The Reinvention Tour Overview

Whats with this band Anway? I don't get it, Can you please explain? Wait like bandplain Hello and welcome to Bandsplained. I am your host, Yasi Soalk. 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 pererhaps the most iconic artist of all time My guest today, you guys has got herself a universe gone quickly. It is creative director, Paul Hammon 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. What kind of friend am I? A good one. Okay. 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 in Madonna History, Madapedia, Madonna Underground, Madonna Tribbe, the Inside the Group podcast, the Encyclopedia Madica in the Bible, the twenty twenty three Mary Gabriel Madonna biography Weibo Hey girl. We bot girl Instagram. Madonna Brnette Instagram. There's many more. Thank you for 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 into Madonna fandom. I'm gonna age myself, but I started at the beginning, I heard U 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 forty and that kind of especially that kind of like New York, very specific kind of New York sound U and I was just like, what is that? Like I need this. And so that's started it and it just went What kind of stuff were they playing on the radio that kind of I mean, it was very, you know, it was like very genre divided was, you know, probably like top forty and that was probably hearded on top forty. So it was like top forty 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 I 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 I was very intrigued. so That started it and I kind of just never gave up after that that. Yeah, I guess I had to look at it because I was only one but that it was like very every breath you take by the police And Flash dance would have feeling. I' Billy Jean Yeah, Billy Jane. your rhythmics, there was like you, there was more and more kind of like electro soundream I think Yeah starting to Yeah starting to percolate and at that same time was alsoso Shannon let the music play, I think it was very similar Yeah. So it was kind of the kind of burgeoning sound of that New York Whatever that club was were jelly bean . it wasn' It wasn't funun house. Yes, fun house.. Oh my God 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. Yeah, so you're lifer, you're a day one. I'm a lifer. Yeah ye. 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 be like, what's this? And you like from off dome, you'd be like, oh yeah, that was drrowned World tour. she was wearing this and these this is the set list in order. and I was like, Human would. I 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 Okay ammazing U All right, well let's we're picking up Um, 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, youd just jump straight to episode three, but that's okay. L maybe you just love R of light you wanted to get straight to the point, but we can say that in part two, we covered the you can Dance remix album. u like a prayer the Vogue single blonde ammbition tour. I'm Breathless, the muso from Dick Tracy. We covered a lot. Imaculate collection. This used to be my playground, Eerotica, sex book controversy, the fallout Um, the Girlly show tour then sort of regaining regaining audience with All remember and bedtime stories. And we kind of left off with having put up bime stories ' Tail end of nineteen ninety four Yeah And now I guess we were going St off at the top Pop ish spring of nineteen ninety five. 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 I feel like there's so many viral clips of it that you see now. I mean, mostly because her breasts look absolutely incredible. Iag she's dancing around on that stage and it's 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 sort of my favorite ones off Biz 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 factactory era, which is where, you know, like all those dancers for blond ammbition were recruited.. invoguing was happening and I was there too. And so you know, I think I believe it closed like towards the end of ' ninety five So it was still kind of in like peak junior. in New York. So it was very in New York that like the idea that she chose him and worked with him I know that had a huge fall out lam so sad because like hello, Junior, this is Madonna. Are you there? me in Miami is like one of the most like od 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 was kind of after the sound factactory closed and he moved to another club But he was like obsessed with Madonna, like completely obsessed. And his 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 valid, but it had If Madonna calls in it and it had samples from, you know, fast Edy, let's go, let's go and it had samples from like a prayer. It was like this insane mashup that he would do. and people went abbsolutely crazy over it. We used to be a proper country guys all happ. Yeah It was it was pretty fun. It was pretty special. And you like you couldn't hear it anywhere else. And that's another thing about all of that is 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 twelve inches and so She kind of like put herself in that stream in a cool way that was very relevant to 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.'s the rex. Yeah. abbsolutely. And I'm sure there is like some great podcas or 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 whichich is like she's the pop star of the masses, but then this part is for the heads. You know? And I that's so cool. L to continue to service partart of your audience all the way through is like so genius. I think Patrick pointed that out in the last episode though, just about how important It is that she every all the singles that she releases, she releases the dance remixes and there was chart toally 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 those kind of two levels. was very, you know intelligent marketing, but also, I think true to who she is. Yeah and also like following her own interests, which have always been the club and the clubs. Yeah.. I brought up the Midnight Patjama partarty A because it's cool, but B because she didn't tour bedtime stories because She got A film part. That's right It worked. The video, The music video. of takeake a bow Take a bow. her audition tape. And she is cast in the titular role in Ebida 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 is the partner of Andreloyid Weber, who created the musical together, he said that Andreloyid Weber felt 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 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. Bter actress like Merril Strape weren't right because they're not singers They can hold a tune but they're not brilliant interpreters of songs. Yeah. J like so that's exactly what Madon. Absolutely. Yeah ye 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 years reating that before it had even found a director or become a proder years and years. Yeah. She was angling for that for a long time so, you know, it was great and exciting at the time when she got it, everyverybody was all the fandom, so to speak. I was very excited for for that. You got 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, Castila Del Lago, which I don't know how I didn't realize until like very recently it's actually quite close to my house and like right by the Lake Hollywood reseservoir where we all go walking and I was like, Damn, that's just a sick house. You can see like you can see the ate and stuff like and she doesn'tve there anymore so don't go over there and try her 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 bking up 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 andot the security 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. Iust just w want to bring that up because it's yeah major part of kind of telling of what level of fame she had, you know Madonna starts prepping for Avita with Three months of intensive vocal training with vocal coach, Joan Later McDonald later told LA 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'de and Edith PF had very limited ranges too, and I'm a big fan so I figured I'd make do it the best that I had U 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 pololarizing a little bit within the fandom about this intense vocal training affected her voice. 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. L before she's kind of like 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 she just finds her tone, I think in a way. that's like really, really beautiful and compelling. you know, but its also feels I guess more studied often. I going to be haters when you're bettering yourself and they they're 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 lightight would have been possible Without that Without that. O percent Not in the way that we have had. Yeah Okay, so she also take a quick break to just be the face of the spring summer Versacei campaign, shop by Steven Mo.. Also fall winter, shop by Mario Tasino. thenen It's August of nineteen ninety five And it's the MTVVMaze 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, I think in my mind This will be there like like me and Patrick were saying like I will develop dementia I'll being eighty nine years old And I'll remember the dialogue between Madonna Kurt Loder and Courtney Love at the VMA. for sure. Yeah. But for those of you that haven't seen it, Madonna is sitting in one of her most iconic looks, the Gucci by Tom Ford like kind of it was like real like ye blue button down button down. Yeah that was like open Valore or velvet pants withelo 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, I remember that look really specifically from the campaign as well Amber Votta wore it. That's right. Yeah. I just like I was I was a vogue kid. Yeah. But yeah, she looks. It's not hair. just but ye's it's is it seventies? like what is that like hair? I it felt like kind of like a sixty seventies ye Yeah sort of like. Swingery, total you know, like hot wife Yes She looks perfect. She looks perfect. And Kurt Loder is interviewing her and then you are like You don't really see what is happening, but you see hert L like, what They're on like a double decker bus. like they're like elevated above I'm pretty sure it was a doubleck. Was a bus, like one of those tourist bus. And they're on top of it. ' they they were like obviously accessible from wherever the people on the red carpet were coming Of Radio City. Yeah. And I think yeah Courtney like starts flinging items to like over the thing and then c loaders like Oh, it's Courtney Everybody, it's Courtney. I think Madonna goes Courtney is in dire need of attention. and she can recognized game. mean 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 one long episodes my whole life now all I I don't remember a time but 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 Batady says, you can't live off the camera And I was like, Ohh, 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 on that's like As as Michael S 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 wantan to run the hospital. So like I date other surgeons and then they're assholes. And she's like, but you like know, you date orderlies and like she's like maybe I should date a candy straper and Danna goes, Maybe you should get out of the hospital Fneia 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. Likes it's such a it's no notes situation. the mom perfect nineteen ninety five moment I think. And they were friends, you know, like they like it's a funny, playful thing, but I know that they were friends and they like had a relationship Um, but I just that's that's canon For 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 pictures from that from her on the like red carpet or whatever Yeah wearing that gucci look with that hair There's this one funny picture of her where she's making a funny face like that caught her in between.' like you know, probably in the geteti images or whatever. Anyway, these like Russian people put it on like this posters they're like burning it. I mean, the images of her are crazy. You can look it up they were like like orrthodox Russian. I wish I knew better. It was some sort of like ignorant protest againsta. But her feel being like you know, sort of a blasphemous kind of figure like aow, what a cool item to. And it' those pictures that they had onuge post. Just her doing the weird f flames. Yes Yeah really it's so kind of incredibly iconic. I mean it just adds to the whole honestly, Madonna should purchase those images and make merch them Out of a one hundred. I would buy a t shirt at that. Totally. The burning of the picture. So then in September, after the MMAS, she goes to London to begin rehearsals for Avita. and in November, she releases another project. 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 Rodicka' sex 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 third, nineteen ninety five I mean, there were rumors that She was she was really hurt and upset by you know the backlash from the sex book and that kind of surprised her. Totally. whichich is, I mean funny. and It's cool. it speaks to like how pure maybe the kind of intention wasind you just thought people would be like receptive to this idea of like exploring this and people were orr at the very least be like, oh, there' go Madonna again not like This like this is like disgusting here like you know, 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 her Her bows always did exceedingly well on the charts. and I think, you know, they were like some of her most loveved songs obviously. Yeah. And we talked about it in the last episode, Take a bow was like Huge. massive live to tell. Radio h li. So it's like, I think it just it just made sense as a collection Wh she had already done the Iaculate 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. I' really great. It has a couple of new songs. She always does that. One is a cover of I Want You by Marvin Gay with a massive attack. It so fucking good. Yes. I really wish she had moved been able to work more with massive attacks I mean, the rumor was that it' split and Well yes. Well, yes. And if you guys are interested in that, we have a whole massive attack episode that I think touches upon. 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 rightite because I'm not Patrick. I didn't memorize. But like that she talked about driving around her Mercedes, listening to the stereo MC's remix of this tricky song and bumping it so loud that like the car would vibrate And so I think she really loved that Yeah, you know 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 she worked with Nelly Hooper obviously you quite a bit. And we later and I don't want to get ahead, but I would do want to foreshadow Massive attacks. One of Massive Attack's most interesting and unusual albums is a big inspiration for one of Madonna's most interesting and unusual albums. So we'll talk about that, which is I think really cool. You'll see Is the first single off of this I remember it being kind of positioned as a Pick about part two, right kindind of Yeah, kindind of And the video is kind of very similar too, from what I remember. There's like a lyrical reference. Yeah right? It's like I have truth on my side. you only have deceit. Yeah. it's a lyrical reference to T about the guy having like a public personality and a private one, I don't know. This is just a genenius dot com It's a good ballad. Yeah yeah. Yeah P love donon't Lve here anymore, remix. Beautiful Absolutely, let's fucking go ourours. I mean, we talked about it, I guess it would haveve been with Melk s' episode one, how much we love that song. But then it getting like this amazing remake and being on the her, it's like you're forced to revis how this cover. It brought it to another level that remix, like it just felt like Somehow the vocal feels just like more forward, less Yeah more forward in the mix 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 has a nice little it's a nice little vibe. And an alternate version of a Father Good and interesting. Yeahah. That was good. I thought also And then the orchestra version I want you, which is so amazing was like Craig Armstrong, I think was the guy who did all the Yeah, you Yeah I think so. I'm just not I don't have any in my knows. I think that was happen. Yeah, he was Anyway, you had an album and I feel like that riff from that was on that on his album as a different But he did a lot of stuff with massive attack over the years too Yeah, really beautiful. That version in particular is so it'. This is a great This is a great release. Yeah was a gen genius move. Picture from the outtake from the Versace campaign on the cover. Yeah, it's so beautiful. It's soft. Yeah, soft. Yeah. Soft tones. Yeah. She's blonde. She's not gonna to hurt you. She's not scary. All right. thenen in December, she goes on Nightline to talk to Fororest 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 Vinnie Voice, my biological clock is ticking. And she wanted to be a mother. This is also the interview where he asks her if Champ 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 and she doesn't meet anyone interesteresting and And I was like D from theop sister. Who amongst us? even mid range podcast celebrity over here has the same issues She gets the most fashionable artist in nineteen ninety five at the VH one Fashion Awards presented to her by Sean Penn, who was at the time separated from Robberyn Wright There was a lot of rumors at the time that she was like going to have a baby by him, but that didn't Packs up instead in January of nineteen ninety six, goes to Argentina to film Mvida 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 Prontidential Park, Carlos Seone who she was dating on and off. And she's doing 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 there's defitely like a scene where I'm like, oh, your boobs so big. Yeah yeah definite. It looks great. It's like not talking me I'm like, oh, those are pregnancy boobs, 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 seated 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 class with a rabbi It's called Kabala 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 Spikelyy film, Girl Six. so good. Free Girl Six. Yeah. Free Girl Six is right. The fact that you just can't fucking watch it anywhere, I believe because of I can't I think it's because of the prince music in it and 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 nineties, there was no such thing as net. There's no streaming does it all. It doesn't extend to that. and like the estate now will not sign off on it. R. have touck. There's no blue ray. fucking release the bllue ray. Yeah, seriously. There's DVD's on eBay for three hundred and fifty dollars Yeah I mean, she's so good in that a minute.. She plays a phone sex operator. her moss Boss three and Debbie Mazer is also in this film. It's an amazing film. It really feels like New York at a particular time. I think it's my favorite Scky movie. Yeah, there's so many. There's many goodes. is I love the visual language of it. It's so cool. just like really well done. Yeah, really amazing. And then october fourteenth, Lordess Maria Siconi Leone 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 Lorddis, which is in France, a world renown pilgrimage site where I guess people In eighteen fifty eight there was apparitions of the Virgin Saint Mary to Staint Bernandette That's why she wanted to go. She's gonna to 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 son, the Divine feminine. Yeah. so it's the most divine feminine religion, I think That's it's obviously like a hatater, hating ass religion as well, then. Totally. Ctely. So yeah, I think it' it just it made sense and it It's a great name. I love that name. Yeah. I love it too. Okay, Avita comes out November of ninety ninet well, actually December of nineteen ninety six, with the soundtack comes out in November. Here's, I'm going to be honest with, I'm going to keep it a hundred. 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 onn the geopolitical history of Argentina prior to going into watching Aida, 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 that It feels very like a vehicle. I think we were talking about this the other day too, just like, you know And as just the choice to have Aita as that character, you know just to write a play about it or write a musical about it felt like a vehicle for a female vocalist are to, you know, have a have this kind of powerful 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 snapshot of some you know, like a female figure that had. If you ask Argentinian people. Oh, I mean, it's a major' a cult. Yeah. I don't I meant to play itself. Oh 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 she's so strongly identified the story of Eva Perone, which was that she came from kind of like poverty or lower lower class in a more extreme way, 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 U and like used kind of her talents and charms 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 makeakes sense could map her own story ono that. Also extremely polarized. so like, you know, I think that was like a big part of it as well. likeike she had very powerful and like inspired a lot of people but also a lot of people She had a lot of haters her own. As did her husband, so but it was yeah. it's worth watching. It's worth watching. I think it it was a great vehicle part for her.ally She finally put the fucking haters to bed with like, you can't act. C absly act house down bo I think you know what I? And she had that, you know, she can't saying thing following her around She sings incredibly incredibly. And so I mean she she tore it. It's like an incredible performance. one hundred percent. 