'Madame X' - a year later.

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Feb 3, 2004
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Yes, the first year anniversary was a couple of days ago. There was #StreamMadmeX campaign on social media but I think the loons all just played their clear vinyls or something

I still absolutely adore this album.

Updated 2020 loontastic rate:

09 Medellin
08 Dark Ballet
10 God Control
08 Future
08 Batuka
09 Killers Who Are Partying
09 Crave
08 Crazy
09 Come Alive
11 Extreme Occident
09 Faz Gostozo
05 Bitch I'm Loca
09 I Don't Search I Find
07 Looking for Mercy
09 I Rise

05 Ciao Bella
04 Funana
06 Back That Up To the Beat
 
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Has it really only been a year? God I feel like this was years and years ago. Erased that horrific Eurovision performance from my mind until this. So thanks for that hun. X
 
Oh SYNKY :D

But I digress. I played it quite a bit last year but don't bother with it anymore. It was a solid effort but I find the whole thing so incredibly po-faced to the point of distraction. It doesn't make me want to ever put it on, even if the individual songs are good.

I didn't enjoy any of the perfs (especially not Eurovision) or the interviews and I never want to see a sparkly eyepatch AGAIN.

08 Medellin
07 Dark Ballet
09 God Control
08 Future
05 Batuka
07 Killers Who Are Partying
08 Crave
06 Crazy
07 Come Alive
09 Extreme Occident
04 Faz Gostozo
02 Bitch I'm Loca
07 I Don't Search I Find
08 Looking for Mercy
08 I Rise

?? Ciao Bella
?? Funana
01 Back That Up To the Beat
 
09 Medellin
08 Dark Ballet
08 God Control
06 Future
07 Batuka
07 Killers Who Are Partying
10 Crave
07 Crazy
09 Come Alive
09 Extreme Occident
08 Faz Gostozo
05 Bitch I'm Loca
08 I Don't Search I Find
05 Looking for Mercy
07 I Rise

?? Ciao Bella
?? Funana
?? Back That Up To the Beat
 
I still really do love Medellin and Crave though
 
I really like the album a lot, but whenever I listen to it now, I find myself wishing that Mirwais had produced the entire album. As much as I like the other songs, some of them just don't measure up.

It's absolutely her best album since Confessions though, by some distance. Not quite top tier Madonna though.
 
08 Medellin
08 Dark Ballet
08 God Control
07 Future
07 Batuka
09 Killers Who Are Partying
08 Crave
06 Crazy
09 Come Alive
09 Extreme Occident
07 Faz Gostozo
06 Bitch I'm Loca
09 I Don't Search I Find
05 Looking for Mercy
05 I Rise

07 Ciao Bella
07 Funana
05 Back That Up To the Beat
 
I can't bring myself to listen to any of it at all and haven't in 11 months. Medellin, Killers and God Control are great though.

i just find her voice too shot to enjoy anymore
 
i just find her voice too shot to enjoy anymore

This is a big problem for me also. It's a shadow of its former glory. It does sound at times like its old self though, on some tracks like "I Don't Search I Find" and "Extreme Occident". A song like "Come Alive" would be a 10 if she didn't sound so thin on it.
 
Overall it’s a good album with some strong work throughout it interspersed with some nonsense and some bland cliches. Strangely I am only prompted to play it if someone mentions it, I never seek it out myself but it’s definitely better than the impression that sentence suggests.
 
07 Medellin
07 Dark Ballet
09 God Control
09 Future
08 Batuka
08 Killers Who Are Partying
06 Crave
08 Crazy
07 Come Alive
09 Extreme Occident
08 Faz Gostoso
04 Bitch I’m Loca
08 I Don't Search I Find
05 Looking for Mercy
05 I Rise

05 Ciao Bella
07 Funana
05 Back That Up To the Beat
 
I know "Ciao Bella" is meh for a lot of fans but it's genuinely in my top five - smooth, sexy, pensive - it could have come right after "I Don't Search I Find" on the LP as far as I'm concerned.

"Sometimes I feel... HAPPY."

 
I would have liked Ciao BELLA a lot more if it didn't sound like someone else. Too much autotune whatever.
 
