

You're right. We talk about it here. Premiers at Cannes. The incredible reveal at Cannes. The two-piece. Of the two-piece. The Cone-Raw. Bike short. Which they make it sound like she was in a thong and fucking nipple piece-tees. Midriff on the Can Red Carpet for back then. It's like she may as well have just lit a cherry bomb. It's like she 9-11ed the Can Red Carpet with that look. I swear to God. It's like up until recently, women were not allowed to not wear heels on the can carpet.

There's, like, very strict dress codes. Okay. She's at it again, folks. I was checking my memory. You said Midriff, and it's like, yes, two in, there's not, you don't even see her belly, but it's a high-waisted garment. Like, it is really wild thinking of, like, what she had to tear down, given that, like, what you see, like, a celebrity were to Coachella now, which you're like, I straight up saw your whole asshole. your asshole is not just your ass whole I can see it

Rose McGowan said hold my beer and went to the VMAs with Marilyn Manson Also honestly really iconic Really important outfit Madonna was back to Brunette Yes at this premiere Right There's also some very important

Paparazzi photos of Madonna that week jogging along the quissette in the morning Surrounded by her personal trainers Her body guards Cars that are driving around her and paparazzi.

Baseball hat, sunglasses. And you guys won't even go to the gym. You know what I mean? What's your fucking excuse? Major. All right, let's talk about truth through there. Again. I love that the rough cut was three hours and Madonna wanted to keep it all.

And Alex said that he... I agree. Alex said, it's not gone with the win, honey. I know. It is interesting. There are so many, like, big songs that she does in that tour that are not in truth or dare. Not even gestured to it. I would love the director's cut.

Well, I guess it would be Madonna's cut. The director didn't want it to be three hours long. The real director's cut. Yeah, but he had final cut. So there's also a part which I don't know if I included in this where she had to like Mogg Harvey Weinstein. She had to power mug Harvey Weinstein because it was Miramax was releasing it and he was trying to push them to cut it even more.

And she was just like, no, fuck you. He met his match. Yeah. And he was obviously a little bit less powerful then. And this is why I'm so happy that Alec, ended up doing it instead of David, even though we've established how I feel about David,

it just feels so fly on the wall, so spontaneous. It was like a direct cinema style documentary in the style of like DA Pannebaker. Totally.

Or the Maisels Brothers. Yes, yes, yes. And it's like this observational, voyeuristic, but like also diaristic. movie because it has her voiceover that's kind of like gluing the whole thing together throughout and obviously she's

very like she's engaging with the camera she's very aware that it's there at all times but also like she's living in this moment where it's almost like she doesn't have the like time to think about what she's going to say or do

so there's a little bit of like it's not that she's performing a version of herself in the movie because she's on tour and it's like you're seeing her in these moments they obviously shot so much. But it's like when she gets going off stage between songs, there's like a montage in it where the tour's not going well. And he just included her being like pissed off about sound.

Screaming at Christopher. Screaming at Christopher, getting off stage, being like, well, that was one of the worst ones ever. I mean, there's obviously... It's very real feeling. It has some reality TV elements in the sense of like, there's some set up things. Not fake, but set up.

Like the childhood. friend that is like miraculously appears from thin air to visit with her which she would like never have like and it was like you know asking her on the spot to be the godmother yeah of her daughter and madonna's like oh um or like her dad you know that was not staged but you know it was cleared or whatever and then the visit to her mother's grave right there were definitely like setups for the documentary which were brilliant and they really work for I saw it differently after I read Christopher's book because he, his whole, he talks about how much he was angry about that because he didn't realize it was going to be filmed. And he, again, I don't know if that was true. Like, I don't know. This is what he said in his book. And so you see in it, he's like off to the side leaning against a tree.

And then now with that conics, I'm like, oh, no wonder, because he was fucking pissed. Listen, she knew what she was doing. Also, it's like. And it's an incredible moment. And it's also a promise to try moment. Because it's not false, you know? I found it really sweet. Yeah, me too.

And she's like, I want to get in with her. I'll have to lay like this. That's just the difference between those two people, right? It's like she does still, like, her whole thing is to like live for the camera or for the stage or like live truthfully in front of everybody. And he's obviously a different kind of person, you know. But I also think that probably in the making of the film it did become like a diary. her and like that she was used to telling Alec things and then it was sort of like that was her way of expressing that feeling that she needed to get out in some way so I think it's okay

incredibly beautiful it's a beautiful scene I also just want to talk about like how it's shot and 16 millimeter black and white and then the concert sequences are shot in color and they look like maybe they're shot 35 I'm not sure if they are but that kind of differentiates was so striking. Yeah, because it gives a like, dimensionality of like, okay, now you know what dimension you're in. You're in intimate dimension, and then you're in, like, the show.

You know, you're a spectator. And it centers the music and the show as the more important thing in a way because it's shot in this way, like this is the work. Right. But then it's like you get the kind of, like, intimacy of all the backstage.

Like you feel like you're part of the backstage, but you feel like you're watching as the audience. Yeah, it's really cool. And it feels like don't look back in like those music documentaries that were also shot in black and white, 60 millimeter. We obviously watch the Depeche Mode 101 documentary, which has like a similar vibe. And what's interesting about the Depeche Mode one is like they made that one about their fans. Right. They didn't include themselves in the like vulnerability part of it.

And in this one, it's like all about the crew and the dancers. Right. It's like the family. But also Madonna, you know, as part of one. But I thought it was like so special about it. And obviously it became a matter of some contention later, but it made stars out of all the figures on the tour that are not the star.

You know, she's the star, but then it's like, to her, these people are the stars. And you really feel that, like, affection in the film. And it was, like, for a lot of people in my generation, or gay guys of my generation, I feel like it was the first time that we saw gay guys just, like, hanging out with each other. Yeah.

Like being gay guys. Yeah. Not being, like, performing. or not being, I don't know, it's like you just didn't see them gay guys very much at all, I guess. Well, that was something I read said about that I did think was really interesting, where I was like, it was, it featured gayness without making it about, like, the gayness, you know? Like, it wasn't like trying to make some statement. It just, it was like a naturally existing part of this world.

And that's why it felt so cool to see it, you know? Well, I didn't draw attention to it. Even more powerful than that to me. is the way that we got to watch gay guys bullying a straight guy. He was so bummed when he ran to tell Madonna. Yeah, and it's like gay guys are always bullied, like, in the 90s and the way that it was spoken about in the media or whatever, you're seeing, it's always like the gay guy getting gay bashed or whatever by the straight guys.

Or like you're growing up gay and you're surrounded by straight people and you feel that way or you feel like in danger of that. So seeing the tables turned like, that is so empowering and insane and intoxicating and the fact that they were being like bitchy. Like I was just like, I need to be friends with them. I'm going to be like that.

Well, he said, Oliver said he was like homophobic before he went on that tour. And the way he talks about it is so funny because it's so real. He's like, oh, I don't got a problem with fags or anything like that. He's like this isn't about them being fags. He was just calling them fags left and right. It was also like so cute. He was like making, what did

make you fun on them? He's like, why does he always have to wear those little shorts in my face? Like we get it. You're gay. So it definitely like opened a pathway where I was like, and it's crazy when you watch it now because I'm like the way that they are all talking and gossiping and being nasty together is like the way that me and my friends talk still. Like it's like that it's just such a real dynamic and seeing that captured was very magical at the time. I think that part is very cool. There's like sort of a controversial part. Well, there's obviously the truth or dare scene. And a lot of people I think remember Madonna.

a blowjob on like the Evian bottle. It was an Evian bottle. But the other part of that was there's a... No, it was a Vichy Catalan model. Sorry. Sorry for the delay, you guys. A million Madonna fans scream. We have to be right about the water bottle. It's not Evian. It's not Evian.

Vichy Catalan, a superior water. There's a dared kiss between Salim and Gabriel, and they do it, but Gabriel wasn't out of the closet. And he asked them to please cut it. And they didn't. And they didn't. That's just... The kiss isn't what gave it away. Well, listen.

Salim later said, I must have received... You're Madonna's backup dancer. Well, Oliver... I know, but the assumption is probably... Well, what Salim said... Oliver had to come out of straight. Right. That's what I'm saying.

No, halfway through the movie, I forgot that he was straight. I was like, oh, you're... What? Anyways, what Salim said is, I must have received 2,000 messages from people around the world telling me how their lives changed by seeing a gay kid. on the big screen. So.

And then I sued, though. They did all sue. Yeah. Yeah. Madonna is now on the cover of Vanity Fair shot by Stephen Maisel. Well, this is one of her most important photo shoots and magazine

covers, canonically speaking. The hair was by Garin, the legend. Garen is also the one that bleached your eyebrows, right? Early e-girl shit, babe. Madonna was an e-girl before any U-hoes. Yeah, exactly.

She had the blonde streaks in the front. She had no eyebrows. The makeup was by Francois Nars. Have you ever heard of him, baby? Ever watching to a Sephora? She was wearing a Bob Mackey gown. Yeah. And an Eve St. Laurent stole on the cover.

Shades of what she ordered the Oscars. Yeah. It's fucking unbelievable, basically. She looks fake. Yeah, it's just insane. It's like the most glamorous a human being has ever looked. After you peroxide your hair to fucking hell back how you still have hair on your hair. I have four hairs left and I didn't even really do that.

It's the magic of pieces and wigs and we're not getting into it. I think she's genetically blessed. We'll believe that's her real hair. This was the interview that she did with Lynn Hirshberg where she said that she has a fear of mediocrity. Nothing has ever resonated so profoundly around my body and soul. Yeah. I definitely stole that line and I would say it to my parents when I was a 12-year-old gay demon. Because, yes, I was already reading Vanity Fair religiously. I'm picturing you sitting at the Olive Garden with your family. And you're like, mom, dad. We didn't go to Olive Garden. We went to, where do we go?

