 | |
Madonna news - Oct. 2014
← Sep. 2014 | Nov. 2014 →
Diplo: "Madonna's first single has been chosen and it's one of my 5 songs"
30 October 2014
Diplo will play at the Stereosonic Music Festival in Australia next December and, interviewed by Australian Nova 100 Radio in Melbourne to promote it, he talked about his work with Madonna.
Here's what he said:
"We have finished the work together. The first single has been chosen and it is one of my songs. 5 songs of mine should be on the final tracklist and are in the mixing stage at the moment."
He added that "the sessions were fun and most of my tracks have a reggae vibe".
Mert & Marcus tease set picture
Source: Instagram - 25 October 2014
Mert Alas, half of the fashion photographer duo Mert & Marcus, has instagrammed a picture that hints at a new Madonna photoshoot or video.
Using the hashtag #Madonna and #comingsoon, the picture shows a table full of smartphones of collaborators that had to be handed in before the shoot.
I said NO PHONES ON SETđ« @madonna @macpiggott #mertandmarcus #Madonna #comingsoon
Madonna's wedding dress, underwear and credit card set to go under the hammer
Source: Huffington Post - 25 October 2014If you've ever fancied slipping into Madonna's underwear (each to their own and all that) then you could be in luck.
The Queen of Pop has had a good old clear out and is flogging a load of her personal possessions in the celebrity equivalent of a car boot - an online auction.
As well as her pants, there are 140 other items up for grabs in the sale by California-based auction house, Juliens.
They include the wedding dress she wore to her marriage to Sean Penn in 1985, the iconic pink satin dress from the 'Material Girl' video and the latex knickers and bra she wore for a photoshoot with V magazine in 2014. Well, at least they're wipe clean.
Some of the more unusual items include handwritten lyrics to an unknown song (which, unbelievably, don't feature Madge's favourite rhyming couplet of 'waiting/hesitating'), a used Versace powder compact and (our favourite) an old credit card, which features a (faint) signature signed upside down. Brilliant.
With some items expected to go for tens of thousands of pounds, you might need to take out a second mortgage to be in with a chance of actually owning any of this stuff, but it's still a fascinating peek into the world of a global superstar.
Something to remember: I'm too busy surviving
Source: Mad-Eyes - 25 October 2014 
This day marks the 20th anniversary of Madonna's Bedtime Stories album. Released on October 25th, 1994, it was not only a remedy to the trials and tribulations of the previous era, but arguably the only time when Madonna's direction coincided with the musical zeitgeist as well. Famously she started off the sessions with Shep Pettibone but quickly abandoned using her producer of the previous five years once again (fans eventually would get to hear Love Won't Wait by Gary Barlow a few years later from these sessions and Madonna's own demo leaked in 2002) and ended up using four top producers in a unique combination.
It was quite the natural decision for Madonna to move on with the times and abandon the house/dance sound she spent too much time with as dance music itself would fall into a rut through most of the 1990s and it would only be represented by a host of faceless and reductive Eurodance acts with a handful of them breaking in America as novelty hits.
By 1994 Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds had become the top hitmaker of the United States, most famously with Boyz II Men's End of the Road and his work with Madonna also earned a spot in his resume as Take A Bow held the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks, the gorgeous ballad that sounds like a descendant of Toni Braxton's Breathe Again that reportedly was one of the reasons Madonna picked Babyface. The other amazing ballad Forbidden Love is the companion piece to the intensely steamy Red Light Special by TLC that would hit the charts during the dominance of Take A Bow.
It was Babyface himself who suggested Madonna working with Dallas Austin, who almost singlehandedly put the biggest girl group of the 1990s on the map. His work with TLC is directly reflected on Bedtime Stories as their sophomore effort was released only three weeks later, led by the funky Creep. Interestingly enough only the lead-off single Secret was untouched by the other collaborators, thus infusing the rest of his input with a more accessible pop sound. Don't Stop was remixed by Daniel Abraham (who helmed the more familiar radio versions of Fever & Rain in 1993 which served as the basis of the live versions on The Girlie Show) thus giving a nod to another girl group of the era SWV, the hit version of Right Here. Dallas Austin produced the debut album Pendulum Vibe of up and coming artist Joi at the time and Madonna would openly praise this effort but only the outtake Freedom resembles that style, such as Sunshine And The Rain.
