Point-Counterpoint: Does Madonna Matter?
This question is more complicated than it looks.
by Alex Heigl and Laura Barcella
Madonna has a new album, MDNA, out this month, but more likely to inspire debate is Madonna & Me, a collection of Madonna-related personal essays by female writers. (Long-term Hooksexup readers will appreciate a piece by Erin Bradley, our original Miss Information. Hi, Erin!) To finally settle the question of Madonna's artistic worth (long a subject of controversy), we invited Madonna & Me editor Laura Barcella to face off against our own Alex Heigl. Alex is donning his rhetorical rocket-bra as we write this intro. Okay, blast off!
Madonna is an empty figurehead
Alex Heigl
Madonna is bad. Objectively. Scientifically. Find me a person who loves Madonna's music, and they are either A) a Chelsea DJ, B) European, or C) a music journalist.
Madonna is the ultimate triumph of style over substance. Her voice is truly workmanlike (by which I mean, one, it sounds like singing is hard for her and two, she occasionally sounds like a man), and her songs, stripped of whatever flavor-of-the-week sonic dressing she's decided to apply at the moment, aren't particularly memorable. Straining, I can remember the hook to "Lucky Star," but that's mostly because of that scene in Snatch. Oh, and "Like a Virgin," I guess, but really only the chorus and that coquettish "Hey!"
Anyway, every showboating bird-of-paradise pop-tart saturating the market with their Dr. Luke-written hooks and glitter-stained cleavage is a direct spiritual heir to Madonna. You know how it was such a big deal that an "unconventional-looking" singer like Adele had such a huge year in 2011? That "convention" was established by Madonna. You don't have Nina Simones, Chaka Khans, and Arethas anymore. Hell, you don't have Joan Baezs, Joni Mitchells, or even Pat Benatars. Their death knell was Madonna writhing around on the floor at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards.
Part of what obscures her artistic bankrupcy is the fact that people find her so damn interesting. Which is bizarre: I mean, yes, she's interesting academically, but do you know what else is academically interesting? Fucking everything. Name me literally anything, and I'll find you a doctoral thesis on it. Rigorous scrutiny and dissection does not magically make something worthwhile to the larger community. Madonna's made a career out of pushing the public's buttons just to see what will work, and then backing off whenever her bottom line is threatened, as she did following the very public backlash against her 1994 appearance on Dave Letterman's show. That doesn't make her an artist, that makes her an opportunist. She's not an innovator; she's a shrewd businesswoman with a keen sense of how to manipulate the public and ride changing trends. That's not artistic, that's parasitic.
But as I'm getting drunk on my own vitriol here, there's a much easier way to settle this: the music. Seriously, does anyone actually love Madonna's music? Not "love" as in, "I'm dancing around shirtless and 'Ray of Light' is speaking to me right now," but "love" as in, "You know what? I haven't listened to Erotica in forever. I'm going straight home tonight and listening that sucker all the way through." Because it's easy for me to talk about why Madonna is terrible without addressing her actual work (or, for that matter, her unbearable movies, her assumed British accent, her grating pseudo-mysticism), but if you strip away all the academic stuff, all you're left with is a bunch of bad club jams.
Madonna is an inspiration
Laura Barcella
I'm a longtime Madonna-phile, but even I can admit: not all of Madge's boppy dance-pop creations have been good. She doesn't have the strongest voice; she's certainly not a belter of the Aretha Franklin or Whitney Houston variety. But so what? As Alex acknowledges when dismissing the "academic stuff" journalists have been writing about Madonna for years, when it comes to Ms. Ciccone's impact, her meaning, it's never truly been about her musical prowess. Madonna's thirty-year cultural chokehold is about the tangled, beautiful knot of contradictions that comprises the woman herself: the attitude, the intellect, the sex, the audacity. (She's never pretended to be, well, incredibly invested in actual singing.)
She's tried on many faces and phases as she grew into the Madonna we see today: a fifty-three-year-old superwoman tirelessly promoting her successful new album. Despite all her costume changes and image revamps, part of what's made Madonna so resonant is her steadfast determination to always be unapologetically ambitious. Back in 1984, she was upfront about her life's goal when she coyly told Dick Clark on American Bandstand that she wanted "to rule the world." Note that her intention was not to be the world's greatest singer or actor or dancer or model or mom or wife. Her goal was conquest. And somehow... she succeeded.
