Madonna

A Warholian face stands out against densely packed lines of text. The face isn't Marilyn Monroe's, but that of the popstar who, more than any other, symbolizes the last twenty-five years: Madonna.

The text lurking in the background is the one belonging to the songs that keep the myth alive. Madonna is the picture that emerges, the common denominator, the image that springs from the constant changes in her music.

Something extremely ephemeral, especially for a "material girl". Unlike pop's other great chameleon, David Bowie, music and change aren't tools of self-expression for Madonna: they're something far more important, they're the conditio sine qua non of her existence. Madonna isn't an individual who slips into the guise of whatever Ziggy Stardust or White Duke happens to be in fashion in order to stage a new idea of music. Madonna — the icon Madonna — exists only as the sum of her hits; she's always herself because she isn't a human being, but a demon of the music business housed in the body and voice of some Veronica Ciccone or other. To stop changing face, to stop riding the crest of the wave, would mean abandoning forever the human world she loves to mingle with in order to exercise her dominion.

"Celebration" is the monumental collection of thirty-six hits that defined the last quarter century, and it is to the pop empire what "The Prince" is to Renaissance power. A lucid, worldly-wise compendium of masterstrokes of strategy and Darwinian instinct, updated for the age of popular culture. In the twenty-seven years separating "Everybody", her debut single, from "Celebration", Madonna has played her cards shrewdly, using every release as a pawn to advance that scheme of conquest inherent to her predatory nature. This compilation is the best opportunity to study her moves.

1. Building the myth ("Material Girl", "Like A Virgin", "Papa Don't Preach", "Like A Prayer", "Erotica", "Frozen")

Two tracks, more than any others, carved out Madonna's image as the controversial, cynical, provocative symbol of Eighties monetarist enthusiasm: "Material Girl" and "Like A Virgin".

Material Girl is, in effect, the manifesto that gives birth to the Madonna icon: "Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me/ I think they're OK/ If they dont give me proper credit/ I just walk away". There's no social critique in the rhythm or the tone of voice, nor does any of it sound like a confession made half-ashamed of itself. The gait is confident (in two-step time, like a military march) and frivolous at once; the instrumental theme basks in a full, scorching sound, almost Manzanera-esque, flaunting its own emotional shallowness.

The chorus, then, is an enthusiastic proclamation, a new gospel for a world finally thrown open once moralism and utopias are left behind: "'Cause we are living in a material world/ And I'm a material girl". Cause and effect: Madonna presents herself as the most advanced product of natural selection, homo sapiens materialis exalted by a gleaming interplay of synth and guitar. An ascending spiral that presents pure materiality as the ultimate spiritual goal.

Like A Virgin struts along with an equally decisive, anti-romantic gait. In the video, Madonna has eyes only for herself and her audience: her robotic persona has no use for a man, allowing no room for lovesick sentimentality.

And yet "I was beat incomplete/ But you made me feel/ Shiny and new". Those final words are accompanied by an opening-up of the rhythm, an ascending, hopeful vocal line, a series of emphatic synth blasts. "Like a virgin/ Touched for the very first time/ Like a virgin/ When your heart beats/ Next to mine". A robot with a human heart, you might say, but a robot nonetheless, as confirmed by the return of the one-two beat right alongside these words. An unattainable creature toward whom desire doubles, reignited by her ability to return to "the first time" through nothing more than the heartbeat of whoever manages to seduce her.

Papa Don't Preach plays on different turf. After a string of flawless love songs ("Borderline" and "Crazy For You", for instance) that don't exploit the Madonna persona or add to its depth, for the first time Madonna explicitly steps into someone else's shoes. Paradoxically, it's her own persona that benefits, finally gaining scenic depth: before, one might have suspected Madonna was merely a mask, but the absurdity of a mask wearing a mask leads us to believe Madonna is a real individual after all. With "Papa Don't Preach", then, Madonna's descent into the human world is complete.