The third R&B/hip hop producer of the album is Dave "Jam" Hall is the man who produced Mary J. Blige's first ever charting hit You Remind Me, who would later become the Queen of Soul and his work on Mary's debut album What's The 411? is mostly recalled in the vulnerable ballad Love Tried To Welcome Me. A funky midtempo cut, I'd Rather Be Your Lover is famous among fans because its guest spot was originally meant to be taken by hip hop megastar 2Pac, only to be replaced by Maverick artist Me'Shell NdegéOcello, who had just scored a top 40 hit with the John Mellencamp duet Wild Night. The songwriting credits of I'd Rather Be Your Lover are erroneously printed in the album booklet as The Isley Brothers track sampled was actually not co-written by C. Jasper and Madonna most likely started out this song with Shep Pettibone as a version credited to him is registered at the United States Copyright Office.
But the most famous Hall collaboration is Human Nature, Madonna's answer song to the public and critics who dismissed her during the previous era, inspired by hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest's Electric Relaxation in a singing style resembling TLC's T-Boz combined with the minimalist S&M-humour themed video. Its subject matter is now in fact what defines Madonna's career as it was performed on 3 out of the last 5 tours and the only song alongside Secret that appeared as a live number on a Madonna tour from this album. While it was mysteriously snubbed from Madonna's career-spanning compilation Celebration most likely due to time constraints, Madonna's recent hints suggest she is still not done being not sorry as this theme is expected to appear on her upcoming album and tour.
The fourth mastermind of Bedtime Stories comes from the UK, Nellee Hooper worked with Massive Attack, Soul 2 Soul and of course Björk, the instant MTV favourite who ended up getting a co-writing credit on the album in the form of the Nellee Hooper produced title track alonside Marius DeVries whose input would increase on Madonna's next album. Bedtime Story would be the last ever song on a Madonna studio album without crediting Madonna as a co-writer. Björk's inspiration on the track is undeniable as it recalls Nellee Hooper's production of Violently Happy and it was the first glimpse of Madonna abandoning her American roots and going full on European with various electronica wizards in most of the two decades succeeding this album.
The rest of Nellee Hooper's input on the album was the reworking of tracks written by the other three men, obviously not showing his full potential as they were still in line with the current trends, such as the opener Survival, a new jack swing sounding cut. Madonna surely realized this as she would ask him to produce the follow-up album, which would never materialize and is ironically the catalyst of certain events that shaped Madonna's critical resurgence.
Bedtime Stories is also the first Madonna album in a long line where Madonna would start to give winks to her previous work, in the form of lyrics recalling her past and the first time she would address the shortcomings of fame, a theme that would be a trademark in the next two decades. It would also be the first album where Madonna would make several TV appearances accross the globe, most famously performing Take A Bow at the American Music Awards and Bedtime Story at the Brit Awards in early 1995, ironically never actually performing these two singles live ever again.
The chart life of Bedtime Stories is without a question the most double-sided in Madonna's career. In the US, Secret started out well especially backed by radio but the album only managed to sell 145,000 copies in its debut week and with a #3 peak it's Madonna's lowest entry for a studio album since her debut. It quickly fell out of the top 10 but it managed to spend several months in the top 20 and not falling to obscurity, thanks to second single Take A Bow that got an even better reception at radio.
Unfortunately the third and fourth singles did not make a lasting impression at all, even though we got two fan favourite videos from those singles missing the top 40, Bedtime Stories is the album with the biggest missed opportunities, tracks like Survival, Don't Stop or Forbidden Love could have been much better commercial single choices and one would wonder whether better song choices could have pushed Bedtime Stories closer to the four times platinum mark, not far off the follow-up. In the rest of the world, it was even more of a mixed reaction with Madonna's success constantly waning since the 1980s, Take A Bow even managed to become at the time Madonna's lowest peaking single in the UK.
