Bandsplain - Madonna: Part 3 With Paul Hamann

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Yasi is joined by creative director Paul Hamann as they continue the Bandsplain Madonna deep dive. They discuss Madonna’s celebrated acting role in Evita and the lasting vocal changes that came with it, her career-elevating work of Ray of Light, the ahead-of-its-time Music, and how the increasingly fraught political situation in America impacted one of her most misunderstood works, American Life. Plus: motherhood, mysticism, the perfect pop single that landed on the Austin Powers soundtrack, and how Madonna kept finding new ways to bend pop stardom around her own evolution. Episode PlaylistListen to the Madonna: Part 3 playlist here. CREDITS:Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalekGuests: Paul Hamann @hamann.coProducer: 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, Yassi Salik. 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 three of four about, again, perhaps the most iconic artist of all time, Madonna. My guest today, you guys, has got herself a universe gone quickly.

It is creative director, Paul Hammond. Thank you. I was just informed two minutes ago that I've been fully saying your last name wrong in private, but also on the last episode of this podcast. I just need to apologize. It's technically the correct way to pronounce it, but nobody says that. What kind of friend am I? A good one.

Paul, I'm so excited to have you here. before we jump in, I want to once again give my greatest thanks to all of the resources that I have been using to research all these episodes. Today, I'm Madonna history, Madonnapedia, Madonna Underground, Madonna Tribe, the Inside the Group podcast, the Encyclopedia, Madonnaica, the Bible, the 2003 Mary Gabriel Madonna biography, Webo. Girl. Girl. Instagram. Madonna Brennan Instagram. There's many more. Thank you for your. your work because you've helped me a lot. Seriously, thank you guys. Paul, before we get into it, do you want to tell me about your personal journey into Madonna? Yeah, into Madonna fandom? I'm going to age myself, but I started at the beginning. I heard,

I think I was in sixth grade and I heard holiday probably on the radio. And I was like, wow, I never heard anything like that. I don't think they played, you know, in those days, like, there wasn't a lot of dance music in the top 40, and that kind of, especially that kind of, like, New York, very specific kind of New York sound. And I was just like, what is that? I need this. And so that just started it and it just went. What kind of stuff were they playing on the radio?

Like, kind of... I mean, it was very, you know, it was like very genre divided. It was, you know, probably like top 40, and that was probably heard it on top 40. Yeah. So it was like top 40 and then, you know, rock stations. but then, you know, like, if you listened late at night, there would be, like, kind of more specialty shows. Yeah. And actually, now that I think about it, I feel like there was, I heard everybody because they played that, you know, like on a late night kind of like dance-related thing.

I had no idea what it was, but, you know, I was very intrigued. So that started it, and I kind of just never gave up after that. I love that. Yeah, I guess I had to look at it up because I was only one. But that it was like very every breath you take by the police and flash dance would have feeling. And Billy Jean. Yeah, Billy Jane.

Yeah. Yeah. There was like, there was more and more kind of like electro sound. Sweet dream. Yeah. Starting to percolate. Yeah. Starting to percolate.

And at that same time was also Shannon let the music play. I think it was very similar. Let the music play. So it was kind of the kind of burgeoning sound of that New York, whatever that club was, or jelly bean played. It wasn't... Funhouse? Yes, Funhouse.

Oh, my God. I shock myself, honestly. The fact that I can retain any piece of information. I mean, great. I'm glad you can because I definitely can't. Yeah, so you're a lifer. You're a day one.

I'm a lifer. Yeah. I was really happy to have you because you were like saying, oh, I need to like prep and then you just know every... Like, I would just be like, what's this?

And you, like, from off dome, You'd be like, oh, yeah, that was drowned world tour. She was wearing this, and this is the set list in order. And I was like, human Wikipedia. Not quite. I'll just make that clear. But, yeah, I did live the timeline, and it's kind of somewhat in there. I can sometimes access it.

So let's see what happens there. Okay, amazing. All right, well, let's, we are picking up where we left off in episode two, which episode two, if you guys, it'd be very strange. I think if you didn't listen to episode two, you just jump straight to episode three, but that's okay. Like maybe you just love Ray of Light and you wanted to get straight to the point. But we can say that in part two, we covered the You Can Dance remix album, like a prayer, the Vogue single, Blonde Ambition Tour. I'm Breathless, the music from Dick Tracy.

We covered a lot. The Immaculate Collection. This used to be my playground, erotica, the sex book. the controversy, the fallout, the girly show tour, then sort of regaining audience with All Remember and bedtime stories. And we kind of left off with having put out bedtime stories at the tail end of 1994. Yeah. And now, I guess we were going to start off at the top-ish spring of 1995.

I'm curious if you went to this. So Madonna had a midnight pajama party at Webster Hall and still in promotion of bedtime stories and danced in a nightgown with fans and read them children's books. Were you there? I unfortunately was not there. But it was very legendary and I knew about it.

I was in New York at the time. And I mean, that's such an iconic performance when you see it now. I feel like there's so many viral clips of it that you see now. I mean, mostly because her breasts look absolutely incredible. And then she's dancing around on that stage. And it's just like, I mean, it's just such a moment. Also, I think what's interesting about that is that relationship she had with Junior Vasquez, who had like remixed all of the bedtime stories, you know, remixes. And some of my favorite ones

off bedtime stories are by him, for sure. And that was kind of like also in New York and, you know, it was kind of the tail end of the sound factory era, which is where, you know, like all those dancers for Blonde Ambition were recruited, and Vogueing was happening, and I was there too. And so, you know, I think, I believe that closed, like, towards the end of 95. So it was still kind of in like peak junior in New York. So it was very New York that, like, the idea that she chose him and worked with him, I know they had a huge falling out later. I'm so sad because like, hello junior, this is Madonna.

Are you there? Call me in Miami is like one of the most like God tier songs and it does kind of break my heart that it like he had to sacrifice his relationship with Madonna for that song to exist. Totally. And like and there was like an era. It was kind of after the sound factory closed and he moved to another club but he was like obsessed with Madonna like completely obsessed. And he had this one remix that he would play that would go on for like, I don't

know how long it seemed like all night. And it was like a remix weirdly of you'll see, which like, you know, was that ballad. But it had if Madonna calls in it and it had samples from, you know, Fast Eddie, let's go, let's go. And it had samples from like like a prayer. It was like this insane mashup that he would do. And people went absolutely crazy over it. We used to be a proper country. It was all I have to say about that. It was pretty fun. It was pretty special. And you're like, you couldn't hear it anywhere else. And that's another thing about all of that. It was like those, it was like the early era of singles where these were commercially released. But I think, you know, there was like that sort of underground feeling of leaving the club and going to the record

store and seeing like what singles were out and like what 12 inches. And so she kind of like put herself in that stream in a cool way that was very relevant to that culture. I love it. I do feel like we're remiss. And unfortunately, I'm sorry, just like we can't do this. but it would absolutely be enough material for an entire episode to do an episode about all her remixes. Just the remixes. Yeah. Absolutely.

And I'm sure there is like some great podcaster content out there about it. So I, you know, go on over there. But yeah, she's, that's like, to me, one of the, like, most interesting and, like, dynamic parts of her career is, like, this, which is, like, she's the pop star of the masses, but then this part is for the heads. You know? And I think that's so cool. So cool. To continue to service that part of your audience all the way through is like so genius. Yeah.

I think Patrick pointed that out in that last episode, though, just about how important it is that she, every, all the singles that she releases, she releases the dance remixes and those chart on the dance charts. And that's like definitely part of the whole sort of like success story and just the legend of her like the sort of subcultural impact and the cultural impact like on. on those kind of two levels. It was very, you know, intelligent marketing, but also I think true to who she is. Yeah, and also like following her own interests, which has always been. The club and the dancework.

Yeah. I brought up the Midnight Pantamma Party, A, because it's cool, but B, because she didn't tour bedtime stories. No. Because she got a film part. That's right. It worked. The video, the music video,

worked. Of take a bow. of take a bow. Her audition tape. And she is cast in the titular role in Evita. Apparently it was quite difficult to get that role. Like Disney wasn't exactly like, yes, please, the erotica lady, you know. And according to Tim Rice, who was the partner of Andrew Lloyd Weber who created the musical together,

he said that Andrew Lloyd Weber felt, quote, she had been rude to him. So it was a clash of the giant egos. He was also worried because he didn't think. she could sing the part. But Rice was like all in. He said, I wanted someone accustomed to putting over a story and emotion in song. Madonna acts so beautifully through music.

So true. It's a really good point that he made. Better actresses like Meryl Streep weren't right because they're not singers. They can hold a tune, but they're not brilliant interpreters of song. Yeah. She was like so, that's exactly what Madonna is. Absolutely. Yeah. It's interesting to, there were like rumors, as I

remember that like the timeline is flattened so I can't really fully. Remember, but I do remember that there were, like, rumors about her trying to get that part for, like, years preceding that. Oh, years. Before it had even found a director or become a production, years and years, yeah. She was angling for that for a long time. Totally. So, you know, it was great and exciting at the time when she got it. Everybody was all the fandom, so to speak.

I was very excited for that. You got the thing you wanted. Well, we'll pop back into that later. This is just that she got the part. But the next month, her stalker, Robert Hoskins, scaled the wall of her house, Castilla de Lago, which I don't know how I didn't realize until, like, very recently, is actually quite close to my house. And, like, right by the Lake Hollywood Reservoir where we all go walking. And I was like, damn, that's just a sick house. You can see, like, you can see the gate and stuff, like over there.

She doesn't live there anymore, so don't go over there and try a soccer. But yeah, he wandered around the property. He, like, scaled the eight-foot wall and, like, wandered around the property, got chased off by our security guard, came back the next day, ringing the bell, threatening to kill Madonna. The security guard, again, chased him off with his gun. But he, like, saw Madonna on the way out, like, she was biking up to the gate. And then two months later, he came back and scaled the wall again.

And then the security guard, like, confronted him, and he lunged at him, and he shot the guard. The guard shot him twice. And when he was being taken to the hospital, he told the police that Madonna was his wife. And he had a right to be there. And he had some, like, object he had made for her or something. So scary. Scary. I just want to bring that up because it's a...

Yeah. Major part of... Kind of telling of what level of fame she's reached, you know? Madonna starts prepping for Evita with three months of intensive vocal training with vocal coach Joan Lader. Madonna later told Deli Times, the training that I did for Avita, I started working with a vocal coach, and I suddenly discovered that I was only using half of my voice. Until then, I had pretty much accepted that I had a very limited range, which is fine. Anita O'Day and EdpF had very limited range as too, and I'm a big fan.

So I figured I'd make do with the best that I had. I remember also reading something that, like, she started to sing and was like, I can't believe I made that sound. Like, where did that come from? And the vocal coach was like, from God. It's polarizing a little bit within the fandom about how this intense vocal trait. training affected her voice. Is that, am I correct to say that? Probably. I think it's definitely a dividing line in the career where you definitely see that there's a big shift in how she is

vocalizing after. Like before she's kind of like it, winging it and just like putting everything into it a lot. And afterwards, there is a lot more nuance and a lot more kind of, she does a lot of really beautiful things with her voice. And not that she wasn't doing that before, but I think it even enhances that more. There's like just a, she just finds her tone, I think, in a way. That's like really, really beautiful and compelling. You know, but it also feels, I guess, more studied oftentimes. So I was going to be haters when you're bettering yourself.

And they all never want you to change. They never want you to grow. They don't want you to evolve. Me personally, I love Ray of Light. And I don't think Ray of Light would have been possible. Without that. Without that. 100%.

Not in the way that we have happened. Okay. she also takes a quick break to just be the face of the spring, summer, Versacea campaign, shop by Steven Mysel. Also fall winter, shop by Mario Testino. Then it's August of 1995, and it's the MTV VMAs. The way that I borderline have this, I'm not going to do it because I don't have Patrick's, like, flexibility of mind and, like, prowess, but, like, I pretty much have, I think in my mind

this will be there. Like me and Patrick were saying, like, I will develop dementia and I'll be 89 years old. And I'll remember the dialogue between Madonna Kurt Loader and Courtney Love at the VMAs. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. But for those

you that haven't seen it, Madonna is sitting in one of her most iconic looks, the Gucci by Tom Ford like kind of teal like blue button down. Yeah, that was like open. velour or velvet pants that he had with a low waist. Yeah.

I mean, it was so iconic for her to do that just because that was like kind of Tom Ford really coming up in Gucci at that time. And that was kind of, I don't know if that was his, like, it was early anyway. Yeah. I remember that look really specifically from the campaign as well like Amber Valletta wore it. That's right. Yeah. I just like, I was a Vogue kid. Yeah.

But yeah, she looks. And that hair. Just, yeah. It's, is it, what 70s? Like, what is that, like, hair? I just felt like kind of like a 60s 70s. Like sort of like swingery, you know, like hot wife. Yes.

She looks perfect. She looks perfect. And Kurt Loader is interviewing her. And then you are like, you don't really see what is happening, but you see Kurt Loader be like, what? They're on like a double-decker bus. They're like elevated above. I'm pretty sure it was a double-decker bus, like one of those tourist bus.

And they're on top of it because they were like obviously accessible from wherever the people on the red carpet were coming. Yeah. And I think, yeah. So go on. Courtney, like, starts flinging items to, like, over the thing. And then Kurt Loader's like, oh, it's Courtney. Everybody, it's Courtney. And I think Madonna goes, Courtney is in dire need of attention.

And she comes up. Game recognized game. Yeah. Well, there's a great part that I had forgotten where, and I wish I had brought up in the last episode, but whatever is this is one long episode. my whole life now. I don't remember a time when I wasn't thinking or talking about Madonna.

But she tells Madonna in the process of this amazing interview between like two of my favorite women of all time geniuses. She said that her and Kurt went to see Truth or Dare in the theater and that Kurt turned to her and said, that's you. And she said it was specifically the part where Warren Beatty says, you can't live off the camera. And I was like, oh, that's so cool. But yeah, they have this, like, really funny conversation where Courtney is like, I don't date musicians anymore.

She says something to me. It's like, as Michael Stey would say, like, you dip into the population about her dating. It's like so good. And I was like, yeah. She's like, yeah, I don't know. I'm like, I'm at the hospital and I'm a surgeon and I want to run the hospital. So I like, I date other surgeons. And then they're assholes.

And she's like, but you like, you know, you date orderlies. And like, maybe I should date a candy striper person. And Donna goes, maybe you should get a. out of the hospital. And Courtney is so good. She goes, but I like it in the hospital. Good clothes, great money. And then Madonna goes, and access

to a lot of drugs. It's just a, it's like a really wonderful. It's perfect. Courtney looks awesome too. Like she's, it's such a. It's no, no, it's situation. It's like a perfect. It's the most 1995 moment, I think.

And they were friends, you know? Like, they're like, it's a funny, playful thing, but I know that they were friends and they like had a relationship. But yeah, I just, that's, that's canon. For a certain kind of person, that's like the moon landing, you know? And weirdly, like a side note to that is that I don't even know what this was from. I just only saw this kind of recently.

The pictures from that from her on the, like, red carpet or whatever. Madonna. Yeah, wearing that Gucci look with that hair. There's this one funny picture of her where she's making a funny face, like they caught her in between. It's like, you know, we're probably in the Getty images or whatever. Anyway, these Russian people put it on like this posters and they're burning it. I mean, the images of it are crazy. You can look it up.

They were like orthodox Russian. I wish I knew better because no way. It was some sort of like protesting and Madonna. Yeah. Her feeling being like, you know, sort of a blasphemous kind of figure. Wow, what a cool item to own. And there's those pictures that they had on these huge posters. Just her doing the weird face.

In flames. Yes. So wild. It's so kind of incredibly icon. And it just adds to the whole... Honestly, Madonna should purchase those images and make merch from them. Out of 100%. I would buy a T-shirt of that.

Totally. Of the burning of the picture. So then in September after the MAs, she goes to London to begin rehearsals for Evita. And in November, she releases another project that... I love your opinion on this, that may or may not have been set out with the intention to sort of once again repair her image, so to say. I don't, I want to be clear. I don't think that, like, Madonna was, like, tail between her legs after erotica and sex.

But I can see being, like, once, bitten twice shy a little bit and being like, well, now I kind of feel like doing this, you know? But it's something to remember. The compilation of all her ballads, November 3rd, 1995. I mean, there were rumors that she was, she was really hurt and upset. by the backlash from the sex book and that kind of surprised her. Totally. Which is, I mean, funny.

Yeah, but it's cool. It speaks to, like, how pure maybe the, like, intent was behind it. Like, just, you just thought people would be, like, receptive to this idea of, like, exploring this. And people were just like... Or at the very least be like, oh, there go Madonna again. And not being, like, this, like, this is, like, disgusting.

You're, like, you're corrupting the nation or whatever. So I'm sure there was an element. of that in it. But I think also just probably it's pretty savvy business, like, decision, too, because I think, you know, her ballots always did exceedingly well on the charts. And I think, you know, they were, like, some of her most love songs, obviously. Yeah. And we talked about it in the last episode, her take a bow was, like, huge.

Massive radio head, lived to tell. Huge. So it's like, I think it just, it just made sense as a collection, where she had already done the Immaculate Collection, which was kind of like, you know, it was a continuous mix of, like, everything. Right. So this was kind of a way of showing that other side of it. It's so great. It's really great. It has a couple of new songs because she always does that. One is a cover of I Want You by Marvin Gaye with Massive Attack. It's so fucking cool. I really wish she had been able to work more with Massive Attack. I mean, the rumor was that it split the band up. Well, yes. Well, yes. And if you guys are interested in that, we have a whole Massive Attack episode that I have a whole Massive Attack episode that I mean,

I think touches upon that. She was always talking about, you know, that kind of like trip-hop scene, tricky. She was obsessed with, I remember reading this very specific quote. I will never forget it that she talked about driving around in her Mercedes. I can't get the quote quite white because I'm not Patrick. I didn't memorize it. But like that she talked about driving around her Mercedes listening to the stereo MC's remix of this tricky song.

Yes. And bumping it so loud that this like, the car would vibrate. And so I think she really loved that genre and that music and what was going on there. I mean, we all did. It was so cool. So cool. And so I think, you know, this was her way of kind of like getting in there.

Yeah, and she worked with Nellie Hooper, obviously, you know. Quite a bit. And we later, I don't want to get ahead, but I do want to foreshadow. Massive Attacks, one of Massive Attacks most interesting and unusual albums is a big. being inspiration for one of Madonna's most interesting and an unusual album. So we'll talk about that, which I think really cool. You'll see is the first single off of this. I remember it being kind of positioned as a take about part two kind of. And the video is kind of very similar to from what I remember. There's like a lyrical reference to right.

It's like I have truth on my side. You only have deceit. Yeah. That's a lyrical reference to take about the guy having like a public personality and a private one. I don't know. This is just a genius.com. It's a good ballad. Yeah. Yeah. The love don't live here anymore remix. Beautiful.

Absolute. Let's fucking go ours. I mean, we talked about it. I guess it would have been with Mel because of episode one, how much we love that song. But then it getting like this amazing remix and being on the here, it's like you're forced to remember how fucking. And it's also a cover. It brought it to another level that remix.

Like it just felt like somehow the vocal feels. just like more forward less kind of like more forward in the mix for sure yeah yeah it just feels like really she hits it so like beautifully in that it's just like really incredible and then there's a song called One More Chance that I actually really like but I feel is sort of forgotten to time

I think so yeah it was only released in the UK as a single it's really good it has a nice little it's a nice little vibe and an alternate version of O'Fother good and interesting Yeah. It was good.

I thought also. And then that orchestra version of I Want You, which is so amazing. It's like Craig Armstrong, I think, was the guy who did all the, yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think so. Yeah, he was, anyway, he had an album and I feel like that riff from that was on that record. It was on his album.

Yeah, it's a different. But he did a lot of stuff with Massive Attack over the years, too. I love Mass. Yeah, really beautiful. That version in particular is so. It's large. This is a great release. Genius, genius move.

Picture from the outtake from the Versace campaign on the cover. Yeah, it's so beautiful. It's soft. Yeah, soft. Soft tones. She's blonde. She's not going to hurt you. She's not scary.

All right. Then in December, she goes on Nightline to talk to Forrest Sawyer. I bring this up because it's actually a great interview and you can watch it on YouTube. But she basically tells him that her biological clock is ticking. My cousin Vinny Voice. My biological clock is ticking. and she wanted to be a mother. This is also the interview where he asks her

if Sean Penn was her one true love and she said yes. And he asked if anyone else come close and she said no. And she talks about kind of like how hard it is to date and how she doesn't meet anyone interesting. And I was like, scream up from the rooftop sister.

Who amongst us? Even mid-range podcast celebrity over here has the same issues. She gets the most fashionable artist of 1995 at the VH1 Fashion Awards, presented to her by Sean Penn, who was at the time separated from Robin Wright. There was a lot of rumors at the time that she was going to have a baby by him, but that didn't happen.

No. She packs up instead, and January of 1996 goes to Argentina to film Evita, during which she learns that she is pregnant with her first child with, if you guys remember, from episode two, the man she had met in the park, Central Park. Carlos Zion, who she was dating on and off. And she's due in October, and they somehow managed to wrap the fuck up out of this film before she started showing too much, which is so crazy. There's definitely like a scene around like, oh, your boobs looks so big.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. It looks great. It's like not shocking me. I'm like, oh, those are pregnancy games, you know? Once you know, you kind of can't not see it, but yeah. Another monumentous occasion during this time is six and a half months pregnant. She goes to a dinner party in L.A. and is seen next to a film producer called Susan Becker, who I guess they're talking

and, you know, just, you know, girls chatting about what's going on in their lives and how maybe things are hard. And she's like, well, I'm taking a class with a rabbi. It's called Caballo. Madonna's like, I'm listening. She sure was. Yeah. Also in March,

so important, I think, to people who have exceptional taste and love gorgeous things and good movies and Madonna looking cool as hell is her cameo in the Spike Lee film, Girl Six. So good. Free Girl 6. Yeah, free girl 6 is right.

The fact that you just can't fucking watch it anywhere, I believe because of the... You can't, really? I think it's because of the Prince music in it will not... It was not... I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, but, like, I think it's something to do with, like, when you negotiate rights, like, in the 90s, there was no such thing as... There's no streaming. So it doesn't exceed, extend to that, and, like, the estate now will not sign off on that.

Right. So you have to... Too bad. I'm sure we can... There's no Blu-Ru-Ring. Fucking release the Blu-ray. Yeah, seriously. There's DVDs on eBay for $350.

Yeah. I mean, she's so good in that. She plays a phone sex operator boss. Boss 3. And Debbie Mazur is also in this film. It's an amazing film. Really feels like New York at a particular time. I think it's my favorite Spike Lee movie.

Yeah, I mean, there's so many good ones. There's so many good ones. I love the visual language of it. It's so cool. It's just like really well done. Yeah. really amazing. And then October 14th, Lordus Maria Chaconi Leon is born into this world at Good Samaritan

Hospital in Los Angeles. Madonna said that when her mother was very ill, she had always wanted to go to the town of Lordus, which is in France, a world-renowned Catholic pilgrimage site, where I guess people, in 1858 there was apparitions of the Virgin St. Mary to St. Bernardet. Yes. That's why she wanted to go. She couldn't go. So she named her daughter in homage to her mother.

