For better or worse, you cannot get rid of Madonna. Ever since she hit the scene in 1983 with her self-titled debut, she has been a master marketer. She’s constantly evolving in ways that can’t help but draw attention to her crazy antics. Who could forget her memorable looks and songs from “Like a Prayer,” “Erotica,” or even “Confessions on a Dance Floor.” She has a way of creating this lasting image that will influence artists for decades. With that said, one can argue that she hasn’t had a vital release since “Hard Candy,” and her sales slump over the 2010s would suggest that. While her world tours continued to draw in big numbers (and controversy), one has to ask: what service does Madonna have going into her fifth decade of music superstardom?
Quite simply, “Madame X” is easily her most fascinating record possibly since “Ray of Light.” She is taking her biggest risks, making an album that is sonically pushing boundaries and allowing her to sing upbeat melodies in multiple languages. There is a celebration and innovation here that her past few albums lacked. She wasn’t chasing any popular trend this time, but embracing world music and doing something exciting. Songs like “Dark Ballet” find her going into bizarre and experimental directions that are at worst still memorable. She was also producing some of her most direct and politically forward music with songs like “I Rise.” With “Madame X,” Madonna was no longer trying to work on chart dominance. She was simply having a good time.
Which makes it ironic that this album can be perceived as the biggest slump in her 21st-century career. With the caveat that this album is less than two years old, there hasn’t been as much staying power. This is her first album to not have a song chart at number one on The Billboard Hot 100. However, she still managed to become the only artist to date to have a song appear on these charts in five different decades. The album has only a certified 169,000 sales in The United States (almost 10x less than her previous release “Rebel Heart”). With all of this said, it was her most acclaimed album in over a decade, even earning a Grammy Award for Best Recording Mix.
To understand what makes “Madame X” an enigma even within her career is to look at the origins of the title. According to interviews, Madonna claims that it came from her time learning to dance. Her teacher suggested that Madonna be referred to as Madame X and that she was supposed to not be recognizable every time they met. Because of that, she designed the album from the perspective of an alter ego. While some have compared the cover art to Frida Kahlo, Madonna argues that it was supposed to represent how her mother looked. With the title over her lips, as if stitched shut, it was another striking image that reflected her gifts as a marketer.
So, where did the album go wrong? In theory, nothing was wrong. In the age of digital streaming, it’s difficult for any new album to stand out. For Madonna, it also feels like this is one of her less concerted efforts to dominate the charts. While there are aspects of autotune in here, she is borrowing from world music like reggaeton, collaborating with artists like Maluma and Swae Lee, teaming up with producer Mirwais for the first time since “Music,” and sampling Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker.” This sounds more like an artist finally trying to make something more authentic and honest with her tastes at the time.
Of course, it’s in large part because of where she was in 2017. She was living in Lisbon where her son was trying to get into a prestigious athletic programming. The issue was that her personal life was pretty boring. As a result, she decided to meet local artists and began to explore the culture. This lead to the music featuring everything from fado to Latin and dub. It inspired her to create this new persona and one that promised to see her trying things she hadn’t in several decades. The most noteworthy was her decision to tour smaller theaters during The Madame X Tour. This was going to be her most exciting reinvention in quite some time.
The issue was that comparatively, there was no hook. She lacked the controversy that usually came with every new release. In fact, her album felt more like it came from the perspective of a conscientious mother, looking at the future of America. Songs like “God Control” explored the idea of gun control while “Killers Who Are Partying” sung about her empathy for groups who have felt mistreated (even using references to her own rape). It all ends with “I Rise,” which uses actual audio of student protestors asking for gun control laws. Given that this came out during a fraught time in political debate, her concerns made sense. If anything, they were better formed than her last politically-charged album “American Life.”
For fans, it’s difficult to really assess the record. Upon first listen, it’s among her most discordant albums. “Dark Ballet” features glaring style shifts that can be read as tone-deaf. “God Control” was similar. On the one hand, it’s exciting to hear Madonna trying to be edgy in actually effective ways. She’s actually making music that pushes her into something surprising. It is especially true in the back half where most of the songs become bilingual jams that counterbalance her message tracks. The issue is that so much is going on here that some would argue that there needs multiple listens to figure out where the continuity is.