Bedtime Story, however, charted a lot better in the UK and Australia, most likely thanks to its European sound. With Human Nature the record label didn't even bother, none of the UK formats of the single featured the album version and the Radio Edit on all formats is a remix by Danny Tenaglia. Quite the contrast how the US maxi-single of Bedtime Story featured the more radio-friendly sounding Survival. Human Nature would be Madonna's first single to miss the charts in several markets and Bedtime Stories became Madonna's lowest selling album in the UK until 2003 so it was obvious Madonna would have needed to start winning her fans back outside the US.
A sad aspect of this fantastic record is that it did not have a tour attached to it as Madonna would get the biggest acting role of her life not long after the release of the album and as mentioned, only two songs out of the eleven were performed live on tour, we're still hoping Madonna bucks this trend one day.
Looking at her whole discography, Bedtime Stories is certainly an interesting and important part of her music career as afterwards she'd spend a whole decade distancing herself from her American roots, first dabbing deep into adult contemporary ballad style and then aiming to recapture Europe where she would not score a signature hit through most of the 1990s by working with several electronica wizards and solidifying herself in dance music.
Madonna reacts to Sister Cristina: 'Sisters For Life'
23 October 2014 
Only days after Sister Cristina released her cover of Like A Virgin, Madonna has reacted enthousiastically on Instagram.
The real-life nun Suor Cristina Scuccia released her version of Like A Virgin as the first single since her victory of The Voice Italy. The video was shot in Venice, like the original, and received 1,6 million views on Youtube after only 3 days.
It seems the attention reached all the way to Madonna herself who reacted with two collages of herself and Sister Cristina.
"Sisters for Life! #touchedfortheveryfirsttime"
"Like A Virgin? #bitinghard"
Tell us what you think of Sister Cristina's cover.
Britney Spears' manager tells the story behind the infamous Madonna VMAs kiss
Source: Billboard - 23 October 2014
In the middle of performing a medley of hits at the 2003 VMA's, Madonna surprised everyone by kissing Britney Spears onstage. After a quick camera cut to Britney's ex-boyfriend, Justin Timberlake, who looked confused, Madonna then smooched her other performing partner: Christina Aguilera. But it was the Britney-Madonna kiss that made news.
Larry Rudolph, Spears' longtime manager, talks about what happened leading up the infamous buss, and how Madonna thanked him after "that kiss happened and the world exploded."
According to Rudolph, "Madonna had been very, very, very rigid about the rehearsals. She was telling Britney and I every day, 'Be here tomorrow at 10 o'clock,' he tells Billboard. "She would never address me by name, she would just say, 'You make sure Britney's here tomorrow at 10 o'clock.'" Not wanting to upset one of the biggest stars of all time, Rudolph did his part.
All that rigidity paid off. After the performance, Rudolph ended up in an elevator with Madonna, and it turns out she remembered his name. She "wrapped her arms around my waist and gave me a big kiss on the lips," he remembers. "And she said, 'You see Larry, it was all worth it.'"
Evita gowns on auction
Source: Playbill - 23 October 2014Clothing worn by Madonna in the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Evita will be part of a celebrity auction that will be held in Beverly Hills in November, according to Reuters.
The two-day event, which will be held Nov. 7-8 at Julien's Auctions, will also include costumes and jewelry worn by the singer-actress in A League of Their Own and the Material Girl music video.
Thirty-eight costumes the pop star wore in the Evita film will be auctioned, including Eva Peron's inauguration dress.
"This is the biggest collection of Madonna items ever to come to auction at one time," Martin Nolan, the executive director of the auction house, told Reuters.
The Madonna collection is part of "Icons & Idols: Rock 'n' Roll," which will represent 40 artists, including Katy Perry, Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Naomi Judd. A portion of the proceeds will go to their respective charities.
lan Parker's Evita film, which was released in December 1996, also starred Jonathan Pryce as Juan Peron, Antonio Banderas as Che Guevara and Jimmy Nail as Magaldi. Parker also wrote the screenplay. Cinematography was by Darius Khondji. The production was designed by Brian Morris with costumes by Penny Rose.
Madonna confirmed as guest appearance on X Factor final
Source: IBT - 20 October 2014Simon Cowell has reportedly persuaded pop icon Madonna to appear as a guest performer on The X Factor.
It's hoped that an appearance by the singer would boost the show's flagging ratings.
A source confirmed the reports saying: "Madonna will have been provisionally booked because the final can be subject to change if an artist doesn't approve of the finalists â especially if they have agreed to sing with them.