The device is a social theme: teenage motherhood. In the first person, in a cracked voice, Madonna reports the words of a teenage girl telling her father she doesn't want to have an abortion. The emphasis is heightened by a (synthetic) string section layered over the imposing descending groove of the electronic bass, creating a grandiloquent, melodramatic sound.

"Live To Tell" will pull off a similar operation, tackling the theme of child abuse.

Like A Prayer refines the technique and takes it to a new level. The image of passion "like a prayer" clashes with the "material girl" persona Madonna has so skillfully built and takes care never to disown. The video's sacrilegious tone — burning crosses and saints made flesh, or rather made carnal — is the fuse that sets off the song's enormous success.

The evocative power, though, hinges on the musical side. Alongside the now-familiar disco-pop template come church organ and gospel choir, together sketching a cathedral of rhythmic fullness and emptiness. The verse serves as a moment of hushed contemplation, stripped of percussion: it lets the tension build, priming the explosion of the chorus. A mystical ecstasy of disco guitars and gospel call-and-response, driven to apotheosis by a breathtaking coda in which rhythm and voice break free of all formal constraint, launching into melodic flights and leaps. Passion as prayer and prayer as collective dance, or rather the discotheque as a temple of passion: a cornerstone of Black music forcing its way into mainstream culture, never before laid bare so explicitly and so vividly. And Madonna, at the centre of the stage, is the high priestess of this pop mass.

Erotica is a plunge into ambiguity, a track never so provocative nor so deconstructed. "Erotica, romance/ My name is Dita/ I'll be your mistress tonight/ I'd like to put you in a trance": Madonna sheds her usual guise only so she can be authorised to reveal herself completely, in a slow, hypnotic swirl of explicit, unsettling amorous fragments. The video juxtaposes disjointed, blurred, sensual images, the voice is a beguiling whisper, the backing track a trip-hop undertow that unmoors the song from any sense of time. With a construction that's highly abstract, even cold, Madonna manages to seize control even of the most private recesses of the erotic imagination.

Frozen, years later, marks the approach toward new age imagery. High priestess again, then, but of a pagan cult, mysterious and somehow even more profound and spiritual. This time, the words matter little, even if the verse (in theory set within a heart-and-love context) points metaphorically to the direction of the track: “You only see what your eyes want to see/ How can life be what you want it to be/ You’re frozen/ When your heart’s not open“.

It's above all the video and the strictly musical side that conjure a mystical aura around the song. In the former, Madonna appears dressed in black amid a spectral landscape, raven-haired, her hands traced with henné arabesques. The atmosphere is charged with Eastern fascinations, and the direction and imagery bet everything on a dark-tinged asceticism.

The same suggestions animate the musical side: every instrument serves a highly atmospheric function, from the rarefied, reverb-drenched percussion of the intro to the muffled pulse of the synthesizer. The rhythmic bed is once again a trip-hop-derived trance, far less nervy than in “Erotica” but more layered and rich in dynamics. What emerges is a vast space, saturated with silence, in which wisps of Middle Eastern strings and a refined, sinuous vocal chant take flight.

2. The architecture of groove (“Everybody”, “Holiday”, “Lucky Star”, “Into The Groove”, “Express Yourself”, “Ray Of Light”, “Music”, “Sorry”, “Celebration”)

Everybody  is the lead single from a Madonna who, at the time, wasn't yet Madonna: those who bought the record even mistook her for a Black artist. Indeed, the track's blueprint is an electro-disco number with a marked black component in its rhythms. Holiday is, if anything, even more blatantly disco: dry vamping guitars, Chameleon-style synth flourishes and string curlicues. In fact, it's a composition turned down by two former members of the Supremes, whose instrumental track had already been completed before it was offered to Madonna for her album. The rhythmic work is nonetheless more complex: particularly notable are the fake-tribal percussion, the rapid hi-hat flurries recurring in the instrumental sections, and the pianistic flair that closes the song, representing the only substantial addition to the backing track during production.

