In 2008, Madonna cultivated the on-trend sound of the era for her Hard Candy album thanks to poaching Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and Justin Timberlake as producers for the record. While the cover art received more flak than the content itself, the work was largely criticized for Madonna trying to sound like something she was not. In 2012, Madonna would continue to keep her sound relevant by means through which people would call contrived as opposed to ahead of the curve as they once did with other albums of her “latter career” (namely Ray of Light and Music). To do so, she sought out old favorites William Orbit and Benny Benassi, while bringing in yet another favorite type of producer of hers–a French DJ–into the mix in the form of Martin Solveig, specifically for the first single, “Give Me All Your Luvin'” (though later, Madonna’s camp tried to claim it was merely a “promotional” single for the Super Bowl when it didn’t receive a positive enough response, attempting to start anew with “Girl Gone Wild”).
It was on this track that Madonna touted, “Every record sounds the same, you gotta step into my world.” Well, evidently, she’s only become more convinced of this as time has worn on–and rightly so, if 24K Magic winning the Grammy for Record of the Year (in continued proof that all awards shows are suffering from the Girls effect) isn’t enough proof. That being said, as Madonna embarks upon her sixtieth birthday as the most successful female artist of all-time, it’s fairly safe to say that she can make whatever the fuck type of music she wants. And while some might believe that she has long been able to do just that, this is an uncharted moment in her career, one that has been more prosperous, by mainstream standards, than anybody’s–even the other two women who have her same longevity (Cher and Barbra Streisand).
Whereas in recent years, Madonna has still remained concerned with capturing a sonic zeitgeist, the accusation that she is now merely glomming on to what’s already trending hasn’t fallen away since the Hard Candy days. That said, Madonna likely has even less fear about speaking the truth when it comes to her extremely informed view on the music industry (shit, she helped define it in its modern incarnation). Evermore up to the challenge of being a lone wolf in a landscape dominated by sheep, Madonna stated in her latest interview with Vogue Italia (a cover story called “Just One Day Out of Life”–the spread being named in honor of her first major worldwide hit single, “Holiday”), “Everything’s so formulaic, and every song has twenty guest artists on it, and everyone sounds the same.”
Never one for sugar coating anything, Madonna adds that it’s more interesting to sit in a bar in Lisbon and hear people playing fado music than it is to listen to anything currently being played on a Top 40 radio station. That Madonna’s fellow contemporaries, Prince, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, have all bitten the dust adds a layer of veracity to her statement–for these were all musicians willing to take risks and incorporate a bold or “underground” style into their music. Now the only one left standing to do so is Madonna.
And she seems all the more willing to as a result of her fearlessness, commenting of her current Portuguese influence, “In Alfama, you’ll hear people singing and playing fado music everywhere. There are these weekly sessions called living room sessions which pop up in people’s beautiful homes that are five hundred years old, and you walk up the marble steps which are lined with candles into the living room which is also dimly lit with candles. And there’s this rolling, very intimate performance happening where people play, they sing, they recite poetry.” M’s admiration for this unbridled exhibition of passion for art as opposed to some executive in corporate attire seeking to somehow bottle a talent and commodify it for mass production has awakened something within her own approach to creating what will be her fourteenth album (yes, I’m Breathless should be counted in the discography).
Elaborating on the scene in Lisbon, she added, “It’s like a salon; something which doesn’t really exist in many places anymore–people elsewhere say, ‘Call my manager, this is how much I charge.’ I’m pretty sure in Lisbon people would do these shows and not get paid, they just do them for the love of what they do, and for me, this is glorious and inspiring.”
That inspiration is most assuredly to be present on Madonna’s next offering. This, of course, could mean a hit or a flop–for there is no in between when it comes to testing the waters of the pop music machine, so heavily reliant on banking what has been tried and true (mainly, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift). In the past, Madonna has both benefitted and suffered from her experimentations (Music being an example of triumph and American Life not so much, at least not in the opinion of the public at large). This time around, though, she categorically has nothing to prove other than the fact that she’s still the most innovative female artist in the (not so) beautiful game.