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 add dresses 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 Yeah 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 totally kind of presentation or like way of like addressing and styling. Yeah, I love that. I sound so right Well, she did great. She is nominated for Best Actress at the Golden Globes the following year in ' ninety seven. She wins, Best Actress in a musical or comedy Aita win's best Motion picture musical comedy, You M L Me wins bestest song, which we didn't point out, but You must Love Me is the only original. obviously because this is a preree existing 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 which she was like just postpartum. absolutely You're obsessed with her brereath. Well, I mean, who isn it? all I think it's I I' talked a lot about her basth.. I'm sorry, Madonna She has like the most perfect breast. It's the most really perfect. So it's like yeah. this was a great time for Madonna lovers because there's all these like red carpet stuff They didn't actually get any nominations in the major Oscar categories, but Tim Ryson Andre Lloyd Weber won for that best song Oscar Around this time as well, sometime in nineteen ninety seven Her longtime manager, Freddy Deman steps back from managing Madonna. He was made like the chief executive at Maverick. And actually the next year Madonna buys him out twenty or twenty five million dollars so he kind of retires. but her assistant, Cress Henry, takes over the management of Madonna, and Gaosiri is still there. He's just like an elevated figure in Maverick right now By the fall of ' ninety seven, Madonna and Carlos Leone had actually broken up Um course continuing to go parent Now that all of that's over with, now that we acted the house downown boots and got a golden globe and learned to you really use one hundred percent of our voice, it's time to make a new album She went to babyface first But don't work out she went in a few directions at first that weren't quite. She went to her familiars. Right. She went my guy, my dog, Patrick Leonard, and Patrick Leonard truthher. if there's one fan in the room, it's me what is I thing of 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 putut some respect and credit on his name They did write four songs together. Sky fits Heaven, notothing really matters, skin and frozen all major in songs, right? Yes I do think obviously they evolved quite a bit from whver those demlos were, but he had a hand in the bones at least That also 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. I just leaked forign 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 Ricknols. Actually, Rick Knolles finds her. Rick Knols had worked on Celind Don's album Falling into you And there she was shopping at Barney's. May I fucking rest in peace. I miss it every day of my life, Barney's New York And he introdces me walking in the high butadonna. I' I'm Rick Nell. and Rickallolds. And he tells her she's such a great songwriter. and two weeks later, they're in LA working on music together. What I love about that little story too is that He was like, oh, I produced Celine's they're falling into tear and she's like, Ohh, I love that song, which is like kind of great. like I thought it was great He also worked with Stevie Nicks ones one of her records at the end of the eighties was interesting. period for Stevie, but also like 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. Yeah in ten days. Three of them end up on the album to have and not to hold The power of Gaye and Whidittle Star And then she's like, I want Back to what you're saying, I want Tp hop. type producers. And again, apologies to the Tp hop community that thinks trip hop is not a real genre. I know, but like I need to it's like indie sleeves. 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 Gldie 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 would make them not look N not smack my bitch up prodigy. They're probably like, no, I don't think so. That doesn't fit with I mean, it's just kind of an interesting commentary on how things have changed changed 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 retty forward, but they were not ready for it. I don't know what the prodigy version of Rab Light sounds like, but it would have been amazing. We'll never know. That's a good use of AI. Yeah Somebody made send it to us the Ram Proigy. It's 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. p s. Yeah. Guiri was like, what about this guy Billy Orbitits, That's not his name. William Orbit. He who quote had done some remixes of my records and he sent over some stuff he had been working on and it was absolutely the direction I wanted to go William Morbt Willy Morbet. Bor William Rraain Rright. Yeah he had done a couple of remixes, right? He had did. remix of Justify My Lone. Yeah. He also made his own music under the name Strange Cargo Madonna' called him a complete madman genius with no pretenses, who doesn't care whether people think he's cool or not So that' was a pretty fair. It was a great person to know and to work with. Yeah. Madonna said, I'd been away for so long that when I got into the studio with time, I felt like I'd been shot out of a cannon. I had so many ideas and ray of lights a ray of light reflects that fashion Foote Before we get into the ray of light cycle, in November of nineteen ninety seven, the Rolling stone Women of Rock cover comes out veryery funny grouping Women of rock And it's Madonna Courtney Leant Tina Turner It is a funny group. ye. Tina Turner, obviously. The original rockers. Right. And Madonna, sure. Sure. It's I bring it up though because it's notable because Arianne Phillips meets Madonna here because she's styling Courtney Love. Y. And they form a kind of lasting bond Bnd and partnership that's going 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 the same colored background as the Rolling stone cover. interestnteresting thing. I always thought about that because That came out right in ' ninety seven and she had that hair. So it already started to change her hair tone and like I started to see this evolution towards ray of lightight. and looking back at that, I remember thinking about how those covers seem very similar. Yeah, you're right. It's this sort of Golden tpe Yeah, ye 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 make it work For the effect For the effect Because you couldn't do it with you could vunte. It was coming out of your exactly. Volunteair. You couldn't turn into a black black doberman on. Okay, let's talk about frozen I mean Just the first time I heard that It was just it was such a It was mind blowing just because it was so different sounding and just 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, which really suited her quite nicely But here it's really taken to another level and that humming. that she does and the you know, 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's 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 nineties Yeah. I had Nepaleses prayer flags on my wall, Vib. okay. We were wearing beads. we were getting henna tattoos on. We didn't know the words cultural appropriation. That wasn't a thing yet. We were o my God Sorry u fabric as skirts Oh you wantanna 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 culot jeans and then they made the bottom the sorry fabric with theose rings and the jewels and like ye all of it. Whenen Stefani has a bindy bab, we are like we're balled deep in appropriating the culture. I mean I it was part of a sort of You know, I mean, there was like a lot of that free tibet energy that like floating around in the world of pop music and rock music through the eighties and into the nineties and It was very pure. I was like it felt very organic as part of just like thinking about And it's different we think of things differently now. It's like this was 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. I think so too thing 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 then. I also think it's partly connected to like . mainstreaming of alternative culture because part of alternative culture that everyone always forgets is like yoga yoga and the headshop completely. And like ye you know, like that was very much happen and just exactly A Buddha statue Yeah it was like and Madonna great ye. So anyways, I just wanted to paint you the picture and make you think of those horrible pants that I Theyiren on have worn This song is God tear. It's a God tear 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. Deborah Winger I mean, it is great. Yeahah, it's great. It's Bernardna Bertolucci set in Northern Africa Sting Deborah Winger and John Nkovitch. Yeah, just like incredible landscapes and just really just not 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 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 dot 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 like 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 think thinkQion it Yeah. L And once it's out, it's like, don't think about it again. Just like that's it, you know, like whichich 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 Um Then she also cites another movie that the lyrics were inspired by, which is the English patient My foriteor movie Merch Ivory Hive, Stand upp. Amanda Daobbins, if you're listening to, you love that movie. She said, I know it sounds so dorky, but it really moved me. I wepted and I can't even tell you why. I also when I saw that. I think was in high school. It was such a huge movie at the time too. It wass like the Rf. Yeahristen's Kristen's got Tom. what amazing yeah. Oh, to be loved in that way.. Oh, to love someone that That's Madonna's quote but also me I echoing it Let's start 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 Gundry Um, which I'm angry with him because he forced me to say on record how much I love a piece of Foo Fighter's art Right, which is the ever long video that he did with a big hand. Yeah. ye. Anyways. I just love the idea that Madonna's at home being like watching afX twin music videos. And she gets obsessed with his music video for C on, comeome to Daddy. It's so good. Really terrifying music video. as are the AX twins in the genre. But like she was like, I want something like that. Although I don't Frozen is not quite in the same No It's more mystical than it is like horror movie. It's filmed in the Mojave desesert It's a piece of like art that's like timeless and ye. And I mean, it also so innovative again, just like not to keep but for her to be like goth I like it to kind of go in this direction of like Mystical themes, which we've already kind of touched on, but just also kind of her presentation of being that kind of witchy figure. She was wearing all gaier. He had done a collection inspired by like Marilyn Manson. And it was from that collection It looks so cool. And then yeah, the like dancing to become into like The birds and the it's so beautiful. so beautiful. And all the close upuff, she looks so beautiful. She looks so beautiful. And I mean, it just like perfectly fits the song too. It's like it was really something else. Wh stands. In twenty twenty one, there wass a trap remix of Frozen madeade by a Canadian DJ called Sitkick that went viral on TikTok. And Madonna because Genius was like I will be making money off of that. So december third, twenty twenty one 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 zero seven zo Sake. and then one featuring vocals from Sick Kick himself frozen on fire. And I'll be honest with you, I've not heard these. I have heard them. What's your favorite I mean, I love zero seven zero so ye so I like that one. So that was topop of nineteen ninety eight January and just a smooth month later light is released Do you agree with the like 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 this like major Shift. Yes. Yeah. I definitely. I mean, definitely think It was a major shift It's kind of her. It's kind of I' Ous, I would say, like just like as a as a work Yeah, like, you know, as a record and as like a direction, it feels like fully realized, right? Like it just feels like she she chose the sound took voice lessons. She had kind of new real 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. R. But part of me, like Brussels looks, I'm like, Oh, like I feel that so much of your pastwk was also art, but this one is more widely considerative because it fits back into what people consider art, which is this not like bubble gum 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 had a daughter and that's like a huge life changing experience. So I think people found all of that Ver relatable. whereereas 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 knowump. But we've talked to some friends who were like, I didn't fuck with that until later. Like I didn't know what was going on. Like I wanted Eerotica, Madonna, you know I kind of started to posit this theory, I think in episode two, but like I really feel like, okay, we starting with like a prayer. And even probably everything coming after to that like this was sort of like, she's 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 Um And then you get Terotica, which is about regaining power and dominance. And to me, all that's very like masculine, right exerting power is very masculine. And then you go kind of to bedtime stories, which is like like Mbe a return to like Okay, you didn't like 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 To me, ray of lightight is a divine feminine. Like it's like veryer much like I'm encapsulating because the divine feminine is like a sort of like a t we just talked about maryry and 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, Eerotica is like exerting power. It feels very much like likeike kind of it has a sort of aggression to, you know, and it is like kind of putting it in your face kind of thing where and whereas this feels much more like quiet and self assured Yeah in a way that I wouldn't say that Eerotica doesn't feel self assured because it is self assured. It just feels much more rebellious. Yes. And this feels just like quiet and self assured and kind of like embodied. And like we're receiving. Receiving is feminine. just like 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 had tried to be a boy, you know, like I'm like Anyways, that' my that's my big brain brain big brain take for at the same time it's very stupid take about. No, I think I think that's what she's saying, right? I I do think it's like She's trying things on and this feels like, you know Birth of the daughter Because being the mother again, what's more divine feminine than giving birth, you know? Like you are embodying the your it's creation is feminine,? you know? I think it's yeah, just it's a wnder. I'm feeling kind of content and happy there. R it really feels like she's happy Yeah, she And like like I walked through the fire of being burned at the stake for Eerotica and it came out the other side, you know. I now I have this beautiful baby and my life was actually pretty good. I had very successful musical. Yes, 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 understate the influence of her. journey into Kabbala because she's become very spiritual and in a further not further as might r out the way, but in a different than she had been her correct 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 Kabal 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 at Eddie Sterns studio. that was's normal for you to know that. I know because I wentn't there too. That's where she met Gwyneth Paltrro, I'm pretty sure because they were both there doing yoga. Remember going Pal being like I invented doing yoga. Yeah. 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 it was like this hot thing to start doing yoga. which was pretty It wasn't new. were 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. Yeah. And this guy was doing aanga yoga. mystiousally Yoga. I think that people maybe wouldn't understand or some people I don't want to speak, wouldn't understand now with the like commodification of yoga into like We do we have weights and we do like hate yoga. it's like what even No is that This is like yoga is a spiritual practice. It is also obviously a movement of the body and does provide exercise, but what it is at its core is a spiritual That's. And I think yeah at that time, there weren't You couldn't really take yoga at it gym. like it wasn't There weren't yoga classes that could. So like you had to go to a studio where people were you know, had gone to India, where they had insense putingting in some prayer flags on the wall and a Buddha said. And did that Pope prayer and all that stuff. that's like that Santiaong Santi thing. And like so it was you know, that was all part of that world. And if you like were in there, there was that smell of Noak Champa and that like kind of So this record also, I think, like references that It came right out of the Yoga studio. That's right Yeah Okay, so let's dive deeper into the into the album. So It's engineered by Pat McCarthyon, Marius Deries, who was a massive attack Nelly Hooper associate who works with McDonnell a lot going forward Patrick Leonard did like kind of handle the quote classic sensibility album because he was like managing the strings and woodwind sections. There's twenty violins, six violas, six cellos, four double basses, two flutes and an obo on here, which were conducted by cellist Suie Katayama on Frozen in The Power of Goodbye Madamonna said of this record that how it was different from herer previous records was that she took more musical chances. I let William Orbitt play Mad prorofessor. He comes from a very experimental cuttingedge 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 creative 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 we're specifically talking about the whoo's that girl soundtrack and how quickly she worked on that? Like that it was just like an hour. like, you know, ye like the song would come out and she'd be like, we're done. And that like can se. Call it a day we'reall the day we're done. L close it down. Yeah 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 okay. 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 more. 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 Eespecially if you listen to the demos you can hear sort of like substantively what the song was, but like it evolved so so much. So like She hadad to learn patience, which I guess her yoga like helped her develop. so she was for it. Y I liked what William Orbitt 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 M A through line, by the way, we've said it a couple of times in other From other producers, all producers say that's like Madonna is in there. L she's not like, I produced it because I wantna vantage credit, you know I mean, we even saw, I'm jumping ahead, but we watched the tour documentary I'm going to tell you I'm going to tell you a secret lastay. and like there's a part where she's checking every dancer's makeup. That's right. Be they go. L this woman cares deeply about every part of this process of her work. Absolutely. And I think there was there's also in the Down 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 weren't 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 hearing things. So she has a good producer. Yeah she's good producer. I really loved, o Shout out to former Guest of the Pod and one of the greatest living music writers in my opinion, Shaad DeSuza. He wrote he did a review, actuallyually it was of music, I think in Pitchwork Sunday review, but he mentioned He obviously talked about Ray of Light and he said, Madonna's pivot on ray of Light was wildly successful used entry into the world of Eastern spirituality and clean living, canly marrying the tastes of a culture as interested in pure moods as oasis. I'm so interested in that element Do you hear that in Ray of L I feel like it has that kind of like guitari Y, you know, like Almost sixties throwback. Yeah, it's like a power pop jangly. It's like guitar. feels kind of like beatles adjacent or that kind of like, you know, which obviously very pop kind of very Right And res like Williams world really? L And so it does have that He is British. Yeah. And it's interesting because this I do think like from here forward att least in terms of this block that we're talking about. She does really go in a much more European direction. L she works with a lot of European people and she's really turn towards Europe quite a bit more And the sound is obviously reflecting that. I think that's so true. All right, the cover the covers and just I mean, I mean, you can say what the facts are, but shot by Maria Tostino. might have heard of them. styled by Laurie Goldstein. and they opted for textures evocative of elements of water and air, which are recurrent themes in the album. And she is wearing a turquoise Dulging Gabana spring summer nineteen ninety eight vinyl raincoat. Yeah Again It was just like completely different way to see Madonna nobody we hadn't seen her that way before. and when you see Those pictures, I mean, they're so obviously it's just of make and it's so obviously so produced, but it had this like very natural feeling. like there's texture in her skinally There's like hair like a kind of a minimal no makeup. it feels like that kind of much more natural strawberry kind of blonde.or. Her eyebrows are a bit thicker. Yeah. J all of it feels like you just feel this presence much more They like less like remote and sort of like Marilyn Monroe Yoke icon and more kind of like, ye Earth mother like down to Earth. Yeah 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 it looks like a texture. Yeah. So it's like we all want that skin. That's like, you know I want it so. So so it was just it was like perfect, I think. and textures of the coat and the But with the hair is like the perfect kind of like marriage of that to have that blue that like blue is so nineties too. like that like I personally love the frozen ones because those are that kind of like golden on Yeah It's just To me so so beautiful and encapsulates it so well, but I mean, they 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 yellow. 