Claim jumper? Caros. Caros. Love a caros. Yeah. You're like, mom, dad, I have a great fear of mediocrity. And they were like, okay. I'd be like, I'm not ordering the turkey burger. I have a fear of mediocrity.

Turkey burgers are really like prime mediocrity, disgusting food. Get it out of my face. Very important cover and also a very important moment because she had been trying to get Stephen Meisel to do a photo book. She was like, you're amazing, do a photo book. And separately eight months earlier, she had been approached by Simon & Schuster to write her own book book. And she had taken some meetings about it, but she was like, I'm not going to do that.

She was just like information gathering. And then Stephen Meisel said to her, why don't you just do a book with me? And she was like, you know what, babe, yes. Of course she said yes. But first. You don't say no to Maisal. I don't get star-struck that often. And when I do, it's the most weirdest people on earth, like the girl from the TV show leverage.

Where did you see Stephen Mazzel? I saw him at Whole Foods. Um, at a purple magazine dinner. And I was like speechless. I was like, Stephen Mazzel. The holy one. He, the aura of this man, he's like, ageless and he's still so cool and, like, the way he, I was just like...

Draped in silk. Steven, myself. But put a pin in that because first she has to go hang out with Jose Konseko and learn some baseball. Hang out. That's what they're calling it now. She was learning baseball for Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own. I don't know what else they did, but... You can quote me on this and leave this one in. She definitely fucked Jose Konseko.

She had sex with Jose Konsek's. There is no... I'm sorry. She and I have the same taste in men. Jose Kinseko in 91, get the fuck out of here. I personally do not find Jose Konseko. Oh my God, he was so hot back then. Maybe even still, I haven't seen him in a while, but Jose, there's something about

Jose. Well, whatever they did or didn't do, they did learn some baseball. Totally. For Penny Marshall's incredible league of their own. Yeah. Did her own stunts. She hit those balls. I fucking love that movie.

It's a classic. It's, first of all, we were watching, and I hadn't watched it a long time, and I was like, oh, my God, Gina Davis has the original Instagram face, but naturally. But it also, like, is the sort of face that looks old-fashioned in that way, too, you know? It's just perfect. It's like Judy Garland or something. Except, like, those luscious, like, it's like, who looks like that naturally? It's crazy. She's so stunning.

She looks really good in that period with that hair. Totally. Rosie O'Donnell is in this movie. It's where... Hilarious. Yeah, strike up a friendship. Lovable. Their chemistry, just insane, the two of them.

She was not out of the closet at that time. Absolutely not. She hadn't yet thrown herself at Tom Cruise for 10 years on her daytime talk show at that point. I just... Okay. But, you know. Madonna, I believe around this time is dating vinyl ice. Correct.

And it's while she's filming a league of their own that she gets a little visit from Shep Alert. Shep Watch. Shep Watch. Shep Pettybone, who drops off a tape of songs he's been working on. And so filming wraps and she's like, okay, let's...

Maybe let's work with these. Or not. She goes to New York to work with them and she's like, I hate this. If I had wanted the album to sound like that, I'd have worked with Patrick Leonard in L.A. And is like, start over. They write four songs together.

So shady, so unnecessary. Well, it's actually. There's amazing... But I get it. There's so much shade thrown between the producers as well. She was experiencing growth. We evolve in life.

We want new things. There is, I think, a Patrick Leonard quote where he's talking about Shep Pettybone, where he's like one of the most overrated producers of all time. Ooh, the rivalry. And the interviewer is like, well, Madonna chose him.

And he goes, everybody makes mistakes. Sure. Vogue was a mistake. I'm a Patrick Leonard truther, and I will hold the flame. I think he is... Love. incredible and long-term important.

He brings something incredibly important and emotional and beautiful to her music that cannot be, you know, put some respect on the man's name. But also, Shep, Shep is my, that's my sis. That's auntie. Okay, the four songs they wrote together at this time are deeper and deeper, erotica, rain, and thief of hearts. But they change a lot in the next nine months. Share gave an interview. Oh, thank God. Okay.

With Steve Kometko on CBS. Sure. She was promoting her new album Love Hertz. And she spoke about Madonna in the interview. And it was because Kometko asked her, like, who are you listening to today? Who's music that you like? And she was like, oh, you know, like, I like Whitney Houston. I love Eric Clapton.

And she's giving these sorts of answers. And then he says, what about Madonna? She goes, what about her? And he's like, you know, in some way she reminds me of you. She's known to speak her mind. You know, she goes against the grain, things that you've done. And then Cher cuts him off. And she first says, there are lots of things that I respect about her.

I think that she knows how to work the business like nobody I've ever seen. And then she says, and this part I want to try and do from memory, because I've, I've had it memorized for years. But you're not doing the voice. I'll do a little bit of the delivery. I can't do a sheriff's voice. She goes, and there's something I don't like about her. She's mean.

And I don't like that. And I remember having her over to my house a couple times because Sean and I were friends. And she was just so rude to everybody. And it seems that she has so much that she doesn't have to act the way that she acts, like a spoiled brat all the time. It seems to me that if you've reached the level of acclaim that she's reached, you can do whatever you want to do, you should be a bit more magnanimous and a little bit less of a cunt.

I love that some people have Invictus memorized, and you have Cher's 1991 diatribe against Madonna memories. She ate her up. Cher was at their wedding. Well, they ended up, you know, they made up years later and whatever. And then during the celebration tour,

there was like a video montage of like all of Madonna's most controversial moments or whatever, and she put the share clip in it. She's so hilarious. One thing we've lost as a society and a culture is like this age-old tradition of the pop star shitting on the next pop star publicly.

Like the Mariah Carey, I don't know her moment. You know, like, this is a time-honored tradition. Totally. But like they don't do it anymore. They do it online and it's not as fun. Or they do like a song. It's like Cher sitting on a couch on CBS calling Madonna a cunt.

Yeah. Where they had to bleep it. Also recently I saw a rand. And then he went, don't mince words. There was a random. like one of these Madonna fan Instagram pages posted something and did you see this?

Boy George just randomly strolls along and comments but why is she so mean? This is like last week. George, don't get me sorry on George. But I was like, sir. He's very online. He will reply to you.

All right, so now that we've, thank God, we couldn't have missed that NH1A1-N-N-N-N-A-1. Now we've had a complete picture of 19-1 moment. So she goes down to Miami to start scouting locations for the sex book. She falls in love with the 1930s home down there and buys it for $5 million.

On New Year's Eve, she had met a Cuban-American heiress. On Brickle? On Brickle, yeah. Ingrid Casares has entered the building. She had been dating Sandra Bernard. They met on New Year's Eve. Her and Sandra broke up,

but Madonna and her became close. And also around this time, Gianni Rostachi moved to Miami as well. Neighbors. Miami's happening. This is when she teams up also the next month with Warner Brothers to make her own label. Group of labels, Maverick. Huge deal.

Madonna, Veronica Frederick. Maverick. Whoa. Yeah, I didn't know that. Did you know that? No. Yes. So Veronica Deshev, Ronnie was the CEO.

Oh, so Maverick is Madonna, Veronica, Frederick. Maverick. Her brain. I know. So they make a record company, a film production company, a music publishing thing, television, broadcasting, book publishing, merchandising. She gets $60 million, 20% royalties from the music, one of the highest rates in the industry. Only Michael Jackson, I think, had a higher royalty rate or equaled. And everything with the music label was a 60-40 venture with Warner Brothers.

Also a 20-year-old guy is hired for the Maverick record label who had been friends with Freddie Demand's daughter at Beverly Hills High School. His name was Guy O'Seri. His name still is Guy O'Seri. 20-year-old A-N-R. Right place, right time. Really good ANR. Yeah. This is what's so Madonna and so crazy.

Like you get this like insane, like, I'm a power player in the industry moment. And you're like, cool, my first two releases are going to be erotica and the sex book. Thank God. But first, this used to be in my playground comes out, along with the film. I love the song. I don't even know how old I was a child, of course, when all this happened. I remember being in my friend's car and a limo drove by us, and like her little sister was like, it's Madonna.

And then stuck her face. The window started going, this used to be my playground. This song, while I love it, it's. It's firmly in my category of Sunday songs, songs that feel like Sunday. So I don't put it on that much because it makes me feel like it's Sunday. Yeah. And I don't like that. And it's a soundtrack song, so it's like not conveniently on any of the albums or collections.

Totally. And I cried at the end of League of Their Own when they play that and all the old ladies come to play baseball or whatever. Mm-hmm. Okay, let's just start with September 29th, 1992, which the first single comes out, which is Erotica. Jungle Buggy. Samples, cool in the gangs, Jungle Buggy. And El Yom Uliqa la Kashaba by Lebanese singer Fairus. Obscure.

What's your vibe on erotica? I mean, it's just ingrained in my DNA, so I don't really feel anything about it. It's sort of like a pulse. Right. My name is Dita. I'll be our mistress tonight. The thing about erotica as an album is like, not that it doesn't have big singles, because it does, but it's like,

this album is like a vibe record. Right. You know, like this is like perennially in style. This is like gay guys hanging out music. It's just on in the background all the time. This is like, I don't want to say background music as like a... It's not back. Yeah, but I get what you're saying.

I get exactly what you're saying. You know, it's not, I'm not being dismissive of it. It's just so important that it's always there. So it's like, I love it. But it's not like, it doesn't hit you. Erotica, the song doesn't hit you with like, the emotional punch. No.

Or bring you on the journey that like, a like a prayer does or some of these other songs. I would argue Rain does. And we'll get there when we get to rain. I'm a fucking... Rain is like the crescendo of the album. I will lay down in traffic for rain. Yeah, erotica, it's a perfect for a song.

You know, I think in my mind, it's part and parcel with Justify Your Love. You know, like, it has a similar vibeiness to it and like a looping beat kind of thing. I'll be on the mistress Part of it also might be that the music video is a little bit

of a lesser music video in the videography of Madonna. Right, because it was not... It's BTS from the sex book shot by Fabian Barron, who is an important player. You know what I learned about the erotic? They saved their money on that video.