I mean, Madonna played with so much over her whole career. It's like this kind of mystical aspect of Catholicism that focuses on Mary as a figure as opposed to like the father's son, the Holy Ghost. It's the divine feminine. Yeah. It's the most divine feminine religion, I think. That's right. It's obviously like a hater hating ass religion as well. Totally.

Completely. So yeah, I think it's just, it made sense. And it's a great name. I love that name. Yeah, I love it too. Okay. Evita comes out November of 19. well actually December of 1996

but the soundtrack comes out in November here's I'm going to be honest I'm going to keep it 100 I saw it for the first time last week I am not a musical person but I did think Madonna was ravishing and did an incredible acting job do I wish movies had

words in them in addition to the songs yes do I think that if you didn't have a firm grasp on the geopolitical history of Argentina prior to going into watching Evita it might be challenging to follow the story. Yes. But she looks gorgeous dresses. I mean, I'm not a big musical person either. I think it's kind of interesting. It's just it feels very like a vehicle.

I think we were talking about this the other day, too, just like, you know, just as just the choice to have Evita as that character, you know, just to write a play about it, write a musical about it. It felt like a vehicle for a female vocalist star to, you know, have a, have this kind of power, woman of power, you know, and express, and so it isn't really a piece of history so much as it is a sort of like a snapshot of some, you know, like a female figure that had. If you ask Argentinian people. Oh, I mean, of course. She's a cult.

Yeah. I meant to play itself. Oh, yeah, yeah. Not the story. Obviously, the story is like major. What we maybe didn't talk about in the last episode is important to point out is that the reason she wanted this part so bad is that, is that she's so strongly identified with the story of Eva Peron, which was that she came from kind of like poverty or lower class in a more extreme way.

I mean, she was a bastard child in a time that children who didn't have married parents actually didn't have the same legal rights as like, it was like two classes of people, literally, and like used kind of her talents and charms to, and beauty to ascend into the arts, becoming an actress, and then met a general who became president, and she kind of became this, like, hugely famous and beloved figure. And so I think she could pretty, and obviously make sense, could map her own story onto that. Also extremely polarizing. Yes. So, like, you know, I think that was, like, a big part of it as well. Like, she had very powerful and, like, inspired a lot of people, but also a lot of people. She had a lot of haters and

Heron. So, as did hit her husband. So, but it was, yeah. So it's, it's worth watching. It's worth watching. I think it was a, it was a great vehicle part for her. Totally. She finally put the fucking haters to bed with like, you can't act.

Because she absolutely acted at the house down boots. You know what I mean? And she had that, you know, she can't sing thing following her around a lot too. And she sings incredibly. Incredibly. And so, I mean, she tore it. It's like an incredible performance. 100%.

And she, yeah, she really did. And it's, you know, it's interesting time, too, because I remember really specifically the Vanity Fair issue that came out that, like, showed her addressed as Ava Peron with the brown contact lenses. And she closed her tooth gap, which, you know, was like this huge major moment. And just presenting herself as somebody else in this way, like in this kind of editorialized way, which she had always done, but it kind of always had that sense of, like, Madonna, where this felt like this very sophisticated,

it kind of signals the next era of her career in a way, like her kind of more mature kind of presentation or like way of addressing and styling. Yeah, I love that. I think that's so right. I'm Argentina always will be. Well, she did great. She is nominated for best actress at the Golden Globes

the following year 97. She wins. She wins. She wins. She wins. She wins. She wins. She wins.

And Evita wins best motion picture musical comedy. You Must Love Me wins best song, which we didn't point out, but You Must Love Me is the only original, obviously, because this is a preexisting musical, but in order to be nominated, you have to have an original song. So they wrote this song for it. And that dress that she wore, she was like just postpartum, post-brace. Absolutely incredible. You're obsessed with her breasts. Well, I mean, who is it? Aren't we all?

I think it's like, you know, I've talked a lot about her breasts. I'm sorry, Madonna if that's... She has, like, the most perfect breasts. was really perfect. So it's like... Yeah. This was a great time for Madonna lovers

because there was all these like red carpet stuff. They didn't actually get any nominations in the major Oscar categories, but Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Weber won for that best song, Oscar. Around this time as well,

sometime in 1997, her longtime manager, Freddie Demand, steps back for managing Madonna. He was made like the chief executive at Maverick. And actually the next year Madonna,

him out for like $20 or $25 million, so he kind of retires. But her assistant, Koresh Henry, takes over the management of Madonna. And Gaiusir is still there. He's just like an elevated figure in Maverick right now. By the fall of 97, Madonna and Carlos Leon had actually broken up. Of course, continuing to co-parent. Now that all that's over with, now that we acted the house down boots and got a golden globe and learned to really use 100% of our voice, it's time to make a new album.

She went to babyface first, but it didn't work out. She went in a few directions at first that weren't quite. She went to her familiars. Right, totally. She went to my guy, my dog, Patrick Leonard, and Patrick Leonard Truther. If there's one fan in the room, it's me. What is that thing? There's a hundred people in the room and I'm your fan or whatever.

I don't remember how the meme goes. Anyways, she goes to work with Patrick Leonard and to put some respect and credit on his name. they did write four songs together. Sky fits heaven. Nothing really matters. Skin and Frozen. I mean, all major in songs, right?

Yes. I do think obviously they evolved quite a bit from whatever those demos were, but he had a hand in the bones at least. That was a great story too that after this session, he had a tape of the demos

with just the letter M on it and he had gone to return his rental car and left it in the fucking rental car and was like in a panic mode. Like, I just leaked foreign, like, baby skeletal songs. But apparently someone probably just took it out and threw the trash because it never, it never surfaced.

Wow. And then she's like, okay, new collaborator. So she finds Rick Knowles. Actually, Rick Knowles finds her. Rick Knowles had worked on Celine Dion's album falling into you. And there she was shopping at Barney's. May it fucking rest in peace. I miss it every day of my life.

Barney's New York. And he introduced, he walked in, hi. Madonna. I'm... I'm Rick Knowles, babe. And he tells her she's such a great songwriter, and two weeks later, they're in L.A. working on music together.

What I love about that little story, too, is that he was like, oh, I produced Celine's falling into you, and she's like, oh, I love that song, which is, like, kind of great. Like, I thought it was great. He also worked with Stevie Nixon when her records at the end of the 80s.

It was an interesting period for Stevie, but also just the production, vocal production is very interesting. So it could have been an interesting combination. Yeah. Good writer, I think, too. They did write nine songs together in 10 days. Three of them end up on the album to have and not to hold the power of goodbye and Little Star. And then she's like, I want, like, back to what you were saying.

I want trip hop type producers. And again, apologies to the trip hop community that thinks trip hop is not a real genre. I know, but like I need to. It's like indie sleaze now. I need to use a shorthand for you guys to understand what I'm talking about. We all know what we're talking about when we say that. Apparently, this I thought, was very interesting that she asked Tricky and Goldie and the prodigy who were signed to Maverick. And they all told her no.

Imagine you're on this woman's label and you're like, no. I mean, I think it speaks to that time also where, you know, just like people were, they didn't want to work with a pop star because that. that would make them not look. Not smack my bitch up prodigy. They're probably like, no, I don't think so. That doesn't fit with her. I mean, it's just kind of an interesting commentary on how things have changed since then.

I mean, it was already starting to change. I feel like this kind of like blending of genres and the idea that she would be even shopping around with those kinds of artists was pretty forward. Yeah. But they were not ready for it. I don't know what the prodigy version of Ray of Blight sounds like, but... Would have been amazing.

We'll never know. That's a good use. of AI. Somebody do that and send it to us. Make me the ray of light that prodigy pretty. Which actually that song as a prodigy song, let's hear it.

I know. Her quote about it was that they all basically, quote, turned their elitist noses up at me and said, oh, we can't work with you. You're a big pop star. Yeah. Guy Osseri was like, what about this guy? Billy Orbits. That's not his name. William Orbit.

He, who, quote, had done some remixes of my records and he sent over some stuff. been working on, and it was absolutely the direction I wanted to go. William Morbitt. William Morbitt. Born William Raynwright. Yeah, he had done a couple of remixes, right? He had did a remix of Justify My Love.

Yeah. He also made his own music under the name Strange Cargo. Madonna's called him a complete madman genius with no pretences, who doesn't care whether people think he's cool or not. That's a pretty fair. Sounds like a great person to know and to work with. Madonna said, I'd been away for so long that when I got into the studio with him, I felt like I've been shot out of a canon.

I had so many ideas, and Ray of Lights reflects that. Quick fashion footnote before we get into the Ray of Light cycle. In November of 1997, the Rolling Stone Women of Rock cover comes out. Very funny grouping. Women of Rock, and it's Madonna, Courtney Love, and Tina Turner. It is a funny group. Yeah.

Tina Turner, obviously. Or the original rockers. Right. And Madonna, sure. Sure. Sure. I bring it up, though, because it's notable because Ariane Phillips meets Madonna here because she's styling Courtney Love. Yes.

And they form a kind of lasting bond and partnership that's going to go on into a lot of the next cycle of her looks, including the look that she has for the Frozen single, which is the next release. Which also has a same color background as the Rolling Stone in cover. Oh, interesting thing. I always thought about that because that came out right in 97 and the, she had that

hair. So they already started to change her hair tone and like you started to see this evolution towards Ray of Light and looking back at that. I remember thinking about how those covers seem very similar. Yeah, you're right. It's this like sort of like golden tan vibe. Yeah, yeah. Which is crazy because then the visual imagery around the video is completely different.

Yeah, completely different. Yeah. I know that part of that is because they had, she had to wear a black wig to make it work the effects. For the effects. Because you couldn't do it with a blonde hair. It was coming out of your blonde hair. Yeah. You couldn't turn it to a black, black Doberman dog. Okay, let's talk about Frozen. I mean, just the first time I heard that, it was just a, it was such a, it was mind-blowing just because it was so different sounding and just the, I think the level of vocal,

production. I always started to see on bedtime stories sort of like a new direction of vocal production for her and was, you know, like lots of layered backgrounds and, you know, just kind of like different treatments on the voice. Right. Which really suited her quite nicely. But here it's really taken to another level and that humming that she does and the, yeah, just like, and the sort of like, you know, just like the hint of like sort of far eastern, let's just say, kind of influence on it. And it just was. just all so new that felt really exciting. It was very, very exciting.

I hope and pray that it's not just people my and your age and above listening to this podcast, and there are some young people. And if there are, I need to, I need you to understand the vice grip that Eastern culture had on alternative and pop culture in the late 90s. Like, I had Nepali's prayer flags on my wall, babe. Okay, we were wearing beads. We were getting henna tattoos on our, we didn't know the words cultural appropriation.

That wasn't a thing yet. We were, oh, my God, sorry fabric as skirts. Oh, you want to hear the ugliest thing you could ever possibly think of? They took that fabric and went ahead and stitched it around the bottom of jeans. They made a little cul-out jeans. And then they made the bottom, the sort of. Sorry, fabric with the gold. Nose rings and the jewels and like the, yeah, all of it.

Gwen Stefani has a bindi, babe. We are like, we're balls deep in appropriating the culture of the East. I mean, I think it was part of a sort of, you know, I mean, there was like a lot of that free to bet energy that was like floating around in the world of pop music and rock music. Yeah. Through the 80s and into the 90s. I think it was very pure hard. It was like, it felt very organic as part of just like thinking about, it means different.

we think of things differently now. It's like this is the beginning of globalization in a way. And like, you know, the world was really becoming global because the internet was coming in. It was the first time that we're really able to travel globally in an easy way. So it's like, you know, it was just a natural way of like being like, wow, look at this whole thing. I think so too. And just feeling very passionately like moved by it and wanting to kind of like engage with it. So I think it wasn't, I don't think it was cynical or had any kind of edge to. It was...

No. I also think it's partly connected to, like, the mainstreaming of alternative culture. Because part of alternative culture that everyone always forgets is, like, yoga and the head shop. And, like, you know, like, that was very much happening. Incense. And just, yeah, a Buddha statue. Yeah. So it's like... And Madonna, great yoga.

So anyways, I just wanted to paint you the picture and make you think of those horrible pants that I may or may not have worn. This song is Godtier. This is a God-tier song. Madonna said she was obsessed with the movie The Sheltering Sky. Have you seen that film? Yes. Oh, is it good? I haven't seen it.

I mean, it's really long. It's Deborah Winger. I mean, it is great. Yeah, it's great. It's Bernard Berthalucci set in Northern Africa. It's right, Deborah Winger and John Malkovich. Yeah, just like incredible landscapes

and just like, really just that sort of Bedouin energy. So again, that kind of like... The song feels like that, for sure. It feels like a North African desert song. In that way, you know? Yeah, so she said, I was obsessed with that whole Moroccan slash orchestral slash super romantic slash man carrying the woman he loves across the desert vibe. So I told Pat, because this is a Patrick Leonard song, that I wanted something with a tribal feel, something really lush and romantic. When he started playing some music, I just turned the dat on and started

free associating and came up with the melody. That level of talent, though, by the way, I just need to once again point out. She could just come up with a top line melody that good like this. Like that. I mean, I think, you know, you see that over and over again. all of the people who've worked with her said she works incredibly fast. It's like, no. I think it, it vibes with what I think about her as being one of the most intuitive artists of all time. Like, it's so clear that she's just tapped into something and she doesn't, thank God,

question it. Yeah. And once it's out, it's like, don't think about it again. Just like, that's it, you know, like. Which is why she takes so many risks, I think, you know. She said some of the lyrical sentiment in Frozen was drawn from my own. personal experience. Then she also cites another movie that the lyrics are inspired by, which is the English

patient. One of my favorite films. Merchant Ivory Hives, stand up. Amanda Dobbins, if you're listening to you love that movie. She said, I know it sounds so dorky, but it really moved me. I wept and I can't even tell you why. I also laughed when I saw that. Yeah, I think it was in high school.

It was such a huge movie at the time, too. It was like so hot. And Kristen's got Tom. It's just what a. O-2. be loved in that way. Oh, to love someone that way. That's Madonna's quote, but also me, I'm echoing it. Yeah. I'll talk about the video

directed by Chris Cunningham, my goat. I know you guys had this. Well, if you're my people, you had the DVD. You had the Chris Cunningham, Spike Jones, and Michelle motherfucking Gondry, which I'm angry with him because he forced me to say on record how much I love a piece

of foo fighters art. Right. Which is the ever long video that he with the big hands. Yeah, yeah. Anyways, I just love the idea that Madonna's at home being like watching Apex Twin music videos and she gets obsessed with his music video for Come on, Come to Daddy. It's so good. Really terrifying music video, as are the Apex Twins in the genre of Amethx Twin.

But like, she was like, I want something like that. Although Frozen is not quite in the same. No. It's more mystical than it is like horror movie. It's filmed. in the Mojave Desert. Yeah, it's a piece of, like, art that's, like, timeless. Yeah.

And, I mean, it's also so innovative, again, just not to keep, but for her to be, like, goth. And, like, to kind of go in this direction of, like, the mystical themes, which we've already kind of touched on, but just also kind of her presentation of being that kind of, like, witchy figure. She's wearing all Gautier. Yeah. He had done a collection inspired by, like, Marilyn Manson.

Right. And it was from that collection. She looks so cool. It looks so cool. And then, yeah, like, dancing to become into, like, the birds and the, it's so beautiful. So beautiful. And all the close-ups, she looks so beautiful. She looks so beautiful.

And the, I mean, it just, like, perfectly fits the song, too. It's, like, really something else. Worst dance. In 2021, there's a trap remix of Frozen made by a Canadian DJ called Sickkick. And that went viral on TikTok. And Madonna, because Genius was like, I will be making money off of that. So December 3rd, 2021, officially released as the first single from Madonna's entire catalog reissue project. And they did three more versions.

One featuring Fireboy DML. One featuring 0-70 shake. And then one featuring vocals from Sickkick himself, frozen on fire. And I'll be honest with you, I've not heard these. I have heard them. And what's your favorite? I mean, I love 070. So I like that one.

So that was top of 1998 January. And just a smooth month later, Ray of Light is released. Do you agree with the kind of sentiment that this is like her Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club moment? Or like I heard someone else kind of compare it to Bob Dylan going electric, like this like major shift. Yes. I definitely. I mean, definitely think it was a major shift. It's kind of her masterpiece. It's kind of her magnum opus, I would say, like just like as a work, like, you know, as a record and as like a direction, it feels like fully realized, right? Like it just feels like she chose the sound. She took voice lessons. She had kind of new revelations about life and about who she was and her celebrity. and had this kind of like retrospective looking back and it just kind of really brings all of those

things that kind of lyrical sentiment the music and the production just like into like a just really feels like a masterwork totally i mean it's art with a capital a right but part of me like brussels a little because i'm like oh like i feel that so much of your past work was also art but but this one is more widely considered because it fits back into what people consider art, which is this not like bubblegum pop music, but this sort of like more nuanced style of music that is post her singing lessons, you know? Right. And also not controversial.

Like I think that, like, you know, this her sort of being more introspective and spiritual, spiritually minded and also somewhat, I wouldn't say contrite, but kind of just looking back at, you know, what, you know, so many of the songs are like reflecting on celebrity, reflecting on what you valued before and realizing that there's more valuable things. I mean, obviously she had a daughter and that's like a huge life-changing experience. So I think people found all of that very relatable.

Whereas a lot of, I think, in, you know, like erotica or something, put a lot of people off because they have hangups about sex. And so, therefore, that stuff just touches on nerves that people, it's triggering, right? So like... I love this album. Like, you needly, off jump.

But we've talked to some friends who were like, I didn't fuck with that until, later. I didn't know what was going on. Like, I wanted erotica Madonna, you know? I kind of started to posit this theory, I think, in episode two, but like, I really feel like, okay, starting with like a prayer and even probably everything coming up to that. Like, this was sort of like, she's, you know, nascent artists, like just like having a good time, finding her voice, you know, falling in love, true blue. Like a prayer is like a reckoning. It's your Saturn return. it's about loss, it's about pain, it's about hurt, it's about losing power and losing things.

And then you get to erotica, which is about regaining power and dominance. And to me, that's very, like, masculine, right? Exerting power is very masculine. And then you go kind of to bedtime stories, which is like, like, maybe a return to, like, okay, you didn't like, not even like that's what she was thinking, but it was like, okay, I went super hard in the masculine. paint. Now I'm going a little more towards the middle part of like feminine. And then I think, to me, ray of light is a divine feminine. Like it's like very much like I'm encapsulating. Because the divine feminine is like a sort of like, I don't know, we just talked about married Catholicism, you know, I don't know if I'm making sense. No, I think you are. I mean, the way I would describe it is probably

in kind of a woo way, but it's like it feels very embodied. Right. Like it feels like, whereas, you know, erotica is like exerting power. It feels very much like, like kind of has a sort of aggression to it. You know, and it is like kind of putting it in your face kind of thing. And whereas this feels much more like quiet and self-assured in a way that, I wouldn't say that erotica doesn't feel self-assured because it is self-assured. It just feels much more rebellious. Yes. And this feels just like quiet.

self-assured and kind of like embodied. And like receiving, receiving is feminine. I just like I can't more because it all clicked more into place with me when I was listening to the American Life single and she kind of lays it out in there. She's like, I tried to be a girl. I tried to be a boy. You know? Like, and I'm like, I tried to be.

Anyway, that's my big brain. Your brain take for the day. time very stupid take about. No, I think that's what she's saying, right? I may do think it's like she's trying things on and this feels like, you know, the birth of the daughter. Yeah, because being a mother, again, what's more divine feminine than giving birth, you know? Correct, right.

Like you are embodying the, your, it's creation is feminine, you know? I think it's, yeah, it's a wonderful. And feeling kind of content and happy there. Right. Like, it really feels like she's happy. Yeah, and like I walk. through the fire of being burned at the stake for erotica, and I came out the other side, you know.

And now I have this beautiful baby, and my life is actually pretty good. Like, I had a very successful musical, you know, and all, you know, so it feels like she's come to a place where she feels content, and she's happy, and she's able to kind of, like, write about it. And we can't understand the influence of her journey into Kabbalah, because she's become very spiritual in a, in a further... not further as might not the other way, but in a different path than she had been her whole life. She deepened into the study of one specific spiritual tradition.

Also, I mean yoga, because I think that, and maybe is more influential on this record in particular. Yeah. Because I think Kabbala is a through line for this entire episode that we're talking about. But in this particular moment, you know, yoga was really big. And that's where, you know, she was going to this studio in New York, Eddie Stern's studio that It's normal for you to know that. I know because I went there too. That's where she met,

Gwyneth Paltrow, I'm pretty sure, because they were both there doing yoga. Remember Gwen and Stalder? I mean, like, I invented doing yoga or whatever. She's not wrong. She was very ahead. It was pretty leading. I mean, there were like a few big studios in New York,

and it was like this hot thing to start doing yoga. It was pretty, it wasn't new. There were, like, there were plenty of places around doing yoga, but it was catching on where people were starting to do it in a more of a mass way. And this guy was doing Ashtanga yoga. It was pretty serious yoga studio that they were. I think what people maybe wouldn't understand, or some people, I don't want to misspeak, wouldn't understand now with the like commodification of yoga into like we do, we have weights and we do like hit yoga.

It's like what even fuck is that. No, no, no, no, no. This is like yoga is a spiritual practice. Yeah. It is also obviously a movement of the body and does provide exercise, but what it is at its core is a spiritual practice. And I think at that time, there weren't, like, you couldn't really take yoga at a gym. Like, it wasn't, there weren't yoga classes at your gym. So, like, you had to go to a studio where people were, you know, had gone to India. Where they had incense, putting in some prayer flags on the wall on a Buddhist head.

And did that whole prayer and all that stuff. That's like that Shantia stung, the shangy thing. And, like, so it was, you know, that was all part of that world. And if you, like, were in there, that was that smell of Nakhampa and that, like, kind of. So this record also, I think, like, references. that world. It came right out of the yoga studio. That's right. Yeah. Okay.

So, well, let's dive deeper into the album. So it's engineered by Pat McCarthy and Marius DeVries, who was a massive attack, Nellie Hooper associate who works with Madonna a lot going forward. Patrick Leonard did like kind of handle the, quote, classic sensibility album because he was like managing the strings in Woodwind sections. There's 20 violins, six violas, six chess. fellows, four double basses, two flutes, and an oboe on here, which were conducted by cellist Susie Katayama on Frozen and the Power of Goodbye. Madonna said of this record that how it was different from her previous records was that she took more musical chances.

I let William Orbit play Mad Professor. He comes from a very experimental cutting edge sort of place. He's not a trained musician, and I'm used to working with classically trained musicians. But I knew that's where I wanted to go, so I took a lot more risks. Oftentimes the creator. process is frustrating because I wasn't used to it. It took a lot longer than usual to make this record. But I realize now that I need the time to get where I'm going. I mean, I think that's interesting because especially that Pat Leonard was still kind of involved. Yeah. Because he had talked about, you know, I think it was specifically talking about the, who's that girl soundtrack and how quickly she worked on that, like that it was just like an hour. Like, you know, like the song would come out and she'd be like, we're done. And that way, you know, she was like, Kian S. Estab.