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 is 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 until this point things that thingsings that she'd put a lot of value on that she'd realize aren't so valuable. I mean, whichich will be kind of a recurrent theme for the next video forward albums. So that's kind of introducing a new idea. I think that You know, obviously the birth of Lordis was a huge factor, all of that. spirituality practices and all of those things kind of like Bringing herart 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 that's so right. like I see it like may to overspliflyy but as like An album about like birth. 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 phhoenix from the flames of pain and suffering after post sex book erotica And there's always death in her always. ye U But these are also themes in like in like a prayer. So they're like been sort of like there, she's just really kind of like pulling them down and making them much more sort of legible.. It feels like like in the prior times those things showed up, like a prayer is a very urgent desperate seeking of spirituality, where this feels like a landing, you know it' like Oh, like there's no urge or desperation. I always remember someone telling me that like if you have a feeling and it feels urgent, that's not your intuition.. 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. herer intuition and it doesn't feel urgent. you, completely. Again, I think that's like that idea of embodying things, right? Like whereas before she was like inhabiting things Yeah this more lightly like she's embodying these things. Someone asked her very directly so I can talk about it. What are the al themes? And they said, arere 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 vulnerable And Madonna said, first of all, was after doing the Vita, 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 prone in the Vanity Fair, you know? And so she was kind of able to vacate herself for a little 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 So what Titanic soundtrack did was keep Ram life number one Num one. notothing could beat the Titanic 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 I still can hear it. I can hear it right now. It's going 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 order of the singles releasase, but The first song on the album is actually the third single, Downed World Slash sububstitute for loveove Amazing. We're just like, loveve it, love it, love it. Let's move on. Of course, amazing. The title is inspired by JG Ballard's post apocalyptic science fiction novel, The Downed World U this is another one that I'm pretty sure I got this, right? that is The demo. It sounds they just slapped it right on the off. Pretty much I think so Probably not the original demo Right the like demo version where they landed it on. But again, that's her way, right? I mean, it's just like when she lays 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 I think so. Yeah. I think that's like, you know, just What you said in that just quote that you just read a minute ago about coming off of Aida and like all of that stress and just like haaving that, you know, she was just kind of have the baby and then just like, wow, my whole life is different. L that's how I imagine it anyway. just Like feeling like, wow, the whole center of my focus is now right here I also I can't help but think now like kind of The idea that actually like You know, this 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 talked 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 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 if Ray of Light is very much from that because it does There is also a thematic a thing of like, I got everything I wanted, but now what? You know? And I think she there's a lyric that made me think of it. I got exactly what I asked for. I 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 to in that song is like I suffered fool so gladly You know, and now I Now I find I've changed my mind. But like I mean, I do think I can' 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 gonna shift your focus and shift the meaning of your life in such a profound way that feels Yeah 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 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 that she doesn't love or findine it fory ofers, but at the idea that like it's the be all end all, you know? And I think just to be clear, what I'm saying is like this is a moment. So she's having this moment and that's the experience around this album and around this time So obviously, you know Yeah, yeah. Well, this song is God tare. It's gorgeous. Gorgeous It's a perfect start to kind of ease you in to the And the just the like little kick of like those little drum and bass kicks and the like littlees Yeah. Yeah, just like perfectakes up a little bass. Yeah,. justust a little introduction to like how this record's gonna sound. And like really feels innovative and cool and still still kind of like sounds kind of futuristic and to me. Yeah You know, like the sort of like tech era of like the nineties and the two thousands, it 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, as well with the cyberpunk Yeah like kind of like idea. and you know, it really captures that this mixture of that ballad with the sort of tech. Youure was really influenced also by that group mandolay. I 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 Nicolas 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. You were right. Yeah. This very soft kind of female vocalization with this kind of, you know, drumm and bass or very sort of like electronic kind of under 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. She's also said, like fame is a great substitute for feeling approval, for feeling love. It does give you a certain kind of fulment at the end of the day, it's not what love is. it's all right there. 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. very envelopes Beautiful video. Yeah It 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 that, you know, it kind of has this kind of divery quality It just has it all feels very articulated and it's really beautiful . William Orbit said that Madonna recorded the vocals for that the day that Johnny Perersaceci was killed. and he said that's probably why if the track has emotional impact it because of that because she was feeling probably quite emotional.. The next song is Reab Light, which is Kind of shockking me the second single You would always imagine it would be the first sing. But it's the second one. we said Frozen was the first one. This song is based off the track Sepherin which was written by the English folk music duo Curtis Maldon consisting of Dave Curtis and Clive Malde It really feels like that kind of like Electric folk tradition of like that was kind of like, I don't know, Jesser Tull, Steel Ice Band, like those kind of bands that were doing like traditional folk folk Eish Isisles 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 And they obviously have writing credit on the song. Heres Well here's what happened. William Orbit re reccorded the song with the niece of Clive Mlddoon. 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, like so she kind of changed the melody and instrumentation but retained the lyrics. 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 fifteen percent of the royalties in a songwriter credit, he was quite happy actually. Yeah. This I thought was interesting. I wanted to ask you if you can hear it. William Orbit apparently kept a rray of light a semit tone higher than Madonna's limit and it resulted in a strain added to the vocals My friends and I when this came out were 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'd never heard Yeah. L something I hadd never heard heard really do before. Yeah. So I think that was, 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 would probably that kind of she just sang in her natural register? Be it is this song does have sort of like an energy And a sort of like urgency be it ye. like So It's cool. that really worked I love it. Williamort said 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 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 more about Madonna like like insane people that I was like if I'm if I'm being really looking in the mirror, I listened to this song A lot. a lot. A lot, lot, a lot. Yeah. U And I love it. I love it too amazing. It's like, 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 know'll pick me up? Right. And the guitar on it is so cool. like the cool just the sort of like And the beat it's yeah, it's like very Yeah, you just want to be like, Yeah,s like her in the video. Yeah totally. Yeah Sy Speaking of the video, directed by Jonah Auckerland. Is this the first time she works with him? I think so. Yeah. He directed the video for Smack My Bitchup. Yes, you did My prodigy. Wh' an early sign to Maverick Records. Yes, ye. This video is so awesome because it like really encapsulates the energy of song we werere talking this reaching fetic energy of the song, and it's In the video, it's like time lapse, right? Like everything's moving so fast. and like I heard someone phrased it as like pummeling towards the millennium. Yeah. Right? Like, Ohh my god, we're about to hit the millennium. Like we're going. And it really was that energy then too. I think there was like so much ppe towards the millennium at that time. I also think it's because there was such a rapid increase in the internet. you're saying like that the world changed really fast Over time in a way that it had it in like the eighties, for example.. Like each year the internet brought like a new thing to your doorway werely. 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 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 nineties 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 ninety eight, most not most people, but like I think a good a lot of people large portion of people on the internet 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 les. So yeah, 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 I was onal. com GRL. com some of you heads will remember. Yeah, was it was a cool time. It was a cool time. On my parents you see in the office. Yeah 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 that like And littleittle didn't we know all it was going to be clavicular, look 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 h back. Can you could dance backward Yeah, so we could do the time lapse in the opposite direction please, we would just love to go back to girl d. com and ICQ and AL chatrooms One of the fandom podcasts I listened to about this, talked about how It's all time lapsse and sped up except for this one part. Jonas Acklland 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 the boss of. she's gonna finish the job Ag, sort of like to that point of technology where it's like you know, a little like we don't have this sort of like AI capability a little jinky. Yeah 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 the bringing together tot Yeah. 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 sixties Psychedelic, you know, rock soundound and it's always kind of like there in his guitar playing. It's like his guitar playing style. Absolutely like modernizing. So it's like 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 sixties influenced like Brit Pop. Yeah that feels really warm on top of this' mixed into this layer of like really cold, futuristic technological So interesteresting. Yeah, it creates like a tension. like Well Candy Perfume Girl, this is my time to shine. Okay Be I need to tell you some war that I couldn't be more excited to. Very excitingore. This song, Candy Perfume Girl is written by Madonna William Orbitt. and Susanna Melvoyne Strap in babe. We're going talk We're going to get lore heavy right now. Susanna Melvoyne was a prince associate in the mid eighties. 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 compomares to you is heavily rumored to be about her because she needated Prince Okay Anyway William Mrbitt 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 Melgoyne Hm. died of a heroin overdose in nineteen ninety six 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 trying you for you like three of the most iconic songs your songs Cnected to this family. T this person. To this person. Yeah Yeah So Tnd and Lisa To Wendy and Lisa and Jonathan this family. Yeah it's just Kind of mind blowing. Kind of bl mind blowing. Like in the arms of the angels like go adopt a puppy or you fucking sick fuck, you're gonna rot in hell. Like that comes from Jonathan. I live for this. I live for this level of. What was that little line in purple rain at the beginning of that song? It like, Wendy? Yes, Lisa. Yeah. Is the water warm enough? Y L Shall we begin? Yes, Lisa He'll never be this iconic. No. I'll never be this iconic Nobody will ever be this iconic. No. Any hoode. This, I know kind of reads like a love song Candy Perfume 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 and be U you know It's a sticky viscous song about. 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 are kind of like that. They're either about candy or sweetness seession or you know, like just like, you know, Strange delight. Yeah This leaked Also in September of nineteen eighty seven, you know, well before this album came out It was heard during a Versace show because Donateella loved it and she wanted to kind of honor her brother, which makes sense. It's kind a song honoring the death of a brother. And so Monon was like, yeah, sure, of course Enduring relationship there. Yeah. ye U skkin 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 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 love 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 Do I know you from somewhere? It's likes just so It's it's perfect. It's just like it's totally perfect It's such a beautiful love song. It's beautiful. Perfect use of like technoe and just like tootally. And what a great what a great tight like skin and then the song being just like change skin and put your hand on me and it's Really great song. listen now. Yeah. Nothing really matters. Six Sth single, which is kind of crazy Yeah, and very late in the rec and album cycle year It's nineteen ninety nine now. It was never 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 the way they did it at the celebration tour, I think was really great way of bringing it forward And the video is amazing. likeike I don't know. so it has like a lot of things around it that make it Great to me The song is interesting because It's a little bit of a no thoughts just vibe song whereere I think she's even said like I wanted people just to have visceral and emotional reactions to things rather than like th in their minds what it's about or whatever. And I feel like, I mean it's right there in the tle, Nothing really matters. but I feel like this is one of those songs. To me, it always like signals like a Buddhist thing just because like has that like I mean, in the context of this record and everything that she was doing notot 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 it's also I think one of the tenets of Kabala that like you have to give what you want to get. So E I give you the 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, I Hakuna Matada. Right. Yeah, the video is incredible, directed by Johan Ren This is the first appearance of The Madonna as a geisha and a red kimono. Iciconic with the red eyebrows, like so good. Somebody read memoirs of Aeisha. Yes, they did. And it was called All of us. Who amongst Yes? It was everyone in the world. Literally everybody was carrying that paperbook everywhere, everyvery treadmill, every stairmaster and everywhere, like somebody was reading that book. A great book? It was a great book. You couldn't put it down. No, Morally wonderful. deffinitely Madalonna liked it I think she did the choreography herself. Oh, I don't know. That was what I remember. That would make sense. S had this kind of like very idiosyncratic like way of dancing in it, that kind of like hererky jerky. Yeah, yeah 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. 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 likeike what we're saying before, I think, This applies here again, is that idea of like It wasn't a cynical play towards tryrying 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 and it was like being enamored by the beauty of something. And it's like a fantasy play about, you know, this world that she imagined. And she also said that she imagined herself She saw herself in much like a geishia. Yeah. Much like Ava Parone. There's like some great quote from her habit somewhere in the doark where she's like, it's like being a geishia is like being a pop star where you're sort of like imprisoned put in front of people toah perform something Yeah What' about Sky shouldit heaven? I love that song. I think it's like, there's no skips on this sb. No, there's there's no skips. I think that song is like Again, great use of teechno. 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 cllassic spiritual Madonna. You know that some of them are taken from a nineteen ninety three Gap ad? Yes, I feeaturing a poem called What Fits by the poet Max Blag. Yeah. Sky 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 with Skyfitsz ha't so write it but he changed it to fly it. It's so funny. really like inspiration here? A But I mean, the gap ad itself was coming from like had this kind of like art reference So that was like Again not to sound like an old person and things were different. But think I think that, you know, this it's the legacy of the twentieth century idea and 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 still exist, but not to the same degree anymore. Everyone is more cynical and more sort of onto 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 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 Ashtangi So just to me personally because I did go to that yoga studio. R. And like They did that puja, which is like the prayer. if you went to the early class. So you get this memoriz. Yes. Yes. And so I mean, it was said in such a completely different way than the way that she does it 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 it was like part of the whole thing in that newude practice, the d yoga practice. Yeah. that she brought that in there was like Cool and if you know, you know, referet like, you know And I actually love the way they produce 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 perfect place For the pacing of the album. that's quite nice. Yeah me There was a very funny thing where I guess like she had Obviously she's not a native speaker, had 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 Vegish Shawustrery. So I thought that was and then she made some corrections. We already talked about frozen that's the next song. The power of goodbye, the Godteear ballad Beautiful What else is there to say? J's like a gorgeous, perfect' not Yeah. So I must go. Again, voice lessons L the tone of her voice, something you again hadn't really heard before. She was great balan singer always But seems like I always thought it was strong, but here she's like doing acrobatics. Yeah, it's really cool quite something quite beautiful The way that it builds is so wonderful. And then when it hits I mean, Tlude and you're just like Right. so gorgeous. I want to go high. And the way 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 Rickals And William Orbett and Patrra F. Right, This is a Rick Noll song. Y. ye. There's just what else to say about it except that it's fucking phenomenal. Fucking phomenal. Amazing video. Directed by Matthew Rlston. Madonna and her lover play chess. She wins. When he reapproaches her, she ends the relationship and walks away alone. Right. That's the power of goodb. That's the power Makeup by Kevin Elcoin. Yeah, amazing. First I think first time working together. No, no, no, you're right. Rllingone cover. Rolling Stone cover. you're right. So they met there. Yeah. So two huge relelationship elements. Yeah. I know it's kind of simple, but I love the in like the title of this song Me too. Yeah, yeah, like the sentiment of the song is just so great tooacks like Buddhism. Yeahah things and like moving on and that that's something powerful. You could look at this in two ways, right? Like this entire album It's it's like, it's It's so self helpy in this one way I think she does like a really great job of making all those sentiments not feel like hackneed or trite and it feels like Again reallyally 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 help for yourselfbooks, right? you know has a little bit of woo or new age to it, right? But I think like again, I'm not gonna keep that out of bed myself. No completely. Welcome to my world. That's why the days came out. I was like, yes, thank you.ot one second of hesitation. sllap that right into the CD the disc man Little Star is really sweet too. That was a single. was the fifth single I love Little stars. Its like Its so sweet. It's like yeah, it really is Her song for It's kind of the dear Jessse of Yeah toally his album Yeah for Lord us Marigirl is such an interesting song. Very interesting closer. G closer. 