You'll have a lot to say about this, so I'm interested. Photoshop has been invented. This is the first Madonna album after Photoshop is invented. Okay. And Fabian Barron, which I didn't know this, was a typographer as well. Yeah.

And so that's why you finally get this like erotica Madonna. Like they were able to do layers. Like I thought that was really interesting because like, I don't know. It hadn't occurred to me why, how that would change the visual look of albums. Right. Trippy. I think erotica probably. landed like a lead balloon.

The single? Yeah. Because it's not like, it doesn't have like a hook. I think it's a perfect offering to like foreshadow what the album is. But I also feel like it's not like it's not a pop hit, you know?

It's not a pop hit, but it's like such an important song. Totally. And like if you go to a Madonna concert and you start, you hear the beginning of erotica, the crowd goes insane. You know what I mean?

It's like a very good live song. Totally. It's a good like, nightclubbing song. It debuted at number 13 on the Hot 100, and it did peak at number 3, so it's not like it did terrible, you know? No, that's good.

You know what? It did better than I was thinking. So, this album is produced by Shep Petty Bone, Madonna, and Andre Betts. Also brings in Doug Wimbish, who played bass on Grandmaster Flashes The Message. No big deal. The House band of Sugar Hill Records.

he's great because he gives a lot of interviews about this and he's so funny because he's obviously just like an older man that's like been around and is like my first day in the studio she rolls up and she's got a box with these Playboy magazines from like the 60s she comes in, Dre sees her and she's chilling Dre's like, yo what's up Mo? How are you doing? They start having a conversation.

Dre says, what do you got here in this box? Before she can say anything, Dre takes one of the magazines and opens to the center section and is like, damn, these old babes had some titties back then. This is his interview. Dre's real straight up and down with her. She's Madonna. She's got that alpha female vibe.

And no disrespect. I'm like, yo, let me see that. She's like, no, no. I don't want you to see anything until you play some bass. She loves talking shit with the boys. And he's like, I'm not doing anything until I see some titties in his ass.

It's really funny. She's like, yeah, check out these broads. Literally. Pretty hot, right? And bang her. So Andre Betts, obviously, we know him from Justify My Love. That's how he got roped into this album.

And you can hear it for sure. And the backing vocals throughout this album are Donna, Deloria, Nikki Harris. It's interesting. I know that it is part of the narrative that the release of the sex book overshadowed the erotica album. But they really were of a piece, I think. it's like you can see the concept of calling the album erotica and then the book being sex and it's like behind a mylar bag and it's like being advertised like the visual identity is very similar

also just even during the making of the album she's doing both at the same time so she's constantly in and out of the studio going to shoot for the sex book so her head space at the very least is all one place you know yeah and the images intersect a lot totally and you know the alter ego Mistress Dita my name is Dita that came from the sex book inspired by the German actress Dita Parlo

Love It's Madonna being an actress again I love that they did a league of their own and then this They're like all right change it up Wholesome lesbian no more Yeah The artwork for erotica was

Stephen Meisel under the artist's direction of Baron and Barron Inc Of course Consistica of Fabian Barrett photographer Sung Fatihha. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

What's your favorite, what's your favorite image from the sex book? My favorite image from the sex book is the one that's full color. Mm-hmm.

She's butt-naked. Mm-hmm. She's squatting. Over the mirror? No, she's outside. Okay. There's a big plastic water bottle covering her crotch.

Oh, yes, I know exactly. She's lighting a cigarette. Yeah, yeah. And her Gucci handbag is off to the side open. Yeah. It seems like it's like a poolside or something. Yeah.

That's just like the realest, coolest. It's really good. But there's so many iconic images from the sex book, of course. I hadn't looked at it in a long time. I remember like my uncle had it and we all like, oh, we've got to go look at it. And then my beautiful friend, Andrew Gerritsen, thank you so much, Andrew, gifted me one after Tiny Violin fires.

And I hadn't actually looked through it because it was still almost pretty pretty much sealed in the thing. And then I was like, whatever, I'm not going to keep it sealed for it. I want to look at it and use it. Maybe if you sell it again. I don't care. I'm not going to sell it. So I was, like, looking at it at night and I was like, this is actually way tamer than it's been made out to be.

Yeah, it's not hardcore. It's not hardcore. Like, it's obviously for the time. And a lot of it's innuendo. There's like, there's certain things are so iconic in it that they like still get repurposed and use as like Madonna merch and things like that. Like that I'll teach you how to fuck just type. down the page. But there's like Madonna sitting on the stool

and she's sucking her finger and fingering herself in the like black leather. Yeah, I guess that is kind of. But she's, it's not like, you can't see the penetration. It's implied. Madonna biting Tony Ward's nipple ring. Yeah. There's Madonna like simulating giving a guy a rim job.

Tony drinking piss. Yeah. The shaving pubs picture. My favorite. And maybe that's. Sucking. Because I'm lame, but I, or maybe, no, I always say my favorite, but the one that I was, like,

so drawn to this time was, like, there's one that where she's wearing, like, a baby blue taut sweater, like an ingora sweater, and she's, like, but nude maybe from the... Waste down? Does she sound, with a bunny? Do you remember this? No, but it sounds cute.

It's super cute. It's in color. It's really beautiful. There's one where she's climbing over a fence and her butts out. There's, like, orgy, spanking, smoking, fucking. I know. Yeah. Naked in Miami.

Masturbating in the mirror. The pizza parlor one is amazing. Getting finger blasted by vanilla ice in the boxer shorts, right? It was a different time. Making out with Naomi Campbell. Big Daddy Kane is in this. Hitchhiking naked in the Coconut Grove is a very famous image. That's my favorite image of all time, I think.

I had the poster on my wall as a kid. Okay, sorry, we got ahead to the sex book, but let's get back to Erotica. It got mixed reviews. Mm-hmm. My guy... A C-plus from Entertainment Weekly. I know. Fuck yourself.

David Brown said, before we begin, may I mention that as a single erotica is depressingly trite, that between this frigid melody and you're scary, my name is Dita Spoken Bits. It's about as sexy as an episode of the Shelley Hack era Charlie's Angels. And the LA Times gave it two stars. Robert Crisgow, the God. Guess what?

Gave it an A. And look what he said. Amazing. Okay, everybody, let's use our imaginations, shall we? It may be a little hard at first, but if we try, we can have lots of fun. To start, let's pretend that we have nothing against dance music. that instead of fixating on impersonal and mechanical

and all those obvious things, we can just enjoy it for what it is. What a genius. Wow. Yeah. Like he just, he like nailed what people were getting wrong. Everyone's like, it's cold. It's like soulless.

Yeah. And he's like, it's dance music. And Rolling Stone gave it four stars two. So again, it's just like kind of all across the board. You either get it or you don't. You either get or you don't. Which is cooler than just being pandering to the moment. masses and like spoon feeding everyone the same hits. I think it's amazing having the success of

like a prayer which went like untold times whatever diamond or whatever and using your newly found collateral in the business world to make exactly what you want. Yeah. And not try to replicate anything and follow. The one thing I think that I admire so much about Madonna is that she always follows her interests and what lights her up and makes art around that, you know? And it doesn't matter if it doesn't feel

like it's gonna hit, you know? She's just like, this is what I'm interested in. This is what makes me excited. But there also are heads on them. Of course. So it's like... I don't think she doesn't want to make hits. I'm just saying it's like that's, if she wanted,

she could have made like a prayer part too, you know, like, or something. This is definitely a leap. It's a leap and also, but when I look at it, I'm like, I don't know what other directions she could have gone in. Like, it just feels so inevitable. Like, it's such an inevitable follow-up. Once you had Chekhovs Justify My Love. Yeah.

It was never going any other direction, I think. Okay, so we talked about the single erotica. I love this cover of fever. I really do. The more I listen to it. It's my most listened to version of fever, probably. Yeah. It's a song that does have many covers.

It's sort of neck and neck. I love the cramps one too. The cramps one is really fucking good. They're neck and neck for me. But yeah, this song has been heavily covered. But, God, her version. And also all the remixes of her version, it's just she really, that beat is so sick.

Apparently this song started as a real song, like an original song called Goodbye to Innocence, but it wasn't working. And so they're trying to fix it. And then she just like randomly starts singing fever while they're trying to fix it. And they're like, why don't we just actually cover that? Yeah, exactly.

It's a Peggy Lee originally. Or I don't know if Peggy Lee wrote it, but the Peggy Lee is the famous version. Yeah. All right. The next one is Bye Bye Baby, which samples L.L. Cool Jays, Jingling Baby. You're jingling baby. You're jingling baby. I fucking love this song.

Yeah. This is the sixth single. Anthony Schimper. That's so funny because I didn't think that it was a single. Well, once you get to the sixth single, you know, you're kind of like maybe not, because we're in. We're in the November of 93. We've gone like a full year. Anthony Schimkin, who worked with Pettybone, said,

Bye Bye Baby was committed to tape with the filtered vocal. It wasn't an afterthought. It was how she heard herself when doing the song. We went to tape with that effect. There was no removing that. Sometimes you apply treatments like that in the mix, but that was committed to tape. Everything was tried that wanted to be tried.

I think the vocal effect makes the song. Yeah. Like, what a vision to have. It's like she's on the phone. Yeah, exactly. deeper and deeper. I've heard many people call this like one of her most perfect pop songs. Do you agree with that?

I agree. Yeah. This is a second single. What about it makes it such a perfect pop song for you? It's a bit like what I was saying about Vogue, which is like it runs away with itself. It's like very sweeps you away kind of song. Yeah. You know, it's, there are songs that are like, like, bye bye baby.

It's very like hang out, cute, fun, whatever. It's like, there's like chill songs. There's like vibey songs. And then there's like songs that are like giving you like drama, romance, passion. It's so funny. I was going to say the word drama. Yeah. And that's deeper and deeper.