Anemia. Call it a day. We're going home. We're done. Like, close it down. No more work for you either. Like, we're done. Like, she had that saying, like, the time is money and the money is mine. I feel like that was like that was like. I think, you know, so I think she, it's very clear from this album and the sound of it that she, she really took time with it. Like, it had to, and, you know, I know he was fussy, meaning he. William Morbin. Yeah, just like he's a fussy kind of worker.

Like, he just has to, he needed an iterative. process to kind of get to where he, especially if you listen to the demos, you can hear sort of like substantively what the song was, but like it evolved so much. So like she had to learn patience, which I guess her yoga like helps her develop. So she was ready for it. Yeah. I like the William Orbit told the journalist Johnny Black, which is that the first day I was in paralysis, because I was used to going off and being left to get on with it. But she said, I'm not the kind of girl that leaves the guy to get on with it. Get used to it. And he said, the moment I saw her jumping onto the tracks in such an artistic way, I instantly thought how great it was going to be.

She's an amazing producer, and it was a true collaboration. It's important to get this across. I don't like it when people assume I was the clever one doing the whole job. This is a through line, by the way. We've said it a couple times in other producers, all producers say this. Like, Madonna is in there. Like, she's not like, I produced it because I want a vanity credit, you know? I mean, we even saw it, I'm jumping ahead, but we watched the tour documentary. I'm going to tell you a secret. I'm going to tell you a secret last night. And like there's a part where she's checking every dancer's makeup.

That's right. Before they go, like this woman cares deeply about every part of this process of her work. Absolutely. And I think there was, there's also in the Drown World Tour, which we're obviously going to talk about. But one of the music engineers, like, gave an interview or something and made a comment that she could hear so precisely in the mix, like, things that were. sounding right. So they created all these innovations to make the sound happen, like playing things at different decibel levels and like, you know, different kinds of monitors because she was so particular about hearing things. So she's a good producer. Yeah, she's a good producer.

I really loved, okay, shout out to former guest of the pod and one of the greatest living music writers, in my opinion, Sean DeSouza. He wrote, he did a review. Actually, it was of music. I think in Pitchwork Sunday review, but he mentioned, obviously, it talked about Ray of Light, and he said Madonna's pivot on Ray of Light was wildly successful. Her Brit Pop suffused entry into the world of Eastern spirituality and clean living, canally marrying the tastes of a culture as interested in pure moods as oasis. I'm so interested in that Britpop element. Do you hear that in Ray of Light?

I feel like it has that kind of like guitar-y, you know. know, like almost 60s throwback. Yeah, it's like a power pop jangly guitar. It feels kind of like Beatles adjacent or that kind of like, you know, similar of love. Right. And that feels like Williams world really. Like, and so it does have that. He is British.

And it's interesting because this, I do think like from here forward, at least in terms of this block that we're talking about, she does really go in a much more European direction. Like, she works with a lot of European people. Yes. And she's really, like, turned towards Europe quite a bit more. And the sound is obviously reflecting that. I think that's so true. All right, the cover.

The cover is just, I mean, I mean, you can say what the facts are. The shot by Mario Testino. You might have heard of them. Styled by Lori Goldstein. And they opted for textures evocative of the elements of water. air, which are recurrent themes in the album. And she is wearing a turquoise, Dulce and Gabana, spring summer, 1998, vinyl raincoat. Yeah.

Again, it was just like a just completely different way to see Madonna. Like nobody, we hadn't seen her that way before. And when you see those pictures, I mean, they're so obviously, she has tons of makeup and it's like so obviously so produced, but it had this like very natural feeling. Like there's texture in her skin. Totally. Her hair is like a different, long. No makeup, but it feels like that kind of much more natural strawberry kind of blonde color.

Her eyebrows are a bit thicker. Yeah, just all of it feels like you just feel this presence much more. It's like Earth Mother. Yeah. Like, Merrill Monroe icon and more kind of like, yeah, Earth Mother like you say. Down to Earth. Yeah. So really beautiful, like very compelling.

And he just had such a beautiful way of photographing skin always that's like, you know, dewy and fresh and has just the red amount of texture. Yeah. So it's like we all want that skin. Yeah. You know. Don't I want it so bad. So it's so bad. It was just, it was like perfect, I think.

And the textures of the coat and the, but with the hair is like the perfect kind of like marriage of that. I just have that blue. Like blue is so 90s too. Like that like. I personally love the frozen ones because those are that kind of like golden one. Yeah. It just to me so so beautiful and encapsulates it so well. but I mean, all of them do.

And I think it's like that earthy feeling with this kind of like a little bit like reference to that the tech sound that she's using. So it's like it feels very forward and feels very futuristic and modern. But at the same time there's this like earthy element. Yeah, totally. To me this is a very blue album. It's a color blue album. I think of blue when I think of it because of the music. Okay.

What are this album about? What are the themes? I mean, it's very personal. I think. I think there's a lot of reflection happening, right? There's a lot of reflecting on life as a celebrity up into this point. Right. Things that she'd put a lot of value on that she'd realize aren't so valuable.

I mean. Which will be kind of a recurrent theme for the next few albums. So that's kind of introducing a new idea. I think that, you know, obviously the birth of Lourdes was a huge factor in all of that. And the spirituality practices and all of those things. kind of like just bringing her to kind of like a little bit of a more grounded place. Yeah. And just kind of musing about that from that perspective.

Yeah. I think that's so right. Like I see it like maybe to oversimplify it as like an album about like birth, death and rebirth. You know, it has like all of that in there. Like birth very literally with Lordus but also like I don't know, the birth of a new sound, the birth of a new direction. And then the rebirth of we talked about of like. kind of a phoenix from the flames of the pain and suffering after post-sex book erotica.

And there's always death in her albums. Yeah, always. Yeah. But it's not. I mean, these are also themes in like a prayer. Sure. So they're like they've been sort of like there. She's just really kind of like pulling them down.

Yeah. And making them much more sort of legible. Yeah. It feels like in like in the prior times those things showed up, like a prayer is a very urgent. desperate seeking of spirituality, whereas this feels like a landing, you know, where it's like, oh, like, there's no urge or desperation. Like, I always remember someone telling me that, like, if you have a feeling and it feels urgent,

that's not your intuition. Right. That's like fear or anxiety because your intuition never feels urgent. And I feel like this album is like, whatever, the album version of that. It's like her intuition and it doesn't feel urgent, you know? Yeah, completely. Again, I think that's like that idea of embody. things, right?

Like, whereas before she was like inhabiting things. Yeah, that's so good. That's a good way to say it. She's embodying these things. Someone asked her very directly, so I can talk about it. What are the album's themes? And they said, are you, you know, they seem more personal before. Are you just expressing yourself better as a singer?

And she said, I feel it's probably a combination of the two. I've written lyrics that were quite personal before, certainly in the Like a Prayer album, and even stuff on bedtime stories felt very personal. But perhaps I was in a much more vulnerable place when I was recording this album. And because I feel I've done a lot of growing and evolving spiritually and emotionally. And the interviewer said, is there a reason you were more vulnerable? And Madonna said, first of all, it was after doing a veto, which was really a challenging, emotionally, exhausting, soul-searching couple of years for me.

It also kind of gave me time off from being me. Like you were saying, she, like became Ava Perone in the Vanity Fair, you know. And so she was kind of able to vacate herself for a little while. while. This is the album that we were kind of, remember we were talking on our way here, like, what was, what was, what did Titanic do to Madonna? And it's like, to what Titanic soundtrack did was keep Ray and Madonna from number one. It was, nothing could be the Titanic soundtrack. Nothing could beat the Titanic, ultimately. Once again, if you weren't there, my heart will go on. The amount of times that you heard that song in the year of, I still can hear it. I can hear it right now.

It's echoing around my head. Great song, honestly. Yeah, great song. Okay, let's just go, I guess, in order, even though it won't be in the order of the singles were released. But the first song on the album is actually the third single, Drowned World slash Substitute for Love. Amazing.

Amazing. We're just like, love it, love it, love it, love it. Let's move on. Of course, amazing. The title is inspired by J.G. Ballard's post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, The Drowned World. this is another one that I'm pretty sure I got this right

that this is the demo and they just slapped it right on the album pretty much I think so but probably not the original demo right the like demo version where they landed on but again that's her way right I mean it's just like when she lays it down

it's kind of done and I mean I can't imagine her doing it more perfectly than that vocal so the very beginning is I traded fame for love without a second thought. Is that becoming a mother? Do you think?

I think so. Yeah. I think that's like, you know, just what she said in that just quote that you just read a minute ago about coming off of Evita and like all of that stress and just like having that, you know, she was just kind of have the baby and then just like, wow, my whole life is different. Like that's how I imagine it anyway. And just like feeling like, wow, the whole center of my focus is now right here. I also like can't help but think now.

like kind of the idea that actually like you know this is a we've talked about it in two episodes now one of the most ambitious people

of all time right and ambition has goals what was left you know like she had obviously topped charts and hit fame peaks all over

tour records she put the fuck she finally acted in a film that no one could say was bad and that she wanted Golden Globe for. That's right. No one can say she can't sing anymore because she mastered that.

She wanted so bad to have a baby. She had a baby. And I wonder a ray of light is very much from that because it does, there is also a thematic of thing of like, I got everything I wanted, but now what? You know? And I think there's a lyric that made me think of it. I got exactly what I asked for her, wanted it so badly. Yeah.

And then you kind of realize, like, once you've gotten everything, you wanted and nothing changes. Right. Like because kind of it doesn't, right? You're still there with yourself. Right. I mean, and what she says too in that song is like, I suffered fools so gladly. You know, and now I find I've changed my mind.

But like it, I mean, I do think, I can't imagine that. There's nothing more powerful I would imagine. I haven't had a child. But I can't imagine that there's anything really more powerful than that that's going to shift your focus and shift the meaning of your life in such a profound way that feels, you know, just really transformative. There was a really interesting interview with her later on where they asked her if that was her most, that was her biggest work of art or that was your biggest, do you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, kind of. And she was like, that's what I'm supposed to say. And it was so interesting, right? Because she was just kind of like, I guess glancing sideways at the idea. Not that obviously she doesn't love her, find it for the only way of others, but that the idea that, like, It's the be all and all, you know? And I think just to be clear, what I'm saying is like, this is a moment. Yes, yes.

So she's having this moment and that's the experience around this album and around this time. So obviously, you know, things evolve. Yeah, yeah. Well, the song is God tear. It's gorgeous. It's a perfect start to kind of ease you into the. And just the like little kick of like those little drum and bass kicks and the like little like. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, just like perfect. It picks up a little bit. Yeah, right. Just a little introduction to like how this record's going to sound. Totally. And like it really feels innovative and cool and still kind of like sounds kind of futuristic and cool to me. Yeah.

But you know like the sort of like tech era of like the 90s and the 2000s, like just that sort of ambition towards the future and, you know, what that would sound like or look like or feel like. I think these, you know, this still falls within that. Yeah, it's really the cyberpunk. Yeah. Like that kind of like idea. And, you know, it really captures that. This mixture of that ballad with the sort of tech. You know what she was really influenced also by that group Mandalay.

Like that was a, I can't remember who they produced with, but they had a couple of records at this, right at this time too. And there was this, the girl was this singer that called Nicola something. And I'm screwing everything up right now. But it was, you know, it was kind of this genre of like very soft female vocal. Yeah. This very soft kind of female vocalization with this kind of, you know, drum and bass or very sort of like electronic kind of underpin music. So she took it to another place even, I feel like, with this. Yeah.

This song in particular. I agree. It's really great. And she said pretty explicitly, like, it's right there in the lyrics what it's about. But she's also said, like, fame is a great substitute for feeling approval, for feeling love, it does give you a certain kind of fulfillment, but the end of the day, it's not what love is. Like, it's all right there. Right.

The video is directed by Walter Stern. It's Madonna being chased by a paparazzi in a car. And when she gets home, she reflects on what she has traded for fame. She is wearing Versace trousers with a crystal belt. South Barry Ann Phillips. Beautiful video. Yeah, it is a beautiful video. Cool outfit.

Cool outfit. Yeah. Cool locations. Just like, it's cool. I love swim. I don't know if it's because I'm partial to guitar that you had me at Hello, you know, with a bit of, but I just really love that song. I love that song too. Yeah.

And I love the sort of way she's using that humming vocal in the background that's like the, you know, it kind of has this kind of divery quality to it. It just has it. It all feels very articulated and really beautiful. William Morbett said that Madonna recorded the vocals for that the day that Johnny Versace was killed and he said that's probably why the if the track has emotional impact because of that because she was feeling probably quite emotional. The next song is Ray of Light which is kind of shockingly the second single. You would always imagine it would be the first single.

But it's the second one. We said Frozen was the first one. The song is based off the track Saffarin, which was written by the English folk music. duo Curtis Maldoon, consisting of Dave Curtis and Clive Maldoon. It really feels like that kind of like electric folk tradition of like that was kind of like, I don't know, Jeth Rottal, Steel Ice Band, like those kind of bands that were doing like traditional folk, British folk. British Isles folk music and putting like electric.

Yeah. It was kind of that whole anyway, but I think. It's interesting that that's the genesis point of that song. It's like a... And they obviously have writing credit on the song. Well, here's what happened. William Orbit re-recorded this song with the niece of Clive Muldoon of the duo named Christine Leach before he ever started working with Madonna. And when they were doing Ray of Light, he brought it in.

And she was like, yeah. So she kind of changed the melody and instrumentation, but retained the label. And that's why they have the writing credit. They did not know that Madonna had recorded the song, and they heard it for the first time on the radio. Oh, wow. And the one guy was like, I couldn't believe it. And apparently he was initially a little bit annoyed. But then when he learned that he was going to receive 15% of the royalties in a songwriter credit, he was quite happy.

I'm quite happy. That's right. Yeah. This I thought was interesting. I wanted to ask you if you can hear it. William Orbit apparently kept Ray of Light a semi-tone higher than Madonna's limit. and it resulted in a strain added to the vocals. My friends and I, when this came out,

we lost our minds over this song in particular just because of especially what she does at the end of it with her voice. Something you never heard her really do before. Yeah. So I think that was, you know, it was just, you know, the gays were losing it. It was just very, it was cool and something that, you know, you didn't really think of her as. like singing like that.

And so I think that this makes total sense that he did that, that the way he did it does kind of, it's a forcing function that created that kind of energy behind that song that probably wouldn't be there if she just sang in her natural register.

Because it is, this song does have sort of like an energy and a sort of like urgency behind it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so it's cool. That really worked.

I love it. William Orbit says she got frustrated when we were recording, but you want that big. bit of edge with singers, that thing of reaching. You can't fake it, and you can hear it when she cracks it on the record. This is one of my top five Madonna songs. I mean, yeah.

I learned that at dinner when after we had recorded for five and a half hours here and then went straight to dinner and talked for three more hours about Madonna, like insane people. That I was like, if I'm being really looking in the mirror, I listen to this song a lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. Yeah.

And I love it. I love it, too. amazing. It's like a, I mean, it's like, it's now canon, Madonna song, right? How can you not, how can you feel bad when you put this on? I know, totally. You need a little pick me up? Right. And the guitar on it is so cool. Like the, just the sort of like, and the beat, the, it's, it's, yeah, it's like very. You can't, you just want to be like, like her in the video, you know? Totally, yeah.

Speaking of the video, directed by Jonas Sackerel. Is this the first time she works with him? I think so. he directed the video for Smack My Bitch Up. Yes, you did. My prodigy. It was an early sign to Maverick Records. Yes, yeah.

This video is so awesome because it really encapsulates the energy of the song. We were talking, this reaching, like, frenetic energy of the song. And it's in the video, it's like time lapse, right? Like, everything's moving so fast. And, like, someone phrased it as, like, pummeling towards the millennium. Yeah. Right. Like, oh, my God, we're about to hit the millennium.

Like, we're going, going. And it really was that energy then. too. I think there was like so much hype towards the millennium at that time. I also think it's because there was such a rapid increase in the internet. Like you're saying, like that the world changed really fast over time in a way that it had it in like the 80s, for example. Like each year the internet brought like a new thing to your door where you were like, oh, I'm in a chat room now. I have email. Like we have dial up at home. Like really like these things, every. time something new happened, you did feel more and more like, what's happening. I'm more and more

connected. And the world just felt more and more connected. And there was like this idea of the global world in like the early 90s. I think that that was something that people talked about a lot in global trade and all these kinds of things. And I think the internet, like this period is when that really started to like come home to like people on the ground, so to speak. Like the mud people. By 98, most, not most people, but like I think a good. A lot of people. A large portion of people had on the internet in some way. Like a lot of people had internet home. Like you had ICQ, you had these chat rooms.

You had early websites. You had forums and gathering places. So that was like a big thing too. I think that, you know, forums being part of the sort of way that people discovered things and talked about things was a new. I was on girl.com, g-r-l-com. Some of you heads will remember. Yeah, it was a cool time.

It was a cool time. On my parents' PC in the office. Yeah, it's a great. This video does sort of, you're right, it kind of really captures that energy of that time and that feeling like the future's rushing towards you. And little didn't we know. It was going to be clavicular, looks maxing,

and people spreading Hitler memes on the internet. And us being like, we're sorry. We take it back. We would love to go back. We want to like, work. If you could do the time lapse in the opposite direction, please. We'd just love to go back to girl.com and I-CQ and AOL chat rooms. One of the fandom podcasts I listened to about this talked about how it's all time lapse and sped up, except for this one part.

Jonas Ackerland actually made her dance in real time for like this one portion of it. And she's like totally wiped out and like, but doing it because, you know, of course she's a, boss and she's going to finish the job. Again, sort of like to that point of technology where it's like, you know, a little, like, we don't have the sort of like AI capabilities. Yeah, it's like a little janky. Yeah, it's like a little bit real and a little bit, like, you know. Maybe that was the best moment where we were just like one foot in each place.

It's like kind of something about this whole record kind of encapsulates that moment, the sort of like warmth of it and also like, you know, this kind of like cold, very technological element, but bringing them together. Totally. And orbit is so great in that way too because he's like like we said earlier, he's like referencing this kind of very 60s psychedelic, you know,

rock sound and it's always kind of like there and his guitar playing it's like his guitar playing style. Absolutely like modernizing it. So it brings it, so there's these two elements, her voice and point of view and this kind of yogic perspective that she has and his kind of like 60s

influenced like Brit pop. Yeah. That feels really warm on top of this, or mixed into this layer of like really cold, futuristic, technological electronic music. Yeah, it creates like attention. Yeah. It's like so, well, candy perfume girl. This is my time to shine.

Okay, let's go. Because I need to tell you some lore that I couldn't be more excited to talk about. Very exciting lore. This song, Candy Perfume Girl, is written by Madonna, William Orbit, and Susanna Melvoin, who strap in, babe. We're going to get lore heavy right now. Susanna Melvoine was a Prince associate in the mid-80s, along with her twin sister, Wendy.

She was a member of the Revolution, and she was also, you know, Wendy and Lisa, heads will remember, and she was also a lead vocalist for the family. Also, nothing compares to you is heavily rumored to be about her because she needed Prince. Okay.

Anyway, William Orbit had given her some tracks and asked her to write some lyrics, And she wrote Candy Perfume Girl, actually very tragically, while she was mourning the death of her brother, Jonathan Melbourne, who had died of a heroin overdose in 1996 while on tour with The Smashing Pumpkins. There was an MTV story about this death that Sarah McLaughlin saw in a hotel room somewhere and then wrote the song Angel about. So this is like...

I just wanted to triangulate for you, like, three of the most... iconic songs. Yes. Connected to this family. To this person. To this person. Yeah. So.

To Wendy and Lisa and Jonathan. This family. It's just kind of mind blowing. Kind of mind blowing. Like in the arms of the angels, like go adopt a puppy or you fucking sick fuck. You're going to rot in hell. Like that comes from Jonathan. It's just I live for this.

I live for this level of. Well, was that little line in Purple Rain at the beginning of that song just like, Wendy? Yes, Lisa. Yeah. Is the water warm enough? Yes. Lisa, shall we get it begin? Yes, Lisa.

You'll never be this iconic. No. I'll never be this iconic. Never. Nobody will ever be this iconic. No. Anyhood. This, I know, kind of reads like a love song, Candy Profing Girl, but what it actually is is a song,

about the allure of drug addiction since she was writing about her brother and his heroin overdose, which you can, I think, very kind of, once you know that, hear it in the, you know, you know, it's a sticky, viscous song about, yeah. I feel like you can, you know. It has that sort of double meaning too where it's like, you know, you're not sure exactly what it's about like all good drug songs. Yes, or kind of like that. They're either about candy or sweetness or, you know, like, just like, you know,

strange delight. Yeah. I think it was leaked, but also in September of 19. 97, you know, well before this album came out, it was heard during a Versace show. Oh. Because Donatella loved it, and she wanted to kind of honor her brother, which makes sense it's kind of a song honoring the death of a brother. And so Madonna was like, yeah, sure, of course.

Enduring relationship there. Yeah. Skin, once again, you throw a little guitar on something and you had me at hello. I mean, for a long time, I'm not hesitant. intend to call favorites on Madonna stuff, but this is... This was the song on this album that I really listened to, like, a lot. I loved it. I just loved the speed of it.

I loved the, like, I loved her vocal on it. Yeah. I love the, I love just the chorus. It's so beautiful, like, shift into the chorus that, like, do I know you from somewhere? It's, like, it's just so... It's perfect. It's just, like, it's totally perfect. It's such a beautiful love song

It's beautiful And perfect use of like techno beat And just like Totally And what a great type Like skin And then the song being just like About touching and skin

And put your hand on me And it's Really great song Go listen now Yeah Nothing really matters Sixth single Which is kind of crazy

Yeah And very late In the album It's a full year. It's 1999 now. It was never one of, it was never my favorite, but now, like, like everything after you hear enough, you recognize the genius of it. And like, it's like, especially what the way they did it at the celebration tour, I think

was really great way of bringing it forward. And the video is amazing. Like, I don't know. So it has like a lot of things around it that make it great to me. This song is interesting because it's a little bit of a no-thoughts-dust-vib song where I think she's even said, like, I wanted people just to have visceral and emotional reactions to things rather than, like, thinking in their minds what it's about or whatever. And I feel like, I mean, it's right there in the child, nothing really matters. But I feel like this is one of those songs. To me, it always, like, signaled like a Buddhist thing.

Yes, totally. I mean, in the context of this record and everything that she was doing. Not being attached. At this time, like not being attached, nothing really matters. It kind of was like a, that's how I always read it. But, yeah, like it's kind of. It's also, I think, one of the tenants of Kabbalah that, like, you have to give what you want to get it. So everything I give you all comes back to me.

Well, right. I mean, I think that's like, it's karma. It's like this idea of just like the cycle of life. And, you know. And Hakuna Matata. Right. Yeah, the video is incredible, directed by Johann Ren. This is the first appearance of the Madonna as a geisha in a red kimono.

