Even if you could argue that Madonna defined the 1980s, it was only a test-run for what she had planned with the next decade. In her earliest work, she mixed pop music with a series of themes. She could at one point be salacious, mixing innuendos with religious themes, and the next to find this deeper heart about her mother’s passing. Her diverse body of work ultimately leads to the 1989 phenomenon “Like a Prayer,” which painted an artist at a cross-roads, urgent to make music that mattered on a deeper level, where every note came with this years-long ache and pain in her life.
That’s what makes “I’m Breathless” feel more like an interlude than another album. Despite her releasing the Oscar-winning song “Sooner or Later,” the record was more of a pastiche that played into Dick Tracy’s (1990) tone. In fact, the only resonance that the album had came from the track that was dissonant, floating around until it landed on an album. If anything embodied what Madonna was about to dedicate the next leg of her career to, it was “Vogue”: a song that brought the ballroom culture to the mainstream and helped to shift the conversation around gay rights. This was also true in her successful concert documentary Truth or Dare (1991).
But where does one go when you have been elevated to the status of an international star? Having previously dated Warren Beatty and partying at Pedro Almodovar’s house, she had all of the connections in the world to make her next project even more powerful. Considering that the documentary found her candidly talking about bisexual proclivities and normalizing the behavior of her gay back-up dancers, it made sense that she would lay the queer subtext on thick to the point that it may as well have been surface-level.
With the 1992 record “Erotica,” she made her most ambitious move yet. Before diving into the record, it’s important to know that on top of her infinite success in music and film, she was starting her own label called Maverick. During her time touring she found artists that she wanted to serve as an entrepreneur.
So, of course, she launched with the double-whammy of an album and a book. While both are theoretically not intertwined, it’s hard to not see them as reshaping her image. She had always been controversial for expressing the sexual desire of women, but here was her most explicit and forthright statement, possibly ever. On one hand was the book “Sex,” which was a limited release that found the artist in various forms of nudity and sex positions. Among the marketing gimmicks having MTV go out with the book to various groups like dominatrixes to get their reactions to the book. Similarly, you could view the book for “a dollar a minute” in a booth with all proceeds going to charity.
There wasn’t much to “Sex” besides artistic provocation, and yet it overshadowed her other release on October 20, 1992: the album “Erotica.” Okay, it may sound like these two are mutually exclusive, but in fairness, one could be consumed without needing the other to understand its text. Still, if you were to ever look at Madonna’s contributions for 1992, “Sex” will always surpass the recognition of “Erotica” despite selling fewer copies. Considering that this was also the year of A League of Their Own (1992), “Erotica” is even further down the list of her personal achievements.
And yet if you were to talk to music scholars, there is this belief that “Erotica” was one of the singer’s most essential and groundbreaking albums in a career that is full of them. This isn’t just surface-level titillation. Even if it was her first album since “Madonna” to not debut at number one on Billboard, selling only six million internationally, the album has a legacy that is often overlooked. Some suggest that it paved the way for a new era in pop music, where artists like Janet Jackson (“The Velvet Rope”), Lady Gaga, or Britney Spears allow themselves to be more candid about their own personal desires. Even the sympathetic view of gay rights is an underlying theme of her career that shines through on “Erotica.”
The album was presented as a concept album with Madonna calling herself Mistress Dita, mostly modeled after actress Dita Parlo (Dita Von Teese’s name is also inspired by her). What would follow, as the title would suggest, was a dive into eroticism. On a more explicit level, this was going to look into the use of double entendre in sex as well as euphemism and dirty words. This would explore the power that these words have over us, and the ability to create gratification from their sensuality. You don’t have to go far to understand where Madonna was going with presenting this shameless style. “Erotica” opens:
If I take you from behindPush myself into your mindWhen you least expect itWill you try and reject it
When there’s a rhyming allusion to “fuck,” she throws in women moaning as a way to wink at the obvious. So much of the music is designed like a mantra from a dominatrix, asking us to let her take control and take pleasure in following her orders. To this point, this is her most explicit song, even if it is more winking at something dirtier.
The music, produced by Shep Pettibone, was in a style reminiscent of her previous hits “Vogue” and “Justify My Love” (“The Immaculate Collection”). It mixed classic disco with modern house, techno, and new jack swing. Pettibone was known for remixes, so this included incorporating samples from other artists. Among the most prominent was a sample of Kool and the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie,” whose brief appearance is meant to suggest this jangling sensation of passion in the otherwise atmospheric melody.
This is a record that is practically steaming the minute that it gets off the presses. Even if it was a Little Willie John cover, “Fever” feels like it fits in line with this openly sexual record. However, this titillation is only a surface-level reading of what this album has planned. Eroticism is only an entry into something more intimate and vulnerable with how she views sex. Songs like “Bye Bye Baby” and “Bad Girl” are meant to explore abusive relationships in mature ways, with the former featuring the stark line of “does it make you happy to see me cry?” There’s a sadness in her voice as she looks at the ways that love can go awry, ultimately leaving us without the desire that this album began with.