The, that's like very dramatic, you know. It also feels like there was this kind of house music style that was like very like minor key. Malcolm McLaren that had become big in like fashion and this feels like a nod to it but that she kind of like injected it with this pop sensibility that was faber I don't know it's just

maybe it's a really faggity song maybe that's what it is I can't speak to that the opening phrase obviously is a reference to the sound of music when you know the notes to sing you can sing most anything it's do you read me

There's also a nod to the lyrics of Barry White's. I'm going to love you just a little more baby, which is deeper and deeper in love with you. I'm falling sweeter and sweeter. The disco inspiration is interesting. I light this candle and watch it throw tears on my pillow moment. The Latin bridge. Yeah, love.

The flamenco guitar. Chepaddybone said sometimes Madonna would call him in the middle of the night and be like, we need to fix this. think of the, she called it in the middle of it. It was like the middle of isn't working. And then she wanted a flamingo guitar. Put Las Labonita in the middle of it. So major. Yeah, Shep was like, I don't like the idea of taking a Philly house song and putting La Isla Bonita in the middle of it, but that's what she wanted. So that's what she

got. And bitch, it works. It really does work. You wouldn't think it would, but it really does. This is what she was doing because it's like the inspiration for this was very, like, disco. It was like, she wanted, like, the flavor of disco. And it was coming across like a little gay fashion electronic. Right. She wanted to bring something like grounding into the song, I think. And that's where those guitars came from.

She wanted to bring a little barrio back into it. Bring him back to the barrio. Also, there's that lyrical call back to Vogue and the outro. I know. So good. It's really good. I love when people do that. We both read Harry Tafoya's pitchfork Sunday.

What do they call it? Sunday. where they re-review an album. And he mentioned in it, which is, I mean, it's a great in general, the whole thing you I should read it. But he mentioned how this album has so many callbacks to her earlier work, like kind of embedded in it, which is really cool. What about the video of deeper and deeper, directed by Bobby Woods?

Okay. What about the people in it? This is where I'm going to get in trouble. You don't like the video? Is it because of her Afro wig? How do I put this? I do like the video. I love the video, but I also think it's not her best.

I think the execution of the video feels a little bit cheap and ludicrous. I don't know. It's like... Like move bitch, get out the way ludicrous or just like silly. Like the afro wigs and the like... You know, it's like... It's also how it was shot. It's sort of...

But it's cool. I like that it shot like that. What she was going for was like a warhol thing. Yeah. You know, she wanted it to be like those like Paul Morrissey, like Joe D'Alaisandro type. It doesn't really have that feeling though. No, it doesn't because it's shot in a very 90s way. To me, it really reminds me of that Janet Jackson video that also has everyone hanging out in a room.

That's the way Love Goes is better directed, I think. Yeah. Like I just don't love the directing of this video. I don't like the shots. It's very awkward. Some of it is so candid where you're like, they should have cut that take. Why is it? You're watching parts that are a little...

I also feel like it didn't need... Like, I think, like, the element... Like, if they had just... I feel like it didn't need to go so many places. Like, if I... When I think about the parts that I like, like, I love the part in the house party and, like, the bananas,

like, the girls with the bananas. And, like... I mean, but there's some... That's what's so charming about it, though. It has this, like, 90s fashion lunacy to it. Yeah, that I love. Playing dress up, like... And then, but it's when they go to the club,

I'm like, this is kind of boring. You know, like, I don't need you to be in the club. It all feels kind of, like, for, you know, this video actually impregnated Madonna with Addison Ray. Like, I feel like Addison Ray's vibe is so the deeper and deeper video. Yeah, that makes it much so much. You know what I mean? It's like... Pillow fight. Yeah.

There's... Well, anyways, the cameo... The new girl, like... Berets. Udi Sedgwick. Uduke. Udu Kier, who's also in the sex book. Debbie Mazar, Inger Kisarazares, Sophia Coppola, who was probably like,

I won't be in your sex book, but I'll be in your video. Seymour Stein and Gai O's here in this. also Hollywood long, porn director Chi Chi LaRue, porn star Joey Stefano. It's Madonna's Factory. It's great, yeah. The next song is where life begins, which I'll say it. It's sort of a weak moment in the album for me. I actually love this song.

It's weird. I love how weird it is. I don't think it's a bad song at all. It's just a little, like, I get tripped up by, it calls attention to itself a little bit in a way that, like, it trips me up. Like, it takes me out of that, like, long hang. You know? Yeah.

But obviously I think any song that you're overly talking about, cunningness is cool. But it's one of those, like, it's tongue and cheek, and it's a little too much tongue and cheek. Yeah. We're like, okay, har-har. It's like the only thing you can eat without getting fat. You're like, okay.

The next song is bad girl. Let's fucking go. Let's fucking go. It's crazy to me. What a song? What's interesting about this is, like, Bad Girl is a song that feels like it could have come out in any Madonna era. I agree.

This could have been on True Blue. Could have definitely been on bedtime stories. Could have been on bedtime stories. It's like, this to me is like just quintessential Madonna. The video is fucking incredible. It's a movie. That video is the closest we ever came to getting a David Fincher movie starring Madonna. You know what I mean?

That video is a movie. What if that had happened? What a sliding motherfucking door is? We would be speaking about Madonna's film career probably very differently right now. I wouldn't be surprised if she was, like, supposed to star in the game. Oh, my God.

You know what I mean? That would have been so good. I know. Well, we got this beautiful video starring Christopher Walken, and you know I love a movie where someone plays an angel. And this is a little movie.

On a dolly chair always, which was like a nod to filmmaking. It's so charming. And she is playing... Apparently had a name. Did that... Did you notice that? Louise?

Where did, it's a music video. They never talk. How did you know her name was Louise Oriel? She, Madonna does this. That's great. I love it. It's Mistress Dita, Louise Oriel. Louis-Oreal-A successful but promiscuous

Manhattan businesswoman. Yeah, she creates characters. She builds worlds. Right. Also, I just love that she's an alcoholic and a chain smoker in the video. Which is so not her because she, at this point, still doesn't really drink much. But she looks good doing it. She looks so cool.

The flu logs are, by. I have a deep obsession with those fucking flu vogs. They're in truth or dare in the scene where I've never seen one single woman look more gorgeous and cooler and hotter than she does when she's getting ready to go out with fucking Warren Beatty and wearing that little dress in her hair up in the thing with the thing and then she's got the flu bogs on. I found those flu vogs, but the only size they had left was one size bigger than my foot. Flu vogs used to advertise and used to have to shoot flu vogs. I used to force flu vogs on Mario Testino.

Can someone remake those shoes? I think they still make them No I've searched Far and Why That's my dream shoe They will now When they hear this

Thank you so much Call them the Yossi You know I love the pathos Of this character She created Because it's like She's chain smoking

Drinking And she's like Sleeping with Strange men But she has like This like Mortal terror About her

Like she knows Her life Is like Out of control Totally Well she's Not happy When she lives

This way Exactly But My favorite part is when she like has the one night stand and then she goes back to her office the next day and she rips the plastic dry cleaning cover off the Elias suit. So she has hanging in her office. It just happens to be back from the dry cleaner. She's like needs to change clothes. Keep working.

She's a high, she's a high powered business woman, babe. The wardrobe is all come to Garsohn. Vivian Westwood. Her hair looks so good. Oh my God. The hair was by Orlando Pita this time. makeup was Pat McGrath She's one of the most peak gorgeous she's ever looked

Yeah And there's like Oh my God When she comes home and she's like Picks up her mountain of mail At the base of the door First you see her through the people For weeks because I've been out hoeing

This much male has come I'm such an out of control slut And then she gets home and her mail is piled up on the ground And then she gets startled And it's her cat that she forgot exists And so she feeds her she feeds her starving, neglected cat, and she dumps the cat food out of this

giant can. And then as she stands up, she's pouring herself a glass of wine. And as she's drinking the wine, she licks the cat food off her hand that she got on her hand. Did? Feeding the cat. This is...

Acting, bitch. But this is post... I was going to say, it really reminded me, and it is post-Michel Fiver's Catwoman, which was very much that. It has a very similar... She's out all night, doing fuck shit, comes home, has the cat. That is, you know.

And she's like licking the capital of her. I wonder if that was like a nod to that because it's very similar. Anyways, we got to move on because. She tore it regardless. That video is very special. She dies at the end. Spoiler alert.

Oh my God. When he closes it and he takes her away. I love waiting. I think it's an amazing song. Great. Next time you want pussy, just look in the mirror, baby. That was about Warren? I guess so.

Must be. Yeah. And the next time you want pussy. Feefe of hearts. So good. Here she comes. Little Susie Homemaker. It's fierce.

Were you aware that in January of this year, this song went TikTok barrel? Yeah. I was. Because everyone realized it's about Annette Benning. Is it? Allegedly. Because she took Warren? Yeah.

Bitch, you'll do it, you'll take it, you'll screw it, you'll fake it? Yeah. I'm that can't be why it went TikTok viral though because it was why I think the internet was like ooh catfight from but then what were people weren't they doing like weird cooking challenges to it or like whatever things take on a life of their own you know but it was part of the people were revisiting it got it for whatever reason and it's just a really fun song it's such a fun you know it's like women beefing with each other can be fun I mean obviously gay culture is built upon this so as the television network Bravo, but we like when women fight. And you can get a lot of it because we hate each other. Yeah. Intra. You heard what we said about Cher.

Intra female competition is very real. I don't have anything written down about words. It doesn't mean I have nothing to say about it. No, actually, like, revisiting this album was really, because I do just play it in the background a lot, as I said, but then listening to it intentionally, I'm just like, love this song. Love this song. Great, exactly. Just love this song.

But now I'm going to need. an umbrella because it does a little bit stick out vibes-wise yeah it's a total change of pace but there's something about the

kind of minor key that the whole album is in and then it switches to like major key I don't even know if that's true I don't know about music it's just how I'm this is how my brain is formatting it there's a shift in the song into another register that feels like an epiphany from the album.