How many people out there could even dream of achieving success on a scale of such epic proportions? (She's sold 300-million-plus records.) How many people out there would dare to confess, on live TV, that their life's purpose was nothing less than to own the planet? Um, not many. Was her proclamation tongue-in-cheek? Maybe. Grandiose? Sure. Egocentric? Probably. But Madonna's cockiness was irresistable — revolutionary, even — not just to me, but to thousands of other women who grew up watching her in the '80s. (Given what I just finished editing, you can trust me on this.)
This may be starting to shift (slooooooooowly), but American culture has long urged women to shut up, smile sweetly, and put others' needs ahead of their own — to prioritize the domestic sphere over work, success, or power. When I was in grade school in the '80s, most of my teachers encouraged us female students to start thinking about possible careers, but I also absorbed the societal message that no matter how successful I eventually became, I should prepare to shove it all aside if the husband-and-baby bit came along. Madonna brazenly flouted those gender conventions. She was single and in her mid-twenties (practically a spinster!) when she released her self-titled first album in 1983, and not only was she honest about her lofty plans for fame, she was unabashed in her expressions of sexual openness. Being, like, seven back then, my girl friends and I didn't realize it, but it was actually a pretty big deal when Madonna sang about being "like a virgin" (not an actual virgin) as she rolled around the stage, sullying the Catholic marriage tradition in a white wedding dress.
History probably won't look back on Madonna as the greatest singer of our time. (It shouldn't, anyway.) But it just might regard her as the most important female pop star of our time — one who helped an entire generation of girls rethink everything from sex to style, self-esteem to success. It doesn't get much bigger than that.
Laura Barcella is the editor of the new anthology Madonna & Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop (Soft Skull Press). She lives in San Francisco.
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Commentarium (34 Comments)
Alex is pretty close to being entirely right. The one person I know who idolizes Madonna just seems to admire her ability to get publicity - because she couldn't name a single Madonna song. Some of her material is aggressively awful.
I still remember when she debuted some Marie Antoinette act to perform "Vogue" on MTV. It was horrible and pointless. It was just stuff, filler. The commentator, unafraid to state the obvious, said "Madonna ... you never know what she's going to do next. Yes you do. You know she's going to suck.
Alex reminds me of all the people I dislike because they assume they hold some singular emotional experience when it comes to music.
Get off your high horse and let people feel what they feel.
Alex, no, just no. Like, what are you even saying? E.g.:
Madonna is the ultimate triumph of style over substance. [Okay, this might be interesting.] Her voice is truly workmanlike [I expected something harsher - you took the highroad here] (by which I mean, one, it sounds like singing is hard for her [...what?] and two, she occasionally sounds like a man [womanlike = occasionally manly...oh]), and her songs, stripped of whatever flavor-of-the-week sonic dressing she's decided to apply at the moment, aren't particularly memorable ["Vogue," "Express Yourself," "Like A Prayer," etc.., to name a few, didn't occur...okay]. Straining, I can remember the hook to "Lucky Star," but that's mostly because of that scene in Snatch [wtf is Snatch]. Oh, and "Like a Virgin," I guess, but really only the chorus and that coquettish "Hey!" [And this is where I'm done.]
What?
I saw Madonna at Danceteria in '81. She was in band called 'The Breakfast Club' and she opened for 'Barbara Gogan and the Passions' . I was in the front row and watched her from 10 feet away and thought she was a joke. There were a lot more talented people around back then, but over the years, I realized Madonna wanted to famous, and her ambition is what drove her to the top. It's ambitious people that have killed this culture, NOT talented people but Ambitious. I think a year after her death, no one will remember her.
You, sir, are the most deluded person in the room. Methinks you should pick up a copy of the book this article is not so subtly promoting
Hmm, and her habit of ripping of styles from gay/black/latino culture, diluting it and feeding it back to white kids, this apparently is 'innovation'.
Actually I think it's just music tradition.