Lucky Star, the product of numerous rearrangements Madonna requested for the composition (which is hers, incidentally), is even more intricate rhythmically, but essentially sticks to the same blueprint. Funky guitar lock, electronic bass and drums, decorative synths make up the rhythmic architecture of her early hits, all produced “in-house” by friends and/or boyfriends of the aspiring star.

Into The Groove marks a decisive shift in the rhythmic fabric of her most dance-oriented tracks. The bass leaps to the foreground, drawing the track's central line. The patterns have become drier, straighter and more European, perhaps absorbing the lesson of Hi-NRG (traits already hinted at, moreover, in “Burning Up”). The multi-instrumental interplay is pared down to the essentials, as is the internal rhythmic variation within the track (only the bridge marks a substantial alteration of the bass line).

Madonna's ideas are clearer now; she's able to choose what she needs and what she doesn't. She strengthens her ties with friend and producer Stephen Bray, her collaborator since the earliest demos, and together with him decides to break away from the disco formulas that were by then on the decline.

Express Yourself, again with Bray at the helm, continues down the path of anti-funky sound. It does, however, incorporate more percussive elements: handclaps, tribal toms, synth squeals. The bass line is less prominent and aggressive. The goal is a festive, groove, neo-hippie groove, in ideal resonance with Britain's second summer of love (though quite far off in musical terms).

Ray Of Light marks the actual reunion with the other side of the ocean (in the partial history offered by this compilation). Fascinated by neo-psychedelic trance, by trip-hop, by big beat, Madonna calls in William Orbit, who reworks the acoustic “Sepheryn” by 1970s duo Curtiss Maldoon, transforming it into a sidereal ride across the eras. Looped guitar, synth waves, swirling organ and echoes of “Good Vibrations”: everything becomes rhythmic detail, feeding into the track's hypnotic groove. The underlying trip, though, is an obsessive, half-hidden kick-snare pattern, broken only sporadically by infiltrations of that Amen Break which underpins hip-hop as much as drum'n'bass and big beat.

Music is another smash hit. This time flanked by French-Afghan producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï, Madonna goes for drier, darker, more synthetic beats: the goal is no longer a spatial sound, but an exasperatedly digital groove. Without, however, distancing herself from the European, psychedelic feeling.

Vocoder, synths and alien vocal inserts, then, but above all more jagged, brazenly electronic rhythmic figures. The result is patterns that are just as disorienting, but proudly urban, far from the hi-tech spirituality of “Ray Of Light”.

Sorry sees Madonna filling in a gap from her childhood, the missed flirtation with the circular grooves of Moroder-esque memory. Alongside this comes the rediscovery of funky rhythms, transfigured into a robotic mix of a straight 2/4 and off-beat hi-hat.

But Madonna's real aim is to recreate the feeling of live DJing. After repeatedly testing the track behind the decks in clubs, here she is with acclaimed producer Stuart Price bringing fades and volume shifts to the foreground, creating a fascinating interplay of tension and transition.

Celebration is the lead single from this collection. Sensing the resurgence of the eurodance sound, Madonna calls in Nineties trance guru Paul Oakenfold and picks this track out of a shortlist of fifteen. The groove combines the crisp sound of Pro Tools with house anthem patterns, with a rising synth theme holding the piece together alongside the four-to-the-floor kick.

Whether this is the right path for Madonna's future direction remains to be seen. What's certain is that it's yet another bullseye, one that seems to pave the way for the definitive rehabilitation of 90s style.

3. The economics of the empire ("Beautiful Stranger", "Don't Tell Me", "Hung Up", "4 Minutes", "Revolver")

Madonna the cannibal, Madonna the enlightened despot. For twenty-five years she has known how to surround herself with exactly the right people to maintain and extend her dominion. She has fed on the music and talent of others, absorbing them as part of herself while, at the same time, granting them exposure.

Madonna and samples, Madonna and featuring. A journey through five tracks that don't form a single story, but rather a cross-section of a much wider landscape.