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, a like compomositionally free floating. Totally. And you know, just kind of like the music and the the vocal kind of They're synced, but they just feel a little bit like dissonant 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 on 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 out Yeah. you know totally. Like you could just bop right into. This one is a little harder. She wrote this She 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 seen. 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 Marirl. It was only six lines at the time. Later, I heard the music William Orbitt had written to go with it. I was back in LA and I just laid on my bed playing the music on a boombox over and over and writing and singing and redoing the song Cool It makes sense because so much of this song is about running. Yeah. rununning away. I ran and I ran and I was looking for me. I ran to the forest, I ran through you know The smelling, the burning flesh and the rotting but it's very evocative. Very evocative. Yeah She puts it in The drown she performs it and drown World tour That's I think is an interesting choice Yeah. she must really love it.. Yeah. I think it has very much about P 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' 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 and start Yeah like, you know, this kind of the cycle of rebirth that involves a death And you don't know, something kind of powerful and sort of cathonic about it, I guess. Yeah. I also love it because we've just been talking so much about the like embodied of Reay of L and the positivity and the Buddhism and the I mean, I don't think it was actual Buddhm 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, really sad and still having and dealing with the dark 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 Right Dark just had like it's right. It's a ray of light but at the end of the s brings it down to Earth in a way. Not that it wasn't Well, it's like if you had't selfationalualized that far, you'd be Buddha and you wouldn't like alb or touring, you know, like you'd just be minding your own business at the yoga studio.. You' already ascended to the above the Looks Masters Clobicular. Okay Did we talk about the critical reception of ray of Light? I mean, my re my recollection recollection of it was that it was universally like well received Yeah like very excitedly received. I think people were very excited by it. That's for most critically acclaimed album. I would think so. Like I feel like everything about the album cycle, promotion 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 to this album and to her at that time. It felt like she looked beautiful and natural and 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 like someone wrote, I think it was Q magazine and they were like, until simimply read enlist John Zorn or Mariah Carrier works with Tortoise. She is the only pap aristocrat who's keeping her ears open.. They were very much like, oh, like this this evokes Stain. Etienne and Bjor 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 reallyally universally whichich I think was interesting just as a commentary on. Music journalism. It just cant be legitimate if it's not Well, if it's gay, right? I mean, I feel like I feel like like if you think about Eerotica, like she was definitely doing the same thing. She was like listen. And she was going to the place where, you know, where there were like where the innovation was happening, but it was gay So people were didn't get the same kind of respect that this kind of thing did. Whatever. I just think it's interesting think you make a great point I mean, again, what gets respect is one one very specific type of thing. And so it's like I mean, I don't think she tried to do that to get those Not at all. It's like the one time in her career that her interest just intersected with what people think is was acceptable to be cool, right? Thank God, because it is She she needed it She deserved it. We needed it. We all needed it and we got it. We're riding hi, Bb. We really are Um And we come into nineteen ninety eight, the rest of nineteen eighty eight Dating a new man, Okay so she's dating this guy Andy Bird, who William Orbitt has set her up with. not going well, I guess U he's like an uereemployed screenwriter. I think I said this to the group chack because there's like a page six. You know, Page S love to be mean. that's like Madonna dumped by unemployed guy. And I was like, you know what? my relatable queen Cool amongst us. has not been dumped by an unemployed guy Proably one of the only two things we have in common But she's in London to film the video for Drowned World's Hstitute for Love And she is still seeing Andy Bird and sting And Trudy Styler Normal friends or like come on over for luncheon And so they go over and they seat Madonna next to a young film director named Guy Richie. Fateful day. Yep, who had just finished making his first film lock Stock into smmoking barrels, which Trudy Syler had helped finance. She was a Film producer, It hasn't come out yet though. It's march nineteen eighty nine In an interview with the Face in two thousand with my beloved and brilliant Miranda Sawyer, H Miranda former guest of the show, one of the best people ever She said, when you met Guy, was it like impressive Inant? That's a song reference right. She said, yeah, I had a whole premonition about my life fast forward. That's only happened to me once before And Miranda goes, withith Sean Penn, Madonna doesn't answer. M Miranda says, is it frightening? Andmadonna said, No, it's invigorating Marianiaa said, Did you tell guy how you fel? Madonna said, No, not then. No way. I went into a state of denial Be 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 And I liked this part because Marina said, did you when you say had a premonition about what was going to happen? what do you mean? It's really interesting because she said that about Sean Pen 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 ask me, I'll say, yes,s a psychic She butest said, 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 You meet a lot of interest you meet a lot of sexy and glamorous people and then she's like, and you go, interesteresting, interesting, interesting. I like the way she said. Yeah, interesteresting. interesterest.nteresting. They're interesting, but not many people stop you on your j. Right And she was attracted to his confidence, she said, and his cockiness. Gai Richci is a funny proposition because he sort of had this like tough Oi mista, I'm from the streets thing, you know? And he told reporters in like nineteen ninety nine around the movie, I've lived in the East End for thirty years. I've been in a load of mess upps. I've been poor all my life His father, Captain John Vivian Richie was an advertising executive and his mother Amber Parkinson was a former model. And when they divorced when he was five, they both married aristocrats. And he was raised from the streets. Yeah fromom the streets of Shrewsbury, which is where her his mother's husband, Sir Michael Layton had an estate and he went to boarding school. That's all I don't want to like, No shade. I'm I'm simply R reporting the fact Okay Madonna is nominated for six Grammy Awards February nineteen eighty nine In sixteen years, she has not won a Grammy. Is that crazy? It' insane actually for everything that she's done up u 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 Rose O'Donnell. Christopher is there helping her with the performance, which she does She performs Nothing Really Matters. Joined on stage by William Orbitt and Donna Niicki This is where she does the geisha look. Yeah. whichich again, I think it's the debut because the single with the video doesn't come out until after the Gammaright Here's the quote about the geishas. She said it was on CNN. The whole idea of geisha 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. I feel that way too, Mab I'm privileged and here I am a prisoner of the five hours in the studio and the Google Doc So Guy Rucie was there too Asthmal dating Ray of Light wins four Grammys, bestest 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 This's a tough one. hard to like pick a favorite in those, you know, try hard to be like, oh, she was wrong. you know And record of the Ye two, there it go. Ag, my heart will go on by Celine Dond And then she commits to her next film project. We could watch that tonight.. The next best thing. with her good friend Rupert who was around town a lot at that time. He was You mean up in up in the clubs? U more just like on the streets. like I just there he was like he lived in the West Village I just remember see was one 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 Um which I think is still there called Teian Sympy on Gen.ure of. And he used to go he used to go there a lot to see him there. So cool. Yeah. I love him. He was so handsome at this p He was like devastatingly handsome. I mean my best friend's wedding. like So I didn't realize until I was doing these research that he had known Madonna since nineteen eighty five because he had been friends with Seaan Penn. Oh right. And him and Seaan Penn met while driving their cars in the street and like they rolled their windows down and like exchanged like in their very early acting career. Really interesting. Seaan Penn was quite a connector in the Madonna world. L he knew a lot of people shit that share connection. Yeah, yeah. kind of Interesting Malibu world Malibu world totally. And he Rtver, 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 backack in nineteen eighty nine So They start shooting this project in April of nineteen eighty nine 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 nineteen eighty nine that would have been the year you would think there would be a wayay of lightight toour. There was like talk of it. I think they had she had she wanted to go on tour for it, yeah, I guess. I think that movie was hard to make and there was a lot of issues and maybe like it precluded like you didn't Right Wrap up as quickly I don't know, you know, whatever it was there was no way of life to in nineteeny nine. Instead we got On my birthday My seventeenth birthday, may nineteen, nineteen eighty nine The beautiful strranger singible Perfect pop song. Fucking perfect pop song Again, bringing all those things that we talked about, you know, like all those that sixties sound Yeah that kind of like a little bit electronic, just The right beat felt like a dance song Really? Perfect. Its like everything about it This is a god tiar 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 a soundtrack of the film Austin Powers C in the spyhad? the sequel to the Gly popular Austin Powers film These are really formative in my youth, Austin Powers films Um 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 little in the like moving car thing in the hallway. I really feel like that. The soundtrack was executive produced by Gayoiri, which is I think how the Madonna cononnection 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 U like he was the one who said that and that something I read. I think it made sense I mean we're still we're still in like peak soundtrack period where like people are buying CD's left and right? and people really bought Soundtrack C as myself included. So you would probably make a lot of money if you were on a soundtrack C. Especially if a really popular movie like Austin Powers. The soundtrack is crazy. has songs by REM Green Day and Lenny Kravitz, the American woman is from the soundtrack. Yeah, wow and Melby word up if you guys are Spice girls heads. Yeah So this song borrows maybe, maybe a little bit sounds like it might have Sade inspires Shades of inspired by. She comes in colors by the band Love The dada dada dada on that I just dada dada for you guys is maybe based on an instrumental flourish. that's an integral part of the love record It may be a conscious or unconscious homage Gary Stewart wrote that in the USA today. Madonna said she had never heard of that Right. So I don't know her And That's fine. Maybe Williamorbittt had heard it. He was not questioned. Given where William Mrbitt's influenceces came from, it seems He would no long. Yeah. yeah Anyways, who cares I love the song? Yeah,s like we said, it's perfect. It's perfect The video video is amazing. She looks insanely hot in this video. Like it's so crazy how great she looks. L she's cut her hair to that short level, ht those pants. I mean, just like You don't understand how big capapri pants were in nineteen ninety nine herer sick ass capapri pants She looked amazing. The tan skin. Oh, she's wearing a C it Dinneigan Sring summer in nineteen eighty nine Black seequin Chiffon Camisle. Her arms are popping. H arms are popping. She's done a lot of churangas. She is looking. And it's paid off. So good. The video is directed by Bret Rattner, which was kind of insane. It's kind of insane, actually. Obviously, Mike Myers is in it in method doing Austin powers Yeah Lawless makeup by Kevin really wonderful. Yeah. The song was not commercially released in the United States as a single, but it still hit number nineteen on the Billboard Hot one hundred because it was played on the radio so much and it hit number one on the US dance charts and she did win a Grammy for it It was the dance remix was Victor Calderone, I'm pretty sure.. I wanted to ask you because I was listening to maybe one of the podcasts and they said that they felt that the Victor Calderone remix was soundated now. Do you feel like that's true? I listened to it and I don't think so, but I'm not a Yeah, I't I feel like Denizon's certain It's just a very certain kind of like, he played a certain kind of like tribal house Energy that doesn't feel very fashionable right now I think is kind of part of it. And you know like someome of those other remixes They're just like a little more a little richer in terms of like H 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 O 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 R light Rve light and you know, just like all of the with Sasha and John Digwed and like, you know, just kind of really going Leaning into that kind of we really didn't talk about the ray of light. There's a stereo MC's remix that I quite like frozen frozen that I was really into. Maybe because she had heard that stereoMC That's probably a why It was it makes me want to die. that was the tricky song of Really good. Stereo MC's famously had the massive radio head connected. Yeah. I ye connected. I mean, Stere MCs themselves is the whole thing, but yeah. we don't have to have that right keep it together, it keep it together. But I just think the remixes were just a big part of the tapestry of how this album 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 Coachell was this the first year of Coachell? I'm pretty sure it was either ninety nine or two thousand I went the second I was ninety nine.. I went the second year two. Oh you did. It was actually two thousand one. They skipped two thousand. So I went that year too. Yeah. And it was all these guys. It was like Sasha and John Digweed and well you San Germaine 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 o and fb orb. Yeah. I got the orb was so good pretty much experimental music or just Dance music and techno music Oh my God, Oza Motley. Wez are the headlineer was Jane's addiction. So it's like yeah,.uch an interesting Mext. My God, what a time AC alone. some this is just for heads that know who AClone is, but like, Alone once slept over at my house in college. see U Okay, so We're firing on all cylinders. Ray of light is fucking amazing. Beautiful strangers fucking amazing They 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 lightight I'm sorry, goodbye There was no bad feelings, but she does say that. She decides to start over with another artist And who is that? I your way Mirwi, Amanai who had been looking for a US. record label and asked a friend to pass his two thousand hit single discoco science to Gaosiri. And Gaosiri in turn would like but but not to listen to this And Madadonna 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 The second album, she's on it And it came out before music onn his album. Yeah. so that song Paradise notot 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 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. likeike I think she was ready for Wow, let's push this. This is going really well It is a kind of a wild sounding song. Yeah. in a very cool way. W Disco science. Yeah. ye yeah with those like Yeah. And you could obviously she was gravitating in that direction even on Reay of Light. Well I think they just wanted to harder in the day I think yeah. she's just like, she's like, this is working. We push the envelope. Let's go even further with this. is like something I've never heard. It didn't It was't goldie, it wasn't Aix twin was like some other kind of like he was really European and also that's French. Fch. Yeah. Right. And he had that he had that kind of like veryery plucky and stuttery way of production that was like ye pretty unique at that time. So I think yeah. I love that We have to release a film in March of two thousand. Yeah. The nextext Best thing. Directed by seventy three year old John Schlusinger, who was a legend. He had a Midnight Cowboy. But apparently there 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 best friends. as best friends who decide to have a child together, right And Madonna refused to do a heterosexual sex scene. Which is just weird with Benjamin Bratt like, why? Maybe because she 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 things. So maybe she was just like in the throwes of love and didn't be into anyone else. Totally. And it doesn't sound like the whole experience on this movie was good for anybody. didn't like Rupert Everet say like Within a few days it was clear we were like in a shit show or something shhip without a capt. Yeah. I thought it was very funny that apparently because she had to have those drinks to like do the kiss scenes or whatever. She's like not a heavy drinker. so she would just get kind of like hammered and then start like making shit up. and the director would be like, fucking stal. L they would like bef ' she would be like Right. New lines are there. Also at some point Ruper ever accidentally knocks John Schinger over and he's seventy three. so he like chips his ix you call it? So he's not loving them.. The one thing that came out of this and mayaybe you'll say, yay, or maybe you'll say Cursed movie and curursed output But is Rupert Everet convinced Madononna to do a cover of Don McLean's American Pie prodrouced by William Orbitt with Rupert Evverron 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 BeCuse I guess it was included in the sequencing of music on some releases. So she didn't like that. It doesnn't fit in it shouldn't be on m. That I understand But yeah, I mean, it's cute. 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 sixties throwback and that she was doing and People liked it, I think. Yeah. It's ineoffensive. Yeah. 