Madonna is a cultural phenomenon. Like Elvis, the Beatles, and a bunch more before her. She's different in that she's just outrageous enough--the lesbian phase, I have a foot fetish thing, etc.--to keep people interested but not drive them away. The fact that this article is even here proves she still matters, even now.
Yeah, but I think the point that's being made here is that those artists you mentioned had a lot more going for them than provocative antics -- granted, in Elvis' case, that was a large part of it, but you absolutely cannot compare the Beatles to Madonna.
Oh, she doesn't hold a candle to the Beatles in terms of artistic talent or legacy. But she reflected a time and managed to hold onto that role through tranformation. Even the Beatles did a bit of retooling when rock, and the 60s, moved away from squeaky clean to pyschedelic--mop tops to hare krishna.
I'm sure Alex knows that for every scientific paper, one can also find another paper that disproves it ;)
It's too easy to say (any) pop music is bad - and in many ways be correct in that statement. It's much more enjoyable, however, to know that "bad" music, like b-movies and junk food, aren't here to be overanalyzed - just enjoyed, shirt off in a club, or at home, or for a boost of confidence, or energy on a jog, or for that brief escape from complexity, every once in a while.
Also, Madonna's hype is the result of her ambition - but that doesn't negate the catchiness of her songs. I came up with ten I really enjoy, just off the bat, while reading this article.
Then again, what do I know - I'm European. That negates my taste instantly (?)
I submit that playing the title role in a $55 million movie of a Broadway musical stands as pretty definitive evidence that Madonna thinks she can sing. Or at least she did in 1996.
It's interesting to me that both segments chose to bust on Madonna's actual voice. I say this because in high school (many years ago) I was listening to a lecture by a professional opera singer who was speaking about life as a performing artist. It surprised me that a professional continued to attend workshops and take classes on vocal performance; he specifically mentioned that Madonna had been a part of some of those workshops, had a very nice voice, and worked hard at improving it. I always assumed that if someone who made their living as a professional singer took the time to compliment her, that she actually had some chops. So what if she's not Aretha Franklin - who else IS?
The first essay is nothing but tired rockist contrarianism. Her voice is background noise in her own songs! She enjoys attention and glamour! She's all style no substance! And worst of all, she makes POP music! That lowly, anti-intellectual garbage for the unwashed masses! Because, you know, the only REAL music is 3-hour prog rock concept albums. Well, whatever. Thankfully the second essay seems to get it, as do a few of the Comments here.
I'm not even a Madonna fan, nor have I heard more than a handful of her songs, but I can certainly see the very real impact she's had on people and music the world over. So what if her reach exceeds her grasp? I mean, it's true that she really isn't that strong of a singer, and those accusations of latching onto flavors-of-the-month are pretty accurate as well (I'm an EDM fan personally so it's especially obvious to me with this new album and all its ecstasy and dancefloor references). But the weirdest and perhaps most impressive thing is that succeeded wildly despite all of that. Maybe even because of it. She's an enduring pop star, which many people have claimed to be an oxymoron due to the inherent disposability of pop music. She defied the odds and made it big on her own ever-changing terms, not just once but over and over again. I do think her career is finally nearing its end, but there's no denying she's had a big hand in shaping the world of music. So you can cry about authenticity and substance all you want, but it's not going to change the fact that Madonna has mattered in a big way for a long time now for people who value visceral reactions to music (i.e. dancing, singing, sex, all that messy spontaneity and heedless hedonism that rock music puritanically suppresses). She blazed a trail no one had the foresight to predict. It may be Lady Gaga's turn to shine, and rightfully so, but it's thanks to Madonna that she's even shining at all.
One thing I will give the first essay though is that Europeans really do love her. Annie? Robyn? Two of my favorite pop stars, both heavily indebted to the paradigm shift brought about by Madonna. Probably because Europeans are much more receptive to style and sex appeal than Americans are, who apparently only like to listen to dirty young men mumbling about anarchy and revolutions. You know, real music. By real people for real people. Lol.
"dancing, singing, sex, all that messy spontaneity and heedless hedonism that rock music puritanically suppresses."