Iconic with the red eyebrows. Like so good. Somebody read Memoirs of a Geisha. Yes, they did. And it was called all of us. Who amongst us did not. It was everyone in the world. Everybody was carrying that paper book everywhere, every treadmill, every stairmaster,

and everywhere, like, somebody was reading that book. It was a great book. It couldn't put it down. No. Really wonderful. And definitely Madonna liked it. I think she did the choreography herself. Oh, I don't know.

As what I remember. That would make sense. So it had this kind of like very idiosyncratic way of dancing in it, that kind of like herky jerky thing that she does and the way the camera follows just her hand as she's doing that thing. Like video is just very, very cool. God, it's really one of them. I just had to remind myself, it's really one of the most like beautiful things.

again, it's, we wouldn't do this now. Like what we were saying before, I think this applies here. Again, it's that idea of like it wasn't a cynical play towards trying to use another culture to make yourself interesting or make yourself. You know, everybody was reading that book and we were all immersed in that world. Yeah, it's being enamored by the beauty of something. And it's like a fantasy play about, you know, this world that she imagined. She also said that she imagined herself. She saw herself in the role of the geisha.

Much like Eva Perron. There's like some great quote from I have it somewhere in the dock where she's like, it's like being a gayshas like being a pop star where you're sort of like imprisoned. And like put it in front of people to, yeah, perform something. Yeah. What about Sky Fitz Heaven? I love that song. Yeah, me too.

There's no skips on this album. No, there's no skips. I think that song is like, again, great use of techno. The speed is amazing. Like at the place it lands in the album sequence, it's like the right energy there. And I think the lyrics are in classic spiritual Madonna. Do you know that some of them are taken from a 1993 Gap ad? Yes.

Yes. Fearing a poem called What Fits by the poet Max Blag. Yeah. Sky fits heaven. All things that feel so sort of Madonna coded, right? Like someone wrote a poem that was spiritual, the gap. at that time, it just makes sense that this was all in the mix in that way.

I think his line was Sky Fitzhaven so right it, but she changed it to fly it. It's so funny. Do you're like, the inspiration here? A gap ad. But I mean, the gap ad itself was coming from, like, had this kind of like art reference. Totally.

So that was like, again, not to sound like an old person and things were different. But I think that, you know, this, it's the legacy of the 20th century idea in culture was that you could sort of take, be in a commercial space and use art as a reference and that it had some kind of integrity. Yeah.

Like I think that it still exists, but not to the same degree anymore. Everyone is more cynical and more sort of on to things. Yeah. Because the internet has just kind of exposed everything. So it doesn't feel. You almost can't be, like, properly referencing was an art of its own back then. But now it's everything, like Pinterest. You know, everything's available to everybody.

So it just doesn't feel like the sort of curation itself doesn't feel as, you know, special or as unique, I guess. And so, but I do think this was still in that time where it felt, you know. All right. What about Shanti Ashhtungi? So just to me personally, because I did go to that yoga studio. Right. And like they did that Pooja, which is like the prayer, if you went to the early class. So you have this memorized.

Yes. Yes. And so, I mean, it was said in such a completely different way than the way that she does it, but it was part of the experience, right? Like if you went there early, then they would be in there doing this incense and candles and saying that prayer and was like part of the whole thing in that need practice, to your yoga practice. Yeah.

So that she brought that in there was like cool. And if you know, you know, reference. Right. Like, you know. And I actually love the way. they produced this and put it together. I think it's very cool. And again, like a cool interlude in the album sequence.

Like, it lands in a perfect place. For the pacing of the album, it's quite nice. Yeah. There was a very funny thing where I guess, like, she had, obviously, she's not a native speaker, had some errors in her pronunciation of Sanskrit. And the BBC arranged for her to take telephonic lessons to learn the basic pronunciation. from an eminent scholar named Vagy Shostri. So I thought that was, and then she made some corrections.

Right. We already talked about Frozen. That's the next song. The Power of Goodbye, the God-tier ballad. Beautiful. What else is there to say? Just like a gorgeous, perfect ballad. Yeah.

So I must go. Again, voice lessons. Right. Like the tone of her voice, something you, again, had really heard before. She was a great ballad singer always. I mean, I always thought it was strong, but here she's, like, doing acrobatics. Yeah, it's really quite something, right, quite beautiful.

The way that it builds is so wonderful. And then when it hits the interlude and you're just like... Right. So gorgeous. I want to go higher. And the way that, like, the production or like the pace of the song like changes a little bit. Yeah. It pushes forward and pulls back and pushes forward and pulls back.

I mean, it's just so great. Good job, Rick Knowles and William Orbit and Patrick Foyne. Right, this is a Rick Knoll song. Yes. There's just what else to say about it, except that it's fucking phenomenal. Fucking phenomenal. Amazing video. Directed by Matthew Ralston.

Madonna and her lover played chess. She wins. When he re-approaches her, she ends the relationship and walks away alone. That's the power of goodbye. That's the power of goodbye. Make up by Kevin Alcoyne. Yeah, amazing. I think first time working together.

No. Oh, no, you're right. Rolling Stone cover. You're right. they met there. Yeah. So two huge relationships. Like moments.

Yeah. I know it's kind of simple, but I love the, like, the title of this song. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. Like the sentiment of the song is just so great, too. Back to, like, Buddhism. Yeah.

Not clinging a whole day on to things. And like moving on and that that's something powerful. I mean, you could look at this in two ways, right? Like this entire album, it's, it's like, it's so self-helpy. this one way. But I think she does like a really great job of making all those sentiments not feel like hackneyed or trite. And it feels like, again, really true and sort of embodied. Also, honestly, if you're put off by that, it sounds like you're one of the people that might need some help for yourself. Maybe you should read some books, right? Totally.

It bothers you so much. It has a little bit of woo or new age edge to it, right? But I think, like, again... I'm not going to kick that out of bed myself. No, completely. Welcome to my world. That's why for me the days came out, I was like, yes, thank you. Not one second of hesitation. Slap that right into the CD, The Disc Man. Little Star is really sweet, too. That was a single.

It was the fifth single. I love Little Star. It's like just so sweet. It's like, yeah, really. Her song for it's kind of the dear Jesse of this album. Yeah, for Lourdes. Merrill is such an interesting song. Very interesting.

Great closer. Great closer. And again, maybe signaling a little bit the sort of future of her sound. Because it's like much more experimental, kind of just, you know, like compositionally free floating. Totally. And, you know, just kind of like the music and the vocal kind of, they're synced, but they just feel a little bit like dissonant. Yeah. You know, in that way, that's kind of haunting and interesting, challenging, maybe even a little bit, which is...

It is a challenging song, I think. It's not like, while every other song in this album is obviously a departure from what she's done before and is bringing in new elements, they're all really easy to get into. You know? Like, you just bop right into it. This one is a little harder. She wrote this, she said she was at her father's house and she went running and it started to rain. so I went to a cemetery near where my mother and I grew up. It's not the cemetery where she is buried, but I used to go there a lot.

The rain kept coming down. That was the blackest sky you've ever skiing. I went against the instinct to run away and I just stayed there as the rain got to the leaves and everything became heavy and muddy. When I got home, I was feeling this incredible sense of melancholy. Everybody had left the house and I was happy to have the silence. That's when I wrote Mergerald. It was only six lines at the time.

Later I heard the music William Orbit had written to go with it. I was back in L.A. and I just laid on my bed, playing the music on a boombox over and writing and singing and redoing the song until I got it right. Cool. Great story. It makes sense because so much of this song is about running. Yeah. Running away.

I ran and I ran and I was looking for me. I ran to the forest. I ran through the, you know, the smelling, the burning flesh and the rotting, but it's very evocative. Very voxative. Yeah. She puts it in the drown,

she performs it and drown world tour. That's cool. Which I think is an interesting choice. Yeah. But she must really love it. Yeah. I think it has felt like very much about her. Yes. You know, like, it felt very autobiographical. I mean, even if it, I mean, it pretty much is, right? She's saying I ran and I ran and so it's like kind of like her mother and this like whole sort of like this deep sort of melancholy around, you know, that experience and about having her own daughter. Yeah. And that's starting to. Yeah. Like, you know, this kind of the cycle of rebirth that involves a death. And yeah, I don't know, something kind of powerful and sort of catholic about it, I guess.

I also love it because we've just been talking so much about the like embodiment of Ray of Light and the positivity and the Buddhism and the, I mean, I don't think it was actual Buddhism, but you know, whatever, the spiritual tenets of letting go and karma and whatever. And Marigirl is kind of rooted back in like being really human and being really sad and still having and dealing with the darker side of life, you know? And I like that that's there because it would, I think it would almost ring. false if the entire album didn't have a bit of that darkness. Right. It's a ray of light, but at the end it sort of brings it down to earth in a way. Not that it wasn't. Well, it's like if you had self-actualized that far, you'd be Buddha and you wouldn't make an album or touring. You know, like, you'd just be minding your own business at the yoga studio.

You've already ascended to the above the looks maxers. Exactly. Above clibular. Okay. Did we talk about the critical? Reception of Ray of Light. I mean, my recollection of it was that it was

universally, like, well received. Yes. Very, like, excitedly received. I think people were very excited by it. I think it's one of her most critically acclaimed albums. I would think so. Like, I feel like everything about the album cycle,

promotion, the, everything I don't remember about it, it was like her look. her, like her, just the way she was like presenting herself. Like we talked about earlier too, like her appearance on the Oprah show. And like all of this stuff just felt like, like people felt very connected. Yeah. To this album and to her at that time.

It felt like she looked beautiful and natural and like was approachable. And she was a mom and had all this like, you know, so I think it was, I think it was just like a really positive like shift. And the music got a ton of praise from. more, I hesitate to say snobby, but like more indie publications that were like, wow, like, someone wrote, I think it was Q Magazine. They were like, until Simply Red enlist John Zorn or Mariah Carey, I worked with Tortoise, she is the only pop aristocrat who's keeping her ears open. Right. They were very much like, oh, like, this evokes St. Etienne and Björ. They were really giving her the flowers of like for her taste as well as her, like, risk taking.

and yeah, it's kind of really universally critically. Which I think is very interesting just as a commentary on music journalism. It can't be legitimate if it's not. Well, if it's gay, right? I mean, I feel like if you think about erotica, like she was definitely doing the same thing. She was like listening. You're so right. And she was going to the place where the innovation was happening, but it was gay.

So people were, it didn't get the same kind of respect that this. kind of thing did. Whatever. I just think it's like an interesting. I think you make a great point. I mean, again, what gets respect is one very specific type of thing.

And so it's like, I mean, I don't think she tried to do that to get the respect. No, no, no, no, not at all. It's like the one time in her career that her interests intersected with what people think is art. It was acceptable to be cool, right?

Thank God, because it is. Yeah. She needed it. She deserved it. We needed it. We all needed it. And we got it. We're riding high, babe.

We really are. And we come into 1998, the rest of 1998. Dating a new man. Okay, so she's dating this guy, Andy Bird, who William Orbit has set her up with. It's not going well, I guess. He's like an under-employed screenwriter. I think I said this to the group chat because there's like a page six. You know, page six love to be mean.

that's like Madonna dumped by an unemployed guy and I was like you know what my relatable queen who amongst us has not been dumped by an unemployed guy it's probably one of the only two things we have in common but she's in she's in London to film the video for drowned World Substitute for Love and she is still seeing Andy Bird and Sting and Trudy Stiler

normal friends are like come on over for luncheon And so they go over and they seat Madonna next to a young film director named Guy Ritchie. Fateful Day. Yep. Who had just finished making his first film, walk stock into smoking barrels, which Trudy Stiler had helped finance. She was a film producer. It hasn't come out yet, though.

It's March 1989. In an interview with The Face in 2000 with my beloved and brilliant Miranda Sawyer, Hi Miranda, former guest of the show, one of the best people ever. She said, when you met Guy, was it like impressive instant? That's a song reference, right? She said, yeah, I had a whole premonition about my life, fast forward. That's the only, that's only happened to me once before. And Miranda goes, with Sean Penn, Madonna doesn't answer.

When Miranda says, is it frightening? And Madonna said, no, it's invigorating. Miranda said, did you tell a guy how you felt? Madonna said, no, not then, no way. I went into a state of denial because he lived here and I lived in America. And I wasn't interested in torturing myself by having some long-distance love affair. But it happened anyway. It was just one of those inexplicable, uncontrollable things.

But it's hard work having a long-distance relationship, and he's really stubborn and so am I. I liked this part because Miranda said, when you say you had a premonition about what was going to happen, what do you mean? It's really interesting because she said that about Champ Penn, too. Like, she said that she knew, like, they were going to be together, and then also that she knew when he was going to propose before he even said. I think she just said, just asked me and I'll say yes. Like, she's a little psychic. But honestly, it's weird. I couldn't even tell you specifically what my thoughts were.

It was just, you know when people say he turned my head? My head didn't just turn. My head spun around on my body. Do you know what I mean? That was sweet. I love when she says, and you meet a lot of interesting. You meet a lot of sexy and glamorous people. And then she's like, and you go, interesting, interesting, interesting.

I like the way she said. Yeah, interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. They're interesting, but not many people stop you in your tracks. And she was attracting to his confidence, she said, and his cockiness. Guy Ritchie is a funny proposition because he sort of had this like tough,

oi, mister, I'm from the streets thing, you know? And he told reporters in like 1999 around the movie, I've lived in the East End for 30 years. I've been in a load of mess-ups. I've been poor all my life. When actually, actually, his father, Captain John Vivian Ritchie was an advertising executive and his mother, Amber Parkinson's was a former model. And when they divorced when he was five,

they both married aristocrats. And he was raised from the streets. Yeah, from the streets of Shrewsbury, which is where his mother's husband, Sir Michael Leighton, had an estate. And he went to boarding school. That's all. I don't want to like. No shade. I'm simply reporting the facts.

Okay. Madonna is nominated for six Grammy Awards, February of 1989. In 16 years, she has not won a Grammy. Is that crazy? Insane, actually. For everything that she's done up into this point. And accomplished, yeah, and created. Not one Grammy.

She was nominated a few times. Not as many times as you think she should have been. Yeah, right. The Grammys are hosted by Rosie O'Donnell. Christopher is there helping her with the performance, which she does. She performs nothing really matters, joined on stage by William Orbit and Donna and Nikki. This is where she does the geisha look. Yeah.

Which, again, I think it's the debut because. the single with the video doesn't come out until after the Grammys. Here's the quote about the Gatias. She said it was on CNN. The whole idea of Gaysha is a great metaphor for being an entertainer because on one hand, you're privileged, and on the other hand, you're a prisoner. Sure.

Sure. I feel that way too, Mibb. I'm privileged, and here I am a prisoner of the five hours in the studio and the Google Doc. So Guy Ritchie was there, too. As a little dating. Ray of Light wins four Grammys, best pop vocal album, best dance electronica, recording, best short form music video.

Those were both for the song, Ray of Light, and Best Recording Package. She lost album of the Year to the Miseducation of Lauren Hill. That's a tough one. Hard to like pick a favorite in those. You know, hard to be like, oh, she was wronged, you know. And record of the year to, there it go. Again, my heart will go on by Celine Dion. And then she commenced to her next film project.

watch that tonight. The next best thing with her good friend, Rupert Everett, who was around town a lot at that time. He was... You mean up in the clubs? More just like on the streets. Like I just, there were, he was like, he lived in the West Village. I just remember seeing him. He was in house. He lived in the street. No, he just, he was just like, he lived in the West Village for this period around this time. And there was this little tea shop, which I think is still there, called Tea and Sympathy. on Grant Chab. Oh, sure, yeah, of course.

And he used to go there a lot. I see him there. So cool. Yeah. I love him. He was so handsome at this period. So handsome. He was like devastatingly handsome.

I mean, my best friend's wedding. Incredible. So I didn't realize this until I was doing this research that he had known Madonna since because he had been friends with Sean Penn. Oh, right. And him and Sean Penn met while driving their cars in the street and like they rolled their windows down, like, exchange, like, in their very early acting. very early acting career. Really interesting.

Sean Penn was quite a connector in the Madonna world. Like he knew a lot of people that share connection. Yeah, yeah. Kind of interesting. Malibu world. Malibu world, totally. And he, Rupert Ever, I think it's worth mentioning, obviously, especially we're talking about the film, that he had been one of the very few actors to come out as gay back in

1989. So they start shooting this project in April of 1989. and we'll talk about it later when it comes out. But I will say that making of this film is allegedly the reason there was no tour the year of 1989 that would have been the year you would think there would be a way of light tour. There was like talk of it. I think she had she wanted to go on tour for it. But yeah, I guess I think that movie was hard to make and there was a lot of issues. And maybe like it precluded like it didn't wrap up.

up as quickly, I don't know, you know. Whatever it was, there was no way of life tour in 1989. Instead, we got on my birthday, my 17th birthday, May 19, 1989, the beautiful stranger single. Incredible, perfect pop song. Fucking perfect pop song. Again, bringing all those things that we talked about, you know, like all those, that 60s sound, that kind of like a little bit electronic, just the very, the very, you know, the very, right beat, it felt like a dance song, really perfect. Just like everything about it.

This is a Godtier song. It should have won five Oscars. It should have won ten Grammys. I'm sorry, it's a perfect song. The origin of it is, it's a song off of the soundtrack of the film Austin Powers, colon the spy who shabby, the sequel to the greatly popular Austin Powers film. These are really formative in my youth, Austin Powers films. Anytime I have to go into a driveway and then reverse and try to get out of a small space,

I think of him in the moving car thing in the hallway. I really feel like that. The soundtrack was executive produced by Gaiosiri, which is, I think, how the Madonna connection comes to be. You had mentioned earlier that you had heard that it was very competitive. Yeah, I think that a lot of people apparently wanted to get on that soundtrack. And, like, he was the one who said that in something I read. I think it made sense. I mean, we're still in, like, peak soundtrack period where, like, people are buying

CDs left and right. And people really bought soundtrack cities, myself included. So you would probably make a lot of money if you were on a soundtrack CD. Especially of a really popular movie, like Awesome Powers. This soundtrack is crazy. It has songs by R.E.M., Green Day and Lenny Kravitz. The American Woman is from the soundtrack. Yeah, wow.

And Mel B. Word Up, if you guys are Spice Girls. heads of them. Yeah. So this song borrows maybe, maybe a little bit, sounds like it might have. She's inspired by it. Inspired by. She comes in colors by the band Love. The da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da that I just da-da-da-da-da-da-da

for you guys is maybe based on an instrumental flourish. That's quote, an integral part of the love record. It may be an conscious or unconscious homage. Gary Stewart wrote that in USA Today. Madonna said, She had never heard that song.

She said, I don't know her. And that's fine. Maybe William Orbit had heard it. He was not questioned. Given where William Orbit's influences came from, it seems. He would know love. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyways, who cares? I love this song. Yeah. Like we said, it's perfect. That's perfect. The video. The video is amazing. She looks insanely hot in this video.

It's so crazy how great she looks. She's cut her hair to that short level, those pants. I mean, just like... You don't understand how big capri pants were in 1999. And her sick-ass capri pants, she looked amazing. The tan skin. Oh, she's wearing a Collette Dinigan, spring summer 1999, black sequins chiffon camisole. Her arms are popping.

Her arms are popping. She's done a lot of Chaturangas. She's looking... And it's paid off. So good. The video is directed by Brett Ratner, which is... is kind of insane. It's kind of insane, actually.

Obviously, Mike Myers is in it, in Method doing Austin Powers. Flawless makeup by Kevin. It's really wonderful. The song was not commercially released in the United States as a single, but it still hit number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 because it was played on the radio so much. And it hit number one in the U.S. dance charts,

and she did win a Grammy for it. It was the dance remix was Victor Calderone. I'm pretty sure, yeah. I wanted to ask you, because, I was listening to maybe one of the podcasts, and they said that they felt that the Victor Calderon remixes was sound dated now. Do you feel like that's true?

I wasn't to it. I didn't think so, but I'm not a club. Yeah. I don't, you know, I feel like it's a certain, it's just a very certain kind of like, he played a certain kind of like tribal house, like energy that doesn't feel very fashionable right now, I think is kind of part of it.

And, you know, like some of those other remixes, they're just like a little more, a little richer in terms. of like his is kind of minimalist and so there's not much to give it more I guess I think maybe just a quick note side note because of the other remixes for this whole album cycle are again she's like pushing out into the world of like techno much more than she ever has the ray of light right of light and this you know just like all of the with Sasha and John Digweed and like you know just kind of really going leaning into that kind of the world of

I didn't talk about the Ray of Light remit. There's a stereo emcees remix that I quite like. A Frozen. A Frozen that I was really into. Maybe because she had heard that stereo MC's. That's probably a short of my why. It makes me want to die. That was the tricky song.

It was amazing song. Really good. Stereo MCs famously had the massive radio hit connected. Yeah. So good. So good. I mean, Stere's emcees themselves is the whole thing.

But yeah. Probably like we don't have time for that right now. Keep it together. Keep it together. But, yeah, I just think the remixes were just a big part of the tapestry of how this album, like, you know, was supported and just, like, fit into the sort of ecosystem of music that was happening at that time. I think you're so right. Early Coachella, like, all of that, like. Coachella, was this the first year of Coachella?

I'm pretty sure it was either 99 or 2000. I went the second year. I went the second year, too. Oh, you did? Which was actually 2001. They skipped 2000. So I went that year, too. Yeah.

And it was all these guys. It was like Sasha and John Digweed and San Jermaine. And like it was all these kind of like experimental at that's what they were kind of thought of like house and techno and like. So this was like a big thing going on. And she was really in the Paul Oak and Fold. The orb. The orb. Yeah.

Oh God, the orb were so good. It was pretty much experimental music. Yeah. Or just dance music and techno music. Oh my god, Ozo Motley. The headliner was Jane's Addiction. So it's like such an interesting mix. My God, what a time.

A.C. alone, this is just for heads that know who A.C. Alone is. is just for heads that know who A.C.L.O.N. once slept over at my house in college. See? Okay. So we're firing on all cylinders. We really are. We really are. It's fucking amazing. Beautiful Strangers. Fucking amazing.

William Orbit and Madonna start working on the next album. They get to nine songs, and Madonna's like, you know what? This sounds too much like Ray of Light. I'm sorry, goodbye. There was no bad feelings, but she did say that. She decides to start over with another artist. And who is that? Mirway Amundzai.

Mirway Amundzai, who had been looking for a U.S. record label and asked a friend to pass his 2000 hit single Disco Science to Gaiosirio series. And Guy O'Ciri, in turn, was like, Madonna listened to this. And Madonna said, and I just said, oh, my God, this is what I want. This is the sound. What do you feel like she heard on disco science that she was like, this is what I want? My guess is like, I remember when that came out.

She's on, so not the first album, but the second album, she's on it. And it came out before music. On his album. Yeah. So that song, Paradise Not For Me, was on that album production. and it sounded like so, like you didn't, I don't think anything else sounded like that. Yeah. And maybe I'm ignorant and there was other things that I just didn't know about.

But I think she really was drawn to that. Like, I think she was ready for, wow, let's push this. This is going really well. It is kind of a wild sounding song. Yeah. In a very cool way. Disco science. Yeah, just go.