It's like the whole record has all of this like tension, and then Rain is like the release. A release, totally. And it's very much like written that way, it's designed that way. It's like what Rain is, you know, elementally. It's so beautiful. I think that it was the idea that it was originally written

for that musical adaptation of Wuthering Heights that never transpired. It makes a lot of sense and how maybe it was then put onto the album. but fits in. Shep Pettibone created so there's like a panning percussion that happens.

I love it because it does kind of simulate the feeling of hearing rain. When you listen with headphones and stuff, it's like very surround. And he did that by cutting and slicing samples of percussion breaks from an extended version of the Scrutty-Politi 1985 hit Perfect Way.

Go off. There you go for my Squitty-Politi heads. I love this song and I could listen to it. a hundred times in a row. The video. The video is very important. Mark Romanek.

A love letter to Japan. Even though they originally wanted, I think, Fellini to play the director, but he couldn't do it. And then maybe another crazy iconic director also couldn't do it. And then they decided on Rayuchi Sakamoto, the composer who plays the director. Because it's basically a video within a video.

Yeah. This hair. Okay, you want to get into the hair? Yeah. Joanne Gare did the hair, who worked with Madonna a lot, actually. And she did the makeup. Now, is that her real hair or is that a wig? I just mean, did she have a black pixie?

Paul! Did she have a dark brown pixie? I just like, I don't know. She called it the glass hair. That was like the title for what she did with that look, which was like to make it look really shiny, really like piecey. And also there's the thing. outfit. I still try to recreate that outfit like 10 times a year with just like the slinky black dress with the gazelles.

Everything in it is Com de Garsohn, Vivian Westwood again, and she's wearing them a lot. But she also said the video was inspired by Yogi Amamoto, but I don't know if she's actually wearing Yogi in it. I think probably some of the crew are because it's a video within a video concept. Love it. Her eyes are popping the motherfucker off. by Mark Romantic. I don't even know if we said it. Shot by Harris Savitas, the legendary director of photography. It's one of those very few people I've ever looked this beautiful once again.

The B-side, just want to give a quick shout to the B-side of Rain. The Updown Suite. This shit is fucking amazing. Yeah, fan favorite. 12-minute Chicago House in the style of Madonna. I'll take it. She brought it back for the celebration tour. The fans went crazy.

You heard it in the room if you were there. And then I fell down the rain tapes rabbit hole, which we can't get super into right now. But there is a collection of demos called the rain tapes that are online and was submitted to the Library of Congress for copyright registration, which is how they know that exists. And so there's a lot of, like, fodder about these rain tapes because there's some songs that never came out. Okay. That's it. Something to look forward to. Yeah.

Why is it so hard as the next song? It's nice. Yeah. It's a nice song. In This Life is really beautiful and sad. It ends things on a serious note a bit. Although I know that did you do it? Right.

Then unends it on a serious note. Well, okay. So now they've removed that song. Yeah, that song's gone. But it did exist. I'll talk about that in a second. In This Life is, I think, a really important song, though. And it does end it on a serious note.

And it's like, direct. directly speaking about her friends that she lost to eight. It's like very literally, like, sitting on a park bench thinking about a friend of mine, he was only 23, that's Martin Bregoyne. And the next verse, thinking about a man I know who's like a father to me, Christopher Flynn. And it's like a really, you know, plaintive,

sad, mournful song. Erotica is really so underrated. I mean, I guess now we can talk about it. Now maybe it's more properly rated. Mm-hmm. Given, like, you know, you can look at Harry Chafoya's review. I think the community has corrected. Yeah.

They give it like a nine or something. But at the time, it was obviously like just completely misunderstood. But like, as a piece of work about sex, in quotes, it kind of encompasses a lot of what is involved with sexual relationship or human relationship. It's sex. It's power. It's also love. Rain is a love song. like love and connection. And this last song, or mortality. And, and safe sex. You know, it's really

about like, it was about eight. So, and she's, she's never been shy to talk about that. Even the sex book, which I'm not going to open up and read, but the, in the, the whole beginning page talks about how this all takes place in a fantasy world. And in her fantasy world, there isn't AIDS. But in the real world, you should use a condom. Yeah. Anyways, I want to talk about, did you do it for? one second because it's actually really funny. Basically, they had a running joke with Andre Betts of, did you do it?

Did you fuck Madonna? And he like, I guess did a rap to it or something and it had taped it and then they accidentally played it for Madonna. Like she wasn't supposed to hear it. No, they played the wrong track. And she was like, we're putting it on the record. Tick, tick to

talk. Mo was on the chalk. I did her in the limo as we went around my box up the mole on my hip, lift the lipstick off we. We also forgot Secret Garden, by the way. That is still on the album. Yeah. Her Secret Garden is her vagina. Totally, where life begins. The Secret Garden.

Yeah. There is an unreleased song called Shame that the demo is on the internet, and it's actually really good. I can quote Harry's pitchfork thing quickly to wrap up Herodica. It's very good. I just like the way that he phrased it. He kind of encapsulated what this period was and this sound. He said, twisting and maneuvering her own fame,

Madonna ditched the old Hollywood model of stardom as a manicured cult of personality in favor of celebrity as a never-ending Warholian soap opera, referring to truth or dare. By the early 90s, she had been the third rail of sexual discourse for almost a decade, electrifying audiences and sending conservatives into convulsions with every new release.

Parallel to the spectacle ran an infinitely more interesting story, the tale of elapsed Catholic, and her quest to define what she really believed about herself in the world. Without a cosmic script and contemptuous of a patriarch's guiding hand, Madonna's work plunged headlong into sex and emotion, the ecstatic coupling of people between sheets and on the dance floor as the ultimate vehicle for spiritual transcendence.

I love that. And what's amazing about that is that is still what she's doing. Well, okay. With confessions, she did it again with confessions too. Totally. This erotica to me is like the spiritual prequel to confessions. Yeah. Okay, so my giant galaxy brain, like, woo-woo thing is like, she sort of like starts out, you know, doing this thing and then gets, like we said, there was like all this sort of like stars washed from her eyes from coming up against the control of men. So then she's like, okay, well, then I will embody control and masculinity because.

Yeah, with Dita. With Dita, with control, with being. Maverick. Yeah, this is all like hypermasking. And then kind of realizing, actually that didn't fulfill me either. And then you come back around to her major, one of her major peaks, which is pushing past both of those things into the divine feminine, which is actually spiritual, which is Ray of Life. And I think that's when she, like, surrendered the tropes of. Totally.

You know what I mean? And was able to sort of ascend to this other place, which is truly the divine feminine. And that's what you hear in real light, not to get ahead. Okay, I feel like we talked enough about the sex book. We did talk about the sex book. It sold out 750,000 copies, was banned, et cetera, everything you would think. Edited by Glenn O'Brien, we should mention. One thing that is just that in 2022, Yves Saint Laurent published a reedition of the sex book through their publishing.

I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Really? Yeah. And they did a whole exhibition at Art Basel, Miami Beach. They, like, built a gallery on the beach. And they showed all of the Mizelle photos. That's so cool.

And she flew out Udo Kier for it. No way. She loved Udo. Their relationship was really cute. Yeah, they released 800 copies. So she still owns it. Good. Still loves it.

I heard from the stores that she still buys them off eBay when she sees them pop up because, like, she feels like she doesn't have enough of them in the archive. So good. It's beautiful. And like, just if you haven't ever seen it, like,

this was very difficult to produce. Like, she wanted this, like, metal cover, like, I can remember who it was. There was an interview with her.

It was like, it was really annoying to read it. I don't know. People lost their goddamn minds. Yeah. About the sex book. That infamous interview in 16 Minutes, Australia with Richard Carlton.

You've seen that, right? The clip. Yeah. Where he's like, I just think these images are so horrible. And he's specifically talking about the one where she's like astride the mirror masturbating. Yeah. She has such a good response to it where she's like, I think people's reactions

to specific situations in the book are much more a reflection of that person than me. I mean, you were scared of that picture. What does that mean? Are you frightened of a woman that can turn herself on? Are you frightened of a woman who is not afraid to look at her genitals in the mirror? And he's like, a little bit, yes. Getting Freudian up in here? Yeah. Also during this whole period, She did another shoot with Mizelle for Vanity Fair, which is the one where she's like in the pool toy, in the pool with the pig tails. Oh, that's so good.

And stuffed animals in the playground. She's playing with like little girl. She's dear Jesse. She's dear Jesse. Fits out, ass out, dressed like a perverted adult toddler. She also did interview magazine with her Brits in 93, at the tail end of all of this. Yeah.

And then did Vogue by Mizel style by Grace Cottington, which was sort of like a hippie vibe randomly. Yeah. Maybe at that point she was kind of trying to like, eh, you know? Well, she did. I mean, she lost a big chunk of audience with this. Like, I think that is also something people need to like remember who didn't live in real time. I mean, including myself, obviously, I was a child.

But like, she was America's sweetheart pop star. Even though she was like pushing buttons with like a prayer and with, you know, increasingly pushing. buttons but like a pair, she was an international sensation pop star on the level of Michael Jackson. With Erotica, she lost a big chunk of market share. Those people did not come with her. They were like, we don't, I don't know about that.

Right. It's like poking at religion is one thing because you may offend some people from that religion. At worst, you offend all of them. She didn't. I don't think. But then, you know, explicit sexual imagery, you're like basically being like adults only.

this is not for kids. People are freaking out. They don't want their kids seeing. Kids are obsessed with Madonna. It spiraled out of control because the idea of it was far worse than the execution of it. Because nobody saw it. 700,000 people saw it. But it wasn't, you couldn't just go on the internet and look at it.