Yeah, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and about a billion other fans were all about puritanically suppressing dancing, singing, sex, spontaneity and heedless hedonism.
Also, there's a real contradiction in the "real music" you claim Alex is representing (though he only mentioned a bunch of R&B, folk singers, and Pat Benatar) -- first it's prog rock, then it's "dirty young men mumbling about anarchy and revolutions." You're putting words in his mouth, and that's a b.s. move.
Honestly when i say rock I don't even mean Zeppelin or the Stones. I mean the institution of rock, the altar at which a thousand self-satisfied pseudo-intellectuals worship. The bands you're naming have nothing to do with where rock is right now, and I personally happen to have no problem with them. I'm talking about rock (generally alternative/indie) weighed down under delusions of grandeur and navel-gazing, the rock that idolizes the rational individual and his complicated thoughts about the state of the world. Rock that ROCKS, rock that makes you move, that's a different issue entirely. So yes maybe I should've clarified, but honestly you're just confusing the issue here. Classic rock has nothing to do with modern rock, other than the instruments used. The point is: pop is the new rock. The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin were revolutionaries in their time, but their time was short and the torch was passed, however improbably, to Madonna. And then in the 90s it was passed to the EDM community, and who knows where it's going from here. Rock hasn't been relevant since about the 70s. And maybe Madonna hasn't been since the 80s or 90s, but even that still compares favorably with rock's ongoing obsolescence.
You're right. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, et al. were completely irrelevant through the '90s. Just as The Strokes, White Stripes, et al. had absolutely no market share through the early 2000s. Music is cyclical -- EDM's going to go out just as hip-hop did.
Also, "pop is the new rock" is a ridiculous statement. Even during rock's purported heyday, if you look at the charts, rock had nowhere near the stranglehold on the charts like you think it did. "Pop" meant things like the Archies and Motown through the '60s, and ABBA and disco through the '70s.
Also, The Rolling Stones' 'time was short?' Their Bigger Bang tour grossed higher than Madonna's "Sticky and Sweet" tour. And while we're at it, take a look at the highest-grossing tours of all time on Wikipedia: Madonna's in there once, and the rest of the top ten is all rock bands.
But you're right. Rock's totally obsolete, if you go solely by sales figures and media coverage.
Hahaha oh my god you are not even remotely grasping what I'm saying.
First off, I find it funny that people use 'media coverage' and 'sales figures' to explain rock's relevance while using it to disparage people like Katy Perry or, say, Madonna. Because obviously people who buy rock albums know what they're doing and people who buy pop albums obviously don't, I guess? Rock album statistics prove its purity of purpose and relevance, pop's statistics prove its shallowness and irrelevance? Double standard? Just a little?
But more importantly, you're looking at this from a mathematical standpoint. I'm looking at it through a social one. I don't give a damn about The Strokes or The White Stripes and how much money they make. I'm more concerned about socially corrosive music that undermines, challenges, and reinvents American attitudes toward just about anything that matters. Back in the day that was the Stones' job. God bless them for it. Coming out of the post-war period, anything that was loud and rude counted as disruptive and progressive. But then in the 80s it (necessarily) splintered between rap/hip-hop and pop, both of which fought the zeitgeist in different ways. Now it's EDM, which presents what you can basically call a post-identity safe haven free from repression and oppression. This is what matters. Sales figures have nothing to do with it. Music is a social force as much as it is a personal one, and this is why Madonna matters and rock doesn't (anymore). Pop is polymorphous in its sexuality and racially desegregated in a way rock very rarely manages. Rock, instead of evolving and including other cultures and styles, has become a self-perpetuating school of white male mores and thought patterns. And yes I know about riot grrrls and feminist bands, and I know there are a few black rock bands out there too (what's that one from the 70s? Bad Brains?). But they're the exceptions that prove the rule, direct challenges to the very structure of current rock that serve to illustrate just how out-of-touch the genre really is. Rock is so whitewashed, so inhibitively and inherently male, that there's no room left for subversion, not to mention room for identification by non-straightwhitemales. It's a dead art, living now only off of nostalgic reverence. Music that matters, music that affects the entire U.S. population in all its melting-pot glory, draws on all kinds of sources: pop, R&B, EDM, hip-hop, disco, rap, reggae, jazz, bossa nova, etc. Even rock enters into the equation every now and then, but there's no use pretending it's still the one and only dominant agent of social change. That time has passed. Madonna opened the door to the future as rock was cannibalizing itself. She gave music back to the people at a time when it was growing more and more insular and demographically specific, and that's why she's important.