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 Rer Richie who was born august eleventh, two thousand. which means she's pregnant with Rockco during the making of music New chapter. New chapter. Let's talk about music. september eighteenth, two thousand Prouced by Madonna, Mir Weay, William Mrbit, Guy Sigsworth, and to other people, Mark Spike Stent and Tvin Sing They all have production credits, but it's largely a Mmera whale I think so. Yeah. I mean, I think that's what you hear the most. You can really hear where Willie Morbit's contributions are in this record. I think, you know Yeah. it really sounds like Mir Way's record at the end of the day Ecept for what it feels like for a girl, which which is a guy song. And Marks extent was the mixer, so I think he just like maybe got elevated to production 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 May in orbit or three is that do I think that's about right. Yeah. it's like yeah He was super into vocal effects, which obviously we're gonna to get into on this alum. He actually says that his two thousand song naive song was the first electro track with auto tune effects on the vocals. I have no way of proving that.. I believe you way. B believe all your way But he also wanted to have A song with Madonna's naked unadorn vocal, which I don't know if there's only one on here but there's definitely one one. I think it's just that one yeah I want to read again Chard D Susa, my guy, my bud This was an album designed to unite the disparate tastes of America and Europe to act as a bridge between teeen pop and sophhista pop The mainstream and the underground. side bar 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 s.ree. 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 she's kind of untouchable in her own. They't le there's no frank in baseball. But by by two thousand there's this whole Keen p Girl Teen queens of pop that is a huge thing. like Brittney Spears, obviously first and foremost, who's come out of the all new Mickey Mouse Club like a bat of fucking' hell getting signed to jive in nineteen eighty seven and like You know, she fucking hit prominence with baby one more time. She's a global chart topper.s that's one of the best selling singles in history. And she also became the best selling teenage artist of all time with Baby One More Time and Ooppsited it again, which from ninety nine in two thousand. So she's like Brittney Spearars. reallyally like probably supremacy at this time. Yeah. And then Christine Aguilar, obviously also who is another graduate of the All new Micke Mouse Cub She had put out herself tle al in ' ninety nine with Gunny 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 nineteen eighty nine, Mandy Moore, never forget Candy. No. nineteen ninety nine. Destiny's Child, I think, kind of falls into the category. Yeah. They were quite young and they had these huge hits. And then you can loop in you know, women, but Bob by Hanson, teen. I mean, but all of them, right? And Snc and Snc Breet boys totally.oy. So it was like just that it was very much like heavy concentration of super young talent. YesL TRL Ya 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 isn in the doldrums musically. It's also generic and homogenized. If this record happens, talking about music, it might mean that people are ready for something different She also did an interview with Rolling Stone in two thousand where the interviewer asked her, when is the reign of Ten pop going to end? It always goes in cycles, but Madonna said, but can her 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? Kidie 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 Massivetack 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, yourour album nestled in mid all the direct in the top ten And Madononna said, I know. Well, who knows? I mean, I've been told that I've inspired Christina Aguilera and Brittney 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 Britars and Rhinestones. there's one an In interview magazine. So And she used to like stand up for Britany in the media and like about. She kind of always has, I think, she always felt that towards Britneany. 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 years just Yeah, she just like she likes She likes to be a wise ass about stuff. But I do think like to your point that you know, she was a 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's she gonna to follow that up? In the meantime, all these kids have like flooded intont the scene, TRL, this kind of like whole different approach to music. It's very different than any way you would listen to something like Ray of lightightay is a very different kind of total enngagement with music, internet 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 Yeah, you know, andly, which is also two thousand So just like thingsings that were also happening at that time that are, you know, and 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 she wants like artistic, you know, freedom or like, you know, expression of like radio had what they were able to do. h. So I think She's in this like interesting sort of liminal zone at this time I mean, and honestly thank God because music is so cool. Yeah. It's so cool. But okay, so I wanted to ask before we dive into it. I'm curious. I don't think Madonna's career art. lends itself to apppplying 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 right at that like ye about that threshold just because Music itself, the song is just such an anthem. T. And I think it like Whether or not like at that specific moment, it was released, it was like it pushed through all the way. It endures as as like something that like lives on sort of eternally, I think 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 Yeahah, but I know what you're saying and I kind of I think I I just don't think she has one actually because She has so many peaks that come back around. L whereas like you could you could, even though I think Eerotica is and so do you and I think now she's been reappraised for that album every which we had a Sunday. Like at the time, it was not considered a success. creatively or commercially. I mean, it it's hard to say that too now. as soon as I said that, I was like, well, confessions comes after that. say she has another aack. Yeah well it's like she has that's kind of more her seems like the way you would describe career is like the series of like apexes and like light valleys and apexes and valleys, you know? Some plateaus, maybe some and then just yeah, right? Or just like a series Let's call it a series of apexes. higher than. Some higher than oers. Exactly. All right. well Music I mean, are we gonna talk about the artwork? Yes a second. Okaykay. Yeah. The cover. let's talk about the cover the I mean, I think it's interesting too just like as a contrast to ray of light. Just the packaging of it being this kind of like Kitch Americana Yeah like point of view.'s pretty Mondino, but it kind of has this like almost paint like thisess about it,'s like the retouching, everything about it feels like almost painted in some ways. It feels like those sort of fifties posters of like, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. you know like cheesecake girls or whatever. And so it's like, playing on that in a way that, you know, it has this like real catch factor that is not at all present in right light. So it's very much a departure.th Earth mother is Right She's at the rodeo now. And I love you have this in the notes, but you know, Arine Phillips did the styling and could talk more about that. And she was just inspired by that book, Rdeo Girl by Lisa Eisner, who anything she ever recommends in any article I'd do it if I can afford. But I think she's like, you know, so cool and it's so cool that she picked up on that and you know, Lisa was obviously amused for Tom Ford also. So like kind of like that world, again, kind of like of fashion. 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 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 do too. I also think it's a 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 re like apex as well. Yeah. You know, like for such a long time It was very much like Jose Levi's or whatever. like but By the tail end of the nineties early two thousands, this is like the peak of Designer denim, where' like diesel jeans and what is seven for all man? Seven for all mankind, citizens of humanity. Frankie Bees were like your fucking pubes are coming out Yeah. And that to me is but they were like Denerm and like it was almost like I think of music, the album of that way of being American reimagined., you know kind of how did the denim was reimagined to be like really fashion forward and modern. like so is the music here. And And then I wonder like how much like even though like we said, you know, American pieies and like we didn't, you know, crash through any windows of amazing this. But I wonder if doing that got her in that sort of Americana headspace. C really Americana. you know, Bye bye Miss. America I don't my chehevy to the levey. don't drive. I don't think the contents of the themes or the album itself is like explicitly American or explicitly American driven. No No Does this album have a theme don 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 ay 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 Shaad said, like this was an album kind of bringing together Americana and European s Ries, you know Yeah, music itself. I mean suchuch a great. song and it's like I love that it's like just one note. The entire song is's just like one note. It's just like d 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 of 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 Mirw'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 in the one that we talked about that maybe was also used on several other songs later. C couldould 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 lineser, Hey mrter DJ put a record on. I want to dance with my baby. It's very like, okay, we're so bad DJ What rankers are Dance with my baby She said she got the idea for this song at a sting concert. She said, I went to see him in New York at the Beacon Theater. 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 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 totally 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 inhibitions. Y. L let your fantasy here with me. And just like that's You know, that that's the ultimate freedom of, you know ultimate liberation, which is such a cool idea. Tally. I also love I just love the music, mix the bourgeoisie. I love. I mean, talk about eracing boundaries. Yeah Its like 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 burge on that Yeah. A lot pop songs anyways. It's just enough of a like jarring idea that you were like 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 Acern, Stal Baron Phillips Sasha Baron Cohen Early OG days right playing OEG as their limo driver. Kind of an innovation like for her to have him in there. Yeah that was like rety forward. He's kind of the star of the video. Yeah. I mean, she is, but like besides her, it's young, you know And Dbbie Mazar and Nickki Haris and Donna, Gloria are her girls. girl. Aare at first they'd cast like supermodels and she was like, I'm like no Yeah ing just made it so much better because it's just that, you know, it's like again, that like It's return to the anthem, Rurn to your girls, like your homies in the car. It's just she looks so hot, even though she's like super preg in it. This is her first number one hit singles and Stakabow as it should have been as yeah I this this song is I can't disconnect it from the year two thousand. It's really like my senior year of high school going into college, like dancing at parties and clubs Perfect, Perfect song, no notes. I have Gy bucket hat on. I'm ready to fuck fking r. Yeah I love impressive instrents. I mean, similar to how like ray of light felt like you were just like, wow This was like that too. I think this the Vooder effects and just like that sort of like superfward like production, but with that disco bassline under it and like justust reallyally like super innovative. suuper fresh sounding. never heard anything like that. Even though this is after Sareres believe, I'm pretty sure So you Vooder was kind of on the scene This just took it to another place like where That was nineteen ninety eight. Oh, right. so it was before So just this just takes it to another place of the use of it. like just really takes such a robot voice in this way and it's like like a bird and then we need we need It's so 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 for people I'm working with to understand my ideas. With Madonna the first time she heard it, she loved it. She had a chemical reaction to it An interviewer said this that this song perfectly captures the druggy euphoria in 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 it's like all these phase shifts. It's like stuttery. Then you go into this bird. I't know, wingy, wingy, wingy. there's like all these like little like and she like stutters into the like voocoder 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, kind of weird sururrealist palette which is kind of cool U I didn't ever think of it that way, but I understand what they're saying I'm really into The stuttering. Yeah. Effect isn't 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 it's Like, we'll get to don't tell me, but like what a cool idea to stutter an acoustic gir. 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, u I guess, you know, I suppose there wass a drug adult sensibility running through that song And then they ask 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 eighties when I first appeared in the club scene. And the shock she wass 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. like it's a fun It's good to keep like keep the album. That's right goingo forward. Yeah. it really does. It's very propulsive. So in that sense. I deserve it as a song that we were referencing touch vocal. Yeah Madonna said it was Merway's idea 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 rawwness of my voice with the really overpcessed 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. L I feel like that's sort of the essence of it, right? Like this, you know toggling back and forth between Aoustic sound. Whether that's like sort of analog or, you know, or actual acoustic instruments and then this very highly processed digitization of 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. Yeah like sort of there's a glitching Like you said earlier, but it's like The idea kind of building upon that idea of ray of light of like we're pummeling towards this future, but it's like, Oh my god, like like we're glitching on the there. you know? Like it's going so fast that like R 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. and her vocal is like so Like there's such a immediacy to it because of on processes, but then up against that And it has that contrast, right? because the choruses are pretty processed v, right? So you have the verse that's very like plaintive and direct and then this's like really su hyper processed I think it's smart because I think it would' have been maybe too much. Yeah Yeah What about amazing It's a it's it's cute and it's like it's got that, you know, that orbit bop bouance to it and it feeleels a little bit like u Beautiful stranger Bes side to me Total, I guess. We have a beautiful stranger at home. Yeah. So I mean, yeah Yeah I don't have any notes spp but I't I don't skip Don't tell me I't believe that there's anyone on earth who doesn't like this song. That shocks me That shocks and awes me. It's this song is That's a crack C song is crack. Yeah This feels like a f kking and like country, you know. This is a twangy acoustic guitar. It was adapted from a song written by her brother in law Right Joe Henry U T is her sister Melanie's husband who is like kind of like a Cry artist or house. Foky Yeah things This song was called Stop And he had like kind of Tom Waitesy inspired vocals. He said, It's probably the last thing I've 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 just moved and set up a studio in the guest house of my home I was looking to record anything to make sure my things were working. I needed something to record, so I wrote that song about twenty five 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 The I feel like what a vision to hear this kind of throwaway and obviously it's earwmy as hell and catchy, but I think on its own, I could see why it would be a th. L it needs the mere ification and modification of it. But to hear that and be like, no, I can do some. That 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 just like, if if If you or I were just like, let's hum a little d d d likeike you know, I 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. That's her genius. To me, you are perfect. Don't tell me I love you so much. I love the lyrical conceit of it, which is like very direct a message. I'm forty two, donon'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 don't me I mean, another one of her big themes is like, don't stop, keepe going. Yes. Don't over. Like just like, you know, just like there's no stopping. Yeah. It's like and I think that's That's just like this is a cool synergy of like that idea of like you're saying of like how her age. Yeah, but also just not stopping. I not part that in the s is 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 move. You know?ike she's like, I'm an artist I'm gonna keep making things you know. But also like 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 weird I just I love this song. That's a great song. The video was directed by Jean Baptiste Mondino, he's back. feeaturing Madonna is a cow girl walking down an automated treadmill in front of a projection screen with cowboys dancing and straddling horses in the backdrop. I have this video burned into my brain like I mean it's the way she's It's gone viral so many times. I feel like recently too, just because it's such a good. the dance is so good. line dance. Yeah a long line dance.ull l line dance. apppparently, just like days after giving birth to Rocco That's the rumor. and what Just that I think it's just very interesting. I give 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. And just like, I mean, the whole thing of her doing this western thing, this kind of like Cry music reappraisal at this moment is just, you know Again, really ahead. Ver very Given what given where we are now and how like So many pop stars have turned towards country now like twenty five years later. It was like, she was right there in the fres, but also doing it in such a cool way with the technology Startery acoustic guitar is just unbelievable. Could Perfect? Chef's guess what it feels like for a girl What a what are like a moment in her of? Go a sparkling piece of diamond Just like, yeah, perfect again. So Madonna had developed an interest in collaborating with Guy Sigsworth. He has started his career with SL. He co wrote Four songs, including Crazy, E heard of it Then he worked with Virtuoso Tobla 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 Um playing Harps acccord and stuff on she he plays Harps Aord on Cover Me And the clav accord on the song All is full of love. Oh my go, stop it. stop And he co wrote Unravel with her Then he met Imogen Heap. In nineteen ninety six, after a friend played him a demo for song here boy and he was, you know in love with her voice and they wrote two songs together, getting scared an airplane which he produced for her debut album, I Megaphone. and then they did Fu Fu together. Do you guys remember Fu Fu? you remember Fru Fu obviously. Yeah. 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 And it's let Go is very famously in Garden State I mean, yeah. Great. So that's a guy Sigsworth.s 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 unpolished so that Madonna could keep writing on top of it The backing track contained a sample from the nineteen ninety three 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 it's 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. Oh Ttally. I was like, it's true. L you call you mock men for being girly because being girly is considered degraded. Degraded. It's bad. It's wrong Yeah. You call men pussies because it's bad You know compleompletely. And it's like Well 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 have the song is about, right? Yeah just like that's It's like just work with what's right in front of you and don't overthink it. L And I love that she can She can improvise her riff off of that like 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, donon't wait. like time time goes by so slowly.. 