She's Madonna

misery guts wrote:She's reportedly set to perform a couple of songs during next month's Eurovision Song Contest. Whether as a prelude to future material, or an acknowledgement of her past, or a tribute to her gay fan-base, who can say?

Intrigue and mystery this week over whether she was gonna be there or not, but it's been confirmed she's doing "Like a Virgin" and some new song from the album.

She did "Like A Prayer" of course, as well as the new track "Future" , featuring Quavo. She also got pretty roundly slagged off for her unimpressive singing, and annoyed the Israeli organisers by making a form of protest towards support for the Palestinians during her performance.

Urban Myths: Madonna & Basquiat
New York, 1982. Successful painter rides the subway with upcoming new singer. He persuades her to simply confront record boss Seymour Stein at his hospital bed with an audition. Which she does. She goes on to glory. He goes on to an early death. Hmm...

The Madame X LP entered the UK at #2, behind Bruce Springsteen. 

She's done a video for a track called God Control which has upset people for its depiction of gun violence, which Maddie feels was the whole point of showing it.

A planned auction of rare out-takes from the Like A Prayer album have prompted a sort of rebuttal from an old collaborator who has released similar material online anyway.

She's had to cancel some shows because of some mysteriously severe pain. Then again, she is 61. Get well soon, anyway.

Her health troubles have continued, with her being forced to cancel some more shows. She's using a walking stick as part of whatever her recovery entails too.

She's improved enough to do shows now, but remains in agony. She also fell foul of regulations at a gig at the London Palladium, when a strictly enforced end-time of 11pm brought her fun to an abrupt closure, to her chagrin.

Age of the Image
A major 4-part series by Dr James Fox about the story of photographic images, from the earliest selfies at the dawn of the 20th century, to the world of Photoshop and Deepfakes. The 3rd part covered Andy Warhol but also Madonna, as an image manipulator in the age of MTV, using Helmut Newton-inspired imagery, her Pepsi video stunt and other cultural appropriation.

Showreel - Madonna
A surprising inclusion in what I assumed to be another country-based series (not even as though they stuck to just her more country-esque hits - it would take a generous interpretation to include Like A Prayer and Like A Virgin on that score).

Icons - Big Star Profiles - Madonna
She got a turn in this series, but nothing too revelatory. Her music, her films, her relationships, her children, her longevity, her reinventions. Someone called (and described) as Jason Akerlund was credited with being a director, and I wonder if he was related to Jonas Akerlund. It suggests the level of accuracy of a show like this.

She's having a biopic film of her life on the way, and she's chosen herself as the director. Weird to realise Truth Or Dare/In Bed With Madonna was almost 30 years ago...

Madonna - The Story of the Songs
A reliable format, this time looking at 3 of her supposedly most vital songs - in this case Holiday, Like A Virgin and Material Girl. The Hudson Brothers, who worked on Holiday, were interesting inclusions, along with Rob Dickins from Warners, and Billy Steinberg, who co-wrote Like A Virgin. It's surprising which of her bigger hits were in fact other people's work.

Viva La Diva - The Queens of Pop
Ana Matronic presented a profile of 5 "divas" worthy of especial consideration. They were Cher, Grace Jones, Madonna, Mariah Carey and Beyonce. Each were credited as displaying diva power and other superstar qualities etc

VH1 Behind the Music: Madonna
From 2002 or so, the usual series took a long time to consider the music, the films, the controversy, the marriages, the children, and so on. Anne Rice was perhaps a notably surprising contributor, whereas Jean-Paul Gaultier, Mario Testino and Rosie O'Donnell were rather more predictable.

Madame X
Concert film with Madonna, plugging the latest album, and a mix of material from over the years. She kept coming back to a quote from James Baldwin:

Artists are Here to Disturb the Peace.

The final result came from filming in Lisbon and Paris (Portugal was credited with inspiring the album in the first place).

Madonna: Truth or Dare aka In Bed with Madonna
Legendary 1991 film around the "Blond Ambition" tour, with songs, skits and some silliness. Warren Beatty just about keeps his dignity with a short ironic tirade at Maddie's expense. Niki Harris also sends things up at times, not least in imagining a future tour in 2025 or so and running through Causing a Commotion and Like a Virgin. Antonio Banderas features briefly and silently, as an object of Maddie's desire, about which his wife is less than entirely thrilled.

Madonna at the BBC
Missed this on its 2021 premiere, so glad to catch it at last. The usual mish-mash of good and great, a few chat clips and features, but the most recent material was from 2008.

She's also announced plans for her first ever Greatest Hits-style tour. All being well, she'll turn 65 in August.

Her brother Anthony has recently died, he was 66.

Madonna - Goddess of Pop
Another unofficial and cheap look over her career, or at least up to 2012 (when things started to go wrong). Besides a brief use of the great Paul Gambaccini, there was some archive of the lady herself, and her biography-writing brother Christopher. Her early 90s slump and comeback contrast with later and longer spells between albums. Her Superbowl turn in 2012 perhaps came a bit late in her career for her good.

misery guts wrote:
She's also announced plans for her first ever Greatest Hits-style tour. All being well, she'll turn 65 in August.

She's had to postpone it as she's been in Intensive Care with health problems 

^^^She's on the mend, so it seems, and thanking her family for support.

Irreconcilable Differences: Madonna / Penn
A cheap enough doc from Reelz which retold the short saga of the mid-80s marriage which was doomed from the start. Besides the half-dozen experts of various sorts in vision, there was talk from some major players in hearsay.

She turned 65 yesterday   Has also announced that her forthcoming tour will now kick off in the UK, and the dates which were postponed/cancelled will happen at the other end.

misery guts wrote: Has also announced that her forthcoming tour will now kick off in the UK, and the dates which were postponed/cancelled will happen at the other end.

The tour has kicked off now, to mixed reviews. Reportedly it includes upwards of 40 tracks throughout.

She's run into problems after late appearances at some shows, for which she is being sued (and has pledged to defend hotly).

Her mega-tour ended at the weekend with a free show in Rio de Janeiro, with a reported crowd of well over a million people