Beautiful Stranger, the theme song for "Austin Powers 2", again produced by Orbit. Two tracks get raided here: "In Crowd" by The Mamas and the Papas (bass and drum loop) and "She Comes In Colors" by Love (structure and melodic ideas). The result of this cut-and-paste job is a perfect sunshine pop piece, light and refined in its melodies. Its appeal is bolstered by a danceable edge, a superb flute solo and trance-like sways born of "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Within You Without You".

So this is a work of revival, but one that doesn't stop at crude plagiarism. On the contrary, it treasures Sixties stylistic cues and ferries them into the new trance-pop circus set up by Madonna and Orbit.

Don't Tell Me grew out of "Stop", a composition by Madonna's brother-in-law, Joe Henry. It was originally a mournful, jazzy country-soul piece rich in latino-rock inflections. Madonna grasps its potential thanks to a demo recorded with her sister by Mirwais Ahmadzaï. Together, Madonna and Mirwais turn it completely upside down: around an abruptly-cut acoustic guitar sample, they build a country-glitch hyper-technological hybrid that pairs well with the dry, urban sounds of "Music". The guitar loop proceeds through a thicket of stop/start dynamics and rhythmic shifts induced by an almost obsessive use of cut'n'paste. Every melancholic trace disappears, replaced by a hip-hop irreverence that drives it to yet another hit at home (and in Italy).

Hung Up is the product of the same love of DJing that also fuels "Sorry". For their postmodern reworking of eurodisco, Stuart Price and Madonna set their sights on the keyboard theme from "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" by ABBA. To secure permission to use the sample, Madonna sends an emissary to Sweden bearing a handwritten letter of pleas and compliments to the quartet's two songwriters, and pulls it off. The resulting track, a global hit that earns her a spot in the Guinness Book of Records, is nonetheless quite different in melody and structure from the sampled source, though its rhythmic style carries faint (and deliberate) echoes of it.

So why insist so much on the sample? For one simple reason: the ABBA melodic phrase had been the backbone of the song since its earliest compositional stages. Replacing it with a similar little motif? That would have been an obvious option, but it would have stripped the track of its best springboard: a theme and sound already familiar, embedded in listeners' ears (whether or not they realized they'd already heard it countless times). And, on top of that, an automatic catapult back to the era Madonna means to evoke, "turning back time" as suggested by the ticking clock that opens the song.

4 Minutes is a ménage à trois between Madonna, singer Justin Timberlake and producer Timbaland. Immediately criticized for the secondary role played by Madonna on the song (some wrote it should have been billed as "featuring Madonna" rather than "featuring Justin Timberlake"), it demonstrates Madonna's ability to make herself small in the short term when it can pay off in the long run. The track is carried by the r'n'b flourishes of Timberlake's voice, his versatile vocal timbre and the imposing kitsch spectacle assembled by Timbaland: a brass fanfare (electronically treated to give it a more urban, club-ready sound), a Bollywood-style groove and crude hip-hop-style vocal interjections.

The result is a sluggish, suffocating, sensual number that, among other things, seems to echo "Hung Up" in its use of a ticking clock at both ends of the song. The similarity is probably intentional: placing the two tracks in ideal continuity has the look of a shrewd marketing strategy to launch the single.

Revolver is the second new track on the compilation. Here Madonna is joined by rapper Lil Wayne and producer Frank E. The track is a breezy r'n'b number with filtered vocals, built on vocal monotone and a wall of electronic synths. Effective, nocturnal and once again a bit crude, it makes use of Lil Wayne's vocal contribution only for a brief interlude and at the close, mainly to stretch the track out and make it better suited for club play. The absolute star is once again Madonna, even though the song was originally written by the rapper.

Madonna exists only in mirrors. Those mirrors are her records, and "Celebration" is the most perfect one, because more than any other it creates the illusion of a fully rounded persona. Like every mirror, "Celebration" also lies and distorts, hiding, for instance, some important evolutions from the mid-Nineties.

But let's leave the empress of pop free to present herself to her 2009 subjects with whatever image she prefers. After all, that's what she has always done.

Ride the wave of great music

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20/10/2009