Yeah. With those like, yeah. Yeah. And you could, obviously she was gravitating in that direction, even on reality. of life. And she clearly just wanted to go harder in the pain.

I think, yeah. She's just like, she's like, this is working. We push the envelope. Let's go even further with us. This is like something I've never heard. It didn't,

it wasn't Goldie. It wasn't Apex Twin. It was like some other kind of like thing that he was doing. Really European also. It's real French. Yeah. Right. And he had that he had that kind of like very plucky and stuttery way of

production that was like pretty unique at that time. So I think, yeah. I love. that. We have to release a film in March of 2000. Yeah. The next best thing, directed by 73-year-old John Schlesinger, who was a legend. He had a midnight cowboy.

But apparently there was, it was not a good time. No, it doesn't seem like it went very well. The producer refused to include a gay sex scene, even though this is a story of a straight woman and a gay man and their lives. As best friends. As best friends who decided to have a child together, right? And Madonna refused to do a heterosexual sex scene. Which is just weird.

With Benjamin and Brett, like, why? Maybe because she'd had had a child and she felt different. But I don't know. Apparently, the lore goes that she even had to have, like, drinks to even kiss him on the thing. So maybe she was just, like, in the throes of love and couldn't be into anyone else. Totally. And it doesn't sound like the whole experience on this movie was good for anybody. No.

Didn't, like, Rupert Everett say, like, within a few days, it was clear we were, like, in a shit show or something. Ship without a caption. Yeah. I thought it was very funny that apparently, because she had to have those drinks. to do the kiss scenes or whatever. She's like not a heavy drinker. She would just get kind of like hammered and then start like making shit up.

And the director would be like, fucking stalk. Like they would like beef because she would be like, new lines. Also at some point, Rupert ever accidentally knocks John Schleshinger over and he's 73.

So he like chips his coxics. Is that what you call it? So he's not loving them. The one thing that came out of this and maybe you'll say, Yay! Or maybe you'll say the cursed movie and

cursed output, but is Rupert Everett convinced Madonna to do a cover of Don McLean's American Pie produced by William Orbit with Rupert on backing vocals.

I thought it was fun. I like it. Yeah, I thought it was fun. I like the original? I like this version. I like it. Maybe she thought it was okay as a standalone,

but she made some comment about how she didn't like it being included in the... Because I guess it was included in the sequencing of music on some releases. So she didn't like that. It doesn't fit in, it shouldn't be on music.

That I understand. But yeah, I mean, it's cute. It's cute. And again, it's like that with William Orbit, that it gets a little bit more of that sort of 60s throwback thing that she was doing. And people liked it, I think. Yeah, it's inoffensive.

She made a video, debuted on MTV a month before the movie came out. It actually hit the top of the dance chart in the United States. I guess a remix of it. This March is also the month she confirms that she's pregnant with Rocco. All right. So here we go. Ritchie, who was born August 11, 2000, which means she's pregnant with Rocco during the making of music. New chapter.

New chapter. Let's talk about music. September 18th, 2000. Produced by Madonna, Mirway, William Morbitt, Guy Sigsworth, and two other people, Mark Spike Stent, and Talvin Singh. They all have production credits, but it's largely important. Muraway album. I think so. I mean, I think that's what you hear the most. You can really hear where William Orbit's contributions are on this record, but I think, you know, yeah, it really sounds like Mirway's record at the end of the day, except for what it feels like for a girl,

which is a guy's song. And Mark, by extent, was the mixer, so I think he just, like, maybe got elevated to a production group, I'm not sure. And we'll talk about Talvin saying he has something to do with, like, one specific song. Actually, seven of the songs are Merway in Orbit or did three? Is that, do you... I think that's about right. Yeah. It's like, yeah. He was super into vocal effects. Yeah. Which obviously we're going to get into on this album. He actually says that his 2000 song, naive song,

was the first electro track with auto tune effects on the vocals. I have no way of proving that. Yeah, me either. I believe you. Yeah. Believe all my way. But he also wanted to have a song with Madonna's naked unendorned vocal, which I don't know if there's only one on here, but there's definitely one. I think there's one. I think it's just that one, yeah. I want to read again, Sean DeSouza, my guy, my bud.

This was an album designed to unite the disparate tastes of America and Europe to act as a bridge between teen pop and sophisticop, the mainstream and the underground. Quick sidebar, you guys, to place us in time and space. Because I haven't been really doing that because, for the most part, in time and space, I don't think it's mattered what's been going on. Do you know what I mean? like Madonna has been occupying her own lane for song. But I think here it's where we're starting, it's important to talk about what's happening in pop music. Yeah. Because some of the, I mean, we dealt with other Madonna children, the children of Madonna.

But they never really are just kind of untouchable in an illegal of her own. In a league of, there's no crying in baseball. But by 2000, there is this whole teen pop girl, teen queens of pop that is a huge thing. Right. Brittany Spears, obviously, first and foremost, who's come out of the all-new Mickey Mouse Club, like a bad out of fucking hell, getting signed to Jive in 1997. And, like, you know, she fucking hit prominence with baby one more time. She's a global chart topper. That's one of the best-selling singles in history.

And she also became the best-selling teenage artist of all times. with Baby One More Time and Oops I did it again, which were 99 in 2000. So she's like, this is Britney Spears. Right. Really like probably supremacy at this time. Yeah. And then Christina Aguilera, obviously also, who was another graduate of the All New Mickey Mouse Club. She had put out her self-title album in 99 with Jeannie in a Bottle and What a Girl Wants.

I think those are the two of the main ones. But there's a lot, you know, there's Jessica Simpson. She had put out her first album in 1999. Mandy Moore, never forget Candy. No. 1999. Destiny's Child, I think, kind of falls into this category. Yeah.

They were quite young and they had these huge hits. And then you can loop in. They're not, you know, women, but Mbop by Hanson, teen. I mean, but all of them, right? In sync. In sync. Backstreet Boys totally. So it was like just that it was very much like this heavy concentration of super young talent. Yes.

New on the scene. TRL. Yeah. So I don't know if Madonna was or was not into this. All I know is that she has a couple quotes. One is, the world is in the doldrums musically. It's also generic and homogenized. If this record happens, she's talking about music,

it might mean that people are ready for something different. She also did an interview with Rolling Stone in 2000, where the interviewer asked her, when is the reign of teen pop going to end? It always goes in cycles, but Madonna said, but can a reaction hurry up, please? Will someone just start puking? Can we have some version of the punk music movement again?

The interview goes, in the meantime, the current crop is still hanging on. Madonna says, what, kitty bands? I hope not much longer. We always talk about it at our house because there are so many great people in the music business who are languishing right now, especially a lot of the great English bands. You talk to the guys from Massive Attack or Tricky or Goldie or any of those people. It's like there's no outlet for any of their music. Record companies don't know what to do with them.

I mean, the only people buying records are teenagers. God, it's depressing. I mean, I hope people like my music. And then the more important part is the interviewer says, it's an interesting visual. Your album nestled the middle, the direct in the top ten. And Madonna said, I know.

Well, who knows? I mean, I've been told that I have inspired Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. Rolls her eyes. But you pointed out, and I saw Mel posted this recently, like while she was promoting music, she often wore T-shirts that said Britney Spears and Reinstons. There's one in interview magazine. Yeah.

And she used to, like, stand up for Brittany in the media and, like, about her treatment. She kind of always has, I think. She always felt that towards Brittany. And, you know, she always says, she, like, she loves a wise crack. So just, you know, saying all the things that she said in that. Yeah, she's just like kind of. Yeah, she's just like, she likes to be a wise ass about stuff. But I do think, like, to your point that, you know, she was, like, as a pop star, like, the arc of her career.

It's like, it's an interesting time for her because it's like she's put herself now in this, she's kind of made this magnum opus, right? And it feels very forward and very innovative. How is she going to follow that up? In the meantime, all these kids have like flooded into the scene, TRL, this kind of like whole different approach to music. It's very different than the way you would listen to something like Ray of Light, right? It's a very different kind of engagement with music, internet-y, you know, singles-oriented. just like this kind of like just very a lot different and like you know so and I think she's pushing into

this experimental space with Mirway trying to like you know push the boundaries a little more of what pop music can do which kind of puts her in a league more with like kid A you know and like totally which is also 2000 right so just like things that were also happening at that time that are you know when she's talking, I think, about those bands, but I think, you know, also them as well, obviously. Yeah. So it's just an interesting place for her to be because she's still definitely playing the game of the charts and, like, being a pop star. But at the same time, she wants to kind of, like, get the credibility and the artistic, you know, freedom or, like, you know, expression of, like, radio head, what they were able to do. Totally.

So I think she's in this, like, interesting sort of liminal. zone at this time. I mean, and also thank God because music is so cool. Yeah. It's so cool. But I, okay, so I wanted to ask before we dive into it. I'm curious. I don't think Madonna's

career arc lends itself to applying the framework of the imperial phase that we talk about a lot in this podcast. But if it did, is Ray of Light, the end

of it? Is music the end of it? I mean, I feel like music probably is right at that, like, about that threshold just because music itself, the song is just such an anthem, right? And I think it, like, whether or not, like, at it's that specific moment, it was released, it was like, it pushed through all the way it endures as, like, something that, like, lives on sort of eternally, I think. But yeah, I kind of, I mean, I hate to, like, go there too much, but because I just feel like you. I'm just kind of.

Yeah, but I know what you're saying, and I kind of, I think I agree. I just don't think she has one, actually, because she has so many peaks that come back around. Like, whereas, like, you could, you could, even though I think erotica is, and so do you. And I think now she's been reappraised for that album every which way to Sunday. Like at the time, it was not considered a success creatively or commercially. I mean, it's hard to say that, too, now. As soon as I said that, I was like, well, confessions comes after that. So she has another re-apex, if you will.

She has, that's kind of more her seems like the way you would describe her career is, like, the series of, like, apexes and, like, light valleys and apexes and then valleys, you know? Some plateaus, maybe some, and then just, yeah, right. Or just like a series. let's call it a series of apex is some higher than others. Some higher than others, exactly. All right, well, music. I mean, are we going to talk about the artwork?

Yes, yes. For a second, okay. Yeah, the cover. Let's talk about the cover of the album. Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting too, just like as a contrast to Ray of Light. Right. Just the packaging of it being this kind of like kits, Americana, like, point of view.

It's pretty, it's Mondino, but it kind of has this like almost. fake paint-likeness about it. It's like the retouching everything about it feels like almost painted in some ways. Totally. It feels like those sort of 50s posters of like, you know, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like cheesecake girls or whatever. And so it's like it's playing on that in a way that, you know, it has this like real kitsch factor that is not at all present in Ray of Light. So it's very much a departure. Yeah. The Earth Mother is right. She's at the rodeo now. And I love you have this in the notes. But, you know, you have this in the notes. But, you. You know, Arian Phillips did the styling and you could talk more about that. And she was just inspired by that book, Rodeo Girl by Lisa Eisner, who, I mean, anything she ever recommends in any article I do it if I can afford it. But I think she's, you know, so cool and it's so cool that she picked up on that. And, you know, Lisa was obviously a muse for Tom Ford also.

So, like, kind of like that world, again, kind of like of like a fashion. and she's like, you know, she's such a player in that world, Madonna. And so it's like this just cool sort of crystallization of like things that were going on there. I love it. I think it's, I loved this album cover and the sort of like all the graphic design on it. I just think it's really cool. I did too. I also think it's like kind of interesting like thinking about like a couple things, right?

One is the like, stick with me. This is a time where denim had a. like apex as well yeah you know like for for such a long time it was very much like just Levi's or whatever like but by the tail end of the 90s early 2000

this is like the peak of designer denim when you're like diesel jeans and what is it seven for all mankind citizens of humanity Frankie Bs were like your fucking pubs are coming out yeah and that to me is but they were like

really dark denim and like it was almost like I think of music, the album, that way of being American, reimagined. Yeah, totally. Kind of how the denim was reimagined to be like really fashion forward and modern. Like, so is the music here. And then I wonder, like, how much, like,

even though, like, we said, you know, American Pie isn't, like, didn't, you know, crash through any windows of amazingness. But I wonder if doing that got her in that sort of Americana headspace. That's a really Americana something, you know? Bye, bye, Miss. American pie, I don't think the Chevy to the levee

I don't think the contents of the themes or the album itself is like explicitly American or explicitly American driven. No. Does this album have a theme? I don't know.

I kind of, I was trying to glean one and all I could land on was like, no thoughts, just vibes. Like it's a really vibe forward album. Yeah. But of course, she's never not saying something. No, she always has a message. I think that, you know,

you can always count on her to deliver a message in that. have, like, her songs have meaning, and I think that's always there. But, yeah, I don't feel like this had this sort of cohesive meaning that Ray of Light had. And I would kind of assume that that was the intention that it was, like, more of a collection of songs and vibes, like you say. Like, I think, you know, it's like anthems and experiments and just, like, cool. Like, I think as Shaw said, like, this was an album kind of bringing together Americana and European sense. Right.

You know. Yeah, music itself, I mean, it's such a great song. And it's like, I love that. It's like just one note, the entire song. It's just like one note. It's just like, do, do, the entire time. But somehow you don't notice that, but it's like that. It's so mechanical.

And it's almost like a metronome of like a song. But like she just brings this like incredible, anthemic like vibe into it. with that, you know, and I think that beat is on Mirway's record. It's like, I can't remember what the song is, but it's like, it's like exists. Like, he literally took that beat and put it into this song. Is this one that we talked about that maybe was also used on several other songs later? It could have been. Yeah.

I feel like it's, it definitely is music. But yeah. I just feel like starting your album with, and your lead single with the first lines are, Hey, Mr. DJ put a record on. I want to dance with my baby. It's a very like, okay, we're so back. Hey, Mr. DJ, put a record on. I want to dance with my baby.

She said she got the idea for this song at a Sting concert. She said, I want to see him in New York at the Beacon Theatre. He has a pretty mixed audience, and people were pretty well-behaved and enthusiastically polite for stuff he was doing off his new album. But then, when he did the old police songs, and it was just him and a guitar and the lights came down, somehow the energy in the room changed.

It ignited the room, and it brought everybody closer to the stage. everybody closer to the stage. And suddenly people lost their inhibition and their politeness. And everyone was singing the songs and practically holding hands. I mean, it really moved me. And I thought that's what music does to people. It really does bring people together. And it races so much.

Out of all of her themes, I mean, I feel like this is one of the most recurring themes. This is everybody. This is like, you know, it's just like get up, get into the groove. It's like all, it's always this idea of return to music, be free, lose your inhibition. Yes. Like, let all the shit go. Live out your fantasy here with me. And just like that's, you know, that that's the ultimate freedom of, you know, the ultimate

liberation, which is such a cool idea. Totally. I also love, I just love the music, mix the bourgeoisie. I love that. I mean, talk about erasing boundaries. Yeah, yeah. It's so cool that she put that in there and, like, it's kind of dorky, but also kind of like.

Not a lot of songs with the word bourgeoisie. No. Yeah. A lot of pop songs anyways. It's just enough of a jarring idea that it catches you. Totally. It's smart. I love it.

Yeah. This is a bop. This is a banger. Certified classic. The video is directed once again by Jonas Ackerland style by Rion Phillips. Sasha Baron Cohen, early OLLIG days, playing OLLIG as their limo driver. Kind of an innovation for her to have him in there. I think that was pretty forward.

He's kind of the star of the video. I mean, she is, but besides her. it's hitting, you know, and Debbie Mazar and Nikki Harris and Donna Gloria are her girls. Her ride or die girls. Apparently, at first they had cast like supermodels and she was like, I'm not feeling this. Yeah. Bring in my actual friends. Which this made it so much better because it's just that, you know, it's like, again, that like, it's returned to the anthem, return to your girls, like your homies in the car.

And it's just, she looks so hot even though she's like super pregg in it. This is her first number one hit singles since Takeabal. As it should have been. Yeah. Yeah. This song is, I can't disconnect it from the year 2000. That's really like my senior year of high school, going into college, like dancing at parties and clubs. It's perfect. Perfect song, no notes. I have Gucci Bucket hat on. I'm ready to fucking go. I love impressive instant.

I mean, similar to how, like, Ray of Light felt like you were just like, wow, this was like that too. I think that's the vocoder effects and just like that sort of like super forward like production, but with that disco baseline under it and like just really like super innovative, super fresh sounding, never heard anything like that. Even though this is after shares believe I'm pretty sure. So you vocoder was kind of on the scene. This just took it to another place. Like where it was 1998.

Oh, right. So it was before. So this just takes it to another place of the use of it. Like just really takes her to robot voice in this cool way. And it's like, I like a bird on the wingy, me, me, winging. It's so cool. Yeah, yeah, that weird little interlude or whatever. It's just, it's fucking awesome.

It's such a great song. Mirway said that when he sent her the demo, Madonna said she had an idea for lyrics, asked her to sing it for me. And she improved my track. I was amazed. Normally it takes about six months to a year of people I'm working with to understand my ideas

with Madonna the first time. If she heard it, she loved it. She had a chemical reaction to it. I didn't ever hear said this, that this song perfectly captures the druggie euphoria and a good club, the sense of abandon. I kind of understand what they might have been thinking because of the way that it kind of like has all these phases. It's like all these phase shifts. It's like stuttery. Yeah, yeah. Then you go into this, I don't know, wingy, wingy, wingy. And there's like all these like little, like, and she like stutters into the like vocoder

moments. So it does feel like that kind of distortion of your experience that you, might have on like K or something in the club or you're like, wait, am I just hearing the symbol or like, you know, that kind of weird, like, surrealist like palette, which is kind of cool. I didn't ever think of it that way, but I understand what they're saying. I'm really into the stuttering. Yeah. Effect is not the right word, but the sort of the motif throughout the thing where he applies it in different ways to like, whether it's her voice or to an instrument.

And it's, like, we'll get to don't tell me, but like, what a cool idea to stutter an acoustic guitar. Yeah, it's such a fucking cool idea. Like modernizes it like this, you know? Yeah. They asked Madonna that drug question. She was like, um, yeah, I guess, you know, I suppose there was a drug adult sensibility running through that song. And then they asked me like, you've done E, though, right? And she's like, yeah, but not for a couple of decades.

I did E in the early 80s whenever it was appeared in the club scene. And then she talks about she was like, I'm not a good person for drugs. I'm too into physical fitness. What about Runaway Lover? It's great. It has a good energy. I love the way it comes on. Like at the beginning, I love the way it's like these like sort of bursts of like and then it just like races into it.

It's like very driving. It's like it's a fun. It's good to keep like go keep the album going forward. Yeah, it really does. It's very propulsive. So in that sense. I deserve it as a song that we were referencing. Yeah.

It's untouched vocals. Yeah. Madonna said it was Merwey's idea to. to take off all the effects on my vocals so that my vocals would be dry and really present and really in your face. But at first, I was disturbed by it because I hadn't done that in a long time.

Then I started to see the purity of it, the juxtaposition of the rawness of my voice with the really over-processed synthesizer sounds. And I started seeing that it was a nice marriage. I feel like that kind of like encapsulates the idea of this record and this collaboration with him in general. Like I feel like that's sort of the essence of it, right?

Like this, you know, toggling back and force between acoustic sound whether that's like sort of analog or you know or actual acoustic instruments and then this very highly processed digitization of like an almost sort of like degraded digital like sort of experience

like the stuttering and the stuff makes it almost feel like it's like artifacts yes yeah yeah yeah there's a glitching like you said it earlier but it's like the idea kind of building upon the idea of ray of light of like we're pummeling towards this future but it's like oh my god like we're glitching on the way there you know like it's going so fast that like we're just like glitching out on the yeah it's just so interesting i really love that song i think it's really beautiful um and her her vocal is like so like there's such a immediacy to it

because of the unprocessedness but then up against that and it has that contrast right because the the choruses are pretty processed vocal right so you have the verse that's very, like, plaintive and direct, and then it's, like, really super hyper-processed. I think it's smart because I think it would have been maybe too much. Yeah. Yeah. What about amazing? It's cute, and it's, like, it's got that, you know, that orbit bop bounce to it.

And it feels a little bit like, um, beautiful stranger B-side to me, I guess. We have beautiful stranger at home. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah. Yeah, I don't have any nose for it, but I don't have any nose for it. I don't skip it. Don't tell me.

I can't believe that there's anyone on earth who doesn't like this song. That shocks me. That shocks and awes me. This song is... It's a crack. A song is crack. Yeah. This feels like a folk picking and like country, you know.

Totally. This is a twangy acoustic guitar. It was adapted from a song written by her brother-in-law, Joe Henry, who... is her sister Melanie's husband who is like kind of like a alt country

artist or I don't know how folky something. The song was called stop and he had like kind of

Tom Waitsy inspired vocals he said it's probably the last thing I have written with regard to her it's a line I just don't cross musically it's never

seemed appropriate I thought the song was a complete throwaway I had just moved and set up a studio in the guest house of my home and was looking to record

anything to make sure my things were working I needed something to record, so I wrote that song in about 25 minutes just to give myself something to do. I was a little embarrassed by it. It starts off a little spoon in June and takes a cryptic turn at the end. I feel like what a vision to hear this kind of throwaway. And obviously it's earwormy as hell and catchy, but I think on its own I could see why it would be a throwaway. It needs the mere wayification and madonification of it.

But to hear that and be like, no, I can do something like this. Totally. But that's the thing that we were talking about earlier where it's just like, she just has that knack, she's tapped into something where she's just like, if you or I were just like, let's hum a little da-da-da. Like, you know, you would be like, not that.

But she would just get right away. She's like, yes, that's the hook right there. Right? And like she gets it in that way. That's just like there's some kind of uncanny ability to. Yeah, that's her genius. Yeah, that's her genius. To me, you are perfect.

Don't tell me I love you so much. I love the lyric. conceit of it, which is like very direct a message. Like, I'm 42. Don't tell me to stop because you think I'm middle-aged or past my prime. Because those are things that people were starting to say about her, you know? Right. And she's like, don't you fucking tell me.

I mean, another one of her big themes is like, don't stop, keep going. Yes. Don't wait. Like, you know, just like there's no stopping. Yeah. And I think that's just like a, this is cool. synergy of like that idea of like you're saying of like how her age yeah but also just not stopping i think that part that in the second verse it's like tell the bed not to lay like the open mouth of a

grave tell the bed not to lay is very much like like tell a cow not to moo you know like i'm an artist i'm going to keep making things you know but also like the the imagery of like the open mouth of a grave not to stare at me like a calf down on its knees is so cool it's so weird i just i i don't I love this song. That's a great song. The video was directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. He's back featuring Madonna as a cowgirl walking down an automated treadmill in front of a projection screen with cabboys dancing and straddling horses in the backdrop. I have this video burned into my brain with her like the way she's.

It's gone viral so many times, I feel like recently to just because it's such a good. The dance is so good. It's a line dance. It's a line dance. Yeah. Full-on line dance. Apparently just like days after giving birth to Rocco. that's the rumor.

What? Just that I think it's just very interesting. If I get my period, I can't go here for two days. And she's like, I just birth the whole human. I'll be right there at the music video too. And just like, I mean, the whole thing of her doing this Western thing, this kind of like country music reappraisal at this moment is just, you know. Again, really ahead.