"Someone like Madonna will want a lot of creative control over her appearance, but for Simon the ratings will be worth it."
An ITV source added: "We do always look for the best artists for the final. Madonna's name will have been on a list at some point, yes. But nothing will be made certain until just before the live final."
If the appearance goes ahead, the 56-year-old pop star will perform on the live show with one of the finalists on December 13.
Madonna has been named the best-selling female artist of all time with over 300 million albums sold to date. If she agrees to the deal, the singer will showcase her new music before an audience of millions, boosting sales of her as-yet untitled 13th studio album, due for release just after the live final.
The talent show has previously seen the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Beyoncé Knowles and Rihanna perform on the show.
Details on new song "Wash All Over Me"
14 October 2014Fansite DrownedMadonna has shared some details on one of the new album tracks, "Wash All Over Me".
"Wash All Over Me is fabulous and very emotional. Nothing makes you think it is co-produced with Avicii , except for the very end. Actually, Wash All Over Me sounds more like a song produced by Stuart Price, à la Confessions on a Dance Floor. Once again, in Wash All Over Me Avicii adapted to Madonna, not the other way around.
Violin strings open Wash All Over Me and are used through out it. "In a world that's changing I'm a stranger, in a strange land," sings Madonna. "Life is like a desert, and oasis to confuse me," she goes on.
Madonna's voice is gorgeous and in the chorus is absolutely charming. You will be captivated by the chorus! You never want it to come to an endâŠ
Who am I to decide what should be done?
If this is the end then let it come
Let it come, let it rain
Rain all over me
Wash All Over Me is full of meanings, including Kabbalistic concepts. "âFrom the Tower of Babylon where nothing is what it seems," sings Madonna.
There is not a final tracklist yet, but Wash All Over Me is very likely included in Madonna âs upcoming album⊠and we think that it has to be a single. Just remove that very Avicii -esque ending â which is its only weakness â and it is PERFECTION!
Curiosity: Wash All Over Me is one of the tracks that evolved from ballad to mid-tempo or dance. "
Madonna gives MNEK bag of lemons
Source: Bang Showbiz - 14 October 2014
Madonna gave MNEK a bag of lemons and some throat-soothing tea bags to help him keep his voice in tip-top shape.
The 19-year-old singer/songwriter has teamed up with the music legend on a song for her upcoming new album and admits the 56-year-old star gave him plenty of advice about how to look after his vocal chords.
He exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "She's really cool. So lovely and very motherly. She gave me a bag full of lemons and Throat Coat tea bags. They're pretty amazing."
Guy Oseary: "Madonna has never heard of Ariel Pink"
14 October 2014Seems someone is having a rich imagination. While many news sources are reporting on yesterday's story that Ariel Pink is working on Madonna's upcoming album, Madonna's manager Guy Oseary has now shot down the story on his Twitter:
@madonna and I have never heard of @arielxpink. The label may have reached out but M has no interest in working with mermaids.
Ariel Pink is working on Madonna's new album: âThey need something edgy"
Source: Fasterlouder - 13 October 2014
Is Madonna going indie on her next record? According to Ariel Pink, Madge is looking for a change in direction and has enlisted the LA-based singer to help write the followup to 2012's EDM-centric MDNA.
âInterscope are calling me to help write Madonna's record,â Pink revealed in an interview with FL's Doug Wallen.âThey need something edgy. They need songwriting. She can't just have her Avicii, her producers or whatever, come up with a new techno jam for her to gyrate to and pretend that she's 20 years old. They actually need songs. I'm partly responsible for that return-to-values thing,â he explained.
