Tick Tick Tock, it's a Quarter Past Seven

[dotinthesky]

I saw Madonna's video for "Hung Up" today for the first time. My first thoughts were:

a) she looks like a transvestite.
b) she's had C.G.I. or scalpel-based work done on her face.

If any other artist had released that song, we might have caught it by accident as we walked by Topshop and thought to ourselves "ah, there's another cheesy offering from Italy." But because it's Madonna, who is probably a David Icke reptile by now, it rushes straight to number one (at least in Britain) and has a video (and MTV performance) with enough content to generate a few lazy newspaper columns.

Thing is... I don't mind at all this state of affairs in the world of music. I've had the impression for many years now that people see music in the western world progressing, moving chronologically, from era to era, and it pisses them off when an artist releases something that is not "new". It's almost a crime. But if you start to treat Madonna as someone who isn't an "artist", and whose music is just there to make gay men dance a little harder on the podium, then everything turns out to be ok.

I had a professor in University who, despite being Jewish, thought it was great that the Catholic church was still around, that there was something comforting about an institution that endures, that fights against the tides of change. Was he being sarcastic when he said that to our class? I don't know, but I am starting to think that Madonna is the same as the Catholic church. Despite her marketing department wanting us to believe she's a chameleon, she's remained the same type of singer all these decades. So when a new Madonna album comes out, you make a check of it on your calendar, you situate yourself, you have a word or two to say about her singles, then you go on with your life (but secretly satisfied that the world, your world, is still the same.)

The way she flexes her butt in that video... it's almost like she's daring us to spot the cellulite.

Comments

[izzybees]

She's only a chameleon in the sense that she knows what trends to follow in order to sell records, and I think she would admit that herself. Ray of Light was a classic example - at the height of the Buddhism craze in the west she comes out with a bunch of chanting Shanti songs.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Lol. I'd forgotten about those! I think she had a few recent misfires, with that movie Swept Away, and that song with Britney, but you are right in saying that she's usually on top of whatever the cultural industry will try to sell us next.