Very. Given where we are now and how like so many pop stars have turned towards country. now like 25 years later. It was like she was right there in the front lines, but also doing it in such a cool way with the technology. The stuttery acoustic guitar is just... Unbelievable. Perfect. Chef's kiss.

What it feels like for a girl. What are like a moment in her, oof. What a sparkling piece of diamond? And just like, yeah, perfect again. So Madonna had developed an interest in collaborating with Guy Sigsworth. He has started his career with Seal. He co-wrote four songs, including Crazy, ever heard of it.

Then he worked with Virtuoso Tabla player Talvin Singh, who is going to make an appearance on this album. And then through him, he met Bjork and became Bjork's keyboard player and later music director of her live band for two albums, playing harpsichord and stuff on... He plays harpsichord on Cover Me, and the clav accord on the song All Is Full of Love. Oh my God, stop it. Stop. And he co-wrote Unravel with her. Then he met Image and Heap in 1996, after a friend played him a demo of her song, Come Here Boy, and he was in love with her voice. And they wrote two songs together, getting scared in an airplane, which he produced for her debut album, I Megaphone. And then they did FruFruFoo together. Do you guys remember FruFoo? You remember FruFru, obviously.

Well, you've heard me wax poetic about the Garden State. soundtrack, which I'm sorry I love. It's a perfect piece of soundtrack work, and it let go is very famously in Garden State. I mean, yeah, great. So that's a guy Sigsworth. That's what we're dealing with. And she was like, I would like to work with you. And he sent her two sketches of music. And she chose one that was almost finished, but like they kept it unpollage so that Madonna could keep writing on top of it. And the backing track contained a sample from the 1993 British film, The Cement Garden, with the voice of Charlotte Gainsburg, saying, girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots,

because it's okay to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, because you think that being a girl is degrading. But secretly, you'd love to know what it's like, wouldn't you? What it feels like for a girl. So that's where the title comes from. Also, what an incredible piece of dialogue on. Totally.

It was like, it's true. Like you call you you mock men for being girly because being girly is Considered degrading. Degrading. It's bad. It's wrong. Yeah. You call men pussy's because it's bad You know? Completely. And it's like well Fuck you. Do you know did that sample come with his version? It sounds like it did. Yeah, it sounds like it did. And I think it again just points to that whole thing of her just being like so like hearing that and being like yeah, this is what the song is about. Yeah, yeah. Just like that it's like, it's like just work with what's right in front of you and don't

overthink it. Totally. And I love that she can she can improvise her riff off of that like in that way. It just feels like that feels like so creative. It's like just like in very immediate, like move now, act now. Don't wait. Yeah. Like time goes by so slowly.

Yeah, I think she has such, she has such a rich emotional life. So it's like, especially something like that text, of course it's going to resonate something inside her and like pour something out. And in this case, it was, she talked about it later. She was in the process during the writing of the song, moving to London, hiding her pregnancy. She was like pretty fed up with the fact that she's the one that had to move her whole life. She told Ingrid Sishi, is I you say it, from who is the old editor of Entry magazine, she said I wrote it kind of halfway through the album when I was pregnant and hiding it from the world.

It was a really tumultuous period in my life. I was not in a terribly stable relationship at that point. And part of the reason was because we lived in different countries. And Ingrid says, you in America guy in Britain. And Madonna said, it was an, okay, I don't want to move to England. Well, I don't want to move to America. Of course, being the girl, I made the first compromise. It's that extra thing that women have.

I don't think we're better than the men, but I think there's an extra accommodating chromosome that we have. I picked up my life and my daughter and everything. I rented a house in London and moved there and decided, okay, well, I'll just make my record here. And that's really when our relationship started to work. But it was a huge sacrifice for me. And I know he was nervous and scared about the fact that he was going to be a father. I think another big part of it, the song, was, our generation has certainly been encouraged to grab life by the balls,

to be super independent, get a great education, follow our dreams, kick ass, all that stuff. And I feel like I woke up one day holding the golden ring and realized that smart, sassy women who accomplish a lot and have their own cash and are independent are really frightening to men. I felt like, why didn't someone warn me? And that's also what that song was about swallowing that bitter pill. I screamed amen sisters so loud. I alarmed the pets. Do you know what I mean?

I was like, wow, oh my God. Yeah, I hear you. They said, go be successful and go college. And then men are like, I'm scared of you. I don't want to talk to you. Can you believe even Madonna had to deal with that? I know. We live in hell.

I think, you know, not to be like, on a matapia or whatever, but it sounds like what it is, which is like a very feminine song. Right. Like, it's sonically very feminine. I agree. Soft and beautiful. Soft and beautiful.

And the vocal, the production on the vocal and also just like her sort of airy delivery. Yeah. It just makes it all kind of come together. What do you make of the music video directed by Guy Ritchie who by then was her husband? I mean, it feels very like a Guy Ritchie video to me. And I mean, maybe that's an interesting sort of meta commentary on the thing like that, you know, it's like this, his name's guy, but it's like this guy point of literally named guy on this, you know, on this. And so she's like in a hot rod car and like the, you know, like the whole kind of like presentation of it feels like, it sort of feels like different than the song, right? That's like my itch with it.

It's just like the video, which is actually like, I think a totally valid and interesting, you know, point of view to be like, girls can be, you know, girls can be pimps to go on and brush your shoulder off or whatever. Like, like, but that's not what I felt about the song. Which I felt about a song is that like, back to the quote, like, actually just being a girl in its most femininity is okay. Right. good and fine. And that's not what's happening here. This is like, these are all masculine activities and traits of, like, violence and, you know. And again, not to say obviously, this is, I'm talking about, I'm talking about archetypes.

I'm not talking about gender, but like, I don't know, I just, I found it. It's a cool video. It's a cool video. I was kind of shocked to learn, because I don't ever remember seeing it. And now I know why is because it was banned from TV. Oh, really? Yeah. because of the violence.

Yeah. It's not that... I don't remember them talking about that, though. Yeah. She looks cool. She looks really cool. I love that there's an old lady. Yeah.

That she picks up with the old cunts home for old people or whatever. I like that she's eating a burger and fries. Yeah, that's cool, too. Hair is amazing. Yeah, she looks great. The cars are really cool. It's a fun watch. Lots of remixes of this song.

I think they are great. Yeah. They really are great on this song. I love, I mean, obviously, I love all the remixes, but it does seem to me, like, where the remixes seem to really, like, hit, like, heavenly tier levels of amazing is, is songs like this.

Yeah. Or, like, bedtime story, or frozen, kind of more, like, subtly beautiful songs. They're, like, kind of allowed to imprint into something else, you know? Yeah, really, though, I think the, especially those, like, above and beyond remixes, I think they're just, like, they really take it to, like,

another place it almost feels like that it fits as a production as opposed to it being just a remix. Yes, exactly. Almost like the right choice for it. Yeah. So. The next song is Paradise in parentheses, not for me. I love this song.

Especially, it's a great, it's a really interesting kind of like ballad. That's not like, that's not a ballad. And I think it's sort of, it's again, so European. I feel like. Yeah, because actually, Merway wrote it for his own album. Yeah, so it was on production. Production.

Which came out before this album. And so it's on both. Yes, on both. And it was a preview of what the sound was going to be at the time. Because I think I remember I got that record because, you know, there was no other reason except that I heard that he was working with her. You're a real one. There was this record store in the West Village called Rebel Rebel RIP.

And that guy that ran that shop was a tiny little shop on, and it was on Christopher, no, Christopher or Westforth, Westforth. And it was, it was a tiny little shop and he had everything and he was obsessed with Madonna. So he had every, like, Madonna remix and every, he always was on top of the news of what was going on. And so he was like, he turned me on to that. He was like, she's working with him.

And this, you know, like, because we got that. record. And he had all the, he had, yeah, it was great. We used to like rollerblade over there and get, like, get, when the singles would come out. I'm obsessed. That's perfect. We roll or bat on over to the Madonna specialty record store. Any new ones out. Um, no, it's a, it's a cool song. It's a cool song. I like it. Gone is like a great ending for the album. I think so, too. It's like a perfect note to end on. I think both with the lyrical conceit and also like the sound of the song is kind of a... And it's interesting because like these three records, like they all end in the similar kind of way on a down note.

Yeah. With like or just like a quieter note than the rest of the record. And they like, so it's, it kind of fits into the theme of this run. I agree. Okay. So music really interesting. Really interesting. really cool, unusual.

Successful. Successful, yes. I think just, you know, like successful as a work, creative work, and successful as commercially as well. Commercially successful, totally. I think, I'm pretty sure critically pretty successful, too. Like, not quite, didn't quite hit the heights of Ray of Light, but it was definitely like, like, Village Voice gave it an A, Chris Gow,

spin gave it a 7 out of 10, 4 stars from Rolling Stone, 4 stars from Q, 8 out of 10 from NME, like a B from Entertainment Weekly. They miss the market a little bit, but it's well reviewed. That's going to change, but we're not there yet. What happens after music? Well, Madonna goes back on David Letterman. In November 2000, she brings her 24-year-old guitar teacher, Monty Pittman. And she was very scared because she never publicly played guitar.

And they both played, don't tell me, they played guitar. And it's very cute. You can watch it on YouTube. Yeah, can watch it. It's very cute. I don't remember the exact story of Monty. Pittman, but I feel like Guy got her a guitar for her birthday. I don't know what came first.

Definitely, she hired this teacher for Guy Ritchie, I think, because he was bedridden or something. But then she also started learning guitar. Anyways, he becomes kind of an important figure. Yeah. In December of 2000, Madonna and Guy Ritchie get married in the Scottish Highlands. Her maid of honor is Stella McCartney, who makes her dress. Again, I kind of like back to that when we're.

talking about that, like, Vanity Fair, where she's like, you know, Ava Perone and the Vanity Fair. I just think I connect this to this, like, that's the beginning of this arc. And now she's in the Scottish Highlands, getting married in a castle. Right. Stella McCartney, Trudy Stuyler. Right. Like, she's entered a new world. Totally new world, right?

It's just like horseback riding. Right. You know, she's like. Madge. She puts out, oh, we're not there yet, but she does put out a, she's a, she's a, children's book called the English Roads a little later. So it's like this whole she's entering this whole new

phase of her life and also just like her phase of her celebrity really. It is kind of very interesting given what you're saying that American Life is the album that comes out first during that phase. Yeah. You know? Because it's a pretty fuck you album. Yeah. No, it is very

interesting. I think it is really interesting. We need to go on tour. Yeah. Because we haven't toured. We didn't tour Ray of Light and And now we have music. So the drowned world tour. Yes. Starting June 9, 2001.

Madonna had started throwing around the preliminary ideas for the store with Christopher Chaconi, but ultimately she decided he would not be involved in it. But she was very disappointed by. Yeah. He had been, they had been like more and more estranged during this time period. And she also had asked her friend David Collins to redesign her in your apartment. That was like the first time Christopher hadn't done one of her residences. He was really burned by that.

She did, according to him, steal his idea of having a big tree in the middle of the stage for the, like he had, he had, I guess one of the original drawings that he said he did for the store was like a big tree in the middle of the stage. And she, well, she can't steal it. It was for her anyways. Yeah, well, you know, that was his, how he looked at it, I guess. I mean, I do think he was an incredibly creative and talented person. Like, there's no denying. We developed at, like, peak, talk about imperial. Yeah, blonde ambition.

Imperial aesthetic, like, just unbelievable. Incredible. Yeah. So Jamie King, who we talked about a little bit in the last episode, takes over his artistic partner and choreographer. I think in the tour book, he's just credited as stage production director. A new person, a 23-year-old Englishman, Stuart Price, comes on as music director. He did music under the name Jacques Lecont.

Mirway had introduced them when Madonna was looking for a live keyboard player and then she also brought Monty Pittman, her guitar teacher to come play live guitar, called again on Nikki and Donna, although Nikki, I can't remember how she sustained the injury to her leg, but she had had surgery and one of her legs was a little longer than the other ones. She didn't, she physically was not at her peak. And also I think there was some quote, I didn't write it down, but like she was like, we were like dancing with like 19 year olds and we're like. like we're like 30 years old or whatever.

The costumes were by Jean-Paul Gautier, most of them, the kiltz and the dresses and the kimonos, but then the country looks were D-squared, which I think is also in the video, right? You were at this tour. I was. You want to tell us about it a little bit? I saw it in Philadelphia.

It was spectacular in that it was for the time, and I think it was like extremely technologically, innovative. There was like, it felt like, a lot of like screens, right? A lot of screens and just like a lot of like sort of like high wire, you know, she's like flies through the air at one point. There's like, aerial staff and like just really just like highly coordinated, highly choreographed, you know, sort of acting out these kind of like battle scenes of like, you know, it was it was very cool and very different than everything. she had really done before, I think. And this tour, which I think everybody has beaten this to death, but she didn't do any hits. I mean, she did only material really from Ray of Light and music and only to, like, from catalog hits was La Isla Bonita and Holiday at the end. And human nature.

She did do secret and human nature. Yeah. But she hadn't toured those at all. So that it was like just the, those are the only two. songs from bedtime stories. Bedtime stories really got the slight in the end. I know. I know.

Such a good album. It's so cool to have it for. Yeah, I watched a lot of this because the whole thing is on YouTube. Yeah. And it's fucking cool, man. It's cool. The looks are so cool. I was commenting to you on our way here.

They're like, I found the, specifically the, like, punk. The punk rock look. It's, like, so ahead of its time. I mean, obviously not because punk is, but like, it's Chipovalo. You know, it could be like, I'm like, oh, this is so sick. The dancing is really aggressive. So aggressive. Like it's like the movement is really like chaotic and aggressive.

Obviously, you know, choreographed. I read that Jamie King said then the rehearsals, like it was so intensity like vomited. Yeah, like people like apparently it was very intense rehearsals and like the, yeah, there's like it's like, like it's like different than anything she'd done before. And she's in insane shape. I mean, it is, like, I think this is peak Madonna athletic body. She's about 43, I think, during this. I turned 43 on this tour. She looks incredible.

She's jacked. Like, it's crazy. Very cool tour. But you said maybe people were, like, felt a little sad. They didn't get more catalog. People felt like they didn't get more. This is, again, critics, and I don't know, like, I loved it. Right.

I think, you know, I was so happy to see anything that she did, because it was all just so amazing and impressive. But I think, yeah, people wanted more hits. But people would complain no matter what you do, kind of. Like, and she— Damned if you do, damn if you don't. And she wanted this to be something new and focus on that new music and, you know, and sort of take everything in a new direction. I think that this did. I think that's really cool, too, also.

Because I do kind of feel like, back to the don't tell me of it all, like, to, like, do a retrospective. set list is kind of being like, I'm done. Right. I mean, she does that next. And that's fine. But like she was still, I feel like really in her like, I have made some cutting edge new shit and you're going to listen to it. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think, and I'm going to do this whole presentation around it. I think it was like, you know, this whole, it was really like world building. I mean, I think all of her tours do that to an extent. But this really felt like you're in this geisha world and this like, you know, the, these anime, like, battles and, like, you know, she, with those, like, huge sleeves that she did, like, where they're holding the sleeves out and her arms are out. You know, again, I wasn't there, but I did watch it online, and I think it's phenomenal.

I wish I had been there. This tour also, right in the, at the very end of the tour, 9-11 happens. It's, like, three days before the tour ends, 9-11 happens, and that's kind of a huge deal. And she had this, like, little song that she did, it was, like, called the funny song. And it was like a satire, like, you know, song that was just like tongue and cheek. And she stopped singing it because of the 911 thing. So because it just things got too serious. It's kind of wild to consider like that she had to go play like more shows.

Like, I know. Because like 9-11 was so insane. It was so insane. And how crazy the world felt. I remember like, I think a lot of artists were just like, no, we have to continue because people need it. People need it. Yeah. Like, no, there was zero criticism. I was just like imagining, and I sounded so, fucking trite there. I'd be like, 9-11 was so, insane. But you get what I'm saying. No, it was completely insane. Unless you, unless you lived through it. Yeah. Like, and it was like,

it felt like nothing was going to ever go back to normal. Yeah. Like, reality had like shifted in this crazy way. So it did seem crazy. I agree with you. I think it did seem crazy to like go on with your show. Yeah. And like, but I think it was kind of courageous. Oh, for sure. I'm sure psychologically it must have been incredibly difficult. Yeah, side note, but I saw Tori Amos like two or three days after at the Beacon Theater. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was, it brought people together in an interesting way because it felt like that was such a shattering kind of moment. I honestly don't remember at all what we did.

We were in college in Santa Barbara, and I'm sure what we did was what we did every day, Pinky got blackout drunk. Right. But maybe with a little more emotion. Right. Well, I think 9-11, I'm glad you brought it up. up for that reason because it's interesting, but also I think it was maybe a final push that Madonna was like, okay, we'll move to England. Do you know what I mean? Because it was like, because that's when they fully relocate is November of 2001. I don't have a lot of say about this,

but that same month Madonna releases her second greatest hit's album, which I think was supposed to be like Immaculate Collection, too, is that right? And then it became GHV2. I thought this was a weird collection. I didn't, it wasn't. I don't know. Maybe like an update, like immaculate collection at this point is so old. Old. Yeah. And she's had so many hits since, maybe just a way to put like a partner to a macular collection. I think it was. I think it just felt it was fulfilling a contract. Well, her last Maverick album is American Life. Okay. Maybe it was fulfilling contracts so she could like I'm pretty sure that that was. Many such Kate. Many such cases. In 2002, a new film comes out.

Madonna has done another film. And what a film it was. I'm going to be so real with you guys. I didn't finish it, and I will before we do a special episode of this podcast in which I need to watch the film for. But Patrick Sandberg's not here to defend the honor of this film, and I know he is a truther, a swept away truther. I'll just give you some background. This is Madonna and Guy Ritchie's like one film collaboration. They decided to remake the 1974 Lina Wirtmuller film swept away. Actually, this is kind of my favorite part of the story, is that it was the actor Stephen Weber's idea. I love Stephen Weber.

I find him so hot. I don't know if you guys watched Wings. Wings was a big deal to teenage Yossi finding men hot. Anyways, I don't know why they were friends with Stephen Weber. It didn't get that far. But he said, why don't you read you swept away? Which is, I got to wonder, what did he see that we didn't see? What did he see in their relationship?

Well, I mean, I think you have a note here, which I think just really sums this up perfectly. The original film. Yes. And Madonna's kind of like appetite for film were one thing. Yes. And Guy Ritchie's like creative sensibilities. Yes, was another thing. Yes.

Yeah. And she even, I was reading something just last night, I guess, about this. And she was even saying she couldn't get him to watch. The first 20 minutes because he found it boring. Or any, like any kind of serious movie. I'm like, sir, you're a fucking film director. But also, you know what? I can see it.

I can see it in his movies. Like, it's pretty telling about the problems with this movie. Like, I think that's kind of, you know, like, I think she had a vision and probably Stephen, Stephen Weber had a vision for what it could be. And Guy Ritchie also had a vision. Sort of, but I think he was trying to do their vision, but he just didn't have the, like, vocabulary, like you say. Well, he also made some drastic changes. He didn't want the subplot, which is, I think, so important. to the film being successful, which is that...

So the plot is about these rich people who go on a crew... They charter a yacht cruise ship or whatever from Greece to Italy. Or Italy to Greece, I don't remember, doesn't really matter. And Madonna's characters, the main characters, this is, like, very rich, wretched, spoiled woman who gets stranded on a, like, life boat...

boat with a very hot fisherman who works on the boat and they have an antagonistic relationship being in because she's such a bitch but in the film the subplot is that she is a right wing bigot and then he's this like working class and they

even from what we watched last night was she going to have to turn it off but like I can tell they're like like planted a couple of seeds a little bit of it but it's not realized he also I think really toned down the The original has a lot of sex scenes between the two, including, like, a sodomy.

And he was like, no. Right. That's not happening. Again, I didn't see the whole thing. So I can't wait. I did see it originally when it came out. And she looks fabulous. Like, she looks so good.

She's like this tan. Her hair is, like, beautiful. Her body, again, is in this, like, prime athletic shape. The outfits are beautiful. We love Gene Triplehorn. She's trying something The acting that I saw was 100% Charlie

and the Chocolate Factory I want it daddy Yes I feel like But maybe I only didn't get that I feel like that is the failing of the movie though In a way is that like she was trying to do this Like really tongue in cheek Over the top performance

Campy performance And either didn't understand it or didn't know how to contextualize it He was trying to bring humor into it that's obvious, it just didn't land. Well, again, I can't, I can only speak to the 20 minutes I saw or the 30 minutes I saw or whatever. Anyway, not a highlight. Not a highlight. Open to horrible reviews was in theaters for three weeks, made $600,000 of the $10 million that was spent, and went away.

All right. Okay. In October, that same month, there's like 10 days later, the Diet Another Day single comes out. Very cool single. Very cool single. It was made for the James Bond film. of the same name in which she has a cameo as Verity, the fencing instructor. Yes.

And she said it was the one woman who was not interested in Bond in the movies. I liked that. Of course, this is Pierce Brosnan. Yes, Bond. This song Slaps. This song Slaps. It's so cool that it kind of broke the mold of the James Bond themes because it was always kind of a ballad. Yeah.

And she just like, she tore it with this. Yeah, she was like, actually my song fucks. Yeah. So it's a different kind of. It's mere way. Analyze this. Yeah. Verity is cool as hell.

Totally. She does some of her best work is in cameos in movies. She, this, tore this whole unit. Yes. Awesome. It's amazing. And it is our first taste of the next album. Yes.

Which in 2003, she puts out the first single from American Life, the titular track. Yeah. March 22nd, 2003. It's kind of important to note that the United States. States invaded Iraq on March 20th. Yeah. I mean, this single coming out at that time was, I mean, it was a heavy hitter. She really went, she stepped right into it.

It's a crazy choice for a first single, but a very awesome choice where you're like, I'm doubling down on what I believe in and what I love about this album. Because I think anyone who heard it would know that it might be polarizing. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a really interesting song. I love it. I love it. I mean, I've always loved it.

She got a lot of flack for rapping. For rapping. Yeah. On the song, which I think just like that was part of what people reacted to. Like, it's so obvious that that her rap is like a tongue in cheek commentary on. The lyrical. Yeah, it's, it's supposed to be, it's supposed to be funny. I'm drinking a soy latte.

I get a double shate. Obviously, she's not trying to be like, big L. Do you know what I mean? Like she's joking. She's joking. And people completely miss the point of that, probably intentionally. And then the video, which was, you know, also super. Well, you pointed out this proto-Kesha idea, which I think is great.

Yeah, that's what I love this song. I will be honest, I came to American Life a little bit later. I don't actually remember besides Hollywood really hearing it in real time. But I love it. Like, I just loved it. I was like, this is cool. I do think she was really ahead. like Kesha TikTok is until 2010

and by that time people are like we fucking love this, let's go. And that's basically the vibe. You know? Yeah. I think the the lyrics of the rap are very self-aware and funny.

