The rumors have been brewing for a while now, reaching a crescendo throughout all of January as Madonna finally confirmed on the 17th that a greatest hits tour has, in fact, been in the works. And it’s called, almost as generically as 2004’s Reinvention Tour, The Celebration Tour—named as a nod to her 2009 greatest hits compilation, Celebration. Being that Madonna’s last album, Madame X, was released in 2019, perhaps she’s “surrendering” in some way to the idea that the most money to be made from her music, in terms of “drumming up” tour business, is through the assurance of greatest hits. For she already knows her die-hard fans will show up for anything she does—now she wants “the leftovers” who can’t respect some of her more “experimental” phases to join in too.
As for the timing of the tour, it seems to indicate Madonna losing a certain “ahead-of-the-curveness” in that Taylor Swift already stole headlines recently for the announcement of her own 2023 greatest hits show, called The Eras Tour. Which already made history for shutting down Ticketmaster during the presales due to “overwhelming demand” and subsequently inciting an antitrust investigation. It’s unlikely that The Celebration Tour will have the same issues or history-making propensities, but there’s no denying that it will sell out in most cities, maybe even the two dates (thus far) Madonna has bestowed upon New York, the place she’s almost grotesquely fond of because it “made her into the person she is” (though Madonna students know it was her mother’s death and the tutelage of Christopher Flynn that did that). Ergo, the tour announcement was sure to mention, “The Celebration Tour will take us on Madonna’s artistic journey through four decades and pays respect to the city of New York where her career in music began.” It’s unclear how much more respect Madonna can pay to it, but anyway… She herself also added, “I am excited to explore as many songs as possible in hopes to give my fans the show they have been waiting for.” How Taylor-esque.
And yet, the only person who can really give people a bona fide “Eras Tour” is Madonna. After all, she isn’t called the Queen of Reinvention for nothing, having “revamped” herself repeatedly over the years. Some people would cynically call that a “bid to stay relevant,” while Madonna has described it as the search for her true self as she slowly peels back the layers (yes, it’s very Kabbalah-spurred). Either way, it’s been iconic and culturally impactful for the rest of the world to watch. From the Boy Toy incarnation of Like A Virgin to the bleach-blonde, slicked-back hair and gamine physique of True Blue to the dominatrix of Erotica to the “Ethereal Girl” of Ray of Light to the glamorous cowgirl of Music to the Che Guevara imitator of American Life to the “disco dolly” of Confessions on a Dance Floor, Madonna has provided look after look (therefore Halloween costume after Halloween costume) for the masses to soak up and embed in their collective cultural lexicon.
With Taylor, those marked reinventions—aesthetic or otherwise—have never really been there. Sure, her “sound” has evolved from the country-ier days of Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now to the more pop-centric focus heralded by Red. But, in the end, her “deal” is being a singer-songwriter that sort of fell into being a pop star (something Lana Del Rey hasn’t been able to do on a similar mainstream level—possibly because she’s viewed as “too dreary” for the main mainstream). Madonna, always underestimated for her singing-songwriting abilities, is, in contrast, a pop star of the prototypical order. The blueprint for every girl who came after her. She was the post-modern ideal (that arrived just as MTV did): media savvy and never missing an opportunity for self-promotion and “synergy” (read: advertising ventures with such companies as Mitsubishi, Pepsi [short-lived, but still], Motorola and H&M).
What’s more, she had no aversion to being in the public eye on an almost constant basis—prompting the rockumentary meets early reality TV stylings of 1991’s Truth or Dare. It is this Alek Keshishian-directed film that Madonna parodies in her ad for The Celebration Tour, with appearances by Amy Schumer, Diplo, Judd Apatow, Jack Black, Lil Wayne, Bob the Drag Queen (who will open on Madonna’s tour), Kate Berlant, Larry Owens, Meg Stalter and Eric Andre subbing out for the original Blond Ambition Tour dancers. A.k.a. the ones that sued Madonna afterward and then made a follow-up documentary called Strike A Pose in 2016.
The allusions to her early 90s projects also expand when Judd Apatow (one of many inexplicable presences in the room) dares Madonna to recreate one of her Sex book poses with Larry Owens, Jack Black and Lil Wayne. Afterward, Schumer then dares her to go on a world tour to perform all of her “greatest mothafuckin’ hits.” Madonna replies, “Four decades?” “Yeah bitch.” “As in: forty years?” “Yes.” “As in: all those songs?” “Fuck yeah.” “We’re talking ‘Like A Virgin’—” (a song, by the way, that Madonna has frequently paraded her contempt for). Amy interjects, “We’re talkin’ [singing], ‘Open your heart,’ we’re talkin’ [singing], ‘Tropical the island breeze.” Madonna and the others join in to sing, “All of nature wild and free/This is where I long to be/La isla bonita,” with Madonna stopping to say, “Wait, hold up. That’s a lot of songs.”
Ironically, however, in far fewer years, Swift has almost as many studio albums out as Madonna, making it possible for her to have fifty-five singles under her belt in the span from 2006 to now. That’s getting awful close to Madonna’s robust ninety singles—especially at the rate that Swift produces. So sure, Swift has the “rep” and the “cred” to do a greatest hits tour, but it’s hardly something that should be called “Eras” (perhaps largely inspired by the fact that she didn’t get to tour folklore and evermore thanks to Miss Rona). For the eras of Swift are ultimately always the same, expounding on this, that or the other heartbreak (all while sporting the same blonde hair and red lipstick). Madonna’s lyrical topics are, conversely, far more varied. Needless to say, so are her looks.
And, though it makes more sense for Madonna to do a greatest hits tour (despite balking at the notion for so long), it’s odd, in a way, for her to bother with such a “theme,” for she always includes a few crumbs of that ilk on every tour—usually favoring the inclusion of “Holiday,” “Vogue” and the aforementioned “La Isla Bonita,” at the bare minimum. This is why one has to ask, is it really a “Celebration” Tour or a Capitulation Tour, with Madonna finally surrendering to the fickle tastes of the philistine hordes? You know, like Taylor Swift. But maybe, in the name of pop star symbiosis and catering to the hoi polloi, the two can join each other onstage again like they did at the 2015 iHeartRadio Music Awards. Since they’ll both be in greatest hits tour mode at the same time and all.
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