Though yes, it’s a record about sex. This isn’t an album that’s just fine creating allegories for female sexuality, it has to have TWO songs that are based around vaginal stimulation. “Where Life Begins” feels groundbreaking in how frank it is in getting to the idea of oral sex. It starts with a literal interpretation of eating out at a restaurant before getting to eating out at home, to go low “where life begins.” Beyond its context, it’s all clinical and assured in intent. Madonna really wants you to go for it. Similarly, the closing song “Secret Garden” is dedicated to Madonna’s vagina (seriously) and is more about a self-inflicted satisfaction. As far as music on mainstream albums, this still feels jarring for how it’s not some naughty joke. She is sincere, and the provocation is elevated by Pettibone’s excellent production work.
Though if we’re being honest, the best euphemism line comes on “Waiting” when during one of the album’s many spoken word portions she tells an ex:
The next time you want pussy, just look in the mirror, baby
This is an album that’s a bit incredible in how it presents music. Gone is the conventional structure where Madonna sings a verse-chorus-verse structure. Everything flows with this ambiance around it, lulling you into this relaxing tone that is meditative. The singing is slower, capturing a sensuality in her voice. But most of all, there are moments where singing isn’t enough. She goes for spoken-word interludes that reflect a lover grappling with the thematic troubles. She becomes confrontational, making loud screams of “bitch” sound more maniacal as sound effects of glass bottles symbolize some bedroom fights gone awry. Along with the excellent sound effects, the harmonies are best experienced in headphones where the vocals swirl from the different channels, making a surreal experience.
This is a sonic experience like no other. Madonna may have made better and catchier pop music, but there isn’t an album that molds art into something more ambitious and strange. This is music you can dance to, but it’s also mature and adult, discussing sexuality alongside Madonna’s most bruising looks at abusive relationships. There’s even a song called “In This Life,” which takes time to look at the AIDS epidemic through the death of a friend. This ultimately is a record of what it means to be in love following the AIDs epidemic, and how everything needs to be more frank and honest. Sure every song can be an innuendo, but more mature listeners will recognize the pain and desire underneath.
If you want to know how much levity that Madonna had for “Erotica,” just know that she managed to get seemingly everyone involved with the album in some capacity. One of the most noteworthy collaborations was the appearance of Christopher Walken as her guardian angel in the “Bad Girl” music video, which also features Mark Margolis and Matt Dillon and was directed by longtime collaborator David Fincher. “Rain” would feature Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and was directed by Mark Romanek. “Deeper and Deeper” would feature German actor Udo Kier, gay porn artists Chi Chi LaRue and Joey Stefano, as well as Sofia Coppola. For an album that’s gotten lost in the shuffle, it’s amazing how wide the net of collaborators ultimately was.
Her accompanying tour The Girlie Show World Tour was not any less sensationalized. There would be one sequence where Madonna was surrounded by topless dancers of both genders. At another point, she was dressed as a dominatrix, and in another performed “Like a Virgin” while pretending to be Marlene Dietrich. Her proclivities caused a protest by Orthodox Jews to cancel the Tel Aviv, Israel concert, but it didn’t work. Similarly, she received controversy for rubbing the Puerto Rico flag between her legs. Even then, the tour was a big success, marking the first time that she ever performed in Turkey, Latin America, and Australia. With that said, the song “Erotica” lead to a lawsuit with singer Fairuz because it featured an uncleared sample of “El Yom ‘Ulliqa ‘Ala Khashaba.”
Back in America, Madonna would parody Sinead O’Conner’s appearance on Saturday Night Live by ripping up a picture of Joey Buttafuoco while singing “Bad Girl.” She also performed “The Lady is a Tramp” with Anthony Kiedis while dressed in matching skirts. She was parodied by everyone from In Living Colour to Sandra Bernhardt, most notably with the song “Erotica” being changed to “Neurotica.” In Bernhardt’s case, the joke was that she loved to clean the house.
If I’m being honest, Truth or Dare had an overwhelming impact on me to the point that I worried that “Erotica” would just be surface-level showmanship. Her need to raise eyebrows by pushing sexual boundaries has only so much appeal, and I worried that it would reach peak parody here. Instead, I’m reminded of what made her interesting just three years prior to “Like a Prayer.” While this is an inherently explicit record (her first with a Parental Advisory sticker), I think it explores humanity in a complicated but ultimately rewarding way. I get why this record deserves more attention, if just because it’s also pretty catchy and I see so much of music’s future in these notes, whether by its musical design or in the lyrical substance.
With that said, this experimental moment in Madonna’s career is largely forgotten and may be the first record where I didn’t recognize most of the singles. It’s interesting to see anything she’s done now become obscured. Whether or not “Sex” ultimately hurt the album is unseen, though I think it was too much content released at once. You were either on board with her sensual attitude or not, and I feel like at the time it likely was more overbearing than consuming it weeks apart. Still, “Erotica” feels significant and thankfully holds up (except for the expendable “Did You Do It?”), reflecting where music could go.
While her image of success wouldn’t bounce back until the end of the decade, there was something to be said for this period of time. With her next album “Bedtime Stories,” she continues to grow experimental, but would it be worth all of the fuss?
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