Like, while everyone seemed to miss that, you know? And like the refrain of and you know I'm satisfied being so obviously I'm not satisfied. And you pointed out like it ending with I just realized that nothing is what it seems. I think of it. is so profound, which obviously it's cliche at the same time, but it's like hearing her say that,

like nothing is what it seems. I think we talked about this this morning, it's like any time you put somebody or something on a pedestal, an idea, a country, a value, a person, once you get to know them, you realize, oh, it wasn't quite like that. And they can't really be on the pedestal, right? So it's like, nothing can be on a pedestal. So it's like, I think that's like, that's just like an evergreen profound thing. And I just like always returned to that in my mind. I've probably dovetailed with things that I was like coming to understand in my life at that time as well. Just like, you know, just realizing like, oh, actually.

That was your Kylie Jennery. Yeah. So just like whatever that just hit me that way. And so just like that kind of really stuck with me about that. I also think it's kind of perfect because it's also like explicitly this, the rap is not what it seems. Like, just putting it right in there. Just so you know. This is not what it seems, you know.

I mean, the whole, the lyrics of the entire song are. Will it get me far? It starts that way, right? Do I have to change my name? Will it get me far? Should I lose some weight? Am I going to be a star? I mean, I think the whole thing is really funny, right?

I think the whole song is funny. But also really, I'm sorry, really poignant and profound. Yeah, you took the words right out of my mouth. Like, sorry, but should I lose some weight? evergreen refrain for all time like especially this doesn't even

this song doesn't even know about Ozemic that's right American Life single you will love Ozambic I'm digging on the isotopes this metaphysics shit is dope exactly it's very I mean when

insane clown posse you said magnets how do they work everyone lost their minds but Madonna can't do it I love this song. I think it's great. It was the lowest charting first single from a Madonna album since the debut. I mean, this whole record had that fate, really. I want to talk a little bit about the negative reviews specifically about this song.

Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly called it a facile confirmation of Madonna's haters' most knee-jerk conviction that she does not have a worldview beyond her next Pilates appointment. Which then I'm like... I mean, talk about Missingham. the point. Literally. Are you like, are you stupid? Are you stupid? I think you're actually intentionally stupid. I'm sorry, Ken Tucker, I think you're like, oh, actually, I believe he's like the NPR music critic. He's probably very intelligent. But this shocked me. I was like,

that's pretty shocking. It's right there that it's, she's doing irony. That seems like straight hater aid to me. That's like just like, you hate her. The Guardian's, Alexis Petritis. Mocked its extreme point of view as a little more than money can't buy your happiness. Which, okay. Sure. Sure. Sure. That is the gist, you know, a part of the gist. So, okay. It's a little reductive. A little reductive, yeah.

Madonna voice, it's reductive. Look it up. They really hated the rap. Blender called it the most embarrassing rap ever recorded. Okay, but I really want to read this because the same month of this single comes out. Lynette Holloway writes in the New York Times, this is how the music world is changing. Madonna, who has been a pop diva. for two decades, maybe looking at the final stages of a long career.

First of all, who says you? And then the song, which was talking about American Life, which was released to top 40 radio stations nationwide last week, made it onto the playlist of most major radio stations. But it's been so long since Madonna had a hit that radio stations are wondering if listeners want to hear her new material. And then it quotes the vice president of a radio trade publication. Radio is still searching for her relevance.

There is some question about how much she appeals to kids, but she deserves the benefit of the doubt. Every time Madonna does something, she makes news and program directors add her to playlist to be on board up front if something happens. So Madonna gets asked about this, like, relevance specifically, that quote by Matt Lauer on NBC. And Madonna said, I don't see the point of writing these kinds of articles. At the end of the day, what is the relevance of Aretha Franklin? What is the relevance of Frank Sinatra? What is the relevance of all artists? Do we have to fall into an age group and appeal to a specific?

audience to have relevance, that's absurd. It's disrespectful and absurd. Word. Absolutely. And also, like, this is a great time to point out that, like, Madonna has pushed into territory that is unheard of at this point. Starting with Ray of Light, but as she can just go on, she's a four, she's a pop star who's over 40.

Yeah, that's right. And that alone, pink pussy hat. Pretty transgressive. It's literally an active transgression. It's an active, it's political. It's political to be a 42-year-old woman and try to have attention or try to make art. And I think it's like back to what we were saying earlier about like what's her position in the sort of music pop sphere now. It's like, you know, they're evaluating, they're all evaluating her on like the same terms as like people who are 20 years younger than her.

And 20 years younger than her creatively. Right. Like she's transcending. did what you're talking about. She's not playing in this sandbox anymore. Completely. And that's what they're like intentionally missing about it. I feel like they're belittling her because she's she is still being a pop artist and not like doing, I don't know, like a love ballads like covers record, whatever. Going to easy listening territory. Totally. Yeah.

You know, like I mean, instead just trying to like continuing to push forward and continuing to search for new and innovative ways of expressing her ideas. and they don't like it because it's like, first of all, it doesn't sound like it, like the classic idea of what pop music should sound like at that time. And then also she's old. She's older. And I do have to point out that like the music that they're comparing into like we just said is not taking on the Iraq war or it's just like not in the same league at all. No, it's like it's not even. I'm a genie in a bottle. Rub me the wrong way. You know, which is a great song.

That's not, but I'm like, she's doing something so, radical might not be the right word. It's kind of radical. Then this is interesting, because I want your opinion on it. Speaking of radical,

the music video for American Life, which, the original one, not the one that ended up being aired. The original one directed by Jonas Ackerelin, has like a satirical military fashion show, which shows up again in the tour, the Reinvention Tour.

And the endings, with Madonna tossing a grenade. And a Bush look-alike. A Bush look-alike. Bush sharing a cigar and a kiss with a Saddam Hussein look-alike. It was like 10 minutes long, but they edited it down. Anyways, three days before it's released, Madonna announced that she's actually pulling the video because it had been filmed before the Iraq War began, and it's, quote, not appropriate

to air at this time. I feel like this is the first time, maybe in her entire career that she self-censors. Yeah. That it wasn't other people saying, Right. You can't do that. She said I can't do that. And I'm so interested.

What, like, what, how do you feel about that? I think that time, it's, you know, it was extremely, it was the beginning of political polarization. Not that, not that, it's not the dawn of political polarization. No, no, I know exactly what you're saying. But it was the beginning of this, like, extreme political polarization where this kind of, like, nationalistic idea that Bush really was like pushing that was like you're either you're either with you're either for us or you're against us you're either with the terrorists you're with us or you're with the terrorists and there was such I mean and so this idea

nationalistic sentiment even amongst left wing people because of 9-11 because of 9-11 and that's what Bush really was like riding on totally which is why there's all these conspiracy theories about it but like I think the idea of like violence which this video was like expressing, you know, this idea of like a violent reaction, a violent resistance. Yeah, yeah. Was just very anathema to like things that were going on at that time. So I kind of understand why she backed off it because I think it was, you know, like the Dixie Chicks got canceled for just like calling out George Bush at the, you know, like.

And remember also that it was a little later, but yeah, I mean, like the Kanye thing at the, at the Katrina. thing, you know, comedy. Oh, right. He doesn't care about black people. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's a, this will be notable for some of our audience. We talked about in the Pearl Jam episode, but Pearl Jam, and you would think the

Pearl Jam audience in a concert would be pretty fucking left wing. Yeah. But even, even Leavre, they had a song called, I believe, Bush Leaguer and Eddie Vedder had a Bush mask that you wear, and they were booed. Right. Yeah. Because the sentiment, even amongst the alternative, even amongst the left wing, was very nationalistic because everyone was united. They were just like afraid to question.

Right. Because I think they played so heavily into the idea of the United States being attacked. It was traumatic for everybody. It was really terrible, obviously. But I think they really manipulated that and propagandized that and kind of weaponized it against people and, you know, use their fear as a way to motivate this. And I think Madonna was trying to say like, this is wrong. all the things that were happening, the cascade of things that happened political, not to make this about politics, but I do think it's important.

Like the cascade of things, this album is political, you know. The cascade of things that came after 9-11, the Patriot Act, this sort of like the lying of weapons of mass destruction, these kinds of just gigantic oversight and gigantic overreaches. Isn't it so great that everything has changed

and everything's fine now? Well, I mean, I think, and then we have no problems. I think this is what set us up in a lot of ways for where we are right now. And I think those of us, us who had eyes to see, like Madonna, I think, recognized that this was not good. We were on a slippery slope. And I think, you know, she was trying to make a very strong statement about that.

But I think that, I think it was probably specifically this, like, Grenade at George Bush thing that just seemed like a bridge too far. Totally. And also it's, it's important to remember that she is not the Madonna of 10 years ago. She has a family. She has small, she has young children. Not to say that she's like less audacious, but she has other people to consider in her life that will have fall out from this. And probably, you know, like a little tired of it. Like, does she need a, does she need to have a dog in the race of this? Like, she's like, it's, it's, even with the edited video in the end, I think it's still

that message gets across pretty strongly. And throughout the album. Yeah. So, yeah. Anyways, thought that was interesting. Yeah. Let's talk about American Life, the album. Yeah.

Madonna and Mirway back at it. Back at it. I really went hard in the paint, as you said, on this one, I think. Yeah, it's a very fascinating. Imagine the way that we talked about music and it was fun to talk about, but like we said thematically it's a bit vibes more than thoughts, you know? This is different. This feels like a concept album.

Yes. And it feels really like her most experimental work for sure. I made a note here that she said she was inspired. inspired by two albums. One I honestly haven't heard and didn't have time to listen to. Lost Horizons by Lemon Jelly. But one is 100th window by Massive Attack. And this makes

so much sense to me because I obviously listen to that and I studied it, that is the coldest, most machine-like Massive Attack album. It's not vibe. It's not warm. It's not root-se. It's cold. It's machinistic. And I'm like, oh, I can hear that in this album. You know? Is that the one with the Sennate O'Connor song? Yes. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

Right? Yeah, completely. And it's like, yeah, that's really interesting. As a reference point. As a reference, yeah. And you said you've heard that Lemon Jelly album. Yes. Yeah, what does it sound like?

So it just makes sense. It does make sense. Because the Lemon Jelly, in my recollection, is a little more fokey, influenced. And that kind of like, that like, fokey electronic. Okay, so that makes so much sense because then her next quote is like, we set out to put the two worlds of acoustic and electronic music together. It's another step on, but I never want to repeat my name. myself and make the same record twice. Well, she certainly didn't repeat herself with this.

No. Yeah. This is a very post-9-11 album. Yeah. This is an album of disillusionment. It's kind of interesting that it comes in the triptych of ray of light, where it's like, Ray of Light is like, oh, my God. I'm embodied.

I've embodied. I found this like, and then almost like another layer of stars is ripped from your eyes. Yeah. That's not the personal, but the political. Honestly, I think that is like how we all felt. Totally. that was like, you know, I think that was, I think that cultural moment of. Yeah, we had sailed on through the Clinton years, traw la law, life is good, you know.

Yeah. And it was like Bush versus Gore. Yeah. And even Bush winning, that was the first election I ever voted it. And I remember being like, God damn this fucking shit to hell. What are you talking about? And there was a whole thing where like Al Gore didn't, like there was a vote count thing. I can't even remember it anymore.

There was a huge controversy in the Supreme Court stepped in and ruled on the election, which seemed completely out of the right, like that's not how the voting works. Right. That's not what we do around here. So it was like the whole thing kicked off with this like, you know, really anomalous and just kind of seemed like such a dumb dumb. I thought like, you know, just like it seems so real tall. Yeah. Yeah.

Everything about him seemed so fake and folksy. And I guess looking back now, it's easy to like revise it because compared to what we are looking at right there. We thought we hit rock box there where we're like we have this like dumb ass and then it's like, no, it's going to get way worse. Yeah, completely. That's what it's kind of driving at is that it felt like we hit rock bottom. It felt like the fabric of America was falling apart. It felt like, you know, like this idea of terrorism was just being completely like, you know, weaponized against like people all around the world. It's like anti-Islamic, this idea of surveilling U.S. citizens.

The surveillance state really starts to kick off here. I think, you know, I think, so I think all these themes were going on for everybody, and it felt very dystopian. It felt very disillusioning. I think that's right. Which I think it's really funny because a lot of the criticism of this album, and I'll get to it later, but calls herself involved. And I'm like, this is an album about the collective disillusionment, but through the lens of one person, you know? Yeah, so those are the themes. It's a bummer.

Lucy O'Brien said in her book, Madonna Like an Icon, If Like a Prayer was her divorce album, American Life is her cycle analysis. She even names checks Sigmund Freud and throws out countless questions. Who am I? Where am I going? What does it all mean? Much of the album is suffused with sarcasm, right from the disinfected-on-wee of the title track to the stroppiness of nobody knows me. Madonna is kicking against the claustrophobic effect of celebrity worship.

And I think that's true, but also, like, I would extrapolate it to be like the celebrity worship as microcosm for capitalism. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I think, I mean, I think it's more of a critique of materialism. Of materialism, yes. That's fair.

Which is capitalism. Right, totally. But I think, you know, just. Byproduct of capitalism. Just the idea of kind of like mindless consumption. Right. And that, you know, material goods or wealth is going to make you happy and, you know, and fulfill you. And even fame is a function of capitalism.

Completely. There's no point. Fame is only there in service of selling things. So ultimately is a critique of capitalism. Yeah. I just, I, yeah. Madonna, her own words, said, I'm saying celebrity is bullshit and who knows better than me.

In America, more than any other place in the world, you have the freedom to be anything you want to be, which is all well and good, but it only works if you have a value system, and we do not seem to have one anymore. It's whatever it takes to get to the top. She also spoke explicitly about the threat of war. We had not gone to war yet when she was making the album, to Megan Malawi on MTV.

This is because she was on that episode of Will and Grace. Do you remember that? Yes. Yeah. She played Liz, a didsy high maintenance office worker who becomes Karen Walker's roommate. Anyways, so there has this in conversation on MTV, and she said, I felt the threat of war looming over us. And I wanted to make a video that was going to wake people up and say, hey, stop being distracted by all your entertainment's TV fashion shows, you know, superficial life. There's a real war going on here or about to go on here and we have to do whatever we can to stop it.

That was about the American Life video. But I think you could extend it to the entire album. That's what I think she was trying to do. and she failed and we're all like to, we're all, we're all paying the price. I mean, it's even right there. We're all just like paying attention to looks maxers as like the whole thing goes down and like, I mean, we've all given up. Looking at TikTok while, yeah.

The cover. Yeah, I love the cover. Do you think it's inspired by Chia Guevara? Yeah. How could it not be? Or even I liked the Patty Hurst reference to because I think that's also. a famous revolutionary type, beret-wearing.

But I think the way it's like black and white and kind of feels like... Yeah, it feels like the way that those spray painting like stencils that you use to do a... Also a real obey. Shepherd Fairy, Obey giant moment. It was like M.M. Paris who did it, which is like the whole package is very cool.

Yeah. It's amazing. You know, it's only her second album that has the parental advisory. It's just erotica in this one. Wow. Yeah, which is just surprising. The photo is by Craig McDeen.

Yep. Yeah. She had worked with him. Vanity Fair. Yeah, there was a Vanity Fair. Yeah, there was a Vanity Fair. Isn't it twisted that like that came back into fashion because war was looming? Well, we have such a, yeah, we've had this conversation a few times about like these themes of sort of like militant or fascist dressing and pop stars.

Oh, yeah. You know, just kind of like... I mean, it goes back to like post-punk and... Yeah, of course. It's been there a while. I mean, like, you know, rocks and music. Totally. Did that and it's, you know, it's interesting flirtation with the idea of authority.

Yes. And the position that you're in as a pop star. Recontextualizing, yeah, like, or whatever, recolonizing. Let's talk with the leaks. Oh, yeah. Or at the very least, the effort to counter. Yeah. Because this is, we're post-Napster now.

Napster came out in 2000. But there's LimeWire. I mean, we're in full-on file trading. Yeah. Yeah, it was LimeWire. Yeah, I was all over LimeWire. Who wasn't, babe? We were getting viruses on our parents' computer, on our computer left and right.

So to counter the illegal downloads of the album, Madonna's associates created a number of false MP3 files of similar length and size. And apparently some of them had a message. Madonna just saying what the fuck do you think you're doing? If I remember correctly there would be like a little snippet of the song you thought you were downloading at first. And then she said you thought bitch.

And then you'd interrupt it and say what the fuck do you think you're doing? I definitely downloaded a few of them. She got your ass? Hell yeah. But I was like the album's not out either. I want to hear it. What's very funny is then a hacker was like oh you thought bitch and hacked her

entire website and put a message on the main page that said, this is what the fuck I think I'm doing and put download links for each song. I love the internet. Sometimes the internet does funny things. Anyways, the website was closed for 15 hours after that attack because they were like, oh no. It's interesting that this album actually did hit number one. It is interesting.

But I also, it's, we're in the wild, there's like a wild west of charting that happens post Napster. at this point. Because we're in between, we're kind of like starting to get post CD. All the people are obviously still using CDs,

but there's so much illegal downloading and we're pre-streaming. Right. I'll tell you what the critics said. They didn't like it. Yeah. Ben Ratliff for Rolling Stone said, Madonna Chaconi has done it again.

The 44-year-old guitar player from London via Detroit, it's funny they called her a guitar player. So rude. Oh my God. Has taken the pulse of the nation, if not the whole women's wear daily reading world.

Again, fuck you. Fuck off, man. That is so fucking rude. It's sexist? It's sexist. It's ageist. That is like... I hate it. You deserve me too. Put him on a list.

He said, American Life, her 10th album, isn't much as a work of music. Diluted Euro techno from her producer, Merway, built around acoustic... I know he's wrong. Acoustic guitar vamps that are either her own or about on her level, but it is a certain marker in popular culture. Three albums into her journey. of yoga and self-discovery. Madonna is ready to apply

what she's learned to the outside world. Specifically, materialism isn't good for us. He thought he ate. And he did not. No. He did not.

He left a lot of crumbs. There's crumbs all over his lap. What a mess. He should be embarrassed. There's just all over his face. He thought he read her good, but this is pathetic. I wonder if

when albums like this are re-evaluated, like the critics feel bad, you know? Well, I mean, I feel like we were saying this before, it's like you're intentionally not, hearing what's happening here because you've already got an idea about who Madonna is and how shallow it is and how like and how how dare she make commentary on issues of society like it's like she's not a member of society like it's it's just like a it's it's like just a weird underlying assumption that they're writing from it's very interesting I mean Ray of Light had it had an interesting critical moment where Rob Sheffield reviewed it poorly. and then came back, like, not that far away and was like, actually I was wrong.

I sat and listened to it more, which I was like, that's really cool, you know? And it feels like these are very knee-jerk reactions. Although, again, like, this is a hybrid. I don't know how to say it. Like, this is a elevated album to understand. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you're a music critic, so you should,

but what do I know? This one's a bit longer, but I'll just read a few quotes. It's John Perlis for the New York Times. Despite the flag imagery and military-style stenciled letters of its cover, American Life is actually an album about the midlife crisis of a disillusion star. The album is one of Madonna's confessional works, part of the line stretching back through Ray of Light and Like a Prayer, but it inadvertently reveals the perspective of someone who believes as Madonna sings that everybody comes to Hollywood. It uses a similar mixture of acoustic guitar picking, ticking drum machines,

and swooping buzzing synthesizer lines as music. The guitar signals the sincerity of a singer-songwriter, while all the gizmos add the retro-catchiness of the synth-bop music now being revived under the name Electro Clash. after clash mentioned. This is the one that mentions, he talks about the songs that manage to find sentiments other people might share within Madonna's overwhelming self-absorption. And it really made me think that there's been this,

and I think I referenced it in another one of these episodes, but there's been this clip circulating of Kristen Stewart doing an interview where she talks about how when she's like writing about whatever, her own, she's writing a script or something about things that she was thinking about, and she's like, people call you selfish. you want and she's like I'm so sorry for wanting to have a self yeah and I'm like this is how I feel I'm like she's self absorbed sorry that she yeah has a self like what is she meant she's an artist what is she meant to write about and all of the things like you want her to pander to like to

act as if she's lower middle class or something like what do you want her to do but be selfless on her own album like it makes no sense it makes no sense and I mean even all the critiques that he he says it's just like they don't land because because it just feels like you're not, again, it's like Hollywood, everyone goes to Hollywood. That's a critique. Hollywood is not a place. Yes, it's a metaphor. It's a metaphor. So it's like, and you're just intentionally missing the point.

I feel like these are bad faith readings a little bit. I agree. That's what I'm trying to say. It's bad faith. Let's talk about the album, though. Let's get it right. Okay. Let's reset the record.

Even though I think this album has already been reappraised, I hope, properly. Um, Hollywood, babe. Yeah. Amazing. Push the button. Don't push the button. Trip the station. Change the channel.

God to your banger. God to your banger. So, just like, just nails it. It's so good. So good. It's so fun. She said about this was about her wanting to shout from the rooftops that we've all been living in a dream.

I've been living in a dream. You're all living in a dream. We have to wake up to reality. Right. I think that the musical part of the song is so cool to me. Like, I didn't know this until I didn't know this until I, listened to one of the inside the groove podcast, but that there's bird song throughout the background.

And then she has that bird lyric, which I think is so cool. Yeah. And Mirway plays the acoustic guitar. There's some electronic guitar barry in the mix that makes it have a little bit of an Eastern sound, right? Kind of a call back to Ray of Light a little bit. The vocals are super compressed. How do you feel about those super compressed vocals?

I love it because it sounds, I just, I feel like it's got this like this high level of artifice around it. like you're saying, like, all the layers. But again, this like, like. Which so does Hollywood, right? So it's so perfect. That's what I mean. It's perfectly like within the song.

And the birds chirping in the background are like the perfect. It's like the wizard of Oz. Yeah. It's like, you're in the studio, but there's birds chirping. You know, it's like this whole idea of like creating a fake world and hearing things through compression. Like, like, I mean, this is like a bigger idea than probably what she was talking about. But I think it's like this idea of compressing big ideas into small things.

Yeah. flattening things. Yeah. That's so Hollywood in and of itself. And I just, I think it's like, it's great. It's like such a cool way to interpret it. I love it. And even if you don't want to use your big brain, it's just a fucking bop.

It's a fucking bop. Yeah. Like, everybody comes to Hollywood. It's just like, what a refrain? Throughout this album, I think a lot about celebrity skin by whole. And this is one of the songs, which I don't think musically sounds like, but, like, thematically. Right.

Could be there. It could fit in there. Yeah. This one later in the year is remixed with Into the Groove and performed with Missy Elliott under the title Into the Hollywood Groove as a Gap campaign. Gap campaign. Yeah.

This one also failed to enter the Billboard 100 in the United States. Insane. First time since burning up that a Madonna single did not reach the Hotwinner. That part to me is really crazy because this is absolutely a jam. I could see that like sound-wise, like, you know, all the things that were just talked about like the super compressed vocal. the like guitar picking and stuff didn't. Yeah, we also

haven't really talked about how much rap music has overtaking the pop charts. That's another thing. I think that's kind of important. Like by 2003 the hot 100 is like 50 cent in the club. Right. The Ignition remix by R. Kelly. Even Beyonce is crazy in love. Right. So it's just, it's just a different

world. Yeah. And then there's there are like some, you know, there's some Mashbox 20 on well, that's my guy. But yeah, Chingi, Alia, like... The video is amazing of this. Oh, yeah. This is the Jean-Baptiste Mondino. This is the one that they pay homage.