I can invalidate Alex's entire thesis by pointing out one simple fact:
Madonna's first hit single came out in 1983
It's now 2012
Or 29 years later
Go back and look at the charts from 1983
How many artists from that era were popular in '93? 2003?
Well?
Not many
That alone makes her a relevant pop artist, whether or not a particularly individual is aware of a "friend" who likes her songs is irrelevant to that discussion.
Exactly. Longevity makes her not a fad, but a force. Even if the force seems superficial, she inspires copy-cats every moment. That makes her important.
Would there be Lady Gaga's, and Katy Perry's, without Ms. Madonna?
All the more reason to hate her. Also, as a Dutchman, I resent the accusation made by Alex that Europeans enjoy Madonnas noise. I never even hear it in this country.
Madonna is irrelevant current day. By your logic James...I should be worshipping at the Aerosmith altar...their first hit came out in 1973 and Steven Tyler is way more currently relevant than Madonna.
If she was irrelevant than she wouldn't have copy cats that are less than half her age, and weren't really listening to music during her hey day. What you're expressing is the fact that YOU don't personally like her or her music, but what YOU like does not relevance make.
If someone is still making music when their peers from the era they started out in are no longer around, you're not a fad, you're relevant to a significant number of people, the end.
Arguing from your own perspective based on what you and your friends like is a touch self-righteous in my view.
I was never into her music, but well, I'm in my 30s and yes a lot of guys my age find her gross now, but.....
....mention the Cherish video to any guy who was going through puberty when that song came out, and....well, we hated the song, but the video was cool on mute.
It's pop culture relevance, if no one is paying attention to you AT ALL, no one is talking about you, you had a short lived career, THEN you can say irrelevant, but, well, Madonna isn't doing concerts at Casinos. SO.........
brevity is the soul of wit...all your hot air proves my point...and proves that you have neither soul nor wit.
I don't give one single shit about Madonna, her image, or her "music", but the fact that this debate is occurring in the public sphere 28 years after her debut album means Barcella wins by default.
I mean with all due respect, I don't think anybody is having a "Do Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark Matter?" debate, anywhere, right now.
I was always more of a Spandau Ballet guy myself.
Alex, I don't know if you are a girl or a guy, but I would like to have sex with you.
I loved her music as a child but the moment I developed taste I always admired her business acumen. I didn't know about the AB quote but it doesn't surprise me and that kind of drive is admirable.
I'm a couple of years older than the proMadonna writer so I was a little surprised to hear she felt pressured into the old traditional roles until I remembered I was the only girl in my graduating class not in FHA
I'm with Alex. "Express Yourself" was alright, though.
Ultimately, it has to be about the music, and her "body of work," as it were, doesn't amount to much. And I'm not sure if this will get up because I cannot read the Captcha code
I’m not sure I’d call Vogue, Express Yourself, Like a Prayer, Ray of Light, Papa Don’t Preach, or even Justify My Love “bad club jams.” I’d actually call them some of the best club jams ever made. Madonna’s socio-economic impact aside, her singles, as dance music, really hold up. And music that consistently helps people dance and have a great time over 20+ years is, I think, impervious to academic debates for or against its artistic merit (as fun as those debates can sometimes be).
I've listened to MDNA and I was unimpressed; there might be one dance floor hit there but I don't expect any mainstream hits. Even if her time is over now she's had a run of over two decades; people have already mentioned her 80s and 90s hits but nobody has said anything about her more recent ones, Hung Up and Sorry.
No, Madonna doesn't make music for the ages; nobody is going to compare her to Beethoven or even The Beatles. But she has made a string of solid pop and dance songs that a lot of people enjoy and that helped shape the course of music.
The fact all the above have made a comment means Madonna has made a massive impact on music .
Now you say something