Speaking to FL ahead of his Australian return as part of the Sugar Mountain festival in January, Pink suggested the pop star needed to look to her past for inspiration and riffed about the kind of song he would write for Madonna. âI guess it's called âthrowback', but the first record [1983's Madonna ] was so good because of the songs,â he said. âIt's been a downward slide [since] ⊠âRay of Light' is not cool. And all the other stuff she's done after that, it's not like it matters. It really shows a drain of values. People need more substance in their mac-and-cheese. People need more sugar or something.â
For MDNA Madonna worked extensively with French electro and progressive house DJ and producer Martin Solveig and Benny Benassi, a move which â despite the record shifting two million copies worldwide â Pink doesn't think worked in her favour. âIt's not because of her age,â he offered. âIt's because of the things that she thinks she needs to do to stay in her narcissistic domination of the world. Which is totally hers to have. But it's about not just being a yes person. I'm sure Interscope signed her like, âOkay, the last record didn't do so well. We gotta do something about this. We're gonna get all new songwriters together and we're gonna try to come up with this thing. 'Cause she needs help with this.' And she's happy to let them do that for her.â
While he had a lot to say about Madonna, Ariel Pink also spoke at length to FL about his own forthcoming record pom pom , which is due out on November 18 through 4AD. Labelled a âsolo albumâ the record follows 2012's Mature Themes which was released under the Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti moniker. pom pom features 17 tracks including âJell-O' and âPlastic Raincoats In The Pig Parade' which were co-written with the Runaways former manager Kim Fowley.
The full interview with Ariel Pink will be published on FL this week.
Alicia Keys confirms 'casual, cool' recording sessions for Madonna's new album
Source: NME - 12 October 2014US singer played piano for Madonna and producer Diplo during recent studio time.
Alicia Keys has said that her recent recording session with Madonna was "casual and cool."
Keys was revealed to have been in the studio by Madonna herself earlier this year when the pop star posted a picture on Instagram with the news. Asked by Vibe about her time recording with Madonna and producer Diplo, Keys confirmed that their time together was a relaxed affair.
"It was good. I was in here doing a meeting or something and she was working with Diplo," she said. "They were like, 'Oh, maybe you can play some piano on this thing'. And I was like, 'Alright. I'll try. If you hate it, you can take it off'. It was just like that, casual and cool."
A representative for Madonna recently confirmed that her new album is likely to be released in 2015. Speaking in a recent interview, manager Guy Oseary said: "She's currently in the studio with Diplo and having a lot of fun." The album is set for release through Interscope.
Diplo has previously gone on record as saying that his work with Madonna has so far resulted in at least three "amazing, smashes." The album will follow 2012's MDNA. Madonna has also recorded with Avicii and British pop star Natalia Kills for the project.
Disclosure, however, were forced to deny reports that they worked on the album. Rumours began that the British dance duo were working with the pop star after she posted a picture of her with them at the Governors Ball festival in New York in June.
Madonna celebrates Malala Yousafzai's Nobel Peace Prize win
Source: Billboard - 11 October 2014Malala Yousafzai became the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, Oct. 10, and Madonna is very excited for the Pakistani activist.
"My Hero! MALALA! Noble Peace Prize Winner! Nothing can stop her! #rebelheart #livingforlove," Madonna wrote on her Instagram.
Malala is a 17-year-old from Pakistan who was shot by the Taliban in 2012, after she rose to prominence by promoting education for women. Since her recovery, she has dedicated her life to the cause, and has authored a book I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban.
Bedtime Stories Turns 20: Babyface & Donna De Lory look back
Source: Billboard - 7 October 2014 Twenty years ago this month, Madonna released her sixth studio album, Bedtime Stories, a classic that came out at a strange crossroads in her career.
While Madonna certainly didn't lack for fame in 1994, the button-pushing Erotica album had soured many critics and fans. For the first time in a decade of superstardom, people weren't shocked by her antics anymore -- even worse, they often seemed exhausted by her.
Artistically speaking, she'd spent the last four years challenging and subverting America's sexual puritanism. But after releasing an entire book called Sex featuring nude pictures of herself and other celebrities, there didn't seem to be anywhere else to go in that realm.
It didn't help that she'd detonated 14 F-bombs on a March 1994 episode of The Late Show With David Letterman, an infamous appearance that racked up FCC complaints and distanced her from Middle America. Evita was two years away and the overt sexuality of Erotica was growing stale -- so when Bedtime Stories hit, Madonna's career was at a strange point.
To that end, Bedtime Stories is lyrically and musically a much warmer album. She sacrifices some bawdy entendres (compare Erotica's "Where Life Begins" to Bedtime's "Inside of Me") and focuses on autobiographical matter.