For me personally, “Madame X” starts off as her most exciting record since “Confessions on a Dance Floor.” I loved hearing all of her crazy ideas come forth, pushing sonic boundaries. However, I’ve come to have an issue with her as an artist not because her content is somehow offensive or redundant. It’s more that it rarely feels like she has grown as a person through music. While this has some of her clearest signs of autobiography, it feels secondary to the novelty of her sound. Tracks like “Bitch I’m Loca” exist solely for a fun dance song. Also, the use of “bitch” suggests that she’s still crazy, wanting to be the fun party girl. That’s fine, but it’s further evidence I use to argue why Madonna is way too impersonal to be transparent and interesting.
Everything she does is calculated to sell the most records. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that, especially given her career. However, I think what works against this album is how little feels like it works. It’s fun as an experimental album, but none of the pop elements really stick with you. It’s not personal enough to have this profound weight. There isn’t a marketing hook like even “MDNA” where she performed at the Super Bowl. “Madame X” was just released without a lot of attention, and it may explain why it seems to have no cultural permanence.
Of course, it doesn’t help that The Madame X Tour was one of many tours to be impacted by Coronavirus. While she had suffered varying knee problems that already postponed performances, it was officially canceled in 2020 when it was announced that gatherings of over 1,000 people were illegal. Save for a short film that highlighted her plans for this phase of her tour, there wasn’t much to remember this moment for. The music videos were still provocative and her Instagram account courted controversy here and there, but none of it was for her music career. It was once again for her crazy political ideas.
This also brings to a close my year-long study of The Madonna Project. I’ve made an effort to expand my understanding of music history by studying the various icons that have defined a big area of time. In 2019, I explored Tom Waits in such a way that made me appreciate him more, but also noticed how tiring it is to listen to music in this way. While their highs are sublime, one becomes so familiar with their tropes that certain portions of their career are exhausting. Madonna’s journey is very much an example of that. Even if I love “Erotica” and consider it one of her best, I also understand the backlash so clearly because, quite frankly, she was a bit too confrontational about her image.
That is the issue. I expected to come away with a greater appreciation of Madonna’s music. I will say that this is mostly true and I believe everything before “Confessions on a Dance Floor” is genuinely good. However, I’ve struggled to like her in the way that I do Tom Waits because her identity never felt like it grew. It just adapted to another style, her music being as much about teasing as it was saying anything personal. It’s why “Like a Prayer” will always be one of the best pop records I’ve heard. It was the perfect blend of titillation and contemplation. It was why I wanted to do this column.
Was it worthwhile? I’d say yes. Even if my big takeaway is that she’s more famous because of her impressive marketing skills, she still had a long period of releasing music that was compelling, pushing boundaries, and setting standards that make pop history a better place. Even then, I agree that her private persona has become a bit exhausting, feeling like she’s been too accustomed to being shocking that she stopped being something deeper. I’m thankful that “Madame X” is trying to find something greater inside, but it comes after a decade-long lull that found her unable to keep up.
That’s the issue. Madonna has no choice but to keep up. Instead of making personal art, she has to find ways to remind everyone of who she is. I cringe a bit that she had to release a song like “Bitch I’m Madonna,” which has a bit of an identity crisis baked into it. It’s in line with what she does, but there’s something strange about her place in pop culture compared to the artists she inspired. Whereas they’ve been allowed to be personal and build a style, she has to constantly shift. It’s been that way since the 90s and has only become more glaring as her style no longer defined the Top 40.
She will always be great and I love how she expresses herself. There is something impressive about how she blazed a trail and found ways to continually reshape pop culture. However, I do think after her 30s, she became less obsessed with being personal and wanted more to figure out how to appeal to very young audiences. She didn’t grow, and I think her quality suffered as a result. She still cared, but she went from being the center of attention to having to fight with everyone in the circus ring in flashier and more impersonal ways.
I’m sad to say that 2021 will break from my tradition of expanding my musical tastes with these “projects” because I just don’t have time for it right now. I may return when I have a better organization of my schedule, but for now, I need to focus on other things, such as school. Still, I love doing this series and am eager to return. I just have to figure out who could be as significant or interesting in a way that’s like Tom Waits and Madonna, but is not just a replicated column. Thank you for reading this and I hope you had a good time. I know that I did.
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