So I think even the way I misremembered it being like so hardcore porn, it's not. I think that got out of hand, you know. But some of that was also the marketing, which like was funny and cool, but it's like, it backfired a little. Like putting it in the Mylar bag And having it say adults only Like that's what like Hustler magazine looked like When you went to buy it at the store

Which is why they did it It was like kind of They were being cheeky about it What she said was like No one got the humor Like no I was trying to be Like I was trying to poke fun at everyone's prejudice

About other people's sexuality And no one got it And then more crucially She told Charlie Rose in 1999 That after that the backlash I lost confidence in humanity I thought that people were being unbelievably cruel to me for no reason. And when I lost confidence in not being able to feel like there was a certain level of behavior that I could depend on in other people, a certain decency.

When I lost confidence in that, I began to lose confidence in myself. Right. And like, you know, according to testimony, this was like sort of a low period for her that affected her a lot, how this was received. Yeah. And then to add insult to injury, like, you're already like in the rip tide and then someone's like, hold your shoulders down. Body of evidence comes out. January 7th. I'm like, I don't see how that can be anything but incredible

because I love that movie. Same, but the reviews were brutal. But that was, this is something that my friends and I talk about with pop stars in general. It was her time to be hated.

Yeah, totally. Everyone has their time to be hated. It happened with Lady Gaga during art pop. It's like, there's a moment where it's like you've been writing too high for too long

and we are going to knock you off your pedestal and drag you into the dirt. Yeah, and I feel kind of bad because I think body of evidence suffered from that part of her because it's actually a totally great movie. I've been watching a lot of erotic thrillers from like the 80s and early 90s and like,

I'm not trying to shade anybody, but it's like it's directed so much better than like jagged edge. Yeah, or like sliver or like, I'm trying to think what's, okay, people, everyone loves basic instinct. I didn't find it that much, like, I didn't find it, I don't even find basic instinct that much more elevated than this. And they're both very enjoyable. They're both really well directed. Yeah. Uli Adel is like an incredible director.

He directed Christian F. Yeah. Like he was part of this like German new wave of directors who were sort of shooting in this like very visceral gritty style but still with like kind of high style composition. Yeah. I think it's such a and it's such a great juxtaposition of that on top of a sort of dumb dumb script. You know, like it is a little like, you know, blue notes a few in the script. But that's what makes it great. Oh my God.

Whatever. It really is just like it came immediately a year after Basic Instinct. Yeah. And so there's a bit of like, oh, she wanted to do what Sharon's. And Basic Instinct was like a movie that was not expected to be as big of a hit as it was. And the film is lurid and over the top at times. But like, her performance is like incredibly calibrated. She's like enigmatic and naturalistic.

I think if Glenn Close gave the same performance, it would have gotten good reviews. Totally. But everyone wanted to hate her at that time. She had too much. She sees the culture. She was hot. She had all the hottest men. She was dominating the pop charts.

I think it just also didn't help, obviously, that she was being castigated for being too sexual, and then her most explicitly sexual film performance comes out at the same time. It's just, like, people were like, ugh, enough with you. But it was, like, audacious, and it was a cool choice. Everyone who she worked with in that movie, it was, Fab that it was Willem Defoe and Joe Mantania and, like, fucking Frank Langela and Julianne Moore.

Full frontal pussy in the parking garage. It's a really hot movie. Like Sharon Stone uncrossed her legs so that Madonna could go spread eagle on the hood of that Bewick regal. You don't see lip, but yes. You don't see a cervix.

And she's the best line in it where she's like, don't look so hurt, Alan. I fucked you. I fucked Andrew. I fucked Frank. That's what I do. I fuck. And I made $8 million from it. She lives on a houseboat.

It's randomly filmed in Portland. Nobody like that has ever lived in Portland. What did she do to you, Frank? What are those marks on your chest? Are those bites? Jolamore. Incredible. She slapsed her in the bathroom.

It's a great movie. You guys reconsider her body of evidence. Okay, so she goes on still, regardless of having a hard time in the press, she goes on Saturday Live and does Bad Girl in Fever. The host is Harvey Kytel. This is just a moment for me. She's on the 1,000th episode of the Arsenio Hall show, sinks fever and also performs the lady as a tramp alongside Anthony Ketus where they're

wearing matching skirts, stockings, leather vests, and cat ear caps. And it is burned into my brain this image. Got it. It's really important. Okay. Missed that one. Somehow. My personal canon of intersecting interests.

Erotica, okay, we said that. Largely slept on. People do not. It doesn't get the attention that it should because of the book. And Madonna is in a bad place. So, and with this vibe, we go into the girly show tour. Incredible, legendary. We have, beautifully dissenture.

I don't remember her ever having bangs, but yeah, there she was. The title came from Edward Hopper painting of a naked woman on stage at a burlesque house. Christopher is now made the tour director as well as art director, moving on up. They tracked down Gene Kelly, 81 years old to help with choreography. You would if you could. Famously fired him, I believe. He deserved it. Retire, bitch.

They cast the female dancers by posting flyers at lesbian bars in Manhattan. Cool. And Carlton Wilborn came back. Nikki Harris and Donald Delori are back. Jeff Hornday, who had choreographed the Who's That Girl Tour, came as stage director. Now all the costumes are Dilchangabana. Costumes by Dolchan Gabana, honey. Who are like fairly, I don't want to say new, but weren't like.

It was peak 90s Dol Chan Gabonna. Just, whoof. What about Carrie Annanaba being one of the dancers? I don't know who that is, but I'm happy for her. Is she dancing with the stars? That's right. That is correct. She came down in a thong, in a G-string on an aerial ballet.

Here are the songs. Erotica, fever, vogue, rain. There's an interlude where Gene Kelly's choreography actually came in. Eight dancers, porn with umbrellas, rain, get it. A little bit of soft shoe, a little bit of a shuffle. Express yourself. She did do that in the Afro. Just wanted you know.

Why is it so hard? Justify My Love. Marlene Dietrich's 1930 song, Falling in Love Again. Bye Bye Baby. Wow. I'm going bananas. La Isla Bonita. What am I to do?

Fake ending with Holiday. And then she comes back to stage to sing Everybody is a Star by Sly and the Family Stone into first single Everybody. And then here's a little moment. She introduces the band, the singers and the dancers then leaves. and then Perot, is that a clown? Yes. Well, a clown comes on stage, but he was in the beginning, inviting everyone,

and then comes back on stage, goodbye, blowing kisses. And guess what? It's Madonna. It's Madonna. Rips off those. Tears of a clown. It's me. Polyacchi, bitch.

Keith Cameron gave it a bad review. The only thing I want to- Well, fuck her! I just want to mention one line that will blow everyone's mind. Okay. One hesitates to say that at 35, she's too old for this. gun into my mouth. Well, and now I bring it up to point out that like,

she pushed past everyone's expectations so that now someone like a Taylor Swift or whatever is 37 years old and not, no one even thinks for a second they're too old to be a pop star. Yeah, exactly. Because Madonna did it, you know? She was like, no. And of course not.

She's like, I haven't peaked yet. Exactly. We're still waiting. Now your favorite movie Dangerous Game comes out while she's on tour, directed by the great Abel Ferrar. Really sick. It's really complex, and I will say for like someone without the like great filmic mind of Patrick Sandberg, you might need to like be open-minded and also like for me I had to like marinate afterwards for like an hour and like really use my big brain and think about what I had seen.

Because I think what's so genius about what Abel Farah does is that. the surface layer, if you just buy into the surface layer, you will be outraged, you know? You will be like, this is misogynistic or whatever. And then you kind of back up and realize that actually it's a meta-commentary about misogyny, about Hollywood. Like, it's so brilliant the way it's done. Anyway, sorry, I'll save it for the big pick, but. It's the coolest movie she ever did. It's really cool.

For sure. It's like, it's avant-garde. It really is avant-garde. It's the most risky, high art, independent. She's great in it. Her performance in it? Okay. Harvey Keitel's hair is absolutely psychotic.

Also, Maverick produced it. Yes. Which is fucking sick. But she's, you know, and maybe she was going for kind of like a gritty art house credibility, which is the timing of it is so interesting to me. But it's like, to me it's just such an unexpected move after all of the sort of movies that she was doing. Yeah.

And it's like, Lady Gaga, we're waiting. Where's your cool movie? It is kind of part and parcel with Body of Evidence, though. even the Body of Evans is a totally different kind of movie. It feels at least like you're going further in a direction and not like back towards like blockbuster or like family-friendly comedy like a league of their own. You know, like she's going like more depraved in a way because it's so... More film festival.

More eligible for the general population. Totally illegible. Like the tone in the language of the movie is so scorched. That like actually like my issue with the movie, if anything, is that I feel like it could have been funnier. Yeah, there's not one. There are things that are inadvertently funny. But also I think I think that's like, I like even realized later that I was like, oh, what's the guy's name?

Joe Russo. Joe Russo. I'm like, oh, his like ham-fisted over the top performance is like on purpose to be skewering that kind of male ego. Totally. It's so genius. But Harvey Kai tells his hair needs to be changed. But I mean, the hair is so, but it's so like, I'm this greased. like kind of shitty guy.

Well, the fact that it's fucking Abel Ferrarra's real wife that plays his wife his mind. It has this like kind of absurd like aesthetic romance to it to me like where the writing is so like corrosively nihilistic and then it's like

coupled with Madonna's kind of like Warholian glamorous actress performance. Right. Where she is kind of playing herself in one part of it. Yeah. It's like, it's a little bit camp, but more than that, it just feels so, like, modern. Yeah, it's like, almost not funny enough to be camp.

And it's not bad. The acting is, like, actually sensational. And what she does in it is, like, she gives her most naturalistic performance that I think she ever gave in a movie. It feels so real and lived in. But then she's playing an actress, and we're seeing that actress's performance on top of it. So there's, like, layers to how heightened she's being or not, or how frustrated she is. She's incredible in it. You know, it's like, it's the self-reflexive, meta-referential kind of magic trick of an acting job because she's like weirdly, she's playing an actress who's trying to be a serious actress, which is like also what she was doing.