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MedelĂ­n

Serene and lush. Maluma grunts and giggles. It's carefree enough to sound like an impulse and when was the last time Madge sounded this lost in the music? It really sets up the Erotica pulse of some of the upcoming peaks.
 
Dark Ballet

Vocoder-drowned, but I'm not concerned. It's her high brow Impressive Instant. Isn't it a wonder? The perfect conjunction that absolutely no one expected. This has aged real good.
 
God?

God Control

Disco bloodbath. The Madonna wake-up call, it's an orchestral side-splitter. Completely illuminating. Disco orgasm. Dare I say it, the first whiff of Lady Kier from her since Rescue Me and Deeper & Deeper. It's huge. A Madge monument.
 
Future

Somewhere between a prayer and a gargle. Much, much better than her last rash of reggae rhythms found on Unapologetic Bitch. A warm shuffle of her creative cards.
 
Batuka

A Pure gym staple. Madge doing cheerleading much better than GAYLUV. What swanky, shifting set of beats and samples all adding texture and atmosphere. These songs build so well.
 
Killers Who Are Partying

Madonna, the poor young gay African Islamic with a dream. Love the 60s soundtrack vibes. As much as I love parts of MDNA and Rebel Heart, the coherence and all it is conjuring is just too special to ignore here.
 
Part 2 incoming.
A new album once demanded new gimmicks (stealing Shaz Bags' cowboy hat, tying a bit of red wool around her wrist, being good, etc), but here Madge finds herself on the benches (she's a soccer mom you know), but it's not game over yet.

With the voice no longer a dramatic vehicle and lacking power as an instrument, the importance of style and what she is actually expressing is arguably what made the more disparate moments of MDNA and more-so Rebel Heart most noticeable. And unlike the worst offenders of those eras (which were easily curated into masterpieces worthy of hanging in almost any reasonably clean loo if you ask me), the material is striving a little higher this time. No Portuguese busker was safe - Madge was on a mission and Eurovision Suzy couldn't even get arrested.

The candyfloss-sweetness, aching, forthright pop of Crave isn't quite on the Borderline, but nor is it on the borderline either *falling off horse clunk sound* A mouthful of Miley on the delivery, the star attraction is not the youthful beats or pseudo-stutter singing, but the guitar and it gets the least focus of all.

Crazy is Madonna with a prayer, but without a chorus. The sharpest and most simple revamp of the lot. If some of Crave spilled over into Crazy, some of Crazy spills into Come Alive. Touching base at Miley (Crave), soul-pop (Crazy), and now gospel (Come Alive), I'm digging it highly. Give me this choir dump moment over Nothing Fails (which didn't need it) any day.

Her kittenish timber Extreme Occident with skittery rhythms is after-hours, be grateful for the synths on Faz Gostosa, her Big Hoops.

She had to "get stupid" and command unfortunate bystanders to watch her get her stupid booty down (poor thing is always dropping her keys) sooner or later. May as well get it over with on Bitch I'm Loca. I wonder how Shakira enjoyed her night off.

Trance-like numbness of Looking for Mercy is a softer humane throb. She can't quite devise a chorus worthy of the exquisite verse and bridge links, but the threat is there even if it's never quite quenched. Still looking, etc.

The luxury item I Don't Search I Find is like Erotica giving us the kiss of life all over again. She graciously makes me remember her 90s verve if not humour, her fluidity. If much of X is stylish, formal and thoughtful, it's here she truly, finally let's loose and simply has a good time.

If Madonna has drifted in and out of style over 5 decades now, Ciao Bella drifts into it unexpectedly with a near match of the kind of judicious eloquence that used to be her spoken word forte. A zip and flair I thought we may had lost from her.

I Rise is her stab at We Are Young/Rule The World/Almost Home.

I'm ecstatic for Funana. Delivering quiet grandeur is a contemplative style of beauty I want more and more of from her. I didn't quite catch her name-checking Gala, Lady Kier and Gina G, but she still did well here.

Back that up to the Beat sounds like a literal instruction to make itself a b-side if you ask me. Nothing that Gloria would break a sweat over, but as a bonus bit n' bob it's absolutely fine.


Much to my surprise, the only thing disgracefully skimpy are her vocals, but MX is the album she has been well-advised to make for the last 15 years. Madonna justifies our love all over again, etc.

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