To Guy Bourdain. Gibordan. And then Giebordan's son said, you will not pay homage. You will pay my money for paying homage. And then they did end up settling. Settlement. But it's so gorgeous.

It's so gorgeous. Every look she does in it is like so great and cool. the way it's shot, it feels like perfect to the song, like, I'll just talked about, like, that compressed world. I just think it's, it's, it's like, this is a perfect. Yeah. Single release. The whole thing. Yeah. The artwork of the single release is really cool. Yeah. Also feels like it's half pixelated. Yeah. Which is like exactly really, you know, it's like compression. Yeah. It's like this idea like like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, you know, fake and her makeup looks crazy.

I love, I'm so stupid. I love it. Such a great song. This is the one. This is the one that we were talking about that I was like, just the vocal delivery to me, it reminds me of Courtney Lovell, but I feel like it could have been in a bizarre world, a whole song. Yeah. And just the cool way that they use the vocoder effects on her voice that make it sound punk rock. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's what I'm hearing. We haven't really heard that use of vocoder that much. And it's like in that way. It just makes it, it's a, this really distorted, super stretched out, like crazy, sounds actually bad, right? Like, yeah, like, I But in a punk way.

Yeah, totally. And it's like cool. Like nobody would, it was so lossy and bad that people would like, no, you'd never use that. But it actually sounds so fucking cool on this song. Everybody's looking for something. Everybody's stupid. Yeah. And I love that she called the song that it's such a good.

Just to go back to like all that critical responses to this record, the fact that she has a song in here called I'm so stupid. It's just like it should have been a clue to like thinking about how what's she trying to say here. You know, just like instead of being like, it's not about her Pilates classes. She doesn't do Pilates, guys. Like, that's not really what this is about. Yeah. Like, come on. Take a moment to extend some of the same, like, thought power you would extend to a radio head album here.

Yeah, completely. You know. Okay, I love profusion. That's the fourth single. Again. I don't have anything negative to say about it. I love it. The song is dedicated to a guy rich.

I don't to say anything negative but I will say of the couple of love songs on here it's not my favorite one yeah I can hear that

I think I love the remix of it there's like a head cleaner rock remix of it that makes it feel a little less tui maybe yeah yeah it's a nice song it's a nice song I don't have me beef with the song

and it kind of perfect that they ended up using it for the S.A. Lodder commercial so like Which looks like the music video by Luke Bisson with her. Interesting integration from a marketing perspective here. I thought just like it's just kind of the idea of that video and this song

and then it becoming a fragrance commercial thing and then Carolyn Murphy. That's very early 2000s where we're completely losing the line between art and commerce. It's all becoming kind of everything is like an integrated marketing moment. Right, completely.

Or beginning to be. Beginning to be. It's the beginnings of that and the internet. I mean, you had to have the level of clout that she had to be able to pull this level of it off, but now it feels that's much more common. Yeah, now it's everywhere. Every the clothes she's wearing in that video, too, or so, like, and she loves those dresses. Yeah.

She loves those dresses. Nobody knows me is the next song. I love this song. Me too. I love it. I love the idea that she's putting forth, which is, like, also so kind of like, you were saying about the last line of the rap. Nothing's as seems. It's such a

simple idea. Idea. Idea, but it's such a profound one. It's like the inverse of that idea. Nothing's at as seems. And also nobody knows me because I'm not as I seem to other people. Yeah. I love that. I love the production on it. Like just bangs. It's like, do, do, do, do.

It's like, it's very good. I love it. I saw in the genius lyric annotation that someone said the lines won't let a stranger give me a social disease or referring to like the xenophobia that rose up after 9-11. I don't know if that's true, but I hope it is.

It makes kind of sense. Yeah, it makes sense. It's no good one. Yeah, like I'm not going to, like, it's very defiant in that way. And the best lyrics here, like, it's no good when you misunderstood, when you're misunderstood, but why should I care what the world thinks of me? Right. Which is like, she already knew the misunderstandings.

We're about to be reining down from the sky. Nothing fails. That's also the third. That's the third single. I mean, I listen to this song. It's really beautiful. I listened to the song repeat quite a lot. I loved it.

Really beautiful. It actually began as a song that Guy Sigworth wrote for his wife. Oh, interesting. He had asked the singer Jim Griffiths to collaborate with him, and during their first session, they wrote this song called Silly Thing inspired by Sigroth's wife. He said, I never write love songs, but I was moved to write one for her. Never had a problematic relationship with her. There's not been a lot of drama. but I wanted to write something naive and honest.

The demo, which was reminiscent of an offbeat folk song, was later played for Madonna who loved it and changed parts of the song, including the title. Gemm Griffith, the singer of the demo, said, when I actually heard the Madonna song, I was so shocked because it was the first time I believe my career was actually going to happen. And to hear Madonna singing, I was like, oh, my God, so bizarre. My mom keeps calling you whenever it's on.

She'll go to shops in the UK and hold the phone up to the thing, and I'm like, they're going to arrest you. I thought it was interesting just to point out the biggest lyrical change she made is like, I think it's the second verse. The original version is you could take all this, take it away, and I'd still have it all because I've got my standing stone. I'm not alone, no longer scared if I fall. Madonna changed it to you. You could take all this, take it all away. I'd still have it all because I've climbed the tree of life.

And that is why I'd no longer scared if I fall. The tree of life is a Kabbalah reference. We haven't talked that much about Kabbalah. No, but... No, but here it is. Here it is. Here it is. Here it is lyrically popping up.

And when I got lost in space, I can return to this place. Because you're the one. Because you're the one. It's a really beautiful song. It's a really beautiful song. Intervention also a beautiful song, but is it my favorite in the triptych of gorgeous songs on here. Mine is ecstatic process. I love ecstatic process.

Written with Stuart Price. I feel like this song should have been a single. Yeah. I love it so much. It's heartbreaking. The vocals are so beautiful. I love how they get like more and more childlike. As the song goes on and by the end, it's like so girlish.

Yeah. It's just a... Just a great song. It's just a great fucking song. It's, the lyrics are kind of heartbreaking, like I said. Like, I'm not myself when you go quiet. I'm not myself when you're around. Right.

It's like, ooh. Who are you talking about? I'm not myself when you're around. Mother and father is... Core Madonna. Yeah, it's Madonna. But I will say I do, like, I do love that she's so self-aware in it where she's like really talking about I need to give this up. I need to let it go, you know?

And that's the kind of like first time in all her preoccupation with the loss of her mother that appears on most of the albums that she's like, okay, I need to get past this. Which I think is like very cabal-coded, right? I think that's like very much like what they're about. I'm not doing Kabbalah personally. I'm not one of the fans who started doing Kabbal, although I do know a few of them. But... That's really... That's a lot.

But respect. But I think the idea of taking responsibility for your actions and not wallowing in your trauma or in the past. And, like, that's definitely what she's trying to say here. And so it's kind of like a... You're right. It's kind of like a reappraisal of the story of her mother and, you know, like, her... Her wounding and Wyatt made her the way she is, quote-unquote, you know. Yeah, I think it's, there was a time I had a mother and it was nice.

I really love the, this song really made a lot of sense, more sense to me when she sings it live. Live. It's live in the, on the Reinvention Tour. I mean, it's also very sentimental because they're really showing her father in the audience during it. So it's like, it's very moving. And like she does, like the way she ends it is like really, with this like really powerful vocals for it. It's really moving. Dye another day we already talked about.

And then it ends with the song Easy Ride. Again, the themes of it are again, so Madonna, I want to work for it. I don't want to be handed things. I don't want it to be easy. These are the things that, this is the things that make life meaningful and make things important to you and make things valuable. Is that, like, you have to toil to achieve them. Which, yes. I think that's, yeah.

I mean, I think that's like, you know, that's the lesson of Madonna on a certain level. But interestingly, being able to simply receive is like such a thing that it goes totally up against ambition. Right. Ambition is very like thrusting into the world. Again, masculine. Right. Receiving is feminine, you know? So I'm just interested in that I'm like, oh, this is like, this is the scratchy bit that you're working through still.

You know? And each album seems to have that last song that's like, this is the scratchy bit you're working through, you know? I think, and this song was written with Monty Pittman. It's a beautiful song. It's a really beautiful song. It's a really beautiful song. Gorgeous Ender.

This album, Justice for American Life. Justice for American Life. Absolutely incredible record. Just like top to bottom. Really innovative. Still sounds. Yeah, pretty modern. Yeah.

And like still sounds like nothing else. Totally. Like I can't think of anything else that sounds like this. Especially like songs like ecstatic process. Yeah. Like those are so, it's very interesting, unique. And for her, like really different, you know, like even very different than, you can hear some of the like genesis points of it on music, but really this is like taking it to a whole other place. Yeah, I agree.

Should we talk briefly about ecstatic process, the art installation with Steven Kline? So that's in May of 2003. It originated as a W magazine spread in which she said, okay, I'll do it. I don't want it to be about fashion. And so they decided to make a performance piece documented in photos. Stephen Klein used 15 cameras over 10 hours. The most iconic thing, there's, like, a lot of iconic things in this shoot. It's, like, really incredible shoot, I think.

And kind of plays with a lot of the themes of her, just like how she dresses, like, corsets and, you know, like, all those kinds of things in ballet shoes and, like, dancer stuff. Yeah. but like kind of really distorts them and fucks them up in a certain way. Like that feels almost like she's in an insane asylum. Yeah, she's almost like filthy mattress. She's like a... Right.

There's like a coyote. Yeah. There's like all this kind of like it has a very menacing. Sinister dark edge to it, which I think is like a cool, was just a very cool reinterpretation. Yeah, the makeup is a mess. Yeah. The hair is a mess. Like it's just kind of like this.

It's kind of like a, it's very like a cool. like rough and feeling like interpretation of like her so it's like kind of a lens of that I love especially the sort of like Christian macaw the mask yeah it's the veil and like that you know there's just like it's so just like yeah it's striking it's very striking and like again menacing and an interesting way when she's sitting in and watching the wedding dress on fire but in in the veil and it's like and the way that they shot them video stuff. It's like very herky, jerky. Yeah. And like, you know, weird. And she's doing these, like, putting her legs behind her head and all these kind of like contortionist stuff. And it feels like, yeah, like a really, a patient, like, struggling.

Yeah, it's full like mental asylum. You're right. You kind of, you nailed it. If people in the mental asylum were. Right. Right. Right. Right. Reve-Gos. And Kristen LaGois. Yeah. But it's very cool. So it did become a 44 page spread in W, but also became a full on art show at Daich, I think. Yeah, I think it was Daich. And then in August of that year, she went on the VMAs to perform Hollywood. Well, she, yeah. This is the second maybe most iconic. Madonna has had three iconic VMA moments, one being more of a cultural moment with the Courtney Love. Obviously her very first, like a virgin cake moment, which then is echoed here by Brittany and Christina joining her.

Actually, they come out first, and they come out of the wedding cake in the like-a-virgin outfits. And it was Jamie King's, her choreographer's suggestion, that she kiss each of them. She was like, it's a marriage and at the end you kiss. According to Madonna, they were meant to be chased kisses, and they were during rehearsal, but at the actual awards, quote, Brittany opened her mouth. I'm a showgirl. We learned to roll with the punches. If someone comes at you with their lips slightly parted, you have to kiss them.

So this was made into a huge deal. Also, the camera person really, like, snapped that day by being like, I got to get Justin Timberlake's reaction. He had just broken up with Brittany, right? Like, very famously. And then, like, it's that kiss. And then his, like, horrified or, like, bummed out react. It became a whole fucking mess. Yeah.

It was a fucking mess. I mean. You don't even remembers that Miss Elliott was there. It was. But she was. She was also performed with them. It was like such a, I mean, again, it's like she loves to put her, thrust herself in the middle. I think this summary, what she said, like, if someone comes at you with her lips, seems slightly parted, I'm going to go for it.

Right. Like, I mean, she's going to go for it. She's like, here are the two, here are the two teen. They're 21 and 22. Right. Brittany's person was 21 years old. So here they are, the girls that she keeps being getting compared to. And she's like, I'm going to fuck this shit up.

And she did. Yeah. And, like, people went fucking crazy about it. I thought it was really funny. Oprah later asked her if she was making a sexual statement with that. And she said, I made those statements years ago. I love it. Just like. She's just kind of like, fuck off, guys.

It's not untrue. And totally. And it's just kind of like, get over it. Like whatever. Are we still, this is still a thing we have to talk about. Okay. The next thing that happens, again, not a lot to talk about here, I don't think, but it's the remixed and revisited album. But I want to say one thing about that back to that.

just that's kind of interesting. Like, I think just about her and like about reappraisals. Like I think like there's a big theme of reappraisals, right? Because I think like erotica reapraisal, American Life reappraisal, I think the VMA thinks becomes a reappraisal too because I think, you know, at the time it seems so controversial. She seems like old and she's like lesbian kissing. And it's like, like, everyone's like kind of the response to it was like as if she was some kind of predator like, you know, creepy.

Predator thing. Using this like young, innocent pop star to further her own, like, press cycle or whatever. But in the end, you sort of see, like, it has like a, it has a through line and it makes sense. And it like, and those girls completely looked up to her. And like, you know, I think it was like, they were, they were thrilled to be on that stage with her singing her songs. Like, it was like, you know, it wasn't like she went on and sang Jeannie in a bottle. Do you have any sense of, like, why you think that. her entire career is kind of defined by being re-evaluated upward. Like, it has happened ever since erotica on, it seems that, like, in real time, it's not understood or accepted.

And with hindsight, it's completely re-evaluated and placed way higher. Yeah. And it does happen multiple times in her career. I mean, I think it's really simply just because she is afraid to break a taboo. Right. And just like, and I think, you know, she just is fearless about that and doesn't, it doesn't even face her. I would imagine, like, the way she says this comment here about, you know, I'm a showgirl. We learn to roll with the punches. I feel like, you know, there's some intention behind a lot of it. But at the same time, I also feel like it's just an instinctual thing that she's just going to, like, go for it. And, you know, even her response to the way the sex book was received being sort of surprised by it, I think is sort of a maybe a, comment on how she kind of perceives that stuff.

She thinks people will take it at face value and understand it. But she doesn't realize, like, on a certain level, maybe didn't realize, like, how much of, like, she was stirring the pot. Right. And how much the taboo would blind people to the actual work. Yeah. And at a certain point, people become ready, more receptive to the idea that, like, oh, well, you know.

Yeah. Well, also now that we've, like, broken 75 different taboos every which we. to Sunday. I mean, I think that's kind of interesting, she's an interesting artist in that and the whole era that she's in because of that. Like, I think, you know, all of the artists that she quoted in her career,

Merrill Monroe, Marlena Dietrichs, they also broke taboos on a certain level, but kept a certain level of decorum also that was like this kind of studio code. Right, right. Behavior that, like, she didn't. She went further, yeah. She didn't have to even think about that kind of shit and, like,

and didn't. And wanted to, and if you had given those to her, she would have been like, oh, yeah, fuck, here we go, like, get ready, like, don't tell me no. Like, you know, there was a quote from her, something to the effect of, like, what's the most powerful word, what's the most motivating word to you? And it was, like, the word no. Yeah, yeah. And so I think there's, like, an element of that.

Like, you're like, don't go there. And she's like, okay, watch me. Yeah. So. And then, yes, over time. And then over time, people start to. The taboo is removed and people can see how valuable the word is. So that makes sense.

Okay, do you have anything to say about remixed and revisited? Because I don't, but. I think some of the best remixes on the album cycle are in here to me. You mentioned the love profusion head cleaner rock mix. Yeah, I like that one a lot. And the American Life rock mix, I think, is really cool also. That's the one they performed on the tour. There's also the like a virgin Hollywood Medley featuring.

Britney's views. And then the Hollywood groove. your groove with Missy Elliott, which is, you know, it was cool. It was like, cool. And your honesty, which actually I do love your honesty. I think that's... It's really good. It's an outtake from bedtime stories.

Yeah. I do, I do too. It is, again, kind of buried. Just like, what's our other favorite song? Rescue Me? Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's just kind of buried as an afterstop.

It actually is a great tune. And I love, actually really, really love that song. It was really good. You're so right. And it just kind of like, again, kind of lost a time. because it was an outtake from one album and then thrown on this. All right. Well, let's lay on the plane.

Let's bring it home. Okay. We're going to do that with 2004's Reinvention Tour. Yeah. May 24th, 2004 to September 14, 2004. Once again, Jamie King is at the helm. Stewart Price is the musical director. Donna Delory comes back, but Nikki does not.

She wanted to focus on her career. Saida Garrett comes back. Yeah. Santa Garrett. legendary background vocalist. Right. Worked with Michael Jackson for years. I mean, I saw this tour also. I loved. I mean, the beast within

opening that tour is just like, and I hope I didn't cut you off. No, no, please. It's just like so amazing. I think the, it's a, it's clips from the, it's clips from the, from the ecstatic process thing with Stephen Klein. Yes.

especially the red laqua thing that she's wearing and then there's like mask that she wears that's like a kind of like a hound nose like you know and she's like on the ground doing this thing and then there's like it's very like cuddy with these um right like jerky yeah and this like cutty with these like images of or you know video of a coyote so it's like this real and then there's a lot of like cabala or jewish or Hebrew kind of text around it too yeah so just to justify my love The Beast Within Mix had this like interpretation of the book of St. John, what is it called? The book of Revelation. Sure.

Oh, that's kind of like, that's the cool one. The cool part of the Bible. The golf part of the Bible. The, you know, prophecy of the apocalypse. And I think it's not the exact text of that book or maybe it is from some version of the Bible. I don't know. But it's, I think it was an interpretation. clergy members and the bands playing audience.

But it's very cool and I really did a really cool job of amplifying it. And at the beginning of the I'm going to tell you a secret movie, there's like this little section of her and Stuart Price like working out like what it should sound like. And it's, it's, it's, it's. She's running up on Dutch hat. Yeah. It's very 2004. It's like, yes, right. Oh, there's nothing I love more just as a side note than Madonna in like a track suit or like post.

like warm up clothes with like wet hair and like a hat. It's just like it's so hot. Yeah, with an a shirt. It will never get over. I know. Anyway, the opening of that tour like the whole stadium vibrates

because of the bass is like insanely low on that like track. It's very cool and very like cool opening. I didn't go but I have not once again say I've not seen Madonna live it's a tragedy and a travesty. But we watched this

gorgeous documentary by Jonas Hockerland. That's kind of like Truth or Dare Part 2, basically. And you definitely get the gist of this tour being, I mean, you said it. It's like, it's the reinvention tour. And it's called that because she performs a lot of her greatest songs from throughout her career, but like kind of. Reinterpreted. Yeah.

Reinterpreted. Yeah. And I think it was also a little bit of a reinvention. after everything we just talked about with, you know, American life and how much controversy there was around it and, like, how much flak she got for it. And I think there was, like, a just generalized feeling of, like, why is she so political? Why is she so, like, you know, all the sort of criticisms of it. I think this was a way of being like, I'm still fucking Madonna. Yeah. And I have, like, all these. Don't you fucking forget it. And then she kept it

still very political. Right. So she was like, I'm doing both, like, watch me. I'm not just going back to, like, of Madonna you want, that just sings material on holiday, you know? She's like, I've got it all. Yeah. I've got the catalog. And, like, I'm going to fucking collaborate you with this.

The visuals are very cool. And it's like the, the dancers she chose are very interesting. She's got the break dancer, the skateboarder. She really, she, like, kind of diversified. More so even than, I think, Drown World, but started to have more of that.

Like, you know, male and female dancers. Right. And, like, just kind of. And the dancers were Drown World, were styled very popular. They had mohawks and she even made Nikki get a mohawk poor lady. But yeah, here they're also very cool, doing very cool stuff. The costumes are awesome.

Awesome. Costumes are amazing on this. Yeah. Arion tourette with the... I especially love the kiltz at the end of the... Love those. Where they're all in the... As you said, the Guy Richie moment.

She was glazing her husband. There's paying tribute to her new life as a British country. side. Lady, yeah. There's like a part at the end where they go to Israel. At the end of the movie. At the end of the movie. Yeah, yeah.

Which is so weird. I don't, like, I don't. It's a strange. I mean, I guess it's 2004, so it's hard to. Well, it was in the middle of the war, I think. Yeah. Just like everything that was going on at that time. So I guess it was, it felt very, you know, risky or somewhat dangerous because that

was kind of like the context of it. The documentary is a little clunkier than you do there. Like, it's still really fun to watch. and it's got really incredible footage. A couple of great lines where she's like, if two facts tell you it's not good, then you better be worried about it. So there's some really good stuff.

And also the guy richie part where he's like on the street interviewing people is kind of funny. Kind of funny, but also kind of cringe. The guy Richie glazing is a little like... Yeah, it's a little. It's a little. But then you got all the cute footage of Lourdes and Rocco.

Adorable. Yeah. Speaking French. So sweet. So sweet. I would have loved to hear this Don't Tell Me Containing Elements of Bitter Sweet Symphony from the set list. Oh, I know.

There were a couple things that were cut from the set list that would have been cool to hear. From the movie. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, because I don't remember now. Yeah, so they didn't include every song of the movie. But yeah, this tour is great. She reminded them, I'm Madonna Binch.

Don't you ever fucking forget it. Looked amazing, sang amazing. She looked amazing. Like her. Yeah. Or she looks just peak gorgeous. This is the tour that she does the really crazy yoga posture. She does like a forward, like the raising the legs over but then back over.

Right? The head stand, a handstand with her legs folded over. It's fucking cool. Yeah, this is a, this tour movie is worth definitely watching. There's so much cool shit in it. The screens were really cool on this. The stage was very cool. very simple in essence, like relatively speaking.

But there was many parts, moving parts to it. The screens all had these, like, it was like all these multiple planes of screens. And so they did this really cool play of like dimensionality with screens. It was very innovative in that way. And then I had this conveyor belt across the front that was like a way of like a moving people moveer kind of. And the part where she has to like go against it. I was like, please don't twist your ankle, ma'am.

Yeah. I couldn't do that. And Iggy Pop is in this documentary. So that's a fun moment. he opened for her, I think, on a UK leg or something. Amazing. He's so nervous when he's like meeting her. It's so funny and cute.

And then she closes out this tour on holiday, so we're so back. Yeah, we're so back. And this is where we are going to wrap this episode up. We will be back next week for the fourth. and final, at least part of the arc of Madonna's career picking up with what happens after 2004. Yeah, I believe it's a little album you might have heard of that is getting a lot of attention right now.

Confessions on a dance floor. So come back next week for a new episode of Bansplay. Thank you, Paul. Thank you. It was so much fun. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bansplain. Our guest today was Paul Hammond.

This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Jacob Cornett. Executive producers for Bansplain are Gina Dalbac and me, Yossi Solic. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Costantino and Jennifer Clavin and graciously recorded by Carlos Dillegarza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Sean Fennacy, Sarah Nattoff, and today I'm back.

It's Diet Coke. come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bansplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Just thinking about the, I just thinking about the hit yoga class and getting really sad.