Yeah, but that's the great part where he's like, you commercial bitch, you commercial piece of shit. I'm sorry, okay, we have to move on. She should be proud of this movie, is what I'm saying. And it looks fucking sick. It looks like a fashion campaign would look now because it's like incredible. There is one part where I'm like, oh, the wig is not wigging here. But okay That's cool

It's time to gain back Some audience You guys We've maybe She went over the edge She's She's reeling it back in a little bit I'm sure someone was in her ear

Being like Okay You've been in your Chloe 70 bag Let's soften it up babe Let's so Back to being America's sweetheart please That's why we get The All Remember single

For the film with honors Honestly a fucking Forgotten classic It's a wonderful movie I loved that movie I love that song Directed by Alex because she in.

Yes. It's wonderful. It is very like, I'm sorry, I love a corny ballad. And it's a peak Madonna, corny ballad. There's a great William Orbit remix. I don't think it's corny. Thank you.

I think it's so beautiful that it surpasses corny. The video, she's luminous. Stunning. Great eyebrows. Great eyebrows. Good hair. Great necklace. I didn't lock into the crew of this video.

I don't know who did it, but go off. After that, unfortunately, she does erode a bit of the goodwill she renegotiated with, I'll remember, by appearing on David Letterman and saying the word fuck 14 times. The most censored episode in American Network Television Talks Show history. She was hanging out with Tupac at this time. And she did tell Howard Stern that she had been with him in the hours before the taping, and he, quote, got her all riled up about life in general. So when I went on the show, I was feeling very gangster.

I know exactly what she's talking about. And she smoked a joint, so she was uninhibited. She also said that basically backstage, they had been like, you should like do this, you should push him or whatever. So she thought she was kind of playing with a bit. Whatever, it happened. There's an incredible Esquire profile by Norman Mailer. You guys don't know Norman Mailer,

two-time Pulitzer-winning writer-dard. journalism and film journalist and filmmaker he was like at that point an elder intellectual god you know and he burrows or something he was like and they were shot by wayne mazer and he's in the photos yes because he's so big and he you know he was such a famous person in his own right and he really gets her like like it's yeah i'll drop a link maybe in the show notes to the real recognized real norm mailer's like so you're talking for all women and madonna says no i'm not talking for woman, I've been accused for years and years, especially at the beginning of my career, of setting the women's movement back because I was being sexual in a traditional way with my corsets and push-up

bras and garter belts. And feminists were beating the fuck out of me. What are you doing? You're sending out all the wrong messages to young girls. They should be using their heads, not their tits and their asses. My whole thing is that use all you have. All you have. Your sexuality, your femininity, your femininity, your any testosterone you have inside of your intellect, use whatever you have, and use bits and pieces wherever it's good. I love that. Yeah. That's my feminism.

Whole hog. Yeah. That is my friend of them. So to speak. And then the ending is really sweet where he just says, I want to leave you with an idea. I've come to the conclusion that you're a great artist. And she goes, okay. And he goes, that's going to be the theme of this piece that we have among us.

What we have among us is our greatest living female artist. Boom. Norman Mailer, babe. Afterwards, she's asked. Save it for the O bit. Yeah. She's asked to present. an award at the VMAs and

Savilly, she hits up David Letterman and says, why don't you come on with me? And they do. I fucking hate this so much. And gets sexually harassed by Stephen Tyler. Gets sexually harassed by fucking Stephen Tyler. So they present an award which Aerosmith wins and Stephen Tyler gets up there and is like

Madonna, I saw your book. And then he goes, Joe, why do you think Madonna uses these two fingers to masturbate? And Joe Perry goes, why? And Steven Tyler goes, because they're mine. But then don't worry. Madonna comes to the mic and it goes, if it was your fingers, it's not masturbation.

And then he's like, well, you know, what is it then? She goes, it's sexual abuse. Boom. And then anyways, that month, she's jogging in Central Park and she meets a 30-year-old Cuban-American man named Carlos Leon. And they start dating. First single of the next album comes out now.

Ooh. Secret. September 20th, 1994. Written by Madonna, Dallas, Austin. and Shep Pettibone. What a tune. Yeah. One of my page.

Something's coming over. Would you like me to read you the audio message that preceded the online release of this song on AOL? I think you should play it because it's really, it's really incredible. It's the production as part of it. Yes. Hello, all you cyberheads. Hello, all you cyberheads. Welcome to the 90s version of intimacy.

You can hear me. You can even see me. But you can't touch me. It's wonderful. Also, I think 10% of all people in America were online at that point. I already was. Same. I was in those AOL chat rooms, babe, pretending to be older.

This was her 35th consecutive top 10 single. It's an amazing song. The idea to go work with Dallas Austin was so genius. At that time, he had done the TLC album, the first TLC album, right? And he was part of this, like, incredible sound coming out of Atlanta. The video's fine. like iconic to me. Right.

Directed by Melody McDaniel shows Madonna as a nightclub singer in Harlem. Yeah. Wearing a coat, looking over her shoulder. Yeah. The album comes out

on October 25th, 1984. What say you about the cover? Listen. Is it the nose ring? No. I like the nose ring.

I mean, I love this record, so I just associate the cover with the record. I do like the art direction. I always do like the nose ring. liked the type that Fabian design. I think it's very nice. The pink and green and blue is very nice. Well, what happened is originally Paolo Reversey had shot the cover and the label next to those photos because they were too quote unquote artsy meaning dark. Right. I think, yeah, I remember

reading that they said that like it doesn't look like you. We want it to, we want it to look like you. They wanted a bright, colorful, poppy. Well, we're trying to regain audience. We're trying to remind people that this is Madonna. So is it my favorite cover or no. Right. Shot by Patrick DeMarshalier. I really have it burned in my brain, though, of, like, of the albums of 1994. Like, to me, it was, like, part and parcel with my alternative music. Like, it was also alternative music. Do you know what I mean? Maybe it's the nose ring.

Probably. So Baby Faceworks on this album. She had become a big fan of the song, When Can I See You? And he's a master of lush ballads. So he shows up. Dallas Austin, who we mentioned, is 23 years old and has worked with TLC. TLC, baby. And then Nellie Hooper, who famously worked, was part of Massive Attack.

Massive Attack. And worked with Soul to Soul. He actually left working on the Massive Attack album Protection to come work with Madonna. But I think also maybe more importantly to this case, had produced Nothing Compares to You, the Schneider-O'Connor song. And, of course, the first Bjork album. Cool choice. Love it. Love it.

Great choices. She's really good at choosing collaborators. Okay, here's the themes of this album. She's Big Mad. She's big mad. Wouldn't you be? Yes, she's big mad because you guys fucking focused on her sex life and didn't let her be an artist

and didn't appreciate her gorgeous work of art. Exactly. You reduced it to something lurid, sensational. I do think another theme of this album, and we'll get into it when we talk about it, besides the anger is like loneliness and like feeling alienated, which I guess goes hand in hand, right?

Had she had had a falling out with Sandra Bernhardt at this point? I think so. I don't remember the exact time. She got angry at the divorce. Yeah. Okay. This first song is survival. Mission statement.

Love. Yeah, it's really good. Written by Madonna and Dallas Austin, but produced by Nellie Hooper. It's a gorgeous song. It's a perfect album opener. We talked about Secret already. Bedtime Stories is interesting because it's also a vibes album. It is, but there's something more melodic about it than erotica. Like, it felt like an album.

that had more hits, like, on MTV and VH1 at the time. It is less cold. It's much warmer. Mm-hmm. It's much more, like, you luxuriated in it in a different way. Yeah. I'd rather be... It was, like, warmer tones.

Exactly. Yeah, because it's R&B. It's R&B. It's like R&B. It's, like, beautiful R&B tunes. I'd rather be your lover featuring Michelle Indeguiochello, who at the time I believe was signed to Maverick. Shep Betty Bone is not credited in the album book clip,

but he actually received credit for this song because it came from one of the demo. as they made together. Tupac Shakur originally did the part of Michelle Endaigay-Ochello, but allegedly... They broke up. Well, also, he got involved

in that sexual assault case, and she was like, nope, we're reclaiming our audience. Right, right, right. We are rehabilitating our image. The inner publicist jumped out. I wonder if it was ever laid down because I would think it would have leaked by now,

but no one's ever heard it. Wow. Don't stop. Madonna, Dallas Austin, Colin Wolfe, who plays bass on this song. And by the way, I had worked with NWA. Cool. It's a good song. Inside of me, inside of me is really pretty.

I love every song on this record. Inside of me is so pretty. It has a sample of... I really underrated. Yeah, I love it. Elia sample. Nellie Hooper, having the writing credit, I think makes a lot of sense with Dave Hall and Madonna. Madonna's wrote all these songs.

Yeah, the back and forth Alia sample. Obviously human nature, I think, is the second standout on here. That was a big deal at the time. The video, but the song is built off a sample from Main Source. You know what? I am going to find a way to work the Large Professor into the Madonna episode. Actually, Large Professor is not part of this because he had already left Main Source. But this is from the second Main Source album.

The song is what you need. It's really crazy that Main Source has writing credits. That sample is so, like, hits, like, crack when you hear it. It's so good. It's crazy. Maybe one of the most successful samples ever in pop music. Couldn't agree more. It's really.

It's on a pretty high level. It's a pretty obvious song. It's like Mariah Carey using Tom Tom Club level of, like, you just instantly get hooked in. Yeah. Nobody on Earth listened to that second main source album, so I don't know how they found that sample, but. They like to scour and find something a little unexpected sometimes. This is just incredible. It's obviously her being like, it's literal.

I'm not sorry. Yeah. You know, I'm not your bitch. Don't hang your shit on me. But she's being very campy and over the top about it. So great. Like just as an example, like being, and obviously I was a little older at this point, but, and my parents had been, had watched me watching Madonna and seen all her provocations.

up until that point. They had also heard you say that you're not interested in mediocrity. Yeah. They had your number. And so by the time this came out, they were like done trying to be like, that's too risque. Right. Don't watch that.