Instead of Erotica's chilly, pounding dance pop, Bedtime puts Madonna in softer sonic territory. There's the singer-songwriter-y "Secret," the avant pop of "Bedtime Story" (co-written by Bjork ), the new jack swing jam "I'd Rather Be Your Lover" (featuring Meshell Ndegeocello rapping), the Herbie Hancock -sampling ballad "Sanctuary" and the lush, orchestral R&B of "Take a Bow."
But softer sounds didn't necessarily mean muted lyrics. "Human Nature" finds Madonna taking on her critics more directly than ever with a logical, defiant attack on slut-shaming. And while album opener "Survival" is a cozy R&B-pop song, it was similarly unrepentant in attitude.
The inviting R&B sound of Bedtime Stories is due in part to co-producer Dallas Austin, who longtime Madonna backup singer Donna de Lory describes as "part of her tribe at that time." Also on board were co-producers Nellee Hooper, Dave "Jam" Hall (hot off Mary J. Blige 's debut, What's the 411? ) and, of course, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds.
While Edmonds had recently worked with TLC and Toni Braxton, he tells Billboard it was one of his own hits that brought him to Madonna's attention.
"Madonna was a fan of a song I did, 'When Can I See You.' Because of that, she was interested in working with me," Edmonds recalls. "She came to me for lush ballads, so that's where we went."
Babyface would collaborate with Madonna on three songs -- two of which, "Forbidden Love" and "Take a Bow," ended up on the album. Although the latter became Madonna's long-running No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Edmonds says he wasn't gunning for chart-toppers when they met.
"I wasn't so much thinking about the charts," Edmonds recalls. "I think I was more in awe of the fact that I was working with Madonna. It was initially surreal, but then you get to know the person a little bit, and you calm down and then it's just work. And work is fun."
When Edmonds played Madonna the bare bones of a song that would become "Take a Bow," she immediately took to it. "It was just a beat and the chords. From there we collaborated and built it up," he says. "I was living in Beverly Hills and I created a little studio in my house, so she came over there to write."
As for "Forbidden Love," Edmonds recalls that track came together with similar speed. "She heard the basic track and it all started coming out, melodies and everything... It was a much easier process than I thought it would be."
Donna De Lory, however, wasn't surprised at how easily Bedtime Stories came together when she and fellow backup vocalist Niki Haris were called in to provide harmonies on "Survival," co-written by Austin. At that point, she'd been performing with Madonna for seven years.
"The minute you walked in [the studio], she was giving you the lyric sheet," De Lory tells Billboard. "That was the atmosphere -- we're not here to just hang out. It's fun, but we're here to work and get this done."
And what Madonna sets out to do, Madonna invariably succeeds at. De Lory recalls the sessions for "Survival" took just a "couple of hours" and there were no retakes.
Similar to Babyface, De Lory describes working with Madonna as a creative partnership, even if she was the one setting the tone. "Once she got her ideas out, she was open to your ideas. You didn't want to go in with her and right off the bat say, 'Well, I hear this,' because she was so specific and articulate. She already had the sound in her head. But after she'd spoken, we'd put our two cents in. We always had ideas, like, 'Can we answer this line with an extra "survival" [in the background]?'"
The result of that session is the perfect opener to the album -- a lush, beguiling anthem to resilience and statement of purpose. "I'll never be an angel, I'll never be a saint it's true/ I'm too busy surviving, whether it's heaven or hell/ I'm gonna be living to tell," Madonna sings, nodding to her critics while simultaneously brushing them off.
Speaking of critics, Bedtime Stories received very positive reviews, especially compared to her two previous albums, the divisive Erotica and her Dick Tracy companion I'm Breathless.
It was similarly successful on the charts, debuting at a respectable No. 3 slot on the Billboard 200. The first single, "Secret," also peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. (FYI, Madonna teased "Secret" in an audio message available exclusively online prior to its release -- a prescient publicity move for an era where less than 15 percent of adults had Internet access.)
But it was the second single from Bedtime, the Babyface-produced "Take a Bow," that became its biggest hit. Topping the Hot 100 for seven weeks, it became Madonna's 11th No. 1 hit and is still her longest-running No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Despite the unqualified success of "Take a Bow," Bedtime 's next two singles -- the Bjork-penned "Bedtime Story" and "Human Nature" -- stalled, becoming her first singles in a decade to not crack the Hot 100's top 40. While De Lory recalls that Madonna was directing her energy back toward acting at that point anyway, the tepid performance of those singles could partly explain why Madonna didn't tour behind the album.