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 of moving to London, hiding her pregnancy. She was like fed up with the fact that She's the one that had to move her whole life. Right. She told Ingrid Sishi as I say from who is the old editor of Injury magazine. said I wrote it kind of halway 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 Part of the reason was because we lived in different countries And Ingrid says, you an America guy in Britain. Madonna said, It was ant okay, I don't want to move to England. Well, I don't want to move to America 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 is about swallowing that bitter pill I screamed Amen's sister just so loud, I alarmed the pets. Do you know what I mean? I was like, Wha. Oh my God. Yeah I hear you. They said They said, goo be successful and go college and then men are like I'm scared of you. I don't want to talk to you Dove even Madonna had to deal with that? I know. We live in hell I think, you know, not to be like on a mopia or whatever, but it sounds like what it is, which is like a very feminine song.. Like it's sonically very feminine Soft and beautiful So you know Beautif. And the vocal, the production on the vocal and also just like her sort of Ary Delivery Yeah is very like it just makes it all kind of come together What do you make of the music video Directed by Guy Richie who by It feels very like a guy Richie video.y. 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 guuy, but it's like this guy pointter' literally named guuy on this, you know, on this and sos she's like in a hot rod car And like the, you know, like the whole kind of like presentation of it feels like sort of feels like different than the song, right? Like that's that's like my itch with it. Yeah. It was 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, those things right. Girls can be pimpsed too go on brush your shoulders off or whatever like like, but that's not what I felt about the song, which I felt about the song is that like the quote, like A just being a girl in its most femininity is okay. 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 that this is'm tal I'm talking about archetypes. I'm not talking about um, 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 'cause I don't ever remember seeing it and now I know why is ' it was banned from TV. Oh, really? Yeah. because of the violence Yeah, it's not that remember It's not that crazy 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 people or whatever I like that she's eating a burger and fries. Yeah, that's cool. Her is amazing. Yeah, she looks great. The cars are really cool. It's a fun watch Lots of remixes of the song I think they are great. Yeah, they kind of 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 songs like this or like bedtime story frozen kindind of more like subtly beautiful songs that they're like kind of allowed to imprint into something else, you know? Yeah really the 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 like almost feels like fits this production as opposed to it being just a remix. Its almost like the right choice for it. Yeah. The next song is Paradise in parentheses notot for me I love this song, especially It's a great, it's a really interesting kind of like b That's not like that's not a That's not a ballid. And I think it's sort of it's again so European. I feel like because actually Murway wrote it for his own album. Yeah, so it was on productionuction. whichich came out before the sound. And so it's on both. Yeah, it's on both. And it was like it was a preview of what this sound was going be at the time Be 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. There were a real on? There was this record store in the West Village called Rebel Rebel RIP. And that guy that ran that shop. It was a tiny little shop on and it was on or sign Christopher No Christopher or Westfth 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 we got that record and he had all the he had, yeah, it was great. We used to go like roller bllade over there and when the singles would come out. I'm obsessed. That's perfect roller blade on over to the Madonna' spepecialty Reord store. Any new ones out? No, it's a cool song It's a cool s. I like it. Gone is like a great ending for the album. I don't you feel it's like kind of a perfect note to end on I think both with the lyrical con see and also like the sound of the song is kind of It kind of like and it's interesting because like these three records Like they all end in this 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 it kind of fits into the theme of this run.ree. Stop It Okay, so music Really interesting. Really interesting. Really cool. Unusual suuccessful. suuccessful. Yes. I think just, you know, like successful as a Work. creative work and successful as a commercially commomercially successful, tootally. I think I'm pretty sure critically pretty successful too. L not quite didnn't quite hit the heights of Relay, but it was definitely like Like Village Voice gave it an A Chriscoo, Spin gave it a seven out of ten, four stars from Rolling Stone, four stars from Q, eight out of ten from NME. like be from entertainment weekly they miss the market a little bit, but It's well reviewed Yeah. That's going to change, but we're not there yet What happens after music? Well, Madonna goes back on David Letterman. In november two thousand, she brings her twenty four 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. Yeah on YouTube. It's very cute. I don't remember the exact story of Monte Pipman, 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 Richie, I think, because he was bedridden or something. but then she also started learning guitar Anyways, he becomes kind of an important bigigure. Yeah. Yeah In December of two thousand, Madonna and G Richie get married in the Scottish Highlands. Her maid of honor is Dell McCartney who makes her dress Again, I kind of like back to that when we're talking about that like Vinity Fair, where she's like you know Ava Perone and the Vanity F Yeah. 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 Sttyler. Right. You she just entered a new world. Totally new world, right? It's just like horseback riding. R. You know, She's like Mad She puts out, oh, we're not there yet, but she does put out a children's book the English Rades little. So it's just like, it's like This whole she's entering this whole new Yeah phase of her life and also just like her phase of her celebrity, really. It Very interesting given what you're saying that American L is the album that comes out first during that f. Yeah, you know, because it's a pretty fuck you album. Yeah. No, it is very interesting. I think I think it is really interesting We need to go on tour We haven' toured. didn been tour Rabay and Now we have music. so The Downed World Tour. Yeah starting june ninth, two thousand one Madononna had started throwing around the preliminary ideas for the store with Christopher Shaconi, 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 New Yor apartment. that was like the first time he hadn't done one of her residents. He really burned by that? Yeah She did According to him, deal his idea of having a big tree in the middle of the stage m for the like he had that he had guess one of the original drawings that he said he did for this store was like a big tree in the middle of the stage and she Well, she can't steal it. it was for her anyway. Yeah, well, you know. that was his how he looked at it, I guess. I mean, I do I do think he was an incredibly creative and talented person I know did develop that like pe Talk about imperial Yeah, blond ambition Iure 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 twenty three year old Englishman, Stuart Price. comes on as music director. He did music under the name Jacques Letee. Mirway had introduced them when Madonna was looking for a live keyboard player And then she alsorought brought Monty Pittman, her guitar teacher to come play live guitar called again on Nickki and Donna, although Niki I can't remember how she sustained the injury to her leg, but she had had surgery and one her legs was a little longer than the other ones. She didn't She physically was not at her peak Yeah. And also I think there was some quote I didn't write it down butow she was like, we were like dancing with like nineteen year olds and we're like we're like thirty years old or whatever. The costumes were by Jean Paul Gautier Most of them, the kilts and the dresses and the kimonos, but then the country looks were des squared, which I think is also in the video, right? You were at this tour. I I was You want to tell us about it a little? So in Philadelphia It was spectacular in that it was for the time, and I think, you know, it was like extremely technologically innovative there was like If a lot of like screens, right? A lot of screens And just like a lot of like sort of like highwire, you know, she's like flies through the air at one point. There's likeial aerial stuff 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 hadd really done before, I think. And This tour, which I think everybody is beatating this to death, but she didn't do any hits. I mean. She did only material really from from Ril light and music and only to L from catalog hits was L Isl Bonita and u holiday at the end and did She did do secret and human nature Yeah, but she has't torered those at all. Yeah So it was like just the those were the only two songs from bedtime Stories. Bedime Stories really got the slight I know in the end. I know. such a good album. so good have it Yeah, I watched a lot of this because it's the whole thing is on YouTube Yeah and it's fucking cool. It's cool. The looks are so cool. I was I was commenting to you on our way here that like I found the specifically the like The punk punk look is like so ahead of its time. It's not even, I mean, obviously in office punk, but like It's Chipaloena. You know, it's like it could be like I'm like, oh, this is so sick dancing is Really aggressive. So aggressive. Like it's the movement is really like chaotic and aggressive. obviously, you know, chorerapped. I read that Jamie King said in the rehearsals like it was so intense that he like vometed. Yeah, people like apparently it was very intense rehearsals and like Yeah, there's like it's like I said, it was like different than anything she'd done before. And she's in insane shape. Like I mean it is like I think this is peak Madonna, athletic body. like's about forty three, I think Y. turn to forty three on this tour She mle. Jact. Like, it's crazy Very cool tour. but you said Maybe people were like felt a little sad. They didn't get more m I think they didn't catalog like they didn't get more this is again critics and I don't know, like I loved it. You know, I was so happy to see anything that she did. likeike she because it was all just so amazing and impressive. but I think Yeah, people wanted more hits, but with that people complain no matter what you do kind of like and shammed if you do dam 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 I think that's really cool too also because I do kind of feel like Fually they don't tell me at it all, like to like do a retrospectively set list is kind of being like, I'm done. You know she does that next. So like and that's fine. Yeah. 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 Yeah. Yeah. and I and I think and I'm going to do this whole presentation around it. I think it was like, you know This ho It was really like world building. And I think all of her her tours do that to an extent, but this really felt like You're in this gacia world and it's like, you know, this these anime like battles and like toally know with those 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 Oh right. we happen. It's like three days before the tour ends, nine eleven happen. And that's kind of a huge deal. And she had this like little song. I was like that she did it was like called the funny song and it was like a satire like you know song that that was Just like tongue in cheek and she stopped singing it because of Right She didn't want to So because it just things got too It's kind of wild to consider like that she had to go play like more shows I know. Because like nine eleven was so insane. It was so insane. And how ld crazy the world felt? I remember like I think a lot of artists were just like, no, we have to continue because people need people need it. Yeah. like No there was zero criticism. I just like imagining it and I sounded so fucking t. there would be like, nine eleven was so insane. It wast you get what I'm saying It was like complete unless you unless you lived through it hard. Yeah like and was like It felt like nothing was going to ever go back. And reality had like shifted in this crazy way. did seem crazy. I'd agree with you. Id think it did seem crazy to like go on with your show. Yeah And like But I think it was kind of courageous. for sure. I'm sure psychologically it must have been incredibly difficult. Side note, but I did I saw Tory Amos like Two or three days after at the Beacon Theaterre Yeah, it was it was it brought people together in an interesting way because it felt like it was like a sling kind of momoment. Ily Dot remember at all what we did. We were in college in Santaarbara and I'm sure what we did was what we did everyday, Pinky got blackout drunk. But But maybe with a little more emotion. R Well, I think nine eleven, I'm glad you brought it up for that reason, because it's interesting, but also I think it was maybe a final push that Madon was like, okay, we'll move to England to. Do You know what I mean? Be it was like. because that's when they fully relocate is November of two thousand one I don't have a lot to say about this, but that same month Madonna releases her second greatest hits album, which I think was supposed to be like Immaculate collection too, is that right? And then it became GHV two. I thought this was a weird collection. I didn't it wasn't I don't know, even like an update like Immaculate collection at this point is so old Yeah. And she's had so many hits since. maybe that's a way to put like aner mag. I think it just felt it was fulfilling a contract. Well herer last Maverick album is American Life. Okay maybe it was fulfilling contracts so she could like I'm pretty sure that many many h sk In two thousand two, a new film comes out. Madonna has done another film And what a film it was I'm gonna 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 Bye Patrick Sandberg' iss not here to defend the honor of this film, and I know he is a truther, a swept away truthher. I'll just give you some background. This is Madonna and Gy Richie's like one film collaboration They decided to remake the nineteen seventy four Lena Wert Mueller film swept away. actuallyually this is kind of my favorite part of the story is that It was the actor Stehen Webber's idea. I love Steen Webber. I finding him so hot. I don't if you guys have watched Wings. Wings was a big deal to teenage Jussie finding men hot. Anyways I don't know why they were friends with Stephven Weber, didn't get that far, but he said, Why don't you read you swept away, which is I gotta wonder What did he see that we didn't see? What did he see in their relationships? Well, I mean, I think you have a note here, which just really sums this up perfectly The original film like and Madonna's kind of like appetite for film were one thing and guy Richie's like Creative sensibilities was another an interest.es, ye. 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 twenty minutes because he found it boring. O like any kind of serious fucking film director, but also I think that's pretty telling about his. Yeah, 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 Steven Stephen Weber had a vision for what it could be And And guy Rach he 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 The plot is about these rich who go on a They charter a yacht cruise ship or whatever from Greece to Italy or Italy to Greece, I don remember it doesn't really matter. And Madonna's character is the main character. this like very rich, wretched, spoiled woman who gets stranded like a lifebat with a very hot Fisherman who works on the boat. And they have an antagonist or relationship being with because she's such a bitch in the film, the subplot is that she is a right wing bigot. Right. And then he's this like working class. they Even from what we watched last night we were gonna have to turn it off, but like I can tell they're like They planted a couple of seeds. A little bit of it, but it's not realized. He also, I think really toned down the. Rversion' a lot of sex scenes between the two, including like ootomy And he was like, no 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 this tan. Her hair is like beautiful. Her body again is in this like prime athletic shape. outfits are beautiful. We love Jean tririple horn. She's trying something. The actor I saw was one hundred percent Charlie in the chocolate Fory. I want Daddy? Yes. I feel like maybe I only didn't get that f I feel like that is the failing of the movie though in a way. that like she was trying to do this like reallyally tongue in cheek over the top c orance happy performance He 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 Yeah. it doesn't Well, again, don't. can't I can only speak to the twenty minutes I are or with the thirty minutes are or whatever. anyw Not a highlight. Not a highlight. Open to horrible reviews was in theaters for three weeks, made six hundred thousand dollars of the ten million that was spent and went away Okay In October that same month This is like ten days later The diet O other d thing will 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 I was the one woman who was not interested in Bond in the movies. I liked that Of course, this is Pierce Brosnan. Y Bond This song slaps. This song slaps. It's so cool that it It kind of broke the mold of the James Bond Yeah was kind of like a ball ballad. Yeah. She just like, she tore it with this Yeah. She was like, actually my song fcks. Yeah. So it's a different kind of It's meirreway. Ananalyze this. Yeah ye Verity as cool as hell. Totally. She does some of her best work is in cameos movies. She our of this whole whole unit. Yes, awwesome. It's amazing. And it is our first taste of the next album. Yes which in two thousand three, she puts out the first single from American life, the titular track march twenty second, two thousand three, it's kind of important to note that the United States invaded Iraq on march twentieth. 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 and 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 the s because I think anyyone who heard it would know that it might be polarizing. Yeah I mean, I think it's a really interesting song. love I love it. I love. I mean, I've always loved it. She got a lot of flack ra for rappbing on the song, which I think just like That was part of what people reacted to Like it's so obvious that that that her rarap is like a tongue in cheek commentary on the lyrical Yeah, it's it's it's it's supposed to be it's supposed to be drinking a soy latte. I get a double lat. Obviously she's not trying to be like Big L, do you know what I mean? Like she's jo She's joking. People completely miss the point of that Probably intentionally Um And then the video, which was you know, also super Well, you pointed out this prroto Kcha idea, which I think Yeah, that's what I love this song. I will be honest. I came to American life a little later. I don't actually remember besides Hollywood really hearing it in real time I love it. Like I just loved it. I was like, this is cool. I do think she was really ahead. like Kesa TikTok is until twenty ten, and by that time people are like, we fuck in love this. Let's go. And that's basically the vibe v, you know Yeah. I think the The lyrics of the rap are very self aware and funny like while everyone seem 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 as so profound, which obviously it's Cichey at the same time, but it's like Hearing her say that, like nothing is what it seems. I think we talked about 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 nothing to be on. So it's like I think that's like that's just like a evergreen profound thing and I just like always return to that in my mind of just like I probably dovetailed with things that I was like to understand in my life at that time as well. justust like, you know just realizing like, oh, actually that was your college genernder your realiz things 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 was itss kind of perfect because it's also like explicitly This the wrap is not what it seems.. Like completely putting it right in there and be like just so like just so you know. This is not what it seems, you know I mean, the whole the lyrics of the entire song Yeah 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 Am I gonna be a star? I mean, I think the whole thing is really funny, right? I think the whole song is also really I'm sorry, pooign profound. Yeah, you took the words right out of my mouth Sorry, but should I lose some weight Evergreen refrain. tootally For all time. like, especially this doesn't even this song doesn't even know about Ozeme American Life single, you will You will love Ozempee Ion wit of these are d. digging on the isotopes, this metaphysics shit is dope Exactly It's very, I mean, when when insane Komos he 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's great. It was the lowest charting first single from a Madaon album since the debut I mean, this whole record had that shade. I want to talk a little bit about the negative reviews specifically about this song Yeah. Ken Tucker from Etertainment Weeaklist called it a facle confirmation of Madonna's Hater's most knee jerk conviction that she does not have a worldview beyond her next pilates appointment, whichich then I'm like I mean, talk about missing the point literally Are you like are you stupid Are I intentionally stupid? Are you stupid? I think you're actually intentionally stup. I'm sorry, Tucker. I think you're like, you didn't listen to I believe he's like like he's like an N PPR music critic. He's probably very intelligent. But this shocked me. I was like I' pretty shocked. It's right there that it's she's doing I That seems like straight hater Yeah to me. That's like just like You hate her The Guardiian Alexis Petritus Mcked its extreme point of view is a little more than money can't buy you happiness. Which okay Sure. Sure. that is the gist, you know, 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 rarap. Blender called it the most embarrassing rap ever recorded Okay, but I really want to read this because the same month that 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, may be looking at the final stages of a long career First of all, who says you And then the song, which was talalking about Maritan Life, which was released to top forty 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 a playlist to be on board up front if something happens So Madonna gets asked about this like relevant specifically that quote by Matt Lauower 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. 