And even though it's such like a fetishy music video. Yeah, but it's. It's like there was something that was so campy and like fun about it that it was like not offensive. I think it even proves her own point of being like, see I was being funny. This is funny. Yeah, yeah. You know?

It was sort of like, oh, there she goes again. Yeah. That was like that attitude toward the video. Love the video. Dancing in the glass boxes. Incredibly shot. Again, Mondino. Would it sound better if I were a man?

That's me to the mean comments on the bands playing episodes about my vocal fray. Yeah, what about my vocal fry, you guys? Yeah. Does it sound better? If I were Patrick Sandberg. Would it sound better if I was a gay man? Yeah. What's the name?

Chris Ryan. Chris Ryan vocal fry. Would you like that? Would you like that? Zero vocal fry. The remixes are amazing. We just do not have the time or wherewithal to get into all the remixes, but... This whole episode, we've kind of bypassed like 10,000 remixes.

They're just always there. Something lurking, bubbling up. What's that new, like that like Guido remix of this song? It's like the club, the real club remix. It's so fucking good. Yeah, the video is... We talked, gorgeous. It was...

I will say it's important to mention this. The video was inspired by bondage illustrations by this artist called Eric Stanton, who had only ever had one show in his lifetime in 1984 at Danceria. So still bringing back her, like, cultural roots. And it's choreographed by a 23-year-old named Jamie King. I also want to say quickly or at some point that an integral part of Madonna's legacy is that she holds the record for the most number ones by any artist on any single. Billboard chart, which is that she's had

50 number one songs on the electronic dance chart. Oh. And she's the only artist to have a number one on any chart like that in five separate decades. And so throughout her work, dance is obviously very important

to her, but I do think it's a consideration with all of her records of like which one's topping the dance chart. Totally. Totally. Because she needs that every time and she gets it every time. Well, it's, It's a huge part of who she has an artist.

All right. Forbidden Love, great song. Love Tried to Welcome Me. Great song. Title and chorus are lifted from Love 3, a poem by the Anglican priest, George Herbert. Of course. She brings it every hole, honey. Sorry.

Anglican priests, bitch. She's reading widely and broadly, babe. Sanctuary, I just need to pay out. Religious leader. something I'm obsessed with. This song has writing credits from Madonna and Dallas Austin, also for Anne Previn and Scott Cutler, who wrote the song, Torn. Ooh. I'm all out of faith. Wow. This is how I feel. This samples Harvey Hancock, watermelon man, and he uses lines from the poem, Voices by Walt Whitman, from leaves of grass,

heard of it. And then there's bedtime story. Where we go. Written by a little lady called Bjork. Yeah, a little hater. Well, here's the thing. Madonna's a fan. She's like, I want you to write something. And as the story goes, Nellie Hooper was like, she wants to write something. She was like, I don't know.

In her words, my instinct was to say no. I respect her, but it just didn't feel right. But then she was like, okay, she wrote a song initially called Let's Get Unconscious with the opening lyrics. Today is the last day that I'm using words. So Bjork. When I was offered to write a song for Madonna, I couldn't really picture me doing a song that would suit her.

But on second thought, I decided to do this to write the things I've always wanted to hear her say that she's never said. So that was Bjork's vision of what she wished Madonna would say. She later said she liked it and was happy she did it. Yeah. It's a great fucking song.

Totally. And it has, you can't hear it and not hear Bjork's cadence. It's so the cadence of a Bjork vocal. Does Bjork ever do the song? I feel like she should do it live or something because it's so it feels like it's part of her discography.

Totally. Marius DeVries is a writer on this too who has been working with them for a while. This is really funny. Bjork later confessed that Madonna actually got a few of the lyrics wrong. The original lyrics said

learning logic and reason and Madonna sings leaving logic and region to the arms of unconsciousness. Honestly, which one's more appealing to you? A or B? right about now I'm thinking B. The original demo did become a Bjork song.

Sweet intuition. It's a B-side of the Army of Me single. This is the one that I spent like a whole day listening to the remix. There's so many good ones. I think it was a stroke of genius for her to work with Bjork and to do this song. I think it's, for me it's the high of this album. Like human nature is like the most like grabs you accessible. But like the like thing that takes me out of my body

like ascending is this song. It's so cool. It's also partially the video. The video is... Which is a Mark Romantic masterpiece. Just a real dolly-ass orgy. Yeah. Which was like scary and cool and felt very alt at the time. Well, you know, because he wanted to do the bad...

Well, he was not wanted to. He was supposed to do the bad girl video. But I think he was just like not interested in the premise. Yeah. And... But when he met with her about it, she was staying at this hotel in New York and she had with her the painting she always takes with her everywhere. my birth by Frida Kahlo. And he saw it and he was like, wow, it would be cool

if you could do a video that kind of looked like that one day. And he kept that thought in his mind. And when he heard this song, he was like, boom, we're doing that. And so that's why it's so like it's very that, right? It's Leonardo Carrington. It's like that kind of like fantastical.

It's in the permanent collection of the MoMA. That part annoys me, I have to say, because it's so like art referencing. It's like, of course MoMA likes that one. All her music video should be in the permanent collection of MoMA. Put them all in the Louvre. Vogue should be in the permanent collection of MoMA.

You don't have to reference Dali and Frida Kahlo to get in the MoMA. You're right. Stop being corny. Let's get unconscious. Me disagreeing about that being the high point of the album is because my high point is take a bow. Okay, well, take a bow. I'm being a little bit of a queen with that one. That's a stone cold classic ballad.

I also just think that video. It's so beautiful with the Matt Adore. You mean her audition tape for Avita? Yeah. It's so like... You mean her expensive, highly produced edition tape for Avita. It's so gorgeous. It's like drenched and romanced.

It's like being like 12 years old or however I was and this came out, I wanted to like die. I was ready to throw myself off a ledge. That's how I feel right now. Because of the high drama of Take About. Yeah. It's. stunning. Babyface fucking snapped on this one. And obviously

Madonna, it's a co-writing song. The queen of Top Line is fucking killing it here. But the full orchestra? Yeah. All the Worlds of Stage, her favorite thought, her favorite her favorite inspiration. Her favorite intrusive thought. She's been wanting to do that since the final shot of the Like a Prayer video.

This song charted for 30 weeks. Because it's incredible. Tying with borderline as Madonna's longest writing song on the Hot 100. Yeah, it's incredible. It's gorgeous. This is a slept-on album. I'll say it.

I think Erotica used to be the more slept-on album. Bedtime stories is really slept-on. It's a really high point. I can't determine. I can't see anyone. Like, I'm like, no, but just because me and my friends go through phases of different Madonna albums all the time, like

like different summers. You know what I mean? When we go to like Spain or Fire Island or Mexico or wherever we're we're fagging out at any given time. It's like suddenly we're doing only American life. You know what I mean? Or we're doing only bedtime stories.

And we've gone through the phases of each of them. So I'm like, everyone loves this album, right? I'm like, is it just me? No. Everyone should. Just to give respect, the video is directed by Michael Hausman. And again, we... Stunningly.

I made a joke, but she did really want the part of Evita. And this was 100% of play for that. I think she wore brown contact lenses in the video? That I don't remember, did she? Because that's really pushing it. She did some, something like that. Maybe she didn't. A real-life bullfighter in it, Emilio Munoz.

It's amazing. Yeah, I think this album needs to be re-evaluated. I don't know what it did in terms of regaining her audience. What do you think? Take a bow was major. It felt massive at the time. Yeah. It was inescapable.

Take a bow was like, don't speak, no doubt levels of like reaching my mother. again and being like, I love it, you know, like moms around the world were like, I love Take About. It was very don't speak. It was also like at this period of time in the 90s was like kind of the rise of VH1. Oh, yeah. There had been MTV and then it kind of split off. Yeah.

There was MTV and there was VH1 and VH1 was playing more like adult contemporary videos. And they would play Take About all the time. We were like about to tumble toward the Lilith Fair. You know what I'm saying? I do know what you're saying. It was like Sean Colvin. Paul Cole. Oh, you mean Sunny?

She came home? Yeah. With a list of names? The Cowboys were gone. We don't know where they went. We don't know where they went. Jewel was going to save our souls. Cheryl Crow was nipping at Madonna's heels.

The whole she wanted to do was have some fun. But there was something that happened when VH1 became part of the cable package on everyone's television, which was that this show called Popa Video came out. And I don't know what year that was. Why would she do this at out? I know. I'm so sorry. We are literally five and a half hours in.

and I'm trying to wrap this shit up, and then you fucking bring pop-up video in as if I don't want to talk about it. I know, but like, okay, just quickly, pop-up video started playing all the time, like the like-a-prayer video. Because, like, videos that had, like, controversy or stories behind them,

made good pop-ups. And so, like, people were reliving. Spiritual descendant of pop-up video. True. And it was, like, people were sort of, like, this was, like, a moment in time where people started reevaluating her earlier work. Yeah.

So there was like a new appreciation. I don't even know if that was something that she planned or the label planned, but it was, it worked. The reappraisal happened. Started happening. Okay. Well. Take a bow. The show is over.

Take a bow. The show is fucking over. Please join us next week. We will be through the Celsius over the, we're, I'm cracked out, so I'll never sleep again. Come back next week where we will be kicking off with Madonna's midnight page. jam a party at Webster Hall to celebrate bedtime stories in 1995 and taking it all the way through American life. So we'll see you next week. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bansplaine. Our guest today was Patrick Sandberg. This episode was

produced by Rob Sunderman, edited by Adrian Bridges, with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Jacob Cornett. Executive producers for Bansplanner Gina Delvec and me, Yossi Salet, our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Costantino and Jennifer Clavin and graciously recorded by Carlos Delegarza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper

Rupert, and also Sean Fennessee, Saran Attaff, and the Madonna Splane group chat. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Vansplaine on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Who's that terrible lawyer who everybody hates? Aaron Brockovich.

Oh my God. No, I'm sorry. I don't know what you're talking about.