She did, however, perform "Take a Bow" with Babyface at the American Music Awards in 1995, an experience he recalls as terrifying. "I was nervous as hell. But you couldn't actually see my legs shaking under the suit," Edmonds says. "When we finished, she told me she had never been that nervous before. That was crazy to me -- I was thinking, 'You're Madonna, you're on stage all the time!'"
These days, Madonna is readying a new album for a presumed 2015 release and Edmonds is hot off producing an album for another unstoppable icon: Barbra Streisand. Looking back on Bedtime Stories 20 years later, he says the whole experience seems surreal. "Today when I think about it, it's hard to believe I even did that with Madonna," Edmonds says. "It's always nice to be part of an album that's a classic -- but you never know when you're a part of it at the time. Only time can tell."
As for De Lory, she stopped performing with Madonna in 2007. Today, she's following her own muse, performing and crafting world-music-influenced electronic pop on albums like her most recent, The Unchanging.
Recalling her time with Madonna, she's still in awe of the pop icon's total immersion in the recording process. "I was constantly amazed at her ability to focus in on the intonation and rhythm of our vocal parts," De Lory says. "When you worked with her, you had to be so on. She was very present in the moment -- she knew what she wanted, she got what she wanted, and then she was moving on."
More details on "Rebel Heart"
3 October 2014Fansite Drownedmadonna gives us following details on the song Rebel Heart:
Rebel Heart is a very sincere and self-critical song, and every fan can relate to its great lyrics. If in Veni Vidi Vici Madonna talks about her career, in Rebel Heart she talks about her life⊠in a comprehensive way.
Rebel Heart is absolutely one of the best tracks from her upcoming album, with its chorus as catchy as the chorus of La Isla Bonita. Even though it is not our favourite new track, Rebel Heart definitely has to be a single.
In Rebel Heart Madonna sings what it feels like to be not like the others â âthought I belonged to a different tribe [...] tried to fit in, but it wasn't meâ she sings â and take âthe road less traveled by.â But she proudly sings that âthrough the darkness somehow I survived.â
The song starts with Madonna confessing that she lived her life like a masochist, with her father saying âTold you so, told you so. Why can't you be like the other girls?â
I've spent some time as a narcissist
Hearing the others say âLook at you, look at you!â
Trying to be so provocative
I said âOh yeah, that was me!â
All of the things I did, just to be seen
Rebel Heart is one of the songs that have changed the most. It started as a country folk track, then it was dance with a more evident Avicii's touch, and then it became a more mid-tempo pop song with a fresh and happy sound.
Like most of the songs that Madonna co-wrote with Avicii, it is like Avicii adapted to Madonna, not the other way around. Expect a lot of acoustic guitars, but not as prominent as in the other tracks recorded with Avicii.
Madonna opens her 'Dream Model School' in Karachi
Source: Business Recorder - 1 October 2014
Queen of Pop Madonna has launched her âDream Model School' in Karachi. Recently, it has opened its gates for the street children. Madonna has announced the news through her twitter account.
âThe revolution of love continues in Pakistan! The Dream School is finally finished. 1200 kids attending. Knowledge,â Madonna posted a picture of the school building in Karachi on photo-sharing network Instagram along with this caption
According to media reports, during a live concert in London last year, pop music starlet announced that she is supporting girls' education in Pakistan through her âRay of Light Foundation', and urged people to join hands to support her cause. She said, âLet's help Humaira build a bigger school in Pakistan! How about this? You build the first floor I'll build the rest of the school. Let's do this togetherâ. Humaira Bachal, education activist from Karachi also joined her on stage on that occasion. Madonna has long been an admirer of Humaira Bachal, a Pakistani woman who has campaigned for better education for young girlsâ.
The âDream Model Street' School is located in Mawach Goth, Karachi and was founded by the âDream Foundation Trust' (DFT), a Pakistani non-governmental organization.
The school, established in 2005, and claims to have taught over 2,000 students who otherwise would not have had access to education.
↑ Back to top of page