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 lightight, but as you can use g on She's a for She's a pop star who's over forty. That's right. And that alone I think Pussyat. Pretty prettytty transgressive. It's an active it's literally an active transgression is an active it's political to be forty it's political to be a forty two old woman and try to have attention.'s 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 spere now. It's like, you know, they're evaluating, they're all evaluating her on like the same terms as like people who are twenty years Exactly Younger than her And twenty years younger than her reat R Like she's transcended 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 like 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 Whver's record, whatever going to easy listening territory. Totally 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 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 it to 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 Lugini in a bottle rubbed me the wrong way. You know, which is a great song. That's not butm like she's doing something so Radical might not be the right word. kind of 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 Donas Ackerland has like a satirical military fashion show which shows up again in the tour, the reinvention tour. endndings with Madonna tossing a grenade. And a brush look alike. A busush look alike Bush sharing a cigar and a kiss with a Saddam Hussein look alike. It was like ten minutes long, but they edited it down. anyways Three days before it's release, Madononna announced that she's actually pulling the video because it had been filmed before the Iraq War began, and it's not 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 censored. 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 in what like How do you feel about that I think that time It's, you know, it was extremely pol It was the beginning of political polarization, not that not It's not the dawn of political polarization. No, I know exactly what. It was the beginning of this like extreme political polarization where this kind of like Nationalistic idea that Bush really was like put pushing that was like you're eer You're with you'reer for us or you're against us. You're e the with the terrorists. You're either for with us or you're with the terrorists. And there was such I mean and so this ide such a nationalistic sentiment, even amongst because of nine eleven Be of nine eleven 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 was just very anathema to like things that were going on at that time. So I kind of understand why she 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, remember also that It was a little later, but Yeah, I mean, like the Kanya thing at the at the Katrina thing, you know, K Oh right. He didn't hear about There wass a lot of Yeah, Yeahah, there's there's a this will be notable for some of our audience. We talked about in the proro Jam epode but Pel Jam. And you would think the Pro Jam audience in a concert would be pretty fucking lagh. But even even everyone they had a song called Bush Lager and Eddie Vetter had a busush Mask that you wearing they were booed. right I mean 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, obbviously like no I think they really manipulated that and propagandized that and kind of weaponized it against people and you, used 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 polit not to make this about politics, but I do think it's important like the cascade of things This album is political,. The cascade of things that came after nine eleven the Patriot Act this sort of like the ling of weapons of mass destruction, these kinds of just gigantic oversiz and g everything has changed and everything's fine now. Yeah What we mean And then we have no problem. Well this is what set us up in a lot of ways for where we are right now. And I think thoseose of 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 Georges bus Yeah. I that just seemed like a bridge too far. Totally. And also it's important to remember that she is not the Madonna of ten years ago. She has a family.ight. She small She has young children. N not to say that she's like less Audacious, but she has other people to consider in her life that will have fall out. know was like a little tired of it. Like does she need a does she have controversy right Yeah in the race of this like thing. She's like it's it's Even with the edited video in the end, I think it still that message s across pretty strongly. so and throughout the elbow. Yeah. So yeah. Anyways, I thought that was interesting. Yeah Let's talk about American Life the album. Bs Madonna And M way back back at it. Back at it. I really went hard in the paint as you said on this one. I think. Yeah, it it's a very fascinating And much in 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 You know This is different. This feels like a concept album. Yes. and it feels reallyally like her most experimental work for sure. I made a note here that so she had said she was inspired by two albums. One I honestly haven't heard and didn't have time to listen to, It Lost Horizons by Leb and Jelly. But one is a hundredth window by massive attack. Massive A attack. And this makes so much sense to me becausecause obviously listen to that and I studied it that that is the coldest most machine like massive attack album It's not vibbey, it's not warm. it's not rooty. like It's cold. It's machinistic. and I'm like, oh, I can hear that in this album. You know? It's not the one with the Senato Connor songes. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, totally. Right? Yeah Yeah, completely. And it's like Yeah, that's really interesting. a reference as a reference. Yeahah. And you said you've heard that lemon jelly album. Yes. Yeahah. what does it? So it justakes it does make sense. there's like because the lemon jelly, in my recollection is a little more folky influenced and that kind of like Like fky 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 electronic music together It's another step on, but I never want to repeat myself and re it the same record twice Well, she certainly didn't repeat herself with this. No ye. This is This is a very post nine eleven album. Yeah This is a disolute This is album of disillusionment. It's kind of interesting that it comes in the tripick of ray of light where it's like ray of light is like Oh my God. like I I 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 was like how we all felt. I think that was like, you know, I think that was I think that cultural moment of Yeah, we had we had sailed on through the Clinton years, Trawl a 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 in. And I remember being like, Godddamn this f shit to hell. What are you talking about? And there was a whole thing where like Al Gore didn't like there's a vote count thing. I I was remembering any. 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 the voting works. It's like like 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 dum. I ft like, you know, just like it seems so so Real tall though. Yeah, ye. Everything about him seemed so fake and folksy and I guess you looking back now it's easy to like revise it because compred to where we Well like we sa hit rock bottom there. we were like we have this like that mass and then it's like, no, it's gonna get way worse than we're have doll. compleompletely. That's that's what was kind of driving at is it felt like we hit rock bottom. It felt like The fabric of America was falling apart. It felt like you know, the terror 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 sur the surveillance stage really starts to kick off That's. I think, you know, I think so I think all these themes were going on for everybody and we were it felt very dystopian. Yeah. It felt very disillusioning. I think that's right which I think that's really funny because a lot of the criticism of this album I'll get to it later, but calls herself involved. And I'm like, this is an album about collective disillusionment, but through the lens of one person O person, you know? Yeah. so we 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 psycho analysis. She even name 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 ennui of the title track to the strapiness ofobody Kows 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 Greatly. Yeah, I think I mean, I think it's more of a critique of materialism of material. L I think that's like which is. R, totally. But I think, you know, byroduct of capitalism this idea kind of like mindless consumption. And that you know material goods or wealth is gonna to make you happy, you know, and fulfill. I of fame is a function of capitalism completely There's no point. Fame is only there in cles of selling. is a critique of capitalism. Madonna in her ownds said I'm saying celebrities 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 notock onone to W yet when she was making the album to Meghgan Malawy on MTV. This is because she was on that episode of Will and Grace. Do you remember that? Yes. Yeah. R. She played Liz a D high maintenance office worker who becomes Karen Walker's roommate. Anyway, so they' 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 Etertainments, TV, fashion shows, you know superficial life. There's a real war going on here We're 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. She failed and we're all P We're all paying this I mean, it's even wor just like paying attention to looks, maxers That's like the whole thing. We're all just like like, I mean, we've all given up. Looking at TikTok while, yeah. Oh The cover. Yeah, I love the cover. Do you think it's inspired by Tovera? Yeah. How could it not be? Or even I liked the Patty Hearst reference too, 'use I think that's also Yeah, I think it's famous It's revolutionary Revolutionary kind of Bay wearing. Yeah. But I think the way it's like black and white the colorors like just right here, but Yeah feels like the way that those's, you know, there's spray painting stencils that you use to do a real Oay also a real obay O Shepherd Fairy Oay giant moment. It was like MM Parris who did it, which is like the whole package is very cool. Yeah. It's amazing. You know, it's her only her second album that has the parental advisory It's just erotica in this one. Wow. Yeahah, which is surprising The photo is by Craig McDean. Yeah. She she had worked with him on Vanity Fair. Yeah, there was a Vanity Fair. It was similar militarily themed. Yeah Isn't it twisted that like that came back into fashion because war was looming? Well we have such a yeah, it's kind of we've had this conversation a few times about like these these themes of sort of like militant or fascist dressing in pop stars. Oh yeah, you know, just kind of like, I mean, it goes back to like post punk and ye of course it's it's been there a while. I mean, it's like, you know, rocks of Music tootally did that and it's, you know, every they it's Interesting flirtation with the idea of authority and the position that you're in as a pop star Reontextualizing. Yeah, like or whatever, Reolonizing. Let's start with the leaks. Oh yeah O or at the very least the effort to counter Yeah. because this is we're postnapster now U Napster came out in two thousand But there's limewire. I mean, we're in full on File trading. Yeah Yeah, it was Limewire. was ye yeah, I was all over Limeewire. Who wasn't bed Yeah. We were getting viruses on our friend's computer our computer left and So to counter the illeal eleadments of the album, Madonna associates created a number of false MP three files of similar length and size. and apparently some of them had a message from Madonna just saying, what the fuck do you think you're doing It was if I remember correctly There would be like a little snippet of the song you thought you were downloading at first. And like And then you' interrupt it. That's really I say what the fuck do you think you're doing? I definitely downloaded a few of them. You got your ass tellell that. I was like, the album's not out. I want to he 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 fifteen 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 Star happening this we're in between We're kind of like starting to get post CD. All the of people are obviously still using CDs, but there's so much illegal downloading.. And we're pre streaming Iate with the critics said, they didn't like it. Yeah Ben Ratliffe for Rlling Stone said, Madonna Saconone has done it again. The forty four year old guitar player from London via Detroit. It's what they called it a guitar player. has taken the pulse has taken the pulse of the nation, if not the whole women's Weear daily reading world Again, D Fuck you Fuck off That is so fucking rude. It That is like seexist? It's sex It's aist. You That is like I hate it. You deserve me too. put him on a list.. He said, American Life, her tenth album, isn't much as a work of music. Diluted Eurot Techno from her producer Muraway built around ac I know's wrong Acoustic guitar vamps that are either her own or about on her level, but is a certain marker in popular culture Three albums into her journey of yoga and self disiscovery and 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 over crumbs all over his lap. be embarrassed. There'sood all over his face. He thought he read her good, but this is pathetic I wonder If When albums like this are reevaluated, like the critics feel bad, you know Well, I mean, I feel like and we werere saying this before, it's like it's like you're intentionally not hearing what's happening here because you've already got an idea about Who Madonna totally 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 just like it's just a weird underlying assumption that they're writing from. It's very interesting. I mean, Ray of Light had had an interesting critical moment where Rob Sheffield reviewed it poorly and then 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. Yeah. you know? And it feels like these are very knee jerk reactions. although again, like this is a this is a I don't how to say, like this is an 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 Parlles for the New York Tim Despite the flag imagery and military style stenciled letters of its cover, American Life is actually an album about the midlife crisis of a disillused star The album is one of Madonna's conffessional works, part of the line streting back through Ray of Light and Like a prrayer, 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 to the syynphop music now being revived under the name Electroclash Llectro classash 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 doinguring 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. ands 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 absorb, sorry that she Yeah has a self. L what is sheant She's an artist. What is she meant to write about And all of the things you want her to pander to like to act as if she's lower middle class or something What do you want her to do T 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 it just feels like you're not Again, it's like Hollywood, everyveryone goes to Holl That's a critique. Hollywood is not a place. Yeah it's a metaphor. It's a metaphor. So it's like You're just intentionally missing the point. I feel like these are bad faith readings a little. 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.ss get Let's reset the rec. Even though I think this album has already been reappraised. I hope properly. Hollywood, Bib. Yeah, amazing Push the button'tush the button trip the station, change the channel. God to your banger. God to your banger. So just like just nails it. It' so good. So good. It's so fun She said about this It 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. R I think that the musical part of the song is so cool to me. I didn't know this until I listened to one inside the groove podcast, but that there's bird song throughout the background. And then she has that bird lyric I think is so cool Yeah, and Mirway plays the acoustic guitar, there's some electronic guitar buried in the mix that makes it have a little bit of an eastern sound. R kind of call back to Ray of light a little bit. The vocals are super compressed. What do you how do you feel about those super compressed vocals? I love it because it sounds it 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 is Hollywood, Right so it's so perfect. what I mean. Perfectly like within theirds chirping in the background or like the perfect, it's like the wizard of Oz. Yeah. nature is in the studio, but there's birds chirping.. You know, it's like this it's like this whole idea of like creating a fake world and hearing things through compression. 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 flattening. Yeah So Hollywood in and of itself. and 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 mom. Yeah Everybody comes to Hollywood. It's just like, what a refrain Throughout this album, I think a lot about celebrity skin by a whole. And this is one of the songs which I don't think musically sounds like celebrity skin, but like thematically. C could be fits into like you know. This one later in in the year is remixed with into the Groove and performed with Miss. Elliot under the title into the Hollywood Group Yeah as a GapP campaign. Gap campaign. Yeah Yeah. This one also failed to enter the billboard one hundred in the United States. Insane. First time burning up A Madonna single did not reach the Hall ownner. That part to me us really pays because this is absolutely a jam I could see that like sound wise, like, you know, all of the things that we just talked about, like the super compressed vocal. The like guitar picking and stuff, like didn't Yeah. We also kind just haven't really talked about how much rap music has overtaken the pop. Thats another thing. And that's kind of important talk. by two thousand three the. Pot one hundred is like fifty set in the club, The ignition remix by R Kelly Even Beyonce is crazy in love. Right. So it's just It's it just a different world? Yeah. And then there's there are like some, you know, there's some Mashbox twenty on well, that's my guys. but theyah Cingi, Alia, like The video is amazing of this. Oh yeah. this is the u Jeann Bape Monday now. This is the one that that they pay homage G Gberardan and then Gilberardanne's son said, You will not pay homage, you will pay my money for paying homage And 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. and the way it's shot it feels like perfect to the song like we just talked about like that. Compressed world, I just thinks it's like this is like perfect 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 where like, you know, that's like compression. Yeah J like this idea of like reality versus, you know, fake and Her makeup looks crazy. I love, I'm so stupid. I love it. It's such a great song. This is the one that we were talking about that. I was like, Just the vocal delivery to me it reminds me of Courtney Lovel, but I feel like it 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 ye. I think that's what I haven't really heard that use of Voocoder that much and it's like in that way. It just makes it's this like really distorted, super stretched out, like crazy Sounds actually bad, right? Like Yeah like in a punk Yeah totally Like and it's like, cool Like nobody would It was so lossy. and bad that people were like, no, you never use that, but it actually sounds so fucking cool on this. Everybody's looking for something. Everybody's stupid. Yeah And I love that you called this song that it's such a good Just to go back to all the 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 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. that's not really what this is about. Yeah. Come mom Take a moment to extend some of the same like thought power you would extend to a radiohead album here. Yeah, completely. You know. Okay, 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 Richie anything negative but I will say of the ple of love songs on here. It's Not my favorite one Yeah, I can hear that. I love the I think I love the remix of it. There's like a head cleaner rock remix of. That makes it feel a little less twey maybe. Yeah. ye. It's a nice song. It' a nice s maybe for the song. And it kind of perfect that they ended up using it for the essay Lauder commercial like which looks like the music video by Luke Bason Interesting integration from a marketing perspective here. I thought just like it just kind of The idea of that video and this song and then it becoming fragrance commercial thing and then Carlyn Murphy. It just that's very early two thousands where we're completely losing the line between art and commerce. That's like it's all become kind of. Everything is like integrated marketing moments.tely. or beginning to be. Beginning to be. it's the beginnings of that in 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 it's much more it's everywhere Every little clothes she's wearing in that video too are so like She loves those dresses Yeah. She loves those dresses. Yeah. Nobody knows me is the next song. I love this s. Me too. I love it. love I love the idea that she's putting for us, which is like also so Kind of like what you were saying about the last line of the wp. Nothing that this seems. It's just a simple idea. idea, but it's such a profound one. It's like the inverse of that idea.. Nothing that it seems and also Nobody knows me because I'm not as I seem to other R. Yeah, you know. I love that. I love the production on it. like like just bangs. It's like d d d it's like it's very good. I love it I saw in the genius lyric annotations that someone said the lines won't let a stranger give me a social disease or referring to like the xenophobia Rse up after nine eleven I't know if that's true but I hope it. it makes kind sense. Yeah it makes Yeah It's no Yeah Like I'm not going like it's very defiant in that way. And the best lyrics yeararl like it's no good when you misunderstood when you're misunderstood, but why should I care what the world thinks of me? which is like She already knew the misunderstandings were about to be raining down from this guy Nothing fails. That's also the that's the third single. I mean, I listened 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 Sigsworth wrote for his wife. interestnteresting. He had asked the singer Jem Griffiths to collaborate with him and during their first session, they wrote this song called Silly Th inspired by Sigth's wife. He said, I never write love songs, but I was moved to write one for her. N 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 from Madonna who loved it and changed parts of the song, including the title Jem Griffiths, 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 gonna happen. And to hear Madonna singing, I was like, oh my God so bizarre. My mom keeps calling me 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 gonna 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. that 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 into, 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 no longer scared if I fall. The tree of lifeife is a kabala reference. Yes.. We haven't talked that much about Kabala No, but here it is. H it is. Here it is lyrically popping up And when I get lost in space, I can return to this place Cause you're the one 'use 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? And tri of gorgeous songs going here. Mine is ecstatic process. I love ecstatic process. Written with Stewart Price I feel like the 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. Um, Just just a great song. J'sust 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. It's like not my o are you talking about self when you're. Mother and father is ore Madonna Yeah, it's Madonna D Mother. 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 the 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 kebolic coded, right? That's like very much like what they're about I'm notm not Cabala personally. I'm not one of the fans who's started doing Cabala, although I do know a few of them. but really that's a lot.pect 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 a kind of like a reappraisal of the story of mother and her wounding and why it made her the way she does, quote unquote, you know. Yeah, I think it's there was a time I had a mother and it was nice as. I really love the This song really made a lot of sense more sense to me when she sings it live live 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 vocal experience really Die 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 bree handed thing. I don't want. These are the things that this is the things that make life meaningful and make like things important to you make things valuable Is that like you have to toil Yeah to achieve them. and Yes. I think that's Yeah, I think that's like, you know, that's the lesson of Madonna. R on a certain level. But interestingly, beinging able to simply receive Crect is like such a thing that it goes totally up against ambition.. Ambition is very like thrusting into the world again, masculine receiving as feminine, you know? So I'm just interested in that I'm like, oh, there's this is like, this is the scratchy bit that you're working through still. you know. 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 by Monty Pittman. is a beautul. It's aautiful. It's a really beautiful. Gorgeous undernder This album Justice for American Life justustice for American life. Absolutely. Incredible record just like top to bottom really innovative still sounds Yeah cant pretty mod.t pretty modern.. and like still sounds like nothing else. Totally. Like I can't think of anything else that sounds like this. Especially songs like Ecstatic Processor, 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 b. Y. I agree Should we talk briefly about Ecstatic process the art installation with Stehven Klein?. So that's in May of two thousand three It originated as a W magazine spread in which she said, Okay, I'll do it, but I don't want it to be about fashion. And so they decided to make a performance piece, documented in photos. Stephen Klein used fifteen cameras over ten hours The most like iconic thing, there's like a lot of iconic things in this shoote. it's like Really incredible shoit, I think and kind of plays with a lot of the themes of her Um Just like how she dresses it like corsets and total you know like like all those kinds of things and ballet shoes and like dancer stuff. 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 There's like a coyote. Yeah. There's like all this kind of like it has like very menacing sinister sinister dark edge to it, which I think is like a cool was just a very cool reinterpretationace Yeah the makeup is a mask. the hair is a mask. like It's just kind of like this it's kind of like a It's very like rough and feeling like interpretation of like her there's a kind of a lens of that I love especially the sort of like Christian Mcix, the mask and the veil and like that, you know, there's just like it's so justust like Yeah, it's striking. It's very striking and like in again, menacing in an interesting way. When she's sitting and watching the wedding dress on fire, but in the yeail, and it's like And the way that they shot the video stuff was like very herirky jerky. Yeah and like, you know, weird and she's doing these like putting her legs behind her head and all these contrortionist Tortion stuff and it feels like, yeah, like a really patient like struggling like like mental yle. Right you kind of you nailed it if people in the mental yle were right long Ref go. Christian loal But it's very cool. So it did become a forty four page spread in W, but it also became a full on show at Dch, I think. Yeah, I think it was Dch And then in August of that year She went on to the VMAs to perform Hollywood Well, see This is the second maybe most iconic Madonna has had three iconic VMA moments. One being more of a cultural moment with the Courney Lve, Obviously her very first like a virgin cake moment, which then is echoed here by Brittneany and Christina joining her. Actually, they come out first and they come out of the wedding cake in the L a Virgin outfits Um, and It was Jamie Kingss, 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 chaste kisses and they were during rehearsal att the actual awards, quote, Britney opened her mouth I'm a show girl. We learn to roll with the punches. If someone comes to 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 gott to get Justin Timberlake's reaction but just broken up with Brittany, right? Like very famously and then like kiss then his like horrified or like bummed out react It became a whole fucking mess. Yeah. It was a fucking mess I mean no even remembers that Miss. Elliott was there. It was she was. She was also perform with them. It was 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 their lips slightly parted, I'm gonna go for it. Right.ike I mean, she's gonna go for it. She's like, here are the two Here are the two teen were twenty one and twenty two. like Brittney Pr was twenty one years old. So they here they are, the girls that she keeps being getting compared to. Yeah. And she's like, I'm gonna fuck this shit up. And she did. Yeah. And like people went fucking crazy. I thought it was really funny. Oprah like later asked her like if she was making a sexual statement with that and she said I made those statements years ago. I love it. It was like You just kind of like Fuck off guys. It's not under trh. totally. and it's just kind of like Get over it. Like whatever. just Are we still this is still the 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. J it's kind of interesting. like I think just about her and like about reappraisals. L I think like there's a big theme of reappraisals, right? because I think Eerotica reappraisal, American life reappraisal I think the VMA think 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 response to it was like as if she was some kind of predator like fe creepy predator Us 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 it has a through line and it makes sense. and And those girls completely looked up to her. And like, you know, I think it was like, thrilled to be on that stage with her singing her songs. Like it was like, you know, it wasn't like she went out and sang Geennie in a bottle Do you have any sense of like why you think Her entire career is kind of defined by being reevaluated upward. Like it has happened ever since Eerotica on it seems that like, in in real time It's not understood or accepted. and with the with hindsight, it's completely reevaluated and placed way high Yeah. And it has happened multiple times because I, I think it's Really simply just because she is unafraid to break a taboo R And just like and that I think, you know, she just is fearless about that and doesn't doesn't even face her. I would imagine like the way she says this comment here about, you know, I'm a showgirl. we learned 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 she's just gonna 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. L 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 people to the actual work Yeah and that and at a certain point people become ready more receptive to the idea that like Oh, well, you know, Yeah So now now that we've like broken seenty five different taboos every which way to Sunday. I mean, I think that's kind of an interesting she's an interesting artist in that and that whole era that she's in because of that. like I think You know, all of the artists that she quoted in her career Marily Monroe, Marlena Dirix, they also broke taboos on a certain level, but kept a certain level of decorum also that was like this kind of like studio code of behavior that like she didn't She went further. She didn't have to even think about that kind of shit and didn't and wanted And if you had given those to her, she would have been like, ye we go. getet ready, like don't tell me no You know, there was a quote from her. somethingomething 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. And so do I think there's like an element of that. like you're like, are you like, don't go there? And she's like Okay, watch me. I Yeah. So. And then yes, over time. And then over time people the t it was removed and people can see how valuable the work is. So that makes sense. Okay, do you have anything to say about remixed and revisited? because I don't, but I think there' some of the best remixes on the album cycle I in here to me You mentioned the love profusion had cleaner rock. Yes I like that a lot. and the American life Rock mix, I think is really cool also that's the one they performed in the on the tour. There's also the like a Virgin Hollywood medsaturing. Britne's. And then that Its into the Hollywood grove with with Miss Elly, 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 bedime stories. Yeah. I do too. It is again, kind of buried. just like what's our other favorite song Rescue Me? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. It like kind of buried as an afterstop, it actually is a great tune. I love actually really, really love that song. I think it was really good. You're so right. And it just kind of like again, kind of lost to time because it was an outtake from one album and then thrown on this and All right, well let's let's lay on the plane. let's bring it home. and We're gonna do that with the two thousand four's reinvention tour Yeah. may twenty fourth, two thousand four to september fourteenth, thousand four. Once again, Jamie King is at the helm, Stuart Price is the musical director. Donna Dorei comes back, but Nikki does not U She' wanted to focus on her career Sidig Gart comes back. Yeah Saina Garret An legendary background vocalist. Right. I worked with Michael Jack Michael Jackson for years. I mean, I saw this tour also. I loved. I mean, the beast within the opening that tour is just like and I hope I didn't cut you off, but No pase It's just like so amazing. I think that's it's a it's clips from the it's clips from the from the ecstatic processing with Stehven Klein. especially the red Laacroix thing that she's wearing and then it's the like mask that she wears that's like kind of like a hound. Yeah's like, you know, she's like on the ground doing this thing and then there's like It's very like cuddty with these u right jt Yeah and it's like cuddty with these like u images of or, you know, video of a coyote. So it's like this real And then there's a lot of like Kabalar or Jewish or Hebrew kind of textad to. Yeah, so justify my love the Beast within mix had this like interpretation of of Uh Staint John with thepoc what is it called the book of Revelation? Book of Revelation. that's kind of like that's the cool one. So it' a cool part of the Bible. It was the part of the the, you know, prophecy of the apocalypse. R. And U 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 I think it waspret clergy members Yeah in the Spling audience too. But it's very cool and I really did it 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' Yeah.'s very whole's like yes, right. Oh there's nothing I love more just as a side note than Madonna and like a tracksit or like post like warm up clothes with like wet hair. Yeah and like a hat. It's just like it's so hot. Yeah with an a shirt. It will never get over never get ultimate. Anyway, the opening of that tour, like the whole stadium vibrates because my base is like insanely low on that like track. It's very cool and very like were like cool opening. I didn't go, but I have not once again say I have not seen McDonal Live. It's a tragedy and a travesty. But we watched this gorgeous documentary by Jonas Huckerland. That's kind of like Truth or Dare part two, basically And you definitely get just of this thing I mean, you said it. it's like It's the reinvention Tour, and it's called that because she performs a lot of H greatest songs from throughout her career, but like kind of Reinterpreed, yeah. 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 flags she got for it. I think there was like a just generalized feeling of like, why is she so political? whyy is she so like, you know are sort of criticisms of it. I think this was a way of being like, I'm still fucking Madonna. Yeah. And I have like, don't you fucking forget? Don't f 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 the Madonna you want, that just sings Material Girl on holiday, you know She's like, I've got it all. I've got the catalog and like I'm gonna fucking collaborate with this. visuals are very cool on this. Like the dancers she chose are very interesting. She's got the break dancer, the skateboarder. Yeah She really, she like kind of diversified More so even than I think drown world which started to have more of that like, you know, male and female dancers and like just kind of And the dancers were drown World Wld style, very punk, right? They had moohawks and ye she even made Nicki get a Mohawk poorly. But yeah, here they they're also very cool doing very cool stuff. The costumes are awesome. Awesome Costumes are amazing on this. Yeah. Arian Toreret with that. I especially love the kilts at the end of the loveve those where they're all in the as you said, the guy Richie Termitt Yeah. She's blazing her husband. There's paying tribute to her new life as a British countryside Lady. Yeah. There's there's like Apart at the end where they go to Israel At the end of the movie At the end of the movie. Yeah Yeahah.s so weird. I don't like I don't know this strange I mean I guess it's two thousand four so it's hard to 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 Sry you know, risky or somewhat dangerous because that was kind of like the The documentary is a little clunker than there. Like it's so really fun to watch and it's got really incredible footage. Fotage. 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. Sos like there was some really good stuff. And of 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, it's a little It's a little. But then you got all the cute footage of Lorddis and Rock Adorable Yeah. spepeaking French. so sweet. So sweet I would have loved to hear this don't tell me containing elements of bittersweet syymphony from this atlet. Oh, I know There were a couple things that were cut from the setlist that would have been cool to hear from the movie. Oh ye. I mean Yeah, because I don't remember now. Be we didn' they didn't include every song of. But yeah, it this tour is great. She reminded them, I'm Madonna Bin, so don't you ever fucking forget it looked amazing, Sang amazing. She looked amazing L her Yeah. She looks just pak, gorgeous This is the tour that she does the really crazy yoga posture for Vogue. She does like a forward Like the raising the legs over, but then back over, right? the head a handstand with her legs folded over.'s fucking cool cool. Fucking cool. Yeah, this is a this tour movie is worth definitely watching. There's so much cool shit in it. They did The screens were really cool on this. the stage was very simple in a sense, like relatively small But many It's moving. 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 it had this conveyor belt across the front That was like a way of like a moving. And the part where she has to like go against it, I was like, please don't twist your ankle, ma'am. Yeah. this is I couldn't do that And Iggy Pop is in this document. So that's a fun moment. He opened for her, I think on a your UK leg or something. He's amazing. He's so nervous when he's like He always. It's so funny. And then she she closes out this tour on holiday. so we're so back Yeah so And this is where we are going to wrap this episode up We will be back next week. So are The fourth and final, at least part of the arc of Madonna's career picking up with And for two four ye. I believe it's I believe. It's a album you might have heard of that is getting a lot of attention right now. confonfessions' on a dance floor. So come back next week for a new episode of Vancemay. Thank you Paul for. Thank you. It was so much fun If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Banceplaine. Our guest today was Paul Hammond. This episode was produced by Rob Sundnderman and edited by Adrian Brides with Help from Justin Sales. Video production by Jacob Kornet. Executive producers for Banceplane are Gina Dalbach and me Yassi Sllk. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Costantino and Jennifer Clavin and graciously recorded by Carlos D La Garza in Los Angeles, California Special thanks to our producer emeritus prodroucer Dyan, AKA Dylan Tupper Ruper, and also Sean Fenacesey, Sarah Natoff, and today, I'm back, It's Diet Coke. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandsplay on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts I thinking about I was thinking about the hit yoga class and getting really s